BRAT and the Kids of Warriors Read online

  “They got close enough to spot four Panzer tanks. Jean-Sébastien was surprised to see a couple of horse-drawn wagons, too. In those wagons there were big, steel barrels from which German soldiers were refilling their tanks with diesel fuel. The boys carefully backed out of there. They made it over to the edge of the woods and almost ran into two more tanks. They hadn’t spotted them till the last second, because they were hidden under camouflage netting. The tanks were positioned with a clear view out across the fields and toward the village. While the tanks had a great view, those Panzers would be very hard to spot by anyone advancing on them.”

  “Jean-Sébastien and his buddy were really pushing their luck,” Alex said. Jack could see he was almost unable to stand the suspense.

  “Absolutely. If the Germans caught them sneaking around their tanks, they’d be found guilty of spying.”

  “Not even we could have talked our way out of that one,” Alex admitted.

  “I suppose Jean-Sébastien knew it, too, because at that point, they carefully backed away and didn’t stop till they were deep in the forest. From there, they snuck the long way around to the farmhouse. Hiding in one of the barns, they compared everything they’d seen, wondering wildly what it meant. One thing was terrifyingly clear: The Panzer Lehr was lying in wait to ambush the advancing American Army.

  “In the early evening, Jean-Sébastien’s luck held when he made his way back through the German lines. He had a soccer ball tucked under one arm as he biked past the roadblock, nodding to the guard, and yelling, ‘Good evening. We won the game!’ The guard smiled back at him, a kid who was the picture of innocence.

  “Jean-Sébastien held it together until he was outside the village. Then his hands began to shake so hard he dropped the soccer ball. It rolled to the side of the road and down an embankment—he didn’t even consider retrieving it. He forced himself to stay on the bike and cover the seven kilometers back to his own village. By the time he stashed his bike behind the café, all the adrenaline had left his body. He was exhausted, but calm, when he entered the café. His father and McHenry were waiting for him at a small table. His father exhaled.

  “The café was empty, so he quickly went over everything he and François had seen. McHenry knew immediately that this was critical intelligence. He thanked him, saying he’d been very daring to take on the mission. As McHenry spoke to the boy, Monsieur de la Chaussée seemed to study his son with relief and a new sense of pride.

  “McHenry hurried to headquarters to go over everything he’d learned with his commander and the intelligence officer. It was obvious that the boys had come up with more than they’d realized. They had confirmed that the 901st Panzergrenadier and the Panzer Lehr were there, lying in wait to ambush the Americans. The Americans now knew exactly where the Germans planned to hit them. That meant they could take appropriate countermeasures. If that had been everything Jean-Sébastien had found out, it would have been worth it. But the most important piece of intel actually was about the horse-drawn carts. Think about it for a second, Alex. What do they tell you?”

  When Alex didn’t venture an opinion, Jack continued. “I didn’t get it either. But it told the American intelligence officer that the Germans were running out of fuel! Tanks eat a huge amount of diesel fuel. Being Navy, you might not know this, but a tank uses fifty times more fuel than a car.”

  “Okay,” said Alex. “But why were the Germans using horse-drawn carts to refuel the tanks? Where were their big diesel refueling trucks?”

  Jack grinned. “They didn’t have enough fuel to run the refueling trucks and the tanks at the same time. Jean-Sébastien’s intel confirmed that our bombers were successfully destroying the German oil refineries making the diesel fuel. It also meant that whatever battle plans the Americans came up with against the Panzer Lehr, they needed to force the Germans to move their tanks—a lot. The Americans needed to force the Germans to use up their precious diesel fuel.”

  Jack sank back in his chair. Alex knew the story was over.

  “So whatever happened in the tank battle that followed?”

  “No clue,” said Jack. “That wasn’t the point of Col. McHenry’s story.”

  “And a very good story it is,” said Alex. “I mean, what kid doesn’t want to be Jean-Sébastien biking behind enemy lines?”

  “Yup,” Jack said. “Jean-Sébastien delivered significant intel about the Nazi Panzer tanks massing on the American Army. That French kid actually did something that helped.”

  Alex said, “You think we’ll ever get the chance to do something like Jean-Sébastien?”

  “Dunno. I do think about it sometimes. I mean, our dads did so much stuff during the war. In fact, I’m sure we don’t know half of what they’ve done for this country. I just hope we get our chance sometime.”

  A long silence followed as the boys thought it over.

  “Well, if it’s ever going to happen, I suspect Germany’s the place where it will,” Alex concluded. “It’s all conflict and war there.” Then, half joking, he challenged Jack, “You think you’ll be ready?”

  “Absolutely,” Jack said, grinning, “and so will you.”

  “I think you’re right,” said Alex. “In fact, I think we have a destiny. I think you have a destiny. The time will come when you will be a Jean-Sébastien.”

  Jack tossed in his bunk that night, unable to sleep. So much kept rattling around in his head. Might he really have a destiny? Would he ever get the chance to prove he could do something for his country? Would his chance to make a difference ever really come? And what if it did? He’d told Alex he was ready to be like Jean-Sébastien, but who was he kidding? Alone in his bunk, he couldn’t fool himself. He wasn’t ready to be Jean-Sébastien . . . at least not yet.

  5

  White Glove

  Why is it that the mornings you desperately want to go out to play with your friends are the mornings your mom insists you aren’t going anywhere? It’s those mornings you just know she’s going to come up with at least ten things you have to do before she’ll even think of letting you loose.

  That’s just the kind of morning Jack woke up to.

  The real problem was that his mom was finally feeling okay. She didn’t have that greenish look, and she wasn’t running for the bathroom. If Mrs. McMasters wasn’t seasick, then she was definitely back in charge.

  “Okay, everyone, up and dressed,” she said, twitching Rabbit’s blanket. “We are all going to breakfast together, and afterward we will immediately return to this cabin to give it a thorough cleaning.”

  Universal groaning broke out.

  “Children, this ship reaches Bremerhaven tomorrow, and we want to be totally ready to meet your father. So don’t plan on doing anything until we are one-hundred percent packed up, cleaned up, and ready to go. Got it?”

  Don’t you love it when moms say things like, Got it? The question sounds like, Do you understand? But every brat knows that’s not what it means. The translation in mother-speak is: You are going to do exactly what I say, and you’re not doing anything else until I am completely satisfied that you have done everything I can possibly think of.

  Jack knew from grim experience that it didn’t matter to his mom that the ship already had staff that cleaned the cabins and bathrooms. She would still have her kids clean that cabin and the bathroom from top to bottom. Her ground rules never varied. You always leave your quarters scrubbed and clean. And that meant cleaner than when you moved in. She made sure they never violated that rule.

  So with this cheerful thought in mind, Jack got ready to go to breakfast. He was waiting with Queenie by the door when he heard splashing in the bathroom. Rabbit was still in the tub playing submarine, showing no hurry to get anywhere. Jack was fed up with her lollygagging and about to clobber her. Fortunately, just when Rabbit had pushed it to that point, Mrs. McMasters came by and yanked her out of the tub.


  “Time to go, Sugar. Let’s get you dry and your clothes on.”

  Perhaps breakfast was Chef Porteaux’s favorite meal, because it was the ship’s specialty. And the ever-hungry Jack did a yeoman’s job of ordering it up. Before you knew it, there were eggs, bacon, sausage, fried potatoes, pancakes, waffles, coffee, milk, cocoa, and orange juice on their table. Everyone ate as though it had been a week since their last meal. In Mrs. McMasters’s case, that was nearly true.

  Alex came by their table and asked if Jack could go play, but Mrs. McMasters made herself perfectly clear that Jack wouldn’t budge until he’d finished his chores. Alex said okay, but, as he passed, he leaned over to Jack and mouthed the words, “How long?”

  Jack rolled his eyes. “It’s the white glove.”

  “Not the white glove! That’ll take forever.”

  Jack imitated his neck was hanging in a noose. “See ya later, Alex.”

  “See ya much later, Jack.”

  By the time everyone had finished the breakfast feast, they were more prepared for a nap than a major house cleaning. But naps were not on Mrs. McMasters’s agenda. When they got back to the cabin, the first task she gave the kids was to lay out what they would wear on their final day aboard ship, so the rest could be packed. That alone took Queenie almost half an hour.

  Then the cleaning began. Unfortunately for the kids, Mrs. McMasters’s style of cleaning involved two dreaded objects: an old toothbrush and a white glove. And she never went anywhere without them. So in a game of drawing straws, Queenie lost and ended up with toothbrush detail—just about the worst job any kid could get. It meant you had to clean every corner, crack, and crevice of the bathroom down on your hands and knees with a cup of soapy water. You detail-clean the bathroom in and around the toilet, the tub, the shower, the sink, and even inside any cupboards. Getting toothbrush duty was a world-class horror, and Queenie’s expression registered this fact.

  The white glove, however, was the sole property of Mrs. McMasters. When the kids announce they’re all finished cleaning and they’re sure everything’s perfect, she puts on that white glove. She goes through the whole house, or in this case, the whole cabin, running a finger of that white glove over anything—along the tops of paintings hanging on the wall, inside the shower, behind the toilet, etc. If she finds even one speck of dust, they start cleaning all over again. It might not be fair. It might not be right. But it is the McMasters way.

  So they got down to cleaning. While Jack started in on the bedroom, Queenie began scrubbing behind the toilet. Rabbit’s job was to come along with a washcloth and wipe up after Queenie’s toothbrush.

  The first time Mrs. McMasters came by to check on progress, Rabbit and Queenie were both on their knees in the bathroom. Rabbit looked up at her and said, “Mom, guess what. My friend Ernie saw Santa Claus when he was up by the North Pole.”

  “That’s nice, dear—now keep working.”

  Rabbit, as the follow-up kid, was also responsible for yelling, “Missed a spot!” if she happened to get any dirt on the white cloth. She took great joy in such announcements, right to the point where Queenie seemed ready to kill her.

  “Missed a spot,” shouted Rabbit, for about the tenth time.

  “Did not!”

  “Did so!”

  “Show me!” demanded Queenie.

  So Rabbit lifted her finger that was wrapped around the cloth to show her the evidence.

  “There’s no dirt on that!” Queenie’s groan was tinged with annoyance and a righteous dose of anger.

  “Oh, yeah, there is. Right here is a speck. See?”

  “Is not.”

  “Is so.”

  And, of course, things just got louder and louder between them.

  Queenie shouted, “Mom, she’s doing it again! Make her stop it right now, or I’m gonna box her ears!”

  Mrs. McMasters marched in. “Knock it off, both of you. Right now!” Almost as an afterthought she glanced at the cloth. “Stop torturing your sister, Rabbit.” Then she gave them one of her classic lines. “I don’t care how long it takes you to get this place shipshape. It doesn’t bother me. I have all day and all night. It’s totally up to you. You can cooperate and get it done, or you can make it last all day. You decide.”

  In the first ninety minutes, they failed the white-glove inspection twice. But before the third try, they re-scrubbed every inch of the cabin. With great ceremony, Mrs. McMasters put on her white glove to move around the cabin testing here and there. Swipe, inspect. Swipe, inspect. The glove showed no dust or dirt, so she murmured, Um-hum, and moved on. Then came the bathroom, the scene of both previous failures. Queenie and Rabbit held their breath. After ten swipes, inspects, and Um-hums, Mrs. McMasters pronounced the cabin clean. They were leaving the cabin cleaner than when they came aboard ship. The McMasterses, once again, had met their personal standards.

  The children’s sighs of relief were audible.

  “All right, you may go. But be back by six o’clock sharp.”

  Three children were out of that cabin in less than ten seconds.

  And it wouldn’t take many more seconds to find trouble.

  6

  Final Mission

  Jack hadn’t made it ten feet out the door before crashing into Alex, who sat in the narrow corridor waiting for him to finish.

  “Three hours! Man, your mom’s tough.”

  “You should see how things are when my dad’s around.”

  Alex jumped up. “Let’s go. It’s our last day, and we have lots of ground to cover. Wait’ll you hear my plan,” he said, with a sneaky smile.

  “I’m up for it—whatever it is.”

  Alex narrowed his eyes, giving Jack a long stare. “I think the captain and Commander Allen have a problem. Enemy agents might have taken over the ship’s engine room. But Allen and the captain aren’t aware of anything, yet.”

  Jack said, “So our mission is to determine if there’s really a threat to the engine room?”

  “You got it. We need to get in there and check things out.”

  “There’s no way! It’s locked down tight. We’ve already tried.”

  “Follow me. I’ll show—”

  “We’ll help,” interrupted Rabbit. She and Queenie had come up behind them.

  “Don’t even think about it,” snapped Jack. “This is a mission for just Alex and me.”

  But Queenie wasn’t buying it. With a tone that said, “I’m the oldest in the family, so I’m in charge,” she said matter-of-factly, “Jack, you know we’re coming with you. Either we come, or I tell Mom.”

  Jack gave her a hard look. He tried to stare her down so she’d leave and take Rabbit with her. But she just stared back, and he knew she had him.

  “All right, all right. But you stay behind us, because we’re leading this mission.”

  Off they went, the two girls, all smiles, bring up the rear. However, Alex didn’t head for the engine room. When Jack questioned this, Alex just said, “Snack bar first. We can’t just rush down to the engine room and mount a frontal attack. We need a plan to penetrate it, gather intel, and do it undetected. Besides, it’s past noon and I’m starving.”

  Jack realized the wisdom of this. They all got cheeseburgers and fries. Except Rabbit. She was crazy about grilled-cheese sandwiches. They chose a table at the back of the snack bar, away from anyone who might overhear their council of war.

  “So how do we get in?” asked Jack.

  Alex said, “The second day at sea I was exploring with a kid named Gus. Low in the ship, we found a passageway that dead ended at a round hatch in the wall—watertight like on a submarine. It had a crank to open it. We decided to play submarine. With work, we got it open.

  “It leads into a passageway made of thin sheet metal. It’s basically a big air duct. We crawled in and closed the hatch behind us, so no one w
ould know we were in there. The crank works on both sides, like on a sub, so we knew we could reopen it. But once it was closed the space was pitch black. We crawled on our hands and knees, eventually coming to another duct that leads in two different directions. To the right we heard engine-room sounds, like cranking pistons. We crawled in that direction, but after two or three more turns, we got nervous we might get lost in that maze of ductwork. It was too tight to turn around, so we just started backing out. Eventually, we managed to find the hatch and get out. Gus and I planned to get flashlights and other equipment the next day and make it all the way to the machine room.”

  “And?” asked Jack.

  “We never made it. Things kinda went wrong that night,” Alex said, explaining that he and Gus had run into Commander Knox, which meant introducing Gus to his father. Commander Knox asked him who his dad was. Gus had said his dad was Master Sergeant Stephens.

  “Everything seemed okay until later that night. My dad took me aside for the talk . . .”

  “We know all about those,” said Queenie.

  “He informed me I wasn’t to play with Gus anymore. For a split second, I thought he’d found out we’d been in those ventilation ducts. But the problem wasn’t that. When I asked how come, all he said was, ‘It’s not a good idea,’ with that voice that says the commander has set down the law. The next day, I saw Gus one last time. He had gotten the same message from his dad. It was the old rule that officers’ kids can’t play with sergeants’ kids, and they can’t play with us.”

  Queenie said, “Just ’cause sergeants aren’t officers. The dumbest rule yet.”

  Rabbit nodded her head so hard, her brains were close to shaking out. “That’s why I can’t bring home half the kids in my class.”