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trainees die, someone said ten percent are killed in training, but this time it finally got to me.”
    Whiteside was shocked. “Ten percent dead before they even make it to the war?”
    “Yes sir.”
    The colonel shook his head. This was news to him. “Well, I guess there are no minor accidents in an airplane. Not like a tank bumping into a tree. Hell, the tree would likely lose. We’ve lost men killed and injured in training, but nothing like ten percent.”
    “Of course, sir, there’s also the thought that we have more than enough bomber pilots and planes?”
    “What?” Whiteside said incredulously. “That better be somebody’s idea of a joke.”
    “Sorry, sir, but it isn’t. There’s a feeling among air force brass that the Nazis are on their last legs and that victory is just around the corner, so a lot of pilots and trainees are being declared superfluous and transferred to other branches. Obviously, top brass doesn’t talk to me, but there are rumors and nobody’s disputing them.”
    “Shit.”
    “It gets worse. The air force thinks they’re running out of targets.”
    “Bull-fuck and double shit,” Whiteside said, his face reddening. “Why don’t they come and ask the guys who are trying to clear Nazis out of the way? They want targets? Hell, I’ll give them a dozen just a few miles away.”
    Whiteside again shook his head. “Jesus, what a war. Well, here we are, and, even though you don’t know diddly about tanks, I have no choice but to put you in charge of Headquarters Company B, the position held by your predecessor. You’ll be in charge of setting up the regimental headquarters when we move and for security at all times. The CO is Colonel Stoddard. He’s at division getting orders and you’ll meet him soon enough.”
    Whiteside looked through some more papers. “You a college graduate?”
    “Not quite, sir. I made it through three years at Michigan State College in East Lansing, Michigan, before I got drafted.”
    “Life’s a bitch,” the major muttered. “I ran a hardware store in Cleveland.”
    “May I ask what happened to the guy I’m replacing?”
    “What happened shouldn’t have. I wrote a letter to his family saying that his Jeep struck a mine and he’d been killed instantly. Of course it didn’t happen that way. He saw a dead kraut officer and tried to take the dead guy’s Luger as a souvenir. Unfortunately, the body was booby-trapped and your predecessor lost his arms and his face. And he didn’t die instantly. He screamed for two hours before medics got enough morphine in him to shut him up. Permanently. Rule number one for rookie officers is don’t go souvenir hunting. I’ll have someone take you to your quarters and you can meet Captain Levin. He’s in charge of Headquarters A Company.”
    Morgan was dismissed but had a point to add. “By the way, Colonel. Maybe you don’t want to wish for close-in bomber support.”
    “Why not?”
    “It doesn’t matter what propaganda they’ve been feeding you, but bombers can’t hit anything accurately from high up. If you’re within a couple of miles of the target, you’re in more danger than the krauts.”
    “Shit.”
    “Frankly, sir,” Morgan said wickedly, “the safest place to be when bombs drop is right at the target.”
    * * *
    First Lieutenant Phips did what he was told. In the middle of a clammy and rainy night, he gathered the crew of Mother’s Milk and they were taken away in two trucks while he rode in the back seat of an army sedan. The trucks were buttoned up and there were shades on the side windows of the sedan. If he didn’t know better, he might have thought that the army didn’t want anybody to see him.
    And why not? He was a pariah. On finally making it back to base, he’d had his ass chewed up down and sideways for having broken formation; thus putting both himself and others at risk. He’d endured it because he knew his superiors and peers were right and that he’d committed a major