Curtis nodded. “Mary knows about me. About how I don’t age. I told her before we got engaged, and she married me anyway. I guess it wasn’t all that real to her then; even I wasn’t entirely sure. And of course, she’s still not quite twenty-six. We’ll probably leave Nehtaka when the war’s over.” If I’m still alive, he added silently.
Liiset, or whichever of Varia’s clones it had been, had returned just once, a few months after Curtis had left. After that it was as if the Sisterhood had given up on him. So Curtis gave his parents his Nehtaka address.
His reception in Nehtaka was also marked by hugs and tears. The next day he got hold of some black market gas, and in their ’35 Chevy, he and Mary drove south down the coast, where they rented a cabin and spent three days alone, walking the beach, hiking the old spruce forest, watching the surf beat on massive black boulders and ledges … and loving each other. It seemed to both of them they were more in love than ever.
His leave melted like snow on the stove, but when Mary delivered him to the train, she didn’t cry. She waited till she got home. And Klara, the tough old Prussian peasant widow, half blind now and three-quarters crippled, comforted her granddaughter. The old woman’s tears were for the young wife, not the soldier. Soldiers were expected to die.
14
England
England’s southern ports were often visited by German bombers, thus the 503rd replacements disembarked in Greenock, Scotland. There they were put on a train and taken south, almost the length of Britain, to rural Berkshire County, where 2nd Battalion 503rd was camped in Nissen Huts on a sprawling manorial estate called Chilton Foliat.
Only the 2nd Battalion was in England; the rest of the regiment remained in the States. 2nd Battalion was proud, cocky, and close-knit, and replacements like Macurdy were looked upon at first as outsiders. Especially in his squad, where he’d replaced a happy-go-lucky sort of wildman named Joe Potenza. Private Potenza was currently in the stockade, and would be for another five months, for starting a fight while on a weekend pass in London, a brawl that had seriously embarrassed the Army. Previously in trouble for starting a fight with British servicemen, he’d been treated as an example by the American high command.
In his squad, several resented Potenza’s replacement, and one morning Macurdy awakened to- find his boot laces cut from the bottom up. That evening he went to each member of the squad and asked if he’d done it, at the same time observing the man’s auric reaction. When he found the culprit, a private named Carlson, he hit him without warning–whop! in the forehead with the heel of his hand. Carlson dropped like a stone.
Unfortunately, Carlson was about five feet eight inches and one hundred fifty pounds, so this did not commend Macurd to the rest of the squad. The next night a trooper named C who’d been Potenza’s closest friend, came into the but and saw Macurdy asleep with no cover. Carefully he slipped a safety match head-first between Macurdy’s toes, then? the other end and gave him a barefooted hotfoot. Macurdy awoke with a yell, then looked around and found Cargill glaring at him, jaw set. “I did it, asshole,” Cargill said. “Now let’s see if you’ve got theguts to tackle someone your own size.”
Actually Cargill, though about as tall, was twenty pounds lighter than Macurdy. Macurdy didn’t quibble though; he went outside with Cargill and beat the snot out of him. After that, the majority, who’d accepted him in the first place, were Macurdy’s buddies; he was their kind of man.
Meanwhile, though he had a nasty burn between his toes, Macurdy didn’t report the injury or go on sick call. He handled it himself, with a shamanic technique.
The next morning in the Nissen, Cargill apologized through swollen lips. “Macurdy, I was an asshole to bum your foot yesterday. I know it’s not your fault that Potenza’s in the stockade. All I can say is, I loved him like a brother. We all did. You’d have to know him.”