Chapter 12

Every boy dreamed of playing soldier, and I was no exception. With my ability to time travel and universe jump, I could pick any time and place I wanted to play and barrel right in. With my TK armor on, there was no way I could be hurt, so even my mother could not object to me giving it a try.

I was trying to find a good place to go and I was considering some of the possibilities. I figured that anything that I could imagine could be found somewhere/somewhen, so all I needed to do was to pick a destination. I considered trying a place with Heinlein's "Starship Troopers," but realized that I would need too much training to make that worth while. Traveling with King Arthur or Conan also required too much specialized weapon skill to make that practical, so what to do?

It looked to me like I would have the best luck in a World War II situation. I thought that I had seen enough war movies that I could do pretty well as an infantry soldier and not be too much of a burden on my comrades. I thought that a submachine gun would be a suitable weapon. It would be a good choice, since it was a close-in weapon with a lot of firepower and was not meant to be a sharpshooter's gun.

All I needed now was a choice of theater of operations. Based on what I had seen in the movies, Italy, in the dry season, looked like a good choice. I told Mother and Dad what I planned to do, so they wouldn't worry about me. I promised to keep my TK armor up at all times and to come home if I got into too much trouble. Dad had been sent to the Pacific, so he thought that anywhere in Europe would be a better choice!

I took on the David body and jumped to a supply depot in Italy in 1944. I found a uniform and other supplies and appointed myself as Pfc. David Smith. I found a "Grease Gun," because it was not nearly as heavy as a Thompson, and POVed around for a skirmish to join. I found a squad making its way through a vineyard, headed toward the German lines.

I jumped ahead of the detail and lay down on the ground. When the men came up to me, I pretended to be a GI lost from his squad and hunting for some friends to join. I skimmed through the sergeant's mind and found a suitable unit to claim to be from; I gave him my story and he accepted me as legitimate. He told me to fall in at the end of the line and they would deliver me home when they finished this assignment. I agreed and moved into place. This would give me an opportunity to learn by observing the other men as they went through the patrol.

As much as possible, we stayed crouched as we walked through the vineyard to keep the Germans from spotting us. I supplemented the work of our point man by pushing my POV out ahead to look for Germans. I also tried to sense land mines we might run into; I planned to deactivate them if I found any.

We came to a country lane at the far side of the vineyard. The sergeant had us take a break while he and the point looked for the enemy. They spotted an MG (Machine Gun) nest about 50 yards down the lane and on the other side. We would have been dead meat if we had simply tried to walk down the lane! The sergeant decided to take out the MG. We were facing a MG crew of two men and four supporting soldiers with bolt-action rifles. We had nine men, plus a medic, with the sergeant's Thompson and my Grease Gun, a BAR, and six riflemen with semi-automatic M1s.

His plan was for three men to go with him far enough through the vineyard to get well past the German MG and cross the lane to attack from that side. The assistant squad leader, one other man, and I would cross the lane here and attack the MG from this side. The BAR man and one rifleman would go to this side of the lane opposite the MG to initiate the fight by lobbing a grenade into the nest and then keeping them busy while we attacked from their flanks. He expected to get into position within 30 minutes, so he wanted the grenade tossed then. We all nodded that we understood and split up to do our jobs.

We crossed the lane without being spotted and got into position. We settled down to wait for the fun to start. We were close enough to hear the Germans talking; obviously, they didn't know that we were around. We had to wait about 15 minutes before the grenade went off very close to the MG. One man screamed that he was wounded and then the BAR opened up. Another grenade went of near the MG, apparently without wounding anybody else.

The MG opened fire at the BAR and we began shooting. There was fire from the other side of the MG nest as we all shot as fast as we could pull the trigger. I couldn't tell if there was any aiming on either side, it looked to me to be mostly point and shoot, hoping to make the other side keep their heads down. Somebody from the sergeant's side lobbed another grenade and the German MG stopped shooting. Less than a minute later, there was a lot of yelling from the Germans and we saw a white flag being waved.

Our sergeant yelled for us to cease fire and he ordered, in passable German, for the surrendering soldiers to stand up with their hands in the air. Four of the Germans stood up with their hands up. Our sergeant waved for us to keep the Germans covered while he investigated. I had already looked with my POV, so I knew that he would find one dead German and one man wounded in the leg so that he couldn't stand.

I scanned the minds of the Germans and found that the dead man had been the MG operator and had been killed by the last grenade. The wounded man had been hit by shrapnel from the first grenade. The medic was called in and the German's wound was treated. The prisoners were searched and told to sit to one side while our people looked for souvenirs. A runner was sent back to headquarters for further instructions and I went with him.

So far, fighting a real war was not much fun! I jumped back home and took stock of the situation. It was obvious to me that, if I wanted to play soldier in a real war, I needed a lot more training. Otherwise, I was going to get somebody killed! Did I want to take that time? I didn't know, so I decided to defer any more soldering to another time.

Mother was still after me to find a girlfriend, but I hadn't seen one that appealed to me. Mother's disgusted comment was, "Maybe you're in love with yourself!"

This triggered a thought, "What would the me that was a girl be like?" I decided to find out. I sent out my POV searching the alternate universes for a me with two X chromosomes. Damn, but there were a lot of them! I finally settled on a universe that was as nearly like mine as I could find, but with a female me. As a joke, I decided to call my universe "MU" for male universe and the other one "FU" for female universe.

I POVed to FU and looked around. I might as well be in my home universe for all the differences I could find; this was perfect for my present purpose. I started looking for "FM" (Female Me) and found her sitting in the backyard under a shade tree. She was reading and not paying much attention to the world around her, so I jumped into her physical presence. I walked up, making enough noise so that I wouldn't startle her. "Hi, I'm Bruce. Who are you?"

"Hi, I'm Brenda. Where did you come from?"

"I'm new to the neighborhood and thought that I would say hello when I saw you sitting here. I hope that I'm not disturbing you."

"No, that's OK. I was just reading some more of 'Gone With the Wind.' Scarlet was a real nut! Have you read it?"

"Not exactly. I've read bits and pieces. I could never get interested enough in it to read it all the way through. Scarlet was too selfish for my taste."

"Have a seat, Bruce. No need to stand in the sun when you can sit in the shade."

"Thanks, Brenda." I sat down near her and we talked about inconsequential things for nearly an hour. I had been "reading her mind" all this time and found her very likable. I decided that it was safe to tell her the truth about me without frightening her too much.