Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [28]
In this quiet before the storm, a produce market of dubious legality had sprung up in the village of Crézancy, overlooked by the huge, glinting American guns planted high up on the Moulin Ruiné. Bent and wizened French farmers sold whatever goods they had managed to keep back from government requisitioners.
It was Luc whom Younger saw first. He recognized at once the little boy buying cheese and milk, wordlessly shaking his head at some exorbitant demand and consenting to pay only after receiving an acceptable price. Younger greeted the boy warmly. In a burst of inspiration, he pulled from his pocket a sealed jar crawling with maggots. Luc’s eyes opened wide.
“They’re larvae,” said Younger in French. “In a short time, each of these fellows will wrap himself up in a cocoon. A week or two later, the cocoon will break open, and out will crawl—do you know what will crawl out?”
The boy shook his head.
“A fly. A common, bluebottle blowfly.”
This information appeared to boost the boy’s already high estimation of the seething mass inside the jar.
“Would you like to know why they’re such good friends to wounded men? Because they eat only dead tissue. Living cells have no appeal to them. Here, take the jar. I have more. Very few young men have pet maggots.”
The boy accepted the present and drew something from his own pocket, offering it in exchange.
Younger raised an eyebrow. “A grenade.”
Luc nodded.
“It’s not live, is it?” asked Younger.
Setting down the grubs, Luc engaged the grenade’s pin, unscrewed its cap, withdrew the spring, removed the pin, unhinged the nozzle, and held it up in the air.
Younger leaned down, smelled the dry powder within. “I see. Excellent. Live indeed.”
The boy reversed the process, deftly reassembling the grenade, and offered it again to Younger, who accepted the gift quite carefully. He was thanking Luc when a girl’s voice spoke sternly behind him.
“Did you let him touch that?” she asked.
Younger turned to see the boy’s sister.
“You want him to think grenades are toys?” she went on angrily. “So the next time he sees one on the ground, he’ll pick it up and play with it?”
Younger glanced at Luc, who plainly didn’t want his sister to know he’d been carrying a live grenade around. “Quite right, Mademoiselle,” said Younger, pocketing the weapon. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Luc, a grenade is not a toy, do you hear me? Only someone completely familiar with how they work should ever touch one.”
“I’m sorry,” she said to Younger, mollified. “He likes to play with guns and ammunition. He’s forever scaring me.”
“I heard you went back to Paris,” Younger answered.
She frowned. Luc tugged her skirt. The girl excused herself, bent toward him, and the boy made hand gestures between their faces—some kind of sign language. Her answer to him was strict: “Absolutely not. What’s the matter with you?” To Younger she explained, “Now he wants to go to the front with you.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible, given your age, young man,” said Younger. “Although the way this war is going, you may yet have your chance. But perhaps you’d like to see an American base?”
The boy nodded.
Younger spoke to the girl: “It would be a great service to us if you came to our base with your truck. We have an X-ray machine, but compared to yours it’s primitive. There are many men I could help.”
“All right,” she said. “I can come this afternoon. But I still—I don’t know your name.”
For the next several days, Colette’s truck pulled into Younger’s field hospital every evening, rumbling up the dirt road in a cloud of dust. With Younger seated beside her, they would set off to various encampments as far away as Lucy-le-Bocage. Dozens of men, wounded but reinserted into their platoons, had not regained their health as they should have. Younger wanted to reexamine them