IN MEDIA RES

“Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.”

― Edna St. Vincent Millay

Richard Blaine awakens surprised that he is still alive.

Life and Sentient are not finished with him ...

IN MEDIA RES

“Just because it’s maddening doesn't mean it's not a miracle. Quite the opposite.”

– Rabbi Amos Stein

 

When the lights came back on, I was standing up and in a completely different place and time. My body felt strong and resilient … and my mind more confused than ever.

In New Orleans, I had come across alcoholics who blacked out, awakening with no idea of where they were or how they got there.

I never felt sorry for them. They had done it to themselves. It was why I never drank. I got into enough trouble sober.

Now, I had become just like those men, but without the cure of never taking up a bottle in my hand again.

Sentient had done it to me once more.

‘You have done it to yourself. Stupidity has consequences.’

‘You healed me! But how? You said you couldn’t … that you were depleted.’

‘The doctors are mystified as are the military investigators. In the morning you were found unconscious on the floor in the middle of a large swath of dried blood with no memory of how you got there … or how you were quite improved from the night before.’

‘But where were the bodies of those two killers?’

‘I … incorporated their … essences into you. In a very true sense, you are three times the man you once were. After that, I took control of you for a time to fend off bothersome questions and position you where I need you to be.’

Beside me, a lieutenant murmured low, “God turns you from one situation to another and teaches by means of opposites so that you will have two wings to fly, not one”

‘Amazingly apt for your situation even though the Rabbi Stein has no idea of your present confusion.’

‘Who?’

I flicked my eyes to get a better look at the older man. I stiffened as a strange thing happened: like in the credits of some movies, words appeared beneath his face. I read:

Rabbi Amos Stein. Lieutenant, father of one daughter, Rose,  husband of Ruth Goode Stein. At 31 years of age, he was already accomplished before enlisting. He followed in his father’s footsteps, became ordained and received a PhD. Enlisted after the M.S. St. Louis filled with 937 Jewish refugees was denied permission to dock in Miami and turned away. A third of the passengers to be later murdered.

‘He is the man whom you and Sgt. Savalas saved months ago in that alley when I was piloting you. He, Savalas, and you are the core of the Spartan 300. The triumvirate if you would. And you two are currently in somewhat of an interesting situation that has me in something of a quandary in how to pilot you.’

‘Why am I not surprised?’

A harsh voice intruded into our mind-conversation. “Am I disturbing you, Lieutenant Blaine? Or are you still in shock from me telling you that General Eisenhower has just demoted you to lieutenant?”

I had no clue what mess Sentient had dumped me into. So, I deferred to my old stand-by: when in doubt, confuse them with bullshit.

“No, sir. I was thinking of the Belgian gates on Omaha beach that I and Sgt. Savalas observed.”

“What?”

“The tidal-flat obstacles began with so-called Belgian gates, which are gatelike structures built of iron frames ten feet high. These sat in belts running parallel to the coastline, about 150 meters out from the high-water line.”

“I know all that prattle, Blaine. You shoveled that nonsense to Admiral Ramsey … who still hates your guts by the way.”

‘Excellent strategy, Blaine. He is quite off-balanced, allowing me time to plant another bombshell on his desk.’

‘Who the blazes is he?’

Words of neon ice appeared beneath his chin:

Thirty-two-year-old Captain Victor Sturges is in charge of the training for the LCT (Landing Craft for Tanks) crews. He had been a professional wrestler and high-school coach in Detroit before the war. Although he had never been on salt water, he joined the Navy after hearing a recruiting appeal from former heavyweight champion Gene Tunney. The Navy made him an instructor in physical education, but Sturges did not approve of the Navy’s PE program and said so. He voiced his criticisms so often and so loudly that he gained a reputation as a “Bolshie.” As a punishment he was posted to landing craft, which his senior officers regarded as a suicide squad.

He leaned over his desk and waved a sheet of typed print in my face. “This is why you were demoted to lieutenant and placed under my command! This!”

Why was everybody shaking crushed papers under my nose for whose contents I had not one blessed clue?

“You jumped the chain of command, Mister! When I refused your request for rescue boats to accompany tonight’s exercise, you wrote directly … directly! … to General Bradley.

He paused as if expecting a reply, so I gave him one, “It seemed the thing to do at the time … sir.”

Lt. Stein groaned low.

“I can bust you down to buck private, Mister. Is that what you want?”

Sentient took over from me. “I want you to save the hundreds of lives that will be lost tonight because you are too afraid to counter General Eisenhower’s inane orders against sending rescue craft along with ….”

“That’s it, Blaine!”

Sentient shook my head. ““Most of your early exercises were nothing less than catastrophic. All manner of things went wrong, but you were learning, correct? At the expense of slain soldiers who trusted you to be smarter than you were, more caring about the lives entrusted to you than you were. Vehicles broke down, lives lost.”

“Lessons were learned, private.”

“At what cost, Captain?”

The door jerked open, and a rattled female lieutenant rushed into the room. “F-Four military policemen are here, sir.”

“For what”

“T-To arrest you, sir.  F-For murder.”

“That’s ludicrous!”

My right hand raised without my willing it with my forefinger pointing at the surface of his desk. “Observe the three photographs upon your desk, Captain.”

Sturges gave a small shriek and stumbled backwards against the blinds of the window in a clatter of smashed blades.

“Sarah Arkel, on the evening of her high school graduation … the last evening of her short, trusting life. The second photo, her unmarked grave into which you dumped her after having strangled the poor girl upon her telling you of her pregnancy. And the third, the Detroit Medical Examiner’s photo of her decomposed corpse.”

The female lieutenant looked at Sturges in horror. Had the man asked her out in the past? I hoped not. Even if she were Axis Sally, she deserved better.

The four M.P’s walked briskly into the office. But the captain had already left. At least his sanity.

The stocky man stood tittering softly to himself, the fingers of his left hand held to his trembling lips. The policemen obviously expected another response from the captain altogether. They looked questioningly at one another, apparently at a loss at how to proceed.

The captain was not. He fluidly drew his Colt 1911. He pointed it straight at me. The barrel was depressingly steady. There was no way he could miss when he fired.

‘Eisenhower was right about you. You are the spawn of Satan!”

“Something like that,” Sentient said through me.

But my words were drowned out by the four shots from the M.P.’s own automatics. A homicidal officer was something they obviously knew how to deal with. They, too, were so close that they could not miss, nor did they. Not one of them.

The pale receptionist cleared her throat, not seeming to be able to tear her eyes from her dead former commander. “G-General Bradley. who called the captain to warn him, also told me to tell you, Major ….”

I raised an eyebrow, and she was finally able to tear her eyes from the bloody corpse of Sturges. “The paperwork for your demotion has yet to be filed. And as soon as you leave here, I will tear it up.”

She turned to the four policemen. “Unless you gentlemen object.”

The one closest to her waved a careless hand to her. “We have more paperwork with this than we want, sweetheart.”

Rabbi Stein cleared his throat, and the man amended his words while giving my “friend” a hard look. “Lieutenant, tear away to your heart’s desire.”

“Satisfied, Stein?”

“Lieutenant or Rabbi,” I said, finally being given control of my vocal cords again.

He shot me an encore of the hard look, which went from granite to steel for me. “You’re a Jonah, you know that?”

Sentient took control of my voice again. “Actually, a Moses.”

“That don’t make no sense,” said another policeman.

“It will, Officer. It will.”

I fought a sigh. Now, what new hell would those words bring to my doorstep?

The receptionist cleared her throat. “General Bradley wanted the two of you to come to his office as quickly as possible.”

I turned to Lt. Stein. “You best drive. I am not myself right now.”

He whispered, “The Dark Passenger?”

I nodded, hoping none of the military policemen had heard. As usual, my hopes were dashed.

“What was that?” came the question from another policeman.

“I was quoting the Quran,” answered Lt. Stein.

“I thought you was a rabbi?”

“I’m well read.”

“Oh, yeah? What was the verse?”

“Quran II 261: And Allah made him die a hundred years, then brought him back to life. He said: How long hast thou tarried? The man said: I have tarried a day or part of a day. Allah said: Nay, but thou hast tarried for a hundred years.”

The fourth M.P. jerked his head at the dead Sturges. “Well, that guy isn’t coming back.”

Fully myself again, I said, “Then, best bury him quick, Officer.”

I felt the receptionist’s eyes on me all the way out the office.

“In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments: there are consequences.”

― Robert G. Ingersoll