Time Enough for Love (80 page)

With a soft rustle Mrs. Smith came close to Lazarus, looked up at him, held up a little book. “This is for you.”

It was a vest-pocket New Testament; she held it opened at the fly leaf. He took it and read the original inscription, somewhat faded:

“
To Maureen Johnson, Good Friday 1892, for perfect attendance
… Matthew vii 7”

And under this, in fresh and crisp Spencerian script:

Lazarus gulped. “I will treasure it and keep it with me, Mrs. Smith.”

“Not ‘Mrs. Smith,” Theodore—‘Maureen.’” She put up her arms.

Lazarus stuffed the little book into his breast pocket, put his arms around her, met her lips.

For a long moment her kiss was firm and warm but chaste. Then she moaned almost inaudibly, her body softened and came strongly against him, her lips opened, and she kissed him in a fashion that Lazarus could barely believe even as he answered it in kind—a kiss that promised everything she could give.

After some uncountable eternity she whispered against his lips: “Theodore…take care of yourself. Come back to us.”

DA CAPO

Camp Funston, Kansas

Dear Twins and Family,

Surprise! Meet Corporal Ted Bronson, acting sergeant and the meanest drillmaster in the whole National Army of the United States. No, I have
not
scrambled my circuits. I temporarily lost track of a basic principle of evasive action, i.e., the best place to hide a needle is in a stack of needles…and the best place to avoid the horrors of war is in an army. Since none of you has ever seen a war, or even an army, I must explain.

I had (foolishly) planned to avoid this war by running away to South America. But South America is a place where I could not possibly pass for a native, no matter how well I spoke the language—and it is loaded with German agents who would suspect me of being an American agent and might arrange some nasty accident for Ol’ Buddy Boy, bless his innocent heart. And the girls there have beautiful flashing eyes, suspicious duennas, and fathers who love to shoot gringos up to no good. Unhealthy.

But if I stayed in the United States and tried to stay
out
of the Army—one slip and I wind up behind cold stone walls, eating miserable food, and making little rocks out of big ones. Unappealing.

But in wartime the Army gets the best of everything—aside from a mild hazard of getting shot at. The latter can be avoided.

How? This is not yet the era of total war, and an army offers innumerable bolt holes for a coward (me) to avoid unpleasant dangers from strangers. In this era only a small part of an army gets shot at. (An even smaller part gets hit, but I don’t plan to take that risk.) At this here-&-now land warfare is fought in certain locations, and there are endless army jobs
not
in those places, where (despite a military uniform) an army man is really just a privileged civilian.

I am in such a job and probably won’t move until the war is over. Someone has to take these brave, young, innocent lads, fresh off the farm, and turn them into something resembling soldiers. A man who can do this is so valuable that officers are reluctant to let him go.

So I’m full of that old fighting spirit and won’t have to fight. I teach, instead—close-order drill, extended drill, marksmanship and care of the rifle, bayonet, barehanded combat, field hygiene, anything. My “amazing” aptitude in military matters caused surprise, me being a recruit with “no military experience.” (How could I admit that Gramp taught me to shoot five years after the end of this war and that I first handled these same weapons as a high school cadet ten years from now and that my military experience is scattered over the next hundred years plus a little now and then for centuries more?)

But a rumor hints that I was once a soldat in the French Foreign Legion, a corps of one of our Allies, made up of cut-throats, thieves, and escaped convicts, and famous for their go-to-hell way of fighting—possibly a deserter from it and almost certainly under another name. I discourage this canard by becoming surly if anyone gets inquisitive and only occasionally make the mistake of saluting French style (palm forward) and correct it at once—but everybody knows that I “polly-voo” because my knowledge of the French language had a lot to do with my change from “acting corporal” to real corporal assigned to instruction, and now greasing for sergeant. There are French and British officers and sergeants here to teach us trench warfare. All the French here are supposed to speak English—but the English they speak these Kansas and Missouri plow jockeys can’t understand. So in slips lazy Lazarus as liaison. Me and one French sergeant almost add up to one good instructor.

Without that French sergeant I
am
a good instructor…when I am allowed to teach what I know. But only in unarmed combat am I allowed to, because unarmed hand-to-hand fighting does not change through the ages; only the name changes, and it has only one rule: Do it first, do it fast, do it dirtiest.

But take bayonet fighting—A bayonet is a knife on the end of a gun, and the two parts add up to the Roman pilum, used two thousand years earlier and not new even then. One would expect the art of bayonet fighting, in 1917, to be perfect.

But it isn’t. The “Book” teaches parries but not counters—yet a counter is as fast as a parry, far more deceptive, and fatally confusing to a man who has never heard of one. And there are other things—There was (will be) a war in the twenty-sixth century Greg. in which the use of the bayonet became a high art and I was an unwilling participant until I managed to duck out. So one morning here, on a bet, I demonstrated that I could take on and never be touched by a U.S. Army regular sergeant-instructor—then a British one—and then a French one.

Was I allowed to teach what I had demonstrated? No. I mean “
Hell
,
No!
” I wasn’t doing it “by the Book,” and my “smart-alec” attempt almost lost me my cushy job. So I went back to doing it by the sacred “Book.”

But this book (used at Plattsburg where my father—and yours—trained) is not bad. In bayonet fighting its emphasis is on aggressiveness, which is okay within its limits; the bayonet is a horror weapon in the hands of a man eager to close and kill—and that may be all these kids have time to learn. But I would hate to see these pink-cheeked, brave lads go up against some old, tired, pessimistic twenty-sixth-century mercenaries whose sole purpose is to stay alive while their opponents die.

These kids can win a war, they
will
win this war, they
did
win it from when you are. But an unnecessary number are going to die.

I love these kids. They are young and eager and gallant and terribly anxious to get “Over There” and prove that one American can lick any six Germans. (Not true. The ratio isn’t even one to one. The Germans are veterans and don’t suffer from “sportsmanship” or any other illusions. But these green kids will keep on fighting and dying until the Germans give up.)

But they are so
young!
Laz and Lor, most of them are younger than you two, some
much
younger. I don’t know how many lied about their ages—but lots of them don’t have to shave. Sometimes at night I’ll hear one crying in his cot, homesick for his mammy. But next day he’ll be trying, hard as ever. We don’t have enough desertions to matter; these boys
want
to fight.

I try not to think about how useless this war is.

It’s a matter of perspective. Minerva proved to me one night (when she was still following the profession of computer) that all here-&-nows are equal and “the present” is simply whatever here-&-now one is using. By my “proper” here-&-now (where I would be if I hadn’t hearkened to the wild geese—home on Tertius)—by
that
here-&-now these eager, puppylike boys are long dead and the worms have eaten them; this war and its terrible aftermath are ancient history, no worry of mine.

But I’m
here
, and it’s happening
now
, and I feel it.

These letters become more difficult to write and to send. Justin, you want detailed accounts, written on the spot, of all that I do, to add to that pack of lies you edited. Photoreduction and etching are now impossible. I am sometimes allowed to leave camp for a day, which is just long enough to get to the nearest large town, Topeka (circa 160 kms. round trip), but always on a Sunday when businesses are closed, so I have not had a chance to work up a connection to use a laboratory in Topeka—assuming that there is one with the equipment I need, a doubtful point. I would let letters pile up in a lockbox (since it does not matter when I Delay Mail them)—but banks are never open on Sundays. So a handwritten letter, not too long and bulky, is the most I can manage—whenever I can lay hands on nesting envelopes (also difficult now)—and hope that paper and ink won’t oxidize too much over the centuries.

I’ve started a diary, one which makes no mention of Tertius and such (this letter would get me locked up as crazy!) but is simply a daily recital of events. I can mail it, when it is full, to Gramp Ira Johnson to hold for me; then after the war is over and I have time and privacy, I can use it to write the sort of commentary you want, and take time to miniaturize and stabilize a long message. The problems of a time-tripping historiographer are odd and awkward. One Welton fine-grain memory cube would record all I could say over the next ten years—except that I would have no use for one even if I had it; the technology to use it is lacking.

By the way—Ishtar, did you plant a recorder in my belly? You are a darling, dear, but sometimes a devious darling—and there is
something
there. It doesn’t bother me, and I might never have noticed it had not a physician noticed it the day I joined this Army. He brushed the matter off—but later I conducted my own examination by touch. There
is
an implant there—and not what Ira says I’m full of. It might be one of those artificial organs you rejuvenators are reluctant to discuss with your “children.” But I suspect that it is a Welton cube with an ear hooked to it and a ten-year power supply; it’s about the right size.

But why didn’t you
ask
me, dear, instead of sneaking up on me with a Mickey? It is not true that I always say No to a civil request; that is a canard started by Laz and Lor. Justin could have gotten Tamara to ask me, and no one has ever learned how to say No to Tamara. But Justin will pay for this: To hear what I say and what is said in my presence, he is going to have to listen to
ten years
of belly rumblings.

No, durn it, Athene will filter out incidental noise and supply him with a dated and meaningful printout. There is no justice. And no privacy, either. Athene, haven’t I always been good to you, dear? Make Justin pay for his prank.

I haven’t seen my first family since I enlisted. But when I get a long-enough pass I am going to Kansas City and visit them. My status as a “hero” carries privileges a “civilian young bachelor” cannot enjoy; the mores relax a bit in wartime, and I’ll be able to spend time with them. They have been very good to me: a letter almost every day, cookies or a cake weekly. The latter I share, reluctantly; the former I treasure.

I wish it were as easy to get letters from my Tertius family.

Basic Message, Repeated: Rendezvous is 2 August 1926, ten T-years after drop. Last figure is “six”—not “nine.”

All my love,
Corporal Ted (“Ol’ Buddy Boy”) Bronson

*   *   *

Dear Mr. Johnson,

And all your family—Nancy, Carol, Brian, George, Marie, Woodie, Dickie Boy, Baby Ethel, and Mrs. Smith. I cannot say how touched I am that this orphan has been “adopted for the duration” by the Smith family, and to hear that it is confirmed by Captain Smith. In my heart you all have been “my family” since that sad & happy night you sent me off to war loaded with presents and good wishes and my head filled with your practical advice—and my heart closer to tears than I dared let anyone see. To be told by Mrs. Smith—with a sentence quoted from a letter from her husband, the Captain—that I truly
am
“adopted”—well, I’m close to tears again, and noncoms are not supposed to show such weakness.

I have not looked up Captain Smith. I caught the hint in your letter—but, truly, I did not need it; I have been soldiering long enough to realize that an enlisted man does not presume in such fashion. I am almost as certain that the Captain will not look me up—for reasons I don’t need to explain as you have soldiered far more than the Captain and I combined. It was most sweetly thoughtful of Mrs. Smith to suggest it—but can you make her understand I
can’t
look up a captain socially? And why she should not urge her husband to look up a noncom?

If you can’t make her understand this (possible, since the Army is a different world), perhaps this will suffice: Camp Funston is
big
—and no transportation for me other than shanks’ mare. Call it an hour for the round trip if I swing out my heels. Add five minutes with the Captain when I find him—
if
I find him. You know our stepped-up routine, I sent you a copy. Show here that there just
isn’t time
, all day long, for me to do this.

But I do appreciate her kind thoughts.

Please give Carol my heartiest thanks for the brownies. They are as good as her mother makes; higher praise I cannot give. “Were,” I should say, as they disappeared into hollow legs, mine and others (my buddies are a greedy lot). If she wants to marry a long, lanky Kansas farm boy with a big appetite, I have one at hand who will marry her sight unseen on the basis of those brownies.

This place is no longer the Mexican fire drill I described in my earliest letters. In place of stovepipes we now have real trench mortars, the wooden guns have disappeared, and even the greenest conscripts are issued Springfields as soon as they’ve mastered squads east and west and have learned to halt more or less together.

But it remains hard as the mischief to teach them to use those rifles “by the Book.” We have two types of recruit: boys who have never fired a rifle, and others who boast that their pappies used to send them out to shoot breakfast and never allowed them but one shot. I prefer the first sort, even if a lad is unconsciously afraid and has to be taught not to flinch. At least he hasn’t practiced his mistakes, and I can teach him what the regular Army instructors taught me, and those three chevrons on my sleeve now insure that he listens.