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"Old Wolf trick, sir," Moytana said. "If somebody's marked out our positions for artillery, might be better if they wasted their shells on empty space."
"I took a look at their positions this morning," Valentine added. "They've got a good high hill to their backs."
"I think the enemy would be firing on us already if they had our position," Jolla said. "We don't even know what's happened in town yet."
"We may soon, Colonel," Nowak said, ear to the field phone again. "Pickets are reporting Private Dool is coming in. He ran all the way from town. Says there's been a massacre."
"No one else?"
"Just Dool, sir. He said they took away his rifle and his pants."
"His pants? Get him up here," Jolla said.
Valentine had the uncomfortable sensation that Dool's missing pants was just the first oddly heavy raindrop in a storm to come. He could almost feel trouble gathering, like the heavy air in front of piled up thunderclouds. Like an animal, he wanted to get away or underneath something.
Dool showed up soon enough, shoeless and footsore, a blanket wrapped around his waist.
Dool was a Guard regular who'd been wounded by a grenade in the cleanup action after the fight at Billy Goat Cut. He looked distraught. He still had his uniform shirt, though a blood splatter ran up the front to his shoulder like a rust-colored bandolier.
Jolla said, "Just give it to me, Dool. Don't worry about military form."
"Killed them all, sir. Colonel Seng and the rest, Roscoe next to me-they're all dead. They told me to tell you. Said that someone was to come into town to hear terms at dawn. They told me to tell you."
"They?"
"The fellers with the squarecl-off black beards."
"Like this," Moytana said, passing his hand just under his chin.
"Yessir, yes, Cap'n, that's just it."
"What's this, Moytana?" Jolla demanded.
Moytana cleared a frog from his throat. "It's the Moondagger Corps. Or elements of it.
They all wear beards like that." Moytana's face went as gray as the washed-out ropes in his hair.
Valentine knew the name. Oddly enough he'd heard it from Duvalier when they were discussing recent events in Kansas. They were some kind of special shock troops used to quell uprisings and had caused the 72 operation in Kansas to fall apart before it even got going.
"Never mind that," Jolla said. "Tell us what happened. Take your time."
Dool hitched the blanket around his legs a little tighter. "It was a fine dinner, sir. Officers from the Green Mountain troops were across the square from us, and the legworm guys were around the statue and on our left. Guerrilla troops too, only now I think they wasn't guerrillas but turncoats. Like Texas and Okie redhands, only worse.
"Then King Karas, he gets up and starts one of those fine speeches of his."
A siren started up, interrupting him.
"Engine noise reported overhead. One plane," Nowak reported from the field phones.
A second drop. How long until they start to fall, hard?
"Is the HQ dugout done yet?" Jolla asked.
"It's just a hole at the moment, sir," Nowak said.
"We'll adjourn there."
The hole was only half dug. There weren't any floorboards even. They squelched uncomfortably into the mud. It was deep enough so they could sit with heads below ground level. Nowak stayed at the headquarters tent.
