In the Balance

Besides, when everyone stank, no one in particular stank. After a few breaths, the nose accepted the smell as part of the background and forgot about it, just as a radar operator learned to ignore echoes from the countryside in which his set was placed.

Had been placed, Goldfarb corrected himself. Ground-based radars had saved Britain against the Germans, but not against the Lizards. His own nervous forays in the belly of Ted Embry’s Lanc continued. He hadn’t been shot down yet, which was about as much as he could say for the project. The boffins were still trying to figure out whether the aircraft-mounted radar, used as intermittently as it had to be, helped them shoot down more Lizard planes.

Sylvia snaked her way through the crush. Smiling at Goldfarb, she asked, “What’ll it be, dearie?” In the firelight, her hair glowed like molten copper.

“A pint of whatever you have,” he answered; the White Horse Inn had never yet run out of beer, but it never got in the same brew twice running any more.

As he spoke, Goldfarb slipped his arm around the barmaid’s waist for a moment. she didn’t pull away or slap his hand, as she would have before he started climbing up into the cold and frightening night. Instead, she leaned closer, tilted her head up to brush her lips against his, and then slid away to find out what more drinkers wanted.

Wanting her, Goldfarb thought, had been more exciting than having her was. Or maybe he’d just expected too much. Knowing she shared her favors with a lot of men hadn’t bothered him when he was on the outside looking in. It was different now that he’d become one of those blokes himself. He hadn’t thought of himself as the jealous type-he still didn’t, not really-but he would have wanted more of her than she was willing to give.

Not, he admitted to himself, that thinking of her bare under the covers didn’t warm him when he sucked in frigid, rubber-tasting oxygen at Angels Twenty.

Her white blouse reappeared from out of the dark forest of RAF blue and civilian tweeds and serges. She handed Goldfarb a pint mug. “Here y’go, love. Tell me what you make of this.” She took a step back and cocked her head, awaiting his reaction. He took a cautious pull. Some of the alleged bitters he’d drunk since the Lizards came made the earlier war beer seem ambrosial by comparison. But his eyebrows went up in surprise at the rich, nutty taste that filled his mouth. “That’s bloody good!” he said, amazed. He sipped again, thoughtfully smacked his lips. “It’s nothing I’ve drunk before, but it’s bloody good. Where’d our sainted landlord come by it?”

Sylvia brushed red wisps of hair back from her eyes. “He brewed it his own self.”

“Go on,” Goldfarb said, in automatic disbelief.

“He did,” Sylvia insisted indignantly. “Me and Daphne, we helped, too. It’s dead easy when you know how. Maybe after the war-if there ever is an after the war-I’ll start my own little brewery and put a pub in front I’d invite you there, if I didn’t think you’d drink up my profit.”

Goldfarb emptied the mug with a practiced twist of the wrist. “If you do as well as this, I’d surely try. Bring me another, will you?”

He kept staring after her once she’d disappeared among the acres of dark cloth. She was the first person he’d heard speak of what might be after the war since the Lizards came. Thinking of what to do once Jerry was beaten was one thing, but as far as he could see, the fight against the Lizards would go on forever… unless it ended in defeat.

“Hullo, old man,” said a blurry voice at his elbow. He turned his head. By the list Jerome Jones had developed, he’d taken on several pints of ale below the waterline and would likely start sinking at any monent The other radarman went on, “D’you know what I had with my spuds tonight? Baked beans, that’s what.” His eyes glittered in sodden triumph.

“Anything with spuds is reason enough to shout,” Goldfarb admitted. Britain was hungry these days, not only because the island could not grow enough to feed itself, but also because Lizard bombing of the railway net kept what food there was from moving around the country.

“So you needn’t feel so bloody smug about moving in with your bloody aircrew. Baked beans.” Jones smacked his lips, exhaled in Goldfarb’s direction. He didn’t smell like baked beans-he smelled like beer.

“I’m not smug, Jerome,” Goldfarb said, sighing. “It’s what I was ordered to do, so I did it.” He knew the other radarman resented not being chosen to take a seat aloft in the Lancaster; not only did he crave the duty (no one could fault Jones’ pluck) but, being stuck on the ground, he still had no luck with the White Horse Inn’s barmaids.