After looking it over suspiciously Bill pulled the sealing string on the end of the plastic bag. As soon as the air rushed in and hit the combustible lining the burger started to smoke and within three seconds was steaming hot. Lifting the bun Bill squirted ketchup in from the little sack at the other end of the bag, then took a suspicious bite. It was rich, juicy horse.
“This old gray mare sure tastes like it used to be,” Bill said, talking with his mouth full. “How did you ever smuggle this into the stockade?”
Blackey grinned and produced a broad stage wink. “Contacts. They bring it in to me, all I gotta do is ask. I didn’t catch the name … ?”
“Bill.” Food had soothed his ruffled temper. “A year and a day for sleeping on duty. I would have been shot for desertion, but I had a good lawyer. That was a good burger, too bad there’s nothing to wash it down with.”
Blackey produced a small bottle labeled COUGH SYRUP and passed it to Bill. “Specially mixed for me by a friend in the medics. Half grain alcohol and half ether.”
“Zoingg!” Bill said, dashing the tears from his eyes after draining half the bottle. He felt almost at peace with the world. You’re a good buddy to have around, Blackey.”
“You can say that again,” Blackey told him earnestly. “It never hurts to have a buddy, not in the troopers, the army, the navy, anywheres. Ask old Blackey, he knows. You got muscles, Bill?”
Bill lazily flexed Tembo’s muscles for him.
“That’s what I like to see,” Blackey said in admiration. “With your muscles and my brain we can get along fine …”
“I have a brain too!”
“Relax it! Give it a break, while I do the thinking. I seen service in more armies than you got days in the troopers. I got my first Purple Heart serving with Hannibal, there’s the scar right there.” He pointed to a white arc on the back of his hand. “But I picked him for a loser and switched to Romulus and Remus’ boys while there was still time. I been learning ever since, and I always land on my feet. I saw which way the wind was blowing and ate some laundry soap and got the trots the morning of Waterloo, and I missed but nothing, I tell you. I. saw the same kind of thing shaping up at the Somme-or was it Ypres?-I forget some of them old names now, and chewed a cigarette and put it into my armpit, you get a fever that way, and missed that show too. There’s always an angle to figure I always say.”
“I never heard of those battles. Fighting the Chingers?”
“No, earlier than that, a lot earlier than that. Wars and wars ago.”
“That makes you pretty old, Blackey. You don’t look pretty old.”
“I am pretty old, but I don’t tell people usually because they give me the laugh. But I remember the pyramids being built, and I remember what lousy chow the Assyrian army had, and the time we took over Wug’s mob when they tried to get into our cave, rolled rocks down on them.”
“Sounds like a lot of bowb,” Bill said lazily, draining the bottle.
“Yeah, that’s what everybody says, so I don’t tell the old stories any more. They don’t even believe me when I show them my good luck piece.” He held out a little white triangle with a ragged edge. “Tooth from a pterodactyl. Knocked it down myself with a stone from a sling I had just invented …”
“Looks like a hunk of plastic.”
“See what I mean? So I don’t tell the old stories any more. just keep re-enlisting and drifting with the tide…”
Bill sat up and gaped. “Re-enlist! Why, that’s suicide …”
“Safe as houses. Safest place during the war is in the army. The jerks in the front lines get their heads shot off, the civilians at home get their heads blown off. Guys in between safe as houses. It takes thirty, fifty, maybe seventy guys in the middle to supply every guy in the line. Once you learn to be a file clerk you’re safe. Who ever heard of them shooting at a file clerk? I’m a great file clerk. But that’s just in wartime. Peacetime, whenever they make a mistake and there is peace for awhile, it’s better to be in the combat troops. Better food, longer leaves, nothing much to do. Travel a lot.”