The Young Lions

The Albanian backed swiftly out of the room. Michael heard his footsteps disappearing down the corridor.

The Rabbi bowed gravely. "Thank you very much, Sir," he said to Green.

Green put out his hand. The Rabbi shook it and turned and followed the Albanian. Green stood staring at the window. Green looked at Noah. The old, controlled, rigidly calm expression was melting back into the boy's face.

"Ackerman," Green said crisply. "I don't think we'll need you around here for a couple of hours. Why don't you and Whitacre leave this place for a while, go out and take a walk? Outside the camp. It'll do you good."

"Thank you, Sir," Noah said. He went out of the room.

"Whitacre." Green was still staring out of the window, and his voice was weary. "Whitacre, take care of him."

"Yes, Sir," said Michael. He went after Noah.

They walked in silence. The sun was low in the sky and there were long paths of purple shadow across the hills to the north. They passed a farmhouse, set back from the road, but there was no movement there. It slept, neat, white and lifeless, in the westering sun. It had been painted recently, and the stone wall in front of it had been whitewashed. The stone wall was turning pale blue in the levelling rays of the sun. Overhead a squadron of fighter planes, high in the clear sky, caught the sun on their wings as they headed back to their base.

On one side of the road was forest, healthy-looking pine and elm, dark trunks looking almost black against the pale, milky green of the new foliage. The sun flickered in small bright stains among the leaves, falling on the sprouting flowers in the cleared spaces between the trees. The camp was behind them, and the air, warmed by the full day's sun, was piney and aromatic. The rubber composition soles of their combat boots made a hushed, unmilitary sound on the narrow asphalt road, between the rain ditches on each side. They walked silently, past another farmhouse. This place too was locked and shuttered, but Michael had the feeling that eyes were peering out at him from between cracks. He was not afraid. The only people left in Germany seemed to be children, by the million, and old women and maimed soldiers. It was a polite and unwarlike population, who waved impartially to the jeeps and tanks of the Americans, and the trucks bearing German prisoners back to prison stockades.

Three geese waddled across the dust of the farmyard. Christmas di

They walked past the farmhouse. Now, on both sides of them stood the heavy forest, tall trees standing in the loam of old leaves, giving off a clear, thin smell of spring.

Noah hadn't said a word since they had left Green's office, and Michael was surprised when he heard his friend's voice over the shuffle of their boots on the asphalt.

"How do you feel?" Noah asked.

Michael thought for a moment. "Dead," he said. "Dead, wounded and missing."

They walked another twenty yards. "It was pretty bad, wasn't it?" Noah said.

"Pretty bad."

"You knew it was bad," said Noah. "But you never thought it would be like that."

"No," said Michael.

"Human beings…" They walked, listening to the sound of their composition soles on the road deep in Germany, in the afternoon in spring, between the aisles of pretty, budding trees.

"My uncle," Noah said, "my father's brother, went into one of these places. Did you see the ovens?"

"Yes," said Michael.

"I never saw him, of course. My uncle, I mean," Noah said. His hand was hooked in his rifle strap and he looked like a little boy returning from hunting rabbits. "He had some trouble with my father. In 1905, in Odessa. My father was a fool. But he knew about things like this. He came from Europe. Did I ever tell you about my father?"

"No," said Michael.

"Dead, wounded and missing," Noah said softly. They walked steadily, but not quickly, the soldier's pace, thirty inches, deliberate, ground-covering. "Remember," Noah asked, "back in the replacement depot, what you said: 'Five years after the war is over we're all liable to look back with regret to every bullet that missed us.'"

"Yes," said Michael, "I remember."

"What do you feel now?"

Michael hesitated. "I don't know," he said honestly.

"This afternoon," Noah said, walking in his deliberate, correct pace, "I agreed with you. When that Albanian started talking I agreed with you. Not because I'm a Jew. At least, I don't think that was the reason. As a human being… When that Albanian started talking I was ready to go out into the hall and shoot myself through the head."

"I know," Michael said softly. "I felt the same way."

"Then Green said what he had to say." Noah stopped and looked up to the tops of the trees, golden-green in the golden sun. "'I guarantee… I guarantee…'" He sighed. "I don't know what you think," Noah said, "but I have a lot of hope for Captain Green."

"So do I," said Michael.

"When the war is over," Noah said, and his voice was growing loud, "Green is going to run the world, not that damned Albanian…"

"Sure," said Michael.

"The human beings are going to be ru

Christian had been awake five or six minutes before he heard voices. He had slept heavily, and when he awoke he had known immediately from the way the shadows lay in the forest that it was late in the afternoon. But he had been too weary to move immediately. He had lain on his back, staring up at the mild green canopy over his head, listening to the forest sounds, the awakening springtime hum of insects, the calls of birds in the upper branches, the slight rustling of the leaves in the wind. A flight of planes had crossed over, and he had heard them, although he couldn't see the planes through the trees. Once again, as it had for so long, the sound of planes made him reflect bitterly on the abundance with which the enemy had fought the war. No wonder they'd won. They didn't amount to much as soldiers, he thought for the hundredth time, but what difference did it make? Given all those planes, all those tanks, an army of old women and veterans of the Franco-Prussian War could have won. Given just one-third of that equipment, he thought, self-pityingly, and we'd have won three years ago. That miserable Lieutenant back at the camp, complaining because we didn't lose this war in an orderly ma

Then he heard the footsteps, coming in his direction along the road. He was only ten metres off the road, well concealed, but with a good field of vision in the direction of the camp, and he could see the Americans coming when they were some distance off. He watched them curiously, with no emotion for the moment. They were walking steadily, and they had rifles. One of them, the larger of the two, was carrying his in his hand, and the other had his slung over his shoulder. They were wearing those absurd helmets, although there would be no danger of shrapnel until the next war, and they weren't looking either to the left or the right. They were talking to each other, quite loudly, and it was obvious that they felt safe and at home, as though no notion that any German in this neighbourhood would dare to do them any harm had ever crossed their minds.