Robert Frezza - [Colonial War 01]

by A Small Colonial War (epub)

  All around, the tall, majestic spires of the spiketrees rose straight from the broken fragments of their toppled brethren, filling interstices between soft, rotting trunks, compacted one upon another. In a few places, jet-black pools of water could be seen swirling in sudden movement far below. Spiketrees were shallow-rooted and deserved their reputation as widow-makers. The living forest grew to its towering height between the corpses of fallen giants.

  As Snyman moved, the surface seemed to quiver. There was another rustling noise underfoot. Snyman tensed, then relaxed as he recognized the amphtile scuttling away.

  Where drainage was good, femtrees crowded the spiketrees out. Where farmers dug their ditches, induced drought disrupted the fluid pressure in the cells that held the weight of the trees aloft and brought them crashing down. Where it was worth the effort, loggers cleared them for short-fiber paper.

  Here, every hollow was filled with standing water and partly decayed vegetation, and the spiketrees flourished. Snyman imagined them stretching for a thousand kilometers unbroken. The rain forest was a splendid and frightening thing. Neither cowboys nor Boers remained long in the shadow of the big trees. The Imperials, now including one Jan Nicolaus Snyman, adapted.

  Thought drifted through his mind as he felt his way forward carefully, gazing from left to right in his allotted arc then over his shoulder to the man behind. For three days, they’d crawled through the swamp forests, patiently following almost imperceptible traces. The pace had quickened as the trail freshened and habits of their alerted quarry became recognizable. Horizons had narrowed.

  It was less a test of weaponry than a test of skills, of endurance, of half rations in the rain.

  “Ten minutes, even numbers,” Snyman heard Orlov echo, which brought him to a different plane of reality. They halted abruptly with security out. Snyman had lost count in the heat, it was the fifth or sixth time they had stopped. Even numbers were first on, odd numbers first off, if such a thing mattered. Snyman felt a reassuring hand on his shoulder and gave Oriov a weak smile.

  The sections were mixed, twenty-three recruits, eleven cadre, a dozen men from Earth, even a double handful of medics sweating to master the unwelcome skills of the infantry. Snyman was paired with Kobus, Orlov with a cowboy named Nelson Bolanos from a defunct team.

  Bolanos was all right. Week One, after the second ran, they’d retched their guts up, side by side. During the Six Weeks War, he’d been the first actually to hit one of those arrogant street-sweepers from No. 10. That day he’d been practically crowned and anointed.

  From three directions, jungle bunnies exploded from the fern thickets waving clubs and spears.

  The first shots rang out. Snyman fumbled desperately at his safety, confronted by the brown man charging directly at him. Incredibly, no fire seemed to touch him, and Snyman’s focus diminished. Pulling up his rifle, he aimed. And froze.

  The brown man stopped. And smiled. Snyman had to blink twice before he recognized Isaac Wanjau wiping away makeup and leaning on his spear. Others, also recognizable from No. 10, were doing the same.

  Orlov gently took the rifle from Snyman’s hands.

  “It wasn’t real. The rounds were blank,” Snyman said to himself, over and over, softly.

  “For you, it was real,” Orlov said gently, supporting him with his shoulder. Looking on with incomprehension, Kobus cleared his weapon standing next to Bolanos, who trembled as he tried to remove the magazine from which he had fired forty rounds.

  Snyman went next to see the Hangman.

  “Many men are incapable of assimilating the reflexes of a soldier, ’ ’ Henke said. "Some like your friend Harris never learn to stay alive. Others cannot bring themselves to kill.” The Hangman turned to Orlov with cold, cold eyes.

  “We keep him,” Oriov said emphatically.

  Henke looked Snyman up and down remorselessly, balancing sides on an unseen scale. He made up his mind abruptly.

  “The people you will be shooting are likely to be your own. Let us therefore try you with something different, Jan Nicolaus. Would you care to be a medic’s aide?” he asked as Snyman found that his hands had stopped shaking.

  LATER THAT EVENING, PIOTR KOLOMEITSEV HEARD VOICES FROM inside his mess. Preparations for the strike completed, he glided unerring to the source of the sounds.

  Two of his officers and one of his platoon sergeants were engaged in discussion. “What are you youngsters up to?” he asked genially. “Who is running the war?”

  The Iceman’s face was smooth and rounded, unmarked except for the slight thickening of a scar that extended in an arc from his lower lip and rendered his infrequent smiles sardonic. The iris of each of his eyes was of the palest gray imaginable so that they seemed to lose all semblance of color in the light. Physically, there was nothing very extraordinary about him save the fingers of his hands, which were very long and very fine. They seemed to move independent of the rest of his body, which persons found disconcerting.

  Malyshev, his executive officer, flushed and stood. “Company Sergeant Leonov politely requested that we depart so he could address number one privately.”

  “We were discussing military theory,” Jankowskie added defensively. He was still slightly deaf from having unintentionally blown the top off a mountain attending to Major Rettaglia’s arms cache, and had taken a good deal of kidding.

  “I will not inquire among you as to why the Company Sergeant felt it necessary to run you off, ’ ’ Kolomeitsev commented, knowing his company sergeant was polite by accident rather than design. “When does he want you back?”

  “Thirty-nine more minutes, sir,” Malyshev said. “Local time midnight,” he added unnecessarily, listening to the nightingales of platoon No. 3.

  The noise from the night was one of song. No. 3 platoon had no duty, and they knew dozens, each with dozens of verses, each more indecent than the last. Their ribald good humor was infectious.

  The fingers of Kolomeitsev’s left hand curled reflexively around Peresypkin’s shoulder. “Well, military theory it is,” he said, eyeing the half-empty bottle on the table. “Are any of you going to invite your commander to join your discussion?”

  Their shock at seeing the Iceman unbend warmed Kolomeitsev’s heart. Malyshev hastily surrendered his own seat and handed Kolomeitsev a plastic canteen cup filled with vodka. “Please join us, sir! How thoughtless of me!”

  The gods of war winked. “What aspect of the vast panorama of military futility has captured your interest?” Kolomeitsev asked.

  “Arkadi was discussing why soldiers fight,” Malyshev imparted, nodding toward Peresypkin.

  “Defend your proposition, Platoon Sergeant Peresypkin. What insight have you to offer?” Kolomeitsev said, sipping the warm vodka. He suddenly stared at canteen cup decorated in rich swaths of greens, sand, and chocolate brown as if it were a snake. “Have you been draining this from the armored cars?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” Malyshev and Peresypkin echoed in chorus. “Major Henke adulterates his fiiel stocks, you know,” Kolomeitsev commented by way of conversation as he studied the offending canteen cup. “I have been told that he prefers an additive which turns one’s urine a bright blue.”

  Malyshev and Peresypkin immediately looked to Jankowskie, who protested weakly that he had purchased it in town.

  “I am, however, more alarmed at finding my soldiers drinking vodka quite so, so tepid,” Kolomeitsev continued, having searched for and discovered a suitably ignominious adjective.

  Malyshev coughed discreetly. “We do have a little ice,” he announced.

  “In vodka?” Kolomeitsev shook his head.

  As Jankowskie reached for the refrigerator, Kolomeitsev took another sip and motioned for Peresypkin to continue.

  “We were just discussing why soldiers fight, sir,” Peresypkin said uncomfortably.

  “Tell me, gentlemen, why does a soldier fight? Lieutenant Malyshev?” Kolomeitsev asked.

  Malyshev looked at Jankowskie. The Iceman ra
rely philosophized. “Not for honor, glory, or remuneration,” Malyshev admitted. “Rolled up in a ball, what trickles down wouldn’t buy a pot of tea. Loyalty and duty?”

  “To whom? His Imperial Majesty, who reigns but does not rule? The leeches in the Diet? Lieutenant Jankowskie, what are your views?” Kolomeitsev inquired inexorably.

  Detlef Jankowskie’s Baltic ancestors had been successively Polosized, Germanized, and Russified before being discarded on the ash heaps of history.

  “The philosopher Clausewitz is credited with originating the doctrine that war is an extension of politics by other means. Of course the most serious flaw in his works is his inexplicable omission of the corollary that politics is an extension of economics by other means. Repetition of this error seriously degraded much early historical analysis, but even in Clausewitz’s own lifetime, the political impact of the economic concerns of strategically placed firms and individuals on, for example, the ‘Sugar Wars’ of the eighteenth century or the ‘Opium Wars’ of the nineteenth must have been unmistakable,” Jankowskie recollected from dimly remembered political training while he attempted to fathom the objective toward which the Iceman’s sudden flanking movements were directed.

  Kolomeitsev smiled chillingly. “I recall asking you why soldiers fight, Lieutenant. I do not recall asking you why wars are fought. Economics bears the same relationship to combat as does the craft of the swordsmith to the art of fencing.

  “In our own context, United Steel-Standard owns the mines, the spaceport, the transportation network, most of the secondary industrial output, and almost everything else. An honest government would clean them out in a heartbeat, not that I recall an honest government. The cost of buying a government evidently would have increased the cost of doing business. The Diet in its infinite wisdom decreed that this was a shameful thing, and so we are here. Why then do we fight? Platoon Sergeant Peresypkin,” he inquired in order.

  “Soldiers fight because it is their profession?” Peresypkin offered uncertainly.

  “That, Platoon Sergeant Peresypkin, is suspiciously close to tautology,” Kolomeitsev responded coldly.

  “I mean, if you’re a craftsman, you put your soul into it. Part of it is the Variag and everyone else, but if you don’t believe in doing the job right...” Peresypkin ventured uncertainly, unpleasantly aware the Iceman had singled him from the herd to stalk. “That’s not to say we don’t have private lives, but after a certain point what you do is your private life, and everybody dies sometime. Is this the point we are to draw, sir?”

  “It resembles the truth sufficiently,” the Iceman said with a trace of deception. "The Variag tells us to fight. He went troppo years ago and has the soul of a poet. We fight and do it well. What else might we do?” the Iceman said, asking a question rather than answering one. “There are two types of war, gentlemen. Limited war for limited purposes by limited means, and war to the knife, whose goal is nothing less than the recrafting of a society. We soldiers are seldom asked which we would choose.” He glanced around the table. “Platoon Sergeant Peresypkin, have you ever visited the prostitutes in the bordel mobile de campagne which Colonel Lynch has installed for our pleasure and his profit?”

  Peresypkin blushed faintly.

  Jankowskie almost started to laugh, the effect was so comical on Peresypkin’s ruddy face. “Pertsovka” had broken hearts on three worlds, including one on Ashcroft, which serious students claimed could not be done.

  The Iceman was patient when sinking a barb. He fixed Jankowskie with a look and returned his attention to Peresypkin. “I am aware of the Miss Kotze you have been seeing,” Kolomeitsev continued, “I will give you one word of advice. If you are apprenticed to the butcher, do not befriend the pigs.”

  The Iceman had left his wife in her cold barrow on Earth to seek the stars. He had gone on, as they said.

  "Drink up, gentlemen, we have a strike to break in the morning.” Break it they would, easily or otherwise.

  Monday(12)

  “TODAY IS THE DAY, IS IT NOT?” COLDEWE ASKED, RUBBING HIS palms together.

  “A few hours. Boers like to sleep in,” Scheel answered.

  “I suppose they’ll show. The idea ought to be fresh in their minds. Did you know that the length of the average sermon last week was nearly two hours?”

  “It would be very nice to have a few of the noisy preachers off the sidewalks.”

  “Raul said Ssu the censor was so flamed that he tried to submit his resignation. He’s right. What’s the point in sucking venom out of the newscasts if the Boers spend all day Sunday hearing it in church? And category eight? If they upped it to cat seven we could at least throw mud pies at them.” Coldewe shifted gears. “Anything from battalion?”

  “I spoke to Malinov. He told me to kick the still to pieces and I did. He also says the medics on the island are shaping up nice. If Major Henke doesn’t wash them, we’ll get two or three.” “That’s good.” Coldewe stretched and yawned.

  “Did we ever figure out what happened to Menzies?”

  “An accident, intelligence seems to think, strange as that may seem.”

  “Then who were the people waving pistols that number eleven

  shot down?”

  Scheel shook his head. “Is Raul awake?” he asked.

  “I let him sleep in. He looked tired. Do you think—” Coldewe asked suddenly and stopped.

  Scheel laughed. “If you’re asking me whether God’s innocents have figured out how it goes in”—

  Coldewe threw up his hands.

  —“If my right hand knew, it wouldn’t tell my left,” Scheel finished. "We have decided as a company not to intrude. ’ ’ Sensing an opportunity to turn tables, he added cagily, “I took an opinion poll.”

  “How many opinions did you take?” Coldewe asked.

  “Two, yours and mine.”

  “Rudi, did anyone ever tell you you’re an old fraud?” “Malinov. With regularity. They were arguing about mela-nistic New Caledonian cowries last night.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Sometimes I think she lets him win.”

  “I’m glad he took my advice and found himself a different hobby,” Coldewe said. “Let’s let him sleep until eight, and then we’ll get started.”

  AT EIGHT HOURS THIRTY, OKLADNIKOV STOOD STRAIGHT UP IN the turret of his Cadillac. “How do you want us to start?” he asked Sanmartin, who was surveying the silent streets of Johannesburg.

  “The shops. Why don’t you start with that bookstore over there and move up the street.”

  The Brothers wanted a show of unity among the Volk, into which the battalion was about to start poking holes. Shimazu, with his usual efficiency, had spread the word like manure on a field that the bells were going to be ripped off any place that wasn’t open for business. In addition to Boer reprobates, the town was full of cowboys from Reading, and a bigger bunch of thieves Sanmartin had yet to see. The Border Police, scattered in pairs throughout the city, had things other than petty larceny to occupy themselves with.

  Riflemen attached the tow chains to the steel doorframe. On a jewelry store adjacent, the door opened and the shopkeeper came out wringing his hands.

  “Good to see you this morning, sir. Please see you don’t close early,” Okladnikov said. The jewelry man feigned incomprehension. Okladnikov’s driver gunned his engine and wrenched the door off the bookstore.

  The jewelry man vanished. A moment later the shutters on his shop vanished like mist. Okladnikov moved on to a tobacco shop. Sanmartin hopped off.

  “Sergei, I’ll leave you here to carry on. The schoolteachers should be forming up in about ten minutes.”

  “Later!” Okladnikov shouted. “Luck!” he added.

  Sanmartin walked the street briskly. A few people were beginning to open their windows furtively, which was a positive sign. On the Boulevard Die Taal, he hitched a ride on one of the little utility vehicles, conspicuously devoid of its mortar and mounting instead a large, round tank with a
pressure hose attached amidships. Mekhlis had the hose clutched in his hand and wasn’t about to let go.

  At the Jacobus Uys school, the demonstrators were already beginning to heat up. Three speakers were leading them in staccato chants of ‘ 'Imperialiste uit! Imperialiste uit! ’ ’ Two of the three wore business suits. The third was a woman in a fur coat and raised heels. Sanmartin let the comer of his mouth twitch, wondering what they’d done with the brass band. One of Mekh-lis’s crew began calmly shooting stills for posterity.

  Muslar was present with a half section of rifles. He looked apprehensive. Sanmartin hopped down, patting him on the shoulder.

  “Ever done this before, Edmund?”

  Muslar shook his head. The chanting changed. ‘ ‘Staan vas ?! ’ ’ yelled a man with an amplifier. ‘ 'Die toets deurstaan! ’ ’ returned the crowd.

  “ ‘Imperials out,’ and ‘stand fast.’ Not very imaginative. Don’t worry. Take my word for it, this will be joy and laughter compared to doing cakes. Now, they were a hardheaded bunch.”

  “Staan vas?!”

  “Die spit afbyt!”

  Sanmartin began putting his mask on unhurriedly. He looked at Mekhlis. “Let the speakers have it first.” Mekhlis nodded.

  Then he turned back to Muslar. “Edmund, your people know the drill. You’d better get your mask on.”

  Already, the first stones were being thrown from the middle of the crowd. One bounced off Sanmartin’s chest as he stepped forward with a hand amplifier. Whistling The Little Tin Soldier, Sanmartin pulled out a nail file and began ostentatiously cleaning his nails. Curiosity overcame activism.

  Sanmartin winked. "I saw Matti do this to a crowd of cakes. ’ ’

  “Did it work?” Muslar asked, his voice distorted.

  “No,” Mekhlis said with obvious delight.

  Sanmartin threw away the nail file. “I am authorized by His Imperial Majesty’s representative to permit you a peaceful, orderly march to the staatsamp with no deviations in route,” he said. This, he repeated in carefully memorized Afrikaans.