“I’d go for a cinnamon sweet roll,” Romeo said. “Hot, with the icing still melting. Almost big across as a dinner plate, that’s how I like to make ’em.”

“You make them?” Nate said, sounding disbelieving. “You know how to bake?”

“You keep forgetting those six sisters I got. When I was growing up, whichever one was minding me made me pitch into whatever other job she had,” Romeo said. “Besides,” he added, “they’re all always watching their figures. If I’d left dessert making to them, I wouldn’t have gotten anything but Jell-O. They like that for making their fingernails strong.”

“So you came here to get it, instead,” Sam said.

Jell-O was another of the mess sergeant’s standbys. Green on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Red the other days.

I thought about Romeo’s baking skills while I ate breakfast—it was an oatmeal morning—and I decided to trust Romeo hadn’t just been talking. Afterward I lingered to have a word with Major Garrett, hoping he wouldn’t mind me putting my oar in where it hadn’t been asked.

“Sir,” I said, “I’ve got this idea. There’s a guy in our tent—Harold Sanders—who’s a real talented cook. And if you don’t mind my saying so, our meals—not that I’m not grateful for them, but a body can eat just so much oatmeal—and . . .”

I kind of thought the major was struggling to hold back a laugh, and I thought maybe I really had spoken out of turn.

Regardless, soon after, Romeo got temporarily detailed to help the mess sergeant. And that first morning, when he set a tray of cinnamon rolls on the table, smelling of yeast and swimming in butter, you’d have thought from the cheers that rang out, we’d all found a pot of gold.

Major Garrett, admiring a forkful just dripping with icing, reassigned Romeo to the kitchen permanent, on the spot.

Chapter 16

Things turned difficult right after that, when the winter Pops had warned about moved in.

One evening I had the passing notion the air had a sharper bite to it than usual.

“Smells like snow,” Nate said, but I thought he was putting me on, despite the flurries we’d seen. People didn’t smell snow.

The next morning, we woke to a temperature of ten degrees and a blanket of white. The powdery snow wasn’t deep, but it blew into our faces and down our necks.

From then on, nobody bathed till it was absolutely necessary, since our temporary shower was a canvas-sided closet beneath a fifty-five-gallon drum. Icy water poured out of holes poked in the drum’s bottom, while a hose connected to a pump at the camp well kept the drum filled. What showers did get taken tended to be brief.

Just like visits to the latrine.