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I struggled up to my knees, tried to make it all the way to my feet, and fell back onto one of the stools. It tipped, but Pop reached out and grabbed my sleeve to keep me from going over.
I didn’t say thanks. I was mad at him for smacking me around. My cheeks were burning.
Pop let go of my sleeve and then shook his head as if trying to clear it.
“That may have been the worst coffee I’ve ever had,” he said.
My head was muzzy, and Pop was going in and out of focus. But I was in the hospital’s supply hut again. I was in the here and now. I looked around the room for the Cutthroat and didn’t see him anywhere.
“He was gone when I came out of it,” Pop said, anticipating my question. “Then I heard you talking to people who obviously haven’t been born yet. So I decided that whatever you were experiencing, you’d better not experience any more of it. You’re too young for family responsibilities.”
I began to feel less angry toward Pop as I looked at him and remembered what I’d just seen. His hand had been touching my forehead, and I had seen everything about him.
Including his death.
“Did you . . . hallucinate?” I asked.
Pop looked at his wristwatch and stood. “We both know those were more than hallucinations. And I believe you and I saw and heard the same things, up to the point where I snapped out of it. But now it’s eighteen thirty, and I have to piss like a thoroughbred. Then I have to go into Navytown and ask around for a certain commander. I understand he’s an admirer of mine. Are you all right to take yourself to your bunk, or to mess, or wherever you need to go?”
I stood, too, but I was feeling considerably wobblier than Pop looked.
“Why aren’t you shook up?” I asked. “If you’d seen anything like what I saw, you’d be shook up.”
Pop smiled that thin smile. “I’ve seen a lot of things, Private. And they’ve all shook me up, even when they didn’t involve Aleutian magic. But the key is to realize that it’s all like that. It’s all magic, it’s all insane. So you make sense of what little you can, and you rely on alcohol for the rest.” He gestured toward the door. “And now I really must be going.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you, Pop?” I asked. “I don’t like the thought of you dealing with those Navy goons all by yourself. And I don’t have to be at the colonel’s office until twenty-one hundred.”
I really wanted to stick with him so I could keep my mind off that meeting. I still had no idea what I was going to say to the colonel. What could I tell him? That I’d had a vision of what he’d done? I doubted that
would go over too well with him. Or with a court-martial, either.
Pop shook his head. “No, Private, I don’t want you with me this time. Frankly, you don’t get along as well with those Navy people as I do. But while I’m gone, I would like you to do two things for me.”
“Whatever you want,” I said. “Shoot.”
Pop held up an index finger. “One. Do not go to the lieutenant colonel’s office at twenty-one hundred. I know he ordered you to be there. But again, ask yourself how well his orders have worked out for you so far. Stay in your barracks or hide somewhere. With luck, I’ll be back before twenty-one hundred anyway. And I’ll take care of all of this.”
He stepped past me and headed for the door.
“How, Pop?” I asked. “How are you going to do that? We don’t have proof of anything. All we have are hallucinations.”
Pop paused at the door and looked back at me.
“No offense, Private,” he said, “but that’s all you’ve got. I plan to return with considerably more.” He turned away and opened the door.
“Wait,” I said. “You said you wanted me to do two things. What’s the second?”
He held up two fingers and answered without looking back.
“Don’t call me ‘Pop,’ ” he said. Then the door swung closed behind him.
I stepped out just a moment later and found that a thick Aleutian fog had fallen. The wind, for a change, had died.
I looked down past the third storage hut. But between the fog and the dim light, I only caught a glimpse of Pop’s thin, shadowy form before he disappeared.
XIII
MY SQUAD WAS BACK AT OUR QUONSET BY THE TIME I RETURNED, AND I went with them to mess. A couple of them tried to rib me by asking about what kind of soft duty I’d pulled that day, but I wouldn’t even look at them. Pretty soon they got the idea and left me alone.
