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"Turns out Chevy here was some kind of trained servant for an officer. I started shaving and he got all excited, so I let him do it. Wasn't much of a beard anyway."
"Someone might mistake you for a soldier and shoot at you," Valentine said.
"Just want this war to be over one way or another. If we're hitting the Moondaggers with not much more than guts and bayonets, I thought I might as well look nice, just in case. And it won't end until we quit playing defense and start digging these ticks out of our hide. I caught a little of that speech of yours. I've heard the same before. Hope you mean it."
"I do," Valentine said. "But I'm just one major."
"With a death sentence, I heard. Stuff like that happens to a lot of the good officers.
Cocker, who organized Archangel. We lost Seng in Virginia."
"Think there's a reason for that, Glass?"
He shrugged. "Troublesome animals in a herd get culled first. That's all I'm saying. Watch yourself, sir."
Ford and Chevy started blowing air through their cheeks because they were falling behind the other men. Red Dog gamboled, too excited, or stupid, to tell a battle was in progress.
"Take care of them, Glass," Valentine said.
Patel brought up the rear, walking with the help of his canes again. He nodded to Valentine, as though too busy to pause and chat.
Valentine trotted over to him. "I thought I left you safe over on the other side of the river."
"A lieutenant with a full company of Guard walking wounded is helping in Evansville now. They said there was to be a battle. This is my place"
"Not with those knees, Sergeant Major." Valentine said.
"Cool night," Patel said. "Fall's well on the way now. They're always bad when the weather turns."
"Don't go forward with the rest. I want the company on our flank, just in case the Moondaggers launch a counterattack from their positions." Valentine had written the same to Rand, but he'd seen young officers get carried away with excitement before. "Find some good ground where you can hold them up."
"Yes, sir."
"That's all, except be careful."
"When am I not careful?"
"When you're throwing yourself on top of Reapers, for a start," Valentine said.
Patel shrugged, his eternal half smile on.
"Thanks, my friend," Valentine said. "For all you've done on this trip."
"Just doing what I always do," Patel said. "Seeing to it that young soldiers get to be old soldiers."
* * * *
Moytana must have found a good target of opportunity, because Valentine, manning the forward post, heard firing from the riverbank. Well behind the titular Quisling line.
Valentine picked up the field phone.
"General Seng. Repeat. General Seng," he told command.
Valentine made a note of the time: 4:16.
Within a minute the brigade's last few shells came crashing down on the Quisling positions. He wondered if that militia had ever faced artillery fire before. Valentine remembered his first hard barrage on that hill overlooking the Arkansas and Little Rock. It made one frightfully aware of just how hard the enemy was trying to kill you, felt almost like a personal grudge.
Whistles sounded all along the brigade's right as the fire slackened-not by design but by lack of ammunition.
