by James Rouch
“I've no idea. He's been acting funny all evening.” “In what way?”
“He's gone quiet.”
“I see what you mean. Well, send him over. Let's see what it's all about.” So what would it be this time? Since he'd first had him under his command, Revell had seen their antitank expert materialize a hundred or more ailments or excuses. All were imagined and all were intended to get him off some detail he didn't fancy. He should have asked his sergeant what guard duty Dooley had drawn. That might have offered an explanation. But Dooley going quiet... that was a new one.
“Permission to speak, sir.”
The “sir,” and the salute which accompanied it were definitely unique phenomena. It put Revell on his guard immediately. With the exception of Old William, who never offered more than a nod of recognition to officers, Dooley was probably the least military of any of his men.
“I'm listening.”
“It's a rather personal matter, sir.”
Revell looked about. They were fifty meters from the closest vehicle, as much again from the nearest sentry. “We're as alone as we'll ever be.”
Despite that reassurance Dooley still made his own check of the surrounding gloom. “I'd like to apply for leave, sir. On compassionate grounds.”
That was more like it. They were now on familiar territory. It was a ploy he recognized, and prepared to meet it. In the last twelve months Dooley had alleged the death of all his relatives down to second cousins, in similar attempts. Whatever his reason, it wouldn't take a moment to knock down. They'd had no mail for a month so he wouldn't be easily able to pluck any long lost uncle who languished on the threshold of death.
“Go on.”
“I want to get married.”
All of Revell's stock replies went out the window.
“Why?” Even as he said it he realized it was a stupid damned thing to ask, but in the shock of the moment it was all he could come up with.
“I'm in love, sir.”
“Known the young lady long?” Suspicion lurked in Revell's mind. “It is a young lady, is it? Not one of the, shall we say, more mature females I've seen you with.”
“She's about twenty ... twenty-five ... well, about that, sir.” Understanding began to dawn on the major. “So how long have you known this young lady of twenty or possibly twenty-five, with whom you are so in love.”
“Since about this time yesterday, Major.”
“And her name?”
This time Dooley didn't blurt out his response. He shifted from one foot to the other, looking at the ground.
“Actually ... well we didn't... that is, we didn't get down to exchanging names.” “A case of actions speaking louder than words, I take it. You're not thinking of chasing off after her, are you?”
“You know me better than that, Major. Request denied then, is it, sir?” It would have been easy for Revell to dismiss the matter as a joke, but for all he knew Dooley could be quite serious, if not very practical. Certainly stranger things had happened to others in the combat company. Burke's transformation, for instance.
The eldest, until Vokes's pioneers had joined them and brought Old William along, a real old soldier and barrack room lawyer, he had changed overnight when Karen Hirsh had come on the scene. The chubby little nurse, barely out of her teens, had really got to him.
And there was Libby, one of their most reliable men. He'd deserted, gone back into the Zone to look for his Helga.
“I think you've got to get things on a more realistic footing first, don't you? We'll be through here in a couple of weeks. Look her up then. At least that'll give you a chance to get better acquainted, maybe find out her name.”
Dooley grinned, and all thought of saluting forgotten, wandered off wearing a thoughtful but satisfied expression.
Maybe, Revell thought, he should have squashed the idea flat, but what the hell. For all his faults, Dooley was a good infantryman. If he needed a dream to keep him going, and it was more realistic than his vague plans to become a roving toy- boy in Miami, who was he to shatter it.
In a way he could even envy him. All Revell had got out of the previous night was the fulfilment of a physical needs. His girl had been good in bed, too good perhaps, if the ache in his back and the soreness of his penis was anything to go by. Yes, let Dooley keep his dream. Most likely it would only last until the next hooker came along, or until his forever scheming brain was again immersed in plans of servicing every rich widow and generous divorcee in Florida.
Still, he'd rather his men brooded over matters of that sort than dwell too much on their chances of coming through the war alive, and in one piece. Not that in all truth there was the slightest possibility of any of them managing that miracle.
As he made his way to his Hummer, and an uncomfortable night on the ground beside it, he thought of Thome. His future was a standard issue coffin in a military cemetery that stretched as far as the horizon. It was not enough that his remains were slashed and mutilated beyond recognition. A final indignity would be his interment in a plot especially reserved for contaminated corpses.
Strange to worry about spreading poison to a plot only six by six by two, when millions of acres of Europe were already contaminated by chemicals and bacteria and massive doses of radiation.
Even when you were dead the Zone still clung to you, keeping you an outcast, forcing you to remain a part of it.
Revell gave himself a mental shake. He was thinking too much, and about the wrong things. Shouting aboard one of the buses drew his mind away, and for once he welcomed the diversion.
TWELVE
“At this rate we'll be able to take back those that are left alive in just the one bus.” Revell scowled at the three bodies the dawn roll-call had produced. “Will somebody close their eyes.”
Sampson bent down to do it.
“And while you're at it, check those wounds. What caused them, and how long ago?” Pacing up and down in front of the shuffling Russians, Revell noticed that all avoided catching his eye. They were an ugly and disreputable looking crowd to begin with. The furtive behaviour did nothing to improve his opinion of them. It was obviously assumed, as on turning around, he would sometimes catch one slyly grinning at the corpses, or nudging his companion in the ranks and offering a whispered comment. The instant they realized they were observed down would come the attitude of shifty subservience, like a veil across their face.
While Sampson made a quick inspection of the bodies, Scully went through their pockets. Most were already pulled inside out and he found only a single rifle round that had slipped through a hole in a coat lining.
“Two of them got it real quick, Major.” Sampson looked up at the officer as he wriggled fingers through a small tear in the chest panel of a shirt.” The one on the end, with the red beard, I reckon he bled to death. Must have taken a couple of hours. He's still warm, so if it all happened about the same time then, maybe around 3 AM would be a pretty accurate guess.”
At the back of the fidgeting Russians Revell identified a familiar figure, trying to make itself inconspicuous and drawing attention to itself by so doing.
“Grigori, out here.”
There was a ripple of movement and the ranks parted to let him through. “Is there something you are wanting, Major?”
He held a woollen cap in his big rough hands, and was slowly wringing it until threads started to part. Revell hadn't seen him with it the previous day, and it appeared that whatever the weather the Russians wore all their clothing, presumably to stop it from being stolen. “You were on that bus. I know there is no point in asking who did this, but I'd like to know why.”
Grigori turned his palms forward and spread his arms in a gesture of ignorance. “I was asleep, Major. I woke when the first fight happened in the late evening, when you yourself came in, but after that ... I sleep very heavily ...”
“I want to know what happened.”
“You must appreciate my position, Major. You will see the others appear to be
listening, very attentively. I do not think any of them understand English, but there are some who keep such things to themselves, if you understand me.” He lowered his voice and took a step nearer the officer. “Perhaps if you would escort me a little distance away, at gun point. A push or two would also look well. For the sake of appearances?”
Unslinging his shotgun, the pushes Revell administered with the butt of it were more than just for appearances. “That's far enough, now unless you're also afraid they can lip read as well, let's have it.”
“You understand I had no part in it ...” “I understand you'd not tell me if you were. Get on with it.”
“There has been bad blood, for some days. The three men who died ... Yes, good, keep the gun levelled at me, Major, but with the safety on?”
“I'm happy with it like this.”
“As you wish.” Grigori used the cap to wipe his forehead. “It is going to be a hot day.” He saw the tip of the 12 bore barrel elevate a fraction, toward his stomach. “The three men who died had been stealing tobacco.”
“So you all ganged up on them.” Revell had been expecting something of the sort.
“Oh no, Major. I assure you I was asleep, and so were many of the others, and the three who are laid over there. I explain. They had not been stealing from everyone, they had only been taking it from thieves who had stolen it from everyone.”
“So the thieves got their own back. You know who the thieves are?” Revell got precisely the answer he anticipated.
“Sometimes one suspects, but they are so clever, one can never be sure. After all, if a man is known to be a thief then he is allowed few opportunities.”
Revell gestured with the shotgun. “Get back with the others. I'm going to work you so hard that by tonight you'll all sleep.”
“Will you not need supervisors, Major? I can ...” Grigori saw the expression on the American's face and didn't finish the sentence.
The bodies were buried without ceremony in a common grave, actually a partially collapsed dug-out. A few blows with a pick axe brought the remains of the roof down.
The earth had barely settled before working parties under Sergeant Hyde and Lieutenant Vokes departed, to tackle the lighter damage of other sections of the road.
Those remaining under Revell's command he split into two equal groups. One he set to erect the tents and perimeter fence of their own compound: the other to begin the daunting task of clearing and repairing the road through the enemy position.
For all the rough and burly appearance the Russians presented, the major quickly discovered them to be soft. They tired quickly. In the case of some it was definitely an act. Concentrating the worst of the gold-brickers into a platoon bossed by Andrea and Clarence brought about a marked improvement.
Within an hour it was obvious that manpower alone would not be sufficient for the task of clearing the trees. An attempt was made to clear a particularly dense tangle of fallen timber using fire. After piling every combustible fragment that could be found around the trunks, diesel fuel was poured over and a phosphorus grenade used to ignite the stack.
It roared into flame, giving off walls of heat that drove them well back. Flaring red and yellow tongues would frequently lick out toward the forest, threatening to spread the blaze.
After an hour the brushwood had been reduced to a low mound of grey ash. The waves of fierce heat it radiated meant it had to be smothered with dirt before it could be approached. Above it, although heavily charred, the tree trunks remained intact. Only one had burned through to the point where it had begun to sag under its own weight.
When Revell got through to Divisional HQ on the radio with a request for explosives to speed the work he was turned down flat.
“I guess we're out of favour at the moment.” He handed the headset back to Garrett, who managed to drop it.
“Back to the dark ages then.” Corporal Carrington threw a large pine cone at a Russian who had stopped work to pick his nose in leisurely fashion.
The missile struck him between the shoulder blades and he instantly resumed work with his shovel.
“Near enough.” Revell was beginning to feel more than a little discouraged. “We've got the winch on the Hummer, but from now on most of it is going to be down to brute force and ignorance.”
“Where do we start?”
“Give the axes to the best workers. Pair them up so that as one tires the other can take it over. For what's left of today we'll concentrate on trimming side branches so that we can get nice clean pulls.”
“And the rest of them?” Carrington hefted another cone, ready for further targets.
“Put them on getting the debris off the road. There's tons of the stuff. Have them dump it and compact it where the curb has disintegrated.”
Revell watched the temporary bustle the change of instruction prompted. It was of even shorter duration than he'd anticipated. Despite careful organization, in many cases meaning that individual Russians were allocated specific jobs, the work still seemed to go ahead with an ant hill-like confusion.
While some shovelled at the mounds of soil, others carried the spoil they dislodged to places where fill was needed. There others would spread and compact it. Progress appeared pathetically slow. The more so when Revell calculated that what was going to take more than three hundred men above a week, could be done by a JCB or Cat in a day.
The party working the hardest was definitely that where Andrea was an overseer. She constantly prowled the fringes of the area being worked, finger on the trigger of her Ml6. Aided by a few basic words of Russian and many threatening looks and gestures she spurred the group to ever greater effort.
Men twice her size would break into a stumbling run when she shouted. They'd hurl their loads into a crater and double back for more.
Every time he passed him, Revell saw Grigori put on an act of frenetic activity, all the while bellowing encouragement to others to exert themselves. He would then look up at the officer, as if noticing his presence for the first time, wipe imagined sweat from his face with his cap and nod confidentially.
Revell often had to look away as he attempted to keep a straight face. Though he passed him over a score of times, not once did Grigori miss his cue.
By late afternoon the speed of work had slowed to a snail's pace. The men paused frequently to spit on their palms to ease the sting of broken blisters.
At seventeen hundred Revell called a halt, and radioed for the other two groups to return. He found both were ready to come back. Their men were in similar condition, unfit to work any longer.
It did not add up to an auspicious start. During the journey on the previous day Revell had entertained vague thoughts of blitzing through the work and finding something, anything, to do with the remaining time. On current performance it looked like they'd be hard pressed to complete the task if the truce should last three weeks.
On his return Vokes reported that he only needed two more days. Hyde's estimate of four to five days to fill a series of huge craters was not so comforting, but it did mean the whole battalion would be on hand for a final effort to complete work within the allotted time-scale.
As the labourers stacked their implements and made their way to where Scully was dishing out stew, many made much play of limping. Others walked bent almost double with hands clutching their backs.
Watching, Revell knew that a few cases would be quite genuine. Several men had taken cracking blows on their feet or shins from carelessly wielded picks or shovels. But there had fortunately been no resulting broken bones and the worst Sampson had dealt with had been cuts and bruises.
Among the malingerers few displayed the sheer artistry of Grigori. Walking stiffly erect, his expression contrived to give the impression of a man who was suffering greatly, but trying heroically not to show it. If he was disappointed at his ploy not succeeding, he didn't reveal it in any way.
“Are we sure that these men deserted the Warpac armies in order to help the NATO side?” Voke
s watched the shuffling rabble speed up as it caught the smell of the food. “If these are typical of their sort then I am forced to believe the KGB planted them on us to slow our war effort.”
A roll call went surprisingly easily, with only three recounts required to reach the correct total. That done, they were herded into their compound. Dooley tried to march them in, but swiftly gave it up as a bad job. He left it to Andrea, who stalked after them like an aggressive sheep dog. The last to enter were pushing hard on the heels of those ahead.
Their slight stock of razor wire meant that only a few strands could be stretched out to surround the compound area. Knowing that was all they could manage, Revell had ensured that the site was level and thoroughly cleared of undergrowth. It had also been kept as compact as possible and the straight sides made the duty of patrolling the perimeter that much easier.
He would have preferred more space between the thirty bell tents, but the extent of the clearing did not permit it. There would be little that could be done to prevent movement within the camp. A couple of lights, powered off a recharging generator, were positioned at opposite corners. They would have the effect of making the centre of the area all the darker. That would have to be a secondary consideration.
There would be no moon, but the major was reasonably confident with the prisoners in their exhausted state, they would be unlikely to create problems during the short summer night. If matters got out of control there would be casualties on both sides of the wire.
A breeze ruffled the tops of the trees. Revell looked up. The sky was still light, with the few wisps of clouds showing as red scars as the sinking sun caught them. It was only a couple of days since the fighting had ceased. He was amazed at the difference it already made to the atmosphere. Now the only smoke he could smell was the faint aroma of pine ash. Visibility had improved markedly, and every breath he took seemed the fresher for it.
“Lieutenant Vokes!”
The Dutchman appeared, still in the act of consuming his third helping of stew. “Take over, will you. I'm going to scout around. There's a path of sorts, heads to the south. I want to see if it leads to a dump.”