“You did,” said Hunter.
Prackle still turned the pages of his illustrated paper. His voice was normal again. “Those are monster guns we’re using in the east. I never saw one of them. Did you, Captain?”
“Oh, yes,” said Captain Loft. “I’ve seen them fired. They’re wonderful. Nothing can stand up against them.”
Tonder said, “Captain, do you get much news from home?”
“A certain amount,” said Loft.
“Is everything well there?”
“Wonderful!” said Loft.
“The armies move ahead everywhere.”
“The British aren’t defeated yet?”
“They are defeated in every engagement.”
“But they fight on?”
“A few air raids, no more.”
“And the Russians?”
“It’s all over.”
Tonder said insistently, “But they fight on?”
“A little skirmishing, no more.”
“Then we have just about won, haven’t we, Captain?” Tonder asked
“Yes, we have.”
Tonder looked closely at him and said, “you believe this, don’t you, Captain?”
Prackle broke in, “Don’t let him start that again!”
Loft scowled at Tonder. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Tonder said, “I mean this: we’ll be going home before long, won’t we?”
“Well, the reorganization will take some time,” Hunter said. “The new order can’t be put into effect in a day, can it?”
Tonder said, “All our lives, perhaps?”
And Prackle said, “Don’t let him start it again!”
Loft came very close to Tonder and he said, “Lieutenant, I don’t like the tone of your questions. I don’t like the tone of doubt.”
Hunter looked up and said, “Don’t be hard on him, Loft. He’s tired. We’re all tired.”
“Well, I’m tired, too,” said Loft, “but I don’t let treasonable doubts get in.”
Hunter said, “Don’t bedevil him, I tell you! Where’s the colonel, do you know?”
“He’s making out his report. He’s asking for reinforcements,” said Loft. “It’s a bigger job than we thought.”
Prackle asked excitedly, “Will he get them—the reinforcements?”
“How would I know?”
Tonder smiled. “Reinforcements!” he said softly. “Or maybe replacements. Maybe we could go home for a while.” And he said, smiling, “Maybe I could walk down the street and people would say, ‘Hello,’ and they’d say, ‘There goes a soldier,’ and they’d be glad for me and they’d be glad of me. And there’d be friends about, and I could turn my back to a man without being afraid.”
Prackle said, “Don’t start that again! Don’t let him get out of hand again!”
And Loft said disgustedly, “We have enough trouble now without having the staff go crazy.”
But Tonder went on, “You really think replacements will come, Captain?”
“I didn’t say so.”
“But you said they might.”
“I said I didn’t know. Look, Lieutenant, we’ve conquered half the world. We must police it for a while. You know that.”
“But the other half?” Tonder asked.
“They will fight on hopelessly for a while,” said Loft.
“Then we must be spread out all over.”
“For a while,” said Loft.
Prackle said nervously, “ I wish you’d make him shut up. I wish you would shut him up. Make him stop it.”
Tonder got out his handkerchief and blew his nose, and he spoke a little like a man out of his head. He laughed embarrassedly. He said, “I had a funny dream. I guess it was a dream. Maybe it was a thought. Maybe a thought or a dream.”
Prackle said, “Make him stop, Captain!”
Tonder said, “Captain, is this place conquered?”
“Of course,” said Loft.
A little note of hysteria crept into Tonder’s laughter. He said, “Conquered and we’re afraid; conquered and were surrounded.” His laughter grew shrill. “I had a dream—or a thought—out in the snow with the black shadows and the faces in the doorways, the cold faces behind curtains. I had a thought or a dream.”
Prackle said, “Make him stop!”
Tonder said, “I dreamed the Leader was crazy.”
And Loft and Hunter laughed together and Loft said, “The enemy have found out how crazy. I’ll have to write that one home. The papers would print that one. The enemy have learned how crazy the Leader is.”
And Tonder went on laughing. “Conquest after conquest, deeper and deeper into molasses.” His laughter choked him and he coughed into his handkerchief. “Maybe the Leader is crazy. Flies conquer the flypaper. Flies capture two hundred miles of new flypaper!” His laughter was growing more hysterical now.
Prackle leaned over and shook him with his good hand, “Stop it! You stop it! You have no right!”
And gradually Loft recognized that the laughter was hysterical and he stepped close to Tonder and slapped him in the face. He said, “Lieutenant, stop it!”
Tonder’s laughter went on and Loft slapped him again in the face and he said, “Stop it, Lieutenant! Do you hear me?”
Suddenly Tonder’s laughter stopped and the room was quiet except for the hissing of the lanterns. Tonder looked in amazement at his hand and he felt his bruised face with his hand and he looked at his hand again and his head sank down toward the table. “I want to go home,” he said.
CHAPTER VI
There was a little street not far from the town square where small peaked roofs and little shops were mixed up together. The snow was beaten down on the walks and in the street, but it piled high on the fences and it puffed on the roof peaks. It drifted against the shuttered windows of the little houses. And into the yards paths were shoveled. The night was dark and cold and no light showed from the windows to attract the bombers. And no one walked in the streets, for the curfew was strict. The houses were dark lumps against the snow. Every little while the patrol of six men walked down the street, peering about, and each man carried a long flashlight. The hushed tramp of their feet sounded in the street, the squeaks of their boots on the packed snow. They were mined figures deep in thick coats; under their helmets were knitted caps which came down over their ears and covered their chins and mouths. A little snow fell, only a little, like rice.
The patrol talked as they walked, and they talked of things that they longed for—of meat and of hot soup and of the richness of butter, of the prettiness of girls and of their smiles and of their lips and their eyes. They talked of these things and sometimes they talked of their hatred of what they were doing and of their loneliness.
A small, peak-roofed house beside the iron shop was shaped like the others and wore its snow cap like the others. No light came from its shuttered windows and its storm doors were tightly closed. But inside a lamp burned in the small living-room and the door to the bedroom was open and the door to the kitchen was open. An iron stove was against the back wall with a little coal fire burning in it. It was a warm, poor, comfortable room, the floor covered with worn carpet, the walls papered in warm brown with an old-fashioned fleur-de-lis figure in gold. And on the back wall were two pictures, one of fish lying dead on a plate of ferns and the other of grouse lying dead on a fir bough. On the right wall. there was a picture of Christ walking on the waves toward the despairing fishermen. Two straight chairs were in the room and a couch covered with a bright blanket. There was a little round table in the middle of the room, on which stood a kerosene lamp with a round flowered shade on it, and the light in the room was warm and soft.
The inner door, which led to the passage, which in turn led to the storm door, was beside the stove.
In a cushioned old rocking-chair beside the table Molly Morden sat alone. She was unraveling the wool from an old blue sweater and winding the yarn on a ball. She had quite a large ball of it. And on the table beside her was her knitting with the needles sticking in it, and a large pair of scissors. Her glasses lay on the table beside her, for she did not need them for knitting. She was pretty and young and neat. Her golden hair was done up on the top of her head and a blue bow was in her hair. Her hands worked quickly with the raveling. As she worked, she glanced now and then at the door to the passage. The wind whistled in the chimney softly, but it was a quiet night, muffled with snow.
Suddenly she stopped her work. Her hands were still. She looked toward the door and listened. The tramping feet of the patrol went by in the street and the sound of their voices could be heard faintly. The sound faded away. Molly ripped out new yarn and wound it on the ball. And again she stopped. There was a rustle at the door and then three short knocks. Molly put down her work and went to the door.