The Night Children by Alexander Gordon Smith Page A

can change what’s goin’ on back there?” Eddie said, his voice a shrill whine. “We’ll get burned up along with the rest of ’em.”
    “You’re yella, Argento,” said Mike. He turned to Donnie. “You, too, Corporal.” He spat out that word as if to say, We pretty much got the same rank, you and me, except for that extra chevron. “You’re yella, too, if you don’t take us back.”
    “We’ve got orders, Private,” Donnie said, meeting Mike’s dark eyes and holding them until the other man looked away. “We find Sergeant Cudden, we find his men.”
    “Yella,” muttered Mike in disgust. And it was true. Donnie was more scared than he had ever been, and wasn’t it better to march into the forest, into the cold, empty night with death at their backs, than to step further into the hellmouth, to give themselves up to the flames? He tightened his grip on his Garand, his fingers frozen to the metal. Shooting at tanks with this would be like throwing pebbles, especially when they had less than fifty rounds among them.
    He waited for the tremors of another detonation to fade, then peeked over the top of the foxhole. The forest was illuminated by golden light, every knot on every trunk picked out in perfect detail. There were no shapes in the flames, nothing human. But it wouldn’t be long before the German infantry moved in, rounding up the wounded and hunting down those who fled.
    “Come on,” Donnie said, clambering out, and offering a hand to Eddie. “Let’s move.”

2217
    It was two days ago that Sergeant Bill Cudden had led a squad of seven men away from the front. Their mission was to head north, then cross over into enemy territory, to find a way into a small logging village where the Germans were camped, and to blow it to kingdom come. It was about as dangerous as assignments got, but all eight men had volunteered without so much as a pause for breath between them. Donnie knew because he’d been there, too, and when the call had come he’d kept his hands tucked into the warmth of his armpits and his eyes locked on his shoes.
    Because you’re yella, he told himself in Mike’s Jersey accent, and his shame was like a creature biting at the inside of his throat. But he’d seen death. He’d seen men punctured by bullets, their limbs blown off, their teeth shattered. He’d seen what men were made of, and how easy it was to turn them inside out—he’d done it himself with his rifle and his grenades. But worse, he’d seen what happened to their eyes as they writhed on the ground waiting for the medic, for morphine. He’d seen death in that blinking wetness. He’d seen the terrible, gaping oblivion that waited for all of them.
    “Donnie?”
    He realized Eddie was talking to him. The kid was by his side, so close that they could have been walking a three-legged race. The front was an hour or so behind them now, far enough that the light from the fires had faded. But night still hadn’t been allowed to fall here, even though the stars occasionally peeked through the motionless canopy, even though the moon sat on the branches like a fat, silver-faced owl. Light seemed to radiate from the snow, unearthly, unreal, as if this forest and everything in it had been painted over a glowing bulb.
    He shivered as Eddie called his name again.
    “What is it, Private?” he said.
    “Got a girl at home?”
    Donnie frowned. They’d already had this conversation, sitting in a foxhole on the front drinking coffee and imagining themselves back on a stoop in San Fran or Chicago. He turned to remind Eddie, then saw the kid’s face, so drawn that it looked as if somebody had scooped out the meat from under his skin. His eyes were on the ground, watching for loose branches and stumps, which he hopped over like a rabbit, pushing his helmet back after every fumbling leap. The boy glanced up with a nervous smile and it seemed as though he’d lost another five years between the front and here, as if the forest were pickpocketing them from him every time his back was