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"It's a small paper, new," Boelnitz said, looking a little abashed. "Published out of Fayetteville."
"Speaking of pen and paper . . . good news, men. I've brought the first mail. I'm bringing it to the all-call at the canteen for the company clerks to distribute."
The younger soldier looked at the other two.
"I don't want to wait," the senior said.
They turned around and fell in behind Valentine.
The first thing he did was stop at the big gatehouse and hand off the mail. His oversized carrier held nothing now but official correspondence for Colonel Bloom and a few small presents for his own staff.
With the mail delivered, Valentine's first duty was to report to his commanding officer.
Lambert turned up her collar and lowered the flaps on the hat. "Give Colonel Bloom my compliments, Major. I'll pay a call on her shortly, but I'd like to walk the grounds in mufti for the afternoon."
Valentine saluted and left her to her solitary tour. He gave orders to see to Boelnitz's quartering, and left him with a promise for a dinner where the reporter could meet some of the other officers.
The main building hadn't changed much on the outside since he'd last seen it. The comfortable-looking former museum and educational center, later an estate house, was designed to look like a cross between a mountain lodge and a small chateau. But once through the doors, he noticed new details. There was proper sign-age everywhere, a new map and roster behind a glass case, a duty desk instead of an officer making do with a bench and an entryway table that had been more suited for hats and gloves, and a proper communications center, probably servicing the new high mast rigged to the decorative gazebo behind the mansion.
"What happened to the face, Valentine?" Bloom asked after Valentine was escorted to her office.
"A difference of opinion in a brothel," Valentine said.
"Over a girl, I take it."
"My favorite there was old enough for false teeth."
Bloom chuckled and took from him her envelope of orders. The good humor bled away from her face as she read.
Colonel Cleveland Bloom took the news with professional grace. Or maybe it was just her instincts for good sportsmanship.
"I'm being benched," she said.
"Not benched, recalled. Someone has to bring the men home. They followed you most of the way across Kentucky. Southern Command must have figured you were the one to see them home."
"You'll stay?"
"They're giving me permission to orchestrate a guerrilla war."
She flipped through her written orders, found an attachment, scanned it.
"With what? They're not leaving you much. A communications team and a few hospital personnel to care for the wounded and sick who can't be moved. That Quisling rabble of yours will need more than that to be anything more than glorified POWs."
They'd had this argument before. Like most officers in Southern Command, she had a low opinion of the kind of men who the Kurians used to fill out the bottom ranks of their security and military formations. Thugs, sycophants, thieves, and bullies, with a few out-and-out sadists peppering the mix.
Valentine reminded her, "The shit detail used to be Quisling rabble. They made the round-trip with the rest of us. I don't recall the column ever being ambushed with them acting as scouts, at least until we bivouacked in the Alleghenies outside Utrecht."
"I'll leave you what I can, in terms of gear."
"Can I have a favor? I'd like to ask for volunteers to stay. I need gunners, technical staff, engineers, and armorers especially."
Bloom, when faced with difficulty, usually got a look on her face that reminded him of a journalist's description of the old US Army General Grant-that he wears an expression as if he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall, and was about to do it. "Don't know how Southern Command will react to that. You're talking about prime skill sets."
"They'll list them as Insurgency Assist. They'll still draw in-country pay. One day counts as two toward pension."
Bloom's mouth writhed as though she were chuckling, but she didn't make a sound. "By volunteers, you mean . . ."
"Real volunteers, sir. No shanghais or arm-twisting."
