“Oh, I didn’t mean to imply . . .” Dierks said in sudden confusion. He was a good boy; the sort of son Evertsen would have wanted if things had worked out differently.
“No offense taken, Janni,” he said easily. “Though in fact the constant advance causes its own problems. The point elements always bypass hostiles, and some of those are going to decide that a logistics base guarded by cripples and transients is a better choice for resupply than trying to get back to their own lines.”
Evertsen tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice when he said, “cripple,” but he knew he hadn’t been completely successful.
Dierks looked through the firing slit, perhaps for an excuse to take his eyes off his uncle, and said, “There’s a convoy from the front arriving. Do they usually come in at the same time as an outbound one?”
“Not usually,” Evertsen said in a dry voice, “though they’re supposed to. We won’t be able to send your trucks forward without the additional escort that accompanies the inbound convoy.”
He rotated his chair to view the east gate. There were about forty vehicles, meaning a score or more were deadlined at one of the forward bases. That was par for the course, but Christ! why couldn’t Capetown see the Russian Front needed mechanics worse than it did more riflemen? Around and beyond the convoy, the plains rolled on forever.
The leading truck was a standard 6×6, empty except for the load of sandbags that would detonate any pressure-fuzed mine. The duty of driving that vehicle changed every fifteen minutes.
Two armored cars followed. There should be four more at the middle and end of the line, but Evertsen saw only two. The four guntrucks, each with quad-mounted heavy machine guns behind walls of mortar boxes filled with gravel, were spaced evenly among the non-combat vehicles.
“I suppose returning convoys are to reposition the trucks?” Dierks said.
“That,” Evertsen said. He turned from the window. “And for casualties and leave-men. Mostly casualties.”
He cleared his throat. “A fit young man wouldn’t be posted to Fort Burket, Janni. Where do your orders take you?”
“The Fourth Independent Brigade, sir,” Janni said with pardonable pride. The Four Eye was a crack unit whose neck-or-nothing panache made it a fast route to promotion . . . for the survivors. “I could choose my itinerary, and when I saw an officer was needed to escort specie to the District Administrator at Fort Burket, well, I volunteered.”
There was an angry mutter in the outer office. Administrator Kuyper squeezed through the doorway with a document in his hand and shouted, “Evertsen, do you know what those idiots in Capetown have done? They’ve—”
Janni jumped to his feet. Kuyper noticed his presence and said more mildly, “Oh, good afternoon, Lieutenant. I didn’t realize . . .”
“You’ve met the Lieutenant Dierks who brought the discretionary fund supplement, Kuyper,” Evertsen said from his chair. “Allow me to present my nephew Janni, who’s been posted to the Four Eye.”
“It’s about the damned discretionary fund that I’ve come, Evertsen,” Kuyper said. “They’ve reduced the bounty authorization from a hundred aurics to sixty, and they’ve made an immediate cut in the supplement to the discretionary fund.”
Evertsen’s fist clenched. “Do they give a reason?” he asked, more so he had time to think about the implications than because any reason could justify Capetown’s action in his mind. He wished Janni wasn’t present for this, but he couldn’t very well order the boy out.
Kuyper waved the document, obviously the one Janni had brought with the paychest. ” ‘At this crisis in national affairs,’ ” he quoted, ” ‘the fighting fronts must take precedence for resources over the lines of communication.’ By Christ, Evertsen! How much use do they think those greater resources will be if the convoys carrying them are looted by guerrillas?”
Dierks looked from one man to the other, hearing without enough background to understand the words. The hefty administrator was between him and the doorway. Because he couldn’t easily leave, Dierks said, “The specie I escorted was to pay the Slav irregulars, then, the Ralliers? Rather than your own troops?”