The Regiment-A Trilogy

by John Dalmas

  Minutes later he heard another vehicle coming, from ahead this time, and again he hid, now behind a convenient roadside deck of logs. It was the same carryall as before, traveling faster now. And he knew, knew as if he'd seen him, that Varky Graymar was inside, although the only visible occupants were strangers in the front seat.

  He hiked on anyway, until just beyond a storm-felled treetop, he saw tire tracks where a vehicle had pulled off onto the saturated shoulder of the road. Turning, Urkwal examined the treetop. Some large branches had been chopped from it and thrown aside, their leaves only starting to wilt. Foot tracks told him that two men had carried something between them to the vehicle.

  Winn Urkwal had no doubt what had happened: the treetop had struck Graymar, knocked him out and injured him. The two men had seen him beneath it as they'd passed, and had picked him up. And Varky's pack held incriminating contents: a submachine gun, broken down inside a waterproof bag; a holstered pistol; a roll of det cord; and half a dozen blocks of takite; all buried beneath a blanket, some food, spare socks. . . . If someone dug through it, an alarm would be raised.

  Perhaps . . . Urkwal knelt where the branches had been cut away, to scrabble beneath limbs and foliage. And here—here was the wrapped SMG, shoved back beneath some branches and weeds. And here the bagged explosive. And here the det cord! Varky'd managed to get his pack off, rummage through it, and at least somewhat conceal the dangerous stuff.

  But where was the pistol? He crawled further, groping, and found it too, in its holster. But the magazine was missing. He hunted for it awhile longer, then gave up, put the other things into his own pack, and started back eastward down the road.

  Before long he saw where a tree had been uprooted by the wind. He went to it, and with his hands dug in the soil where the root disk had been tipped up. Then he buried all but the det cord and takite. He had use for them later.

  That done, he trotted back to the road, and eastward to his rendezvous.

  17

  The screened dining porch looked out over a neatly tended yard in the direction of large barns. In winter they housed registered livestock. It was a beautiful summer morning, fresh and cool after a hot and humid spell. A couple sat at a flower-decorated table, drinking midmorning joma that was not made of scorched grain. Physically the man was smaller than ordinary. His features, the gray eyes especially, suggested high intelligence and an even disposition. He was dressed in a gray riding suit of serviceable material, a white shirt and black ribbon tie. And boots suitable for both saddle and stable.

  Their butler entered. "Sir, Mr. Chenly wishes to speak with you. When may I tell him you'll see him?"

  Mild surprise registered. His chief forester had planned to check the thinning work on Compartment Four that morning. Fingas Marnsson Kelromak glanced at his wife, who nodded. "I'll speak with him now, Kinet."

  The butler's nod was almost a bow, and he left. A minute later, Chenly stepped onto the porch. Kelromak sat back, his expression questioning.

  "Good morning, sir. Bobbi and I were driving to Compartment Four this morning, and we found a man lying by the road, unconscious. A drifter by the look of him. A tree had broken in the wind, and the top had fallen on him."

  "Badly injured, I suppose?"

  "When we got him here, he was able to take his weight on one foot. The other knee is pretty swollen, and something's wrong with a shoulder. And he's got a knot on his head like an egg."

  "And?" Kelromak knew there was more to it than that, or Chenly wouldn't be troubling him with the matter.

  "The storm went through in the middle of the night, and I wondered what he'd been doing on the road at that hour. Also he's a rather large man, sir, and hard, and—"

  Kelromak interrupted. "Hard?"

  "His body, sir. When Bobbi and I raised him up, I was surprised how hard and heavy he felt. And supporting him under the arms— He's got muscles like Big Farly, or maybe harder. A man like that could be dangerous, sir, if he's inclined to be lawless. So—" He held something up: the magazine from a pistol. "I took his pack off to lay him on the back seat, and threw it in front. And looked in it on our way back; I found this."

  Kelromak pursed his lips. The forest country had always been a refuge for felons and runaways. They'd hide there till they got too hungry, or sometimes till the sheriff asked for a company or two of soldiers to sweep the forest for them.

  It was Lady Kelromak who spoke then. "But no gun, Chenly?"

  "No, ma'am. Just the magazine. He could have found it on the ground somewhere. I've had a magazine fall out of my pistol butt when the catch didn't latch like it ought to."

  "What else did he carry?" Kelromak asked.

  "A match safe, better than you'd expect, given the clothes he wore. And a horse blanket, half a loaf of cabin bread, a bag of dried lumies, most of a cheese, and some snare wire, as if he might take a yansa now and then. And thirty dronas."

  Thirty dronas! A great deal of money for a drifter. Most, if they had that much, would be in town drinking it up.

  "And a folding knife," Chenly went on, "bigger than usual and razor sharp, but something anyone might carry, especially in the woods." He dug into a pocket, drew out the knife and opened it. The blade was nearly five inches long. "I took it and the matches, and left him with Frenis in the bachelors' quarters. He was pretty much in a daze yet."

  Kelromak got to his feet. "I'll talk to this drifter, if that's what he is. See what I can find out."

  "Well, that's another thing, sir. You see— I asked his name, even before I looked in his pack, and he said he didn't know! He could be faking, but that's quite a knot on his head. You can actually see it, what with his hair so short."

  "Hmm. I'll see him anyway." He turned to his wife. "Excuse me, dear," he said, and left with Chenly. Kelromak limped, as if from some old injury grown used to, a limp sufficient to hamper him. "Have you called the outcamps to see if there's been thefts?"

  "Bobbi's doing that, sir."

  They crossed a broad lawn and went through a gate in a ten-foot privacy hedge. The bachelors' quarters were on the other side, a single-story frame dormitory, painted cream with white trim, and had a lawn of its own. Only two men were inside, one a burly middle-aged man with a fire-scarred face and vestigial right ear, seated in front of a window with a book open in his left hand. His curled right hand lay on a thigh, as if the elbow wouldn't bend far enough to help hold the book. The other man, young, lay on a bed with his eyes closed. His shirt had been removed, leaving a ragged undershirt, and his right arm had been immobilized—put in a sling and wrapped to his body with a bandage.

  The older man lay his book on the sill and got stiffly to his feet. "Good morning, sir."

  "Good morning, Frenis." Kelromak's attention went to the stranger; the young man's eyes had opened, but they didn't seem to focus. "How do you feel?" Kelromak asked.

  The man looked at him blankly. "All right."

  In the undershirt, his arms were large, and considering how relaxed they were, looked extremely muscular. Also, if he was feigning concussion, he did a convincing job of it. Kelromak knelt beside him, felt the lump on his head, then took the hand on the injured arm and examined the palm. "What have you been doing for a living?" he asked.

  The man blinked. "Living? I don't rightly know, sir. Don't remember."

  "Well." Kelromak straightened and turned. "Chenly, call Dr. Ammekor to come by and look at our visitor. He should check Dori-Ann, too, while he's here."

  They left together then. "I'd judge he's no robber," Kelromak told the forester. "His hands are as callused as any I've ever seen. He's a laboring man, or I've missed my guess, probably come to the forest to find work. Now if he'd carried a gun— But as you said, he could well have found the magazine somewhere. And the money could have been earned; not every drifter drinks his up, I'm sure."

  "You don't want me to call the sheriff to question him then?"

  Kelromak grimaced. "No. Not unless Bobbi learns something suggestive from the
out-camps. If Sheriff Geltro got hold of him, he might well try to beat some memory out of him. And possibly beat him to death in the process."

  * * *

  When the lord of the estate had left the dormitory, Varky Graymar closed his eyes again. His head ached and he didn't remember anything between the river and waking up by the road. But he knew who he was and why he was in Komars, and there was nothing seriously wrong with his thought processes. He'd functioned well enough to hide his stuff and even get his pack back on, damn difficult with a separated shoulder.

  If they let me stay here, he thought, I'll be functional in a week or two.

  18

  The president's War Council was meeting in his office, and Romlar was there. He had a standing invitation, though he didn't regularly attend. General Belser's expression was stoney with suppressed anger, so instead of starting with Fossur's intelligence review, Heber Lanks opened the meeting with a question: "Does anyone have anything we need to get out of the way before Colonel Fossur brings us up to date?"

  Belser heaved to his feet. "Yes, by Amber, I do! And I'm going to demand that something be done about it!"

  Inwardly Lanks sighed; Eskoth was a difficult man. "Tell us about it," he said.

  "He knows about it!" the general said, pointing at Romlar, "and so does he!" He pointed at Fossur. "And I suspect he does too!" he added, gesturing at Vestur Marlim. From the way he glared at his president, he suspected Lanks knew as well. He launched on. "Last night I learned that four—four!—enemy brigade bases were attacked by two batteries each of our pack artillery! That is eight batteries committed to action without my permission or previous knowledge! Someone is covertly trying to take away my command! And if something like this happens again, I shall resign!"

  By all means do, Fossur thought. The president turned to him.

  "Do you know anything about this?" he asked.

  "As liaison officer," Fossur said, "I've had your permission from the beginning to attach men to Colonel Romlar's units, so we and they would be closely familiar with how an elite force operates. I've been aware that the men assigned have accompanied the mercenaries into action as early as the Great Raids. I should comment also that I've questioned a number of these men, debriefed some of them in detail, and they and I all feel they learned a great deal from their experiences. In fact, they and their officers have been almost uniformly excited by what they've seen and observed."

  He turned his gaze to Belser. "I do not try to keep a finger on everything that happens in operations that are established and going well. I did not know in advance about the artillery action you mentioned; I learned about it last evening, as you did. And I must admit surprise that such an operation was carried out under the guise of 'observing.' "

  Fossur turned to Heber Lanks. "After the first raids, the Komarsi were forced to expend considerable effort and resources in strengthening their bases. This required different tactics on the mercenaries' part, and resulted in their mortar attacks on five bases. Since then the Komarsi have been forced to mount more, larger, and farther-ranging patrols, which the mercenaries have routinely attacked and really pretty much massacred. As I've reported to you previously. Now it seems that most of the patrols sent out, particularly those sent to patrol at larger distances, commonly go out and sit in some relatively secure position, hoping the mercenaries don't find them.

  "My usual intelligence sources didn't learn this; mercenary reconnaissance patrols observed it. And decided to take advantage of it to shell the bases. Having no artillery of their own, they borrowed some—guns and gunners—from unit commanders they'd come to know. Nonetheless, most of the personnel involved were mercenaries. The guns, with mercenary escorts, were disassembled and packed to locations accurately identifiable on forestry maps, where they were reassembled. The mercenaries provided strong infantry protection for the batteries, and strong mercenary patrols ranged the vicinity. They had their own fire observers ahead to direct the fire. Bombardment was by daylight, when there were no visible muzzle flashes, and the Komarsi never located them. When our batteries had expended their ammunition, they disassembled the pieces and withdrew. They had no casualties. No equipment was lost. The enemy suffered painful losses of personnel and material.

  "It seems to me that this was an excellent operation—one I recommend we repeat. My information is that the units involved are very enthused, and eager to do more of it. If the Komarsi increase their patrols, the mercenaries will eat them up. And if they don't, we can injure them at will."

  As Fossur sat down, Vestur Marlim got up, a small, sharp-faced, and just now angry man. "Mr. President," he said, "I applaud this cooperation between Colonel Romlar's troops and our own. It's the sort of thing we should be doing. I applaud anything that punishes the Komarsi for their assault on our country and our people." He turned to Belser then, thrusting his face toward him. "Of course you weren't asked or informed. If you had been, you'd have forbidden it!"

  His tone moderated then, for remarkably, Belser showed no anger, and this cooled his own. "In the south you were a lion," he said. "Since then—something has happened to you."

  Normally Belser stood to speak. Now he stayed in his chair as if tired. "In the south I lost more than six thousand men, killed, captured, or disabled. And we lost all the resources we need to win this war. Our food supplies shrink daily, and we cannot replenish more than a small fraction of them. We cannot replace munitions expended. To fight with no prospect of winning is to waste lives."

  The president spoke gently to him then. "What would you have us do, Eskoth? Surrender?"

  Belser's voice was soft, hardly recognizable. "No. I do not know what to do." He looked away then, and Fossur stood, his voice quiet.

  "Mr. President," Fossur said, "I have nothing I need to report." He looked around. "If no one else does, perhaps we should adjourn and meet again tomorrow."

  "Not yet." Lanks stood and looked around the table. "We have not had an explicit, stated policy since we lost the south. That is my failure, and I'm going to remedy it now. But first let me say that I am president of the people. And the people, at least most of their soldiers, want us to fight. They'd like us to win, but that isn't the key issue; they want us to fight. And we are going to because they want us to, if for no other reason.

  "And if we fight, we should do it in a way that grasps whatever chance we do have of winning. Using whatever works. We must show the rest of Maragor that we have heart, that we can hurt the Komarsi, that he is not the force they may have thought he was. We have already begun to do this, or Colonel Romlar has, and we must begin to take the larger role in it ourselves. We must define that role and play it to the hilt!

  "Much of Maragor has seen the cube of the Great Raid, seen or at least heard of it. And much, perhaps most, of Maragor would love to see us win. Neither Engwar nor his father, nor his uncle during his regency, made many friends on this world.

  "I will increase my efforts to gain their help. This will not be easy, given our geographic position, our lack of a coastline now, but I see possibilities. Ambassador Tisslor believes that, if the war becomes sufficiently troublesome for Komars, sufficiently unpleasant, Engwar will face sentiment to end it." The president paused, looking less than happy. "Perhaps not giving up all they have gained, but much of it. Enough that we can be a viable republic again, a nation that can feed its people."

  Once more he paused, then went on quietly. "Who knows what may happen if we persist and strive.

  "At any rate, there you have it. A policy: We will fight." He turned to Fossur then. "On your recommendation, I adjourn this meeting till tomorrow morning at eight. We will then discuss specifics."

  The council got up and left without anything more being said.

  * * *

  Belser left the president's house and walked, rather than strode to his office. Sitting behind his desk, he looked tiredly at his in-basket. His door opened; his secretary stepped in and closed it behind him.

  "General, Colonel Romla
r would like to speak with you."

  Belser looked up and said nothing for several long seconds, then answered. "Send him in."

  The sergeant motioned Romlar in, then left them. Belser gathered a little of his old iron, though none of the fire. "What is it, Colonel? I'm a busy man."

  Romlar moved a chair close to the general's desk, and sat down uninvited. "General," he said, "I have never led an army. I have never led a division, or even a brigade. Our specialty is small unit tactics against larger and more powerful opponents, tactics most efficient in circumstances like those we find here.

  "In the north, the only effective way to hurt the Komarsi is with tactics of the sort I have used. But I have only one short regiment. You have in your army many backwoodsmen who can readily be trained to carry out the sort of actions we do. Readily trained because they already have the most important personal skills needed, and the necessary attitude. My regiment won on Terfreya when it had little more than begun its training, had finished just one year out of six! And we started training as unruly adolescents with none of those skills."

  He paused, then leaned toward the general. "Let us select men from your regiments for their experience as woodsmen. Let us train those men, enough for a battalion to start with. And turn them loose on the Komarsi."

  Belser said nothing, simply looked at him, seemingly without anger. After a long and silent half minute, Romlar got up. "Thank you, general. I appreciate your granting me the time for this talk. I hope to see you tomorrow morning."

  Belser nodded acknowledgement. Romlar bowed slightly and left, Belser watching him out the door. Then the general noticed something on his desk, which Romlar must have left. He picked it up: a food bar, one of the merc's imported iron rations, honey-sweetened, rich with nuts and wrapped with chocolate. He examined the label, then unwrapped it and bit off a piece, chewing thoughtfully.