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Civilian and military relations: Southern Command has a long history of "turnouts" to offer assistance to civilians in need. Their ethic might almost be described by the words "protect and serve."
Bases always serve as a temporary haven for the lost, dispossessed, or desperate. The men and women in uniform know they depend on the civilian populace for food and support. There are endless tales of whole camps going hungry to share their rations with hard-up locals and their children.
In return, civilians do what they can to provide for soldiers on the march, act as spare pairs of eyes and ears, and put in extra hours as poorly paid labor levies doing everything from laundry to garbage burial.
Especially in frontier areas, the soldiers are the only law and order around. While they can't treat criminals as combatants, they do have the power to hold someone until they can be turned over to civilian authorities-and the farther out the base, the longer the wait for a marshal or judge riding circuit to appear.
More important for this period in the turbulent history of the Middle Freestates, they can provide escort for vehicles, trains, and watercraft.
For all Valentine's reluctance to join Mrs. O'Coombe's famous and tragic trek to recover her son, the rest of Fort Seng worked like demons to prepare her group and vehicles for their journey. "Home by Christmas," the men said to each other, hoping that ten days on the road would suffice to recover the men Javelin had left scattered across Kentucky.
Each soldier could picture himself left behind somewhere. They provisioned and checked and armed the already well-equipped vehicles. For the average man in the ranks, letters from the president and connections in the general headquarters staff were remote facts, like the Hooked O-C straddling much of southern Oklahoma and northern Texas. What they understood was that the cots bolted to the inside of the trucks and vehicles would bring home those who'd been left behind-at least those who survived their injuries and the sweeps of Javelin's trail by bloodthirsty Moondaggers.
He met O'Coombe's team on a warm December day. Valentine hadn't seen vehicles like these since the drive on Dallas, and these specimens were in much better condition.
They sat there, not exactly gleaming in the sun but looking formidable in their grit and mud streaks.
Mrs. O'Coombe introduced him to her right-hand man, an ex-Bear named Stuck. Valentine hadn't met many ex-Bears. It seemed you were either a Bear or you were a deceased Bear; the ex-Bears he'd met were all so badly damaged they couldn't stand up or hold a gun.
Stuck had all his arms and legs and sensory organs intact. All that seemed to be missing was the bristling, grouchy Bear attitude. He was a big, meaty, soft-spoken man with a wide, angular mustache.
Stuck took Valentine down the line. He introduced Valentine to the wagon master, Habanero, a tough older man, thin and dry and leathery as a piece of jerky. He had a combination hearing aid-radio communicator that he used to issue orders to the drivers in the column.
"Ex-artillery in the Guards," Stuck explained as they left to inspect the vehicles. "Used to haul around guns. Deaf as a post but knows engines and suspensions and transmissions."
First, there was Rover, the command car. It was a high-clearance model that looked like something out of an African safari, right down to a heavy cage around the cabin. Extra jerricans of water and gasoline festooned the back and sides, spare tires were mounted on the front and hood, packs were tied to the cage, and up top a pair of radio antennae bent from the rear bumpers and were tied forward like scorpion tails. The command car had a turret ring-empty for now.
Stuck said there was an automatic grenade launcher and two bins of grenades in the bay.
Then there was the Bushmaster. The vehicle was a beautiful, rust-free armored personnel carrier, long bodied with a toothy grin up front thanks to heavy brush breakers. An armored cupola sat at the top, and firing slits lined the side. Valentine saw canvas-covered barrels sprouting like antennae.
"Teeth as false as Grandpa's," Stuck said.
Stuck glanced around before opening the armored car's back.
The vehicle was under command of a thickset homunculus. The man looked like he'd been folded and imperfectly unfolded again. Scarred, with a squint eye and an upturned mouth, his face looked as though someone had given his unformed face a vigorous stir with wooden spoon. Even his ears were uneven.
Valentine recognized him. "I know you, don't I?"
"Yes, sir, thanks, sir," he said as they shook hands. "March south to Dallas. We was just ahead of your Razorbacks in column with the old One hundred fifteenth. I drove a rocket sled."
A vicious-looking dog that seemed mostly Doberman sniffed Valentine from next to the driver.
Hazardous duty, since the rockets had a tendency to blow up in the crew's face. Southern Command had any number of improvised artillery units. Crude rocketry was popular because the howling, crashing projectiles unnerved even the most dug-in Grogs. Someone said it was because the rockets made a noise that sounded like the Grog word for lightning strikes.
Valentine suspected it might be the other way around-that the Grogs started calling lightning strikes after the sound effect from the rockets.
"Dover-no, Drake. Your crew pulled my command car out of a mud hole outside Sulphur Springs."
"That we did, sir."
"Serves me right for taking the wheel. I never was much of a driver."
Stuck spoke up. "Drake here is on her ladyship's-Well, we call them the ranch's sheriff's deputies. He keeps law and order among the hands and their families."
"Not popular work, sir, but it pays well," Drake said.
"Quite a dog you have there," Valentine said, looking at the beast's scarred muscle. "Can I pet it?"
