First To Fight

by David Sherman

  "Feeding them," McNeal said. "We don't feed them, they die, and all our work here don't mean squat." He took out a packet of emergency ration bars, tore it open, and offered them to the children. None of them moved. McNeal opened the wrapper on one of the bars and mimed eating it. The boy without pants took a tentative step forward. McNeal gestured again. The eyes of the three children were now riveted on the bar, but they stood as though their feet were rooted to the ground. McNeal sighed and tossed the bar lightly so that it landed at the boy's feet.

  "He takes a bite of that, he's gonna think you're trying to poison him," Schultz said dryly.

  The bars were high-energy ration supplements that the Marines carried in the field in case they ran out of their regular rations. An adult could live off one bar a day, not well and perhaps not willingly, but it contained all the vitamins, fat, carbohydrates, and calories an active adult needed to sustain him during a twenty-four-hour period. They did not taste very good, but they could save your life in a pinch.

  Flylike buzzers swarmed about the film of dried mucus that caked the boy's upper lip, but he was too apathetic to brush them away. Slowly, he bent over and picked up the emergency bar. He briefly looked at it, then raised his eyes again to McNeal. McNeal again mimed eating. The boy looked back to the bar, then slowly, uncertainly, he unwrapped it and took a small bite, then another, bigger one. The transformation was almost instantaneous, and afterward McNeal swore he could see the life come back into the boy's eyes, which suddenly went wide with the excitement of returning physical energy. He turned his head to the other children and chattered something that, despite his high, reedy voice, still sounded to the Marines like gargling with gravel. The other two piped something back, and were answered. The boy looked at McNeal again and lifted one hand as though saying, "My friends are hungry too." McNeal started to shake his head; he wanted them to come to him and take the bars from his hand, but then realized they probably were as frightened as Schultz had said and tossed the other two bars. But he didn't throw them as far and the children had to come closer than the other boy to pick them up. They skittered back to a safe distance before eating. Their faces lit up brightly as they ate.

  "Come here," McNeal said.

  "Give them time," Schultz said, and turned his back on the children to resume watching the barrens. He reached into his own pack for emergency bars and got a packet ready for when the children joined them.

  McNeal sighed and turned to also watch. "Sad, what was done to them."

  "You're good with kids," Schultz said. Despite his show of gruffness, he too was moved by the plight of the children. The two returned to watching the barrens. McNeal turned slowly at a light touch on his shoulder and looked up into the wide eyes of the pantless boy. The other two stood silently behind him.

  The boy said something that McNeal guessed meant thanks. "You're welcome," he said back. "Always glad to feed a hungry kid." Looking at the other two, he added, "Did you enjoy yours as well?"

  One of them, he guessed a girl because her hair was longer, said something back.

  "Glad to hear it."

  Schultz turned to the children. "Still hungry?" He opened the packet of bars he'd set aside and held them out. The children grabbed them quickly and skittered out of reach to eat in safety.

  They were back in a few moments, this time all three smiling and touching and talking. McNeal sat up and gently wiped the face of the pantless boy with a bandanna. "You're a handsome little fart, with some of that crud off your face," he said.

  Just then they heard a thin shriek, and saw a woman running toward them, waving at the children to get away.

  Schultz held up a hand to her. "It's okay, ma'am," he said calmly. "They aren't bothering us."

  The children chattered at the woman and ran toward her. McNeal and Schultz couldn't understand them, but from their gestures and excited motions, it seemed they were telling her how the Marines had fed them and that they were good men, not to be feared. At first the woman didn't listen to them, instead clutching the children and trying to draw them away. But the children resisted and talked even more excitedly, and then she stopped and listened, questioned them, and finally looked at the Marines and spoke to them.

  McNeal reached into his pack for another emergency bar and mimed eating it. "They're good kids. I fed them."

  The woman's jaw worked at the miming of eating and she took a stumbling step forward.

  "That's right, for you."

  The pantless boy ran to McNeal, snatched the bar from his hand, and ran back to thrust it into the woman's hand. She looked at it uncertainly, and the boy took it back, tore the wrapper off, and held it to her mouth. She took a small bite, her face lighting up as the energy coursed through her system, then sank to the ground, sobbing as she ate the rest of it

  McNeal started to get up, but Schultz put a restraining hand on him. "Leave her alone," he said. "She'll get over it on her own."

  Reluctantly, McNeal stayed where he was. After a while the woman levered herself painfully to her feet and approached the Marines. Laying her thin hand on McNeal's shoulder, she spoke to him earnestly. Although he didn't understand the words, he realized she was saying thanks. The way the children gleefully clung to her, McNeal knew she was their mother. He and Schultz gave her several more of the energy bars and the bandanna.

  "Whoo!" McNeal whooped after the woman led her son away. "That made me feel good."

  With Captain Conorado gone, Ensign Baccacio and Staff Sergeant Bass established their command post inside an abandoned warehouse while the rest of the platoon prepared fighting positions that doubled as their living quarters. The next day they had to make new defensive positions several hundred meters away from the village in the surrounding hills, because the flocks of children who constantly swarmed about the Marines were too much of a distraction. But as the days passed, the men took great pleasure playing with the children when off duty, and everyone took pride in watching them change from pitiful, starving waifs into bouncing boys and girls.

  But nobody was more pleased at the changes among the villagers of Tulak Yar than old Mas Fardeed, and he saw to it that his hut became an off-duty gathering place for the men of Company L, most of whom quickly developed a genuine fondness for the old soldier.

  "I came back here after the war," he told a small gathering one evening. They were sitting around a warm fire in the kitchen. One of Mas Fardeed's daughters bustled about, making sure each Marine's earthen mug was kept filled with the old man's barley beer. "I was young and stupid. I thought I could do something about life here," he said bitterly. "We are worse than slaves, the way the Siad treat us. They keep us like we keep our sheep. I thought I could change that." He spit into the fire. The six Marines sitting about the hearth were respectfully silent.

  "Give me one of those," he muttered, gesturing at McNeal's blaster, "and I could change a lot of things around here." The Marines nodded. "But the bureaucrats in New Obbia, they said, 'No reason to arm the peasants! We can protect them!' Ha! Those bastards, all they've ever done is cower in the cities and lick the privates of the mining executives! The guns went to the clans. Governments hate and fear citizens with guns, lads, that's a bitter lesson I've learned during my eighty-two winters. When men give up to their government the right to defend themselves, they give up their right to live as men. The Siad at least realize that."

  The old man sighed and was silent for a moment. "Oh, I know," he continued, "the people of this village aren't warriors, and I am not the man I once was. Were we to stand up to the Siad, they would just cut us down. But we would die fighting and we would take some of them with us. How a man dies is as important as how he lives. Before you came here, we were going to die like our sheep."

  Nobody wanted to comment on that sentiment. "What did you do, then?" Dean asked.

  The old man shrugged. "I survived. We survived. We accommodated. The Siad are not fools; our crops and livestock are of great value to them. So they tolerated us and left us to
live what little lives we have in this miserable place." He shook his head. "Until recently. Now, one day the crops will fail entirely and our sheep will all die, and then they will swarm down on this village and destroy it out of spite. Or that's what I thougnt, until you came here."

  "We do what we can," Claypoole said lamely. Every man in L Company knew that the old man was right, and every man hoped and prayed they would not be pulled out of the village until the Siad and their allies had been dealt with. There was not a doubt in any man's mind that once the Marines were let loose on the clans, they would deal with them permanently, and every man looked forward to that day.

  "You are proof that there is a God and that He loves us," Mas Fardeed told them, his voice strong and steady. "You are proof, too, that there is good in mankind. I pray that your leaders are as brave as you."

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Third platoon quickly settled into a set-your-time-piece-by-it routine in Tulak Yar. All the Marines on the perimeter stood careful watch during the last hours before dawn—the time when most people are in deepest sleep, the time hardest to stay awake, a favorite time for a sneak attack. Once the sun rose, those in most need of sleep slept, some of the others maintained a watch on the surrounding countryside, while others prepared for the arrival of the daily resupply hopper. At 10 hours, when the hopper dropped off its precious cargo, part of it was stored for distribution to the citizens of Tulak Yar and the immediately surrounding area, and the rest loaded into the Dragon that was left with the platoon. At 11 hours, it was delivered to one of the other villages within an hour's drive of the base with a squad along for security. At midday a fire team with a gun team went out into the foothills on a security patrol; it was gone anywhere from two to four hours. An awning was set up on the side of the Dragon when it returned from its run before 16 hours every day, and every day at 16 hours, Ensign Baccacio held an all-hands meeting in the shade of that awning. After the meeting, some members of the platoon returned to perimeter duty and the rest relaxed until nightfall, interrupted only by evening chow, when they went back on perimeter security for the night.

  Staff Sergeant Bass wasn't terribly comfortable with the supply run leaving at 11 hours every day, but at least it never went in the same direction two days in a row. He had a serious problem, however, with the 16 hours all-hands meeting.

  At the daily meeting, Ensign Baccacio gave his men a brief report on the progress of the relief effort on Elneal, in 34th FIST's area, on Company L's area, and on third platoon's sector. Concerning third platoon, the leader of the daily foot patrol into the hills gave his report on what his patrol had—or more usually, had not—seen. Doc Hough, the medical corpsman, reported on medical progress in Tulak Yar—there was enough illness, mostly malnutrition, that it was several days before he was able to go out with the Dragon to provide any kind of medical assistance to other villages. That was pretty much the extent of the goings-on, and Bass felt that most of the men could have done without it.

  The second time the platoon commander called his 16 hours meeting, Bass said, "Mr. Baccacio, this is the same time we did this yesterday. We're in danger of fixing a schedule. Everybody's going to know that at sixteen hours we don't have anybody on the perimeter. Anybody who wants to attack us will do it when we're in this all-hands meeting."

  "Staff Sergeant Bass," Baccacio replied, "having a schedule and sticking to it shows everybody that we are in command of the situation here. As for anybody's attacking, we are Marines. I don't believe anybody on this planet is dumb enough to attack a platoon of Confederation Marines. Not after what we did to the Bos Kashi in New Obbia."

  "That was the Bos Kashi. The Siad are supposed to be much more powerful. This is territory claimed by the Siad."

  "I don't care. If they're dumb enough to attack us, they deserve everything we'll do to them. We're having the meeting now."

  The third day, Sergeants Hyakowa, Eagle's Cry, and Kelly found Bass when the ensign was nowhere around.

  "What's that man trying to do, get us all killed?" Hyakowa asked.

  "It's like a patrol never comes back on the same route it went out on," Eagle's Cry said. "You have a routine, you get killed."

  "I talked to him," Bass answered. "So far he's not listening. But pretty soon I think he'll see there's no need for a daily meeting. Or maybe I'll get the point across to him."

  "I think we should let him call his meeting and not show up," Kelly said.

  "Belay that kind of talk, Hound," Bass snapped. "That's disobedience. It doesn't matter if you're right, no one has yet been hurt by these meetings. You don't show up, you get court-martialed. If nothing has happened because of the routine, it'll be tough to convince a court-martial board that you were right in deliberately disobeying a direct order."

  The squad leaders grumbled, but none of them was willing to face a court-martial.

  "Don't worry, it won't last," Bass reassured them. "The Skipper and the Top will be back tomorrow or the day after. If Mr. Baccacio is still holding us to a routine then, I'll kick it up to them." But Bass was worried; if he'd been an opposing commander, he would have taken advantage of the Marines' routine as quickly as possible.

  Captain Conorado and First Sergeant Myer had come out during the first day of Ensign Baccacio's routine, when nobody yet knew it would become a routine. Then first platoon ran into distribution conflicts between the Basque and Montanan settlers in Verde Hollow, which occupied the attention of the company's top men for several days. Then some of the suddenly sated Burmese settlers in Mogaung Gap overdid their eating and got sick, and Conorado and Myer had to go there with representatives of the Blue Crescent to convince the people that the food wasn't poisoned. What with one thing and another, it was a week before the Skipper and the Top made it back to Tulak Yar, by which time Charlie Bass was developing a mutinous state of mind. The stress of maintaining a routine in a potentially hostile area was wearing on everybody else in the platoon as well—except for Ensign Baccacio, who absolutely knew he was doing exactly the right thing, no matter what his ill-disciplined men thought.

  It happened that Conorado and Myer arrived just in time for the daily all-hands, and Bass didn't have to say anything at all. The two senior men were accompanied by a fire team for security and by Corporal Doyle, the company's senior clerk.

  Conorado stood under the awning attached to the Dragon and saw too many Marines in front of him. He turned and stood close to Baccacio so he could speak softly enough not to be heard by anyone but the young officer. "Who's on security? It looks like the whole platoon is here."

  "The whole platoon is here, sir," Baccacio said in a slightly louder voice. Those close enough to hear tried as unobtrusively as possible to hear more. "Security's no problem. Nobody's interested in bothering these people now that we're here. Anyway, there's a couple goatherds and some kids acting as crow-chasers out there. They'll let us know if anybody's coming."

  Conorado stared at the ensign for a few seconds, then looked past him to Bass. Bass was blandly looking at the men of his platoon, for all the world as though he had no idea of what was being said between the two officers.

  "Some goatherds and crow-chasers," Conorado said. "That's what you're relying on for security."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Do you really believe that children will be able to give adequate warning?"

  Baccacio blinked. Of course he did, and he said so.

  "Put some Marines out there."

  "But—"

  "Do it."

  Flushing, Baccacio turned to Bass. "Platoon Sergeant, put out three two-man security teams."

  Bass looked at him for the first time since Conorado had begun talking to him. "Aye aye, sir," he said in a voice as bland as his expression. He looked back at the platoon. "Squad leaders, each squad put two men in security positions in your squad sector."

  "Aye aye," Hyakowa replied for all three. In seconds, three two-man teams were sprinting for the village's outskirts. Everyone in the platoon felt a gre
at sense of relief—except for Ensign Baccacio, who felt humiliated.

  Finally, they got into the usual substance of the daily all-hands. Conorado reported to the men on what had been going on in the rest of the company's sector. He told of the problems between the Basques and Montanans of Verde Hollow in a way that almost made blood feuds sound funny, and got some laughs. His description of the solemn antics of the Shan headman at Mogaung Gap had them roaring. Then he got serious.

  "There have been no incidents of violence involving Marines or anyone we're protecting since the Bos Kashi were wiped out in New Obbia. But—and this is an important but—neither has anyone come forward to turn in his arms. Satellite surveillance shows the Siad moving. While they seem to be congregating, they aren't doing it in any way that we can absolutely identify as threatening. So we don't quite know what to make of their movement. The Sons of Liberty have retired to their strongholds, though not all of the strongholds seem to be occupied. We think they've consolidated into fewer, stronger locations. Nobody knows what, if anything, that means. The Gaels have managed to vanish, and that's bothersome. But again, nobody knows what significance to attach to it.

  "Since we moved into the countryside, a number of relief workers have decided to risk taking convoys to other villages, villages that don't have Marine protection. Most of them have made it with no incident. The few incidents have mostly been caused by clansmen robbing them of a portion of their food and medical supplies. Only once that we know of have raiders attacked a convoy and killed everyone and taken or destroyed everything.

  "On the whole, everything is vastly improving throughout Elneal. In little more than a week, relief has reached more than ten percent of the population. The work is speeding up and the current estimate is that fully half the population will be saved within a month of when we began to move into the countryside, and the whole planet in a month and a half, or not much more." He was interrupted by cheers.

  "We've done a marvelous job, but don't get too happy about it. It's going to take another month or longer to get to everybody. Remember, there's a planetwide famine. Tens of thousands more, maybe hundreds of thousands, are going to starve to death before relief can reach them." He stopped talking for a moment to let that sink in.