“Aye, sir,” his first officer replied with a wry grin. “While I’m gone, perhaps you can talk to Private Jarvis. His enlistment is up this week and he seems determined not to re-up. Everybody in his chain of command has talked to him. Perhaps you can change his mind.”
“Okay, I’ll give it a try. Send him in.”
On his way out Fielder noticed that McAndrews, the captain’s steward, had Melville’s uniform jacket in his hand. He was shaking his head and muttering peevishly, “Don’ know how I’m ever gonna get those grass stains out . . .” Melville just blushed slightly and tried to ignore him, as Fielder grinned evilly.
“I didn’t become a marine for this. Not to go around killing people!”
“Perhaps you should have been a sailor instead.” Melville chuckled, but it was clear that Private Harold Jarvis didn’t see the humor in the situation.
“Sir, it’s different for people like you and Lieutenant Broadax. You like combat, but I was scared to death every single time. I was so scared. And it hasn’t gotten any better.”
“Son, I can’t speak for Broadax, but I hope you’ll believe me if I tell you that I was scared to death every time. Only my training and my conditioning carried me through. Then, afterwards, when we had to bury shipmates . . .”
“Aye, sir.”
“Jarvis, I know you want to go back to the farm. I understand. Your family comes from a planet with what, just a few dozen families?”
“Aye, sir. Fairhome. There’s just a Pier and a couple of dozen homesteads. A Ship comes a couple of times a year. Other than that it’s just us. It’s a beautiful world, sir,” and here the young, broad-shouldered farmboy’s voice began to choke up a little. “Lord I miss it. The cry of the pixies at night, the sun coming up over the dewdab trees. It’s a simple, quiet life. Everyone goes to bed with the chickens and gets up with the cows. . . .”
Melville paused briefly to dwell upon the dangers associated with a literal interpretation of a loosely worded saying. “Aye . . . Jarvis, you saw what the Guldur did to Ambergris. Would you say that they are evil? What they did there, in your opinion, was that evil?”
“Aye, sir. They were powerful bad. If ever the word evil ever deserved to be used, I reckon it deserves to be used on them.”
“A very wise man once wrote that ‘the only scientific definition of evil is that you can’t ignore it.’ We can’t ignore them. We can’t ignore the fact that there is evil in the universe, and someone has to man the ramparts of civilization so that our families can sleep safely in their beds.”
“Aye, sir.”
“What you saw happen in Ambergris, is that what you want for your homeworld? Most of the thousand worlds in the Westerness Kingdom are like that. We are a young kingdom, full of homestead worlds who are completely unable to defend themselves. If the Guldur come West across the Rift, then worlds like Earth can use their high technology to blast anything foolish enough to come down their Pier. And Westerness has a population base that could hold off the enemy for generations. But the only way we can keep your homeworld safe, the only way Fairhome and hundreds of other worlds like it can be truly safe, is to have professional warriors manning our frontiers. If there weren’t men like you in our armed forces, if there weren’t people willing to suffer and endure, then we would be doomed. It will be easier for you next time. But someone else, starting fresh, might die in a situation where you could survive.”
“I understand that. I accept it. That’s not the hard part. But sir, the part that bothers me is the lies. It’s all a lie. The poetry and the glory and the honor, it’s a lie. I’ve seen war, and it’s not like that.”
“No, my friend, it’s not a lie,” said Melville gently. “It’s men making the best of a dirty, nasty job that has to be done. There are times when evil comes, when darkness falls, and good men must fight. Then we make a virtue of necessity. Pain shared is pain divided. Joy shared is joy multiplied. Every night around the campfire, or with our messmates over dinner, we talk about the battle. Each time we divide our pain and we multiply our joy. Until in the end we’ve turned combat into something we can live with, something we can keep on doing. It would be a lie if we completely forgot the pain, the suffering and the loss. But it’s not a lie to recognize that there is good to be found in battle. And it’s not a lie to focus on the good parts, to magnify the joy and divide the pain so that we can live with it. There is glory, if we give it to them. There is honor, if we honor those who do it. Sometimes wars have to be fought. It destroys enough, it harms enough during the war. It is foolishness, it is madness to let it destroy us after the war. So we turn it into something we can live with. And we turn ourselves into creatures who can do this dirty, desperate job, do it well, and live with ourselves afterward.”
Jarvis nodded. He was a good troop; there was real potential here. He wasn’t stupid, and he sincerely wanted to learn. He respected his captain, so he listened, truly listened as Melville continued.
“Very few of us can be Heinleiners all the time, although we strive for it and maybe we can have moments of courage, confidence and competence. And most of us won’t be Cherryh’s most of the time, living in a constant miasma of fear and tension. Most of us just get on with life, one day at a time.”
Jarvis nodded again, still listening. He wasn’t trying to think about what to say next, which is how most people spend a conversation. He just listened.
“You remember that Earthling, Asquith?”
“Aye, sir.”
“He was giving our officers a hard time about our veneration of The Lord of the Rings. He asked, ‘where are the Hobbits?’ He didn’t understand that we are the Hobbits. Few of us will be noble Striders, or magnificent Gandalfs. Those are goals to strive for, almost like angels. But most of us are less than the angels. We fall short, and are Hobbits.
“For me the Shire is the real world, full of soft, sleepy, unassuming souls who are capable of great deeds if pressed. And we are the Hobbits. We are Bilbos doing a desperate, dirty job out of a sense of responsibility, because if we didn’t, then the job may not get done. Or we are a Samwise, bearing an unimaginably horrible burden out of love for our fellow warriors. Or we’re Merrys and Pippins, silly fools who don’t have a clue what they’re getting into, but who grow into something noble and larger than life in the end.”
Jarvis nodded thoughtfully. Melville put a hand on the young marine’s shoulder as he concluded. “Just think about it. That’s all I ask. No one will blame you if you leave; you have served honorably and well. But the ‘Fellowship’ calls to you,” he said with a little, faintly self-mocking grin.
“Asquith apologized. He seemed relieved to do it. And he seemed sincerely surprised that that was all there was to it. That we honestly would accept him after that. I think he’s beginning to understand that we don’t expect him to change his opinions, just not force them on us. Maybe it will work out.”
Melville was sitting in his cabin engaging in one of his hobbies when Fielder came in to report on his conversation with the earthworm. They were docked out at the end of the Pier, away from most of the other ships. Out the big stern window of his cabin there was nothing but the vast panorama of two-space. A target hung from a spar coming off the mizzenmast, dangling just outside the open window. Melville was sitting in his chair, with his back to the bulkhead and the window to his right. He was plinking out the window with his old double-barreled .45 pistol.
Melville had a steaming cup of tea in his left hand, and his pistol in the other. He was rocked back in his chair with his feet propped up on the table. “Well done, Daniel. Thank you for handling that.”
“No problem.”
“Would you like a cup of tea? Coffee perhaps?”
“Coffee would be good, thank you.”
“McAndrews! Coffee for the first officer. You know how he likes it.”
“Aye, sir,” said his steward, who had been listening outside the door.
“You know, sir,” said Fielder, “I’ve always wanted to try a few shots from that pistol of yours. May I?”