Imaginary Giant Latvian Colonel of the Latvian Army-In-Exile
in Lawrence Block’s “Tanner’s Twelve Swingers” (1967)
The explosion tore the little shed in half. The riflemen were moving in now, firing as they ran, pouring bullets into the crippled shed. The gunfire dropped off as Karlis and I reached the doorway. I held up my arm again, and the rifle fire cease entirely, and we went inside.
The shed was empty, of course. Had we been participating in an actual invasion of Latvia, the little buliding would have been strewn with the broken bodies of its defenders. But we were thousands of miles from Latvia. We were, to be precise, some five miles south and east of Delhi, in Delaware County, New York, where the Latvian Army-In-Exile was presently holding its annual fall encampment and field maneuvers.
“Mission accomplished,” Karlis barked in Lettish. “Return to formation, double time.”
The riflemen trotted back to their tents. Karlis broke out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one. I shook my head, and he lit one for himself. He smoked with the great gusto of a man who limits himself to three or four cigarettes a day and who consequently enjoys the hell out of the ones he smokes. He sucked great drags from the cigarette, inhaled deeply, held the smoke way down in his lungs, then expelled it all in a vast cloud.
“The men did well,” he said.
“Very well.”
“I was less pleased with the close-order drill, however. But our marksmanship is good, Evan, and our men work with enthusiasm. We may be pleased.”
He was a huge, blond giant of a man, standing over six and a half feet, weighing just over three hundred pounds. The U.S. Army might have had trouble finding a uniform to fit him. The Latvian Army-In-Exile had no such problem, as the green uniforms we all wore had to be individually tailored. Karlis’s required rather more cloth than the rest, that’s all.
Together we walked to the tent we shared. It was the only tent in the entire encampment that had no beds in it. Since none of the army cots were long enough for him, Karlis preferred to take his king-size sleeping bag into the open and stretch out on the ground. I had no need for a bed, so on our first day in camp we’d had our double bunk carried away and moved in a pair of reasonably comfortable chairs. I sat in one, and Karlis sat in the other, and together we watched the sunset.
Karlis outranked me. He was a colonel in the Latvian Army-In-Exile, while I was a major. Our ranks may seem more impressive than they actually are. We have only officers in the army, no enlisted men. One aim of this form of organization is, admittedly, to provide our soldiers with the ego-gratification essential for an army in exile, but there is more to it than that. Our small group of men must be more than an effective fighting unit. Each of us will ultimately be called upon to command; when we invade Latvia, we will have to lead the workers and peasants and other patriots who flock to our standard. By providing every man with officer status, we will be better prepared to command our new recruits on the other side.
After all, there are only one hundred thirty-six of us, and we’ll have our hands full.
Lawrence Block, Tanner’s Twelve Swingers (1967), page 21–22
