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"Sergeant Major?" Valentine asked Patel.
"I would like that. If I could have the loan of a birding gun. What about you, sir?"
"I'll spend the morning going over the printouts. Assuming they showed up and we don't have to sic the Hammer on our host's staff."
* * * *
Everything about the next day, save for Patel's ducks-simmered in a homemade korma sauce all afternoon in their tiny cabin oven and served over (what else?) rice-disappointed.
Their first order of business, after dressing the morning ducks, was to check out Liberty's militia training camp. The young men and women were sad specimens, mostly undersized, undertrained, and undereducated. Valentine had never seen so many hollow chests, flat feet, bad eyes, and rickety knees.
"To think these are the ones with the ability to make it out," Patel said.
They stopped by the rifle range and saw a bored Southern Command corporal watching a couple of men in the two-tone Quisling fatigues training some kids to shoot.
"Hold it tight into your shoulder," one said, patting a recruit on the back. "It's not going to hurt you, 'less you hold it like a snake that's gonna bite."
"Kur's sake, keep your damn eyes open and on target when you pull the trigger," his companion bawled.
"Let me see that gun, um . . .," Patel said.
"'Probation,'" the Southern Command corporal supplied. "That's what we calls 'em."
"Sergeant," Patel barked. He still didn't have his stripes with the star in the middle for his old Wolf deerskins.
"That's what we call them, Sergeant," the corporal said, stiffening.
The "probation" came to his feet smartly, took out the magazine, and opened the breech, presenting the weapon to Patel.
"Sir," he said.
Patel placed his cane against his crotch and took the rifle, checked it barrel to butt. "They take good care of their weapons."
"They're not afraid to clean them, sir."
The other probation ignored the byplay. His recruit, firing from the prone position with the gun resting on a sandbag, shot across the field. The hidden range man in the trench flagged a miss.
"Them sights is all messed up," the militia recruit complained.
The probation/trainer next to him took up the weapon, put his cheek to it, and fired from the seated position. The spotter pulled the target down and pushed it up again with a bit of red tape at the edge of the ten-ring.
"You're right. The sights are off."
"These, I like," Patel said.
* * * *
Valentine had announcements that called an evening meeting in one of the rec centers, but the meeting wasn't as crowded as Valentine would have liked. The basketball courts in the rec center could have held a thousand people, with more in the stands, but he got only a few hundred, and many of them were women with children.
Valentine didn't see a single person in the two-tone overalls or outfits. He wasn't that surprised. A former Quisling could expect an instant death sentence if found bearing arms against the Kurians.
"You should have advertised free beer," Patel said, sotto voce.
"I'm looking for volunteers to go back into the Kurian Zone," Valentine announced. "To go back fighting. This time with an army of our people. I don't need riflemen so much as facilitators-people who know the locals and can interact with them."
Valentine saw a few at the back slip out and head for the washrooms or the exits.
"Service grants you all the benefits of OFR citizenship, pension benefits, retirement allotment, and combat service bonuses.
