Kennet did. He had his own painful run-ins with banal things. Celebratory fireworks bloomed over the St. Lawrence nearly every night. Such pyrotechnic displays had never been anything but pure pleasure for him. But now…

“I’m not enjoying this,” he said to Minor, as they stood looking up at the smoky, colorful skies. Both had their arms crossed tight, jumping in their shoes at every boom and blast, no matter how anticipated.

“Me neither,” Minor said. “Let’s beat it.”

So the two river rats took the car and drove inland, finding quiet places away from the crowds and noise.

And they talked.

“The last letter you wrote me,” Minor said. “When you talked about Mauthausen… It kind of broke me up. Because I saw something like it, but it was on our side. An ugly little secret nobody talks about.”

“What’s that?”

“Every so often the military goes on a witch hunt, rounding up known or suspected homosexuals. They lock them up in psychiatric wards. Or queer stockades. That’s what they call them. Queer stockade, queer brig or pink cell. The ones stateside are bad enough. Overseas, in Australia and the southwest Pacific, these places are fucking concentration camps. Crappy conditions, physical abuse, mental abuse. Interrogations where they don’t stop until they get a name out of you. If they can’t get names, they’ll settle for sordid details. Christ, the way they dig into the history of your pants, you’d think they were whacking off under the table. Buddy of mine who was in one of these places, he ran out of damns to give and told his interrogators in no uncertain terms how much cock he sucked.” Minor gave a wry chuckle. “Kind of made me wish I’d been there.”

“This was a buddy?” Kennet said slowly.

Minor drew a slow breath. “Maybe something closer to a Johnny MacIntyre.”

“You were together.”

“Yeah.” Minor closed his eyes. “Telling you, Nyck, if you asked me which is worse: having two ships torpedoed out from under you, or having to spend your days terrified that you and your lover will be found out? I’d say I’d need to think about it. Hard. Because being sunk at sea is no fika, but on the Lex, when I was as close to being in love as I’d ever come, I’d never been so afraid in my life.”

“What happened to him? Your guy? Where was he locked up?”

“Some shithole in New Caledonia. Interrogated from hell to Hildur, but he didn’t name me…” Minor’s voice frayed at the edges, and he shied away when Kennet reached a hand toward him. “Don’t. Just let me finish.”

“What was his name?”

“Daniel. It was the only name he gave them. He wouldn’t finger anyone else. Wouldn’t name me. He got a blue discharge. You know what that means, right?”