Now he smiled properly for the first time and stuck out his hand. “I’ve never met you, and it has been my pleasure not to do so. Good luck, Private Fitzhugh. I think one good deed fairly well cancels the other out.”
Fitz took his hand. “Nobody would believe me, but I didn’t do it.”
The major looked steadily at him. “I was a prosecuting attorney before the war, Private. You’re right. No one would believe you. Now get lost. Collect your boots and belt from the desk sergeant and get back to your squad. Good luck.”
Outside, blinking in the sunlight, Fitz wondered if it was going to be as simple as that. It was Sunday, officially a day off after the morning parade. Mostly it was spent polishing, ironing and preparing for the week ahead. He walked slowly back to his tent.
“Fitzy!” SmallMac yelled. “Hey, guys, he’s back.”
Fitz was amazed to find himself being slapped on the back and grinned at.
Marc Ewen had always found the two older men in his tent and his squad something of a trial. He was standing with his hands on his hips, surveying the scene, taking no part in the congratulations. If there was going to be trouble, Fitz realized, it would be with him. He was the only one in the tent who had persisted in calling Fitz “Oink.”
“Hey, Oink. SmallMac says you gave two instructors a hiding at once,” he said. There was a testing quality to his voice. He was used to thinking that he was the toughest man in the squad.
Fitz shrugged. Best to try and deal with it peacefully. They had barely two more days of boot before they were posted out. He just had to get through to Tuesday. “I know a trick or two, Marc. We can go over to the gymnasium and I’ll show you. Friendly, of course.”
Marc Ewen shook his head and smiled. He was considerably larger than most of the Vats, and had been a meat packer before his call-up. He was as strong as one of the bulls whose carcasses he used to heft around.
“This I’d like to see, Oink. But we’ll keep it friendly.”
A few minutes later the squad and a few others were in the gymnasium, and on the mat Fitz showed Marc Ewen—gently—how to use a meat packer’s strength against him.
Ewen stood up. Nodded. “Okay. I guess SmallMac told it straight. Run me through that again, so—”
His sudden silence was caused by the entry of a crowd, mostly from B Company. They seemed to have padlocks with them. Attached to their belts. And the belts were in their hands, not through their belt loops. “Well, well. There he is. Golden boy Shareholder,” said the leader of the mob, B Company’s official bruiser, a gorilla called Bennett. “We’ll take over, Ewen. We’ll do a proper job.”
Marc Ewen faced them, hands on hips. He shook his head. “Butt out, Bennett. This is our affair. Got nothing to do with you B Company goons.”
The man snorted. “He’s a fucking Shareholder. We heard it from the guys who were on duty last night. And Sarge Lenoir confirmed it. He was there when that little shit admitted it himself. Move out of the way, Ewen. He’s going to have an accident.”
Fitz tensed. There wasn’t any way out of the gymnasium, except past the mob. But he was damn well going to take a few of them with him.
To his surprise the broad Marc Ewen stood his ground “Take yourself and your crew back to your tents, Bennett. He’s one of us. If anyone takes it out of him, it’ll be us. And it’s not going to happen.”
“You’re full of shit, Ewen. He’s a fucking Shareholder. He admitted it!”
SmallMac nodded. “So what if he is? He’s sweated and bled with us. He’s done full-kit drill with us, and ended up in the guardhouse just for helping Margolis—who was from B Company, I might remind you beggars. You boys take him on and you’ll have to take us on, too.”
There was a tense silence. There were a good forty of them to twenty of Fitz’s company. And the others had padlock-weighted belts.