The garrison commander frowned and lowered his voice. “How does the Confrontation Line develop? The official reports seem . . . overly optimistic.”
Gerta spoke quietly as well. “Not so well. We’re killing the Santies by the shitload, that part of the official story is true enough. They keep attacking us with more enthusiasm than sense, but it’s getting more expensive, and we’re not taking much territory. Ensburg’s still holding out.”
“Still?” The man’s brows rose. “They must be starving.”
“They are. I was in the siege lines last week; nothing left inside but rubble, and you can smell the stink of their funeral pyres. Starvation, typhus, whatever—but they’re not giving up.”
She spat into the dirt. “If that monomaniac imbecile Meitzerhagen hadn’t killed the garrison of Fort William after they surrendered and bellowed the fact to the world, they might have been more inclined to give up. So would a lot of the other garrisons we cut off in the first push; mopping them up took time the Santies used to get themselves organized. We lost momentum.”
The other officer nodded. “Meitzerhagen’s a sledgehammer,” he said. “The problem is—”
“—not all problems are nails,” she finished.
“Stalemate, for the present, then.”
“Ja. We can push them, but we outrun our supplies. And even when we beat them, they don’t run, and there are always more of them. Their equipment’s good, too. Now that they’re learning how to use it . . .” She shrugged.
“How is our logistical situation, then?”
“It sucks wet dogshit. We can’t move dirigibles within a hundred miles of the front in daylight, the road net’s terrible, the terrain favors defense . . . and the Santies are right in the middle of their main industrial area, with their best farmlands only a few hundred miles away on first-class rails and roads.”
“I presume the staff is evolving a counterstrategy.”
“Ya. No details of course, but let’s just say that we’re going to encourage their enthusiasm and prepare to receive it. Also if we can’t use the Gut, there’s no reason they should be able to either.”
The officer sighed and nodded. “Well, you can tell them that my brigade at least is doing its job,” he said. “Trying to keep the rail lines through the Sierra working would have been a nightmare if we’d used conventional occupation techniques. Bad enough as it is.”
Young Johan returned, pushing the dazed and naked Sierran girl before him. He dropped into parade rest behind Gerta, smiling faintly as the prisoner stumbled back to kneel with the others.
“In a year or two, there won’t be any left to speak of. . . . Speaking of which, you said there was a new directive?”
Gerta nodded. “Ya, we’re running short of labor for the construction gangs, importing from the New Territories is inconvenient, big projects all over, and the local animals might as well give some value before they die,” she said. “Send down noncombatant adults fit for heavy work—ones that give up when you catch them. Keep killing all those found in arms or not useful. Except children under about five. As an experiment, we’re sending those back to the Land to be raised by senior Protégé-soldier families.”
Long-serving Protégé soldiers were allowed to marry, as a special privilege for good service. “They might be useful, that way, in the long term. At your discretion, though; don’t tie up transport if you’re busy.”
The other Chosen nodded. “Jawohl. Odd to think of us running short of manual workers, though.”
“Well, even the New Territories’ population has dropped considerably,” she said. “We’ll have to be less wasteful after the war.”
Gerta returned his salute and turned to her open-topped armored car. When you carried a hatchet for the General Staff, your work was never done.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jeffrey Farr whistled soundlessly. Not that anyone could have heard him in the rear seat of the observation plane; the noise of the engine and the slipstream was too loud. He reached forward and tapped the pilot on the shoulder, circling his hand with the index finger up and pointing it downwards. The pilot nodded and circled, coming down to four thousand feet.