Winter Duty (14 page)

“What happened to the face, Valentine?” Bloom asked after Valentine was escorted to her office.

“A difference of opinion in a brothel,” Valentine said.

“Over a girl, I take it.”

“My favorite there was old enough for false teeth.”

Bloom chuckled and took from him her envelope of orders. The good humor bled away from her face as she read.

Colonel Cleveland Bloom took the news with professional grace. Or maybe it was just her instincts for good sportsmanship.

“I’m being benched,” she said.

“Not benched, recalled. Someone has to bring the men home. They followed you most of the way across Kentucky. Southern Command must have figured you were the one to see them home.”

“You’ll stay?”

“They’re giving me permission to orchestrate a guerrilla war.”

She flipped through her written orders, found an attachment, scanned it.

“With what? They’re not leaving you much. A communications team and a few hospital personnel to care for the wounded and sick who can’t be moved. That Quisling rabble of yours will need more than that to be anything more than glorified POWs.”

They’d had this argument before. Like most officers in Southern Command, she had a low opinion of the kind of men who the Kurians used to fill out the bottom ranks of their security and military formations. Thugs, sycophants, thieves, and bullies, with a few out-and-out sadists peppering the mix.

Valentine reminded her, “The shit detail used to be Quisling rabble. They made the round-trip with the rest of us. I don’t recall the column ever being ambushed with them acting as scouts, at least until we bivouacked in the Alleghenies outside Utrecht.”

“I’ll leave you what I can, in terms of gear.”

“Can I have a favor? I’d like to ask for volunteers to stay. I need gunners, technical staff, engineers, and armorers especially.”

Bloom, when faced with difficulty, usually got a look on her face that reminded him of a journalist’s description of the old US Army General Grant—
that he wears an expression as if he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall, and was about to do it
. “Don’t know how Southern Command will react to that. You’re talking about prime skill sets.”

“They’ll list them as Insurgency Assist. They’ll still draw in-country pay. One day counts as two toward pension.”

Bloom’s mouth writhed as though she were chuckling, but she didn’t make a sound. “By volunteers, you mean . . .”

“Real volunteers, sir. No shanghais or arm-twisting.”

“Then good luck to you.”

“Will that be all, sir?”

She looked at her orders from Southern Command. “They leave it to my discretion over exactly when I turn over command of this post to Colonel Lambert, though I’ll maintain operational command of the brigade even while it’s based here until it returns across the Mississippi. Seems to me there’s just enough wiggle room for me to keep the troops here until you’re convinced the base is functioning properly, from hot water to cooking gas to master comm links.”

“I’ll have a list tomorrow, sir.”

“Anything else for me, Valentine?”

He had to choose his words carefully. “I told the truth about what happened, sir. I argued that we won an important victory, even if it wasn’t the victory they expected. Southern Command’s looking for a scapegoat. I expect they’ll make Colonel Lambert and General Lehman take most of the blame. Lehman’s being sent to a quiet desk and Lambert’s out here. Be ready to answer for us, and for yourself.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“Anything else, sir?”

“Is Colonel Lambert in the headquarters?”

“She’s walking around . . . incognito, I suppose you could call it. She wanted to get a feel for the men and the place unofficially, before she takes an official role.”

“I understand. If you come across her, please ask her if she’d like to have dinner with me tonight.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll pass the word.”

Bloom sat back down to reread her orders, saying a few more words about hoping Lambert wouldn’t mind eating late.

As Valentine walked toward his new formation’s billet, he saw his hatchet men inspecting the vehicles in the motor pool. Of the long column of vehicles that had started out with Javelin, only one battered old army truck had survived the entire journey out of the large vehicles. The rest had been cannibalized to keep others going or lost to wear, Moondagger rockets, artillery, and mines, or accident. A few civilian pickups, Hummers, and motorcycles remained, looking like candidates for a demolition derby thanks to the knocks and cracks.

“Master Sergeant Brage,” Valentine said, pronouncing his name as
Braggy
.

“It’s
BRAY-zhe
, Major,” Brage said, as irritated as Valentine hoped he’d be.

“Sorry, Sergeant,” Valentine said. “Why the interest in the motor pool?”

“Orders, sir,” Brage said, tapping his chest pocket. “We’re to determine what’s worth taking and what’ll be left behind. My staff and I have final word. Our decisions are final and unalterable.”

“I’ve seen my share of alterations to unalterable. May I see the orders, please?”

He handed them over with the air of a poker player laying down a straight flush.

Valentine read the first paragraph and then went to the next pages and checked the signatures, seals, and dates. He recognized the hand at the bottom.

“My old friend General Martinez. You’re on his staff?”

“I have that honor, sir.” With a wave, the rest of his hatchet men returned to work.

“Martinez has been honoring me for years now. I hardly feel it anymore,” Valentine said.

“I’m sure you mean
General
Martinez, sir. Of course, whether I make the GHQ staff depends on my success with this assignment. I intend to leave no stone unturned.”

“I wouldn’t advise you to turn over too many stones in Martinez’s staff garden. Not a pretty sight.”

“I have to get back to work, Major. I’d advise you not to hinder me.”

“Or what, Sergeant Bragg?”

“
BRAY-zhe
, sir. Anyone caught red-handed in the act of taking or keeping Southern Command property from its proper allocation, right down to sidearms, may be dealt with summarily,” Brage said, sounding as though he were reciting. “That only applies in combat areas, of course.”

“Of course. And if you want to see a combat area, Sergeant Bragg, I suggest you try to take a weapon from one of my men.”

Javelin stood on parade, a great U of men. It reminded Valentine of his farewell to the Razorbacks in Texarkana, when they retired the tattered old flag that had waved over Big Rock Hill and been bomb-blasted at Love Field in Dallas.

Valentine read out the list of commendations and promotions. The men stepped forward to receive their medals and new patches and collar tabs from Bloom.

A delegation of civilians and officers of the new city militia from Evansville sat in chairs, watching. Valentine hoped they were impressed. All they’d seen of Southern Command’s forces up to now had been files of tired, dirty, unshaven men lining up to receive donations of food, toiletries, and bedding from Evansville’s factories, workshops, and small farmers.

Valentine had juggled with the schedule a little to get as many excused from duties as possible, but it was worth it.

He stepped forward to the microphone when she was done. “Colonel, with your permission I’d like to add one more name. If you’ll indulge me, sir.”

Bloom beamed. Her teeth might not have been as bright as Ladyfair’s, but her smile was better. “With the greatest of pleasure.”

Valentine spoke into the microphone, which put his voice out over the field amplifier, a device that turned your words into power-assisted speech that sounded a little like aluminum being worked. “Javelin Brigade, I have one more promotion. At this time I would like to recognize one of my oldest friends in the Cause.

“Top Sergeant Patel, would you step forward, please?”

Patel hesitated for a moment and then handed his cane to his corporal and marched out into the center of the U of formed ranks. Valentine couldn’t tell if he was wincing or not. He marched without any sign of weakness in his old, worn-down knees.

“This man has been looking out for me since I was a shavetail lieutenant with his shoes tied like a civilian’s. He helped me select and train my company, the shit detail.”

The term was a badge of honor now, ever since their action at the railroad cut in Kentucky.

“Top Sergeant Patel performed above and beyond, crossing Kentucky and back on a pair of legs that are hardly fit for a trip to the latrine.

“I recommended, and Southern Command granted, a commission for Nilay Patel, elevating him to the rank of captain, with its attendant honors and benefits. He’s been breveted over lieutenant so that our Captain Patel will never have to salute a sniveling little lieutenant with his laces half-undone ever again.”

“You could have given me fair warning, sir,” Patel said quietly. “Would have paid for a shave and haircut across the highway.”

“Surprise,” Valentine said out of the corner of his mouth. The amplified speaker popped out the
p
but nothing else. He spoke up again. “So be sure to save a seat for him on the barge home. He’ll ride home in a comfortable deck chair, as befits a captain.”

“Excuse me, sir,” Patel said. “I’m not leaving before you and the company.”

“We’ll argue about it later, Captain.” Valentine reached into his pocket. “These are some old insignia of mine. No branch on the reverse. They don’t do that for Cats, or they put in a false one.” He handed them to Patel, feeling paternal, even though his old sergeant major had almost twenty years on him. “Wear them in good health.”

“Thank you, sir,” Patel said, leaning over to speak into the microphone. Then, for Valentine’s ears only, he continued: “It’s good to feel useful again. Even if it comes with a little pain.”

The fall weather turned colder and rainier. Through it all Southern Command’s forces improved Fort Seng, rigging lighting and plumbing and communications throughout the fort. A double perimeter was laid out, though they didn’t have the mines, lights, or listening posts to cover the entire length.

Valentine saw Boelnitz mostly around headquarters. He had a knack for finding something interesting going on and observing in the company of whoever was doing it, asking questions but keeping out of the way. The men felt flattered to be interviewed, as did some of the women—Valentine saw one long-service veteran giggling like a coquettish schoolgirl as they chatted. A couple of others looked at him with naked hunger, the way she-wolves might eye a dead buck strung up for dressing.

In the meantime, Valentine reintroduced himself to Bee, one of the three Grogs in camp. He’d rescued her and two others from the circus of D.C. Marvels before Javelin entered Kentucky, and he’d also known her years ago when she’d traveled as a bodyguard to a bounty hunter and trader named Hoffman Price. Big as a bull, she had arms long enough to go around him twice when she sniffed and touched and remembered who he was.