The Complete Phule’s Company Boxed Set

by Robert Asprin

  For the most part, this was relatively easy to accomplish. A computer check of the police records and news items around the time and place of each Legionnaire’s enlistment provided a starting point for most of the searches. There were some, however, that required much more extensive research, and occasionally I was forced to resort to mere extrapolation and guessing. Such was the case of the two lieutenants my employer had inherited with his command.

  * * *

  “Good evening, Lieutenant Armstrong … Lieutenant Rembrandt. Please, have a seat.”

  Phule had deliberately kept his office as small and spartan as possible. It was his belief that large meetings were useless for anything except announcements. Consequently there were only two visitor chairs in his retreat.

  Rembrandt nodded her thanks and reached for one of the seats. She was of medium height—which made her look small beside Lieutenant Armstrong’s six foot plus—with dark hair, a round face, and a vaguely rotund body … not fat, but broad across the rump and far from slender.

  “Thank you, sir. I’d rather stand.”

  Armstrong, recruiting-poster correct in his parade-rest stance, barked out his response just as his counterpart’s rump was beginning its downward movement toward her chair. At his outburst, however, Rembrandt abandoned her maneuver, electing instead to stand beside Armstrong in a rough approximation of his posture. From her grimace and his smirk, it was apparent to Phule that this little game of one-upmanship was nothing new between them.

  “Very well,” he said. “I’ll try to keep this short.

  “I’m probably going to be rougher on you two than on anyone else in the company … with the possible exception of myself. Being an officer is more than paying for your exam fee. As I said in the general meeting, this company needs leadership, and if we’re going to inspire and lead the Legionnaires, we’re going to have to stay one jump ahead of them. You two are going to be my stand-ins when I’m otherwise occupied, but though I’ll try to be understanding while you’re learning my priorities and style, I will not tolerate laziness. In fact, the only thing I detest more than sloth is thoughtlessness. I want you two to be thinking and analyzing all the time. For example … Lieutenant Armstrong.”

  “Sir?”

  “From your manner and performance reports, you fancy yourself to be a disciplinarian … a by-the-book man. Right?”

  For a moment, Armstrong’s apparent confidence was shaken.

  “I … that is …” he stammered, obviously unsure of what response was expected.

  “Well?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right.” The captain smiled. “Then consider this … By the book, is it better to order soldiers to shape up or to lead by example?”

  “Lead by example, sir,” Armstrong replied briskly, back on familiar ground.

  “Then why don’t you?”

  The lieutenant under fire frowned, his eyes wandering from their straight-ahead stare to look directly at the commander for the first time since the interview began.

  “I … I don’t understand, sir,” he said. “I try to conduct myself in an exemplary manner. I thought I was … I try to be the best Legionnaire in the company.”

  “You have that potential,” Phule acknowledged easily, “but I think you’re overlooking one vital element. Most people don’t want to be seen as a tight-assed, overbearing prig … which is what you tend to show them. If anything, your manner is driving them away from proper military behavior because no one wants to be like you.”

  Armstrong opened his mouth to reply, but the commander cut him off with a gesture.

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Armstrong. I want you to think about it. Then maybe we’ll talk about specifics. If you can temper your rigid manner with a little compassion, show that someone can be a bandbox soldier and still be human, then the troops will follow you anywhere because they want to, not because they’re ordered to.”

  The lieutenant wrenched his gaze back to its original distant stare and nodded once, curtly, as his only acknowledgment of having heard Phule’s words.

  “As for you, Lieutenant Rembrandt,” the commander said, swiveling his chair to face the second of his subchieftains, “it appears you don’t expect, or want, anyone to look to you for an example.”

  The dark-haired lieutenant blinked at him in surprise. She made no effort to duplicate Armstrong’s distant stare, but met Phule’s eyes directly as he continued.

  “From the notes on your record, it would seem you’re content to let the sergeants run the company when you’re supposedly in command, while you wander off with your sketch pad looking for things to draw.” He paused and shook his head ruefully. “Now, I’m all in favor of art, Rembrandt, and I don’t mind at all your pursuing it as a hobby during your off hours. I may even be able to pull a few strings to help you get a showing when your enlistment is up. However, during duty hours I expect your attention to be focused on the company. The sergeants may be experts in their own right and may think they run the company, but their focus is on the immediate job and not the long term. That’s your job, as well as Armstrong’s and mine, and if we don’t do it, the company will flounder. We can’t do that job if we don’t know what’s going on or aren’t familiar with the performance of the Legionnaires as individuals and as a group. Now, the three of us will be meeting on a weekly if not daily basis to discuss the troops and the company, and I’ll expect you to take an active and knowledgeable part in those discussions. Do I make myself clear?”

  “I … I’ll try, Captain.”

  “Good. As long as people are willing to try, I can work with them. That goes for you, too, Armstrong. The three of us have to be the eyes and the brains of the company, and that means functioning as a team within the team. Which reminds me …”

  He stabbed a finger into the air between the two lieutenants and made a little stirring motion.

  “I don’t want to see any more little games between the two of you as to who’s the better soldier. As of now, you two are partners … and your first order of business is to start building a tolerance for your differences. It’s my belief those differences will work in your favor if each of you can learn to rely on the other’s strengths rather than envying them. I won’t ask for respect, though I’m hoping that will come with time. Just realize that you’re holding opposite sides of the same bucket, and you’re going to have to learn to move together to keep it from falling or splashing.”

  The commander leaned back in his chair and made a little shooing gesture.

  “Now, I suggest you get out of here and hole up over coffee or a drink and start figuring out what you have in common …”

  He allowed a ghost of a smile to flit across his face.

  “… aside from the belief that your new commander is an unreasonable and unjustly demanding sonofabitch, that is.”

  * * *

  Escrima, the mess sergeant, was a wiry, swarthy little man with wavy black hair, dark wide-spaced eyes, and a nearly perpetual grin that beamed from his wrinkled walnut face. It was the “nearly” part that made him someone worth watching. Phule returned his somewhat exaggerated salute and studied him for a few moments before speaking.

  “Without meaning to break the rule against prying into backgrounds, Sergeant, am I correct in assuming from your name that you’re of Philippine descent?”

  The little sergeant bobbed his head in quick acknowledgment, the smile never wavering.

  “I’ve always heard that the Filipinos were some of the best cooks and some of the fiercest fighters on Old Earth.”

  That earned the commander a modest shrug, though the smile broadened slightly.

  “Then perhaps you can tell me why the food in the mess isn’t better.”

  Phule had planned the phrasing of that question very carefully. According to his record, Sergeant Escrima had attacked people who criticized his cooking on three separate occasions, hospitalizing two of them. It was therefore important to be sure to say only that the fo
od could be better, not that it was bad.

  Even with the added precaution, the cook’s dark eyes glittered for a moment. Then the look passed and he gave another of his shrugs.

  “Mmmm … I am given a menu by the Legion. They say … they tell me I should cook what it says. And the meat they give me … is, how you say, stiff … tough. I tell the supply sergeant, I say to him, ‘How can I cook with this meat? Look at it! Here, you show me!’ but he just shrug and say, ‘That’s all the Legion budget can afford. Do the best you can.’ So I do the best I can with the meat he gives me … and the Legion menu … but …”

  The sergeant let his oration die off with a more exaggerated shrug and a meaningful jerk of his head at Phule.

  “I see. Well, forget about the budget … and the menu. I want the company to eat well, and we don’t pay them enough for them to eat out all the time. While I’m commander and you’re the cook, I want this to be the best-fed company in the Legion.”

  Escrima bobbed his head in quick accord.

  “Good,” he said curtly. “It’s about time.”

  “Then I’ll consider the matter handled.” The commander nodded, crossing off an item on his notepad. “That will be all for now, Sergeant.”

  Once again the sergeant gave his exaggerated salute, which Phule started to return when another thought struck him.

  “Oh … one more thing. Am I also correct in assuming you would not have taken your name, Escrima, from the Philippine stick-fighting form unless you were skilled at it?”

  The modest smile and shrug flashed past again.

  “Then I’d take it as a personal favor if you’d consent to teach it to the interested members of the company, myself included. I don’t know that much about it, but any stick form that can take out Magellan and his men while they were armed with swords, and armored to boot, is worth studying.”

  * * *

  “Have a seat, Sergeant … Chocolate Harry, isn’t it?”

  “Just ‘Harry’ will do, Captain,” the sergeant said, easing his massive bulk carefully into the indicated chair. “‘C.H,’ to my friends.”

  “All right. We’ll make it C.H.”—Phule nodded, jotting a quick note on his pad—“seeing as how I think we’re going to become fast friends over the next couple months.”

  “Now, how do you figure that?” The sergeant frowned suspiciously. “No offense … sir … but to my recollection officers aren’t noted for chummin’ around with us enlisted types.”

  “Sorry. I’m getting ahead of myself,” the commander answered absently, flipping through his notes. “That was assuming you’re as crooked and conniving as I think you are.”

  The supply sergeant’s eyes narrowed, all but disappearing into his fleshy face as he leaned back in his chair.

  “You know, Captain, that remark could be taken as more than a little racist. Are you sayin’ that you think all us colored folk steal?”

  As might be implied by his name, Chocolate Harry was black, though his skin tended toward a soft brown rather than the deeper black sometimes associated with his race. He was also hairy, but it was in the form of a fierce, bristly beard, offsetting his close-cropped hairstyle. A pair of thick-lensed spectacles pushed up onto his forehead completed the picture he presented as he regarded his commander with a scowl that on a smaller person would have looked melodramatic.

  “Hmmm?” Phule said, looking up from his notes at last. “Oh. Not really, C.H. I was basing my assumption on the fact that your files show that you’re well above average in intelligence. My thinking is that anyone with even half a brain in charge of supplies for this outfit would be supplementing his pay by at least dabbling in the black market. If I’m wrong, you of course have my apologies.”

  Harry smiled broadly. “Thank you, Cap’n. An apology from an officer is something a grunt like me don’t get every day.”

  “Excuse me, Sergeant,” the commander interrupted, returning the smile tooth for tooth, “but I said ‘if I’m wrong.’ Before I’d feel right about extending that apology, I’d have to ask you to wait here while your files were confiscated and the supply warehouse padlocked so that an item-by-item physical inventory and audit could be performed to determine whether or not I was wrong.”

  The supply sergeant’s smile vanished like a mouse at a cat show, and he licked his lips nervously while his eyes darted from the commander to the door.

  “That … won’t be necessary, Captain,” he said carefully. “I’m willing to admit, just between the two of us, of course, that there might be a few items that have been, shall we say, misplaced over the last few months. If you want, I can see if the missing equipment can be found again in the next couple of weeks.”

  “That wasn’t what I had in mind, C.H.” Phule smiled.

  “Okay, then.” Harry hunched forward conspiratorially in his chair. “I suppose you and I can work out some kind of profit-sharing agreement …”

  The commander gave a short bark of laughter, cutting the sergeant short.

  “Excuse me, Harry, but you’re getting the wrong message here. I’m not trying to shut you down … or shake you down, for that matter. If anything, what I want is the exact opposite. I want you to expand your operation, and I think I can help you do that. You can start by clearing out most of the stock you’ve got in the warehouse right now.”

  The supply sergeant scowled. “How do you figure that, Captain? I mean, I sure do like your style, but it occurs to me that if we clean this outfit out, someone’s bound to notice. You got some plan to hide the fact I’ll be sittin’ on an empty warehouse?”

  “First of all, we’re not going to try to hide it.” Phule grinned. “We’ll be doing this strictly by the book … specifically Section 954, paragraph 27, which states: ‘The supply sergeant may dispose of any surplus or outdated equipment by destroying or selling such equipment’; and Section 987, paragraph 8: ‘The commanding officer shall determine if any item of the company’s equipment is suitable for repair or upgrade, or if it is to be deemed scrap and disposed of.’ Now, to my eye the bulk of our equipment is more suitable for a museum than a fighting force, so I figure your work is going to be cut out for you.”

  Harry nodded. “Very nice. I might even say ‘sweet’ … ’cept for one thing. That still leaves me with an empty warehouse.”

  “Not really. I think you’ll find that the gear that’ll be arriving over the next few weeks will more than fill the empty space. As I told the company, I’ve taken the liberty of upgrading the quality of our equipment … at my own expense, of course.”

  “Of course,” the sergeant echoed, leaning back in his chair to study the commander through half-slitted eyes. “That brings up another question completely, Captain. Now, if you’re near as rich as you let on, I’m not exactly sure why it is you need me. I mean, what with you buyin’ up the store for this outfit, why is it you want to fool around raising money havin’ me sell off our surplus?”

  Phule heaved a great sigh, as if losing patience with a child.

  “C.H., you and I both know there are things you can’t buy in a store. What I mean is, my money and methods may be fine for normal equipment and supplies, but I’m expecting that, from time to time, we may need a few items that can only be found on the black market. So I’m expecting you to get us a pipeline into the underground supply network by using the sale of our old equipment as a passport. Get my drift?”

  “Read you loud and clear, Cap’n,” Harry said, his face splitting in a wide grin. “You know, I ain’t never called a white man ‘brother’ before, but you just might qualify.”

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to settle for just ‘good buddies’ for the time being,” Phule corrected hastily. “You see, C.H., there are a few rules attached to this game—my rules, not the Legion’s.”

  “Uh-oh. Thought this was sounding a little too good to be true.”

  “First of all,” the commander continued, ignoring the sergeant’s theatric aside, “I don’t want you to sell anything that will co
me back to haunt us. If you make a deal for our automatic weapons, make sure it’s after you’ve removed the selector switch that converts them to fully automatic—and that doesn’t mean you have a sale on selector switches the next week. Our gear may be antique, but there’s a lot of it I’d just as soon not have used against us … or the local police, for that matter. It’ll be a bit difficult to play innocent if we’re the only source on the planet for fully automatic hardware. That goes double for the new gear we’re getting, including our wrist communicators. I suppose you can let a few of the regular units stray if it means opening the right doors, but the extra command units stay put. I don’t want anyone but us to have the capacity to monitor the private lines. For that matter, if you think a bit, I’m sure you’ll agree that it would be in your own best interest if no one could listen in to some of the private talks you and I will be having.”

  The supply sergeant made a face. “I suppose you’re right, but it’s gonna cramp my maneuvering a mite.”

  “Rule number two: The monies from these sales get channeled into the company fund. Now, I don’t mind if you do a little skimming for your trouble … in fact, I expect it and consider it only fair reward for devoting a portion of your personal time to helping further the company. Just do a reasonable job of doctoring the receipts for the files, and you’ll hear no complaints from me. Remember, though, that I have a fair idea of what the going prices of things are, even on the black market. If I get wind of your taking more than a fair commission, I’ll cut you off cold.”

  “Cut me off from what, Captain?” Harry challenged. “It wouldn’t break my heart to get transferred out, you know.”

  “I’m not talking about a transfer.” Phule smiled. “I’d cut you off from your lessons. You see, C.H., right now you’re a small-time chiseler and hustler. Stick with me, play the game my way, and I’ll teach you to play in the big leagues, as well as show you how to build the kind of bankroll you’ll need for seed money once your enlistment’s up. Deal?”