Tidwell centered his attention on the man who was going to fall. His left foot touched down on a head-sized boulder that rolled away as his weight came to bear. He began to fall to his left, but twisted his torso back to the centerline while deliberately buckling his right leg. Just as the awful physics of the situation seemed ready to smash him clumsily into the rocks, he tucked like a diver, curling around the glittering sword, and somersaulted forward rolling to his feet and continuing as if nothing had happened.
Tidwell shook his head in amazement. Less than a twentieth of a second. And he thought his reflexes were good.
The swordplay he had given up trying to follow. The blades seemed to have a life of their own, thirstily dragging the men from one target to the next. Then the leader turned. He twirled his sword in his left hand and stabbed the point toward his hip. An inch error in any direction would either lose the sword or run the owner through. It snaked into the scabbard like it had eyes.
Tidwell hit the hold button and stared at the figure on the screen. The face was that of an old Oriental, age drawing the skin tight across the face making it appear almost skull-like—Kumo. The old sensei who had been in command before Tidwell and Clancy were hired.
In the entire week they had been reviewing the troops they had not seen Kumo show any kind of emotion. Not anger, not joy—nothing. But he was a demanding instructor and personally led the men in their training. The cliff was only the third station in a fifteen-station obstacle course Kumo had laid out. The troops ran the obstacle course every morning to loosen up for the rest of the day's training. To loosen up.
Tidwell advanced the tape to the sequence in which the man's arm was broken. As the incident unfolded, he recalled the balance of that episode. The man had finished the obstacle course, broken arm and all. But his speed suffered, and Kumo sent him back to run the course again before he reported to the infirmary to have his arm treated.
Kumo ran a rough school. No one could argue with his results, though. Tidwell had seen things in this last week that he had not previously believed physically possible.
Ejecting the tape cassette, he re-filed it, selected another, and fed it into the viewer.
The man on the screen was the physical opposite of Kumo, who knelt in the background. Where Kumo was thin to the point of looking frail, this man looked like you could hit him with a truck without doing significant damage. He was short, but wide and muscular, looking for all the world like a miniature fullback, complete with shoulder pads.
He stood blindfolded on the field of hard-packed earth. His poise was relaxed and serene. Suddenly another man appeared at the edge of the screen, sprinting forward with upraised sword. As he neared his stationary target, the sword flashed out in a horizontal cut aimed to decapitate the luckless man. At the last instant before the sword struck, the blindfolded man ducked under the glittering blade and lashed out with a kick that took the running swordsman full in the stomach. The man dropped to the ground, doubled over in agony as the blindfolded man resumed his original stance.
Another man crept onto the field, apparently trying to drag his fallen comrade back to the sidelines. When he reached the writhing figure however, instead of attempting to assist him, the new man sprang over him high into the air launching a flying kick at the man with the blindfold. Again the blinded man countered, this time raising a forearm which caught the attacker's leg and flipped it in the air dumping him on his head.
At this point, the swordsman, who apparently was not as injured as he had seemed, rolled over and aimed a vicious cut at the defender's legs. The blindfolded man took to the air, leaping over the sword, and drove a heel down into the swordsman's face. The man fell back and lay motionless, bleeding from both nostrils.
Without taking his eyes from the screen, Tidwell raised his voice.
"Hey, Clancy."
His friend sat up on the sofa, scattering folders onto the floor and blinking his eyes in disorientation.
"Yeah, Steve?"
"How do they do that?"
Clancy craned his neck around and peered at the screen. Three men were attacking simultaneously, one with an axe, two with their hands and feet. The blindfolded man parried, blocked and countered, unruffled by death narrowly missing him at each turn.
"Oh, that's an old martial artist's drill—blindfolded workouts. The theory is that if you lost one of your five senses, such as sight, the other four would be heightened to compensate. By working out blindfolded, you heighten the other senses without actually losing one."
"Have you done this drill before?"
Clancy shook his head. He was starting to come into focus again.
"Not personally. I've seen it done a couple of times, but nothing like this. These guys are good, and I mean really good."
"Who is that one, the powerhouse with the blindfold?"
Clancy pawed through his folders.
"Here it is. His name's Aki. I won't read off all the black belts he holds, I can't pronounce half of them. He's one of the originals. One of the founding members of the martial arts cults that formed up after that one author tried to get the Army to return to the ancient ways, then killed himself when they laughed at him."
Tidwell shook his head.
"How many of the force came out of those cults?"
"About 95%. It's still incredible to me that the Zaibatsu had the foresight to start sponsoring those groups. That was over twenty years ago."
"Just goes to show what twenty years of training six days a week will do for you. Did you know some of the troops were raised into it by their parents? That they've been training with unarmed and armed combat since they could walk?"
"Yeah, I caught that. Incidentally, did I show you the results from the firing range today?"
"Spare me."
But Clancy was on his way to the case.
"They were firing Springfields today," he called back over his shoulder. "Those old bolt-action jobs. Range at 500 meters."
Tidwell sighed. These firing range reports were monotonous, but Clancy was a big firearms freak.
"Here we go. These are the worst ten." He waved a stack of photos at Tidwell. On each photo was a man-shaped silhouette target with a small irregular-shaped hole in the center of the chest.
"There isn't a single shot grouping in there you couldn't cover with a nickel, and these are the worst."
"I assume they're still shooting five-shot groups."
Clancy snorted.
"I don't think Kumo has let them hear of any other kind."
"Firing position?"
"Prone unsupported. Pencil scopes battlefield zeroed at 400 meters."
Tidwell shook his head.
"I'll tell you, Clancy, man for man I've never seen anything like these guys. It's my studied and considered opinion that any one of them could take both of us one-handed. Even . . ."
He jerked a thumb at the figures on the screen behind them.
". . . even blindfolded."
On the screen, a man tried to stand at a distance and stab the blindfolded Aki with a spear, with disastrous results.
Clancy borrowed Tidwell's drink and took a sip.
"And you're still standing by your decision? About extending our entry date to the war by two months?"
"Now look Clancy . . ."
"I'm not arguing. Just checking."
"They aren't ready yet. They're still a pack of individuals. A highly-trained mob is still a mob."
"What's Kumo's reaction? That's his established entry date you're extending."
"He was only thinking about the new ‘superweapons' when he set that date. He's been trained from birth to think of combat as an individual venture."
"Hey, those new weapons are really something, aren't they?"
"Superweapons or not those men have to learn to function as a team before they'll be ready for the war. They said I would have free rein in choosing men and tactics and by God this time I'm not going into battle until they're ready. I don't care if it takes
two months or two years."
"But Kumo . . ."
"Kumo and I work for the same employer and they put me in charge. We'll move when I say we're ready," Tidwell said.
Clancy shrugged his shoulders.
"Just asking, Steve. No need to . . . Whoa. Could you back that up?"
He pointed excitedly at the screen. Tidwell obligingly hit the hold button. On the screen, two men were in the process of attacking simultaneously from both sides with swords. Images of Clancy and Tidwell were also on the screen standing on either side of Kumo.
"How far do you want it backed?"
"Back it up to where you interrupt the demonstration."
Tidwell obliged.
The scene began anew. There was an attacker on the screen cautiously circling Aki with a knife. Suddenly Tidwell appeared on the screen, closely followed by Clancy. Until this point they had been standing off camera watching the proceedings. Finally Tidwell could contain his feelings of skepticism no longer and stepped forward, silently holding his hand up to halt the action. He signaled the man with the knife to retire from the field then turned and beckoned two specific men to approach him. With a series of quick flowing motions he began to explain what he wanted.
"This is the part I want to see. Damn. You know you're really good, Steve. You know how long it would take me to explain that using gestures? You'll have to coach me on it sometime. You used to fool around with the old Indian sign language a lot didn't you? Steve?"
No reply came. Clancy tore his eyes away from the screen and shot a glance at Tidwell. Tidwell was sitting and staring at the screen. Every muscle in his body was suddenly tense, not rigid, but poised as if he was about to fight.
"What is it, Steve? Did you see something?"
Without answering, Tidwell stopped the film, reversed it, then started it again.
Again the knifeman circled. Again the two mercenaries appeared on the screen. Tidwell punched the hold button and the action froze.
He rose form his chair and slowly approached the screen. Then he thoughtfully sipped his drink and stared at a point away from the main action. He stared at Kumo.
Kumo, the old sensei who never showed emotion. In the split second frozen by the camera, at the instant the two men stepped past him and interrupted the demonstration, in that fleeting moment, as he looked at Tidwell's back, Kumo's face was contorted into an expression of raw, naked hatred.
The men and women of the force were kneeling in the traditional student's position, backs straight, hands open and resting palms down on their thighs. To all appearances they were at ease listening to the morning instruction.
This morning, however, the assembly was different. This morning the raised instructor's platform held a dozen chairs filled by various Corporation dignitaries. More importantly, the subject at hand was not instruction, but rather the formal transfer of command from Kumo to Tidwell.
Tidwell was both nervous and bored. He was bored because he was always bored by long speeches, particularly if he was one of the main subjects under discussion. Yet there was still the nervousness born from the anticipation of directly addressing the troops for the first time as their commander.
The speech was in English, as were all the speeches and instructions. One of the prerequisites for the force was a fluent knowledge of English. That didn't make it any the less boring.
He grimaced about the platform again. The Corporation officials were sitting in Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum similarity, blank-faced and attentive. If nothing else in this stint of duty, he was going to try to learn some of the Oriental inscrutability. Depending on the Oriental, they viewed Westerners with distaste or amusement because of the ease with which their emotions could be read in their expressions and actions. The keynote of the Orient was control, and it started with control of oneself.
Craning his neck slightly, he snuck a glance at Clancy, standing in an easy parade rest behind him. There was the Western equivalent to the Oriental inscrutability: the military man. Back straight, eyes straight ahead, face expressionless. Behind the mask, Clancy's mind would be as busy and opinionated as ever, but from viewing him, Tidwell did not have the faintest idea what he was thinking.
In fact, Tidwell realized, he himself was currently the most animated figure on the platform. Suddenly self-conscious, he started to face front again when his eyes fell on Kumo.
Kumo was resplendent in his ceremonial robes. Protruding from his sash at an unlikely angle to the Western eyes, was a samurai sword. Tidwell had heard that the sword had been in Kumo's family for over fifteen generations.
He held the weapon in almost a religious awe. Its history was longer than Tidwell's family tree, and it seemed to radiate a blood aura of its own. Anyone who didn't believe that a weapon absorbed something from the men who used it, from the men it killed, anyone who didn't believe that a weapon could have an identity and personality of its own had never held a weapon with a past.
He suddenly snapped back into focus. The speaker was stepping away from the microphone, looking at him expectantly, as were the others on the platform. Apparently he had missed his introduction and was "on."
He rose slowly, using the delay to collect his scattered thoughts, and stepped to the edge of the platform, ignoring the microphone to address the force directly. A brief gust of wind rippled the uniforms of his audience, but aside from that, there was no movement or reaction.
"Traditionally Japan has produced the finest fighting men in the world. The Samurai, the Ninjas, are all legendary for the prowess in battle."
There was no reaction from the force. Mentally he braced himself. Here we go!
"Also, traditionally, they have had the worst armies!"
The force stiffened without moving. Their faces remained immobile.
"The armies were unsuccessful because they fought as individuals, not as a team. As martial artists, you train the muscles of your body, the limbs of your body to work together, to support each other. It would be unthinkable to attempt to fight if your arms and legs were allowed to move in uncontrolled random motions."
They were with him, grudgingly, seeing where his logic was going.
"Similarly, an army can only be effective if the men and women in it work in cooperation and coordination with each other."
He had made his point. Time to back off a little.
"Different cultures yield different fighting styles. I am not here to argue which style is better, for each style has its time and place. What must be decided is what style is necessary in which situation. In this case, that decision has been made by the executives of the Zaibatsu. As a result of that decision, I have been hired to train and lead you."
Now came the real crunch.
"You are about to enter a highly specialized war. To successfully fight in this war, you must abandon any ideas you may have of nationalism or glory. You are mercenaries as I am a mercenary in the employment of the Zaibatsu complex. As such you must learn to fight, to think in a way which may be completely foreign to what you have learned in the past. To allow time for this training, the date for our entry into the war has been moved back by two months."
"I disagree, Mr. Tidwell."
The words were soft and quiet, but they carried to every corner of the assemblage. In an instant the air was electric. Kumo!
"I disagree with everything you have said."
There it was. The challenge. The gauntlet. Tidwell turned slowly to face his attacker. Kumo's words were polite and soft as a caress, but the act of interrupting, let alone disagreeing, carried as much emotional impact in the Orient as a Western drill sergeant screaming his head off.
"In combat, the action is too fast for conscious thought. If one had to pause and think about coordination of one's limbs, the battle would be lost before a decision was made. It is for this reason that martial artists train, so that each limb develops eyes of its own, a mind of its own. This enables a fighter to strike like lightening when an opening presents itself. Similarly, we train e
ach man to be a self-contained unit, capable of making decisions and acting as the situation presents itself. This means he will never be hamstrung by slow decisions or a break in communications with his superior. As to your ‘specialized war,' a trained fighting man should be able to adapt and function in any situation. Your failure to recognize this betrays your ignorance of warfare."
Tidwell shot a glance at the Corporate officials. No one moved to interfere or defend. He was on his own. They were going to let the two of them settle it.
"Am I to understand that you are questioning the qualifications of Mr. Clancy and myself?" He tried to keep his voice as calm as Kumo's.
"There is nothing to question. After two weeks here you presume to be an expert on our force and seek to change it. You expect the force to follow you because the Corporation tells them to. This is childish. The only way one may lead fighting men is if he holds their respect. That respect must be earned. It cannot be ordered. So far, all we have for proof is words. If your knowledge of battle is so vastly superior to ours, perhaps you could demonstrate it by defeating one of the force that we might see with our own eyes you are fit to lead us."
Tidwell was thunderstruck. This was unheard of. In paperback novels leaders would issue blanket challenges to their force to "any man who thinks he can lick me." In life it was never done. Leaders were chosen for their knowledge of strategy and tactics, not their individual fighting prowess. It was doubtful that either Patton or Rommel, or Genghis Khan for that matter, could beat any man in their command in a fistfight. No commander in his right mind would jeopardize his authority status by entering into a brawl.
It crossed his mind to refuse the challenge. He had already acknowledged the superior ability of the Japanese in individual combat, contesting only their group tactics. Just as quickly he rejected the thought.
No matter how insane it was, he could not refuse this challenge. He was in the Orient. To refuse would be to indicate cowardice, to lose face. He would have to fight this battle and win it.
MYTH-Interpretations: The Worlds of Robert Asprin Page 27