A while after, he asked Fenn who it was that had Morris in their betting pool.
Fenn just lay there breathing for a minute. Carter could see him only by the glow of his cigarette. “Ted,” he finally said. “Ted had Morris.”
But Carter was pretty sure he was lying.
The next morning, Ted made another appearance in the mess. Most of the outfit was there, everyone on edge, delicate, moving as if afraid absolutely anything had the potential to upset a fragile peace that wasn’t peace at all, but was just nothing having gone wrong for a minute, then two, then three.
“New orders,” Ted had said. “Effective now.” He dropped a few sheets of paper on the table closest the door through which he’d entered. Then he exited through the same without saying anything more.
No one looked. Not immediately. No one got up, no one went to examine Ted’s leavings. By unspoken consent, they all pretended he’d been a bad dream best banished by ignoring it’d ever come.
But eventually, people had to leave. Had to go out into the cold and the world. And when they did, everyone went out through the door Ted had used and, on their way, looked at the papers he’d dropped.
Carter was no different. He walked a deliberately long path around the mess, but the table, the papers, they had gravity. They drew him. And when he looked, he saw a new roster, handwritten in a small, fiercely controlled hand; three pages so crowded with times and patrol orders and map coordinates that they all ran together into a bramble. There were day flights and night flights. Overlapping coverages. Crossing radials. So fat now with fuel and bombs and bullets, why not? Ted’s plan was plain. He’d written it at the top of the first page, in letters scribbled in so heavy and dark that they’d torn the paper.
NO ONE DIES.
Later, Carter found Tommy Hill from his squadron and Charlie from Fenn’s third in his and Fenn’s tent, viciously stoking the fire in the little potbelly. They were jamming stick upon stick into the thing, working in tandem, each urging the other on. Tommy and Charlie both had night flights on the new roster—two of the first, and due to lift in a few hours. Fenn was on his bed, aimlessly thumbing a smartpaper copy of Wind, Sand and Stars, regularly touching the flip button without looking at the pages. Cat was backed into a distant corner, looking suspicious and pissed.
Charlie and Tommy took no notice of Carter as he came in, sidled around the perimeter of the tent, and hauled up close to Fenn’s side.
“What are they doing?” he asked, squatting beside Fenn’s rack, whispering because there was something so focused and unreal about the sight of the two of them blindly jamming lumber into the stove, stoking a fire that was already throwing off waves of blistering heat.
“Haven’t the slightest idea,” Fenn said, brushing the paper with his thumb and making it turn another page. “They showed up about a half hour ago. Said it was too cold in Tommy’s tent and wanted to make a fire. Been at it ever since.”
“And you don’t think that’s a little weird?”
Fenn looked at Carter, looked down at his lap, looked back at Carter. Carter looked down. Hidden by the paper was Fenn’s sidearm—cocked and loaded—lying on his belly.
“I think it’s a lot weird,” he said, and went back to turning pages.
Carter stood, then stepped forward. “Tommy,” he snapped. “The fuck are you two doing over there? Drop the lumber and step away from the stove.”
Neither of them slowed. Neither acknowledged Carter had spoken. He looked back at Fenn and rolled his eyes. Fenn shrugged. “‘La vérité pour l’homme, c’est ce qui fait de lui un homme,’” he said, and tapped the page without looking at it.
Carter shook his head, walked over to them, laid a hand on Tommy’s shoulder. Tommy, who was closest to him, feeding sticks to Charlie. Tommy, who’d been his friend and his squadron mate for two years, been solid and dependable, been always on Carter’s wing.
Tommy, who felt the touch of Carter’s hand on his shoulder, spun and laid the snapped end of an inch-thick branch across the side of Carter’s head with a snarl and shouted, “Get off me, you fucker!”
The stick did no damage, but it hurt like a lash, and Carter staggered back, mostly out of surprise. For an instant, his brain seemed torn between laughter and rage. His breath snagged in his throat in half a giggle. Then the red veil dropped over his eyes and he charged in, swinging. He hooked Tommy (who’d gone back to hunching over the rapidly diminishing woodpile) under one arm, spun him around, and gave him a jackhammer punch in the eye, his whole body weight behind it, dropping it on him from a height. Tommy went down to his knees and Carter hit him again. He tried for a third, but Tommy’d gotten his arms up, so he kicked him instead—heel of his boot into Tommy’s side, pushing him over and stepping across him. When he looked up, he saw Charlie, his two fists, squeezed together, coming around like a bat.