Lavender Morning p.19 Read online

  “Her,” Corporal Smith said as he reached up and took a cigarette from David Clare’s lips. It was burning down and about to singe him.

  “Who?” the captain asked impatiently. Sometimes these men didn’t seem to realize there was a war going on.

  The corporal took a last drag off Clare’s cigarette, then nodded toward the big building in front of them. It had once been beautiful, but now a quarter of it was rubble. Standing on the steps was General Austin, a short bulldog of a man who seemed to believe all words should be uttered as quickly, as succinctly, and as loudly as possible. His orders had been known to put tears in grown men’s eyes. The soldiers played a game they called “Worse than Austin.” First line of battle or fifteen minutes alone with Austin? Torture or Austin? In the last year they’d developed a catchphrase. “Better than Austin.” They used it when they were about to charge into gunfire. “This is Better than Austin,” they’d say before attaching bayonets and charging.

  The short, sturdy general was standing on the steps, bawling out three young officers, and Sergeant Clare was staring at him as though he were in a trance.

  “Austin?” the captain said in disgust. “He’s paralyzed by Austin? Oh hell! Get somebody else to drive the bastard. Clare! Come with me.”

  Sergeant Clare didn’t move.

  “Not him,” Corporal Smith said. “Her!”

  Captain Owens looked back just as “she” stepped from behind a pillar, and he smiled. Oh yeah, her. Miss Edilean Harcourt, the general’s secretary. The Untouchable One. The woman who it sometimes seemed the entire military force lusted after, but no man had been able to get near. There was a rumor that her legs were three and a half feet long and there was a lot of discussion of what a man would do with legs like that.

  Whatever their fantasies, no man had so much as received a smile from Miss Edilean Harcourt—but not for want of trying. Every type of man had tried every method known to win her. From an Englishman with an accent so elegant it was whispered he was royalty, to an American GI who’d grown up in the LA slums, they all tried.

  Flowers, candy, love poems, nylons, even a banner saying MISS EDI, I LOVE YOU strung across the building during the night had elicited no response from her.

  It had been a great game for the men who’d been there a while to watch the newcomers fall apart when they first saw Edilean Harcourt. She was a foot taller than the general and had a patrician beauty that the men couldn’t take their eyes off. The most common phrase uttered by new soldiers was, “She’s a goddess.”

  When “that look” was seen in a new man’s eyes, money started changing hands. They bet on the number of days it would take before he was given Miss Edi’s “drop dead” look, and what the poor man would do to try to win her. They knew the general kept the chocolates sent to her, and he threw the flowers out the window. It was his hay fever. As for the nylons, all anyone knew was that all the girls in General Austin’s office wore perfect nylons.

  So now Captain Owens shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment. Another man had fallen under her spell. “How long has he been like this?” he asked the corporal.

  “Since yesterday. I don’t think he slept last night, just lay awake staring at the ceiling.”

  “Great,” the captain said in sarcasm. “Just what I need. Clare was sent here specially to be Austin’s driver. He drove another general straight through enemy fire, didn’t blink an eye. He’s up for some medal, and Austin wants him.”

  The corporal glanced at David Clare. He was a tall young man, dark blond hair, and blue eyes, and he was still standing in comatose silence as he stared at the woman on the porch. “From the look of him, he’d throw himself on a bomb for her.”

  “Yeah, well, so would we all, but she’d probably just step over his body.”

  “I see, sir,” the corporal said, “you’ve chosen the Ice Queen route.”

  “Better that than to remember the roses I stole off a burned-out house and had tossed at my head by ol’ Hardheart Austin.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “How about you?” the captain asked as he leaned against the jeep, took out a cigarette, and offered the corporal one.

  “Parachute silk,” he said as he lit the captain’s cigarette, then his own. “Stole it from the quartermaster. I could be court-martialed,” he added, then shot a look at the captain.

  “Don’t worry. Nobody reports crimes concerning Miss Harcourt.”

  They smoked their cigarettes in silence, leaning against the jeep, the silent, staring Sergeant Clare between them. After a while, General Austin seemed to tire of bawling out the poor officers and started down the stairs. As always, close behind him was Miss Harcourt. They were an incongruous pair, she tall, thin, elegant; he short, thick, and common-looking. It was said that when he was sixteen a judge gave him a choice of jail or the army. It was also told that the general said the army was exactly like gang warfare except with better food, and that he’d bullied his way to the top. Whatever he’d done to achieve where he was, he was brilliant at warfare.

  The corporal and the captain stood at attention as the general drew near, and the captain wished he’d dragged Sergeant Clare away. Austin would blame the nearest person for Clare’s inability to function—and that meant Captain Owens.

  But he’d underestimated Sergeant Clare. As the general approached, the sergeant snapped back into the world and opened the passenger door for him.

  Whatever complaints there were about the general, he was courteous to Miss Harcourt. Before her, his secretaries had to be replaced every three months. A couple of the young women had been sent home, as their nerves were at the breaking point. The men said, “Bombs don’t bother them, but Austin puts them in a hospital.”

  Miss Harcourt had been assigned to him nearly a year ago. There was a story the newcomers were told after their usual flowers and candy had been unsuccessful, about the first time the general yelled at Miss Edi. No one knew the full story, but she drew herself up to her full height, looked down her long nose at him, and said she’d like to see him in private. When the doors were closed, everyone pressed his or her ear up against them to hear, but Miss Harcourt’s voice was low and quiet. They did manage to hear words like bully and never again dare and respect.

  In the past year, those words had been greatly embellished and the story enhanced into legend status. It was rumored that when Mrs. Austin met Miss Harcourt, she hugged her much harder than she did her husband, and was much more concerned with Miss Harcourt’s comfort than she was with that of her husband.

  Whatever the truth was, General Austin treated Miss Harcourt with the utmost courtesy. He got in the back of the jeep, then waited patiently for her to take the passenger seat in front. While the sergeant got in, she handed General Austin a folder. “You might want to read that,” she said.

  The captain and the corporal watched the old man obediently take the folder and open it.

  “Listen,” the captain said so only Sergeant Clare could hear him, “you might as well give up now. You can’t win her.”

  Sergeant David Clare gave the captain a look he’d seen many times before. It said that no one had won her because he hadn’t tried.

  Sergeant Clare started the jeep and maneuvered it through the many vehicles and people around them.

  “So where are you from?” he asked Miss Harcourt.

  “I think you should watch the road.”

  David gave a couple of twists to the steering wheel to miss a truck and went between a man on crutches and two pretty girls. That the tires almost ran over the man’s foot and the side of the jeep grazed the women’s skirts didn’t bother him. The man raised a crutch and shouted at him and the two girls giggled. In the back, General Austin glanced up from the papers he was pretending to read and gave a little smirk. There was nothing he liked better than seeing a man make a fool of himself over his secretary.

  “The South,” David said. “I can hear it in your voice.”

  Edi didn’t b