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"Consider yourself off duty for the next twenty-four."
Valentine had a thought. "Could you take care of one thing, sir? Pass something up? The general's signature would be helpful."
"What is it?"
"I'd like Post to be able to say farewell to the Razors too."
* * * *
Roast pig is a mouthwatering smell, and it penetrated even the back of the ambulance. The vehicle halted.
"What's up your sleeve, Val?" Post asked. No fewer than four nurses and one muscular medical orderly sat shoulder to shoulder with Val, crowded around Post's bed on wheels.
"You'll see."
The doors opened, giving those inside a good view of the Accolade's renovated parking lot. The brush had been chopped away, tents constructed, and paper lanterns in a dozen colors strung between the tent poles and trees. Some nimble electronics tech had rigged a thirty-foot antenna and hung the Razor's porcine silhouette banner-DON'T FEED ON ME read the legend-to top it off.
Bunting hung from the Accolade's windows, along with another canopy of lanterns. Music from fiddles, guitars, and drums competed from different parts of the party. A mass of soldiers-probably a good third of them not even Razors, but men who knew how to sniff out a good party and gain admittance by performing some minor support function-wandered in and out of the various tents and trader stalls.
"Jesus, Val," Post said as Valentine and the orderly took him out of the ambulance. He looked twice as strong as he had on Valentine's visit the previous day-Post made a habit of coming back strong from injury.
"Hey, it's Captain Post!" a Razor shouted.
"Some secret debriefing," one of the nurses said.
"As far as the hospital's concerned none of you will be back for a day," Valentine said. "The only thing I ask is that someone attend Will at all times."
"SOP, Val. I can just holler if I need some water. John, set this thing so I'm sitting up, alright?"
The attendant and a nurse arranged his bed.
"If I'd known this soiree was going full blast," a nurse said, rearranging the cap on her brunette hair, "I would have brought my makeup."
Valentine pulled some bills out of his pocket and passed them to the head nurse. "For additional medical supplies. You can probably find what you need at the PX-wagons. If not, it looked like the strippers had plenty to spare."
"Ewwww," another nurse said.
"Oh, lighten up, Nicks," the head nurse said. "You're on first watch, then. I'll bring you a plate."
The men were already clustering around Post. "Great, great," Valentine heard Post saying. "Food's good. Only problem is, I was wounded in my right leg. They took the healthy one off."
"Just like 'em," one of the more gullible Razors said, before he saw what the others were laughing at.
The male attendant kept various proffered bottles and cups away from Post's mouth. "I want to hear some music," Post said. "Let's get Narcisse's wheelie-stool out and we'll dance."
"Razors!" the men shouted as they lifted the gurney and bore it toward the bandstand.
"That's a nice thing you're doing for your captain, Major," the nurse they called Nicks said. "He's lucky to have you."
"I'm the lucky one," Valentine said.
* * * *
Black Lightning lived up to their reputation. Valentine wasn't sophisticated enough with music to say whether they were "country" or "rock and roll" or "fwap" to use early-twenty-first century categories. They were energetic-and loud. So much so that he kept to the back and observed. The crowd listened or danced as the mood struck them, all facing the stage, which was just as well because the men outnumbered the women by six to one or so.
The nurses kept close to Post, who had a steady stream of well-wishers, but seemed to make themselves agreeable to the boys.
Boys. Valentine startled at the appellation. At twenty-seven he could hardly be labeled old, but he sometimes felt it when he passed a file of new recruits. Southern Command had filled out the Razors with kids in need of a little experience-the regiment had never been meant to be a frontline unit in the Dallas siege-and they'd gotten it at terrible cost.
