Soldiers in the road at Fort Shafter, seeing the Colonel’s eagle insignia on the bumper, saluted the car.

One day Charlie Miller, his friend at school and on the base, pointed to a stain on his swimming trunks, saying, “I got that in Germany.”

“How?”

“Pickle juice.”

“I was in Germany,” Joe said. “It was cold. Then we went to Texas. Really hot.”

“We were at Fort Lee,” Charlie said. “Virginia. Fort Lee Officers’ Open Mess. That was where I learned to swim, at the FLOOM pool.”

While playing a game they talked of their travels, ten-year-olds, men of the world, Germany, Texas, Virginia, San Francisco. Their game was played with a bayonet on the back lawn of Charlie’s house. They stood facing each other, and one boy would throw the bayonet like a spear into the ground nearby. If he stabbed it upright the other boy would shift one foot to the point where the bayonet had stuck. And that boy took his turn to throw the bayonet, so that his opponent had to stretch his leg. And the one who could not reach the bayonet with his foot was the winner.

Joe flicked it in the air. “Where did you get this knife?”

“Germany.”

It was black, longer than any knife Joe had seen, and sharp, a thing of power. They passed this weapon back and forth. Holding it seemed to add to their talk of travel, to make it important.

One afternoon Joe threw it hard, and two inches of the blade snapped. Charlie picked it up and held the broken tip against the end of the blade.

“It’s my father’s.”

Joe dreaded what Charlie’s father would say, and feared being blamed for breaking the bayonet.

“Are you going to tell him?”

“I have to,” Charlie said.

He seemed brave, saying that, with a truthfulness that intimidated Joe. They entered the house together, but when Charlie showed his father the broken blade the man merely frowned. He’d been sitting, reading a newspaper. He put the paper down to consider the broken bayonet, then held the bayonet in one hand, the broken tip in the other.

“Nazi,” he said, putting the pieces on the low table beside his chair. He pushed the pieces away with the back of his hand and frowned and then raised his newspaper from his lap, shielding his face from the boys.

“He’s mad at us,” Joe said outside, but Charlie just shrugged.

Joe didn’t tell his mother. She would fuss. His father was away again, and he felt that part of his being the man of the house now was to keep such incidents from his mother. She’d be upset, she’d blame him, or Charlie; she would try to make the situation better but only make it worse. She’d go over to Charlie’s house, she’d talk too much, and when she got home she’d drink, and cry.