“It will be quiet, and you can gather yourself. I understand there are mineral springs of some repute.”

Cole looked out the window. He stood and then touched his fingertips to the glass, as if proving it was real. Then he extended his hand. “Thank you,” he said.

As Cole passed into the hall, Ironside stood and went to his window. He waited until he saw Cole outside, crossing the town square, and being escorted to his well-earned rest. Then he called for his newest ADC, a pale Bristol lad who tried never to speak, for he had perpetual singultus.

“Is Mr. Cole being relocated to the sanatorium? Yes? Good. He’s going to be sending a cable to his superiors providing his opinions. I would like you to delay his for several hours, but send one for me now, please. As follows: ‘Felix Cole exhausted, stop. Has withdrawn upon observation to mental hospital, stop. Hoping his faculties return soon, stop.’” Ironside paused here. “‘Am allowing him full use of diplomatic channels as sign of respect.’”

Ironside thought, “That, Felix Cole, is true diplomacy.”

26

The puppies woke up in the middle of each night to play their wobbly games, which did not yet involve walking. They slept beside Leland’s bunk in a small wire enclosure about two feet by two feet, stuffed with blankets and scraps of ruined uniforms, with a dish of water. Lee was glad there were two puppies, because it allowed them to learn how to be dogs. For instance, when they were three weeks old, they discovered they had teeth, and that it was interesting to bite things (such as Lee), which is where the lesson might have ended for Nanette had her brother not been there to bite back. The first time Nanette yelped, Lee jumped up in bed, finding Nanette already exacting revenge on her brother’s ear.

He listened to their tiny snarls, the warrior challenges of elves, and tried to relax. They were just puppies. Nanette and he called the other one Boy, which was hardly a name. “Boy” meant Lee hardly cared, still. They meant nothing more to him than that. Everyone loved stories about puppies. The war, he said to himself in his best Photoplay magazine-interview voice, it was a horror, of course, but also a crucible of heroism. For instance, and this is quite the amusing story, I once had a fifteen-year-old whore suckle puppies.

The close rafters of the ceiling, the radium dial of his watch: three-fifteen in the morning. The rest of the men, able to sleep. And devious mewling of two hungry animals wrestling in the dark.

“I have to give the puppies to someone else.”

“But you haven’t. I think you want them.”

“No,” Lee said. “I can’t handle them they’re too much,” which came out in one breath.

Harry was impressed to hear about Nanette biting Boy. “She already knows aggression. That is quite early.”

“Harry?”

“Yes.”