Honor Bound (Honor Bound 1)

“Yes,” Peter agreed. “But you felt no…obligation of honor…to remain?”

“I did not ask to be relieved, but I was glad when I was.”

“I got drunk when I was relieved,” Peter said. “I told myself I did it because I did not wish to be relieved. Now I am wondering if I really wasn’t…glad.”

“I thought maybe you were with Duarte when he was killed,” Clete said.

“Never met him. I was told he was killed at Stalingrad flying a Storch, a little high-wing monoplane used for artillery spotting, carrying people around, that sort of thing.”

“That he wasn’t supposed to be flying in the first place. My father told me that if he had any idea he was putting him in the line of fire, he never would have let him go over there.”

“What sort of a fellow was he?”

“I never met him,” Clete said.

“Really? I thought he was your cousin.”

“He was. But I never met him. Or his parents. Or, for that matter, my father, until a couple of days ago.”

“I met them this afternoon. That was very difficult. I had the feeling they were asking, ‘What are you doing alive when our son is dead?’”

“I had exactly the same feeling when I met them,” Clete said.

“How is it you never met them?”

Clete told the story, including the cover story of his heart murmur and his job down here making sure the Argentines weren’t diverting American oil products to the Germans. The lies made him uncomfortable, especially after “mine enemy” had been so openly sincere.

“Does that mean you can’t fly anymore?”

“No. It just means I can’t fly for the Marines.”

“I miss flying,” Peter said. “And I don’t think I’ll be doing much, if any, flying here.”

“My father has a light airplane. If I can persuade him to let me use it, I’ll take you for a ride.”

“I would like that,” Peter said seriously. “Thank you very much.”

Señora Pellano came into the library a few minutes after one to find Señor Cletus and the young German officer standing by the fireplace making strange movements with their hands, like little boys pretending their hands were aeroplanes.

They seemed embarrassed that they had been drinking. There was no reason for that.

She told them she had gone to midnight mass at the Basilica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar, which was why she was so late, and asked them if they would like anything to eat.

But they thanked her and said they were about to go to bed.

For about half an hour she sat on a little stool behind the door of the corridor that led from the foyer to the kitchen, until she heard them—sounding very happy if perhaps a little drunk—tell each other goodnight.

[FOUR]

Calle Olavarría

La Boca, Buenos Aires

1135 13 December 1942

As he prepared to enter the Church of San Juan Evangelista, Tony was telling himself for the tenth or twelfth time that he was making a fool of himself, a church seemed to be on every other corner, and the odds of her showing up at this one were one in nine zillion. That was when he saw her coming around the corner from the direction of Ristorante Napoli.

She wasn’t as well-dressed as the last time he saw her. She was wearing a simple cotton dress and sandals, with a shawl around her shoulders and over her head. But she was even more beautiful than he rem