THE ONLY USE FOR CANNON FODDER

 

The ball is in Major Richard Blaine's court, and he fears talking to men who believe they know everything

will end up with them learning nothing.

THE ONLY USE FOR CANNON FODDER

“A different world cannot be built by indifferent people.”

- Peter Marshall

 

When I long for life without difficulties, I remind myself that oaks grow strong in contrary winds, and diamonds are made under pressure.

I reminded myself of that now.

It didn’t help.

Good advice never seems to do any good when the bottom drops out from under you.

The world grew into almost blinding clarity.

I blinked my eyes at the sight of skeletons within gauze-like bodies, dust motes of energy swirling within skulls where the brains churned prosaic thoughts …

The pulsing energies caressing each body in front of me.

Then, of all people, Eisenhower came to my rescue as he shot up from his gleaming leather chair.

“You! You were not invited!”

“Of course, I was. Uncle Sam did when he drafted me.”

Churchill chuckled low as Eisenhower’s lips compressed tight as a paper cut. “I will have you shot for this! Gua ….”

He didn’t get the rest of the word out as Sentient’s eerie voice vibrated above us and into the very marrow of our bones.

“SILENCE! SIT! STAY!”

All of the audience, Eisenhower included, did what Sentient ordered. Immediately … as puppets with their strings cut.

‘Sentient, when did you develop this ability?’

‘With the advent of your birth. You know only an iceberg’s tip of me.’

‘Sentient, they are not dogs for you to command them so.’

‘No, they do not have that excuse for their lack of insight.’

‘If you can do this, why not end this damnable war?”

‘This one chamber is easy. To dominate the whole world is beyond even me.’

The King gasped, “Y-You w-will pay f-for th-this!”

‘Sentient, you did not stopper his mouth?’

‘No, I found I could not. Nature has done enough to his speech without me adding to it. Your inane sentimentality is obviously contagious.’

‘Could you allow me to ….’

She mind-sighed, ‘To heal him? Oh, why not? In for a penny, in for a pound.’

I walked towards the King as he squirmed uselessly. “D-Do n-not t-touch me!”

Churchill bellowed, “Do not dare lay hands on the King!”

‘You let him speak, too?’

‘You have allowed this to become a Greek Tragedy. I thought you deserved a Greek Chorus of sorts.’

I did what Sentient mind-suggested. With my right hand, I grasped the King’s temples with splayed fingers despite the pain it cost me … which was considerable.

It was no picnic for His Majesty either. He squirmed as if his whole body had been plunged into boiling pitch.

Apparently, General Patton was part of my “Greek Chorus,” too.

“Damn you! I’ll have you executed. I’ll shoot you myself! See if I don’t!”

I flicked weary eyes to him. “Hence, you still being paralyzed.”

I pulled my throbbing fingers from the King’s temples who would have made the ghost of Mark Twain smile when he snarled, “I would have you drawn and quartered if such were still done. But I ….”

His trembling fingers shot to his lips.

“Can talk without stammering, sir. Sentient is alien not heartless.”

‘Thank you … I think.’

The inner circle of those in power stared at me as if at a monster.

"What are you?" hushed Churchill, fear and dread mixed equally in his sonorous voice.

I read Eisenhower's lips: a spawn of Satan.

Patton studied my right bandaged hand whose trembling I could not stop no matter how hard I tried.

“That hurt you, soldier.”

“Quite a lot, sir.”

His eyes narrowed and hardened. “So, you did not lose your hands for which you received the Distinguished Service Cross?”

“Oh, I lost them, sir. I have hands like a bald man with a toupee has hair.”

“They’re artificial?”

“And my wrists to which they’re attached hurt like a son of a ….”

There came a sharp intake of breath from the now open doorway. I turned.

I froze.

For a heartbeat, I saw a pale aristocratic lady, seeming as if she had stepped right out of the Victorian Age.

‘You are seeing her as Churchill first saw her in 1895.’

‘1895?’

‘You are not the only human touched by strange destiny, young one.’

‘How?’

‘You must have me confused with Cronkite. Her story is hers to tell. Hers alone.’

The illusion of her Victorian appearance disappeared, leaving a tall woman still attractive … despite the make-up that was cunningly applied to make her look … older?

“Lucy!” cried Churchill. “Go before that abominable Sentient ….’

“Too late, my Winny. She is already talking to me mind to mind.”

“How?” he asked, echoing my question.

“My love, you have always known I am … Other.”

“Do not ….”

Lucy Churchill laughed bitterly, “What will your enemies do? If they repeat what I have said, they will only sound like madmen.”

The King spoke calmly. “If they attack you, Madame. I will defend you. I defy them to gainsay me!”

Lady Wentworth studied me as if trying to memorize my face. “Oh, Winny, do you not see the resemblance?”

“Yes, he looks amazingly like that Jimmy Stewart chap.”

“No! He looks like he whom you arrested in 1895 Cairo for that damnable Lord Cromer. Remember how he healed those beggars and merchants along the way like the Major has now healed His Majesty!”

The King frowned, “Madame, he looks amazingly like a young Ronald Coleman to me.”

General Patton snorted, “Are you all blind? He looks like that new American actor, Gregory Peck.”

Churchill’s wife looked confused, and I sighed, “Lady Wentworth ….”

“You cannot call me that since I have married Winnie.”

I snorted a laugh. “Ma’am, I am from America. You know us Yanks get all twisted up with titles. Our nations once even fought a war over it, right?”

I walked up to her, wanted to touch her arm to comfort her, but I thought Churchill would spontaneously combust.

‘You think correctly for once.’

‘Yay for me.’

“Ma’am, each person who meets me, sees me with a different face … except for my own Lucy … Helen Mayfair.”

I felt a pain worse than that of my wrists. “Whom I will never see again.”

“She is dead, then?” murmured Lucy.

“No. But I have so many enemies ….”

Patton growled, “You aren’t dead yet, soldier. You give up after you die.”

His eyes flicked to Lady Wentworth. “And maybe not even then.”

He turned those dark eyes to me. “Would you die for your Helen?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then, live for her, soldier. Live for her.”

 *

For the story of how Lucy Wentworth met young Lt. Winston Churchill. read THE STARS BLEED AT MIDNIGHT:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N758R96