WW

WW

__________

Byron Cornell Bellamy

WW

Copyright © 2014 by Byron Cornell Bellamy

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.

Finger-Pointing

Look, right over there. Rebecca Ternus sparked this. Bob Ternus and his highly strategic eldest son Peter threw it against the wall until it stuck. Mary Ternus provided the reference library and moral support, Eric Jones the photography. These are my excellent in-laws, and I love all of them.

Over here, Frank and Dale Hill, The Elder Wizards. Beside them, the Magical Janee Brown, along with Sean, Heather, and their associated small humans, all of us brought forth by Zilmon and Debbie from Texas dust. I love them too, and Janee Frivaldsky as well. My Family.

Behind my shoulder, Joe Smith, who once turned his great-grandson loose in his woodshop for a day and sat back to watch him with a smile.

For Will and Jane and Anne.

Ah! foolish-diligent Germans, working so hard, thinking so deeply, marching and counter-marching on the parade grounds of the Fatherland, poring over long calculations, fuming in new found prosperity, discontented among the splendor of mundane success, how many bulwarks to your peace and glory did you not, with your own hands, successively tear down!

-Churchill, Winston S. (1923). The World Crisis.

New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons. (p.26)

1 not-feeling

They are everywhere, the not-feeling. Abbot often heard the old man’s words when he was under stress; the Good Grandfather, who had spoken to him of survival in the world, all the basic ideas, passing along everything a competent man learned in long lifetime of learning. There was also the So-So Grandfather, the one with the sharp tongue and sharper backhand that sped like a viper toward any child not holding himself erect and grimly silent.  This was the way of most human beings of his era, and of those from the era before that, and before that one as well, all the way back in fact, and So-So Grandfather came from a village where no one had never been encouraged to change, or to make choices like the Good Grandfather had made – to alter one’s actions based on complex information, to study, to ponder, and to learn.  To think one’s way through life.  Instead, while Good Grandfather grew wiser and therefore happier, So-So had driven everyone away and grown a hard but brittle shell, withdrawing inside to grow more lonely and shrill with the passing years, as most people who live without growing do.

 Abbot loved him anyway.  He had learned how to reach through So-So Grandfather’s shell and nudge him in just the right way, so that a toothless smile would break out on the old man’s face for a moment, enough to make Abbot smile back.   After awhile the old man’s pathways would snap back to full tension, eighty years of stress and disappointment flooding back to his face in an instant, disapproval and disregard his customary pose, a violent temper his primary response to stimuli. The temporary smile on the old man’s face was enough to make it worthwhile for Abbot to keep trying, and in his last year Abbot became the only member of the family So-So would let near him.

But it was the Good Grandfather’s voice that always came to him at times such as these, moments of extreme physical and mental stress such as he was periodically subject to, when he had to fight to not lose himself altogether. Abbot thought this singular experience might count as such a moment.

This is why:

Doctor Abbot Hoffman, lately of Paris, recipient of the Grande Médaille from the French Academy of Sciences and recent nominee for the Nobel Prize in Medicine, was floating just beneath a dark brown sea, embedded in a viscous chocolate pudding that surrounded his body and pressed into every corner and crevice desperately seeking to pull him down to oblivion.  The saturated earth was hungry for his body; it felt alive.  The only reason that he had not already drowned was that he was encased in a stiffened brown oilskin sack of sorts, a small flattened chamber buried beneath the mud in the very center of ‘no man’s land’, the ever-moving strip of destruction that spanned the width of a worldwide war.  He and his friend buried in a similar container somewhere just to his right were probably the only living things that were not flesh-eating insects within this fetid square kilometer of battlefield.

The manta-ray shaped oilskin sheath was stretched across a frame that supported the six-inch thick top layer of mud that rendered him invisible in this sea of mud; it also possessed several stiffened passages through which he could view the terrain in front of him, and even a sealed swiveling tube that he could aim and fire his rifle through.  The idea had popped into Abbot’s head in an instant: a personal mud-submarine, a design which had seemed brilliant at first but now made him feel a little stupid. Six hours so far in this contraption seemed like a lifetime of floating in this evil stew, the seams steadily leaking because he hadn’t the time or facilities to make proper seals.  He and Joe had been given orders at 3 AM, and Abbot had designed and sewn the two suits out of a discarded naval tarp and some scrap wood by four.  He hadn’t been prepared for actions in which his commanding officer intend that he die uselessly, which this clearly was. It was true they had survived so far in this the most hostile environment on the planet – but how long did they have before the suits filled with muddy water and they drowned? The little breathing tube seemed way too small now, and he fought off the onrushing wave of claustrophobia with effort.

Proceed center combat zone, assume prone surface position, remain until relieved. Precisely written orders for a death sentence, Abbot thought. Clearly Captain Studtendorf had taken the original matter far too seriously. Joe’s attempt to talk him down had set the captain off for some reason on a quest to find a way to murder them both without shooting them himself.

The mud was oozing in slowly around him, he could feel cold fingers down his legs and back.  Not normal mud at all, but mud blended with cordite, steel shards, human bodies, horses, wood, blood – bandages, food, coffee, wire, paper, pets, cots, blankets, kerosene, gasoline, sewage — Belgian kings and Danish monsters, all whipped into a frothy gel like chocolate pudding but with an odor that made the hair on your skin stand straight up.   Men had never seen anything like this mud before. Utterly putrid, chemical mud, mud that made you sick. Mud that drove you mad and pulled you down, always further down.

Mud that Abbot could feel seeping through the stitches. He scanned the ground in front of him through his little viewport, slowly sweeping the concealed gunshroud from side to side – nothing but miasm, fog, and thousands of perfectly round pools of water hiding all sorts of horrible nightmares in their rotting black depths.  This particular portion of the front had been severely fought over in the early days; there were at least ten human bodies ground by artillery and eventually liquefied into every square yard of this sector, if one accepted the official numbers for the missing.

Inside his sloshing, reeking shelter, Abbot turned his head and spoke into a small cone. Joe.

The voice responding from the tube was clear and resonant from inside the other sack.  See something?

I’m leaking.

Tell me about it.  Claustrophobic.  Like a grave.

What are you thinking about?

Lena’s little pear pastries.  With the sugar.  How does she make the crust puffy like that?  So beautiful, Joe sighed from the tube.

Abbot grinned and gave a small laugh that set little waves going through the shallow pool he was lying in.

Well, that’s not fair.  Now I have to think about it.

You asked.

I thought you were going to answer with some deep thought or something.

No.  Pear pastries. Ultimate wisdom.

Abbot sighed, and nodded.

And with the coffee, the swirl of thick cream curled on the surface in that little shape, he said.

Now you’re talking. Joe paused.  Abbot.

Yeah.

Check your left.

Abbot gripped his rifle, looked along it and out through the small muddy gap to see –

Shapes.

Joe, there’s a herd.

Moment of truth.  What’s it to be?

Abbot thought for a few breaths, nodded.  He’d gotten to be pretty good at this kind of thing, but he never felt good at it.  Deep at heart he was still the little smart Jewish kid that couldn’t fight.  So many years later, he had grown to fill that gap by learning how to fight the way he had learned to learn everything, by singular focus, a serious mind, and reading every single book ever written on the subject.  These days, though, he felt like he was just pulling it out of his ass, to use one of the American phrases Joe seemed to love so much.  Nothing worked twice, everything changed, and there weren’t any safe places at all.  One just had to hop, skip, and leap over the teeth of the devil, every moment of every day.  And today was the worst of all.

Take the last half after they walk over us, then up and over for the first half from behind.  More than twenty, stay dead.

What, you afraid of twenty one?

Yes.

Okay.  Give the word, little pony.

Abbot trained his rifle through the shroud and watched as the shapes moved forward, cautious, stumbling in the dawn fog, sometimes getting stuck in the softer spots. The sight made him glad for a moment that he wasn’t walking through the stuff, just buried and soaking in it; small favors.

A lot.  There were a lot of them.  Abbot swore. 

From the speaking tube – Relax.

Abbot pulled his head up slowly and checked his cartridge feed device.  Five of his special chemical darts gleamed through the thin slots. Neither he nor Joe were using standard Mauser Gewehr ninety-eights; Abbot had spent much time modifying both weapons into something entirely new.  The rifles were made to look standard, on purpose, except for the removable long black silencers.  That much Abbot had been able to plan for.  The German Army took a very dim and stiff-necked Prussian view of anything non-standard.  And these days, they were already drawing enough attention to themselves, what with their supernatural penchant for surviving the unsurvivable.  It was a strangely embarrassing fact when in the presence of Prussian officers who suspected cowardice, and who were prone to dwell accusingly on the illogic of continuous invulnerability.  Everyone died but them.  What else could it be but cowardice?

The group of British raiders drew within thirty yards and Abbot instinctively quieted his breathing, although there wasn’t much chance of being heard from beneath his shallow grave in the dark mud.  But certain behaviors were hard to control, he thought; thirty million years of conflict written into his cellular structure urged him to BE QUIET.

He and Joe had missed the catastrophe on the Marne, when a critical center of the German force had inexplicably turned north away from Paris and allowed the French to make their stand on the Marne River.  Both sides had become locked since then in a hellish new phenomenon, truly a New Thing On Earth: static, industrialized, long-term mayhem.  Men were dying in numbers the planet had never seen before.  Here in the advanced year nineteen-fifteen, science laid low nearly as many as had ever been saved by it.  The German Kaiser had been forced to call up the deep reserves, which ended up including one Josef Schmidt, a master carpenter from the little coal-mining town of Bochum with a penchant for pear pastries and American history.  His pregnant wife and two children had cried as they watched him put on his uniform and leave their house, perhaps forever.  And now here he was in the middle of it, literally.

For Abbot, there was no sense in it all.  He was an internationally well-known physician living in France; only occasionally did he make the journey to visit Joe and Lena at their home in Bochum, perhaps once a year.  When he did, he always brought gifts from all over Europe, the finest English tea, American brandy for Joe, and all sorts of stories about life in the outside world. He didn’t even seem German anymore. And so for this man to travel back to Germany when the war broke out and join the German Army as a private so that he could serve in the same unit with his childhood friend — many of his friend in Paris thought he had gone insane. Most of them hadn’t ever thought of him as German, all the more to their shock at his decision.

Now, here, literally buried in the field of death, Abbot finished counting to twenty-five and swore again.

Joe from the tube – What do you think?

Abbot closed his eyes for a second.  When he opened them, the shapes were closer, rifles ready.  He leaned to the side and whispered. All right.  We’ll have to reload in the middle.  I’m first five and you go next while I reload, and just keep going.  I count twenty-five.

Holy fish bucket, came the whispered answer from the narrow rubber tube.  This sets a record.

We’re about to get stepped on.  Get ready.

Abbot braced himself –

Heavy British boots stomped down hard on his back, shoving him further down into the mud. He couldn’t see, the water inside the sack was splooshing up all around him now, and his little shrouded viewport was shoved deep down into the mud. Four more thousand-pound boots down his back, then one right onto his helmet –

A small break in the stomping let him lift gunshroud clear of mud, shake it off enough to see.  He quickly drew a bead on the approaching second wave –

Quietly – Go.

Abbot pulled the trigger gently – a click, and loud pffft –

Four more times, aiming through the smeared tiny window with extrasensory precision at a cluster of dark shapes directly in front of him.

Out.

Abbot pulled a cartridge from the bottom of the weapon with a click, then slid it into a small fitted pouch tucked just beneath his neck. He wriggled his hand around and pulled out a matching fresh cartridge, plugging it into the rifle with a satisfying snick –

He could hear Joe firing though the little tube, amazing that the flimsy port was still intact, three, four, five, and –

From the tube – Out.

Through the tube, he could barely see the remaining men, now only two or three, stumbling around in confusion, wondering why ten of their numbers had just collapsed into the mire.  He aimed carefully, fired three more times –

I’m turning –

Abbot twisted in his sack hard until he was lying on his back.  He was still deeply embedded in the mud and had to wrench himself up a little, flip the gunshroud all the way forward, take aim –

He could see through the little window that the leading wave had no clue as yet that their entire rear had been dropped, and were marching forward as it everyone behind them had not just fallen into the mud.   He fired twice –-

Out. He hoped Joe could still hear him, thought about repeating it to make sure, but then Joe’s rifle echoed from the rubber tube, and Abbot took a deep breath and started to reload. For an agonizing moment the pouch became lost somewhere down in the watery depths of the sack. If he couldn’t find it, he knew they were going to die; but he ruthlessly shoved this idea from his mind and focused on the details – not here, not to the side – there. He found it lodged in a crease along the seam of the sack, set it on his lap, jerked the old cartridge from the rifle and replaced it with the new one, aimed –

From the tube – Abbot, they’re catching on, pull this out –

Abbot fired the rifle four times from inside his cold and muddy bag, and then stopped to see if anything was still moving. He twisted in all directions, rolling around until he was certain he hadn’t missed anyone.

I should double the cartridge size.  At least.

Twenty-four.

He’s nowhere in sight. We should look for him if we don’t want to deal with a full house.

Anything to get out of this goddamned sack.

It took a few minutes to pull themselves out of the poisonous muck and unfasten and remove the bizarre-looking oilskin sacks; the contraptions collapsed into muddy heaps beside them as they stepped out.  Both of them were filthy and soaked from their hours beneath the mud. Joe Smith stretched his arms up to the gray sky, groaning with stiffness from the cold.  He was a solidly built man in his late twenties, with a thick head of brown hair and piercing green eyes that had led his wife to fall for him, a good mechanic who had a way with steel and wood.  If he had gone to school, he might have become an engineer; but the family had had no such resources, and he had learned well enough on his own, being open to everything, curious, and drawn to invention. Farmer-sense handed down from his hard-working ancestors had served him well enough.

Abbot looked around at the field of fallen men, a little astonished at their success.  He had black curly hair inherited from his Jewish father, who had also been a doctor; but the brown eyes came from his English mother, and the combination had served overall to leave him reasonably tall, dark and handsome. These qualities never crossed his mind, which always seemed to be occupied with nothing but science, mathematics, chemistry, and anatomy.  He and Joe were absolutely nothing alike, but events had made for an excellent life-long friendship, as constant mortal danger will often do.  Together, they combined their talents to make one highly competent human being, and here in these deepest of dark woods, this most hostile and alien of landscapes, it counted a great deal to have someone next to you that had fought alongside you many times before.

Joe was searching the mud field around them for tracks of the survivor.  The twenty-three that they had downed were breathing quite normally; they were unconscious, and a couple had fallen in awkward positions that Abbot and Joe had to relieve by pulling them around into different postures, lest they all wake up with awful kinks.  As they worked, they removed the spent darts from each man and stashed them in their pockets – no need to leave any evidence behind. Joe pulled one of the collapsed soldiers away from a shell hole with too much water at the bottom of it, then he straightened up a little and peered at some tracks he had just seen.   Got him, he said.  He’s headed back.  We’ll never catch him.

Abbot nodded.  And then they’ll all be here.

Joe wore a serious expression as he made a quick survey of the land outside their shell hole.  It’s a long way home.

Abbot looked at him, nodded, and the two packed up and moved out of the shell hole and into the deepening fog hanging like gray skin over the death and metal-encrusted fields.

The long walk back was uneventful.   Several times they had to cross sentry-guarded points at which passwords were required; each time their responses were accepted.  Finally, they arrived at the barracks from which they had emerged the day before, Abbot stashing the remnants of the mud-suits in a trunk next to his bed.

By the time they arrived, the sun was rising, and breakfast smells rose with incredible attraction from the mess tents.  Abbot and Joe were unalterably pulled into their orbit, and finally captured, although they seemed to sneak in, hugging the tent wall and hiding their faces, trying to blend into the large groups of men who had begun to flood the tent.

It did not save them.  Joe had just shoveled a mouthful of delicious apple-laced oatmeal into his mouth when he looked up to see a terrible sight; that of their commanding officer, Captain Herman Sobelius Fesfurt von Studtendorf, a man so filled with Prussian military bearing that he appeared cartoonish and unreal to any normal person.  Thick-necked, bemedalled in his officer’s tunic and possessing the absolutely-required scar extending from his left lip to just beneath his eye, the captain was obviously on a personal mission.  The mess tent fell into absolute silence as he strode dramatically between the tables, aiming himself at Abbot and Joe.

Joe managed to swallow just before Captain Studtendorf arrived, heels clicking together like a pistol shot, arm flying up in the air like a missile, his beady eyes fixed on Joe’s now-morose face.  

 Abbot looked cautiously up at the captain, then pushed back his chair and rose to his feet, snapping his heels and arms exactly as the captain had done.   Joe turned his gaze from the captain to Abbot and rose slowly to his feet, unsure as to whether to copy Abbot’s response or to mildly hunch his shoulders and avoid the captain’s direct gaze.   In the end he chose the latter, slumping guiltily next to his friend, who maintained his stern pose without breaking character for a moment.

The captain glared at Joe only for a moment, then turned his scarred visage to Abbot.  He smiled, which for a Prussian officer is the most frightening facial expression of all.

I’m so very pleased that you have seen fit to return to barracks against specific orders, and to have the gall to sneak into the mess tent, and to be discovered consuming breakfast alongside men who understand how to follow orders and remain at their posts in the military fashion. You, however, I think are most unmilitary and as such deserve not only further scrutinous training, but some measure of corporal punishment which I shall personally conceive of, said the captain in a clipped and professional tone. Prussians as a rule did not raise their voices; they reserved their rage for the act that would accompany the voice, this characteristic having been drilled into their young men since the Huns had first begun to overrun their small series of valleys west of the Neman river centuries ago.

 Abbot, if possible, drew himself even straighter, and responded to the captain’s words with the same menacing air of gentle nobility.

Captain, we returned with vital intelligence concerning the sector in which we were assigned.   We successfully defended ourselves against a raiding party composed of twenty-five soldiers, twenty-four of whom will not be returning to combat.   One man escaped and returned to his lines, and we felt it necessary to return to report this large patrol as swiftly as possible, obviously a probe before a main assault –

The captain’s hand swept out like a knife to cut Abbot off. You were to remain at your post until relieved.   You are a liar, Private Hoffman, and I intend to see you whipped and or hanged along with your sad-dog friend here for the direct disobeyal of orders given to you by your commanding officer.

Abbot clicked his heels forcefully once again.

Captain!  That is your prerogative as the commanding office of the German company I am proud to call my brothers in arms!  I cheerfully admit my error and await your disposition of our fate!  Hail the Emperor!

 The captain leaned his head to one side and looked knowingly at Abbot.

You are so very intelligent, Dr. Hoffman, but I think the gray dawn of the firing squad may rob you of your humorous bent.  Enjoy your last breakfast, gentleman.  Then report to the sergeant-at-arms for disposition. And don’t try to run.

 The captain whirled and strode back through the aisleways of the tent.  Every face in the mess tent now turned to Abbot, who shrugged and sat down next to Joe, who had already collapsed into his chair the moment the captain had turned his back. 

Abbot lowered his head a little, and whispered to Joe.  What do you think our chances are, hey?  I thought that went pretty well.  Are you still hungry?  I am.

Joe stayed silent, shocked by Abbot’s nonchalance as he turned back to his still-heaping plate and began to devour it. After awhile Joe began to nibble at his own breakfast again, nodding to himself. If we’re in the kettle or they kill us, at least I’m not sinking into that mud buried inside that damned sack.

Abbot snorted.  You know you don’t mean that.  The sack idea was pure gold.  C’mon.

Joe shrugged.  What?

C’mon. 

Joe took another bite without answering, then relented, nudging Abbot with his elbow.

All right.  Wonderful, lovely, happy little leaking sack in the mud, thank you for that.  Saved my life.  Still — I need a rocket.  A rocket that will take my whole family to somewhere where there is no war, just until it all blows over. 

Abbot nodded.  Okay.  But let me ask you — if it was another planet?  Like this one?

Joe smiled.  His face was still smeared with lined dirt and grease and The Mud, but his teeth flashed as he replied. Absolutely, Abbot.  Our own Earth, with maybe less bugs, and a few less things like leeches, or mosquitoes, or –

Abbot interrupted him.  Everything goes together, you know, Joe.

Joe acknowledged this, in the way old friends do when they share an uncomfortable truth, by smirking. Abbot, you would take the side of a virus if it seemed oppressed.

Abbot thought this over.  No.  Yes. One has to be aware of bias. Anthropocentric logic, you know.

No.  I don’t.  Do you have a plan for us yet?

Abbot had just taken a huge bite and nodded as much as he could. Shuh.  Ho on.  He finished eating, wiped his hands, and leaned towards Joe in an attempt at privacy.

We don’t run. We go back.

Go back?  Into the mud?  Under fire?

We slip in, grab two of the guys, they’re all still down.   Swap uniforms.  Well, we take ours with us as well.

What?

I speak perfect English.  Neither of us look particularly German, we could pass for Brits.  You play dead, I’ll do all the talking, we get back behind British lines, and find out what time the advance is, whatever else we can find out.  Then we come back, maybe with some papers, code books, maps — they won’t shoot us after that, right?  Even Studtendorf wouldn’t, he’d get all the credit.  They’ll probably give us another medal. At worst the stockade. And that’s safe.

Abbot, this idea of yours, this crazy idea of yours — do you — do you –

Yes, and it’ll work.  You just have to stay quiet, act shell-shocked.  I’ll do all the talking.

Joe exhaled for a long time, and put his head down on the table. Is it all right if I sleep a little bit before I die?

Abbot looked at his watch.  We’ve got a few hours.

That’ll do.

Abbot leaned forward.  But I don’t trust the Sergeant-at-arms to be so patient.  We’ll have to hide.  Can you think of a place to lay low?

Joe raised his head and nodded.  That pile of crates out behind Six Trees. Flat.  And dry. We’ll stack ‘em and make a hole for ourselves.

Abbot smiled. You mean the pile of crates full of howitzer shells?

Joe squinted. Yeah. Scared, little pony?

Abbot shook his head. No, it’s perfect. We’ll make a little fire to keep warm, flirt with fate.

Joe laughed. Make your little fire far from me. I’m not flirting with anything. I’m married.

The world on the verge of catastrophe was very brilliant. Nations and Empires crowned with princes and potentates rose majestically on every side, lapped in the accumulated treasures of the long peace. All were fitted and fastened – it seemed securely – into an immense cantilever. The two mighty European systems faced each other, glittering and clanking in their panoply, but with tranquil gaze... Words counted, and even whispers. A nod could be made to tell... Would Europe thus marshaled, thus grouped, thus related, unite into one universal and glorious organism capable of receiving and enjoying in undreamed of abundance the bounty which nature and science stood hand and hand to give? The old world in its sunset was fair to see.

But there was a strange temper in the air. One might think the world wished to suffer.

-Churchill, Winston S. (1923). The World Crisis.

New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons. (p.97)

2 the barrels

They slept like logs for a few hours in the wooden cocoon of crates they had made for themselves and then woke up in the gathering darkness of early evening to slip stealthily through a weak spot in the wire that Abbot knew about. Before he had even returned to full consciousness, Joe found himself looking out over the same fog-shrouded gray doom he’d been buried in last night. The light was nearly gone now, they were out of time, and he and Abbot were searching frantically for the men they had brought down the day before.

Look, is that the Barrels?  See that?  Joe was pointing ahead into the depths of the mist, where a ridge could be barely viewed, festooned with vast coils of razor wire.   It was named for the small barrels with rocks inside that served as sound detection devices, hung from special parts of the coiled mass of metal.

Abbot nodded.   We’re way east, he said.  And that’s the hooked salient from last week where they picked off Verfelt.

 They moved in the right direction, without speaking, threading their way through the ruined alien landscape.  Within twenty minutes they arrived at the scene of the prior night’s action.  They moved silently, gracefully through the supine ranks, alert for the slightest twitch – but, nothing.  Twenty three men lay prone in various positions on top of the mud. 

Abbot and Joe searched among the bodies in the near darkness for uniforms that would fit.  They carefully stripped two candidates, put on their uniforms, and wrapped the men in blankets Abbot had thought to bring along.  All of their own clothing and weaponry went into a spacious single duffel that floated in the muck next to Abbot.

 How long do you think?   Joe grimaced at the clammy feel of another man’s muddy clothing.  Everything felt wrong, but especially the English underwear.  Abbot had insisted in case they were arrested and searched, but Joe found it grotesque. Everything made him itch. They finished bundling the last man carefully, and Abbot glanced at his watch.

Minimum four hours left, Abbot replied after thinking it over.

Joe sighed as he finished buttoning up the British wool jacket.  And that will be that.

Abbot smiled.  Always the vocalization thing.  Why do people all sing with the 858?   Every last one.  No other formula I’ve ever tried does that, he mused.  It’s strange.  Amines are very strange.  I sense design.

I sense that this guy had lice, damn it, Joe replied.  I appreciate the silencer, and all the other little tricks that’ve kept us alive, believe me.  But your chemistry seems kind of hit or miss right now, because I have news for you, British lice do not respect it at all.

Abbot made a face.  Give it time.

Joe rolled his eyes and scratched at himself, turning away to pick up a British steel helmet, settling it down on his head with a look akin to religious suffering.  

Abbot finished dressing, shouldered one of the British Lee-Enfields and looked through the deep mist at the dark mass of the British line.  We’ll have to hide our bag somewhere in the British forward trench system, someplace we can get to again.

He looked at Joe with deep seriousness.  We’re going to have to learn fast.  We don’t even know the doors.

Joe scratched at his privates furiously.  We have to wait for sentries to turn over, get close.  Should be soon, right? 

Abbot nodded at Joe, and both men seemed to think it through.  Without another word they began to work their way through the thick morass toward the British wire.

A few hours later, Abbot and Joe were lying on the edge of a vast shell crater directly in front of an eight-foot high section of cyclone razor wire that guarded the approach to the first British parapet.  It was now a pitch black and moonless night, and cold.  Joe shivered in his stolen clothing; but at least he had stopped itching.   Abbot lay next to him, his eyes barely above the lip of the crater, his gaze trained intensely on the section of wire that lay not ten feet from them.  Only the blazing starfield over their heads revealed any detail at all in the depthless mass.

Presently two British sentries could be heard approaching the section. They crept along the edge of the crater with a slithering sound that gave away their exact position; it was nearly impossible to move silently in this environment.  Abbot and Joe stayed absolutely still, and so were essentially invisible.  In the blackness, only sound gave shape to anything. One of the sentries crawled forward in the mud to the very edge of the wire, and Abbot heard him shake it gently.  Boulogne, whispered the sentry. Immediately Abbot heard the sound of several sections of the wire being drawn back, the bottom of the coils scrapping wetly across the mud.  The other sentry followed closely on the trail of the first and Abbot heard the sound of the wire being pressed back into place. He nudged Joe, and together they oozed themselves over the edge of the trench and up to the very edge of the wire as quietly as possible.

Abbot reached forward and felt for a coil, found one, shook it gently.  Boulogne, he whispered in an English accent. 

Nothing happened.  The wire stayed put.  Joe tugged at Abbot’s jacket to indicate that they should withdraw, but then a voice whispered back at them from the other side of the wire.

Who the bloody hell are you supposed to be, mate?

Abbot responded immediately in perfect West End.  One-Fiftieth King’s Division, sir.  York.  We got hit with some sort of damned new knockout gas, never even smelled it.  One man made it out. We just woke up. There’s twenty two of us still out there, I’ve only been able to bring back me mate Kevin, but every man’s still breathing.  I need a party to pull ‘em in.

Joe nudged Abbot, and whispered almost imperceptibly, Kevin?

A long moment of silence from the other side.

Right, came the reply, and Abbot heard the wire in front of him being withdrawn.  He crawled forward through the hole, reaching to grab Joe by the front of his coat.  Joe went limp and started wheezing a little, playing his part perfectly, and Abbot had to strain to pull him through the dense muck and into the darkness behind the wire belt.

Abbot dragged Joe forward until he hit a slight rise; he called out.  Give’s a hand, mate.  ‘E’s heavy as a dead cow.

The tactic worked; two forms emerged from the parapet to help with Joe and guided the two through the darkness into the deep front-line trench. Abbot and the two others carried Joe down a stretch of the trench, finally turning down a rammed-earth corridor and into an administrative area.  They laid him down onto a canvas stretcher as a bespectacled officer carrying a trench lantern hurried over to investigate.  Abbot stood up and saluted as the other two men left to return to their posts. 

For a moment the officer said nothing, but just looked at Joe and Abbot, mystified.  Finally, he shook his head.

We assumed you were all dead.  Hendricks came back without a wound and reported that his entire platoon had been wiped out.  Said some creatures came out of the mud and got ‘em, he’s gone right south. We haven’t had a chance to find the bodies.

Abbot relaxed his salute.  About six hundred yards, due southwest.  They’re all alive but dead out.  We still don’t know what it was.  Kevin sounds like he’s breathin’ hard, maybe it was gas, but no odor, no color. I never seen nothing like it.

The officer appeared shocked.  Good lord.  We’ll assemble a team immediately.  Can you guide us there?

Abbot nodded.  Of course, captain sir.  Let me just get Kev to the medics first, and I’ll be right back.

The officer shook his head.  No, no, let me get a few orderlies.  He turned away and gave orders to a group of staff officers to call for an orderly team. But when he turned back to make further inquiries of the new arrival both he and his unconscious friend had already disappeared, and the mystified look returned to captain’s face.

It took Abbot and Joe an hour to work their way into the British rear areas.  Along the way they had to contend with a kitchen crew, a belligerent Scottish artillery officer, and endless procession of filthy and exhausted sappers (the military term for trench diggers) and one extremely suspicious and nearly fatal Irish major, who seemed about to arrest them both on principle before being reluctantly called off by a distant gas whistle.

Abbot and Joe wandered through the massed tents and temporary wood structures, passing under the gaze of hundreds of filthy, weary soldiers, their faces black with the accumulated grime of life in the forward trenches.  Many of them were trembling slightly, with dazed expressions.  The smell was much the same as it had been out in no man’s land, but the thousands of live men stuffed into a small space added a certain spice not present in the battle zone, where death was the dominant scent.  Abbot saw boys, here and there, and men of fifty, hair graying at the sides, circles under their eyes.  In his mind he could easily place them from his time living in London:  here was the suburban schoolboy chasing his dog home, excited to be free of the stern pressures of English public school life; and over there, the bookshop clerk over on Charing Cross, thinning hair combed directly east, dreaming about a pint and a successful game of darts.

Now they were dressed alike, the boy and the clerk, and would be machine-gunned alike as they were thrown by thousands into the cauldron, murdered or maimed in the latest ghastly fashion.  They were — units.  Units of force.  And from what Abbot could see, spent.  The fighting had been severe lately; Abbot knew his own side was about to launch something big, and the artillery duels had been steadily increasing in intensity for weeks.   A lot of German infantry divisions were massing, depots full of crates, trucks roaring in and out.  And if the attack was to fall on this sector, he didn’t see much hope for the men manning the ramparts on this side, who by and large looked like pale walking skeletons. There were no signs of any impending British assault that he could see; they looked like they were barely holding on here.

He gave Joe the eye, and Joe shook his head.  By now they were nearly telepathic in such situations; they’d been close since elementary school, and had been through enough misadventures together that they could hear each other’s voices without speaking.  Joe knew what Abbot was saying; that what the two of them were doing would probably prove fatal in the end to these men they were so casually strolling though.  Joe had replied in his way by reminding Abbot that these men would likely shoot them on the spot if they could see them in their original uniforms. Abbot shrugged – still, they were human beings.

Abbot twisted his upper lip by way of indicating that this was a moral quandary that required processing, and Joe dropped his head slightly and widened his eyes to remind him that his friend Joe had a wife and children at home, and would prefer to return to them without the standard debilitating wound or mortal injury, and could they please just steal some British maps and get the hell out of there. Abbot pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes – they would have to find a way to make their effort seem valuable enough to Studtendorf that he would spare their lives, but at the same time render the intelligence useless somehow, and without letting the captain know it was useless. Abbot wasn’t about to have a few thousand corpses dwelling in his subconscious, and Joe thought it might nag at him as well in later years. Conscience could prove expensive, even fatal, on the Western Front; Joe hoped they could continue to afford the luxury.

Abbot veered right down a main thoroughfare to a large tented area with radio antennas and regimental standards protruding from each peak.  Joe followed, eyes alive, head on a swivel, ready to react to the moment. Abbot slowed down as they approached the chewed-up thoroughfare that led through the tents, and maneuvered around a line of horse-drawn wagons carrying ammunition and shells.  Inside the first tent were a large number of men seated at desks and in front of equipment; the second and third tents were dark, but the fourth and largest tent was well-lit, and was full of tables with maps on them.  It was toward this tent that Abbot steered, pausing a few feet from the doorway, surveying the scene inside with his eyes.

From behind them, a voice: You little Yorkies lost yer way, ‘av ya?  This is no-go territory without a ticket, boys.

Abbot and Joe whirled to find a sharp-featured man in his thirties, well-built, a major with Queen’s Own patches.  He had his hand resting on his pistol. Joe looked caught, with wide guilty eyes; but Abbot recovered quickly and snapped back into his role as a humble British soldier from the wrong side of London.

Excuse me, sir, but we was lookin’ for someone to report to on what happened on our trench raid, he said.  Some kind of new gas, sir.  We’ve got to head back and guide ‘em in, but the captain thought we should report on it directly.

He did, did he?  Abbot nodded, but the man was clearly suspicious.  Come with me, then.  Let me introduce you to someone.

Abbot and Joe followed the major into the center of the main tent.  In the center of the room, a man in a colonel’s uniform frowned deeply over a map, muttering to himself as he occasionally penciled notes into a small book.

The major waited until the colonel looked up.  Hullo, Winston.  I’ve brought you two Yorkies, what say they were gassed on a trench raid, something new, they say.  This should interest you of all people.

Abbot’s face changed expression as they approached the map table.  Now he looked stricken, lagging behind Joe, trying to hide his face. Joe looked at his friend, not understanding.  Abbot had dropped out of character, and at the worst time –

Val?  I’m sorry, what did you say?  The colonel straightened and appeared distracted at this interruption. 

Colonel Churchill, sir, these two boys say they’ve been gassed.  Something new.  And they were looking to talk to someone about it.  So their officer sent them — here.

The colonel now turned his full attention on Abbot and Joe.  Abbot was now very nearly turned sideways, away from Churchill.

Is that so, Major Fleming?  Really? And they made it all the way without interference?  Fascinating.

Well, at least I was in the way, Winston.

Yes you were, Val.  And a good thing, too.

Colonel Churchill looked at Joe carefully, examining his uniform, and then peered at Abbot, who seemed to be shrinking further into himself with each passing moment.

Dr. Hoffman? Is that you?

Abbot turned, embarrassed, utterly caught.  He tried to make the best of it.  Hello, Winston, he said.  Wouldn’t ever have expected to see you here.  Lords of the Admiralty usually reside in London, not at the Belgian front. Abbot then nonchalantly placed his hands in his front pockets, and posed as if poking fun at an old friend.

Winston looked at him for a moment, grunted.  Major Fleming and I are on a fact-finding mission here, just visiting.  Frankly, I must say that it is you that I would never have expected to see in the uniform of the Yorkshire Brigade of the Second Army.  The last we met, you were still a citizen of Germany.

Yes, that’s true.

And — have you renounced your nation, then, and joined the British Army?  As a private?  A man of your scientific prowess?

Abbot did not answer.  Joe looked back at him.

Winston turned his gaze to Joe.  And you, sir, are you a recent addition to the great tradition of the 50th Northumbrian Division as well?

For a long moment, Joe said nothing.  He looked up at Abbot, who would not meet his gaze, and then back at Winston, and then to Major Fleming.

Absolutely, sir, said Joe in a heavily German-accented tone.

Winston smiled.  Major Fleming suddenly had a pistol in his hand. I take it the operation’s been penetrated, Winston, he said.  Hard to believe, with all our new ultra-security.

Winston made a chuffing sound, and walked around the two men to look Abbot directly in the face.  The light from the flickering trench lanterns hung up on the poles of the great tent revealed an intelligent, deeply thoughtful face.  He pursed his lips, and thought at length before speaking.

Dr. Hoffman, I would appreciate your honesty in this matter.  We have been colleagues, and I must offer you the opportunity to square matters.  Otherwise, I must immediately turn you over to Major Fleming’s cadre for interrogation and imprisonment.  How on earth do you happen to find yourself here?  And who is this other man, the one with the distinctly West German accent?

Abbot pulled one hand from his pocket and held it out, palm up.  All right, Winston, it’s an odd story, but algorithmically speaking, let me condense it.  This is Joe Smith, born Josef Schmidt, but he prefers everything American; he’s my best friend from Bochum, where we grew up.  One day everything was fine, and the next thing we knew, the Kaiser called up the reserves, he had to report for duty, and his wife Lena wrote to me and made me promise to take care of him. 

Joe seemed shocked by this statement.  What did you say?

Abbot glanced at him briefly, then turned back to Winston.  Joe continued to frown at Abbot.

And so here we are. Abbot smiled inscrutably, as if this statement explained everything.

Winston was frowning now.  Dr. Hoffman, I’m disappointed to find that you’ve fallen so far into dishonor as to become a spy.  And I must now insist that you answer in detail my questions concerning both your mission and the disposition of German forces near this juncture.

Of course, Winston.  Is this a map of the Ypres salient? Abbot extended his free hand to gesture at the table containing the map Churchill had been studying. Both Churchill and Major Fleming turned their heads to look at the map, and when they did, Abbot suddenly pulled his other hand from his pocket and thrust it at the large trench lamp hung over the center of the table like a magician casting a spell.

A fistful of dust filled the air over the table, and FWOOOM – a blinding actinic flash filled the tent. Joe and Abbot were prepared for it, but Churchill and Major Fleming were not.  They had been looking in the direction of the map when Abbot had moved; their gaze had followed the cloud of dust Abbot had released, and now they were directly blinded by the flash. When their eyes cleared, the gun that had been in Major Fleming’s hand was now in Joe’s, and Churchill and Fleming found the situation neatly reversed.

Churchill raised his hands.  Clever magic trick, Dr. Hoffman, he said. 

Abbot brushed the flash powder from his hands, looked Winston in the eye.  Winston, he said, I want you to know that we’ve only done this because we were facing execution by our commanding officer.  I’m taking some maps from this table to try to bargain for our lives, and you should immediately make drastic changes in your dispositions, as we have no wish to be responsible for the deaths of any of the stouthearted British lads manning these lines.  As I said, I promised Joe’s wife I’d look out for him.  It’s the only reason I’m here, and you must know I would never otherwise engage in these activities.

Joe interrupted.  That’s the second time you’ve said that.  I can’t believe Lena wrote to you.  How humiliating.  I don’t need a bodyguard. I can take care of myself, you know.

Abbot looked back at him, shrugged a little guiltily, spread his hands out.  Every man needs a friend in the darkness, Joe.  And I wasn’t about to let you go off without me. What if something happened to you? I just couldn’t bear the thought. We always go through these things together. You know that.

This statement failed to mollify Joe, who was still glaring mildly at his friend.

Major Fleming moved slowly toward a black wooden desk next to him –

Joe waved at him with the pistol.  Please.  I haven’t killed anyone yet, but this could be the first time if you don’t just quit it right now.  I’ll probably just shoot you someplace extremely painful, yet not quite fatal.  Right in the buttocks, perhaps.  Ouch.  So long to heal, sleeping on your stomach.

Fleming raised his hands slightly, then took a deep breath, relaxed and leaned away from the drawer. Winston lowered his head and looked piercingly at Abbot from deep, dark eyes. Doctor, I assure you that no escape is possible, he said.  You will be apprehended.   If you stop now, I can still intervene.  Internment in Switzerland, perhaps.

That would not deter the risk to Joe’s family. Winston, do you remember the nights we spend drinking in the Folie Paris? Abbot answered.  We talked about world peace.

And war.

And the role of great men in both.  I am well aware that you are the man for these times.  I respect you, and support you, and I have always accepted your rougher and indelicate edges.  Your mother is American, my mother is English.   I therefore consider us in this oddly circular fashion to be brothers.  We’ll meet again in better days, and laugh about this.

I accept the possibility, although military prison can rob even the most dedicated of their humor. Churchill’s expression was dark.

Well, for now I am more worried about your sense of humor.  Because we have to tie you up, I’m afraid.  Old boy.  Please understand.

Churchill snorted, and looked quite irritated as Joe jerked the gun up and down to indicate that he should turn around. He and the captain complied, after which Abbot trussed both of them up using tent rope with a surgeon’s precision, making sure not to interfere with their circulation, securing the bindings with intricate knots designed to tighten if they struggled.  He then quickly examined all the maps in the room, picking up four or five of the most impressive; he then folded them into a small flat block of paper that he stuffed in his jacket along with a code book and unit lists.

He nodded at Joe, and they prepared to leave. On the way out, Abbot knelt to face Winston and Major Fleming, who were now seated on the earthen floor facing away from each other, their hands tied behind them around the thick central tent pole, their mouths gagged with thick strips of tent canvas.

I do apologize, Major Fleming, he said.  Terrible circumstances under which to meet.  You seem very nice and quite competent. And Winston –

Abbot now leaned forward and placed his hands on Winston’s shoulder, and spoke quietly and seriously. You and I both know Germany’s going to lose this war.  In victory, I trust you’ll be magnanimous.  Forgive us for this rude act, if you can. He rose, and without another word, he and Joe exited the tent through a rear flap, crouched down, moving with speed and silence.

Winston struggled for a moment with his bonds.  No good.  He looked over his shoulder at Major Fleming, and raised his eyebrows with exaggerated dismay.  Fleming rolled his eyes, and comically pretended to go to sleep with a mock snore. Then his eyes flashed open, and he began to work furiously at his bindings.

Winston nodded, and began to try his best as well.

*****************************************

Abbot and Joe were near the front trench when a klaxon began to scream, a long, winding wail that echoed over the darkened death fields, unearthly, vengeful and bitter to their ears.  They rounded a corner and paused, out of breath.  Joe looked at Abbot with the obvious question, prompting Abbot to reply, apology in his voice.  He’s just really smart.  That’s the nature of Winston. Plus, that other guy was some sort of super-soldier, I could tell, just by the way he moved. Those bonds were perfect. You and I would still be there, I swear.  It was the best I could do.

Joe grinned.  Way too careful. Next time, I tie, you hold the gun.  Let’s go.

One more blind corner led them to the sapper’s cut that opened into the trench where they had been. When they had left the mystified major behind, it had been scarcely occupied; now it was full of British soldiers.  The siren still howled somewhere from the rear; every face was looking anxiously upward.  The approaching crump of artillery from the horizon signified the reason.

Oy, they’re ‘ere!

The British lieutenant who had helped them through the wire trotted towards Joe and Abbot with obvious relief.  You’ve been gone almost a bloody hour!  We dug up Atkins, the only bloke who made it back.  He’s coming with us.

Abbot gave Joe a look; this was positively dangerous.  They couldn’t hang around waiting to be identified as impostors. To the lieutenant, Abbot tersely said, That barrage is coming this way. We can’t wait another moment. Let’s get going.  Then he turned to the assembled trench and called out in a loud, British voice: Right!  Let’s go bring our boys back! Then he turned away and darted up the parapet steps toward the front, closely followed by Joe.

The faint response he could hear behind him was clear proof that this sector was beaten down, chewed up, and probably the prime target for the next of Ludendorff’s offensives.  The muddy soldiers lining the wall shuffled toward Abbot’s voice with a fatalistic depression. The lieutenant had been startled by Abbot’s sudden declaration of action and was slow to follow as well. As Abbot worked his way toward the passage through the front wire and out into no man’s land he thought they might perhaps stay ahead of trouble, but then he heard a man’s voice calling from behind him, Hullo!  Wait for me, it’s Atkins!

Atkins had surged ahead of all the others, including the lieutenant, and managed to get close enough to snag Abbot’s coat, making him turn to face the shorter British soldier.  Fellows, it’s me, Atkins!, said the smiling soldier, but the smile faded from his face as he looked at Abbot’s face, and then at Joe, who had now stopped a stride ahead of Abbot.

Hold on, who are you? Atkins was one of those slightly pudgy former pub-dwellers who would probably return to the pub after the war and never leave again. His expression registered absolute and total confusion.

Abbot snapped back, we’re the guides, mate, and turned quickly back to finish winding the last few feet of the maze through the front wire. Atkins stayed in his tracks, mouth open, watching with a dull amazement as the lieutenant and the other men followed the two strangers into no-man’s land. He asked someone in a confused tone, Who was that?  Do you know?

But the man simply shook his head and pressed on, leaving Atkins to struggle to catch up with the group, the look of incomprehension deepening with every second. Once the party had entered the combat zone, Abbot and Joe set the pace, while the lieutenant followed them with a masked trench lantern, the light bobbling all around as he tried to keep up.  The other men were all hard-pressed to stay within the general circle of light cast by the lantern, and Atkins himself fell hopelessly behind.

The never-ending artillery barrage just over the horizon became a white noise that helped to mask all other sounds in the vast empty battlefield, making the men less cautious about keeping silent.  Dawn was still many hours away, and the lantern and the stars were the only light available. Abbot and Joe stayed on the path they had taken to get to the British lines, and they moved fast.  Occasionally one of the men following them would curse as he slid off the path and sank to his hips in a concealed shell crater, and everyone would have to halt as the fellows nearest the man pulled him out.  The men carrying the folded-up stretchers had the worst time it, losing their balance at the worst moments. The ground was chaotic, smelled awful, and in the darkness one never knew when one would find themselves suddenly plunged into a substance that would make raw sewage seem sterile.

It took them an hour to find the spot, by which time almost everyone but Abbot and Joe were coated with the thick, caustic brown pudding. Abbot navigated the last solid switchback that led directly to the field where the men he and Joe had shot still lay, prostrate, unharmed, some now snoring.  The detail circled around them, realizing with astonishment that all these men appeared to be sleeping peacefully in the middle of no-man’s land. The bearers began to assemble the stretchers at the lieutenant’s command, and he moved through the unconscious men checking vital signs and looking for any sign of wounds.

At the far edge of the neatly laid-out grid, the lieutenant found that two of the men were nude, wrapped in blankets, their uniforms missing.  He thought it odd that they would have been out of uniform in the combat zone – why would anyone bother to take off their clothes in this hell?

He went to ask the two soldiers that had led them here; the two survivors might know the reason — but they had vanished somewhere into the muddy night.  A few minutes later Private Atkins caught up to the main party, still going on about not recognizing either of the two men as being from his platoon. By the time the lieutenant actually figured what had happened, Abbot and Joe were halfway home. 

Which, Joe pointed out to Abbot as they made their way toward their own wire, was probably the safest place they had been all day.

Stumbling around in no man’s land in the pitch black without a lantern was indeed a simple proposition compared to getting back across their own lines.  The password would have been changed at midnight, and Abbot and Joe had to creep forward and whisper to the startled sentry manning the forward listening post, and try to convince him that they were the remains of a returning lost patrol. They were forced to wait in a half-filled shell hole until the watch officer could be summoned, and