He walked a bit farther and stopped short. There before him was a neatly laid-out cemetery with several score of white wooden crosses in a well-cared-for lawn. He looked more closely and saw names on the crosses. Slowly, half hoping for and half dreading what he would find, he walked down the rows of crosses, reading the names and connecting them to half-forgotten faces of those who had been his friends. Entire families had been wiped out by the onslaught. The names of a few people he had known were missing, which, he hoped, meant they’d survived.
Blake stopped suddenly and sucked in his breath. About halfway in were two crosses on which neatly lettered were the names of his wife and daughter. Had someone found their bodies, or was this simply a memorial? It didn’t matter. Someone had remembered and cared, and it touched him deeply. The hatred for the Germans was not displaced, but for a moment the kindness made living a bit less unendurable, and he found his vision obscured by the sudden rush of tears.
A shadow moved from behind a shrub. Blake and the others swung their rifles toward it.
“Don’t shoot, Chief, it’s just me.”
Morris relaxed and lowered his weapon, and the others followed his lead. It was nothing more than Willy Talmadge. And nothing less, either. “You nearly got your empty head blown off, you idiot.”
“Hey, Blake, is that the thanks I get for taking care of this?”
The astonishment on Morris’s face was evident. Willy had never before called him by his first name. “Well,” Willy continued, “maybe I didn’t dig all the graves, but I did identify the bodies and help with the crosses.” He felt he had done well and wanted to be told so.
Morris wanted to ask about his family’s marked graves but decided not to. He didn’t want to know. “Then I guess I should thank you, Willy, and I do. Now, what have you been up to since then?”
Willy informed him that he had returned to the site after the Germans had marched off. A few days later, some local people arrived, buried the bodies, and made the cemetery. “Some people were here with cameras too.” He seemed proud that his little town had been the scene of such activity. From that time on he’d lived off what he could scrounge in the area, either eating fruits and vegetables out of gardens or raiding abandoned root cellars. “I knew you’d be back. Never doubted it for a minute. Now you’re gonna take me with you, aren’t you?”
There was a plaintive note to Willy’s voice. Gone was the insolent drunkard and thief. This was a man who’d been scared by forces he’d never known existed, and now he desperately craved a level of security. He also knew he had to find more food than he had been able to before now in order to survive the coming winter. Willy was almost gaunt. Blake Morris sighed and looked at the longing eyes of the man. “All right, Willy. You can tag along, but you’re gonna have to work for your keep. If I catch your worthless ass drunk or stealing one time, you’re gone and on your own to starve. You understand me? I got a job to do and I won’t have you in the way.”
Willy nodded eagerly, like a puppy. Morris slung his rifle over his shoulder and started to walk inland, away from Ardmore. The dozen hard-eyed men with him fell into a column. One man sprinted ahead to take up a point position, a second pushed Willy into the middle of the column, and a third took up position as rear guard.
Blake surveyed them quickly. Dressed as farmers and mechanics, they were as natural to the countryside as the trees. The well-intentioned officers on the mainland had made him promise they’d wear uniforms in case they got captured. In that case they’d stand a chance of not being executed as spies and terrorists. He had laughed bitterly. Wear uniforms? Why advertise their presence? No, there wasn’t a man in the group who wasn’t a volunteer and who was afraid of death. There was a job to do and they would do it.
Patrick Mahan lounged comfortably on a folding chair in front of his command tent-a larger structure than a regular tent that combined sleeping quarters and office-and tried to enjoy the relative cool of the morning. The camp was just beginning to stir, and he felt it appropriate that his brigade see their commanding officer up and ready well before they were. It also gave him some quiet time to enjoy a cup of coffee, read, and think. His staff understood this need and worked to ensure it. That growing staff was now headed by Lt. Col. Jonathan Harris, late of the Connecticut Militia, who had recently been invited by Patrick to be his chief of staff. Patrick had run into him at MacArthur’s headquarters and remembered the diligent way the then major had led his men after the disaster under Colonel Blaney. Or was it Haney? It seemed so long ago. When his own militia unit disbanded, Harris was left without a position. An owner of a prosperous shoe factory, Harris knew how to organize and manage.
