Dark Full of Enemies(9)

“If he ain’t yet, he deserves the surprise he’s about to get.”

Heyward laughed and slapped the steering wheel.

“This guy,” he said. “Who is he?”

“An old friend. We went to college together, us and Keener.”

Heyward nodded. “You graduate together?”

McKay thought about how to answer and finally said, “No.”

They neared their destination. The Major had said he would phone ahead and have McKay’s man waiting to talk. McKay felt tired again, and nervous. McKay made few friends and held those few close, but when contact fell away they became like strangers again—or more than strangers, so that running into an old friend left him at a greater loss for words than a chat with a grocer or newspaper vendor. Few—and mostly family—were the people he could strike up a conversation with after a long silence. And he had not spoken to Grover Stallings for five years.

Heyward steered the jeep off the duckboard road and stopped in the rutted mud at a gate. Four MPs in armbands and striped helmets hunched together on the porch of a small guardhouse, cupping cigarettes against the wind. One broke reluctantly from the group and approached the jeep and Heyward opened the door to speak. The cold air rushed in and McKay’s tiredness vanished.

The MP waved Heyward through after a short talk and they entered the camp.

The camp lay under blackout conditions—no lighted streets, only slits for headlights on vehicles—but McKay could feel its vastness around him, one camp among many in the terrible strength now gathering in the winter dark. Rows of tents on wide streets disappeared into the black left and right, behind and before him as they drove. The First Infantry Division had already fought in North Africa and Sicily and was only recently arrived in England, among the first of what would surely be millions of men crowding down on the coast, waiting for Ike to give the word. McKay thought again of landing craft, as Heyward pointed through the windshield.

“Jig Company CP. There ya go.”

Heyward parked the jeep outside a Quonset hut with a neatly hand-lettered sign and shut off the engine. McKay squared the stack of papers and handed the file to Heyward.

“Hang onto this.”

“You want me to do the talking, Captain?”

“Yeah. To anybody that wants to give us trouble, anyway.”

Heyward grinned. “All right.”

They stepped out of the jeep into the dark and cold and stopped at the door. They looked at each other. From inside came the muffled sounds of brawling and shouting. Something heavy struck the door and sagged away. McKay and Heyward ran to the door, threw it open, and rushed inside.

Grover Stallings lay facedown on the floor, kicking and heaving under two sergeants and a corporal. Another corporal squatted by the door, rubbing his forehead. A lieutenant braced himself against a nearby desk and stood wiping his brow when Heyward and McKay came in.

“Godalmighty, Hillbilly!” the lieutenant said between breaths. “I’m gonna make goddam sure you get shit-canned for good this time. What the—”

The lieutenant spotted McKay and Heyward and came to attention. He face glistened red and he choked back heaving breaths as he collected himself. His shirttail hung wrinkled over his belt.

McKay felt no surprise at any of this. He looked from the mass of swearing non-coms on the floor to the lieutenant and waved a hand.

“As you were. What’s going on?”

“Sir,” the lieutenant said, and hesitated. McKay saw the man recognize his uniform. Marine utilities were just different enough to confuse Army personnel, too, and there was the OSS shoulder patch. “Sir, I—this—we detained Private Stallings as requested, and caught him attempting to, to abscond just now. Little! Get him out of here!”

A sergeant sat up out of the pile, nodded, and the men dragged Stallings through a door deeper into the Quonset hut. McKay thought, So it’s Private Stallings again, is it?

The lieutenant wiped his brow. “I apologize, Captain—”

“McKay. And no need to apologize, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir. And it’s Roberts, sir. Sir, what’s he done, now? I mean, that son of a bitch has spent a lot of time in the stockade, but we’ve never gotten a call from higher up like this.”

McKay looked at Heyward and a grin passed across Heyward’s face like a memory. He nodded and stepped up to the lieutenant and began his work.

McKay took off his coat and cover and hung them on a hook in the outer office. When he stepped into the larger inner chamber of the hut, the non-coms had just shoved Stallings into a desk chair. The walls were lined with tables and desks, and McKay noted that the one before Stallings held a radio, a typewriter, and a stack of handbooks, manuals, and notepads. McKay stepped forward and the sergeant met him.

“You want us to stick around, sir?”

“No thanks, sergeant,” McKay said. He felt his nervousness, forgotten for a moment, returning. His stomach tightened. “Y’all can wait outside.”

The sergeant nodded to the others and they stepped into the outer office. McKay shut the door, turned toward Stallings, and waited.

Stallings did not immediately look up. He sat slumped in the chair, sweat stains at his neck and armpits, his blond hair disordered. One of the non-coms had punched him—a smear of blood started at the corner of his mouth and reached down to his jaw. At length, he laughed, rubbed his jaw, and looked up. He saw McKay and a carefully prepared smirk died on his face.