These military nicknames fascinate me, Asta. Soldiers either take long surnames and shave them down, or take short names and extend them with a “Y.” Some names get shaved AND “Y’ed.” Why is that? Why do some of us get a moniker and others just get their last names? And why does every squad have one guy who gets called by his first name? Like our Hank Berliner. He’s not Berliner or Berl or Berly. He’s Hank. Nobody decides or declares this. It just happens.

Even funnier are the differences between platoon commanders. Of course we grunts don’t nickname an officer to his face, but none of us call Lt. West “Westy” even when shooting the shit among ourselves. He just doesn’t invite that kind of familiarity. Yet Lt. Jorgensson is always “Jorgy.” He runs a tight ship and suffers no bullshit, but he’s approachable. And he’s Swedish, so naturally I feel a little smug kinship.

While they were in town, the Germans started shelling again.

“Here comes the music,” Jorgy said.

They hightailed it into a basement and waited out the concert. West and Jorgy were stone-faced under the bombardment, and Kennet tried hard to emulate their stoic demeanor. But with every whistling advent of a shell, his eyes screwed shut of their own accord.

I should be home, he thought. I don’t belong here.

Home seemed another world away.

“Easy, gullgosse,” Emil said softly.

Kennet’s eyes popped open.

Paps?

The endearment hadn’t come from Emil’s lips, of course, but Jorgensson’s.

“Those are eighty-eight millimeter shells,” Jorgy said in Swedish. “They fire so fast, you only hear them after they’ve passed by.”

As if cued, another whistling scream seemed to slice the building apart.

“See,” the lieutenant said. “That’s the sound of leaving, not arriving. Believe me, gullgosse, you won’t hear the eighty-eight that kills you.”

You never know what little bit of something-or-other is going to shore up your courage, Kennet wrote. After Jorgy told me about the sound of 88-shells, I didn’t exactly relax, but I didn’t jump out of my skin at the noise every time. I came to be relieved to hear them, knowing it was the sound of leaving, not arriving.

When the Germans let up a little, Jorgy sent me back to the field where the tracks were parked, so I could tell the boys to come into town and take shelter.

My mates had flung themselves in ditches or behind hedgerows, stone walls and trees. Any place they could take cover. There wasn’t a calm expression among them. Faces whiter than the snow, eyes halfway out of their heads. More than a couple had pissed themselves and I couldn’t blame them one bit.