Norman Waksler's short story, Innocent Sailors and Enemy Aliens appears here for the first time in print.

Innocent Sailors and Enemy Aliens

Behind my friend Jason Berger's house was a flat roofed garage, and next to the garage was a thick tree with low branches that we used as a ladder to reach the roof. Sometimes Jason would get into the tree and I'd hand him up his little, black, pointy muzzled dog, and he'd put the dog on the roof and we'd get up there with her and play pirate or space ship. Jason was always the Captain, I was the First Mate, and Clipper, the dog, was either the Navigator or the Chief Petty Officer. Our imaginations were more active than our bodies, so our games were fairly elaborate in their ramification of incident, but they all ended with a good deal of imaginary slaughter perpetrated by means of projectile weapons, rather than swords which would have required a lot more moving around than we were inclined toward. Clipper barked very satisfactorily along with our plosive shooting or our laser gun buzzing.

We were eight or nine in the days when we used to climb the roof (1949 or '50, that is), and Clipper was four or five, a mature dog anyway, well past puppyhood and young dog foolishness, so her co-operation in being navigator, etc. was no doubt sign of a playful nature, though she was all dog as well. One day a local Collie wandered into the yard while we were up there, and Clipper growled a warning, then set herself on the edge of the roof, barking vigorously; the Collie caught sight of her and ran like crazy—from his angle Clipper must've seemed a monster.

In any case, one day, it must've been early in the summer, because we were out of school and on the roof before lunch, we'd played for an hour or so and had slain many an innocent sailor and many an enemy alien, and we were sitting in the sun, facing Jason's driveway, when we heard Clipper growl from the other direction which looked over a six foot stockade fence in front of which grew a full length of lilac bushes, now filled with dried brown petals. Turning around to investigate, we saw a man walk—rather furtively it must be admitted—along the path next to the house back there heading into the adjoining yard. Jason grabbed the dog's collar and whispered, "Clipper. Quiet" She let out one last low growl, then lay down with her nose between her paws and her ears forward. Jason and I lay down flat beside her.

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