“All right. Go on,” Harrington said.
“Now we have not yet organized the 501st Battalion, but no one here knows that. I have carefully isolated my officers and troops from the militia. Sergeant Major, have any of the enlisted men talked with anyone on this post?”
“No, sir. Your orders were pretty clear, sir.”
“And I know the officers have not,” Falkenberg said. He glanced at us and we nodded. “Therefore, I think it highly unlikely that we will run into any serious opposition if we march immediately to our new base,” Falkenberg said. “We may be able to do some good on the way. If we move fast, we may catch some River Pack gangsters. Whatever happens, we’ll disrupt them and make it simpler to negotiate favorable terms.”
“Immediately,” Harrington said. “What do you mean by immediately?”
“Tonight, sir. Why not? The troops haven’t got settled in. They’re prepared to march. Our gear is all packed for travel. If Major Lorca can supply us with a few trucks for heavy equipment, we’ll have no other difficulties.”
“By God,” Harrington said. He looked thoughtful. “It’s taking a hell of a risk—” He looked thoughtful again. “But not so big a risk as we’d have if you stayed around here. As you say. Right now nobody knows what we’ve got. Let the troops get to talking, and it’ll get all over this planet that you’ve brought a random collection of recruits, guardhouse soldiers, and newlies. That wouldn’t be so obvious if you hit the road.”
“You’d be pretty much on your own until we get the river traffic established again,” Major Lorca said.
“Yes, sir,” Falkenberg answered. “But we’d be closer to food supply than you are. I’ve got three helicopters and a couple of Skyhooks. We can bring in military stores with those.”
“By God, I like it,” Harrington said. “Right now those bastards have beaten us. I wouldn’t mind paying them out.” He looked at us, then shook his head. “What do you chaps think? I can spare only the four of you. That stands. Can you do it?”
We all nodded. I had my doubts, but I was cocky enough to think I could do anything. “It will be a cakewalk, sir,” I said. “I can’t think a gang of criminals wants to face a battalion of Line Marines.”
“Honor of the corps and all that,” Harrington said. “I was never with Line troops. You haven’t been with ’em long enough to know anything about them, and here you’re talking like one of them already. All right. Captain Falkenberg, you are authorized to take your battalion to Fort Beersheba at your earliest convenience. Tell ’em what you can give ’em, Lorca.” The Colonel sounded ten years younger. That defeat had hurt him, and he was looking forward to showing the River Pack what regular troops could do.
Major Lorca told us about logistics and transport. There weren’t enough trucks to carry more than a bare minimum of supplies. We could tow the artillery, and there were two tanks we could have. For most of us it would be march or die, but it didn’t look to me as if there’d be very much dying.
Finally Lorca finished. “Questions?” he said. He looked at Falkenberg.
“I’ll reserve mine for the moment, sir.” Falkenberg was already talking like a battalion commander.
“Sir, why is there so little motor transport?” Louis Bonneyman asked.
“No fuel facilities,” Lorca told him. “No petroleum refineries. We have a small supply of crude oil and a couple of very primitive distillation plants, but nowhere near enough to support any large number of motor vehicles. The original colonists were quite happy about that. They didn’t want them.” Lorca reminded me of one of the instructor officers at the Academy.
“What weapons are we facing?” Deane Knowles asked.
Lorca shrugged. “They’re better armed than you think. Good rifles. Some rocket launchers. A few mortars. Nothing heavy, and they tend to be deficient in communications, in electronics in general, but there are exceptions to that. They’ve captured gear from our militia”—Colonel Harrington winced at that—”and, of course, anything we sell to the farmers eventually ends up in the hands of the gangs. If we refuse to let the farmers buy weapons, we condemn them. If we do sell weapons, we arm more convicts. A vicious circle.”
I studied the map problem. It didn’t look difficult. A thousand men need just over a metric ton of dried food every day. There was plenty of water along the route, though, and we could probably get local forage, as well. We could do it, even with the inadequate transport Lorca could give us. It did look like a cakewalk.
I worried with the figures until I was satisfied, then suddenly realized it wasn’t an exercise for a class. This was real. In a few hours we’d be marching into hostile territory. I looked over at my classmates. Deane was punching numbers into his pocket computer and frowning at the result. Louis Bonneyman was grinning like a thief. He caught my eye and winked. I grinned back at him, and it made me feel better. Whatever happened, I could count on them.
Lorca went through a few more details on stores and equipment available from the garrison, plus other logistic support available from the fort. We all took notes, and of course the briefing was recorded. “That about sums it up,” he said.
Harrington stood, and we got up. “I expect you’ll want to organize the 501st before you’ll have any meaningful questions,” Harrington said. “I’ll leave you to that. You may consider this meeting your formal call on the commanding officer, although I’ll be glad to see any of you in my office if you’ve anything to say to me. That’s all.”
“Ten-hut!” Ogilvie said. He stayed in the briefing room as Colonel Harrington and Major Lorca left.
“Well. We’ve work to do,” Falkenberg said. “Sergeant Major.”
“Sir!”
“Please run through the organization we worked out.”
“Sir!” Ogilvie used the screen controls to flash charts onto the screens. As the Colonel had said, I was second in command of the battalion, and also A Company commander. My company was a rifle outfit. I noticed it was heavy with experienced Line troopers, and I had less than my share of recruits.
Deane had drawn the weapons company, which figured. Deane had taken top marks in weapons technology at the Academy, and he was always reading up on artillery tactics. Louis Bonneyman had another rifle company with a heavy proportion of recruits to worry about. Falkenberg had kept a large headquarters platoon under his personal command.
“There are reasons for this structure,” Falkenberg said. “I’ll explain them later. For the moment, have any of you objections?”
“Don’t know enough to object, sir,” I said. I was studying the organization chart.
“All of you will have to rely heavily on your NCOs,” Falkenberg said. “Fortunately, there are some good ones. I’ve given the best, Centurion Lieberman, to A Company. Bonneyman gets Sergeant Cernan. If he works out, we can get him a Centurion’s badges. Knowles has already worked with Gunner-Centurion Pniff. Sergeant Major Ogilvie stays with Headquarters Platoon, of course. In addition to your command duties, each of you will have to fill some staff slots. Bonneyman will be intelligence.” Falkenberg grinned slightly. “I told you it might not seem such a joke.”
Louis answered his grin. He was already sitting in the regimental intelligence officer’s chair at the table. I wondered why Falkenberg had given that job to Louis. Of the four of us, Louis had paid the least attention to his briefing packet, and he didn’t seem cut out for the job.
“Supply and logistics stay with Knowles, of course,” Falkenberg said. “I’ll keep training myself. Now, I have a proposition for you. The Colonel has ordered us to occupy Fort Beersheba at the earliest feasible moment. If we simply march there with no fighting and without accomplishing much beyond getting there, the Governor will negotiate a peace. We will be stationed out in the middle of nowhere, with few duties beyond patrols. Does anyone see any problems with that?”
“Damned dull,” Louis Bonneyman said.
“And not just for us. What have you to say, Sergeant Major?”
Ogilvie shook his head. “Don’t like it, sir. Might be all right for the recruits, but wouldn’t recommend it for the old hands. Especially the ones you took out of the brig. Be a lot of the bug, sir.”
The bug. The Foreign Legion called it le cafard, which means the same thing. It had been the biggest single cause of death in the Legion, and it was still that among Line Marines. Men with nothing to do. Armed men, warriors, bored stiff. They get obsessed with the bug until they commit suicide, or murder, or desert, or plot mutiny. The textbook remedy for le cafard is a rifle and plenty of chances to use it. Combat. Line troops on garrison duty lose more men to cafard than active outfits lose in combat. So my instructors had told us, anyway.