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“That’s right.” The Negro didn’t look back at Daniels. For the first time, his voice got tight. “Does it bother you, Alabama? If I’m not lily-white enough to take care of you, I can leave you right here.” He sounded deadly serious.
“I’m from Mississippi,” Mutt said automatically. Then he thought about the rest of the question. “I been out of Mississippi a while, too. If you’re American enough to want to patch my ass, I reckon I’m American enough to say thank-you when you’re done.” He waited. He’d run into a few educated black men who were just as good at hating as any Ku-Kluxer.
Doc didn’t say anything for a couple of steps. Then he nodded. “Okay, Mississippi. That sounds fair.”
It damn well better,Daniels thought.You’re not gonna get anything more out of me. But he didn’t say so out loud. The colored doctor was doing his job, and seemed willing to meet him halfway. Given Mutt’s own present circumstances, that was about as much as he had any right to expect.
The aid station had a big Red Cross flag flying in front of it, and several more on the roof. It was a big, foursquare brick building not far from Lake Michigan. Doc said, “Hey, Mississippi, you know what this place was before the war?”
“No, but that don’t matter, on account of I got the feeling you’re just about to tell me,” Mutt answered.
“You’re right,” the Negro said. “You don’t let much bother you, do you? This was-still is, I guess-the Abraham Lincoln Center.”
“Just another damnyankee,” Daniels said, so deadpan that the colored doctor gave him a sharp look over his shoulder before chuckling ruefully. Mutt went on, “Doc, I’ve done two turns of soldiering now, and in between ’em I was a bush-league manager for about a hundred years. So a smartmouth, even a smartmouth doc, that don’t bother me much, no. Gettin’ shot in the ass, now,that bothers me.”
“I can see how that would mess up a man’s day,” Jimmy, the other stretcher bearer, put in.
Some dogfaces trudged past Mutt on their way up to the front. About half of them were grimy veterans like him, the rest fresh-faced kids. Some of the kids looked at the bloodstained bandage on his backside and gulped. That didn’t bother Mutt. He’d done the same thing the first time he saw wounded in France. War wasn’t pretty, and you couldn’t make it pretty.
What did bother him was that about one rifle-toting trooper in four was black. The Army was segregated, like any decent and proper outfit. Seeing white and colored soldiers together in the same outfit bothered Mutt as much as having white and colored ballplayers on the same team would have.
Doc didn’t look back, but he didn’t have to be a mind-reader to figure out what Daniels was thinking, either. He said, “When you’re fightin’ to stay free, sometimes you get freer.” Mutt just grunted.
Doc and Jimmy lugged him into the aid station. His nose wrinkled at the stink of wounds gone bad. “How messed up is this one?” somebody called from farther in.
“Not too,” Doc answered. “Needs a tetanus shot, if we have any antitoxin, and some stitching. Should be okay, though.”
“Yeah, there’s antitoxin,” the somebody-a worn, harassed somebody, by his voice-said. “It’s slow right now, so why don’t you sew him up quick before they bring in half a dozen bad ones all at the same time?”
“Right” Doc and Jimmy set Mutt down where he wouldn’t be in the way of other stretcher parties carrying in the wounded. Doc came back with a syringe, a glass jar partly filled with a clear, oily liquid, and a clean rag. He jabbed Mutt in the backside with the needle.
“Ow!” Mutt said. “Why didn’t you give me the ether first?”
“Mississippi, if you can grouse about a needle after you took a bullet in the cheek, I think you’re probably going to live,” the colored doctor told him. He opened the jar, soaked the rag, and held it to Daniels’ face. The stink of the ether made Mutt cough and choke. He tried to pull away, but the doctor’s hand at the back of his head wouldn’t let him. His vision got frayed and fuzzy and faded out like a movie.
When he woke up, his mouth was dry as a salt mine and tasted like a latrine. He hardly noticed; he had a headache worse than any he’d ever got from moonshine, and that was saying something. His backside felt as if an alligator had taken a good bite out of it, too.
“Doc?” Mutt’s voice was a hoarse croak.
“The doctors are busy,” an orderly said. “Can I get you some water?”
“Oh, Lord, I wish you would,” Mutt answered. The orderly sounded like some kind of pansy, but if he’d bring some water, Mutt didn’t care what he did in his spare time. He shook his head, which made it hurt worse. A nigger doctor and a pansy orderly, colored troops fighting side by side with white men… what the hell was the world coming to?
The orderly brought not only water but a couple of little white pills withBAYER on them. “I found some aspirin,” he said. “It may do your head a little good. You probably don’t feel real well right now.”
“Buddy, you ain’t kidding,” Mutt answered. His hand trembled when he held it out for the aspirin tablets. He grimaced in self-reproach. “You’d think I had the DTs or somethin’.”
“You’re still woozy from the anesthetic,” the orderly said. “That happens to everybody, not-” He shut up and held out the water to Daniels.
Not just to old geezers like you: Mutt could fill in the blanks for himself. He didn’t care; what with his head and his ventilated backside, he felt as elderly as he probably looked. He popped the aspirins into his mouth and washed them down with some water. It probably came straight out of Lake Michigan; Chicago didn’t have running water, or even guaranteed clean water, any more. But you had to go on drinking, even if you did get the runs now and again.
“Thank you, friend,” he said with a sigh. “That was mighty kind of you, even if I do wish it was a bottle of beer instead.”
“Oh, so do I!” the orderly exclaimed, which made Mutt blink; when he thought about queers-which he didn’t spend a lot of time doing?he pictured them sipping wine, not knocking back a beer. The fellow studied Mutt’s bandages, which made him shift nervously from side to side. Just because he had to lie on his stomach didn’t mean… Then the orderly said, “You’re probably one of the few people who’s glad-for a
while, anyhow-the toilets don’t work. With that wound, squatting over a bucket will hurt you a lot less than sitting down would.”
“That’s true,” Daniels said. “Hadn’t much thought about it yet, but you’re right.” He was beginning to feel a little more like himself. Maybe the aspirin was starting to work, or maybe the ether cobwebs were going away.
“You have trouble or need help, you just sing out for me,” the orderly said. “My name is Archie. Don’t be shy, I don’t mind-it’s why I’m here.”
I bet you don’t mind.But Mutt kept his mouth shut again. Like the colored doctor, this guy was doing his job. He was entitled to enjoy it-if he did-so long as he didn’t make a nuisance of himself. Mutt sighed. The world got crazier day by day, though he wished it hadn’t got crazy enough to shoot him in the ass. “Thanks, Archie. If I have to take you upon that, I will.”
Sweat ran down George Bagnall’s face. When summer finally got to Pskov, it didn’t fool about. The grass on the hills outside of town was turning yellow as the sun. The forests of pine and fir to the east and south, though, remained as dark and gloomy in summer as at any other time of year.
A lot of German troops in Pskov went around bare-chested to get a suntan. The Russians didn’t go in for that. The ones who weren’t in uniform and were lucky enough to have a change of clothes switched to lighter, baggier tunics and trousers. Bagnall’s RAF uniform wasn’t much more than tatters these days. He mostly wore Russian civilian clothes, with a Red Army officer’s cap to give him a semblance of authority.
As happened on account of that, somebody came up to him and asked him something in Russian. He got the gist-which way to the new stables? — and answered in his own halting Russian. “Ah!” the fellow said.“Nemets?”
