XIV
We put the entire battalion on ready alert, but nothing happened for a week. Colonel Harrington stayed at Fort Beersheba and joined us in the officers’ mess in the evenings. Like Falkenberg, he liked bagpipes. To my horror, so did Kathryn. I suppose every woman has some major failing.
“What the hell is he doing?” Colonel Harrington demanded. “I’d have sworn he’d have gotten himself into trouble by now. Maybe we’ve overestimated the Mission Hills Protective Association. Why the hell did they come up with that name? There aren’t any Mission Hills on this planet, to the best of my knowledge.”
“They brought the name with them, Colonel,” Louis told him. “There’s a Southern California gang with that name. Been around for two or three generations. A number of them happened to be on the same prison ship, and they stuck together when they got there.”
“How the hell did you find that out?” Harrington demanded.
“Captain Falkenberg insists that his people be thorough,” Louis said. “It was a matter of sifting through enough convicts until I found one who knew, and then finding some corroboration.”
“Well, congratulations, Louis,” Harrington said. “John, you’ve done well with your collection of newlies.”
“Thank you, Colonel.”
“Real test’s coming up now, though. What the hell is happening down there? Steward, another whiskey, all around. If we can’t fight, we can still drink.”
“Maybe Governor Swale will come to terms with them,” I said.
The colonel gave me a sour look. “Doubt it, Hal. He’s between a rock and a hard place. The merchants won’t stand for the prices those goons want, and they think they’ve got him by the balls. They’re not afraid of us, you know. They’ve got a good idea of what’s going on in Harmony. They know damned well that Fleet isn’t sending any more support to Arrarat, and what the hell can a thousand men do? Even a thousand Line Marines?”
“I hope they think that way,” Deane said. “If they’ll stand and fight, they’re finished—”
“But they won’t,” John Falkenberg said. “They’re no fools. They won’t stand and fight, they’ll run like hell as soon as we get close to them. They’ve only to sit up in the hills and avoid us. Eventually we’ll have to leave, but they won’t.”
Harrington nodded. “Yeah. In the long run those poor damned farmers will have to cut it for themselves. Maybe they’ll make it. At least we can try to set things right for them. John, do you think the pipers have had their drink by now?”
“I’m certain of it, Colonel. Lazar! Have Pipe Major bring us a tune!”
* * *
Eight days after the Governor left Fort Beersheba, we still had no word. That night there was the usual drinking with the pipers in the mess. I excused myself early and went up to my rooms with Kathryn. I still couldn’t touch her without setting her to trembling, but we were working on it. I’d decided I was in love with her, and I could wait for the physical aspects to develop. I didn’t dare think very far ahead. We had no real future that I could see, but for the moment just being together was enough. It wasn’t a situation either of us enjoyed, but we hated to be separated.
The phone buzzed. “Slater,” I told it.
“Sergeant Major Ogilvie, sir. You’re wanted in the staff room immediately.”
“Hallelujah. Be right there, Sergeant Major.” As I hung up, Brady’s trumpet sounded “On Full Kits.” I turned to Kathryn. We were both grinning like idiots. “This is it, sweetheart.”
“Yes. Now that it’s happened, I’m scared.”
“So am I. As Falkenberg says, we’re all scared, but it’s an officer’s job not to show it. Be back when I can—”
“Just a second.” She came to me and put her hands on my shoulders. Her arms went around me, and she pulled me against herself. “See? I’m hardly shaking at all.” She kissed me, quickly, then a long, lingering kiss.
“This is one hell of a time for a miraculous psychiatric cure,” I said.
“Shut up and get out of here.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.” I went out quickly.
Hartz was in the hallway. “I will have our gear ready, zur,” he said. “And now we fight.”
“I hope so.”
As I walked across the parade ground, I wondered why I felt so good. We were about to go kill and maim a lot of people, and give them the chance to do it to us. For a million reasons we ought to have been afraid, and we ought to dread what was coming, but we didn’t.
Is it that what we think we ought to do is so thoroughly alien to what we really feel? I couldn’t kid myself that this time was different because our cause was just. We say we love peace, but it doesn’t excite us. Even pacifists talk more about the horrors of war than about the glories of peace.
And you’re not supposed to solve the problems of the universe, I told myself. But you do get to kill the man that raped your girl.
The others were already in the conference room, with Colonel Harrington at the head of the table.
“The expected has happened,” Harrington said. I knew for a fact that he’d drunk four double whiskeys since supper, but there wasn’t a trace of it in his speech. I’d swallowed two quick-sober pills on the way over. I really hadn’t needed them. I was sure they hadn’t had time to dissolve, but I felt fine.
“Our Governor has managed to get himself besieged in Allansport,” Harrington said. “With half of his force outside the town. He wants us to bail him out. I have told him we will march immediately—for a price.”
“Then he’s agreed to withdraw recognition of the Association?” Deane asked.
“Agreed to, yes. He hasn’t done it yet. I think he’s afraid that the instant he does, they will get really nasty. However, I have his word on it, and I will hold him to it. Captain Falkenberg, the 501st is hereby ordered to drive the Mission Hills Protective Association out of the Allan River Valley by whatever means you think best. You may cooperate with local partisan forces in the area and make reasonable agreements with them. The entire valley is to be placed under CoDominium protection.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Falkenberg’s detached calm broke for a moment and he let a note of triumph get into his voice.
“Now, Captain, if you will be kind enough to review your battle plan,” Harrington said.
“Sir.” Falkenberg used the console to project a map onto the briefing screen.
I’d already memorized the area, but I examined it again. About ten kilometers upriver from Beersheba, the Jordan was joined by a tributary known as the Allan River. The Allan runs southwest through forest lands for about fifty kilometers, then turns and widens in a valley that lies almost due north-south. The east side of the Allan Valley is narrow, because no more than twenty klicks from the river there’s a high mountain range and east of that is high desert. Nobody lives there and nobody would want to. The west side, though, is some of the most fertile land on Arrarat. The valley is irregularly shaped, narrowing to no more than twenty-five klicks wide in places, but opening out to more than one hundred klicks in others. It reminded me of the San Joaquin Valley of California, a big fertile bowl with rugged mountains on both sides of it.
Allansport is 125 klicks upriver from where the Allan runs into the Jordan. Falkenberg left the big valley map on one screen and projected a detail onto the other. He fiddled with the console to bring red and green lines representing friendly and hostile forces onto the map.
“As you can see, Governor Swale and one company of militia have taken a defensive position in Allansport,” Falkenberg said. “The other two militia companies are south of him, actually upriver. How the devil he ever got himself into such a stupid situation, I cannot say.”
“Natural talent,” Colonel Harrington muttered.
“No doubt,” Falkenberg said. “We have two objectives. The minor, but most urgent, is to rescue Governor Swale. The major objective is pacification of the area. It seems very unlikely that we can accomplish that without a general uprising of the locals in our favor. Agreed?”
We were all silent for a moment. “Mr. Bonneyman, I believe you’re the junior,” Colonel Harrington said.
“Agreed, sir,” Louis said.
Deane and I spoke at once. “Agreed.”
“Excellent. I remind you that this conference is recorded,” Falkenberg said.
Of course, I thought. All staff conferences are. It didn’t seem like Falkenberg and Harrington to spread responsibility around by getting our opinions on record, but I was sure they had their reasons.
“The best way to stimulate a general uprising would be to inflict an immediate and major defeat on the Protective Association,” Falkenberg said. “A defeat, not merely driving them away, but bringing them to battle and eliminating a large number of them. It is my view that this is sufficiently important to justify considerable risks. Is that agreed to?”