FOR THE TEMPLES OF HIS GODS

 

Is this the Last Stand of the Spartan 300?

FOR THE TEMPLES OF HIS GODS

“Then out spake brave Horatius,

The Captain of the Gate:

"To every man upon this earth

Death cometh soon or late.

And how can man die better

Than facing fearful odds,

For the ashes of his fathers,

And the temples of his Gods.”

- Thomas Babington Macaulay

 

“Aw, hell, no!” snapped Patton as I wrapped an arm about his shoulders. “Not again!”

I said, “War doesn’t care. To care, you have to feel, and fire does not feel. It only burns until there is nothing left.”

Closing my eyes, I pictured the seared cobblestones where last I saw Helen.

This last teleporting hurt worst of all. I cried out along with Patton.

When I opened my eyes, I had to fight to keep from crying out again. Patton did cry out. I did not blame him.

Flaring fingers of fire reached out for us from every direction.

My Spartans were yelling and shooting in all directions. They ducked behind broken fragments of walls as bullets sent chunks of stone flying.

Flames boiled out of widening cracks in the blackened concrete at our feet.

I could actually feel the ground beneath my boots tremble as if the earth itself was about to give birth to demons.

André was smiling wide as he rolled, spun, and took picture after picture of the fighting. I froze. The boyish blonde woman beside him, squealing in pleasure, took her own pictures.

She was Gerda Taro.

Gerda died on the 27th of July 1937 when a republican tank collided into a car she was traveling in.

LIFE Magazine described her as being 'Probably the first woman photographer ever killed in action'.

Taro was buried in Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris on August 1^st, 1937.

The tombstone features the falcon Horus, and the epitaph: "So nobody will forget your unconditional struggle for a better world."

Why a falcon?

I think I know. 

To me the falcon described in "The Second Coming"  is symbolic of the human race in modern times, as it has become disconnected from its roots.

When Yeats writes, 

"The falcon can't hear the falconer” – 

I believe he meant humanity has lost touch with its heart, its soul, its connection to its Creator.

But you decide for yourself.

It’s your life.

Still, here was Gerda Taro laughing and photographing beside the man she had loved.

Maybe in the end, we are all reunited with who or what we loved while living.

Maybe.

All of us will find out for ourselves one day. And, for me, this might just be that day.

One thing was for sure: my life never seemed to run out of strangeness.

To my right, a Tiger tank was ruptured with sharp fingers of metal flaring out as if burst open from the inside by a tremendous explosion.

A foul-smelling column of smoke spiraled from the blazing Tiger tank to my left.

With no consideration of being shot, a half dozen SS soldiers charged straight at us. Their writhing lips were flecked with froth as if they were rabid.

Patton drew his Colt and fired, dropping two of them.

Slacked jaw, I saw that impossible shapes were running at their heels. Nazi soldiers I could understand.

But not the madness I saw snapping at the SS troops heels. 

Not this.

In my head, Sentient snapped, ‘What you do not understand can still kill you! Do not just stand there gaped mouth. It is a dance of death. Dance!’

An icy prickliness moved under my scalp from the base of my skull up over my head to flare down towards my temples.

This sensation had only happened to me once before: when I had first received my draft notice … 

when Sentient had fully synced with my mind due to the jolt of fear that had hit me.

But instead of my mind going black as when Sentient took control of my body, the world seemed to crystalize all about me.

‘Finally!’ breathed Sentient.

‘The essences of those two O.S.S. killers and that of the murderous Captain with his wrestling ability have been fully funneled into your being.’

‘What? I don’t want to be like them!’

‘Which is why it has taken so long for your unconscious to weed out the chaff of them and incorporate the rest.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Their skills, their reflexes, their muscle memories … all yours to utilize. So do so! Now!’

Without knowing how they got there, a Fairbairn-Sykes dagger and a strange sword were in my hands. There was a blurring of attackers, and I saw they had changed faces and forms.

Mr. Morton had stepped in again. I smiled wide. He was cheating.

Elohim would step in to even the odds.

Maybe.

And maybe He already had with my new access to borrowed abilities.

As they rushed in on me, I swayed backwards so low my body was parallel to the steaming ground, just inches off the stones. 

I kept the momentum of my backward movement and tumbled in a ball.  I supported myself on my knuckles, lashing out with my outstretched legs, spinning in a wide arc.  

Men, women, and things were knocked sprawling into a tumble of arms, legs, and claws. 

I snapped to my feet, spitting into the face of a white-wigged judge trying to smash in my head with his gavel.

With a flick of the dagger, I slashed across both eyes.  “Didn’t you know?  Justice is blind.”

He clutched his bleeding face and fell upon the sword of the foppish Pharaoh behind him. 

I sent the mewing boy to inquire how his soul fared against the weight of a feather. 

My sword and knife were living fire, weaving, flashing, seemingly everywhere at once.  I darted in and among my yelling enemies.

“Damn him!” screamed a satyr.

“He’s not human,” snarled a jackal-headed woman in what struck me as almost funny.

“He’s never in one spot,” growled a confederate soldier, blood-stained whip on his hip.

Mr. Morton must have dipped into Hell for reinforcements.

It was a nightmare hurricane of slashing swords and blooded claws. 

If hurricane this indeed was, it was a storm at night, illuminated with but brief flashes of lightning, fast glimpses of dying faces, snarling fangs, tumbling bodies. 

It was chaos come to life: a true creation of the living lie that was Mr. Morton.

They came in waves. 

I thrust, feinted, swayed to the side, rolling over the mailed back of an on-rushing crusader, lashing out with the dagger again.

Two Swiss guards clutched their torn-out throats. 

I snapped to my feet, weaving an elaborate figure eight of death with my sword and knife. 

The knocked-down crusader was crushed to death under the stampede of attackers.  A howling seemed to explode all around me.

I staggered back from the push of an invisible cloud of power.

The surviving Hell’s rejects evaporated into clouds of writhing fog before my stunned eyes.

I looked at the figure to my left who had dispersed them.

Darael.

Gently he took back both the dagger and sword from my unfeeling fingers. “You fight well … for a mortal.”

Smiling, he whispered low.

“I knew from your days at St. Marok’s that you fight best with blades.”

Sister Ameal was behind and to my left, wielding a sword that looked too long for her. Behind her were three crosses holding three writhing SS troopers impaled upon them.

Have I ever told you to not anger Sister Ameal? Consider yourself told.

Patton rushed to my side, reloading his Colt. “That was madness! What the hell were they?”

Amos, panting and bloodied, said, “You answered your own question, General.”

Theo grunted, “Darael, why didn’t you ‘disappear’ them earlier?”

He shook his tawny head.

“I could not. Not until they had served their purpose. The Adversary sent them to panic Helen Mayfair into calling Blaine back from terrorizing his Nephilim with that weapon from the future.”

In her flaming angel form, she landed beside me lightly. “I do not panic.”

Dickens warily walked up, keeping a keen eye on the sizzling tongues of lapping fire so close to him. 

“What I cannot ascertain is the reason behind the dearth of the Nephilim.”

Darael shook his head at the not too wary to be verbose Spartan.

“Not too puzzling, Dickens. Brave when they thought themselves invulnerable, not so much once they saw that not only could they be injured, but they could also be killed.”

He shrugged, “They chose to be elsewhere.”

Darael looked grim. “Which is why The Adversary dipped into the shallow end of his Domain to buy time.”

Amos frowned, “To buy time for what?”

“To coerce a more formidable Other to enter the fray … at its own peril of course. But then, the welfare of his pawns has never mattered overmuch with that one.”

Eric, his uniform stained with blood but untorn, yelled out, “Great! The third Tiger!”

Reese, his face smeared with dirt and blood, cried out, “Franklin, turn around. I need to dig into your pack again and get out another thermite missile.”

Dee Stevens hurried to our side with Sam Wilson alongside him.

 “I already got the corporal here to load me up. I expected those Jerries to try us again.”

He raised the Stinger missile to his right shoulder. “Why should you get all the fun?”

As the Stinger roared, Cloverfield screamed over the sound.

“Incoming!”

Darael groaned, “Great Cthulhu!”

I looked up … and up … and up.

Darael was not cursing … he was identifying … our approaching death.

 

“Just because you die, it doesn’t mean you lose.”

 – Richard Blaine

*

Listen to the music below for an added plus to the reading of this chapter.

NEVER AN END TO WAR

Major Richard Blaine and General George S Patton fight together against hopeless odds.

NEVER AN END TO WAR

“Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.”

– George S. Patton

 

Helen murmured with disturbing urgency within my mind:

‘The Nephilim are herding the SS troops onto all four sides of the village. The soldiers are nigh unto madness with the fear of these flying mountains of fangs and talons.’

I heard her gather what courage she had for a suicidal charge, but I mind-urged,

‘Hold. They wish to send Hell our way? I will return the favor in spades. Can you send me that real-time image to me mentally?’

‘Yes.’

That was Helen for you – no nonsense when the chips were down.

With the speed of angelic thought, I saw within my mind our own swiftly approaching destruction.

Rifle-bristling, panicked Nazi soldiers rolled and undulated under the sun like water in a tidal wave of death.

I focused on the swarm closest to the village as Patton growled, “You’re glowing brighter. What is happening?”

“This,” I said, looping an arm around his waist and willed us to the blackened, cracked church steeple.

If anything, this teleporting hurt worse than the first one.

Patton cried out, “Damn you, Blaine! Next time give me some warning.”

He suddenly noticed the charging SS troops. 

As the tearing winds snatched his words to the English channel, I still managed to hear him roar, “Double damn you, Blaine! We’re about to be overrun!”

“No, General, they are about to learn that when you let yourself be herded by Hell, you run smack into it. Reach into my backpack and pull out the first weapon you feel.”

“What’s going on?”

I laughed, “Man can embody the truth, but he cannot know it.”

“You only think you are smart, Blaine.”

It was my turn to be silent while a small family of moments crossed my path, single file, from the right, sticking their tongues out at me.

They were the moments of all the times in New Orleans I had thought myself clever, and it turned out I had been quite the opposite.

I felt a tug at my back when Patton ripped open my pack and pulled the weapon Sister Ameal had mentioned earlier.

“What in blazes is this thing, and how did it fit into your backpack?”

“A thermobaric weapon made by the Russia of the future.”

“What? From where?”

“The Russians call it Solntsepyokm, Blazing Sun. It can instantly turn several city blocks into smoldering rubble with a single shot. Shove the cannister into the tube, step back, and observe.”

I felt the push of the bomb in the tube. I fixed the sight on the onrushing Nazi soldiers. I fired.

The rocket pushed back on my shoulder, but I, like Rachel, was much stronger than a normal man.

I watched a high-temperature fireball explode yards wide, causing a powerful pressure drop that sucked in oxygen all around it and created a prolonged vacuum effect.

The charging soldiers on either side of the enormous fireball were blown off their smoldering boots to lie twitching … and all too certainly dead.

“My God!” cried Patton. “This thing could end the war!”

“Shove another missile in the cannister. Quick! I want to nail that Nephilim before it can get over its shock. Now!”

I’ll give Patton this. He reacted quicker than I would have given him credit for. My body rocked as he shoved the missile in.

I took aim on the chest of the hovering Nephilim as two more of its brothers flew beside him. I fired.

The missile seemed to fly in slow motion, then picked up speed as if eager to kill. Leave it to the Russians to create a bloodthirsty weapon.

The blood of the Nephilim must have been combustible, for the billowing fireball seemed to spread for a full mile in the sky, cinderizing the two of its brothers on either side.

Patton and I staggered back from the force of the blast wave of superheated air.

The rest of the SS troops screamed at the sight and ran frantically towards the horizon, hurling their rifles away in fright. They reminded me of toy soldiers overwound.

“I can’t blame those bastards. Hell, I want to run myself.”

“We are running … to the opposite of side of Oradour-sur-Glan.

I no sooner said it than we were there on the leaning structure which was the tallest, if not the most stable, of the surrounding buildings.

Patton was again on his knees, puking his guts out. I kept on my wobbly feet as that Tunnel has toughened me in more ways than one …

And, truth to tell, sheer pride kept me on my feet in front of the arrogant man.

“Retch on your own time, General. We’ve got to get these boys before they catch on.”

“God, I hate you, Blaine. But I hate these Nazis who started all this goddamned son-of-a-bitchery more.”

He staggered to his riding boots unsteadily, but he dug determinedly in my pack to wrench out another missile.

“How deep is this thing, anyway?”

“Ever hear of a cornucopia?”

“Yes, Blaine. West Point taught us classical mythology. Got one of Zeus’ lightning bolts in here?”

“What do you think we have been hurling at them?”

“Fair point.”

He shoved another missile in and patted the top of my Spartan helmet. “Fire in the hole!”

It was then that I noticed that there were four Nephilim right at the heels of the racing SS troops. They looked more to be fleeing those hybrids than charging us.

The impression was doubled when I noticed the red-rimmed fangs, talons, and tentacles of the flying hybrids.

I aimed at the Nephilim in the center and fired. I didn’t wait for the shock blast and firestorm.

I yelled, “Patton! Quick! Another one!”

Another dig in my pack, another rocking forward as a missile was shoved into my weapon, another pat on top of my Spartan helmet.

“Fire in the hole!”

I fired at the center of the onrushing Nazi horde.

It was as if Hell billowed up from the depths in a rising cloud of madness.

Those SS troops not incinerated by the spreading hell cloud threw down their weapons and ran for all they were worth towards the setting sun.

My face felt raw from the heat of all those billowing clouds of fiery death.

I looked up into the inflamed bruised flesh of the sky. Patton blew out a low whistle.

Not a trace of any of the four Nephilim remained.

I guess their blood was flammable after all. Judging from where their fathers came, it should not have been a surprise.

In my mind came Helen’s frantic cry. ‘Richard! We need you!’

SIDE-LINED NO LONGER

 

Major Richard Blaine has an unexpected and unwelcome guest for Armageddon -- General George S. Patton.

SIDE-LINED NO LONGER

“The Lord God is subtle, but malicious he is not.”

 - Albert Einstein

 

Sentient laughed merrily in my mind, inordinately pleased with herself.

‘This Tribal Chieftain was just bemoaning to his subordinates how he chaffed at being sidelined on this, the most important day of the War.’

I felt a light kiss on my cheek. It floored me. Sentient was certainly in a mood. Maybe when I disappeared from her consciousness, she believed she had lost me forever.

‘The Tribal Chieftain obviously never read “The Monkey’s Paw,” or he would know to be careful for what you wish, for you just may receive it.’

General Patton was six foot two inches, but the way he held himself made him appear taller. Contrary to his naysayers, he didn’t hold himself ramrod straight.

Actually, he stood with his shoulders hunched slightly forward.

His force of will projected outwards not upwards. He was a force of Nature as so many falsely thought of me. I knew the truth and felt embarrassed by the talk.

Did Patton feel the same?

No.

One look in those haughty eyes said he and I were galaxies apart in how we thought of ourselves.

But I felt saddened by the knowledge gained from my surfing the “Tides of Times” that he would soon be murdered by the machinations of “Wild Bill” Donovan, head of the O.S.S., to prevent the popular general from running for president in 1948.

I idly wondered if he had been involved with Eisenhower’s use of the two O.S.S. assassins, Fred and Manfred, to murder me in my hospital bed.

Maybe if I survived this war, I might look up Donovan and ask … diligently.

Patton stormed up to me. “Major Blaine! I should have known you were behind ….”

The general frowned, “You suddenly look so sad. Damn it all! I don’t care why. Just bring me back!”

His surroundings suddenly hit him. “Gods! What happened to this place?”

“Reinhardt König, General.”

“That Kraut pinhead? He’s just the SS’s quack theorist.”

“Not so much a quack as a lousy student of math. His theories were pretty much correct. His calculations not so much.”

He cocked his bullet head. “Blaine, do you have any idea how ridiculous you look wearing that Spartan helmet?”

Rachel laughed, 

“Speaks the man wearing an antique Colt revolver on his hip, flaring riding breeches, and sparkling, gaudy rings on his right hand, looking nothing so much as a militant Sultan in search of dancing girls.”

With a wordless guttural cry, he wheeled, raising his riding crop to hit her, but since the Tunnel, Rachel was no longer as she had been.

She was stronger than three men, faster than four, and more flexible than an Olympian gymnast.

Rachel spun around, pulled his arm towards her, heaving him off balance.

Placing her bottom into his hips, she bent quickly over, squatted, and lifted the man easily as he wailed.

Rachel rolled the general off her shapely hip easily. Proving he had been off the field of battle a long time, Patton hit the blackened cobblestones with a loud “WUFF!”

She put the heel of her combat boot on his throat and laughed, “General, you have let others do your fighting for you far too long to be that cheeky.”

Rachel smiled thinly. “Next time, you would do better to sic your dog, Willie, on me.”

I restrained Theo who was about to lunge forward with a gentle hand.

“Your fiancée has hurt his pride in front of soldiers. Let that be enough, old friend.”

Rachel and Theo both glared at me, and I shrugged, “I just stated what has been unstated for too long.”

Proving I wasn’t as smart as I thought, Helen murmured within my mind,

‘It is not only that, Richard, but that thee called him “old friend” for the first time.’

Now, it was my time to be stunned: Helen could talk to me mind to mind.

‘Ever since thee invaded my mind, you oaf.’

‘I like it when you talk dirty to me.’

Patton growled, “Is someone going to help me up?”

“Of course, Tribal Chieftain,” laughed Sister Ameal,

 adding to his discomfort by lifting him up to his unsteady riding booted feet by the hand as if he were but a toddler.

I bent, picked up his riding crop, handing it to him.

As I did, my eyes flicked across the holographic image of the village’s courtyard filled with horrendous scattered corpses of the innocent victims of SS science gone amok.

“I hear you want to get into the action, General. Let me help you.”

As I gripped his arm and willed the two of us into one of the few clear spots in the courtyard, I heard Helen, Sister Ameal, and Darael cry out.

“No!”

Have I ever told you I have trouble with impulsiveness?

NO ONE READS BLOGS ANYMORE? IWSG Post

 

https://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/p/iwsg-sign-up.html

Of course you balk at my post title,

since you are reading my blog, right?

But reading is on the decline.  

One in four (27%) of us have not read a book in the last year.

If we as authors write posts primarily to other authors, 

we are in essence singing to the choir.

It is like kissing your sister, convenient but leads nowhere ... 

unless your sister was Angelina Jolie ...

but that is another disturbing story.  Brrr.

John Locke, snake oil salesman 

and book review buyer that he was

actually had a good idea:

We must write to intrigue and entice potential READERS of what we write.

HOOK 

Google Searchers with an intriguing title

 But you must follow the title with a post 

that amuses, entertains, and persuades the reader that your prose is worth gambling 99 cents on.

 On the internet, you can walk away with a click if someone fails to interest you. 

This happens all the time.

TAKE A STAND

Say your piece and stand by it.  

Wafflers are like warm tap water.  

Be hot.  Be cold.  

But write words of steel not water vapor.

You think most Indie Authors are Brand Whores?  

Say it.  Stand by it. 

Endure the storm and stand tall.  

That is what great spirits do.

ACT "AS IF"

In the documentary, "Conan Can't Stop," 

Conan explains how he gets through situations that are hard. 

He says he acts "as if."  

As if he belongs there. 

As if he knows what he's doing.  

As if everything is going to be a success -- 

no matter what he does, no matter what anyone says, no matter how hard it gets.

Write your blog, live the author life that way ...

Write As If people are reading 

and by golly you are going to entertain the socks off them.

Hey, it might even work! 

WHEN SHADOWS EAT THE MOON

 

Nazi wolves are at the door; Fallen Angels are in the sky. What else could go wrong for Major Richard Blaine?

WHEN SHADOWS EAT THE MOON

“Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.”

― W.B. Yeats

 

I stiffened as the Voice I thought I left behind me rumbled in my mind.

‘The love that rose on stronger wings,

Unpalsied when he met with Death,

Is Comrade of the lesser faith

That sees the course of human things.’

“You read poetry?”

Again, that strange laughter. ‘I am poetry.’

I felt an invisible finger prod my chest.

‘And only fools think they can leave Us behind, Richard Blaine. You are no fool. Now, is the time for you to stop acting as one. Your Spartans are waiting for you to speak. Chop. Chop.’

The Voice was right. My Spartans were looking at me as if they were dogs hearing a kitten bark.

‘Oh, tell our Rabbi Stein he is one of the very few blooms We have planted that make Us smile. We especially like his “God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposite’ s, so that you will have two wings to fly, not one.” Now, chop, chop!’

Theo and Amos had finished running down the stairs and went to either side of me. Amos elbowed Darael aside … politely. Smart of him.

I flicked my eyes to him. “Elohim says you make Him smile.”

“Wh-What?”

Theo didn’t give me a chance to reply, for he gruffed,

“What the hell were those disgusting mounds of steaming flesh back in that office?”

“The remains of König’s guards. Guess they needed their own sentries against his madness.”

I turned to Porkins. “What’s this about me being back? I never left.”

Reese scoffed, “The hell you ….”

He stopped mid-sentence as Sister Ameal suddenly appeared in front of me. I could only imagine the look she was giving him. 

I imagine Medusa’s would have been gentler.

“Ah, yeah, you did, Major. One heartbeat, you were looking up at that angel there flying away. And the next, you were a column of smoke being blown away by the breeze.”

Sister Ameal said, “Smelling of burnt flesh reminiscent of Auschwitz.”

Amos grunted, “That last was not necessary, Sister.”

“Yes, it was, Rabbi … to remind all here of the depth of depravity against which we fight.”

I tried to soothe Amos’ ruffled feathers. 

“I always imagined if I did go up in a puff of smoke, it would smell of cinnamon.”

Rachel sniffed, “As a matter of fact, you do smell of cinnamon now.”

André looked uncomfortable. “Only the power of suggestion.”

His face said even he did not believe his words.

Helen abruptly went from angel to mortal again, snaring their attention better than if she yelled,

“Are you waiting for the shadows to eat the moon? Two hundred SS commandos are right at our door, and their three Tiger tanks will do the knocking for them.”

Johnny Knight nervously asked, “What about them Neah, Neim, … them hybrids whatevers?”

Darael scoffed, 

“They are lagging back to see if the psychotic Nazi troops with their clanking tanks can spare them the ignominy of having to soil their tentacles with our flesh.”

Vincent grunted, 

“Just let them get within rifle range, I’ll show them humiliation.”

Evans said, 

“That nun over there was going to give us a slideshow or something to show us just they all were doing when you showed up.”

I turned to her. “Slideshow?”

She snorted, “Simple language for simple minds.”

“Kit” Carson huffed, “We love you, too, Nun.”

Sister Ameal met my eyes. “I gather you would hold it against me if I killed that one?”

Carson swallowed, “I know I would, Lady.”

I shook my head. “Play nice.”

“This is me playing nice.”

“Slideshow, remember?”

Her brilliant white habit nodded once sharply. “Holographic projections of events in real time like so.”

She waved her open right palm in front of her and a flickering vista of the village as if seen from an airplane appeared across the blackened cement of the shattered road.

“Oh, man,” groaned Pablo Dimitri. “Oh, man. Oh, man!”

I didn’t blame Pablo. 

The village was surrounded by bristling troops. They seemed to number many more than two hundred. Many, many more.

Sister Ameal frowned disappointed at me. I was used to that look … kind of. All right. Not at all.

“Your Party Line filled with those tribal chieftains had quite an effect on Colonel Verner as he listened in. He now knows you were playing him for a fool. The increased troops are a direct result of his fury at that.”

Rachel gave me a wry “I told you so” look.

Helen sighed, “Richard will think of something. He always does.”

I was glad she thought so. I wasn’t so sure.

Sister Ameal said, 

“I can give your Spartans weapons that will deal with even this many troops. But they are cruel, savage, inhumane.”

Amos, still rubbed raw by the gas oven remarks from her, uncharacteristically said in a husk, “That is all right with me, Sister.”

She locked eyes with him. “I will remind you of that later.”

Sister Ameal drew in a deep, deep breath.

“These are terrible weapons. The Nazi are experimenting with crude versions of these on the Eastern front. 

Ironically enough, one hundred and ten years from now, the Russians themselves will have perfected them into a handheld version much like your Stinger missiles.”

I fought a shiver. What kind of weapons were they that they could affect the avatar of Sentient so?

She was still talking. “They call them Solntsepyokm, Blazing Sun.”

She turned my head to fully face her. “Who are your strongest stomached Spartans?”

I turned to Reese, but I shook my head at soft-hearted Porkins who objected. “Trent goes; I go.”

Reese said, “Franklin can reload for me.”

I nodded. “Jace, you and Knight. Theo, you and Ant.”

Amos said, “I go with Theo.”

“What the hell is going on here? Where the blue blazes am I?”

I turned around. Oh, why the hell not? It was helmetless General George S. Patton.