A Company of Heroes Book Five: The Space Cadet Read Online Free Page B

and mood could handle, but after a few minutes decided to give the whole day up as a bad job.
    He pulled off his clothes and neatly hung them over the back of the chair, which under the unaccustomed weight tipped over backwards in a dead faint onto the grimy floor. He let them lay there. He blew out the candle and felt his way to the bed, which was as damp and clammy as he expected—bringing to mind the innkeeper’s wife’s ague-cake. Musrum’s pendulous balls, let not my thoughts go there, please .
    As he wriggled his skinny flanks into the lumpy mattress, he wondered if perhaps it might not be worthwhile trying to save something worthwhile from an otherwise miserable day; a kind of dessert as it were. He thought about the blonde girl. She was soggily fat, like a loaf of bread left in a pan of water, her skin looked like wet crêpe paper, her hair was stringy and her dwarfish features were crowded into the center of her moon face like lumps in a bowl of cold porridge. He put his hands behind his head and thought about the prospect. She had not been able, he decided upon reflection, to take her eyes from him. Surely, he concluded, he was not suffering from an unwonted conceit: it would have been difficult for anyone to mistake her expression of openly lascivious fascination and invitation, like that of an amorous cow. He fell asleep among these pleasant contemplations. This was, as it would have proved, fortunate, for, difficult though it may have been for him to imagine, he was in fact mistaken in his interpretation of the girl’s interest. She herself was just then also falling asleep, in the room directly below his own, had he but known it, wondering if such a pockmarked face as the broker possessed would absorb water like the sponge it so closely resembled. She imagined his oversoaked head oozing all night and wasn’t looking forward to having to drag the mattress down the stairs and outside for drying. It was bad enough taking care of her mother’s things. She reserved her secret lusts for the professional wrestlers to whom she wrote ramblingly illiterate pornographic letters under the pseudonym “Ursula.”
    The following morning was as grey as the last, but, at least for the moment, it was not raining. Instead, a fine ash was sifting from the low clouds. The broker declined breakfast and went directly to the stable.
    “Fed the babes last night,” offered the innkeeper, sidling along beside Gerber, “and again this morning. Didn’t have much milk—cows’re a little scarce lately, as you might imagine, sir. But we did our best with some leftover gravy, gin and wine.”
    “I’m sure,” said the broker. “How much do I owe you?”
    “Well, sir, a quarter-crown, sir, would suffice. We’ll call that even. But I’m bound to inform you, sir, that some of them babes in your wagon is dead. I cannot assume responsibility, sir, I hope you appreciate that. They got washed and fed along with the rest, and that’s all you asked of us. Spooned in the feed whether they took it or not; all got their fair share; didn’t cheat you there, sir, not so much as a spoonful.”
    “Yes, yes. Get my horse ready. I must be on my way.”
    “Yes, sir, right away, sir.”
    The innkeeper bustled into the open door of the stable and kicked at a pile of straw that proved to be the stable boy’s bed.
    “Get the gentleman’s rig together, boy,” he ordered as a gaunt, stupid, pimply face emerged and looked at its master sullenly. The innkeeper repeated the order as the boy shuffled off, scratching his skinny posterior.
    “Now,” he continued, turning to face the broker, “perhaps the good gentleman might consider a, um, business proposition?”
    “Business?”
    “Yes, sir. I was just wondering...well, sir, I was just wondering what you planned to do with them dead babies in there. Seemed to me that they can’t be doing you much good now.”
    “No. They’re expected losses. I make allowances for a certain