Read Online A Midnight Clear: A Novel by William Wharton - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: William Wharton
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place, just keep an eye on the road and bridge.
I crack out new grenades and issue two extras all around; we’re each carrying bandoliers, plus the clips on our belts. Our fifty caliber is loaded with armor piercing, every sixth shell tracer. We can’t do anything against a tank, even with AP, but maybe it’ll slow down a weapons or troop carrier. Hell, nobody’ll be rolling through here with anything like that; I should relax.
Miller comes in with a ring of rusty keys. He found them hanging on a hook inside the well when he took off the cover checking to see if it looked polluted. There’re about twenty keys, all huge and ornate.
Gordon lights one of the flambeaux. He, Shutzer, Miller and I go on an exploration. We’re finally doing some recon; Major Love would be proud of us.
We find stairs to the cellar outside on the back wall and work our way down winding eroded steps to a dirt floor. It’s warmer here but humid. The ceilings are arched in stone and festooned with dirt-heavy cobwebs. If it gets really cold, we could live down here, but we’ve had enough sleeping in cellars.
I’m looking for another entrance from inside to use in case somebody comes charging through the front door upstairs, but there are only three small rooms, a dead end, and nothing but the outside stairwell we came down.
Miller’s working out the permutations and probabilities for twenty keys and three doors; finally he gets them open. In one, there’re eight bottles of wine. From the straw and empty racks it looks as if somebody’s already ransacked most of it. In another cellar there are two crates of canned sardines. The last cellar is empty except for rusty old tools and some broken chairs.
We gather up the wine and sardines; they’ll give some zest to the D rations. Miller hauls along three of the broken chairs for burning. We stash the cans of sardines and bottles of wine beside the hearth; Miller cracks the chairs and throws some rungs on our fire.
Next we climb a stairway on the far wall from our fireplace. It curves upward to a landing, then turns back along the rear wall. We open a tall, wooden door onto a hall running the length of the château, almost like a hotel hallway. Miller’s fooling with his keys again. He’s marked off the cellar keys so he’s down to seventeen. It turns out one key opens all hall doors.
The first room has three walls lined with books, including a recessed spot for a globe of the world. Most of Europe on it is German. The floor is carpeted and there’s oak wainscoting up about three feet. I pull aside the curtains on the fourth wall, open a window and push out the shutter. I’m looking down from the front of our château and see Mother by the bridge.
Maybe I should make the upper guard post in here; be a hell of a lot more comfortable. But somehow it seems wrong, turning a beautiful room like this into a guard post. Wilkins probably wouldn’t let me anyway. Also, if anything happened, whoever was up here would be trapped.
I go around looking at the books. They’re all French or German, no English. I’m not exactly sure which country we’re in; could be Belgium, Luxembourg, France or even Germany; we’re at a place where they more or less come together. I don’t know what time it is, what day or what country. I’m not even sure of my own name. Next thing they’ll be making me a general.
The other rooms are bedrooms, five of them. There are furniture marks on the floors but the rooms are empty. The biggest room has full-length mirrors along one wall, the wall away from the windows. God, we’re ugly; dirty, gangling, baggy; shuffling in a hunching crouch like animals. We’re walking, talking Bill Mauldin cartoons or van Gogh potato eaters. We look as if we’re holding things in, at the same time, keeping things out; a permanent state of negative expectation.
I stop in front of one mirror, straighten, try to recognize myself; who is this, who am I?
Gordon’s up close
I crack out new grenades and issue two extras all around; we’re each carrying bandoliers, plus the clips on our belts. Our fifty caliber is loaded with armor piercing, every sixth shell tracer. We can’t do anything against a tank, even with AP, but maybe it’ll slow down a weapons or troop carrier. Hell, nobody’ll be rolling through here with anything like that; I should relax.
Miller comes in with a ring of rusty keys. He found them hanging on a hook inside the well when he took off the cover checking to see if it looked polluted. There’re about twenty keys, all huge and ornate.
Gordon lights one of the flambeaux. He, Shutzer, Miller and I go on an exploration. We’re finally doing some recon; Major Love would be proud of us.
We find stairs to the cellar outside on the back wall and work our way down winding eroded steps to a dirt floor. It’s warmer here but humid. The ceilings are arched in stone and festooned with dirt-heavy cobwebs. If it gets really cold, we could live down here, but we’ve had enough sleeping in cellars.
I’m looking for another entrance from inside to use in case somebody comes charging through the front door upstairs, but there are only three small rooms, a dead end, and nothing but the outside stairwell we came down.
Miller’s working out the permutations and probabilities for twenty keys and three doors; finally he gets them open. In one, there’re eight bottles of wine. From the straw and empty racks it looks as if somebody’s already ransacked most of it. In another cellar there are two crates of canned sardines. The last cellar is empty except for rusty old tools and some broken chairs.
We gather up the wine and sardines; they’ll give some zest to the D rations. Miller hauls along three of the broken chairs for burning. We stash the cans of sardines and bottles of wine beside the hearth; Miller cracks the chairs and throws some rungs on our fire.
Next we climb a stairway on the far wall from our fireplace. It curves upward to a landing, then turns back along the rear wall. We open a tall, wooden door onto a hall running the length of the château, almost like a hotel hallway. Miller’s fooling with his keys again. He’s marked off the cellar keys so he’s down to seventeen. It turns out one key opens all hall doors.
The first room has three walls lined with books, including a recessed spot for a globe of the world. Most of Europe on it is German. The floor is carpeted and there’s oak wainscoting up about three feet. I pull aside the curtains on the fourth wall, open a window and push out the shutter. I’m looking down from the front of our château and see Mother by the bridge.
Maybe I should make the upper guard post in here; be a hell of a lot more comfortable. But somehow it seems wrong, turning a beautiful room like this into a guard post. Wilkins probably wouldn’t let me anyway. Also, if anything happened, whoever was up here would be trapped.
I go around looking at the books. They’re all French or German, no English. I’m not exactly sure which country we’re in; could be Belgium, Luxembourg, France or even Germany; we’re at a place where they more or less come together. I don’t know what time it is, what day or what country. I’m not even sure of my own name. Next thing they’ll be making me a general.
The other rooms are bedrooms, five of them. There are furniture marks on the floors but the rooms are empty. The biggest room has full-length mirrors along one wall, the wall away from the windows. God, we’re ugly; dirty, gangling, baggy; shuffling in a hunching crouch like animals. We’re walking, talking Bill Mauldin cartoons or van Gogh potato eaters. We look as if we’re holding things in, at the same time, keeping things out; a permanent state of negative expectation.
I stop in front of one mirror, straighten, try to recognize myself; who is this, who am I?
Gordon’s up close
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