Postern: A Cold Curtain Story

“They were killing my friends.”—Audie Murphy

Charles said, “If we stay here, we’re going to be killed or captured. Taking the machine gun nest might solve some problems, but I don’t know what will happen. And I can’t order anybody to do it or ask for volunteers, so I’m going to take the machine gun nest by myself.”

“We did already try as a group,” Corporal Winters said, but the other seven’s reactions ranged from skeptical to witnessing insanity to fear. “He’s made the decision.”

“Corporal, you’ll be the leader.”

“Shall we come after you?”

“If it works, but only volunteers. Corporal Winters, handle the volunteers. Whoever stays here surrenders. If it works, I’ll try to come back for you.”

“We will be here. You can sneak up on the machine gun alone, but nobody fights in every direction alone.”

He and Charles prepared.

The 3rd Section and a few stragglers across the 2nd Compagnie threw smoke grenades. Charles, Corporal Winters, and a few others crossed the street.

Corporal Winters and the others retreated, hoping the enemy had not counted them.

In the building, Private Roux activated the mechanical and silent spider. He directed it upstairs and gave Charles directions to the unstable attic stairs.

The others retreated.

Charles went up the stairs, rifle slung over his shoulder. Before he opened a door, he said, “Surrender,” waited a few seconds, and opened it slowly. The British forces typically did not attack surrendering soldiers; he assumed the Scottish guerillas viewed surrender the same way.

Wood clattered upstairs. Footsteps approached and Charles kicked his rifle into a corner and stuck his bayonet in the back of his belt. He knelt on both knees with his hands in the air.

“I'm surrendering!” he called, and kept repeating it.

The two Scottish guerillas peeked through the door and decided one should take him prisoner and the other check for other French soldiers. The guerilla who remained with Charles let his rifle swing loosely.

“Put your hands behind your back,” the guerilla said.

Charles drew his bayonet and stabbed the guerilla through his body armor. The guerilla thumped onto the floor, calling for the other one. Covering his mouth, Charles sat on him. He switched to deflecting the strikes and winced as his bayonet hit his sternum.

The other soldier ran into the room, rifle raised, and Charles charged with the bayonet in his hand. His shot missed. Charles stabbed him three times in the left ribs. Panting and trying to ignore the blood, he grabbed his rifle and ran upstairs.

The spider followed.

There was a massive hole in the floor, which was why Charles brought the spider. He held a length of paracord in front of the sensor. Roux scuttled the spider up the walls to an exposed ceiling beam. He made the spider extend its legs and wrap around an exposed ceiling beam, like a grappling hook.

Skinny Charles tied the rope around him and distrusted the beam. He swung over the gap, and, to his surprise, the beam held. The floor wobbled, and he only untied the rope when it went taut.

The British guerillas removed the ladder from the trap door, but, again, the spider functioned as a grappling hook and Charles climbed the paracord.

Whatever had damaged the house also damaged the hidden panel in the attic. Charles opened it and looked through, into a narrow passageway lined with boxes of munitions and ammunition.

Charles untied the paracord and rolled it up neatly. He gave the spider the signal to return to Roux, who obeyed.

Six-and-a-half feet tall, Charles crouched, head scraping the ceiling’s peak, and walked slowly and evenly. He removed everything rattly and shiny, but still made too much noise. Or did he sound like somebody sneaking? He could explain that—he became separated from his unit and had absolutely no idea who anybody was or if he was inside British or French lines or in no-man’s land, and so moved cautiously.

Passing open boxes, Charles pocketed grenades and dangled them from his ballistic vest’s cover. He made a mental note of various types locations. He continued down the row of buildings.

A hidden attic door opened. Charles stepped closer to the far wall and set his rifle down. The older-middle-aged Scottish female Scottish guerilla headed for the destroyed house.

Charles had to stop her but had never killed a woman before, at least, that he definitively knew to be female. Asymmetrical warfare was the most obvious reason to enter the attic. Also, the French forces warned Edinburgh that anybody in the city limits would be considered hostile, and the British forces believed it.

Hearing Charles’ footsteps, she turned. Charles twisted the much smaller guerilla and clamped a hand over her mouth. The helmet dented the fiberglass overhead, and they knocked against the walls. He dreaded killing a woman; threatening her at bayonet point felt wrong.

“Stop struggling and I won’t kill you,” he whispered. “Shut up and I won’t kill you.”

She resisted, and the bayonet cut her. He choked her into unconsciousness multiple times and stunned her, which allowed him to gag her with one sleeve from the British jacket and tie her up with paracord.

During the struggle, another guerilla called for her. Charles stunned the gagged woman and stooped next to the door. He hesitated, but he thought asymmetrical warfare was the most obvious reason to enter the attic. Also, the French forces warned Edinburgh that anybody in the city limits would be considered hostile, and the British forces believed it.

As the guerilla entered, Charles muffled him and stabbed him twice times through the left ribs, shutting his eyes and turning aside. His bayonet slid off a rib. The male guerilla collapsed in the doorway, taking Charles with him. The woman was thrashing against the floor. Subduing her distracted Charles from the warm, sticky blood soaking through his glove.

Expecting another guerilla, or maybe more, to check on the other two, Charles moved as quickly as he could backward. He bumped into the far wall and found the door.

Gun raised to clear the room, a Scottish guerilla stepped over the male guerilla. Charles shot him, then the other guerilla, who also fired at him. He gasped as a bullet tore through the side of his ballistic vest.

Charles ducked through the doorway into the real attic and shut the door. The bullets barely missed his arm. He stacked full but easily liftable cardboard boxes in front of the door to slow them down. He stepped clear just before the guerillas fired through it. He breathed heavily for a few seconds, turning the light machine gun’s switch from safe to automatic fire.

The guerilla shot with a rifle; Charles sprayed the door and passageway with light machine gun fire, dodging behind boxes, a rolled-up rug, and a rocking horse. Charles found the trap door downstairs, noticing people speaking and moving in the room below it.

He worried about bouncing a grenade off the closet walls and detonating the ammunition. But the mortar shells were a house-length away, he was pretty sure a blast wave could not ignite grenades’ fuses, and if grenade blasts cooked off rounds, he would have found out by now. Still, he was considering setting off an explosion below an ammo dump. Blowing up a row of buildings full of guerillas was acceptably gruesome in certain circumstances. However, the secondary explosions spread shrapnel and debris for up to a mile, risking not only his own section and the stragglers but also the hard-pressed remains of other French units.

A ladder clattered against the trapdoor. He ran to the trapdoor and threw a grenade into the room. He turned away and protected his head. His ears rang. The floors and walls vibrated and splinters and fragments blew into the bedroom. To his relief, the walls and ceiling protected the ammunition dump.

He sneezed from the dust and swept the room with his rifle. There was an additional entrance to the flat from the outside. He locked it and barricaded it with an armchair; guerillas could not crawl through the frames that once contained glass.

Charles tossed a grenade into each room; there was no good reason for a civilian non-combatant to be in the building. Also, when the French declared a city hostile, the British evacuated it. But he worried about civilian casualties. Charles killed a guerilla shooting from the lavatory. He swept the tiny bathroom with his rifle because he thought a grenade blast would knock the door off the hinges and spray him with ceramic fragments.

The building consisted of a flat over, judging from the smell, a thriving fish and chip shop.

Feet trampled overhead and Scottish guerillas pounded against the boxes.

Charles clattered down the stairs and grabbed the banister to halt abruptly at the half-landing. He leaned around, fired, and leaned back. The Scottish guerillas returned fire. Charles suppressed their fire with machine gun bursts and drove them into the kitchen, killing one and wounding one. He let another guerilla drag him away, wishing they spoke different languages, but he would have understood the meaning.

Overhead, Scottish guerillas creaked creaking wood and rattled debris. Charles rammed the door, locked from the other side. He almost dodged the guerilla’s rifle fire—a bullet passed through the door and embedded in his chest plate, and he involuntarily bent over, breathless.

He pressed against the wall, trying to straighten and breathe, and shot at an angle through the door. Relying on the walls to protect him, he drew his pistol and clustered shots near the deadlock and doorknob.

In the direction from which Charles snuck, rifle fire began—Corporal Winters.

A bullet pinged off Charles’ helmet. Switching to his light machine gun, he turned and fired at the guerillas on the stairs.

Charles swung the door open, just enough to toss a grenade over the counter between the kitchen and seating area. He slammed the door, which drifted open. Pressing his back against the wall and turning his face away, he fired randomly up the stairs. The blast knocked the door off its hinges and onto Charles, and he jumped against the wall from surprise. The door provided decent cover from the smaller debris, but a piece of shrapnel sliced into it. He wondered vaguely if he blew himself up.

The explosion also scared the Scottish guerillas stacked on the staircase.

Seconds after the blast, Charles shoved the door off him and then pushed it upright and leaned against it to fire upstairs. He stood too close to the doorway to detonate a grenade and he worried about it rolling down the stairs, but he expected the guerillas to fire from another room.

He obstructed the staircase with the door. Crouching, he alternated at the guerillas on the stairs and sweeping the kitchen. Charles expected an attack from one of the other rooms or the manned fighting positions outside.

The display case and faux wood counter lay in ruins, the cash register smashed. His grenade had blasted most of the glass outward and dispersed the fixtures’ glass and plastic. The chairs and tables had scooted and toppled.

A guerilla and Charles exchanged fire from a room off the kitchen. Glancing at the windows, he moved closer and aimed bursts first at torso level and second at floor level. He read the label, office. From behind, A bullet punched through his shoulder body armor, but not his skin. Groaning, and turning around to fire at the guerillas on the stairs again, he noticed the firing inside the office ceased. He darted to the wall between the office and the janitorial closet and shot the janitorial closet the same way as the office. He reloaded and repeated the process in the restroom.

Meanwhile, the guerillas won their wrestling match with the door. A female guerilla urged them to attack, saying, “It’s just one bloke!” He heard something about crossfire, but whether the guerillas worried about causing friendly fire or the combatants in the outside positions caused it, Charles heard nothing clear.

Charles felt like soldiers or guerillas outside stared at him, but he did not see helmets. He could have missed them. He knelt to change to a fresh magazine, though the old had enough rounds for another burst, and double-check his rifle’s full magazine.

The back door opened, Charles snapped the magazine in place, aimed, and shot the British soldier through the nose. He searched for the window behind the machine gun nest distracted him from the stain. Corporal Winters and he theorized, but he doubted he could fix choosing the wrong position this time.

Something metallic landed on the floor. Without actively considering whether the enemy threw the grenade or he dropped one, and while performing improvisations on fuck, Charles picked up the grenade. He threw it through the broken window as hard as he could.

Charles skidded into the far end of the room, covering his head and thinking he now, definitely, was being blown up. Glass and plastic tore and scraped his uniform and skin. It cracked under his knee protection and dug through his fingerless gloves.

Fortunately, his grenade blast had broken most of the glass. The guerilla’s grenade knocked out the rest, towards the inside, sending large shards over his head. Plastic frames and screens from the display cases flapped and skittered. Bits of window frame crashed against the wall. He flinched as the debris tumbled onto him, eventually running out of muscles and trying to squeeze his internal organs.

For several seconds after the blast faded, Charles continued trying to curl into a ball and scrunch his neck into his chest. Despite the ringing in his ears, he should have heard his heart pound.

“Bloody hell,” Charles muttered. He wondered when the outside gunfire close to the fish and chip shop began.

He began unfolding and thinking about injuries.

The grenade had detonated outside, probably sparking the gunfire aimed elsewhere, which slowed and stopped.

Completely missing and forgetting to count his rounds, Charles shot at the first British soldier through the emergency exit.

Charles crouched, moving from window to window, verifying the machine gun’s position.

Guerillas were thumping on the staircase and overhead, but Charles fired the light machine gun at British soldiers aiming around the emergency exit. He wondered why the guerillas did not throw another grenade, and if the thumping indicated the guerillas evacuated the ammunition dump from a structurally unsound building or if he would fight thirty to forty alone. If so, at least they would come through the doorway a few at a time.

Charles paused firing to roll a grenade out the door, but the pause gave a British soldier the opportunity to aim carefully. A bullet penetrated his ballistic vest, winding him again. He shut his eyes against the grenade’s debris, though his goggles protected him. Before he could take a breath, another bullet lodged in his chest. Both bullets burned. He fumbled his machine gun, shooting in the wrong direction. Due to a flinch, a bullet skimmed his cheek. He fired erratically, constantly.

He opened his eyes and swapped the empty machine gun for his rifle and shot the scrambling soldier through the knee. He fell, but Charles aimed at him and the other soldier who pulled him.

Charles still thought everybody observed him. He pulled the pin from a grenade, and firing again, counted to five, and tossed a grenade into the chosen British fighting position, deliberately remembering to throw the grenade and not the gun. To his left and right, the guerillas opened fire, but ducking from the blast meant he dodged the bullets.

Returning fire with his rifle, Charles clambered onto the booth. He dropped through the window, cutting himself on broken glass. Other British soldiers or guerillas were yelling about crossfire. His ears rang longer than the other grenade blasts.

He landed simultaneously with a British soldier, with whom he grappled. The British soldier choked Charles, but he drew his pistol and shot randomly behind him. The British soldier disarmed dizzy Charles. Drawing his bayonet, Charles tackled the enemy.

French guns fired. He had absolutely no idea if his commotion prompted friendly units to fight, but regardless of the reason, the French forces might preoccupy some of the enemy.

A second soldier struck his kidneys, then head with a rifle butt. Charles tried to go limp, except for his hands around the bloody bayonet. The second soldier yanked Charles off the soldier. Charles stabbed anything he saw, typically missing.

Two more soldiers piled into the foxhole, but Charles’ vision cleared enough to pick up his pistol and aim. The third soldier tried to disarm the gun.

A .50 caliber machine gun fired, and to Charles’ relief, it was not the one outside the fish and chips shop. That one was the closest to the 3rd Section.

Gripping the gun tighter, Charles stabbed the third soldier’s arm and shoulder. The soldier raised his arm, allowing Charles to slash his armpit. Charles broke out of the third soldier’s hold, but the fourth soldier grabbed his bayonet arm. Charles kicked the third soldier in the groin. Trying to wrench his bayonet arm free of the fourth soldier. He fired at the fourth soldier’s head.

Blood spurted across Charles’ goggles and he thought something blinded him, but his eye did not hurt. His knees weakened. Wobbling, he steadied himself on the sandbags. A bullet whizzed over his head and he flattened.

“I saw him fall,” a soldier said.

Charles remembered he wore goggles. As he rolled over and pulled the goggles down, intending to blink carefully, a soldier shot him. Two burning spots appeared on his abdomen and back, closer to his side than his spine. Eyes squeezed shut from pain, he bit through his lip in a failed attempt to stifle a groan. Gingerly, Charles blinked. It’s just the bloody goggles, he thought.

Some of the other units’ gunfire stopped.

Trying to otherwise lie still, he tightened his fingers around his bayonet and pistol and tried to remember how many rounds remained in his rifle. If he counted correctly, he had two grenades left.

“White knuckles,” a soldier said.

Charles had taken the machine gun nest and could have surrendered as wounded (legitimately surrendered, not trick the enemy), but any soldier could replace the machine gunners, leaving his section and the stragglers in the same predicament they were in when he left them.

“Oi, are you wounded?” a soldier asked. He was probably a medic.

What else do you bloody well expect? Charles thought.

A British soldier was saying essentially the same thing and another was suggesting taking him prisoner as Charles pushed himself up on his hands and knees.

The British soldiers took cover and began firing. Shooting one-handed, Charles slumped against the back of the foxhole. He sheathed his bayonet and grabbed his machine gun to suppress the fire. It clicked, and the .50 caliber machine gun’s barrel was too long to turn on the adjacent fighting positions.

Charles darted a look over the side of the fighting position and fired at the British soldier crawling out of it, away from him. A bullet from the other side struck his back. He counted the pistol’s rounds properly and switched to his rifle.

The third British soldier lunged at him, but Charles killed him. He pushed the body aside.

Charles lay almost even with the sandbags and reloaded the light machine gun. Blood smeared it, but lying on dead bodies bothered him more. Don’t pass out, he thought. If the enemy is dead, they aren’t a problem anymore.

Thinking, Charles read the smoke grenade’s label aloud and threw it into the street. He told Corporal Winters that red smoke meant he took the machine gun nest. He needed to be extremely sure he threw a smoke grenade, rather than a fragmentation grenade.

He had insufficient cover for fragmentation grenades, which would have neutralized the firing positions closest to the .50 caliber machine gun’s barrel. Then he could have held off the British soldiers with the machine gun.

And if Charles moved the bodies, he would have enough cover. Or he could cover himself with a body When a soldier jumped on a grenade, his body blocked or slowed most of the shrapnel, and it probably worked the same way at a distance, but he was not sure he could lie under a body, let alone in time to take cover and intend it to be blown up.

A grenade exploded and glass flew from a building down the street, as Charles decided to eliminate closer targets when they approached him.

He wriggled around to the .50 caliber machine gun, lay prone, and scrunched his legs. The recoil jerked his arms and jarred his entire body.

Other, muffled gunfire began again, and he wondered how far away it was.

Charles fired short bursts, aiming badly, but more-or-less at the British fighting positions. Sand poured from the British sandbags and bricks crumbled. Charles broke windows and hoped civilians were not inside. Noticing he fired back and forth in a straight line, he randomized his targets.

The British returned fire with their rifles and Charles heard a different .50 caliber machine gun in the distance. He dreaded being within firing range. Any second, he expected it, a grenade, mortar round, or some other way to neutralize a machine gun nest. Sticky blood flowed from his bullet wounds, but Charles could not stop firing for first aid.

His ears rang constantly. With sweaty hands, Charles fumbled the reloading. Unfamiliar with the British design, he understood the French .50 caliber machine gun enough to inspect it. He relied on guns sharing the same, obvious, basic principles. He glanced around, knowing he was most vulnerable then. He doubted he would win a hand-to-hand fight or aim accurately.

He was thirsty, but he lost the water reservoir’s straw. Charles did not have time to take off his reservoir and drink from it because British soldiers crawled into the closer firing posts. If he fired the machine gun, they would probably stop.

Charles turned the machine gun to its closest possible targets, and a bullet thudded into his back. He rolled over, groping for a grenade; he and the machine gun could not fire behind him unless he left the foxhole. Dozens of British soldiers would open fire if he moved to the concrete.

Assuming the fish and chip’s shop brickwork shielded him from the blast, Charles threw a grenade. He returned to the machine gun. There was few debris to spread, but pieces of ceiling crashed to the floor.

Charles periodically checked the fish and chips shop and closest fighting positions. But he never fired at the medic or soldiers retrieving casualties, though they targeted him. He aimed unreliably to the right and left of the machine gun. A British soldier shot his buttocks and a ricochet passed through his boot and bumped against his foot, stinging it.

The soldiers from the direction he came seemed to fight him and a French unit he could not see. Charles suspected it was Corporal Winters and the 3rd Section. He could not decide whether to attack them more or if it would be friendly fire. Maybe the other French units needed machine gun support more, but he could not locate them.

Lying on his stomach hurt his whole abdomen. Charles’ arms and shoulders ached and burned, and sweat ran into his eyes and stung his bitten lip. Bells grew louder in his ears.

He struggled with the machine gun’s recoil, so aimed further up the street, in front of the 3rdPlatoon’s route.

Another grenade detonated in the row of shops. The French gunfire was advancing steadily towards his position.

Carefully identifying the helmets as the enemy’s, Charles fired the rifle and light machine gun’s last rounds behind him. Then he severed a rifle strap from a dead British soldier and shot the rifle.

He occasionally looked at the British forces behind the 3rd Platoon’s route. British soldiers threw smoke grenades from the fish and chip shop’s side to the opposite side. With more effort than he usually required, he threw the last grenade diagonally from his position. He swiveled the machine gun quickly and shot several bursts, but always kept the barrel pointed at the far side’s buildings.

Charles’ erratic bursts of automatic fire became more erratic and he squeezed the trigger more weakly. Gripping the gun tired his hands.

The British soldiers reached the position adjoining his, and the British gunfire died down suspiciously quickly.

Charles fired the British rifle until it clicked. As he struggled to find another one, a British soldier’s bullet ploughed across his back’s body armor. With a sudden burst of energy, Charles tugged the hot barrel. The British soldier had screwed a bayonet to the barrel, and could still fire the rifle, which missed Charles. The British soldier broke free. Holding a bayonet detached from his rifle, another British soldier jumped on Charles, knocking him onto his back.

Pinned down, Charles held off the British soldier’s bayonet. He knew exactly how to break free, but was too weak to push against the knife one-handed and break the hold with his other arm. When he tried, the knife sliced his neck near the collarbone. The other soldier yelled something and fired. Charles flinched, but the bullet did not strike him.

He thought he heard Corporal Winters’ voice, which was odd. A French rifle was firing quite close to Charles, prompting the British soldier to look behind him. Charles clenched the soldier’s arm to the soldier’s body, but the soldier broke his grasp.

The British soldier fell on Charles, which confused him, but he snatched the bayonet.

As Charles plunged the bayonet into the soldier’s neck, Corporal Winters yelled, “Lieutenant!” The blood poured smoothly, but he expected a spurt or a gush. Again, Charles stabbed the soldier.

Charles heaved the soldier’s body off him, hearing Roux shout, and looked for the other soldier who attacked him. Attacking the other soldier, Charles noticed that an exit wound covered much of that soldier’s face. Charles considered it friendly fire, and he kept his head low.

Very muffled and in French, Corporal Winters yelled, “Lieutenant! Don’t fire at the fish and chips shop!”

“What?” Charles yelled, while Corporal Winters yelled, “We’re coming from the fish and chips shop! Don’t fire at us!”

Corporal Winters and Charles repeated themselves until Charles thought of trying French. “Qoui? Quoi?”

“Don’t fire at the fish and chips shop!”

“I won’t!” he said in French.

“Keep your head down! We’re coming!”

Charles returned to the machine gun and noticed somebody run towards him from behind. Clumsily, Charles drew his bayonet and lunged.

Saying, “It’s me, sir, Corporal Winters. Relax, relax, relax,” Corporal Winters disarmed him with an ease that would be embarrassing if Charles felt less panicked. He blocked Charles’ punch.

“Bloody hell, sorry, I didn’t know it was you. What are you doing here?” Charles groaned, attempting to roll over and reach the machine gun.

Corporal Winters grabbed the gun first. “I’m on the machine gun. Relax. Let go.” He pried one of Charles’ hands free.

“Take cover in the fish and chips shop. You’re too exposed here,” Charles said, while Corporal Winters yelled for Côté to drag him into the shop.

“Well, sir, with all due respect, shouldn’t one have thought of that before one cluttered up one’s position with corpses?”

“Fine, I’ll make room for you.” Pushing the bodies with no effect, Charles realized Corporal Winters ordered a soldier into fire, and Charles yelled, “Côté! Hold your position!” He had told Corporal Winters to command the men as he saw fit, but Charles knew how vulnerable a soldier was when he assisted a casualty. Their medic had died, and the British might shoot any infantry soldier.

Côté picked Charles up in the fireman’s carry.

Finally, the 3rd Section had a fully operating radio.

Over the radio, Colonel Noel heard the pain in Lieutenant Morgan’s voice.

“Madame, apologies for not holding our position, and for fighting in a different area than we were ordered to maneuver in,” Charles said.

“Don’t apologize, lieutenant. You gave us a chance to regroup and keep fighting,” Colonel Noel said, half-laughing.

“We’re still fighting.”

Charles evacuated last on the medical helicopter to reach the fish and chips shop.

In the field hospital, the friendly triage nurse overruled him. “Oh, you think you can fight me? I’m not even holding you down.”

Charles grumbled.

“We’re taking care of your men. Nobody will attack them here.”

Charles had abdominal surgery and after a day or so, he took short walks again and complained when nobody would tell him about his section’s condition.

Every day, as soon as he could walk to them, Charles visited his wounded men, and sometimes multiple times if they sustained severe wounds or required further surgery. Charles panicked when somebody else was in Jean Baudu’s intensive care cot. The nurse explained that he had been evacuated.

So during the doctor’s evening rounds, Charles said, “I’ll stop nagging you about the mass evacuation route.” The doctor could not have done anything to secure the route, but Charles thought he might have had an inkling of when to expect evacuation.

A nurse let Charles print paperwork from her computer. Charles asked an orderly if the blank paperwork arrived and it had. He filled out forms to award medals and promotions, writing the fill-ins on scrap paper first. He had never particularly thought about which muscles writing required, but, apparently, they included his sutured, scabbed, and bruised ones.

Still, he was able to return to light duty in four or five weeks, and the doctor expected him to fully recover in an additional four to eight weeks.

Charles’ eardrums healed, but continued infantry service would surely result in tinnitus, probably permanently.

During the Battle of Edinburgh, 4% of the 4th Bataillon were captured, 17% died, and another 35% were wounded. Of the 35% percent, 11% of them never returned to the military and 8% were transferred to the replacements pool due to lengthy recovery times. Their sister units had similar casualty rates, so the brigade rested and trained in a camp in Scotland well back from the fighting.

Charles read the letter’s opening lines, then checked the address, once from memory and once compared digit-by-digit with his paperwork. It matched his military address. He read it.

He went to Colonel Noel in the relatively stable Scottish town council house serving as a command center.

Charles handed the letter to Colonel Noel, “I think they addressed it to the wrong Charles Morgan.”

“You read it through?” she asked.

“Yes, madame.”

“Wouldn’t you know better than anybody how consistent the letter is to your action?”

“But I wasn’t trying to be heroic or whatever. And breaking the choke point just sort of happened.”

“You deserve it.”

“Could it be a unit citation instead?”

“It’s already been awarded. And you lead soldiers from units outside your chain of command.”

“What about the other soldiers?”

“Many of their medals and promotions came through.”

He decided to stop arguing. Privately, Charles wondered how the French Army had supply line issues during a well-planned invasion of Scotland, but could transport him to and from Paris on short notice.

Charles felt slightly better after speaking with other Croix de Guerre recipients.

The morning after the ceremony in Paris, our lieutenant began a journey to Scotland. He rode public transportation and caught rides on military transport, finally arriving on the same day he was scheduled to return. I’m not speculating whether he went away without leave or if it counted as his semi-relaxation time. But if there were consequences, wouldn’t the military police have detained him by now? (An excerpt from Sergeant Aeneas Winters' Letter to Miss Persephone Winters.)

Ironically, our lieutenant’s avoiding attention re the medal brought more. (I’m excluding the colonel having words with him.) A war reporter was assigned to us. Not only can the lieutenant not get rid of the war reporter, he must protect him. He hides, or he redirects the war reporter’s attention to us. The lieutenant is becoming the dedicated, loyal soldier who would never abandon his troops. It seems an awful lot of trouble for a punishment, but perhaps the colonel supported a bothersome consequence. (An excerpt from Sergeant Aeneas Winters' Letter to Miss Persephone Winters.)

After a long commercial fishing expedition, Bartholomew Morgan watched television and drank a beer. He dropped the bottle. It could be another Charles Morgan. Bartholomew had no idea what his son sounded like or how he behaved, but Lieutenant Charles Morgan was the right age and resembled Susan, but with Bartholomew’s nose.

From age nine, Charles lived in the government-run mandatory child-raising program, the Asylum. He and Bartholomew had no contact with each other since he entered it. The system interfered with reconnecting parents and children, but he was not sure if it was intentional or coincidental, and knew better than to ask. Further, his and Charles’ family history complicated matters.

And Bartholomew knew the family relations probably heard the news and recognized him, and maybe so would other people who knew him before the Asylum.

Reverend Mother called the novice Alice Morgan to her office, which intimidated Alice. She pressed her hands on her knees in the chair in front of Reverend Mother’s desk.

“If I’m not mistaken, you send a letter to your brother each month?” Reverend Mother asked.

“Yes, but he doesn’t respond,” Alice said. “Should I stop?”

“Oh, no. Perhaps your brother enjoys them but feels he can’t answer proper. Can you remind me of his name?”

“Charles and he’s a lieutenant.” She pronounced it the French way. “Is he all right?”

“I wouldn’t worry about him more than you already do. Is he about eighteen-years-old?”

“Yeah. His birthday is September 29th.”

“And remind me which division?”

Alice instantly translated it into English. “The 43rd Infantry, Land Army. It’s French.”

“I’m horrid with French. Write it down, please, so I can compare.” She handed Alice a sticky note and a pencil.

Alice wrote it. “Did something happen to it?” She thought, Did they do something wrong?

“No need to fret. So the Charles Morgan I read about was probably him. For fighting in the Battle of Aberdeen in November, he’s won the Croix de Guerre.”

“Posthumously?” Alice asked.

“No. He’s alive, as of a few days ago. He had barely any wounds, and he’s recovered from them. Physical, anyhow; it may be too soon for the others. Would you like to hear how it happened?”

“Of course, I haven’t heard anything from him.”

Afterward, Alice said, “I’m not surprised he could’ve fought hard, but I didn’t know he could do things like that.”

“I know almost nothing about the military, but few men can.”

“Can I have an opinion in a nunnery?”

“It’s risky, but you can trust me. Go on,” Reverend Mother said.

“The Bible contradicts some stuff about the French government, so should I be happy he survived?”

“I’d be concerned if he died and you felt glad.”

Anna and Charles fell asleep, snuggled together. Gunfire woke him. He bolted upright, grabbing at a pillow, where he expected to find a gun, and shoved Anna off him. Charles was about to lunge at her, but he noticed a front-lines dispatch about the French invasion of Ireland.

Scared, Anna said things along the lines of, “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Sorry,” Charles said, staring at the television.

“Did you push me?” Anna asked, rubbing her head.

Charles got his coat. “I’ll leave. Bloody hell, I beat you up.”

“It doesn’t hurt now.”

“What else do you call it?”

“Call what?”

“You got hurt.”

“You weren’t assaulting me.”

“I’m not going to sleep with you.”

“We just won’t fall asleep in front of the telly anymore.” Anna switched it off.

“We can have sex if you want, but you probably don’t want to anymore, and you don’t want to date me.”

“I’m not breaking up with you over this. I’m okay. Nothing else needs to change. Come here.”

“Then I’m not going to fall asleep with you. See you.”

When Persephone wondered if the veteran she met knew her brother, she looked through her photos and correspondence with Aeneas. Any trace of the veteran disappeared in the digital collection, but she identified him through Aeneas’ printed photos and handwritten letters.

Charles secretly wrote down everything he could remember about the action, especially Sergeant Winters. He earned the Honor Medal for Courage and Devotion, bronze grade, and for the rest of Charles’ life, he believed Sergeant Winters deserved it. When he died, none of his belongings were sent to Persephone, and Charles doubted she had it.

But presenting it to Persephone was risky, both regarding the law and her reaction. So he said, “I wrote down the Battle of Edinburgh stuff for you. I’ve forgotten a lot and I can’t check the facts but it’s probably accurate. Do what you want with it.”

“I will,” Persephone said.

Charles and Persephone requested revolutionary aid from Mr. Tambling-Goggin in Italy. He was an old revolutionary who spent the past several decades opposing the French totalitarian regime, and a cousin of the last British king, James III.

Since Charles and Persephone thought Mr. Tambling-Goggin needed to hear everything about his service in the French Army, they immediately told him. He listened attentively, often disapproving but in a reasonable, polite way. And when Charles reached the end of the Croix de Guerre action, he said, “I was fighting on the French side and I helped them win the battle, but I wasn’t thinking about the consequences. I was just paying attention to the combat.”

“I’ve fought in combat,” Mr. Tambling-Goggin said. “I’ve spoken with many of those who have on both sides. They think of each other and their fate, but not of politics.”

Mr. Tambling-Goggin thought Charles, deep down, understood some things were always right and always wrong.

“You fought courageously,” Mr. Tambling-Goggin said, who rarely used a Latinate word. “Or was it bravely? Asking if were you scared might seem silly, but?”

“Loads,” Charles said. “The whole time.”

“So you were courageous, as few men around the world could be.”

“I told you so,” Persephone said.

“No, her brother saved me. I was about to die.”

“And you attacked him, Horatius.” But she sounded amused.

“It was friendly grappling and shouldn’t have happened.”

“A berserker, as well?” Mr. Tambling-Goggin asked.

“What?” Charles asked.

“From your blond hair, you have a bit of Viking blood. May I ask if Vikings have been speaking to you?”

“You can ask. No.”

“You did a very awful deed, in the archaic sense.”

“Impressive,” Persephone whispered.

“Anybody could’ve done it,” Charles said.

After the Welsh Revolution, Bartholomew Morgan asked Charles, “Did they give you a Croix de Guerre?” he asked.

“Why are you asking?” Charles asked.

“I heard about a Charles Morgan taking on a choke-point. It would’ve scared his dad.”

“Why would you care?”

“You’re still my son. How the hell did you survive?”

“Maybe the officers said, ‘It’s just one bloke,’ and didn’t authorize a strike.”

“Your mum would’ve—”

“Don’t talk about her.” Charles began striding to the door.

“—hated you joining the French Army—”

Charles slammed the door, but Bartholomew shouted, “—she would’ve been proud of how you can fight if you’re pressed.”

George and his friends Bertie and Eamon lolled around, looking for something to do. It was raining outside, but warm enough to play. They intended to play war but objected to the rain, and Charles said that the rain was good for their imagination. Mrs. Jenkins let them be slightly bored and read to Shafaat (who had wandered over), Evangeline, Eamon’s oldest younger sister Maureen, and Zahira, Shafaat’s younger sister.

Bertie reluctantly rummaged through the junk box himself, but Eamon pointed at something and told Bertie to pick it up. Bertie handed it to him. Interrupting the argument about who should ask permission to play with it, George called, “Charles, can we play with this junk box thing?”

In his and Anna’s bedroom, Charles was maintaining his uniform and gun and did not look up. “Is it sharp, flammable, a weapon, breakable, classified, chemical, consumable, or naked?”

“No,” George said. The last prohibition confused him because he visited museums and looked through Aunt Persephone’s art and archaeology books.

“Okay.” Charles answered the secure, red phone reserved for the king.

Meanwhile, George found a box, unusual compared to everything else in the junk box.

Anna shut the bedroom door behind herself and gently reminded the children to play quietly until the King hung up. She weaned Donna at the dining table.

The boys debated what to do with the thing in the box. George said they needed to wait for Charles to hang up and decided the call would last a while. The other three boys crowded behind him while he went to Anna. Ella, the housekeeper and Mrs. Jenkins’ reinforcement, was setting the table.

“Is this real?” George asked.

“Where did you find it?” she asked.

“In the junk box. We won’t play with it if it’s real.”

The others agreed, quite seriously and unanimously.

Anna weighed the bronze medal in her hand and felt the ribbon. “Yeah, it’s real.” Donna grabbed for it, but Anna said, “It isn’t for you to hold. I think it’s Charles’ medal, so you’re right, you shouldn’t play with it.”

“He doesn’t wear it,” George said.

“But Wales doesn’t have medals. Except for the Revolutionary Medal, like me Dad’s got,” Eamon said.

“He wears that one,” George said.

“The French Army has medals,” Bertie said but looked uncertain. “Wasn’t he in it?”

Shafaat came over to see.

“It’s French, the Croix de Guerre. The King doesn’t like talking about his time in the French Army, so if you ask him about it, he might be grumpy.”

“Why?” Shafaat asked.

“Sometimes memories of being a soldier makes them feel sad or scared. It’s too hard for them to talk about. So they get upset when people ask them.”

“But medals are for good guys, and Charles was a bad guy,” George said.

Bertie nudged him.

“He says so,” George said, defensively.

“What did you find?” Mrs. Jenkins asked.

“A medal, but they’re going to put it back in the box and in the junk box. It must be where Charles wants it.”

“Want to make cardboard medals?” Mrs. Jenkins said. “You can make them up. And you can make them up for all kinds of things if you don’t want a military medal.”

Everybody thought it was a good idea for after lunch, but the other boys continued to look at the closed box.

“Maybe if we left it out, he would tell us about it?” George asked, carefully setting it in the junk box. “Or would he be mad?”

Slowly, Anna said, “He left the Land Army because he couldn’t make himself kill people his superior officers wanted him to kill. I’m not going to tell you more about that. You’re too young. The decision might have affected other people, not just the ones he couldn’t kill. He feels people might be in danger if he talks about his service.”

“Why?” Shafaat asked.

“They’re fascist bad guys,” George said.

“The French government punishes people who don’t obey them. I won’t tell you how. Charles doesn’t want people to be punished because of him. Before the Revolution, he wasn’t allowed to talk about his service and he wasn’t called a veteran. Did you put it back?”

“Yeah,” George said.

“Play something else.”

Mrs. Jenkins distracted the girls, but the boys whispered amongst themselves. George went over to Anna and he and Bertie assembled them.

“You’re curious, aren’t you?” Anna asked. “I’ll ask. If he says he won’t talk about it, don’t ask again.”

They promised.

“I met him before the Revolution, but he didn’t mention it. And he might tell you he will tell you later. If he does, don’t ask him when.”

“So we won’t nag him?” George asked.

“Partly. When he got the medal, he fought for a country. His Revolutionary Medal means he fought against the country he defended. It’s a difficult emotion. Revolutionaries have trouble explaining to themselves, let alone other people.”

“We’re wondering some things,” George said. “Bertie, go on.”

“You said you’d do it,” Bertie whispered.

“It was your idea!”

The other three boys insisted.

“The Asylum raised him to be a bad guy, but he’s a good guy now. So he was confused about what to do.”

“Maybe,” Anna said.

“Or he was pretending.”

“I don’t know when he changed his mind,” Anna said.

“Or he was just following orders.”

“The army doesn’t order soldiers to do the kinds of things that earn a Croix de Guerre.” Anna wished she could categorically say, No, he didn’t do anything unethical. “I don’t think the French would’ve awarded it to somebody doing the worst stuff. People would have found out about the bad things and the government tries to hide them.”

George said, “Charles says dictatorships give out loads of pointless medals that don’t mean anything. They think it makes them look better than they are, but it doesn’t work.”

“The Croix de Guerre is a very important military medal.”

Ella said, “Ma'am, I don’t want to butt in, sometimes His Majesty lets me say what my parents told me, but he’s always been here.”

“All right,” Anna said.

“They said nobody is completely bad. Even really bad guys do something good, even if it’s once and it’s a little thing.”

Evangeline squealed about the medal, running to the junk box.

“What about it, Evie?” Charles asked.

“I found your Croix de Guerre in the junk box,” George said.

A little strained, Charles said, “I got it for action in the Battle of Edinburgh. The award says I did a lot of stuff that qualified me for the Croix de Guerre. I did it, but not everything counted. If they were going to mention teamwork, the Croix de Guerre should’ve been a unit citation.”

“I said I would ask if you would tell them about it,” Anna said.

“Anna and I have a date in twenty-four minutes, but I’ll tell you a bit about it.”

“You don’t need to cancel?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Anybody can listen.”

The boys and Charles went into the bedroom, but everybody else had something else to do. Ella hovered in the doorway and Charles waved her inside.

Charles continued ironing. “I’m telling you about it because you need to know what happens in war and you’re old enough to pay attention. You won’t understand it because you haven’t served, and you probably think everything is right and wrong. There are grey areas. Something can be right in one situation and wrong in another situation. I think killing is a grey area, and loads of people disagree with me. Listen to your parents. Pay more attention to their opinion than mine.”

“But you’re my whatever,” George said.

“Then pay attention to Mr. Tambling-Goggin. Ella, you’re old enough to figure it out by yourself.”

Ella laughed.

Then in his command voice and posture, Charles emphasized that if any of them killed anybody outside service in the military, police, the government, and so forth, they would be in huge trouble. He would not lessen the consequences, however much people asked him to. He said that self-defense and the defense of others might result in slightly less trouble, but they must turn themselves in to the police. He reverted to his normal attitude, but the boys remained rather terrified. Ella looked dutifully solemn, but Charles knew he and she had the same opinion, and he had not aimed the intimidation at her.

“During the action that I got the Croix de Guerre for. I’ve done it for the Welsh side, but nothing that deserves a medal like the Croix de Guerre. I’ve done it for the Welsh side, but nothing that deserves a medal like the Croix de Guerre. If the New Welsh Army had one, it's against regulations for an officer to award a medal to himself, so I wouldn’t have one anyway. There are no superior officers who can award it to me. I think I was on the wrong side, but at the time, I thought I was killing bad guys and that I was the good guy. I was fighting to make a bad country bigger. I shouldn’t have been. Understanding me all right?”

Ella nodded. Bertie raised his hand; the other boys looked slightly perplexed but did not ask questions.

“Yes?”

“Dad says we ought to forgive you. Sometimes we shouldn’t utterly blame you.”

“The authorities didn’t let me know I was wrong. Maybe I knew when I was your age, but I got brainwashed.”

Charles tried to explain that he needed to order soldiers into battle but was also responsible for their lives. Though the enemy wounded or killed them, unpredictably, Charles placed the soldiers in danger, and it weighed on him, whether the soldiers volunteered or were drafted. Ordering soldiers into battle felt awful. Charles said, “So I’d be happy if I didn’t have to send anybody into combat again.”

He explained that he did not want to send his soldiers into a situation where they would die. Charles thought he led them into a bad position and could not extricate them.

“Loads of them ended up dead because of me anyway,” he said. “They died in the Land Army or because of the revolution.”

“Sir, I have an opinion,” Ella said.

“Okay.”

“When you were commissioned in the French Army, you didn’t know you would overthrow the government. And it’s like being in a civil war.”

“But I knew the French government executes suspicious persons. I thought about it a lot. If you lot ever need to overthrow me, you need to think about whether or not you can fight people you know on my side. And saying things like that is why you need to listen to your parents, not to me. Bloody h—”

“H-E-double-hockey-sticks,” Ella said, and Charles chuckled.

Though he omitted the gory descriptions, he said he killed and wounded thirty to fifty of the enemy. He and his unit held off between three hundred and four hundred enemy for approximately five hours when another French division relieved them. “I felt like I was dying,” Charles said.

Then Charles pointed out the different elements on the Croix de Guerre. “The silver star means that Général Brochard mentioned me in an official report.”

Before they left, he looked into their eyes in his command posture and said with his command voice, “Don’t talk to Lady Winters about Aeneas Winters unless she mentions him.”

“Yes, sir,” they said.

Generally showing few emotions, Charles seemed more subdued than normal.

“You didn’t need to talk about it,” Anna said. “I was going to ask you in private, but Evie got there first.”

“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“It’s not like you to put it in a junk box.”

“I dumped stuff in boxes when I moved and didn’t see it, so I figured somebody broke into my storage space and confiscated it.”

“Do your scars come from it?” Anna asked.

“Most of the ones you saw when we met,” Charles said. “Thanks for not asking about them and my service and stuff.”

Anna stroked his beard. “When we met, I thought knowing you well would take a long time.”

For years, the French government ignored the good parts of Charles’ military records and used his experience in their anti-revolutionary propaganda.

Sporadically over the years, word had spread about the Croix de Guerre, but Charles remained silent except to a few people. He allowed them to speak, but mostly they refused. Eventually, though, the French government could not ignore it anymore. They revoked his medal and asked him to send it back.

“So I figured out the postage and spent it on candy for the kids,” Charles said in a press conference.

People speculated he intended to harmlessly irritate the French government.

When the boys were a little older, Charles told them about the Croix de Guerre in more detail. Charles drew a map and defined terms. He explained the 43rd Division’s purpose and how the French forces and British forces’ decisions led to a hard battle.

“A good combat officer has to send his men to dangerous battles where they might be killed, but he doesn’t send them out into blatantly stupid battles where everybody is going to die, like the Charge of the Light Brigade. Sometimes a good combat officer ends up in a battle when everybody is going to die, and it’s not always a blatantly stupid battle, like the Chosin Reservoir. I don’t know if I’m a good officer or not, but I’ve been in hard battles. I don’t think they were blatantly stupid, and the Battle of Edinburgh wasn’t. We fought it for the wrong reasons, but we did it well. So did the British Forces.”

Charles asked a time-traveling historian, Benjamin Connor, to collect the information about his service in the Battle of Edinburgh—not to show off, but on principle, because the French government suppressed it and deleted the files. Naturally, Benjamin Connor agreed, considering Charles a rare historical relic.

The Welsh government might have hacked French files and found the data, but it was politically risky and Charles considered it a waste of government resources. However, the Welsh government and the Time Travel Institute worked together.

Benjamin used various time travel techniques to collect the lost data before the French government destroyed it. To deter political problems, he worked quietly. He and the Welsh government and he waited years to announce it.

And Charles also let Benjamin analyze it and even provided a new personal account.

Still, Charles rarely spoke about the Croix de Guerre or acknowledged he earned one.

An elderly British veteran wrote Charles a letter, explaining that they fought each other during the Battle of Edinburgh. He said they were soldiers doing their jobs, but because of that, he continued to consider Charles an enemy. But he said that Charles scared him during the battle.

Charles responded that the British forces terrified him and the wounds and death they inflicted bothered him.

(Note: It's an independent story from a world I've been working on for years; I like playing with the world when I'm sick or tired. I've written down other stories, but they haven't turned out well. I was sick, so decided to write down this one, which I haven't done before. The writing is very rough, but I think it's more-or-less what happened in the right order.)