Chapter 9 — The Sideshow

The heat hit them at the bottom of the airplane steps like a wet towel swung by a strong man. Florida in wartime looked exactly like Florida in peacetime, which was the point, Haverchuck said, and refused to elaborate.

The carnival sat on a fairground a mile from the coast, and it was doing wartime business: sailors on shore leave four deep at every game, shore patrol pretending not to see anything, the midway lights burning holes in the early dark. The air smelled of frying dough, diesel, gun oil, and the ocean. Frank had worked a hundred towns exactly like it. He felt his shoulders drop an inch for the first time in a week.

“The Norwegians are expecting peacekeepers,” Haverchuck said, walking like a man who resented every colored bulb on principle. “North Americans, plural. Which means other flags. And I wasn't about to freeze my tail off scouting Canada or sweat it off in Mexico, so the General's other operatives were sent here.”

“Other operatives,” Bradley said. “Who, the Bearded Lady?”

Smith held open a tent flap and said nothing at all, which was how Smith answered most questions.

Inside, a wrestling show was already running. A ring, real posts, real canvas, a crowd of sailors packed to the walls — and in the ring, being introduced by a mariachi trio that had no business sounding that good in a tent, the smallest wrestler Frank had ever seen billed above the middle of a card.

EL AGUILA DE LA MUERTE, the barker roared. The Eagle of Death. Third generation. Mexico City. The mask was feathered in red and gold, the cape battered and magnificent, and the man inside both of them could not have gone one seventy soaking wet.

“That little fella's on the team?” Bradley said. “What's he going to do, give the Nazis indigestion by —”

The joke died in his mouth, because the little fella had just gone up and over a man the size of a refrigerator like water finding its level. Headscissors. Arm drag off the top. A springboard thing Frank had no name for and would have called impossible if he hadn't watched it land. The refrigerator swung at air, and swung at air, and then was on his back blinking at the tent poles while the Eagle of Death stood on the top rope with his arms crossed, waiting, patient as weather.

The backflip off the top, when it came — a thing there was no name for yet — drew a sound out of the sailors that Frank had only ever heard a crowd make for blood.

One, two, three. The mariachis hit a chord. And through all of it — the entrance, the match, the arm raised in victory — the man in the mask never said one single word. He didn't have to. Frank, who talked for a living, understood that he was watching a better promo than any he'd ever cut.

“Jose Rivera,” Haverchuck said. “Don't ask about the voice. Don't ask about the mask.”

“What do we ask about?”

“Nothing. He'll hand you a card.”

The second tent smelled of sawdust and liniment and had a hand-painted banner: LAST ONE MINUTE — WIN $10. The barker up on the apron was working the sailors the way a man plays an accordion. “Any man! Any MAN in this house! One minute, gentlemen, sixty short seconds, against the deadliest export the Dominion of Canada has ever apologized for —”

The curtain behind him parted, and out came a woman.

She was built like a lifeguard and moved like a debt collector. Blond, at least officially. One eye caught the light in a way the other didn't. The sailors did what crowds always did — a beat of silence, then laughter, and then a Big Guy with an anchor on his forearm was over the ropes with his cap off, playing to his buddies, telling her sweetheart, the kitchen's the other way.

“Drillbit” Dottie Betts looked at him the way a wolf looks at a delivery truck.

What happened next took twenty-eight seconds and Frank would be seeing it for the rest of his life. The charge; the drop toe hold that put the anchor tattoo in the canvas; the second charge; the arm drag that turned two hundred pounds of Navy into a cartwheel. The Big Guy got up the third time angry, which was the mistake, because she went up him like a ladder — foot, hip, shoulder — and came down on the other side with his arm folded into a double wristlock that made three sailors in the front row sit down without meaning to.

The barker counted. The Big Guy swore he'd never quit. Dottie shrugged — suit yourself — and leaned back.

The sound the arm made cleared the first two rows.

In the ringing silence, Bradley began to applaud. Not mockery — Frank knew his mockery clap, this wasn't it. This was sincere, delighted, sustained applause, the applause of a man who has finally, after a long drought, met someone more interesting than himself.

Dottie found him in the crowd with her good eye and pointed at him like a warning.

Bradley pressed a hand to his heart.

Haverchuck stood with the five of them afterward in the dead midway light — the All-American, the Wildman, the matinee idol, the Eagle of Death holding out printed cards, the deadliest export of the Dominion of Canada spitting through the ropes — and looked from face to face like a man reading a bad hand he'd been dealt on purpose.

“You're not a team,” he said. “You're a collection of problems.”

Nobody argued. Out past the lights, past the Ferris wheel, the ocean lay flat and black and patient, and somewhere on the other side of it the war was learning to dig.

Chapter 10 — The Voyage

The HMS Hunter’s mess hall looked like a prison cafeteria for well-behaved murderers. Every table was riveted to the deck, every chair chained to its spot, as if the Navy expected a riot at every meal. Even the salt and pepper shakers were steel, weighted like hand grenades. Overhead, the light was prison-bright, catching on the racks of dented trays and rows of mugs that said PROPERTY OF THE CROWN. The air stank of boiled cabbage and salt pork, plus something sour and yeast-like that no one wanted to discuss.

At the far end, elbow to elbow with two dozen Royal Navy ratings, the Borneo Wildman presided over a tactical demonstration for the ages.

Wildman, still somehow more fur than man, hunched over the slick tabletop, eyes narrowed in concentration. Around him, a perimeter of sailors smoked and snorted, betting on whether he’d eat a salt shaker or start a fight with it. They weren’t ready for the lecture.

Frank “The All American” Zill watched from two seats down, arms folded, jaw set. He didn’t eat. He didn’t talk. He kept his eyes on Wildman, waiting for the inevitable blowup or breakdown.

Bradley, on the other hand, was eating it up. He’d muscled into the crowd, all cologne and false bravado, and made sure nobody missed the way he spun his championship belt onto the bench before sitting. Bradley perched on the edge of the seat, nodding along like a man at a very important press conference.

Wildman had a pad of notebook paper and a single stub of pencil. Every few seconds, he’d swipe it across the page, then pause and explain. “So if you got infantry here—” he jabbed at a line of salt grains—“and armor here, you make the feint up the middle, keep the MGs occupied, then swing your heavy hitters around left. Same as the Battle of Cannae, 216 BC.” The English rating nearest him grunted, unimpressed.

Bradley leaned in, eyes wide. “You’re saying it’s all about the pincer, not the straight push?”

Wildman grinned, a wet flash of canine. “Always has been, champ.”

Zill finally spoke up. “And if the other side sees it coming?”

Wildman didn’t miss a beat. “Then you change up. That’s what made Hannibal great—adaptation. He used what he had, not what he wished he had. Unlike Napoleon, who just kept feeding the guns until there were no men left.”

A sailor with muttonchops and a chin tattoo rolled his eyes. “That’s a lot of noise for a man who fights in his underwear,” he muttered.

Wildman kept drawing, unfazed. “Better to fight naked and win than to lose in a fancy suit,” he said, then added, “Clausewitz said that, not me.”

Another burst of laughter, but it was more nervous now.

Bradley grabbed a shaker, set it down as a “diversionary force,” and looked at Wildman. “What about after you break the line? Don’t they just close in from the sides?”

Wildman’s finger swept a semicircle on the page. “That’s why you never overcommit. Always keep a reserve. A wild card, even a single man, can turn a rout into a win.”

Zill grunted, not convinced. “And what’s the wild card here? We got no armor, no air support.”

Wildman set down his pencil. “You ever hear of guerrilla war? You don’t need armor. You need brains, balls, and a little luck. We’re not here to win the war. Just make the other guy bleed until he wants to go home.”

A wiry cook in a mesh cap ducked in. “And you’re gonna bleed the Wehrmacht with a couple of salt shakers and some meatheads?” The galley crew laughed, but nobody challenged Wildman directly.

Wildman looked up, eyes flinty. “Ever heard of Sun Tzu?” He let the silence fill up the space, then recited in a steady, unnerving monotone: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” He stared the cook down. “If you don’t, you lose before you start.”

That hung in the air. Even the men who hated Americans, and especially the ones who hated pro wrestling, found nothing to say.

Bradley tried to defuse. “Well, I think what Elston means is—”

Wildman cut him off. “I mean that if you keep running the same play, you’ll get killed. The Nazis, the Soviets, hell, even the Home Guard—they all bet on predictability. Surprise is your only edge.”

At that, the muttonchop sailor nodded, just a little. He reached over and flicked a cigarette ash into a mug. “So what’s your plan, then? Pin Hitler?”

Wildman shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe we use the salt, the shakers, the whole damn mess hall as a distraction. There’s always a mess hall. There’s always a crowd.”

The sailors started to see it. So did Zill, who stopped scowling long enough to listen.

Bradley straightened, energized. “So we’re the sideshow. But while they’re watching us, the real work happens somewhere else.”

Wildman flashed teeth. “Exactly.”

A bell rang, and trays slid out of the galley. The crowd broke up, but nobody snickered anymore. They just drifted back to their corners, talking a little quieter.

At the hatch, Haverchuck had been watching the whole time. For the first half, he wore the look of a man overseeing a child’s talent show. But as the crowd shifted, and as Wildman’s diagrams took on the gravity of real combat, Haverchuck’s face changed. By the end, he wasn’t dismissing Wildman as a joke. He was sizing him up as a weapon.

After the last sailor shuffled out, Wildman swept the salt off the table with the edge of his hand. “You ever think maybe they’re setting us up?” he said, low and quiet, just for Zill and Bradley.

Zill said nothing, just held his gaze.

Bradley gave a thin smile. “If they are, let’s at least make it worth the ticket.”

Wildman nodded. “Amen.”

Across the mess, the cook who’d mocked them earlier scrubbed the table where Wildman had drawn his plans. He lingered over the patterns, then glanced up, something like worry creasing his brow.

Arm wrestling had a smell. Grease, sweat, metal, and, on the HMS Hunter, hot gun oil and tobacco. Every time Dorothy “Dottie” Betts slammed an opponent’s hand to the deck, the crowd of sailors erupted in the same three-step: whoop, curse, scatter for a better view. Some bet cigarettes, some bet money, and a few just watched because they liked seeing someone get humiliated by a girl.

Dottie’s side of the makeshift table overflowed with loot. Mostly cigarettes—Lucky Strikes, Old Holborn, the odd battered Turkish blend—but she also had a deck of pin-up cards, a half-eaten Mars bar, and a tooth wrapped in a tissue. It belonged to the first petty officer she’d thrashed.

She wiped sweat from her brow with a forearm, spat on the deck, and said, “Next.”

A ginger-headed gunner’s mate squared up, biceps shaking, lips curled in a sneer. “You’re gonna wish you’d stuck to powdering your nose, darling.”

Dottie gave a thin-lipped smile. “The only thing getting powdered is your ass, sweetheart.” The crowd loved that one.

The match lasted four seconds. Dottie let him hold steady for a tick, then drove his hand straight down. A sharp pop, then his knuckles hit the metal, loud enough to bounce loose nails in the deck. The ginger staggered back, clutching his hand. Dottie scooped up his ration book and added it to her haul.

A few of the other sailors laughed, but the laughter sounded different now. Edgy, careful.

A burly chief petty officer, shirt straining against a pair of anchor tattoos, sauntered forward. He cracked his neck, then his fingers. “Alright, you got me curious, princess.” He hooked a thumb at Dottie’s stack. “Double or nothing. All in.”

Dottie sized him up: a lifer, probably did pushups for fun. His arms were thick, but she’d seen thicker. “You sure you wanna do this?” she asked, deadpan.

He grinned. “I’ll go easy on you.”

Dottie set her elbow and motioned for him to grip up. He did, and she could feel the shake of adrenaline in his hand. She looked him dead in the eye and said, “Ready?”

He nodded.

The whistle went. Dottie didn’t move at first. She let him push, strain, even gain a millimeter or two. Then she twisted, torqued, and slammed his hand down so fast the tendons in his wrist gave an audible snap. The crowd gasped. The man went white, then red, then nothing at all. He slid off the bench and hugged his arm to his chest.

Dottie leaned over him and spoke, not loud, but plenty for everyone to hear: “That’s what happens when you underestimate a woman.”

She pocketed his carton of cigs, then, as a final flex, took the lighter from his breast pocket and lit one up. She inhaled, slow and deep, and let the smoke curl out of her nostrils.

Someone at the back whispered, “Holy shit,” and nobody argued.

Dottie swept her winnings into a drawstring bag. The deckhands parted to let her through. Even the ones who’d mocked her before now watched her go with something like fear.

She headed belowdecks, smoke trailing behind her, and made a beeline for the galley. The cook, a moon-faced man with hands like dinner hams, was waiting. “You get what I asked?” he said, not looking up from his pot.

Dottie tossed three packs onto the counter. “That enough for two?”

He checked, then nodded. “I’ll have it for you by morning.” He reached under the counter and handed her a crusty paper bag, heavy as a brick. Dottie peeked inside: extra rations, plus a chunk of what looked like real chocolate.

She winked. “Pleasure doing business, chef.”

Back in the passageway, Dottie passed Frank Zill and Bradley. They were in the corridor, leaning against a bulkhead, mid-argument about something nobody else cared about. Zill watched her go, eyes narrowed, and said nothing. There was nothing to say that the tooth in her winnings hadn’t said already.

Bradley gave a little bow, as if in solidarity. “You’re gonna put the whole ship out of cigarettes at this rate,” he said.

Dottie blew smoke in his direction. “Tell ‘em to bring more next time.”

In the corner, barely visible, was Smith. He pretended to read a bulletin, but every so often his eyes flicked toward Dottie and the others. He scribbled in a tiny notebook, then palmed it into his pocket when Dottie’s gaze hit him.

She snorted, flicked ash into a wastebin, and made her way to her quarters. The ship rocked gently beneath her, the sea calm for once. She unwrapped her ration stash, bit into the chocolate, and leaned back against the wall, letting the sugar do its slow, expensive work.

Tomorrow, they’d be training with the Marines. Tomorrow, the men might try to put her in her place.

She smiled, licking chocolate from her thumb.

Let them try.