The Defender

Book by Mesce Jr Bill

CHAPTER ONE

Before the war, Glyditch had been a small, nondescript hamlet, a few rows of walk-ups and shops hugging the southern shore of the firth midway between Edinburgh and North Berwick. Unprepossessing as it had been, it had managed a lovely, serene stillness, a calming view of the water, and comfortable enough accommodations to meet the needs of some of Edinburgh's posh crowd looking for a bit of quiet and rest-up for the weekend. But what had been nondescript yet quaint before the war had now taken on the qualities of disuse. Glyditch wore the same wartime drabness that much of Britain had taken on as its uniform in those days. And certainly, the chill winds off the North Sea and the whipping winter rains did little to dispel the air of Glyditch being a forgotten, dying place, and the notion that Glyditch was a place to pass through, not stay.

Among the weather-beaten establishments overlooking the firth was a narrow five-story, the flats long abandoned by tenants who could no longer survive the faltering economy of Glyditch. In their place a small cadre of American officers and their support staff had installed a warren of cramped, paper-filled offices and tended to some of the more innocuous elements of the great war against the Hun.

Lieutenant Colonel Harry Voss occupied one of those little cubbies. Sitting at his desk, poring over plat books and land leases, his reading spectacles parked far down the bulb of his nose, a cigarette dangling from thoughtfully pursed lips, huddled inside a heavy sweater and scarf of fine Scottish wool, he seemed less a military officer than a figure from "Bartleby the Scrivener."

There was a knock at his door which he did not answer. The visitor was obviously experienced; he didn't wait for a response and immediately entered. Harry glanced up from the plat books and over his reading spectacles just long enough to identify the intruder as one of the staff orderlies, a young private whose child-like form was lost in the folds of his Government Issue uniform. He was pushing a serving cart ahead of him, navigating the cramped confines of the office unsuccessfully, avoiding a collision with the desk by clanging into one of the overstuffed file cabinets.

"Happy Thanksgiving, Colonel!" the orderly chirped in some Great Plains drawl. "They all missed ya down in the mess! Yore missin' out on a helluva party!"

Harry resettled his spectacles on his nose. "I'll muddle through."

The orderly awkwardly piloted past reefs of piled files until he docked the cart alongside Harry's desk. He made a show of lifting each of the plate covers and declaring the scrumptiousness of the food with a loud sniff. "Mmmmm-mph! The cooks did a right good job, Colonel! Tried to make it just like home! Even got cranberry sauce! It's that glop comes out a can, but it's still cranberry sauce. Got some-- Well, I don't rightly know what it is, some local sheep thing. A 'joint operation' 'tween us 'n' the Scots, ya might say! Don't look like much but smells yummy. Well, kinda. You should get inta some o' this while it's hot, Colonel."

"Thanks."

Without looking up, Harry could sense the youngster's disappointment, and his puzzlement that such a mouthwatering invitation could be so dispassionately rebuffed. "They didn't really have 'nuff turkey for ever'body," the orderly confessed, attentively recovering the plates. "The junior officers got a lot of chickens mixed in. Turkey don't seem to be so big over here." The young man seemed to be looking for an excuse to maintain a conversation. He leaned over the studious Harry, peering out the office's one narrow window. A gust of wind sent the pelting rain against the pane sounding like thrown gravel. "Funny how quiet it is ever'place else. I mean, it's a helluva wing-ding they got goin' downstairs! 'N' out there--"

"It's just Thursday to them."

"I guess."

"A rainy Thursday."

"Yeah."

"A cold, miserable, rainy Thursday."

"Hey, maybe it'll catch on."

Harry turned to study the orderly's earnest, open face over the rims of his lenses. "Catch on?"

"You know, like they celebrate Christmas. Why not Thanksgiving?"

Harry sighed and returned to his paperwork. "They've been celebrating Christmas a lot longer than we have."

The orderly was not so naifish as to miss Harry's dismissive air: he began to back out of the office. "Well, enjoy yore dinner, Colonel."

Harry nodded a thanks and sighed pleasurably when he heard the door shut.

But only a few minutes passed before he heard footsteps again creaking along the hardwood hallway floor toward his office. "You forget something, Private?" Harry growled impatiently.

No response. Harry sat up curiously. "Is somebody out there?"

Then, in an unreservedly artificial basso that echoed up and down the empty corridor: "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!"

Of all the people on earth with whom Harry Voss was acquainted, only Joe Ryan would have refined the ability to balance himself on the doorknob, allowing his upper body to swing into the room while his feet remained in the doorway, and only Joe Ryan would have believed the hours spent in refining such a flourish were a worthwhile investment.

"My God! Joe!" Harry tossed his glasses on the desk and shot to his feet, his face opening in a welcoming smile as he grasped the hand of Colonel Joseph P. Ryan, Judge Advocate's Bureau.

"Harry-boy!" Ryan clasped Harry's hand warmly in both his own. He stood back a moment, his bright green eyes squinting in study at the shorter, thicker officer in front of him. "That's a rounder shadow than I thought Lamont Cranston would have."

"Drop dead. What are you doing here? Are you AWOL?"

It was a dashing smile of perfect white teeth that Ryan flashed, a smile befitting the looks that made him look several years younger than the man across from him, though they were of the same forty-odd years. "Colonels do not go AWOL." Ryan emphasized the point with a leather-gloved finger. "Colonels conduct operations at their own discretion."

"Sit down, you dirty so-and-so!"

Ryan glanced about the cluttered cubby, glared at the one visitor's chair bristling with files. "No mean feat, Harry-boy."

Like a contrite housekeeper, Harry hastily made room.

"Who'd you piss off to end up in this rat hole?" Ryan pretended to dust the seat with his gloves before setting himself and his trimly tailored Royal Navy-styled bridge coat down.

"I like this rat hole," Harry retorted, returning to his own chair. "I think it's cozy."

"You think anything that reminds you of home is cozy." Ryan leaned toward the serving cart, peeked under a cover. "Need I remind you that you lived in a tenement? Oof!" Then, in a horrible imitation of an Irish brogue, "Would this be our loverly Army cooks be havin' a try at proper holiday victuals?"

"I hate when you do that." As Ryan opened his coat, Harry noted the steam-pipe fit of the colonel's Eisenhower jacket. "Did you lose weight?"

"Living in the field makes you hard, Harry."

"I thought you wrote me you were living in a hotel in Liege."

"That's close enough to the field for me. C'mon, let's go."

"Go where?"

"You've got to show me some sights."

"What sights? Have you seen this town? There are no sights."

The room was close enough that Ryan could lean back, snag Harry's coatrack with a finger, and pull it near enough to where he could bob Harry's cap free of its hook. "Let me put it to you another way." He tossed Harry's cap onto the desk. "Let's get out of here."

With a sigh, Harry scooped up his cap and reached for his jacket. "I don't know what you think you're going to see. It's raining. And there's a blackout. Did I mention the rain?"

"You can be such a killjoy, Harry-boy--a wet-blanket-sourpuss-pain-in-the-ass killjoy!"

In the doorway, Harry frowned and nodded toward the serving cart. "What about that?"

Joe Ryan smiled and made an inviting gesture of his arm. "Little mice, little mice, wherever you are . . . bon appetit."

There had been a small establishment--a cafe of sorts--overlooking the beach where the tourists--in those days when there had been tourists--could purchase some refreshment and lounge about on the roofed patio, watching the waters of the firth roll into shore. Like the rest of Glyditch, it had not been much to look at, but along with lemonade and assorted snacks, there had been a modest stock of champagne and brandies, Swiss chocolates, tins of caviar, and other unexpected delicacies. But years of abandonment, the untreated damages of one winter after another, had left the place derelict, decaying, picked over by scavengers.

It had been but a walk of a few minutes from Harry's office to the seaside cafe, but even in that short time, wrestling their umbrellas against the muscular wind, they found their trouser legs sopping by the time they reached the shelter of the patio. They folded their brollies and left them on the barren serving counter, shook the drops from their shoes and cuffs, huddled together against the wind to nurse a flaming match against a pair of cigarettes.

Ryan took a deep draft of his cigarette, then squinted against the wind, looking out toward the firth, watching the wind stir the wave tops to a white froth under the last feeble light of the day. He turned, looked at the dreary facades of the buildings along the waterfront. "What the hell're you doing here, Harry?"

"...