Harry Turtledove - Return engagement

Instead, he got an oak-leaf cluster for his Purple Heart, an honor he would gladly have done without. The decoration looked absurd on the green-gray government-issue pajamas he wore.

Even though the exercises hurt, he did keep up with them. He'd done that with his wounded leg, too, once it finally healed enough to let him. His thigh still twinged every once in a while, but he could use it as well as the other. Dr. Rohde beamed at him a few days later. "You are a conscientious man, Colonel."

"Doc, what I am is one stubborn son of a bitch." The two phrases meant the same thing, but Morrell preferred his version. He went on, "Long as you're here, Doc, I've got a question for you."

"If I know the answer, you will have it." Rohde still looked and sounded mighty cheerful for a medical man. Morrell wondered if he'd been getting into the prescription brandy.

Well, if he had, that would only make his tongue flap more freely. Morrell asked, "Am I the only officer you know of who's been specifically targeted, or are the Confederates really trying to knock off people who know what they're doing?"

"I did not know you had been, let alone any others," Rohde said.

So much for that, Morrell thought. Aloud, he said, "I damn well was. That sniper bastard took two more shots at me after I got hit, when they were carrying me off to cover." And thank God for Sergeant Pound's strong, broad back. "He missed me by a gnat's whisker both times, and he didn't even try for anybody else. So am I just lucky, or is Jake Featherston trying to kill officers who've shown that they're competent?"

"Let me try to find out." Dr. Rohde pulled a notepad from the breast pocket of his long white jacket. He scribbled something on the pad, then stuck it back in the pocket.

"You going to be able to read that?" Morrell gibed.

Rohde took the pad out again, wrote something else in it, tore out that sheet of paper, set it on Morrell's bed, and left his room. Morrell picked up the paper with his good hand. Mind your own goddamn beeswax, he read. The script was an elegant copperplate; a schoolteacher would have envied it. Morrell laughed out loud. There went one cliche, shot down like a dive bomber with a fighter on its tail.

For the next few days, Conrad Rohde was all business. Morrell wondered if he'd really offended the doctor. He didn't think he should have, but how could anybody know for sure? Maybe he'd been the fourth guy to rag on Rohde's writing in the space of an hour and a half. That would frost anybody's pumpkin.

At the end of the examination, though, the doctor said, "I haven't forgotten about what you asked. I'm trying to find out."

"All right," Morrell said mildly. "Uh-thanks."

"You're welcome," Rohde answered. "For whatever you may think it's worth, some of the people to whom I've put your question seem to think it's very interesting."

"I'd rather they thought I was full of hops," Morrell said. "The war would be easier if they did."

Rohde didn't say anything about that. He just finished writing up Morrell's vital signs and left the room. When he came back that afternoon, he set another sheet of paper from his notepad on the bed. Again, he left without saying a word.

Morrell read the sheet. In that same precise script-rub it in, Doc, why don't you? he thought-Rohde had listed seven names. Beside four of them, he'd written KIA. Beside the other three was the word wounded. Morrell recognized five of the names. He knew two of the men personally, and knew of the other three. They were all officers who were good at whatever they happened to do: infantry, artillery, one a genius at logistics. That lieutenant-colonel had kia by his name; someone else, someone surely less capable, was filling his slot now.

The doctor didn't return till the following morning. By then, Morrell had all he could do not to explode. "They are!" he exclaimed. "The sons of bitches damn well are!"

"So it would seem," Rohde answered. "You've certainly found a pattern. Whether the pattern means something is now under investigation."

"If it's there, it has to mean something," Morrell said.

But the doctor shook his head. "If you're in a crap game and somebody rolls four sevens in a row, that just means he's hot. If he rolls fourteen sevens in a row, or twenty-"

"That means he's playing with loaded dice," Morrell broke in.

"Exactly," Rohde said. "So-which is this? Four sevens in a row, or fourteen? All these officers have served at or near the front. Plenty of people who'd never make your list have got shot, too. So maybe this is a coincidence. But maybe it isn't, too. And if it isn't, you're the one who spotted it."

"Thanks a lot," Morrell said. "There's one more prize I'd just as soon not win."

"Why?" Rohde said. "We can do a better job of protecting our people if we know this than we could before we knew. That may come to matter, and not a little, either."

Morrell's grimace, for once, had nothing to do with his shattered shoulder. "And what else will we do? Go after the Confederates the same way?"

"I wouldn't be a bit surprised," Dr. Rohde said.

"Neither would I." Morrell pulled another horrible face. "Makes the war even more wonderful than the bombing raids and the poison gas and the machine guns, doesn't it?"

Rohde shrugged. "No doubt. You're the one who makes his living fighting it, though, you and the fellows like you on the other side. I just make mine patching up the ones you don't quite kill."

"Thanks a lot, Doc. I love you, too."

"I'm not saying we don't need soldiers. I've never said that. There's no way to get rid of such people, not without everybody doing it at the same time. If you think twenty sevens in a row are unlikely… But don't expect a doctor to get all misty-eyed and romantic about war, either. I've seen too much for that."

"So have I," Morrell said soberly. "Plenty of people have ugly jobs. That doesn't mean they don't need doing."

"Well, all right-we're not so far from the same page, anyhow," Rohde said. "I'll tell you, though, I've heard plenty who won't admit even that much."

Somebody down the hall shouted his name. He muttered something vile under his breath, then hurried off. Patching up another one my Confederate counterparts didn't quite kill, Morrell thought. They'll get reprimanded if they don't quit screwing up like that. He chuckled, though it wasn't really funny. Up till now, he'd never thought about war from a doctor's point of view.

Here he was, flat on his back again. For the first time since he'd got shot in 1914, he had plenty of time to lie there and think about things. He couldn't do much else, as a matter of fact. After he asked for a wireless set, he had it to help him pass the time. Sometimes the saccharine music and the sports shows and the inane quizzes made him want to scream. Sometimes what passed for news in the civilian world made him want to scream, too.

He solved that problem by turning off the wireless. Then he stared at the set sitting there on the little table by the bed. What good was it to him if he didn't listen to it? On the other hand, what good was it to him if it drove him out of his mind?

He was still trying to work that out three days later when he had a visitor. "Good God in the foothills!" he exclaimed. "I didn't know they let you out of Philadelphia except when you needed to make a mess on the floor."

Colonel John Abell gave him a thin, cool smile-the only kind the cerebral General Staff office seemed to own. "Hello," Abell said. "You do pose interesting questions, don't you? Well, I've got a question for you-can you open this?" He handed Morrell a small box covered in felt.

"Damn straight I can. I can do almost anything one-handed these days." Morrell proceeded to prove himself right-and then stared at the pair of small silver stars inside the box.