As they marched, there was too much chatter among the troops for the NCOs, and they barked and snapped and snarled. When the point man’s hand went up and they halted, the platoon bunched up accordion-style. The platoon sergeant walked from soldier to soldier, down the column, cursing and slapping helmets in disgust. Ten-meter spreads were intended to prevent a single bomb or shell from killing more than five or six guys. Every half an hour or so, when the wary point man flattened his hand and went to ground, there was always far too much movement from a platoon that was supposed — on cue from the man’s signal — to dive and freeze at the ready. The missile teams and machine gunners never had good fields of fire. Some soldiers correctly hit the quick release to drop their packs. Others didn’t bother and lay beneath heavy loads to avoid the hassle of reattaching them. And the occasional maneuvering by a fire team to check the inland dunes seemed to Stephie both unprofessional and unprepared: four guys clawing their way up loose sand with swinging rifles threatening only the sky.
All Stephie could think as she lay prone with her rifle raised and seemingly ready atop the dropped pack was that the Chinese had won battle after battle in wars fought continuously over the last decade. They were veterans of a victorious army that knew exactly what the fuck they were doing, versus Stephie and Generation Z.
At seventeen, Stephie’s childhood came to an end. In the middle of a school day in January, everyone was called into the high school’s auditorium. It was a Wednesday, so all the senior boys like Conner wore their ROTC uniforms. Stephie, a junior, sat next to her now well broken-in boyfriend, whose hair was unfashionably short and whose khaki uniform was drab and lame. The principal quieted the large room and glanced down at a sheet of paper. His announcement was brief. “Chinese submarines have landed commandos on the islands of Barbados, Grenada, and St. Lucia in the Caribbean. The Mobile school board has decided to give the district a one-week special holiday.” A cheer went up. Stephie squeezed Conner’s hand, grinned, and said, “No school!” The principal had to raise his voice over the disturbance. “All students in the ROTC program are ordered to report to the gym in athletic gear!” Stephie cast a disappointed look at Conner, who sat pale, silent, and staring at the principal. For the first time she realized what the announcement meant. The smile drained from Stephie’s face.This wasn’t a little thing, she wrote in her journal that night. A small fact in a tapestry of small facts. This fact was different. This was one of those times that something new begins. The Chinese were coming this way. The war that everybody anticipated would not be in cut-off Europe. It would be right here. In America.
After two hours of road march, they passed a convenience store usually festooned with colorful floats. It was bare and boarded up as if in preparation for a hurricane, but Stephie thought that it was really a relic of an earlier era. The signs remained. Ice for a dollar. Lottery tickets for two. Live bait for five. As men checked out the store, Stephie extracted her canteen and took a swig of lukewarm, plastic-tasting water. Two years before, the cool high school juniors had used their fake IDs to buy the beer that was to be her very first.
It’s been a good life, she wrote in her mental journal. Just not as full as I’d thought it would be. The fire team emerged with four thumbs up, and Stephie worked to reattach her load. Imagine, she thought. That beer had been bought in that very same store. Life, she thought, marveling at its richness. I love life, came a more personal inner voice. I wanta live.
The night before Conner’s graduation, he took Stephie parking on a deserted stretch of beach. The bungee-jumping tower frequented by tourists was dark. “I’m leaving day after tomorrow,” Conner whispered. As if I don’t know, Stephie thought. She looked out at the water and rolled her eyes. He kissed and nibbled at her ear until she pulled away. The moon was jagged in the phosphorescent surf. “Maybe we shouldn’t be down here,” Stephie said as she scanned the dark dunes. Conner kissed her neck and murmured, “Who knows what’s gonna happen?” Shadows from scrubby weeds held previously unimaginable fear. “Did you read about those Chinese they shot in Charleston?” she asked. “They say there’re a half million Chinese ‘advisers’ in Cuba, but my stepdad says they’re really soldiers.” Conner obviously decided that now was the time to make his move. “This could be our last night together till I get my first leave.” Stephie hung her head and mumbled, “My parents are thinking about moving to Canada.” Conner was shocked and said, “But they cut off immigration from the U.S.” She explained that they made exceptions, and her stepdad was an engineer. They were waiting to hear. “But what about us?” Conner asked. After drawing a deep breath, Stephie tossed her gum out the window, and they made love for the first time.
Part One
He that is master of the sea, may, in some sort, be said to be master of every country; at least such as are bordering on the sea. For he is at liberty to begin and end War, where, when, and on what terms he pleaseth.
1
“You recognize anything?” Peter Scott asked Stephie over the radio as they patrolled the beach. The voice of the boy from Michigan had quivered noticeably.
Stephie looked at the faded blue trash cans that dotted the saccharine sand. A fireworks stand was boarded with plywood. The rusting bungee-jumping tower was the dominant fixture on the beach. Stephie swallowed the lump in her throat, pressed the TALK buttom on the control stick, and said, “Yeah.” Simmons snapped, “Off the fucking net!”
The breeze off the water carried the sounds of the surf as it had always had. The scent of lush salt air was, to Stephie, the smell of home. Home, she thought. Her house was only a short distance up the road, but her home seemed far away. It wasn’t a town, but a time, and it seemed lost forever.
The next stop on the road was Stephie’s street.
They halted on the highway by the entrance to the treeless, planned community. Stephie had never seen her neighborhood like this before. No cars, no people, no life. But the houses were familiar. Sally Hampton had been Stephie’s closest friend as a child. The windows of Sally’s house were grimy and the grass in her yard a foot tall and brown like the weeds in the dunes. Sally should just now be getting out of basic training in the navy. And there was the Brubecks’ house. They hadn’t taken the time to haul their boat off. It leaned on its side against a peeling wall. Its white fiberglass hull had been riddled with bullets, rendered useless, Stephie supposed, by some previous passing patrol. Both of the two Brubeck boys — jocks at Stephie’s high school — were Marines. One was stranded on Oahu; one was dead or a POW in Cuba.
And there was Stephie’s house. Like the others, it sat atop stilts. Only the carport and the storage room were on ground level. Stephie could hardly bear to look at it, but at the same time felt her gaze drawn to it, searching for sights both familiar and changed. “All right, First Squad,” Collins said on returning from a caucus with Lieutenant Ackerman. “We’re up. Let’s do this right.”