"What exactly is a subaltern, Miss O'Brien? It is Miss O'Brien, isn't it?"

"It's Subaltern O'Brien," she said, stiffening. "Subaltern is an Auxiliary Territorial Service rank, equivalent to lieutenant. That's a step up from second lieutenant, by the way."

"Thanks for the reminder, sir."

"Ma'am," she said.

"What?"

"'Thanks for the reminder, ma'am,'" she said. "That is the proper way to address an officer in the ATS. A superior officer."

I wished Uncle Ike would return. She'd seemed nice when he was around. Now she was acting like an officer, a real officer, even though she was ATS, which was an auxiliary organization the British had put together to allow women to make their contribution to the war effort. Kay had come from the ATS, and I knew they worked as antiaircraft gunners, military police, and everything else short of carrying a rifle at the front.

Subaltern O'Brien's tropical-weight khaki uniform was neat and pressed, a remarkable feat in the heat and dust of the Holy Land. Her ATS insignia, those three letters enclosed by a laurel with a crown at the top, was shiny and bright, the brass gleaming above her breast pocket. Her buttons were polished, their golden color jumping out at me.

She caught my eye wandering over her and turned to Cosgrove, with a brief expression of disdain. I wanted to say I was only admiring her buttons but had the good sense to take another drink of water instead. I smoothed out the wrinkles in my uniform as I tried to remember the last time I'd polished my own buttons. I'd paid some kid in Algiers to do it a while ago, but he'd gotten more Brasso on the jacket than on the buttons.

"Would you like to start the briefing, Major Cosgrove?" She was all business.

"Certainly. Now, Boyle, how much do you know about the Irish Republican Army?"

"I've heard of it," I said, suspicious as any good Irish boy would be of an Englishman asking such a question. I stared at O'Brien again, overlooking her buttons this time but still wondering why she wore a British uniform.