AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Javelin stood on parade, a great U of men. It reminded Valentine of his farewell to the Razorbacks in Texarkana, when they retired the tattered old flag that had waved over Big Rock Hill and been bomb-blasted at Love Field in Dallas.
Valentine read out the list of commendations and promotions. The men stepped forward to receive their medals and new patches and collar tabs from Bloom.
A delegation of civilians and officers of the new city militia from Evansville sat in chairs, watching. Valentine hoped they were impressed. All they'd seen of Southern Command's forces up to now had been files of tired, dirty, unshaven men lining up to receive donations of food, toiletries, and bedding from Evansville's factories, workshops, and small farmers.
Valentine had juggled with the schedule a little to get as many excused from duties as possible, but it was worth it.
He stepped forward to the microphone when she was done. "Colonel, with your permission I'd like to add one more name. If you'll indulge me, sir."
Bloom beamed. Her teeth might not have been as bright as Ladyfair's, but her smile was better. "With the greatest of pleasure."
Valentine spoke into the microphone, which put his voice out over the field amplifier, a device that turned your words into power-assisted speech that sounded a little like aluminum being worked. "Javelin Brigade, I have one more promotion. At this time I would like to recognize one of my oldest friends in the Cause.
"Top Sergeant Patel, would you step forward, please?"
Patel hesitated for a moment and then handed his cane to his corporal and marched out into the center of the U of formed ranks. Valentine couldn't tell if he was wincing or not. He marched without any sign of weakness in his old, worn-down knees.
"This man has been looking out for me since I was a shavetail lieutenant with his shoes tied like a civilian's. He helped me select and train my company, the shit detail."
The term was a badge of honor now, ever since their action at the railroad cut in Kentucky.
"Top Sergeant Patel performed above and beyond, crossing Kentucky and back on a pair of legs that are hardly fit for a trip to the latrine.
"I recommended, and Southern Command granted, a commission for Nilay Patel, elevating him to the rank of captain, with its attendant honors and benefits. He's been breveted over lieutenant so that our Captain Patel will never have to salute a sniveling little lieutenant with his laces half-undone ever again."
"You could have given me fair warning, sir," Patel said quietly. "Would have paid for a shave and haircut across the highway."
"Surprise," Valentine said out of the corner of his mouth. The amplified speaker popped out the p but nothing else. He spoke up again. "So be sure to save a seat for him on the barge home. He'll ride home in a comfortable deck chair, as befits a captain."
"Excuse me, sir," Patel said. "I'm not leaving before you and the company."
"We'll argue about it later, Captain." Valentine reached into his pocket. "These are some old insignia of mine. No branch on the reverse. They don't do that for Cats, or they put in a false one." He handed them to Patel, feeling paternal, even though his old sergeant major had almost twenty years on him. "Wear them in good health."
"Thank you, sir," Patel said, leaning over to speak into the microphone. Then, for Valentine's ears only, he continued: "It's good to feel useful again. Even if it comes with a little pain."
The fall weather turned colder and rainier. Through it all Southern Command's forces improved Fort Seng, rigging lighting and plumbing and communications throughout the fort. A double perimeter was laid out, though they didn't have the mines, lights, or listening posts to cover the entire length.
Valentine saw Boelnitz mostly around headquarters. He had a knack for finding something interesting going on and observing in the company of whoever was doing it, asking questions but keeping out of the way. The men felt flattered to be interviewed, as did some of the women-Valentine saw one long-service veteran giggling like a coquettish schoolgirl as they chatted. A couple of others looked at him with naked hunger, the way she-wolves might eye a dead buck strung up for dressing.
In the meantime, Valentine reintroduced himself to Bee, one of the three Grogs in camp. He'd rescued her and two others from the circus of D.C. Marvels before Javelin entered Kentucky, and he'd also known her years ago when she'd traveled as a bodyguard to a bounty hunter and trader named Hoffman Price. Big as a bull, she had arms long enough to go around him twice when she sniffed and touched and remembered who he was.
She'd apparently forgotten his existence but was equally delighted to reacquaint herself with him, and she soon fell into her old habit of trailing along somewhere in his wake with a shotgun and an assault rifle, both cut down to pistol grips, in holsters on her wide thighs, with plates of bulletproof vest serving as loincloth, vest, and mantle.
Each morning, Valentine visited the headquarters bungalow for his Quisling battalion. He had to split his time between his Quisling recruits and the main headquarters building, where Lambert needed him as she oriented herself to western Kentucky and Evansville.
His ex-Quislings were losing their baby fat, or their paunches, under Patel's double-time training. During the day, the mixture of tenting and barrack that housed his ex-Quislings-the men were building their own accommodations as part of the shake-down training-lay empty in the field behind the bungalow.
He'd chosen the bungalow not for its size or plumbing or available furniture-he liked it because it had a huge social room, a sort of living room-dining room-kitchen combined. He lined the walls of the big room with couches and stuffed comfortable chairs. Judging from the remaining books, the house had belonged to a gardener or a gamekeeper who'd worked for the estate's owner.
Valentine liked to hold meetings comfortably, with everyone seated and relaxed, usually in the evening.
This particular morning he found it in the hands of Ediyak-once a lieutenant but now a captain thanks to Rand's death. When he'd returned to Fort Seng she'd been across the river attempting to wrangle more supplies out of the Evansville leadership. She was a delicate-looking young woman, doe-eyed and usually buzzing with energy, who'd defected from the Kurian Order. The defection had been harder for her than most; she'd been involved in communications and intelligence, so she'd lived on an access-restricted section of her former base. She'd played a Mata Hari trick and arranged to date a general, slipping away from a resort hotel as her aged paramour slept. I defected thanks to two bottles of wine and beef Wellington, she was fond of saying.
Valentine liked his former company clerk, who'd first come to his notice when she came up with the gray denim utility-worker uniforms that allowed his company to roam Tennessee and Kentucky without attracting notice. Some of his command he respected, some he dealt with as best as he could, but he liked her as a person and found her company rewarding beyond the necessities. She was a little weak on assertiveness-she'd risen from private to corporal to sergeant to lieutenant and now captain thanks to assorted emergencies in the trek across Kentucky, and handled the detail work of each station with ease, but she seemed in a permanent state of finding her feet thanks to the constant promotions. She needed decent NCOs under her or the men would get away with murder, but she was bright and-well, "creative" was the word, he supposed. She sensed what he wanted with very few words of explanation from him.
"How's the organization going?" he asked her.
There was something theatrical about Ediyak. Maybe it was the big eyes in the thin face or her size. She made up for her small physical presence by moving constantly and gesturing. "After cutting out the unfit and the idiots, we're down to a hair over three hundred fifty," Ediyak said, swiveling on her chair and taking the roster off the wall for Valentine to examine. "The brigade's artillery stole some of the best and brightest, by the way. The culls are in a labor pool."
