Robert Frezza - [Colonial War 01]

by A Small Colonial War (epub)

  “That, too,” Rettaglia admitted. “Gamliel is cocksure that his friends in the Bond are going to give him something to shove down my throat. ” >

  “But they know you can tap into the cells. Either the Bond begins emasculating themselves or the admiral will lose his fine Korean temper and begin rolling heads. ”

  “I know, and the only thing that seems to make sense is that this whole charade is a ploy for the fanatics to discredit the peacemakers.”

  The feel of the negotiations was wrong. The thought was puzzling, annoying, even chilling. However the Boers played the game, with four battalions and the warships in the sky they stood to be ground under. The Boers had had ample demonstration of how devastating lightning from the sky could be. There was, however, a maxim that every fish has one good jerk before he’s pulled in, and Olivier for one had the look of a man holding the rod instead of the hook.

  “At which point Lying Louis dries up and blows away, and the fanatics either take to the hills or end up on Shokaku in irons. Surely they can’t be that shortsighted? Or can they?” Sanmartin asked.

  “I wish I knew. Did I mention my other mystery?”

  “The five hundred eighty kilograms? I still have trouble imagining why anyone would bribe Irie. ’ ’

  “I want to think the fanatics have miscalculated in triggering this bit of nonsense, and that somehow by the middle of next week the peacemakers will be helping us to hunt them down, with or without a piece of parchment.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “No.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Sanmartin asked quietly. “Oh, I obey my orders. If the admiral wants to let Gamliel talk, I let Gamliel talk. But the Brothers are getting more and more afraid of their own extremists, and my information is getting better every day. Pretty soon the trap is going to snap and we’re going to go hunting. I hope.”

  “And if this is just a ploy to knock you out?”

  “Can you see them turning in enough weapons to make it credible?”

  “No,” Sanmartin admitted. “A screen for an uprising, perhaps?”

  “Possible, but not likely. I know for a fact the Bond as a whole hasn’t taken any steps in that direction. In the Executive, I doubt that a vote for an uprising would muster more than two votes. They aren’t stupid. Don’t forget, as the admiral continually reminds me, that whatever they do, we still have warships in the sky and four battalions.”

  “At night, I have a mental picture of the Bond as a mound of melting gelatin stiffened with steel shot, and I’m wondering what’s going to happen when the gelatin runs off. ‘Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt, ’ said Horace. ‘They who cross the sea change their skies but not their natures.’ ”

  “There is one quote I remember from Horace, ‘Amoto quaer-amus seria ludo, ’ ” rejoined Rettaglia, who spoke six languages fluently and could get by in seven more.

  Sanmartin looked at him blankly.

  “ ‘Let us put jesting aside and treat of serious matters,’ ” he said, and Sanmartin laughed.

  “With fortune, you’ll have most of Kimura’s battalion up here to help you clean out the warrens by next Friday,” Rettaglia continued.

  “That would give us a choice of targets, wouldn’t it?” Sanmartin rejoined, only partly in jest.

  Rettaglia sighed. “All right, Raul. I’ve kept you long enough. When I get to hell, I’ll save you a warm spot. Ciao?”

  “Ciao.”

  Normally, it would have been Rettaglia’s pleasure to pull Strijdom in—if Strijdom were really the master and not a front for someone else—but Gamliel had stirred the waters with a stick. Strijdom had taken out insurance by acting as a subagent for Gamliel. Rettaglia knew without a particle of doubt that if he were to pull Strijdom in and some fact of overwhelming importance didn’t occupy Strijdom’s mind, in three hours he himself would be occupying a berth on Shokaku, and a pistol would probably be waiting. Gamliel never failed to mark the little touches.

  Still, there was an adage that the one constant in the crazy, federalized patchwork of Imperial societies is that the rich get richer, the poor get whatever is left over, and noisy colonials get their just rewards.

  Rettaglia intended to maximize the odds of that happening.

  Saturday(12)

  PINNED IN THE COMMO ROOM LISTENING TO SOLCHAVA, FOR THE

  fourth time in fifteen minutes Matti Haijalo couldn’t decide whether all surgeons were crazy or just the ones seconded to the infantry.

  Claude Devoucoux had never bothered to conceal his belief that if physicians like himself were running the universe, there would be no place in it for infantry battalions like Vereshchagin’s. Haijalo had been inclined to agree. If anyone could do a better job of mucking up the universe than the Diet, it would be a bunch of physicians like Dapper Claude. Before him, Ohta had managed four years and two campaigns without ever losing the touching belief that every line officer carried a field depot in his side pockets. Ohta’s predecessor had been spin-dizzy as well, and Natasha Solchava was apparently the craziest of the lot.

  Someone having finally told her that her medics were off learning how to be infantrymen, she’d come very near to scraping Esko Poikolainen off on a wall airing her grievance.

  He listened to her continue as she appeared bent upon doing, her face almost unrecognizable with fury. The anger in it was real. Vereshchagin, who could charm paint off a wall, had brushed her off.

  Exigencies of combat blithely ignored the limits philosophers set on the conduct of war. The laws of war in truth rested upon no firmer foundation than the ancient moral law, an eye for an eye. What one side did, the other imitated, and colonial wars were irregular wars, fought without chivalry, pomp, and circumstance. Against irregulars, it was a hard law that most of the barriers came down, and it was Vereshchagin’s opinion that fielding medics who lacked competence to survive in a field environment was murder, which societies define as unlawful killing.

  “They are out on your island.” Solchava was out of breath and struggling for words. "These are medics, not soldiers. They should be learning to be medics. And he . . . he . .

  The length of her body through the abdomen and thighs gave her such a flat chest in battle dress that it was easy to think of her as mannish, particularly as she came from Eva Moore’s battalion. As he listened to her decry the Variag’s arbitrary and tyrannical nature, Harjalo realized that she was not and wondered whether he ought to hang a sign advertising guidance to the lovelorn, which was a hell of a way to end a day.

  Outside, Company Sergeant Poikolainen was listening to the Hangman exclaim incredulously, “Solchava? The devil you say! She has a face like a horse and half the personality. ’ ’

  “Colonel Moore is a shrewd old vulture,” Poikolainen observed sagely. “And I think Matti’s going to shoot her at the first opportunity.”

  IN THE DANK LITTLE MEETING ROOM, THE ABSENCE OF OLIVIER

  was breathing new life into de Roux’s bearing. As he listened to de Roux cast witty aspirations on his fellow negotiators, Rettaglia’s unease grew. He could not recall whose idea it was for a Sunday session. The timing still appeared singularly ill.

  One anomaly that had piqued Ssu’s interest was inexactitude in the obituaries reported in the Boer papers and in the deaths reported to the landrosts. Some sixth sense impelled him to nudge de Roux about the number of Brothers his watchdog committees had eliminated. To his surprise, de Roux denied the charge angrily. Intent, Rettaglia reeled off half a dozen names, studying de Roux’s face.

  De Roux’s anger turned to amazement and distress.

  Rettaglia’s mouth tightened. The Brothers—some of them— had successfully compartmentalized. The fact they’d successfully sealed off their Executive Council from decisions that were being made meant there was a gap in the information upon which his calculations were based. Equally, it meant de Roux and his compatriots among the Twelve were likely dead men. Rettaglia left him gasping like a gaffed fi
sh and glided to the door to test the lever.

  It was fastened. Apparently, some of the Brothers with guilty consciences were distressed by the thought of having Rettaglia free to spin his webs of Satan.

  Rettaglia pulled out the little pistol he carried in his sleeve and began to wait, patiently, for the door to open.

  IN VENTERSTAD FOUR MEN HIDING IN THE FIELDS SHOT DOWN

  Arkadi Peresypkin, where he had gone for a tryst.

  For a young man, Peresypkin had served under the Iceman for a long time. He had put money in the pocket of Daniela Kotze’s dress, almost as if he knew. She remained rooted when she heard the sound of rifle fire, the many against the one.

  And as men have done before, they called her whore and traitor and other names. They forced her down roughly to cut away her hair with a knife.

  The next morning, before going off on kommando they would whip her through the streets of Venterstad. The people would come from their homes then to jeer, armed with that especial bitterness to the collaborator that only people who have themselves acquiesced and collaborated with an invader can feel.

  Her dress would lay where it had been tom from her, the pocket ripped. Unnoticed, feather-light bills would drift away on the wind.

  “RAUL, THE BODY?” VERESHCHAGIN ASKED KINDLY.

  Sanmartin tried to swallow his bitterness. “The body. Solchava examined the body for me, I’m not sure who else in the battalion she’s talking to. The Boers were not very pleased. There was, of course, nothing for her to find. Three witnesses stated that de Roux fired three shots into Rettaglia before he took his own life for reasons unknown, which is preposterous. ” The Variag lay the tip of his finger across the bridge of his nose, which was as close as he came to outwardly betraying displeasure. “Please explain for the benefit of us all, Raul.” Unconsciously, Sanmartin squared his shoulders. “Rhett wouldn’t go to the toilet without a palm gun and a crystal memory recorder, both of which have disappeared. Tomiyama and Aksu confirm.” The comer of his mouth turned down. “They’re working for me until the admiral gets around to finding another IO.”

  “That will suffice. Matti?”

  “Three other indicators. Piotr has one man off seeing his girlfriend. He missed a radio check. Venterstad. I talked Piotr out of burning the place down for the time being. Paul ran the spot check you wanted an hour ago. A lot of people aren’t where they’re supposed to be, two or three hundred. They’re probably hiding in the vlei with the lungfish. Couple that with the activity around the perimeters. We had what? A half-dozen Boers out trying to weed our gardens last night? One of them blew his hand off. I thought for a while we were going to have to go get him. What the Boers intend, I don’t know. I can guess.” “What do the admiral and Colonel Lynch think?” Henke asked. “Or do they?”

  “Colonel Lynch seems to think that we are seeing foxes in so many words. I do not believe that he has passed my evaluation on to the admiral,” Vereshchagin replied.

  "Can we count on help from other battalions? ’ ’ Henke asked. Haijalo spoke up before Vereshchagin could respond. “Not one thing. Ebyl has been dribbled out to repacify the Lakes with a company of Higuchi’s. Higuchi is worried sick, not that that will do any appreciable amount of good, but he’s got less than nothing to spare. Kimura’s are in garrison, split between Reading and Upper Marlboro. The volunteers are worthless.”

  “It is a serious matter to fritter away a strategic reserve in this manner,” said Henke, whose aspect suggested a smoldering fire.

  ‘.‘Agreed, Paul, but Colonel Lynch does not. His rationale appears to be based upon the supposition that Boksburg District is beset with cultists, and that this is the only difficulty facing us. He has instead reiterated his directive that we supply a battlegroup to respond to the complaints of cultist depredations around Boksburg.”

  Yoshida, usually quiet, exploded for once. “That is insane! There aren’t any jungle bunnies there!”

  Vereshchagin chided him gently. “Colonel Lynch can be extremely stubborn when he has an idea in his head. Please be constructive, Chiharu.”

  “So when do they hit us?” Henke asked. “Things seem to have come to a point. Tonight, tomorrow, or the day after?” “Raul?” Vereshchagin asked.

  “Irie initialed the draft of that half-witted agreement in principle a few hours ago. If they don’t move quickly, the news will be out all over and discourage recruitment. They’ve been expecting us to send people up to Boksburg for about twenty hours now, and it’s the Day of the Covenant so they won’t have to do much to whip people up. Tonight, late, or tomorrow.”

  “What does the colonel expect us to do when this blows up in our face?” Henke asked.

  "The best we can, I suppose, ’ ’ Vereshchagin answered softly. “Paul, what do you want for Boksburg?”

  Yoshida could no longer restrain himself. “Boksburg?” “Colonel Lynch feels that we are deliberately flouting his authority by continuing to procrastinate. Obviously, we must set his mind to rest,” Vereshchagin said with a gleam in his eye. “Paul, what will you need?”

  “I can leave number sixteen with Piotr, but if I’m going to play a shell game with armored cars, I’ll want the rest of mine, the engineers, ground sections from recon, and two sections from Raul.”

  The Hangman never did anything by halves. Stripping C for Chiba was an obvious choice. The Iceman would be too far away for Henke’s battlegroup to succor, and Yoshida would need all of his platoons and then some for his extended perimeter, the hangers, and key points within Pretoria.

  “I’ll give you Karaev and two sections from number nine,” Sanmartin said, calculating swiftly.

  “Expect us back for breakfast,” the Hangman replied.

  “Comments before we break?” Vereshchagin asked.

  “Raul?” Haijalo queried mischievously.

  “Oh,” Sanmartin said. He shut his eyes. “Ira furor brevis est. ”

  “ ‘Wrath is a transient madness,’ I think,” Vereshchagin reflected.

  “Haven’t we heard that one before?” Henke asked.

  “We’ve heard them all before,” Haijalo said. The Hangman chuckled.

  The room emptied silently. One of Malinov’s idiosyncrasies was his hatred for the rustling and scraping of chairs, and a battalion sergeant was entitled to idiosyncrasies. Vereshchagin rose to his feet and strode through the door.

  At the com, Timo Haerkoennen was scratching the back of his neck with a stylus. He gave Vereshchagin a casual wave which Vereshchagin returned.

  Passing by, Vereshchagin stopped to admire the battalion crest where it hung, inconspicuously positioned. There was only one; one reproduction would have been cheapening, a hundred would have been demeaning. A rifle battalion carried no colors. It was a simple enameled emblem on a plaque of wood, worn slightly by the fingers of two generations of recruits. It had occasionally caused problems with the navy; the wood was slightly radioactive.

  The salamander on the crest seemed to stare back at him in return: a salamander argent passant regardant, taches sable, oeilles vert, on a field sable. Black on white on black, more yang than yin. Never mind the technical convention that argent was silver and a metal rather than the color white, the heraldry was fitting: a creature bom in fire, the color of death, wryly regarding the fields of hell.

  “The voice of the Buddha is heard; yet day in, day out, winds roar, and waves surge,” he quoted, and passed on.

  WHEN HENDRIK PIENAAR SPOKE, HIS NEIGHBORS LISTENED. IT was not the gray hairs on his head or even the light in his watery eyes, but rather the quiet intensity of a man who accepted the mysterious workings of God and listened to His Word.

  They knew that Pienaar’s father had died on the approaches to Potgietersrust, that his mother and two brothers had died in the camps, that he himself had left on the last ship with a rifle in his good hand that bloody year when God’s Elect were driven from the Highveld forever. As for the men who had served in the Styndorp kommando, they trusted Pienaar implicitly. />
  Many men had spoken already that night. They spoke of the strength of the Imperials, of the hardships, of the dangers. When Hendrik Pienaar spoke, he mentioned none of these.

  Instead, he spoke of the Ajwyking, the Deviation, and the Ondergang, the Fall. He told them of the traitors who had lost their faith in their just and stern Lord, who had crawled into their cities to embrace diamonds and gold and forgot God’s Word and God’s Law. They had huddled in their warrens in their hundreds of thousands when the time of trials came, to lick the spittle of Kaffirs as the hands-uppers had licked English spittle. So it had always been, those who lost their ties to their land were dead in the eyes of the Lord.

  He reminded them of the loyal Bantu who had been murdered in their hundreds of thousands. He reminded them of the English who had called themselves South Africans, how in hundreds of thousands they had taken to the ships or went crawling before their Kaffir conquerors when only a pitiful handful of God’s Elect had stood forth proudly to fight God’s Battle and die; and they were all reminded once more, of how the English invented the murder camps to break and enslave the spirit of a proud, beleaguered people.

  Finally, he reminded them of the many years the Volk had spent wandering in the wilderness because of their lack of faith. He spoke of the Greater Trek, in which God had revealed to His people His true design which had made of the Highveld a forge, to temper the Volk for the greater journey across the sea of stars to carve a new Suid-Afrika out of the wilderness. He brought them to the present and told them how one final time the legions of Satan were arming to despoil the people of God of all they had wrought. His neighbors listened.

  Singing in the quiet darkness, they walked with him down to the shores of the river called Blood, to reaffirm that first covenant with their God. And as they sang, Hendrik Pienaar, late luitenant in the Regiment Danie Theron of the Second Republic, despised himself for what he had done.