Sweetness in the Dark

by W. B. Martin

“Sergeant. You weren’t even bloody born when I was sending Japs to their ancestors,” GG said.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Illingworth said. The other men on the team smiled at the sergeant’s dilemma. Everyone was here because of GG’s call to arms. To deny him would be almost sacrilegious to these men.

  “You Kiwis will be the death of me. Taking an old man out on recon. You’re all crazy.” Major Smith yelled as the Kiwi Recon Team marched by heading north. He might be right. What have I gotten ourselves into? Noel wondered.

  To cover the twenty or so kilometers to the base of the Bombay Hills would require them to be out two days. They would march out most of the way in the daylight, rest until dark, recon the hills and return to Hamilton. Not an easy task even for someone in their twenties.

  And Sergeant Illingworth hiked the team hard. Noel struggled to keep up against the older men who were bigger and stronger. Noel looked at his great-grandfather and saw a man who enjoyed the experience. He seemed to come alive as they approached the enemy.

  Reaching their rest stop, the sergeant ordered everyone to catch some rest till it got dark. He stopped where Noel was bedded down.

  “I’d like you and your GG to hold this position while we’re gone. It’s important that we have someone at our back,” Illingworth lied.

  “What? Sergeant, if you’re trying to ditch us, you can bloody well drop dead. Nobody is leaving me behind to guard some damn bushes,” GG said.

  “Suit yourself then. Be ready in four hours.”

  * * *

  Noel jumped when the sergeant kicked his boot to wake him up. He couldn’t believe that four hours had passed already. He had barely closed his eyes.

  “Gear up. We head out in five,” Illingworth whispered.

  Noel looked around for his great-grandfather, but saw nothing. He started to panic when a rustle in the bush was challenged by one of the team. A short burst of profanity revealed that GG had returned.

  “Are you ready yet? I’ve been to the top of the hill already. Most of the ‘Indos’ are asleep. We could capture the place if you sods would get a move on,” GG said.

  “The top of the hill? I told you to catch some rest,” Illingworth said.

  “Couldn’t sleep. Can we move out now, if you wankers are done doing your nails, or whatever it is you’ve been doing?” GG asked.

  Sergeant Illingworth got the men lined up. They had two night scopes among them, borrowed from the U.S. Army. The sergeant put one up front and one on the rear. Noel and his great-grandfather were in the middle of the small column.

  Things went well for the first hour while they climbed the hills. GG showed the sergeant where he had gone on his previous visit. Noel wondered how his grandfather had found his way in the dark. Even with the night scopes, the team made a couple of wrong turns and had to backtrack.

  They stopped on a ridge that had good cover to hide their presence. The south ridge line overlooked the open slopes that the farmers had cleared for grazing. The spot offered an excellent vantage point to determine the ‘Indo’ defenses.

  Sergeant Illingworth decided that they could gain more information if they stayed during the day and observed. He passed through the men informing them of the change in plans. He ordered men to team up and move out to positions to protect their flanks in case the ‘Indos’ had patrols out.

  Noel and his great-grandfather would provide security at the patrols makeshift headquarters. The sergeant and an observer would use field glasses and make notes on enemy dispositions while Noel and GG watched for trouble.

  The day went by slowly as Sergeant Illingworth scribed in his notebook. Noel noticed that his great-grandfather was antsy just sitting concealed in the bush. The ‘Indos’ didn’t seem to put patrols out, so the guards eventually became lax.

  The situation changed quickly. Noel didn’t hear anything, but Grandfather certainly did. Suddenly his grandfather sat up, cocking his head from side to side to determine the direction from which danger was coming.

  “Noel, we have visitors. Back side of the ridge. Our team is only on our flanks. Nobody is behind us. We have to act,” GG whispered.

  Without telling the sergeant, GG pulled out his bush knife and motioned Noel to do the same. Then he set off in a low crawl. It was all Noel could do to keep up. His legs ached from crouching as they quietly moved down the backside of the ridge, keeping in brush the entire way.

  Noel ran into a motionless grandfather at the edge of the bush. Ahead lay open pasture. The sheep were missing, already eaten by the locals. In their place, six Indonesian soldiers climbed the hill. In their hands were AK-47s, with bayonets mounted on the front lug.

  His great-grandfather reached around and patted Noel reassuringly on the leg. He lowered himself and pulled Noel down with him. They were now lying on their bellies, hidden in the tall grass, with large bushes above them. Perfect concealment. They waited.

  Noel was finally seeing the enemy, but he was nervous. They had spent some time training on using a knife in combat, but he had never done it for real. As the six enemies climbed the hill toward their position, his great-grandfather intently waited to attack.

  Noel loved his great-grandfather. There was no doubt about that. But he was fearful at what was about to happen. Six against two, and what looked like experienced soldiers against an old man and a young boy. What am I doing here? Noel wondered.

  “Don’t worry boy. Your genes will take over. You have my blood in you,” his great-grandfather said, reassuringly. But mine is so young, and yours is so old, Noel thought.

  The six soldiers continued to climb the hill. They were bantering between each other, only casually checking the area. When they reached the top of the clearing the leader stopped and turned around. He motioned his men to light up and take a break. Noel couldn’t be sure what he said, but from the cigarettes being pulled out, they were going into rest mode.

  Noel felt the tap on his side as his great-grandfather slowly raised up into a crouch. Noel followed his lead. Now was the time to strike. Raising his knife, GG looked into Noels eyes and grinned.

  The bushes exploded, as two crazed Kiwis burst out and fell on the soldiers. GG stuck the first solder in the neck with his large bush knife and the man crumpled to the ground. Noel’s knife was right behind and a second ‘Indo’ joined the first.

  The remaining four barely had turned around when a second and third soldier felt knives buried into their backs. Both grasped for air as their lungs collapsed from the large holes cut into them. They fell over squirming as the life drained out of them.

  The last two soldiers were upright by now, raising their AK-47s to shoot these wild men of New Zealand. Leaving the bush knife stuck in his second victim, GG grabbed one of the abandoned rifles and stuck the bayonet into one of the two men.

  Noel flew through the air as he lunged at the last man standing. Catching the bayonet in the arm, Noel flew into the man’s face, knocking the rifle out of his hands. His two thumbs found the man’s eyeballs as his hands grabbed his ears. The man screamed as Noel drove his thumbs into the man’s skull. The pasture was suddenly very quiet.

  “Good work, boy. I told you the genes would kick in. Man, I haven’t felt this good in a lot of years,” GG said.

  Adrenaline kicked in and Noel shook as he lay exhausted by the six dead bodies. His great-grandfather began rifling through the soldier’s pockets looking for information. GG stuffed a number of papers into his pockets. Then he undid the webbing gear and pulled them off. Picking up the six AK-47s, he handed three to Noel.

  “Beats that shotgun you’ve been carrying around. And here, take the extra ammo. We best go check in before they think we got lost,” GG said.

  Noel slung the extra ammo over his shoulder and then added three rifles on top of it. They started up the hill and then froze. GG had heard something. He trained one of his AK’s on the brush up ahead.

  “Don’t shoot, it’s Sergeant Illingworth. We’re stepping out of the bush.”
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  Noel lowered his weapon when he saw the entire recon team emerge from the bush. They walked up to the two Kiwis, then they looked down the hill at the bodies lying in the grass.

  “We heard the commotion and thought we’d come help,” Sergeant Illingworth said as he walked down to the six dead soldiers. “Jesus.” A low whistle sound was heard from one of the other men.

  “It’s about time you sods showed up. Bugger to hell if I’m carrying all this bloody stuff back to camp. Maybe you young guys are good for something after all,” GG said as he handled the extra assault rifles and ammo off to the team. Noel and GG started down the hill as the rest of the team just stood looking at the Leffingwell battle site.

  “Jesus,” was again all Sergeant Illingworth could utter.

  GG stopped and turned back to the other team members. “You know we are out in the open here. The whole ‘Indo’ Army is just over there. You blokes might want to move to a spot a bit more concealed.”

  Sergeant Illingworth shook his head and got the men moving. It was a quiet hike back to Hamilton. The only comment anyone heard was from one of the team members when they reached the base of the Bombay Hills. “Who was the brilliant bastard who wanted to leave them at camp?”

  Chapter 22

  Cheyenne, Wyoming

  “Dr. Kendall, your work on the Constitution has been exemplary so far. You’ve done an excellent job explaining why we need to transition away from the old government, but I believe you need some help seeing the bigger picture,” Dr. Vernon Bush offered.

  Paul had heard this before. Too many times in fact. He was tired of the same political garbage. The nation needed a governing document that would hopefully serve longer than the two hundred and thirty years the old one had.

  Dr. Lars Lundquist attempted to bring the two sides together, but Paul was wondering if this had been a mistake. Lundquist was an economist at the von Mises Institute at Auburn University. Much like the Idaho School of Economics, the von Mises Institute was a gathering of ‘free market’ thinkers.

  Dedicated to the founder of the Austrian School, Ludwig von Mises had led the rebirth of capitalism in the 1920s and 30s when socialism was running rampant. Along with Friedrich Hayek at the London School of Economics, the two had reaffirmed the freedom-enhancing properties of capitalism.

  “May we please dispense with the titles? We’re all heavy on the credentials here. If I may, Lars thought we could meet ahead of time to work out a compromise between the Idaho Plan and the Louisiana Plan. Everyone knows the Louisiana Plan is the Texas Plan, so where can we reach consensus?” Paul asked with exasperation.

  He knew if there wasn’t common ground somewhere, there was a good chance that the birth of the new Union of American States would be stillborn. His fear was that the governors would split the Union apart and two separate countries would emerge.

  Dr. Vernon Bush was an economist at the University of Texas. Along with Lars, they were delegates of their respective states at the Convention. Bush was one of twelve African-American delegates attending the Convention. They both had been involved from the beginning in the discussion and understood the conflicts.

  “Yes, first names sound much better. Paul, regarding your explanation of the profound problems that the United States suffered under in the final days, I agree with all of them. You know my work as I know yours. We can’t have an involved citizenry if half the people pay no taxes,” Vernon said.

  “I agree. A society stops working when half the people are in the wagon being pulled by the other half. Excuse the metaphor, but it is a good one. It works only when the few truly needy people ride in the wagon. That is a compassionate society, helping the truly needy. ‘The deserving poor’ I believe is how the Victorians used the term,” Lars said.

  “And ‘Big Government’ is a really bad judge as to who the ‘deserving poor’ really are. This last guy thought ninety-nine percent of the population were deserving of riding in the wagon. That would have been great, a one percent horse,” Paul offered.

  “So we agree, taxes need to be universally applied across the population,” Lars said.

  The two other men agreed. Along with election reform and clarifying who a citizen was, they had solved three of the six profound problems Paul had raised.

  “And the fourth, how to properly support the middle class? I’m afraid that I don’t place as much importance on that as you do. Explain again your reasoning,” Vernon said.

  “When the original U.S. Constitution was passed, it was done so by the merchant class. New York didn’t even send a delegation to the original Convention and New Hampshire’s delegation walked out and went home. Both states were dominated by yeoman farmers at the time. The ‘middle class’ of Colonial America, if you will,” Paul said. “Remember, Rhode Island was the only state to have a popular vote on the ratification by a state legislature. The Constitution lost eighty percent to twenty percent.”

  “But eventually, Rhode Island came around and joined the other states, so they saw the need for a Constitution,” Vernon offered.

  “I believe it was more for survival. They were the last holdout of the original thirteen. At that time they were essentially a separate country, and the other twelve began to talk of treating them as such. Rhode Island is a small place and the threat of closed borders with its neighbors would be intimidating,” Paul retorted.

  Lars offered, “But your observation about South America was what convinced me.”

  “Yes, after the U.S. Constitution was fully passed by all thirteen states, other nations began to examine what the U.S, had done. Foremost among them were the newly liberated countries in South America. As Simon Bolivar threw out the Spanish, each country adopted, almost word-for-word, our Constitution as their own,” Paul said.

  “And fast-forward many years, all of them turned out quite different than our country. Why?” Paul continued. “They lacked a middle class from the beginning. Most of South America was dominated by a few wealthy, land owners, while most of the population had nothing. “

  “Argentina is a good example. Settled by many of the same kind of immigrants that came to our country during the early part of the 20th Century, her economy was as strong as the U.S. Her army in 1938 was actually larger than ours,” Lars offered.

  “But after World War II, they succumbed to Peron. The lower class supported the Peronistas as the rich were attacked. Again, a society where everyone wanted to ride in the wagon. They were just fifty years ahead of us,” Paul said.

  “Peru, Ecuador, Columbia, even Chile. They have all suffered structural clashes because of their lack of a middle class. Or at least a large middle class. That was always the strength of America,” Lars said.

  “And then the 21st Century hit and the American middle class got hammered. First it was the tech bubble crushing people’s retirement funds. Then the housing bubble burst and middle class families lost more money. And through it all, the outsourcing of jobs continued to kill America’s manufacturing base along with all those good-paying jobs,” Paul said.

  “I agree, NAFTA and the WTO have been big mistakes. Whoever thought that America could hold its standard of living when all our goods were made in China was crazy. Well, those chickens have come home to roost,” Vernon said.

  “I’m glad you agree then. Maybe we can resolve our differences,” Paul said.

  Vernon, representing the Louisiana Plan, asked about the next items. “OK, we have consensus on items one through four. What about five and six?”

  The issue of free trade was destroying the country before ‘the Pulse’. The free trade faction still held sway in spite of the evidence to the contrary.

  Paul began. “I’d like to quote from a column by Pat Buchanan that hits the issue square. The last numbers available showed a yearly trade deficit with the European Union of $116 billion. Or how about Japan and South Korea, our allies in the Pacific? A yearly deficit total of $93 billion. Maybe we were doing better under NAFTA: that agreement Ross Perot w
arned us about? No, we were losing with Canada and Mexico, too, in the amount of $93 billion a year going across our borders. And let’s not forget our ‘good friends’, the Chinese. A record $315 billion in one year. Gentlemen, that’s $737 billion dollars our former country was sending overseas yearly.”

  The other two economists knew the rough numbers, but were shocked to hear them again. Paul wasn’t finished.

  “And I didn’t include the petro-dollars heading to the Middle East to support our oil habit. Five percent of our national wealth left each year.”

  Lars jumped in. “My latest research backs that up. It goes with your dying middle class, Paul. The Senate Budget Committee reported that taking all the benefits being handed out by the federal government, that a family on welfare received benefits worth $5,000 a month. The average median household income was $4,200 per month.”

  Paul added, “Yes, and that report listed the eleven states that before ‘the Pulse’ had more people on welfare than were employed. Anyone that wasn’t shocked by that graphic had no idea how serious things had become. And the list that was published at the same time showed the ten most miserable cities in the country. Detroit led the list, and we know how bad that city was. They had resorted to bulldozing derelict houses they couldn’t give away and turning large parts of the city into pasture.”

  “And it was all crushed by the sun. If we can get our new country stabilized and on track, we may all look back on the CME as a godsend,” Lars added.

  “Then I guess we will agree that we need to end the free trade experiment. It will be a hard sell to my side, but I think if we put together what we’ve talked about here, I might be able to swing it,” Vernon offered.

  “We have our own holdouts on our side,” Paul added. “The Libertarian myth of open borders just didn’t work out. Maybe in a perfect world.” Paul let the thought end there. So much pain and misery had been caused by social experiments like Communism that sounded good on paper but didn’t stand up against human nature. Free trade would be one more 20th Century experiment killed off by actual results.