— we haven’t time to try to reorient the soft-minded.
“Now get on with it. The priests will need the rest of the day to indoctrinate their congregations and to get them organized into something resembling military lines. Thomas, I want the scout car assigned tonight to the job involving the Prince Royal to stop here first and pick me up. Have Wilkie and Scheer man it.”
“Very well, sir. But I had planned to be in that car myself. Do you object to that slight change?”
“I do,” Ardmore said dryly. “If you will look at Disorganization Plan IV you will see that it calls for the commanding officer to remain in the Citadel. Since I am already here, outside the Citadel, you will remain in my place.”
“But, Chief — ”
“We are not going to risk both of us, not at this stage of the game. Now pipe down.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ardmore was called back to the communicator later that morning. The face of the headquarters communication watch officer peered out of the screen at him. “Oh! — Major Ardmore, Salt Lake City is trying to reach you with a priority routing.”
“Put them on.”
The face gave way to that of the priest at Salt Lake City.
“Chief,” he began, “we’ve got a most extraordinary prisoner. I’m of the opinion you’d better question him yourself.”
“I’m short of time. Why?”
“Well, he’s a PanAsian, but claims he is a white man and that you will know him. The funny thing about it is that he got past our screen. I thought that was impossible.”
“So it is. Let me see him.”
It was Downer, as Ardmore had begun to suspect. Ardmore introduced him to the local priest and as cured that official that his screens had not failed him. “Now, Captain, out with it.”
“Sir, I decided to come in and report to you in detail because things are coming to a head.”
“I know it. Give me all the details you can.”
“I will, sir. I wonder if you have any idea how much damage you’ve done the enemy already? — their morale is cracking up like rotten ice in a thaw. They axe all nervous, uncertain of themselves. What happened?”
Ardmore sketched out briefly the events of the past twenty — four hours, his own arrest, the arrest of the priests, the arrest of the entire cult of Mota, and the subsequent delivery. Downer nodded. “That explains it. I couldn’t really tell what had happened; they never tell a common soldier anything — but I could see them going to pieces, and I thought you had better know.”
“What happened?”
“Well — I guess I had better just tell you what I saw, and let you make your own inferences. The second battalion of the Dragon Regiment at Salt Lake City is under arrest. I heard a rumor that every officer in it had committed suicide. I suppose that is the outfit that let the local congregation escape, but I don’t know.”
“Probably. Go ahead.”
“All I know is what I saw. They were marched in about the middle of the morning with their banners reversed and confined to their barracks, with a heavy guard around the buildings. But that’s not all. It affects more than the one outfit under arrest. Chief, you know how an entire regiment will go to pieces if the colonel starts losing his grip?”
“I do. Is that the way they act?”
“Yes — at least the command stationed at Salt Lake City. I’m damned well certain that the big shot there is afraid of something he can’t understand, and his fear has infected his troops, right down to the ordinary soldiers. Suicides, lots of ’em, even among the common soldiers. A man will get moody for about a day, then sit down facing toward the Pacific and rip out his guts.
“But here is the tip-off, the thing that proves that morale is bad all over the country. There has been a general order issued by the Prince Royal, in the name of the Heavenly Emperor, forbidding any more honorable suicides.”
“What effect did that have?”
“Too soon to tell — it just came out today. But you don’t appreciate what that means, Chief. You have to live among these people, as I have, to appreciate it. With the PanAsians, everything is face — everything.