“Isn’t the sky beautiful today, Bart?”
“Check the fuses.”
“Ah, I did that, I did it – but when I did, well, I looked up and you know what I saw?”
“Check them again.”
“I did, I did – I saw the most beautifully blue sky from horizon to horizon, with just enough wind to keep the grass rustling and the bugs out of our noses, and leave the barest RIPPLES ghosting across the water-”
“Recheck them again. The frogs won’t wait on you.”
“-they’re still there, they’re fine – and I thought what a beautiful place we were standing in, and what a shame it is that we’re going to –”
“Direct order from your corporal: recheck them again.”
“-oh FINE – that we’re going to blow it up, but that really just makes it almost more beautiful doesn’t it? The fragility of it all, the briefness of the lifespan, adds poignancy in depth proportionate to its shortness-”
“Nobody draws portraits of mayflies. Talk less, work more.”
Anthony frowned, which did less than pleasant things to his less than impressive moustache. “Honestly Bart, you never ride Clark like this.”
“Clark does what I ask and doesn’t talk when he does it. Clark, anything to report?”
Clark lowered his binoculars. “Nope.”
“There.”
“Really, am I that unbearable?”
“Private Anthony, you are not the worst case scenario.”
“Oh, you needn’t mince words, Bart – I know I’m the last sort you’d want on your post, but-”
“No you aren’t.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You aren’t the last person I’d want on my post. A romanticist is almost last person I want on explosives duty, but I’d rather have you there than a damned true believer anywhere.”
“Whyever so?”
“You’d only ever get us blown up by mistake. A true believer would do it on purpose and expect a medal. Recheck the fuses again, again.”
“I just did that, I did-”
“Good. Hand them over. Time for frog fishing.”
Anthony did so. The little dull grey depth charges sat in Bart’s palm like river rocks, but in the spring sun they shone like diamonds as they arced through the dappled cover of the blooming trees that surrounded the pond, entering the surface with a gentle plop plip plunk, followed by a brief and loud thud and a trio of drearily grey geysers mixed with milky bubbles.
“Pass one complete. Clark, mark time. Anthony, check the next fuses.”
“Already on it, already on it.”
And another handful of unprecious stones went aloft, and landed quietly, and ended loudly.
“It’s just, how can you two not see the poetry in all of this? The emotional qualities? Here we are, in a battle for our future-”
“Next fuses.”
“-and we’re throwing depth charges into a future tailings pond.”
“We don’t question orders, we execute them. Recheck fuses.”
“Yes, and that just adds another layer to the, the futility of the thing-”
“Private Anthony Hastings, you had better not be expressing treason on my watch. That’s a lot of extra work to deal with.”
“What? No! I like the futility. If you think of this entire war as a sandwich – a really BIG sandwich – then our task here is like a spring of thyme. Nobody wants it on its own, but it adds that little bit of something that rounds out the flavour of it all.”
“Have you lost anyone yet, Private Anthony?”
“Half a brother, might lose the other in a month. And of course my aunt’s house was demolished when the Old County got flooded.”
“Well, that gives you the right to your thoughts, but I don’t recommend you share them with others. Could get you in trouble.” Bart straightened up and cricked his back. “Anthony, hand out the wading gear. Clark, mark time.”
***
The wading gear was a thing of contrasts: clammy and yet starched against the skin; keeping all the unpleasant warm sweatiness of the body close and yet forcing a prolonged full-body hug with the chilly depths of the pondwater. It reeked of petrochemicals and rotting plant matter, and it went up just under your armpits, which meant when you got a soaker over the side it went all down your side all the way for good.
Bart put it on, took an entrenching tool, and began probing the shallows.
“Section one, clear. Anthony, check the map.”
“Yes, Section one is clear. Was that a muskrat lodge? We had one of those in the creek near us at home, and-”
“Section two, clear. Mark it.”
“-the juxtaposition of the common word-of-mouth factuality of that lodge’s location among the children against this surveyor’s chart we’re using here is truly astounding, I mean, who’s to say which is actually more true-to-life and representative of the fetid reality of this pond than-”
“Section three – ow! Fuck!”
“I’m sorry?”
“Stabbed my knee on a tree branch,” said Corporal Bart, immediately before the torpedo embedded against his left kneecap detonated, spraying red-hot chunks of tin, rubber, cartilage and bone across the surface of the pond to create a surprisingly delicate series of ripples and a lot of aerosolized red mist.
Bart was screaming. Clark was lowering his binoculars. Anthony, to his surprise, was running down to the water’s edge, reaching for Bart, grabbing his arm, slowing his collapse.
“Hold on it’s all good by god I’ve got you eh don’t worry it’s not your good leg it’ll be-” which was when the acorn-sized incandescent shell landed atop Anthony’s helmet, cracked open like an egg over a frying-pan, and covered much of his (armoured) skull and (unarmoured) face in ‘frog jelly’ incendiaries. This transformed the fatty tissues of Anthony’s features into a grease fire, which he thankfully experienced for only a moment as he inhaled to scream and sucked some of it into his windpipe, choking him and sending him into the pond, which accepted him with the same apathetic lack of prejudice as it had the depth charges.
Bart lay on the bank, wheezing in the foul-smelling air, arms clawing at the reeds for traction. The sun was blocked, an arm reached down. Private Clark’s calm, careful face was over his.
“Hurry,” said Bart.
Clark nodded, reached down, and very gently but firmly turned Bart around and held his face in the pond with one arm until the bubbles stopped. The other arm made a series of careful gestures in the air, a bit like a semaphore, which was what induced the frog subriverine to break cover and rise from the pond’s surface.
It was a little over three feet long, and in profile resembled a pike for purposes of hydrodynamics and camouflage.
“Sub pen’s cleared out of essential personnel,” said the captain from her conning tower, a particularly grizzled amphibian missing an eye and half her jaw (but you didn’t need those to use a periscope anyways). “Should be dismantled within an hour, and we can leave some debris to sell the story of a tough-won fight. But we could’ve done that without you finishing the corporal. Sole survivors are suspicious.”
“Bart was competent,” said Clark. “The cause is safer with him gone. Should I become lost in action? I am prepared to martyr myself, if Frog wills it.”
“Uh. No. That’d give them too many dots to connect in your service history. Just… lay low for a while, alright? More dead drops, less dead bodies. Use the stream point. And hold still for a minute.”
Clark did so as the crew readied the deck gun, then endured a short fusillade to his left arm, riddling it with a light dose of subcutaneous shrapnel.
“There. You escaped under heavy fire after a failed attempt to retrieve the body of your corporal, you are a hero. Now be boring for six months minimum or else.”
Clark saluted and left. The captain stared for a moment – methodically scanning blue sky, retreating spy, blooded pond, and calming water – before retreating belowdecks.
And as the subriverine sunk back below the surface of the pond, the captain – once more shrouded in the comforting brownish blanket of particulate and lukewarm water – shook her head in irritation.
“Damned true believers,” she told Frog, the universe in general, and her first mate. “Always so eager to die and get a medal for it.”