Emile and the Dutchman

by Joel Rosenberg

  "The cow, Mister—" He caught himself. "Never mind, Mark. Leave it be. Sure, sure, permission granted." He scribbled out a pass. "Take a couple of hours—that might keep you out of Brubaker's way for a while. Asshole," he snorted.

  While Brubaker's rank was higher than Morphy's, Morphy was a senior, which put him beyond Brubaker's authority in all but strictly line-of-duty situations.

  Morphy shook his head. "Transferred in with soph status last year. No fucking plebe year for him, but he's got to—never mind. Tell me, any idea why he's got it in for you in particular?"

  "Sir, no, sir. Unless it's because I'm a rich sonofabitch and a know-everything smartass and barracks lawyer to boot, sir."

  Morphy's eyes twinkled. "I guess that could be it. Oh—and you can forget about your usual way of spending Sunday leave this weekend. On your way back, you might want to check out the posting for the next survival drop."

  I didn't say anything.

  He sighed again. "Okay, you've probably got a question—puke it out, puke it out."

  "Sir, any particular reason, sir?"

  "Yeah. It's on for the weekend—you and Curdova, and guess who your upperclassman instructor is."

  I shuddered. "No. Please. Not Cadet Lieutenant Brubaker, sir?" '

  "Right on the money, plebe. And the first word out your mouth is sir, scumbag. Give me thirty, then grab your bags and doubletime your ass down the stairs. Now, plebe."

  The Dutchman raised an eyebrow. "Survival drop, singular!"

  "It's the Navy, Major—and it was just more bullshit."

  "Oh. You think that survival training isn't relevant to Navy officers?"

  "Sure it is, Major. Really important. Just like it is to be able to spurt out a memorized definition of leather. Makes as much sense as an officer being really good at whitewashing walls. Makes every bit as much goddam sense as making a man with an Expert Pilot's license—with prop, rotary, jet, and transsonic validations, sir, even then—go through familiarization training on a Piper."

  "Well . . ."

  "Survival training doesn't make sense, Major. Not for a Navy officer; they're not Contact Service. What are the chances of a Navy man—flier or not—ever having to live off the land?"

  He snickered at that. "You got a point, Emmy. They actually made you take beginning flying?"

  "Yeah."

  He looked down at his compboard. "I see you got extra credit for teaching flying at Alton."

  "After they had a senior IP check me out—thoroughly—I was detailed as a student instructor in airframe, rotary-wing, and advance RW—everything offered except combat tactics, transsonic, and skipshuttle. The Service occasionally isn't totally fucked up."

  The Dutchman snickered again. "Ah. The soul of reason and grace, that we are. This survival drop where everything hit the fan?"

  "Yeah."

  "Go on."

  V

  Now, as I understand it, parachuting in has been obsolete for a couple of centuries, even for the military Not that they call it parachuting in. "Vertical envelopment" is the technical term for jumping in.

  That's what they call it. I call it stupid. Anywhere you can parachute in, a copter can get you in just as fast or faster, and bring you down with more equipment.

  Maybe I shouldn't complain. After all, vertical envelopment has been obsolete for only a couple of centuries; the reason that we're taught close-order drill is that the Greeks and Romans found a phalanx a handy thing to have around, and—never mind that there hasn't been any use for it since pikemen were put up against horse-borne cavalry—it might come in handy again.

  All of which may be just a rationalization for the fact that from the moment I set foot on the Zeus I was slightly nauseous. My stomach really started heaving when Manny Curdova finished checking the straps that held my chute to my back and my pack to my front.

  Brubaker was grinning, of course, which didn't make things any better. I would have loved to get the bastard in the right-hand seat of a trainer—if you know what you're doing, you can make anyone vomit.

  Finally, we were over the drop zone. The red light over the door went yellow, and we checked our altimeters and oxygen masks. And then the jumpmaster clipped the releases to the line, and we waited for the green light.

  All too soon, it flashed.

  Manny went first. His face a bit pale inside his faceplate, he braced himself for a moment in the open door and then kicked out, his static line paying out for a long moment before going slack, whipping in the wind.

  Me next. At the door, I looked down at about twelve klicks of air, and decided to quit. There's a difference between looking at that much air through a windscreen and a faceplate, honest.

  "Whatsa matter, rich boy?" Brubaker's voice whispered in my ear, "Chickening out?"

  To hell with it. "Sir, yes, sir. As a matter of fact—"

  "Shut up. Be ready for a full inspection by the time I'm down."

  Something connected with my butt, booting me out into nowhere.

  I turned and reached, but all I caught was air.

  It was a long way to the desert sands. I vomited all the way down.

  "Barfing seems to be a way of life for you, Emmy."

  'I've got a sensitive stomach. You want me to go on, or not?"

  "Go on."

  VI

  By the time Brubaker had made it down, both Manny and I had our gear neatly arranged on our clear plastic tarpaulins, as the bastard had ordered. Each of us had:

  One parachute, together with rigging and quick-release straps

  A first-aid kit, complete with drugs

  One plastic-handled survival knife

  Five one-liter plastic water containers

  Eighteen wooden matches, their heads coveted with paraffin

  One fire kit

  Two two-meter lengths of clear plastic tubing

  One mylar tarp

  One clear plastic tarp

  Eight mealbricks, each fully dehydrated and sealed in plastic

  One plastic cup

  One instruction manual, sealed in plastic

  Everything was sealed in plastic. Plastic is the Navy's unofficial mascot, sort of like the way the Service has olive drab.

  I didn't know why they kept the instruction manual sealed for a desert drop—it's supposed to be for jungle environments, where the main problem is to delay everything rotting.

  Brubaker smiled as he swaggered over, his own kit properly slung, his chute tucked under his arm.

  "First thing, rich boys, is to make sure that things don't go too easy for you." Over our cut-off protests, he scooped up both of our chutes and instruction manuals and piled them on top of his chute, several meters away on the hot sands.

  Digging into his pack, he came out with a small plastic vial, lit its fuse, and tossed it onto the pile.

  The chutes and packs burned with a thick black smoke; Manny and I worked our way around so that the wind was at our backs.

  "Good. Now, you two have a problem," Brubaker said. "We're not due for pickup for three days. You need, in this heat, at least a liter of water per day."

  And we each had five liters. Did he really think we were going to let him take the water away from us?

  I looked at Manny. He gave an expansive Latin shrug, as though to say, I'd rather get a million demerits than die of thirst.

  Good man. I walked over to my gear and began to pack it, Manny following me.

  "Easy, there, Mark."

  I stood up straight, gesturing at Manny to keep packing. "Sir. Plebe von du Mark requests permission to speak informally, sir."

  "Granted."

  "You're not confiscating our water. No way."

  Brubaker smiled. "Agreed."

  I'd never seen anyone move so quickly. One moment, he stood there empty-handed; the next he had a wiregun in his hands, and had drilled through all our water bottles.

  As we stood there, shocked, our water drained out into the sand. I leaped over to the containers and tried to hol
d the holes shut with my fingers, but there were just too many of the fine holes; all I got was fingers full of wet sand.

  I drew my knife and stood.

  "Don't even think about it, rich boy." Brubaker smiled at me. "In the field, assaulting a superior officer doesn't buy you a court-martial, not when the officer in question has a sidearm. It buys you about two centimeters of wire in the head."

  I didn't think that he'd actually shoot us out of malice, but he might in self-defense. I clipped the knife to my belt.

  "It's really simple, rich boys. Between your belt canteens and what you have there, you can improvise a water source." He snickered. "Matter of fact, I order you to do so."

  Neither holstering his pistol nor taking his eyes off us, he reached over his shoulder and pulled a tube out of his pack. He sipped on it as he seated himself on the ground.

  "Don't worry about me," he said around the tube, patting his pack. "I've got a nice ten-liter jug in here. I'll be curious to see if you can do it. Or if you die of thirst."

  The Dutchman snickered. "That's an easy one—improvising a water source from what you had there? A baby could do it."

  "Right. If he knew the trick. Which we didn't. Either of us."

  He nodded. "I take it you hadn't read the manual."

  "We hadn't had our hands on the manual until we were handed our kits upon boarding the damn plane, and we hadn't been briefed, other than that we were due for a survival drop. I'd heard about some of the others—they were no big deal, nothing like the Spring Break in Swaziland they put us through at Alton, just a few days of minimalistic camping. Hell, Rivers and Edwards and their instructor ended up on some Polynesian island, complete with coconuts and a freshwater spring."

  "Then again, they didn't have Brubaker as their upper-classman instructor."

  "True."

  "So, what did you do?"

  "The obvious. We used our clear plastic tarps as groundcloths, and pitched our mylar ones as lean-tos to keep the heat off. I remembered reading somewhere about how the desert sand cooled off a few inches down, so we tried digging a bit. Basically, we just sat there for twenty-four hours."

  "And the water?"

  VII

  There really isn't much that's worse than thirst, particularly when you have a little bit of water. You always have to decide: do I drink it now, or do I wait a minute? An hour?

  Please don't tell me about how necessity is the mother of invention—I couldn't think clearly; the only thing running through my mind was how good the hot water in my canteen would taste.

  Our canteens contained about a liter each—maybe enough for two days—and that wasn't going to make it.

  But moving around would make us sweat more, and that would be the end. We just sat there, talking with each other, trying to figure out how we could get our hands on Brubaker's water.

  And we just got thirstier, the words bouncing around in my head.

  —improvise a source of water—improvise a source of water—improvise a source of water—improvise a source of water—improvise a source of water—improvise a source of water—improvise a source of water—

  For a whole day.

  The Dutchman went over to the server and punched me a beer, without having been asked. I popped the top and drained it. Reliving it was thirsty-making.

  "Sounds pretty tough, Emmy."

  "Emile. And yes, sir, it was. What would you have done, if you were in that kind of spot?"

  "And didn't know the right way?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I would have walked up to Brubaker, tried to get him to drop his guard for a second, and then I would have snapped my instep into his crotch, hoping to give him a new necktie. That what you did?"

  "Not quite. I was a bit more creative."

  It hit me like a thunderbolt. I'd been thinking of it the wrong way, putting the emphasis on the wrong word. No, no, not "We didn't know how to improvise a source of water," but "We didn't know how to improvise a source of water."

  Got it. I'll show you an improvised water source. I turned to Manny. "You any good with a survival knife?"

  He smiled at me out of cracked lips. "Champagne . . . cork."

  I passed him my knife. "Manuel," I whispered, "I want you to get his water. Use this one as a spare."

  "I can't get it—"

  "No, not take it. Two throws: open up his jug."

  I didn't wait for an answer. I forced myself to my feet and walked out into the hot sun.

  "Hey, Brubaker."

  Brubaker poked his head out of his lean-to. "Give me fifty, plebe. The first word out of your mouth had better be—"

  "Stuff it, scumbag."

  That got him angry—he lunged out into the daylight, his pack firmly on his back.

  Manny's knife thwocked firmly into his pack. For a moment, I thought he had missed the water container and had stuck the knife in something else. But then the knife fell to the sand, a stream of water following it.

  Brubaker's first reaction was the natural one: he quickly shrugged out of his pack and pulled the jug out, obviously intending to improvise a patch.

  That's when I moved: I tackled the bastard, pulling his wiregun out of his belt as I rolled clear.

  I snapped the safety off and caught Brubaker in the sights for a moment before I settled for his leaking waterjug.

  "Stand back, Brubaker."

  I emptied the damn thing into his waterjug, then ejected the clip, thought about it for a moment, and stuck the empty wiregun into my belt.

  Manny stood beside me, the spare knife in one hand, his canteen in the other. "We understand it is possible to improvise a water source, Señor Brubaker," he said. "We strongly suggest that you go ahead." He gave what he always called—I don't know why—his Frito Bandito smile. "Or you can try to take this away from me."

  I sat back and drained the last of my coffee. "Of course, the method was easy, once he showed it to us. You dig a round, shallow pit, about two meters across, and put your cup with one end of the tubing stuck in it into the center, then cover it with a clear piece of plastic, and weight down the edges. Then—"

  "Then the sun shines through the plastic and bakes traces of water out of even the driest sands, and the water condenses on the plastic, runs down into the cup, and you use the tube like a straw to sip it. And you make a point of urinating right near the water trap, or cutting down cacti, chopping them up, and throwing the pieces under the plastic—I know all this stuff, Emmy. I take it you survived the rest of the drop."

  "Sure. We made it to the end, and were picked up by chopper. And were immediately placed under arrest. . . ."

  VIII

  The commandant's voice was gentle, almost affectionate. "At ease, Mister von du Mark, Mister Curdova. Please, be seated." He gestured at the guards. "You can wait outside." He waited until they had left before offering us coffee.

  We both accepted. Our short time in the guardhouse had persuaded us that this was likely to be the last time either of us would get filtercone coffee in a long while. Although maybe Papa or Manny's father could get us a hotshot civilian lawyer—

  No. We were going to face a court-martial, not a civilian court. The Navy officers would want us to be guilty, and that would be that.

  "You know," Admiral Braithwaite said, "there's a purpose to everything we do here. Mmm, but maybe you didn't know that, Mister von du Mark?"

  "Sir?"

  "Mister Curdova?"

  "Sir, I don't understand. You were saying that Brubaker was right to try to kill us, sir?"

  "I doubt that the court will think he was really trying to kill you, Mister Curdova. A ship, gentlemen, is a machine, and so, to a certain extent, is its crew. We can't have officers or men who choose to disobey lawful orders of their superiors—or who attack them." He sipped his coffee. "That kind of mentality is one that admissions testing is supposed to weed out, before even a provisional appointment is made. Although . . ." He let his voice trail off into a deep sigh. "Sometimes we do end
up with disappointments like the two of you."

  Manny started to speak up, but I motioned him to silence. My Uncle Horst is a criminal lawyer, and he's often said that many of his clients have made it worse on themselves by opening up their mouths, but that he's never heard of anyone making it worse by keeping quiet.

  "Very good." Braithwaite eyed me levelly, a trace of amusement around the corners of his eyes. "Now, I've spoken with Cadet Brubaker, and made a suggestion to him. One of which he seems to approve."

  He waited for us to respond, and when we sat there silently, went on, "I've suggested that you plead guilty to refusing to obey lawful orders and take two years' hard labor, and a BCD. Either that, or . . ."

  "Or, sir?"

  "I have your attention, do I, Mister von du Mark? Good. Frankly, I don't like any of this. I don't like it at all; it's a blot on the Academy for this to have happened in the first place. And, just between the three of us, I think Cadet Brubaker probably pushed you to the breaking point."

  "But—"

  "But that doesn't excuse assaulting a superior officer, Mister von du Mark. Not at all. That A was guilty of inciting to riot isn't a defense for B to the charge of rioting. Check your codes, gentlemen.

  "I can't just ignore it and keep you two around, not after what you've done. And if I just let you resign, the next time some plebe is unhappy about being harassed by an upperclassman, he's going to say, To hell with it, resigning wouldn't be so bad,' and take a poke at him. On the other hand . . ."

  "Yes, sir?"

  "If you were to transfer to the Contact Service Academy, it's entirely possible that all of your records would be lost in transit. Think about it."

  "How long do we have?"

  "Thirty seconds." He tapped a fingernail on two flimsies. "Sign those, or I'll call the guards and have you hauled away."

  * * *

  Fifteen hours later, we were checking in at Alton. The duty officer had told us to go right to our room and settle in, and we would handle the details in the morning.