MATT HELM: The War Years (28 page)

I looked at them and grinned.  "What, no Purple Heart?"  I'd just spent three months in various hospitals.  The official story was that a jeep had turned over on me while out on an assignment near Paris for Army Public Relations.  Well, I suppose that scars from a Nazi grenade don't look a whole lot different than those from a demolished American jeep, especially when the more obvious bullet holes have been carefully erased by a discreet plastic surgeon.

He didn't smile.  "Don't take these discharge papers too seriously, Eric.  You're out of the Army, to be sure, but don't let it go to your head."

"Meaning what, sir?"

"Meaning that there are going to be a lot of chaps" - like all of us, he'd picked up some British turns of speech overseas - "impressing a lot of susceptible maidens with what brave, misunderstood fellows they were throughout the war, prevented by security from disclosing their heroic exploits to the world.  There are also going to be a lot of hair-raising, revealing, and probably quite lucrative memoirs written."  Mac looked up at me, as I stood before him.  I had trouble seeing his face clearly, with that bright window behind him, but I could see his eyes.  They were gray and cold.  “I'm telling you this because your peacetime record shows certain literary tendencies.  There'll be no such memoirs from this outfit.  What we were, never was.  What we did, never happened.  Keep that in mind, Captain Helm."  His use of my military title and real name marked the end of a part of my life.  I was outside now.

I said, "I had no intention of writing anything of the kind, sir."

"Perhaps not.  But you're to be married soon, I understand, to an attractive young lady you met at a local hospital.  Congratulations.  But remember what you were taught, Captain Helm.  You do not confide in anyone, no matter how close to you.  You do not even hint, if the question of wartime service is raised, that there are tales you could tell if you were only at liberty to do so.  No matter what the stakes, Captain Helm, no matter what the cost to your pride or reputation or family life, no matter how trustworthy the person involved, you reveal nothing, not even that there's something to reveal."  He gestured towards the papers on the desk.  "Your cover isn't perfect, of course.  No cover is.  You may be caught in an inconsistency.  You may even meet someone with whom you're supposed to have been closely associated during some part of the war, who, never having heard of you, calls you a liar and perhaps worse.  We've done all we can to protect you against such a contingency, for our sakes as well as yours, but there's always the chance of a slip.  If it happens, you'll stick to your story, no matter how awkward the situation becomes.  You'll lie calmly and keep on lying.  To everyone, even your wife.  Don't tell her that you could explain everything if only you were free to speak.  Don't ask her to trust you because things aren't what they seem.  Just look her straight in the eye and lie."

"I understand," I said.  "May I ask a question?"

"Yes."

"No disrespect intended, sir, but how are you going to enforce all that, now?"

I thought I saw him smile faintly, but that wasn't likely.  He wasn't a smiling man.  He said, "You've been discharged from the Army, Captain Helm.  You've not been discharged from us.  How can we give you a discharge, when we don't exist?"

And that was all of it, except that as I started for the door with my papers under my arm he called me back.

I turned snappily.  "Yes, Sir."

"You're a good man, Eric.  One of my best.  Good luck."

It was something, from Mac, and it pleased me, but as I went out and, from old habit, walked a couple of blocks away from the place, before taking a cab to where Beth was waiting. I knew that he need have no fear of my confiding in her against orders.  I'd have told her the truth if it had been allowed, of course, to be honest with her; but my bride-to-be was a gentle and sensitive New England girl, and I wasn't unhappy to be relieved, by authority, of the necessity of telling her I'd been a good man in that line of business.  It was time to put that business behind me once and for all.  And what better way than with a sweet and soft and innocent girl who had never seen a dead man, except perhaps in an antiseptic hospital bed. 

When the cab stopped, I reached into my pocket for some money.  My fingers felt the knife and, for some reason, I pulled it out.  What I had was a folding hunting knife of German Solingen steel.  There were two blades, a corkscrew, and no tricks except that when the large blade was opened it locked into place, so it couldn't close accidentally on your fingers, no matter what resistance it met in dressing out game - or in any other occupation you might find for it.  I remembered taking it off the body of the Nazi general after my own knife had jammed and broken between his ribs and Tina has finished the job with the butt of a rifle.  It wasn't as big as a fighting knife ought to be, by a long shot, and it wasn't worth a damn for throwing, being balanced all wrong.  But it was inconspicuous enough so that I could carry it anywhere, and even be seen paring my fingernails with it, without attracting much attention except for my bad manners.  I'd carried it through the last year of the war, never having occasion to use it, as the saying goes, in anger.

As I paid the cab driver, I considered giving him the knife as a tip.  I grimaced at the thought of such an empty gesture and put it back in my pocket.  Memories and all, the knife was mine, and I would keep it.

Never mind a girl named Tina, with the violet eyes and deadly skills, who not only had seen several dead men, but had made many of them that way.  Tina, who might be waiting somewhere over there, waiting for someone who no longer existed.  I turned and started up the stairs to where Beth waited…

The End