“Sergeant Clark, would you be good enough to take the restraints off Major Orlovsky?” Cronley went on. “And then, after he’s had a shower, get him into more comfortable clothing?”
—
Orlovsky came back into the room, now wearing the German civilian clothing he had been wearing when Sergeant Tedworth had captured him as he tried to sneak out of Kloster Grünau.
“First Sergeant Dunwiddie, Staff Sergeant Clark, and I are delighted that you could find time in your busy schedule to join us,” Cronley said, waving him into a chair at the table. “Please sit down.”
Orlovsky obediently sat.
“What’ll it be, Konstantin?” Cronley asked. “Whisky? Vodka?”
“Nothing for me, thank you.”
“Pour a little Jack Daniel’s for the major, please, Sergeant Clark,” Cronley said. “He may change his mind.”
“I never change my mind,” Orlovsky said.
“We say, ‘Never say never,’” Cronley said. “Pour the Jack, Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know what’s wrong with that disguise you were wearing?” Cronley said. “If you don’t mind me saying?”
Orlovsky said nothing.
“You’re too well nourished, too chubby, for a German. You should have figured out a way to make your skin look gray, for your cheekbones to be more evident. Forgive me, Konstantin, but what you look like is an American trying to look like a German.”
Orlovsky shook his head in disbelief.
Sergeant Clark put a glass before the Russian and then poured two inches of Jack Daniel’s into it.
“Ice and water, Major?” Clark boomed. “Or you take it straight?”
Cronley sa
w that Orlovsky had involuntarily drawn himself in when the enormous black man had come close to him, then recoiled just perceptibly when Clark had delicately poured the whisky with his massive, merbromin-painted hand.
Orlovsky was disconcerted to the point where he forgot that he never changed his mind.
He said, “Straight’s fine. Thank you,” then picked up the glass and took a healthy swallow.
“I saw you looking at poor Sergeant Clark’s hands. Aren’t you going to ask what he did to them?”
“No.”
“Tell the major how your hands got that way, Sergeant,” Cronley ordered.
“Digging that goddamned practice grave,” Clark boomed.
There was no response.
“Aren’t you curious about the phrase ‘practice grave’?”
“No.”
“We was digging a practice grave,” Sergeant Clark volunteered. “To see how long it’s going to take us to dig the real one for you.”
“Quickly changing the subject,” Cronley put in, “how does pork chops and applesauce and green beans sound for dinner?”