by E. E. Knight
"Good work, Ediyak. You just won yourself a promotion to corporal. You're also company clerk, if you want the job."
"Clerk, sir?" she said.
"It's a quick path up to lieutenant's bars, if you'd like to start that climb again."
She considered for a second. "I'll do it, sir."
"Good. Your first job will be to requisition whatever you need to finish these uniforms. I'll speak to someone about getting us some KZ patches." That someone being Lambert and staff. Valentine rather liked being able to dump such details off on someone who could be relied on to get it done.
"What about helmets and rain gear, sir?" Rand said.
"Typically these formations wear white or yellow hard hats, sir," Ediyak said.
Valentine's liquid dinner arrived. It tasted like a shake made out of strawberries and mud but it was fast and easy. "Let's see if we can scrounge up some civilian winter coats," he said as he sipped. "I don't ever remember seeing these guys in ponchos. As for helmets, maybe we can stuff some old hard hats with Kevlar. Get canvas covers for when we don't want the Day-Glo look."
"Patrol coming in," the company outdoor fire watch shouted.
"Patrol?" Valentine asked Rand.
"Patel's Shepherds have been taking them out, platoon at a time, on overnighters or three-dayers, sir. This should be first platoon coming back from a three-dayer."
Valentine went out to take a look.
The platoon looked dog tired and strained, rolling on their feet in the toe-in manner of footsore men as they carried sand-filled artillery shell casings instead of guns. The bearded old Wolf in charge straightened them up and they saluted as they marched past. Valentine saw some bandages across noses and a few blackened eyes.
"Sergeant, halt," he called.
"Line up for inspection," the bearded sergeant bawled. Valentine saw Corporal Glass at the other end discreetly check the line.
Valentine took a look at one of the bandages. "What happened, here, Sergeant?"
"We paused at a roadside for fresh pretzel bread and beverages, sir," the old gray Wolf said. "The gentlemen owning the establishment didn't care for scrip. We convinced them otherwise."
"Anything serious?" Valentine asked. He doubted the road-stop in question would make a report. Everyone was required to take Southern Command scrip but some business owners didn't care for the exchange rates.
"One of them drew a knife, sir. The civilian in question will be working his fly with his left hand for a while. Corporal Glass has a good eye. He's quick or I might not be standing here."
"Good work, first platoon. Get some food and sleep."
* * * *
Valentine fell back into the regime of training as the days turned grim and gray and the nights cold. They'd formalized the roster at last and had three balanced platoons. Valentine had known companies where there was a crack platoon that took the toughest jobs and two less-reliable ones to support it, but he'd rather distribute his best men where they could teach the others than rely too much on a single elite formation. The NCO slots were filled with ex-Quislings.
He gave them a brief speech about duty, as he saw it. In the KZ command flowed down, with a lurking "or else" implicit at the end of every order. While that was a fact of military life regardless of origin and uniform, Valentine would rather have those under his command following orders because they understood the stakes and consequences of failure.
Several of them turned down offers of promotion to leadership roles.
That was the big shortcoming of these men, he'd learned. They could use their equipment but not their minds. Everyone was terrified of making a bad decision, lest they be out a seat when the next round of musical chairs orchestrated by the Reapers came round. Soldiering wasn't for the dumb—not if you wanted good soldiers rather than gun-toting robots.
They held a company party at Christmas, with everyone in their smoky denim uniforms and the kind of glossy shine you could get with new boots. The base hall was being used by the Guards so Valentine spoke to the pastor of a local church and got the use of a big revival tent, complete with a deacon to open the ceremonies and offer a Christmas homily. The company made paper lanterns and fire balloons and put up a Christmas tree in front of the command shack. A distribution of quality flower, confectioner's sugar, and food coloring allowed the foodies in the company to make green-and-red iced cupcakes. With a couple of guitarists, a fiddler, and Rand, who turned out to be an accomplished hurdy-gurdy player (he claimed he was always too clumsy to dance, so he might as well play for others), they held a dance.
Valentine paid a visit to the hospital in Jonesboro to issue a general invitation to the nurses there. A handful were brave enough to show, and a few brought friends. Valentine issued strict orders not to talk about the "move south" no matter how pretty the face or how good the reason for future correspondence.
"We might as well get to know them. Some of us are going to end up seeing a lot of nurses before the operation is over," he finished.
Valentine enjoyed an opening waltz with the senior nurse chaperoning her charges—the nurse had a lot of experience dancing with a man with a stiff leg—and then settled down with Patel to watch the festivities and make sure the punch bowl wasn't spiked to over eighty proof.
The smiles on the men and the laughter of the nurses cheered him more than the music. The company had worked hard on their uniforms and decorations, and he liked seeing them show off a little.
A blat of a trumpet interrupted the music. There was some kind of stir at the door of the tent and then a Group of Guards forced their way in, dragging what sounded like Marley's chains and lockboxes.
The dancing stopped and the men parted.
"We brung you a Christmas present, Major," one of the Guards said, with a rather drunken salute. "New recruits. You was looking for some Grogs."
Valentine heard a riding crop strike flesh and a "Go on." Two other Guards pulled on a chain, and Valentine smelled a zoo-like stench.
"They'll fit right in with the shit detail," someone guffawed.
A Grog sprawled for a second, then stood up. Two more were pulled in behind. But Valentine couldn't take his eyes of the formost. She was a female gray dressed in an oversized pink tutu and fake ballet slippers.
It was the Grog he'd once known as Bee.
"Bee!" Valentine said.
"Beeee," she said back, eyes open wide and staring. She tried to slink sideways up next to him.
The room fell silent. Most of the men there had never heard Grogs do anything but ook or cry out graaaawg when wounded and begging for assistance.
Valentine locked his gaze on the joker who'd called them the shit detail.
"What did you call this company?" he asked.
"Errr, nothing, sir," the Guard said, red-faced and counting the number of men coming to their feet. One of Patel's Shepherds snapped his teeth at them.
Patel thumped his cane on the floor. "Boys, these visitors seem to be confused as to the location of their barrack. Escort them back."
The party dissolved into chaos. Southern Command soldiers would probably have let out their trademark foxhunt shriek as they chased the Guards back to their regimental grounds. Valentine's company let out a deeper uhuhl
Patel's Shepherds used the confusion to dump a couple more preserve jars of busthead into the punch.
The Guards wisely dropped the Grog chains and ran, with half the company in hot pursuit, throwing Christmas cupcakes.
The male Grogs behind Bee fell to their knees and covered their heads with their hands as men hurdled them. Bee dragged herself up to Valentine and sniffed his hand.
* * * *
Valentine took Bee, the other two, and a plate of cupcakes over to the workshop tent. As he issued cupcakes—most Grogs had a sweet tooth— he employed his rough-and-ready Grog but her dialect made it slow going. The other two Grogs understood him well enough, after a period of suspiciousness broken by Bee's emphatic thumping of Valentine's chest, a Grog ve
rsion of saying "He's a stand-up guy," evidently.
Hoffman Price, the bounty hunter Bee traveled with, was dead, evidently of some illness. He'd made it into free territory and turned Bee over to an old friend before dying during a surgery Bee didn't begin to understand. The old friend, whom Bee called White Hair, promptly dropped dead a short time after Price. White Hair's family either gave or sold Bee to a circus.
That's where she met the other two Grogs, Ford and Chevy. They'd been warriors from a tribe in Mississippi who crossed the river in some incursion and were left behind, wounded. They were captured, defanged (they pointed to the big gaps in their teeth), and bought by the D.C. Marvels Circus.
They didn't know the name of the circus—Valentine had guessed it. He'd seen posters put up around the hospital giving the dates for the circus performances at the Jonesboro fairgrounds.
According to the men, it was mostly a set of rigged carnival games and bad ginger ales sold for three bucks a bottle. A beer that was all head cost six.
In the circus Bee performed what Valentine guessed to be a comic ballet in her tutu—all Valentine got from her was "make dance, make fall, make roll." The other two took turns standing in an empty kiddie pool while spectators threw rotten onions and tomatoes at them.
He ordered a couple buckets of warm soapy water, a sponge, and towels. First thing to do was get them cleaned up. And Bee out of that ridiculous tutu.
"You want finished circus?" he asked the three.
"Yes, yes," Ford and Chevy chorused. Bee used another word of her limited English vocabulary: "Pleease."
"Like join thinskins warrior tribe?"
Bee said her version of please again; Ford and Chevy pointed to the gaps in their dental work. "Not warriors. Us finished warriors."
"Not matter with thinskins," Valentine said.
They thumped Valentine's chest. This time Valentine relaxed into it, though he couldn't help taking a tender, experimental breath afterward to see if any ribs were broken.
* * * *
The men didn't much care for having Grogs among them. The former Quislings considered the troops who fought using Grogs the lowest of the low, hardly human themselves. Discontent filtered up through the sergeants and to Patel.
"Yes," Valentine told Patel, who seemed a little discomfited himself. "The Kurian Zone despises them. Southern Command hates them. But a uniformed Grog can cross a bridge or stand at a crossroads without anyone looking at him twice in the Kurian Zone. I'm sure you can see the use of that."
"Yes, sir."
"We're going to have to put them under someone. Any ideas?"
"Why don't we just call them the major's bodyguard?"
"That's a bit Lawrence of Arabia for me. Anyone who wants to do it gets to be a corporal, quick promotion—that is how they entice people to do it in the KZ. I'll teach whoever volunteers the language."
Glass, their heavy weapons expert, took the job. "Not so much that he likes Grogs; I just think he hates people more," Patel said. They talked over how they'd juggle the platoons once again.
A messenger interrupted them. "You won't believe what's outside, Major. It's quite a show."
Valentine peeked out one of the many cracks in the shack, and believed it. A pair of civilians stood at the gate, a rather dazzling bronzed man in a purple tailcoat and oversized yellow bow tie and a black mountain of muscle in overalls.
He'd been half expecting this. He went to the corner of the shack and took a tin plate off a bucket he'd been saving for just such an occasion. He filled his pockets.
Valentine closed the top button on his old militia tunic—he wanted the men to have their uniforms finished before they made his—and stepped out to the top step of the command shack.
"Is that him?" the man in the purple asked.
"Yes, sir," the gate escort said.
"Hello, Major," the man in the purple said, flashing whiter-than-white teeth. "D.C. Marvels is the name. Dazzling cavalcades of marvels is my game. You've heard of me?"
"Not until recently."
"Then I'd like to extend a personal invitation to the show. You're aware that soldiers are entitled to a ten percent discount at my circus; twenty percent on food and beverages? For parties of three or more, that is."
"How can I help you, Mr. Marvels?"
"There's been some sort of misunderstanding. A few of your gallant comrades rented an attraction of mine, poor benighted Grogs I've taken under my wing, saving them from river dredging or worse. They never returned, and I'm due in Mountain Home by the end of the week."
Valentine was beginning to look forward on this. "I don't see where I fit in. Were they men under my command?"
Marvels planted his feet. "Didn't say you were responsible, Major.
The soldiers in question said things got rather out of hand at your party, and they had to leave my attractions behind. Grogs can't be left in the hands of amateurs. They'll sicken and die, poor things."
I'm afraid they've quit your circus, Mr. Marvels. They've enlisted with Southern Command."
"You're kidding, right? They're not competent. They're mine and I want them back. I'm trying to be nice here, but I'm perfectly willing to take legal action."
Valentine crossed his hands behind his back. "So am I. Get off this post."
"Corricks," Marvels said out of the side of his mouth.
The muscle inflated his chest. "Ford! Chevy! Bee! Here now!" He pulled a whistle from his pocket and the trilling filled the company tents.
Valentine felt the whistle as much as he heard it. It gave him a headache.
"Shut your man up, Marvels."
"When I see my property!"
Valentine hurled a ripe tomato at Marvels, striking him just under the yellow tie. He drew a rotten onion from his other back pocket. The whistling didn't stop until he bounced an onion off the handler's head.
The big man took a step toward him and Valentine matched his move, more than half hoping Marvels would throw a punch.
"That's assault! You've assaulted a civilian. I'll have your commission for this," Marvels said, extending his shirtfront as though it were a warrant for Valentine's arrest.
"Then I might as well enjoy myself," Valentine said, aiming an onion for his head. Marvels ducked under it.
"The gate's that way," Valentine said, throwing another tomato. This one hit Marvels square on the buttocks as he turned to run.
* * * *
The expected summons to Colonel Seng's office came that very afternoon, courtesy of Seng's messenger, Tiddle. Tiddle reminded Valentine of the White Rabbit, or maybe the Road Runner, always in a hurry to get somewhere. He either ran or used a light motorbike rigged with tires for cross-country driving. His hair normally looked as though he'd had a recent close encounter with a live wire.
Valentine washed up with some of his French soap and put on his best uniform. Lieutenant Colonel Jolla didn't look particularly jolly.
"That Marvels fellow just left. He's in quite a temper."
Valentine shrugged. "Is he getting his Grogs back?"
Seng's frown deepened. "No. I pointed out that the practice of chattel slavery is against the law and is in fact a hanging offense. He said I could expect a letter from his lawyer. I don't need these headaches, Valentine."
"Sorry, sir. He had two of those Grogs in what amounts to a bear-baiting pit. Customers paid to throw fruit at them."
"Says as much about some of the customers as it does about Marvels," Jolla said.
"If he starts a legal fight, it might be worth someone's while to check his payroll accounts. When I had Ahn-Kha on my rolls, I kept up-to-date with policy. They're free to hire on or quit, and you have to pay them at least convict rate. According to the Grogs, they never saw so much as a dollar."
"Still not a defense for your behavior," Seng said. "Save it for the enemy."
Valentine smiled at that. Technically he was still a condemned man under Southern Command's fugitive law, though his face had long since been removed
from the wanted cabinets.
"Will that be all?"
"No," Seng said. "Lambert told me you were a little unorthodox but effective. Let's work on the effective and cut down on the unorthodox. Why aren't ordinary militia uniforms good enough for your men?"
"You want us to operate in the Kurian Zone. Southern Command militia uniforms might be a bit of a giveaway."
"Still, it's odd," Jolla put in.
"It's an odd unit with an odd role," Valentine said. "Supply in enemy territory, acting as liaison with the local resistance."
Jolla brushed back nonexistant hair with his palm. "Yet from what I've seen, you're training your company like you're part of the hunter battalion."
"You don't object to fitness trials, I hope."
"We'll see what kind of men you have when the real training starts in January," Seng said. "I'll look forward to seeing what you can do."
* * * *
The guns arrived a few days after the unpleasant meeting. It was hard not to be disappointed.
They viewed them from the back of the wagon rig, three cases of rifles and one of pistols. A trio of Uzi-style submachine guns were in with the pistols, evidently meant for the officers.
The rest were mostly militia stuff: deer rifles and shotguns and a few venerable AR-15s. In the hands of a company of veteran Wolves, it could be a deadly enough assortment, but he wondered if they'd be heavy, expensive noisemakers in the hands of some of the greener members of his company. It would make familiarization and training a nightmare.
Plus there would be supply difficulties, trying to get everything from buckshot to .358 to .30-06 to .223 into individual hands.
Patel's cane tapped behind and Valentine turned to see his sergeant major shake his head sadly as he lifted a double-barreled bird gun. "It's like telling the men they can't be trusted with anything better," he said.
Valentine thought a couple of the Remingtons might make a decent sniper rifles, if they could find optics. He had at least six trained scout/snipers out of the Kurian services—they had an easier time sneaking away than most. A shotgun or two distributed to each squad would be handy for urban use. The rest, not much more than rabbit guns, would be better off in the hands of the UFR's young Camp Scouts or backwoods raccoon hunters.