Time Enough For Love

DA CAPO-VI

Camp Funston, Kansas

Dear Twins and Family,

Surprise! Meet Corporal Ted Bronson, acting sergeant and the meanest drillmaster in the whole National Army of the United States. No, I have not scrambled my circuits. I temporarily lost track of a basic principle of evasive action, i.e., the best place to hide a needle is in a stack of needles and the best place to avoid the horrors of war is in an army. Since none of you has ever seen a war, or even an army, I must explain.

I had (foolishly) planned to avoid this war by running away to South America. But South America is a place where I could not possibly pass for a native, no matter how well I spoke the language-and it is loaded with German agents who would suspect me of being an American agent and might arrange some nasty accident for Ol' Buddy Boy, bless his innocent heart. And the girls there have beautiful flashing eyes, suspicious duennas, and fathers who love to shoot gringos up to no good.

Unhealthy.

But if I stayed in the United States and tried to stay out of the Army-one slip and I wind up behind cold stone walls, eating miserable food, and making little rocks out of big ones. Unappealing.

But in wartime the Army gets the best of everything- aside from a mild hazard of getting shot at. The latter can be avoided.

How? This is not yet the era of total war, and an army offers innumerable bolt holes for a coward (me) to avoid unpleasant dangers from strangers. In this era only a small part of an army gets shot at. (An even smaller part gets hit, but I don't plan to take that risk.) At this here-&-now land warfare is fought in certain locations, and there are endless army jobs not in those places, where (despite a military uniform) an army man is really just a privileged civilian.

I am in such a job and probably won't move until the war ii over. Someone has to take these brave, young, innocent lads, fresh off the farm, and turn them into something resembling soldiers. A man who can do this is so valuable that- officers are reluctant to let him go.

So I'm full of that old fighting spirit and won't have to fight. I teach, instead-close-order drill, extended drill, markmanship and care of the rifle, bayonet, barehanded combat, field hygiene, anything. My "amazing" aptitude in military matters caused surprise, me being a recruit with "no military experience." (How could I admit that Gramp taught me to shoot five years after the end of this war and that I first handled these same weapons as a high school cadet ten years from now and that my military experience is scattered over the next hundred years plus a little now and then for centuries more?)

But a rumor hints that I was once a soldat in the French Foreign Legion. a corps of one of our Allies, made up of cut-throats, thieves, and escaped convicts, and famous for their go-to-hell way of fighting-possibly a deserter from it and almost certainly under another name. I discourage this canard by becoming surly if anyone gets inquisitive and only occasionally make the mistake of saluting French style (palm forward) and correct it at once-but everybody knows that I "polly-voo" because my knowledge of the French language had a lot to do with my change from "acting corporal" to real corporal assigned to instruction, and now greasing for sergeant. There are French and British officers and sergeants here to teach us trench warfare. All the French here are supposed to speak English-but the English they speak these Kansas and Missouri plow jockeys can't understand. So in slips lazy Lazarus as liaison. Me and one French sergeant almost add up to one good instructor.

Without that French sergeant I am a good instructor when I am allowed to teach what I know. But only in unarmed combat am I allowed to, because unarmed hand-to-hand fighting does not change through the ages; only the name changes, and it has only one rule: Do it first, 'do it fast, do it dirtiest.-But, take bayonet fighting- A bayonet is a knife on the end of a gun, and the two parts add up to the Roman pilum, used two thousand years earlier and not new even they. One would expect the art of bayonet fighting, in 1917, to be perfect.

But it isn't. The "Book" teaches parries but not counters-yet a counter is as fast as a parry, far more deceptive, and fatally confusing to a man who has never heard of one. And there are other things-

There was (will be) a war in the twenty-sixth century Greg. in which the use of the bayonet became a high art and I was an unwilling participant until I managed to duck out. So one morning here, on a bet, I demonstrated that I could take on and never be touched by a U.S. Army regular sergeant-instructor-then a British one-and then a French one.

Was I allowed to teach what I had demonstrated? No. I mean "Hell, No!" I wasn't doing it "by the Book," and my "smart-alec" attempt almost lost me my cushy job. So I went back to doing it by the sacred "Book."

But this book (used at Plattsburg where my father- and yours-trained) is not bad. In bayonet fighting its emphasis is on aggressiveness, which is okay within its limits; the bayonet is a horror weapon in the hands of a man eager to close and kill-and that may be all these kids have time to learn. But I would hate to see these pink-cheeked, brave lads go up against some old, tired, pessimistic twenty-sixth-century mercenaries whose sole purpose is to stay alive while their opponents die.

These kids can win a war, they will win this war, they did win it from when you are. But an unnecessary number are going to die.

I love these kids. They are young and eager and gallant and terribly anxious to get "Over There" and prove that one American can lick any six Germans. (Not true. The ratio isn't even one to one. The Germans are veterans and don't suffer from "sportsmanship" or any other illusions. But these green kids will keep on fighting and dying until the Gernians give up.)

But they are so young! Laz and Lor, most of them are younger than you two, some much younger. I don't know how many lied about their ages-but lots of them don't have to shave. Sometimes at night I'll hear one crying in his cot, homesick for his mammy. But next day he'll be trying, hard as ever. We don't have enough desertions to matter; these boys want to fight.

I try not to think about how useless this war is.

It's a matter of perspective. Minerva proved to me one night (when she was still following the profession of computer) that all here-&-nows are equal and "the present" is simply whatever here-&-now one is using. By my "proper" here-&-now '(where I would be if I hadn't hearkened to the wild geese-home on Tertius ) -by that here-&-now these eager, puppylike boys are long dead and the worms have eaten them; this war and its terrible aftermath are ancient history, no worry of mine.

But I'm here, and it's happening now, and I feel it.

These letters become more difficult to write and to send. Justin, you want detailed accounts, written on the spot, of all that I do, to add to that pack of lies you edited. Photoreduction and etching are now impossible. I am sometimes allowed to leave camp for a day, which is just long enough to get to the nearest large town, Topeka (circa 160 kms. round trip), but always on a Sunday when businesses are closed, so I have not had a chance to work up a connection to use a laboratory in Topeka-assuming that there is one with the equipment I need, a doubtful point. I would let letters pile up in a lockbox (since it does not matter when I Delay Mail them)-but banks are never open on Sundays. So a handwritten letter, not too long and bulky, is the most I can manage-whenever I can lay hands on nesting envelopes (also difficult now)-and hope that paper and ink won't oxidize too much over the centuries.

I've started a diary, one which makes no mention of Tertius and such (this letter would get me locked up as crazy!) but is simply a daily recital of events. I can mail it, when it is full, to Gramp Ira Johnson to hold for me; then after the war is over and I have time and privacy, I can use it to write the sort of commentary you want, and take time to miniaturize and stabilize a long message. The problems of a time-tripping historiographer are odd and awkward. One Welton fine-grain memory cube would record all I could say over the next ten years-except that I would have no use for one even if I had it; the technology to use it is lacking.

By the way- lshtar, did you plant a recorder in my belly? You are a darling, dear, but sometimes a devious darling-and there is something there. It doesn't bother me, and I might never have noticed it had not a physician noticed it the day I joined this Army. He brushed the flatter off-but later I conducted my own examination by touch. There is an implant there-and not what Ira says I'm full of. It might be one of those artificial organs -you rejuvenators are reluctant to discuss with your "children." But I suspect that it is a Welton cube with an ear hooked to it and a ten-year power supply; it's about the right size.

But why didn't you ask me, dear, instead of sneaking up on me with a Mickey? It is not true that I always say No to a civil request; that is a canard started by Laz and Lor. Justin could have gotten Tamara to ask me, and no one has ever learned how to say No to Tamara. But Justin will pay for this: To hear what I say and what is said in my presence, he is going to have to listen to ten years of belly rumblings.

No, durn it, Athene will filter out incidental noise and supply him with a dated and meaningful printout. There is no justice. And no privacy, either. Athene, haven't I always been good to you, dear? Make Justin pay for his prank.

I haven't seen my first family since I enlisted. But when I get a long-enough pass I am going to Kansas City and visit them. My status as a "hero" carries privileges a "civilian young bachelor" cannot enjoy; the mores relax a bit in wartime, and I'll be able to spend time with them. They have been very good to me: a letter almost every day, cookies or a cake weekly. The latter I share, reluctantly; the former I treasure.

I wish it were as easy to get letters from my Tertius family.

Basic Message, Repeated: Rendezvous is 2 August 1926, ten T-years after drop. Last figure is "six"-not "-nine."

All my love,

Corporal Ted ("Ol' Buddy Boy") Bronson

Dear Mr. Johnson,

And all your family-Nancy, Carol, Brian, George, Marie, Woodie, Dickie Boy, Baby Ethel, and Mrs. Smith. I cannot say how touched I am that this orphan has been "adopted for the duration" by the Smith family, and to hear that it is confirmed by Captain Smith. In my heart you all have been "my family" since that sad & happy night you sent me off to war loaded with presents and good wishes and my head filled with your practical advice-and my heart closer to tears than I dared let anyone see. To be told by Mrs. Smith-with a sentence quoted from a letter from her husband, the Captain-that I truly am "adopted"-well, I'm close to tears again, and non-coms are not supposed to show such weakness.

I have not looked up Captain Smith. I caught the hint in your letter-but, truly, I did not need it; I have been soldiering long enough to realize that an enlisted man does not presume in such fashion. I am almost as certain that the Captain will not look me up-for reasons I don't need to explain as you have soldiered far more than the Captain and I combined. It was most sweetly thoughtful of Mrs. Smith to suggest it-but can you make her understand I can't look up a captain socially? And why she should not urge her husband to look up a noncom?

If you can't make her understand this (possible, since the Army is a different world), perhaps this will suffice: Camp Funston is big-and no transportation for me other than shanks' mare. Call it an hour for the round trip if I swing out my heels. Add five minutes with the Captain when I find him-if I find him. You know our stepped-up routine, I sent you a copy. Show here that there just isn't time, all day long, for me to do this.

But I do appreciate her kind thoughts.

Please give Carol my heartiest thanks for the brownies. They are as good as her mother makes; higher praise I cannot give. "Were," I should say, as they disappeared into hollow legs, mine and others (my buddies are a greedy lot). If she wants to marry a long, lanky Kansas farm boy with a big appetite, I have one at hand who will marry her sight unseen on the basis of those brownies.

This place is no longer the Mexican fire drill I described in my earliest letters. In place of stovepipes we now have real trench mortars, the wooden guns have disappeared, and even the greenest conscripts are issued Springfields as soon as they've mastered squads east and west and have learned to halt more or less together.

But it remains hard as the mischief to teach them to use those rifles "by the Book." We have two types of recruit: boys who have never fired a rifle, and others who boast that their pappies used to send them out to shoot breakfast and never allowed them but one shot. I prefer the first sort, even if a lad is unconsciously afraid and has to be taught not to flinch. At least he hasn't practiced his mistakes, and I can teach him what the regular Army instructors taught me, and those three chevrons on my sleeve now insure that he listens.

But the country boy who is sure he knows it all (and sometimes is indeed a good shot) won't listen.

It's a chore to convince him that he is not going to do it his way; he is going to do it the Army way, and he had better learn to like it.

Sometimes these know-it-alreadys get so angry that they want to fight-me, not Huns. These are usually boys who haven't found out that I also teach unarmed combat. I've had to accommodate a couple of them, out behind the latrine after retreat. I won't box them; I have no wish to flatten my big nose against some cow-milking fist. But the idea of fighting rough-and-tumble, no rules, either makes their eyes glitter-or they decide to shake hands and forget it. If they go ahead with it, it doesn't last over two seconds as I don't want to get hurt.

I promised to tell you where and how I learned la savate and jujitsu. But it's a long story, not too nice in spots, one I should not put into a letter but wait until I have a pass that gives me time enough to visit Kansas City.

But I haven't had anyone offer to fight me for at least three months. One of the sergeant-instructors told me that he had heard that the recruits call me "Death" Bronson. I don't mind as long as it means peace and quiet when I'm off duty.

Camp Fun's-Town continues to have just two sorts of weather, too hot and dusty, too cold and muddy. I hear that the latter is good practice for France; the Tommies here claim that the worst hazard of this war is the danger of drowning in French mud. The poilus among us don't really argue it but blame the rain on artillery fire.

Bad as the weather may be in France, everyone wants to go there, and the second favorite topic of conversation is "When?" (No need to tell an old soldier the first.) Rumors of shipping out are endless-and always wrong.

But I'm beginning to wonder. Am I going to be stuck here, doing the same things month after month while the war goes on elsewhere? What will I tell my children someday? Where did you fight the Big War, Daddy? Funston, Billy. What part of France is that, Daddy? Near Topeka, Billy-shut up and eat your oatmeal!

I would have to change my name.

It gets tiresome telling one bunch after another to stack arms and grab shovels. We've dug enough trenches in this prairie to reach from here to the moon, and I now know four ways to do it: the French way, the British way, the American way-and the way each new bunch of recruits does it, in which the revetments collapse-and then they want to knew what difference it makes because General Pershing, once we get there, is going to break this trench-warfare stalemate and get those Huns on the run.

They may be right. But I have to teach what I'm told to teach. Till I'm white-haired, maybe.

I am pleased indeed to hear that you are in the Seventh Regiment; I know how much it means to you. But please don't disparage the Seventh Missouri by calling it the "Home Guard." Unless somebody gets a hammerlock on Hindenburg pretty soon, you may see a lot of action in this war.

But truthfully, sir, I hope you do not-and I think Captain Smith would agree with my reasoning. Someone does have to guard the home-and I mean a specific home on Benton Boulevard. Brian Junior isn't old enough to be the man of the family-I think Captain Smith would worry if you weren't there.

But I do understand how you feel. I hear that the only way for a sergeant-instructor to get off this treadmill is to lose his stripes. Would you feel ashamed of me if I went absent over leave just long enough to get busted back to corporal...then did something else to lose those chevrons, too? I feel sure it would get me on the first troop train headed east.

You'd better not, read that last to the rest of the family. An "Honorary Smith" had best find some other way.

My warmest respects to you and to Mrs. Smith, My love to all the youngsters,

Ted Bronson "Smith"

(And most happy to be "adopted")

"Come in!"

"Sir, Sergeant Bronson reports to Captain Smith as ordered!" (Pop, I wouldn't have recognized you. But durned if you don't look just as you ought to. Only younger.)

"At ease, Sergeant. Close that door. Then sit down."

"Yes, sir." Lazarus did so, still mystified. He had not only never expected Captain Smith to get in touch with him, but he had refrained from asking for a pass long enough to let him go to Kansas City for two reasons: One, his father might be there that weekend-or, two, his father might not be there that weekend. Lazarus was not sure which was worse; he had avoided both.

Now a dog-robber type on a motorcycle with a sidecar had suddenly picked him up with orders to "Report to Captain Smith"-and it was not until he had done so that he knew that this "Captain Smith" was Captain Brian Smith.

"Sergeant, my father-in-law has told me quite a bit about you. And so has my wife."

There seemed to be no answer to that, so Lazarus looked sheepish and said nothing.

Captain Smith went on, "Oh, come, Sergeant, don't look embarrassed; this is man to man. My family has 'adopted' you, so to speak, and it meets with my heartiest approval. In fact it fits in with something the War Department is starting, through the Red Cross and the Y.M.C.A. and the churches, a program to locate every man in uniform who does not get mail regularly and see to it that he does. Get a family to 'adopt him for the duration' in other words. Write to him, remember his birthday, send him little presents. What do you think of that?"

"Sir, it sounds good. What the Captain's family has done for me has certainly been good for my morale."

"I'm pleased to hear it. How would you organize such a program? Speak up, don't be afraid to express your own ideas."

(Give me a desk and I'll make a career of it, Pop!) "Sir, the problem breaks down into two-No, three parts. Two of preparation, one of execution; First, locate the men. Second, at the same time, locate families willing to help. Third, bring them together. The first has to he done by the first sergeants." (The top kicks are going to love this-in a pig's eye.) "They will have to require their company clerks to check mail against the roster before handing it out. Uh, this must he speeded up; holding up mail call for any reason is not a good idea. But checking can't be left to platoon sergeants; they aren't set up for it and would slop it. It has to be at the point where the mail orderly delivers mail to each company clerk."

Lazarus thought. "But to make this work, if the Captain will pardon me, the Commanding General must tell his adjutant to require from each company, troop, and battery commander a report of how many pieces of mail each man under his command has received that week." (And a damnable invasion of privacy, and the sort of multiplication of clerical work that bogs down armies! The homesick ones have homes and do get mail. The loners don't want letters; they want women and whiskey. The prairie dog 'pee they sell for whiskey in this "dry" state has made a teetotaler of me.) "But that should not be separate paper work, Captain; it need only be a column of tally marks on the regular weekly report. Both company commanders and top sergeants are going to bellyache if it's too time-consuming-and the Commanding General would receive reports that would be mostly products of company clerks' imaginations. The Captain knows that, I feel sure."

Lazarus' father gave him a grin that made him look like Teddy Roosevelt. "Sergeant, you have just caused me to revise a letter I'm preparing for the General. As long as I am assigned to 'Plans & Training' no new program will add to the mountain of paper work if I can help it. I have been trying to sweat this one down to size, and you've shown me a way to do it. Tell me, why did you turn down officers' training when it was offered to you? Or don't tell me if you don't want to; it's your business."

(Pop, I'm going to have to lie to you-for I can't point out that a platoon leader has a life expectancy of around twenty minutes if he takes his platoon "over the top" and does it by the Book. What a war!) "Sir, look at it this way. Suppose I put in for it. A month to get it approved. Then three months at Benning, or Leavenworth, or, wherever they're sending them. Then back here, or Bliss, or somewhere and I'll be assigned to recruits. Six months with them and we go overseas. More training behind the lines 'Over There' from what I hear. Adds up to about a year, and the war is over, and I haven't been in it."

"Mmm...you could be right. You want to go to France?"

"Yes, sir!" (Christ, no!)

"Just last Sunday, in K.C., my father-in-law told me that would be your answer. But you may not know, Sergeant, that the billet you are in will be just as frustrating...without the compensation of bars on your shoulders. Here in 'Plans & Training' we keep track of every enlisted instructor-and the ones who don't work out we ship out...but the ones who do work out we hang onto like grim death.

"Except for one thing-" His father smiled again. "We have been asked-the polite word for 'ordered'-to supply some of our best instructors for that behind-the-lines training in France you mentioned. I know you qualify; I've made it a point to note the weekly reports on you ever since my father-in-law told me about you. Surprising proficiency for a man with no combat time...plus a slight tendency to be nonregulation about minor points, which-privately-I do not find a drawback; the utterly regulation soldier is a barracks soldier. Est-ce que vous parlez Ia langue française?"

"Oui, mon capitaine."

"Eh, bien! Peut-être vous avez enrôlé autrefois en la Legion Etrangère, n'est-ce pas?"

"Pardon mon capitaine? Je ne comprends pas."

"Nor will I understand you if we talk three more words of it. But I'm studying hard, as I expect French to be my own ticket out of this dusty place. Bronson, forget that I asked that question. But I must ask one more and I want an absolutely straight answer. Is there any possibility whatever that any French authority might be looking for you? I don't give a tinker's dam what you may have done in the past, and neither does the War Department. But we must protect our own."

Lazarus barely hesitated. (Pop is telling me plain as print that if I am a deserter from the Foreign Legion-or have escaped from Devil's Island or any such-he's going to keep me out of French jurisdiction.) "Absolutely none, sir!"

"I'm relieved to hear it. There have been latrine rumors that Pop Johnson could neither confirm nor deny. Speaking of him-Stand up a moment. Now left face, please. And about face. Bronson, I'm convinced. I don't remember my wife's Uncle Ned, but I would give long odds that you are related to my father-in-law, and his theory certainly fits. Which makes us 'kinfolk' of some sort. After the war is over, perhaps we can dig into it. But I understand that my children call you 'Uncle Ted', which seems close enough and suits me if it suits you."

"Sir, it does indeed! It's good to have a family, under any assumption."

"I think so. Just one more thing...and this you must forget once you go out that door. I think that a rocker for those chevrons will show up one of these days...and not long after you'll be given a short leave that you haven't requested. When that happens, don't start any continued stories. Comprenez-vous?"

"Mais oui, mon capitaine, certainement."

"I wish I could tell you that we will be in the same outfit; Pop Johnson would like that. But I can't. In the meantime please remember that I haven't told you anything."

"Captain, I've already forgotten it." (Pop thinks he's doing me a favor!) "Thank you, sir!"

"Not at all. Dismissed."