by Tom Kratman
It was a little difficult for the Amazons. For one thing, just about all of them loathed civilian men as a matter of principle. Hence, they couldn’t ask any civilians to escort them. Even if one of the women had been of a mind to, the disapproval of the others militated against it. Of those women centurions who were married, most had married other centurions. The one who was married to a full-fledged civilian was getting divorced. Perhaps there was too much strain on a marriage when the wife is more of a man than the husband.
To make matters worse, higher and lower ranking men were quite off limits to them. No male officers, no warrants, no sergeants, no troopers. Between those two factors rather more than ninety-nine percent of the men in the country were either off limits or unacceptable. Moreover, a large number of the male centurions were married. While they might not have minded escorting an Amazon centurion, their wives were likely to.
The women were all scrambling for dates.
Maria solved the problem by asking Franco one day after class. He laughed and said Garcia was unlikely to be jealous of her, so, “Sure. The term’s effectively over. Your grades are already in; no chance of someone whining ‘favoritism.’ Why not?”
It really was a big event. The tercio cooks—they had some dedicated cooks, by then—had gone all out to make the food something really special. (“Rank Hath Its Privileges.”) The centurions’ fund paid for decorations and a band. The tickets (attendance was optional, tickets were not) paid for additional raw food and the booze.
* * *
“You, Professor—sometime Centurion—Franco, are a great dancer.” A breathless Maria sat down heavily, using her napkin to wipe some exuberant sweat from her face.
Franco laughed, “It goes with the territory.”
A bleary eyed Zamora, sitting opposite, asked, “What territory?”
Franco raised one eyebrow as if to answer, That was a dumb question.
Zamora nodded, You’re right, it was. Then she said, “It must be very difficult for you. I wonder how you manage.”
“Oh, well enough, I suppose.” He looked at her knowingly. “How do you?”
“ ‘Well enough, I suppose’ ”
Maria, concentrating on regaining her breath, missed the byplay.
Signifer Inez Trujillo, a guest in the mess and sitting at Franco’s right, did not miss it. She deliberately changed the subject.
“Centurion, I was reading recently an article arguing that we should get rid of our medium tanks and change to nothing but light Ocelots, even in the heavy brigades.”
“Well, ma’am,” he answered—Inez now outranked her former trainer—“it seems to me that this would be a foolish move…”
Another centurion, male and straight—married to one of Maria’s classmates, joined in, “But think of how much easier to keep the Ocelots supplied and running.”
Soon a half a dozen men and women were gathered around, hashing out this important question as profoundly as any similar group of inebriates would have been capable of.
Zamora left the table dateless and alone and rather sad.
* * *
Alma had her birthday not more than a few weeks after the Centurions’ Ball. That was the sort of occasion when a certain amount of cross rank socializing was permissible and desirable. Maria’s entire reserve squad and their kids were there. Catarina came over early to help with decorations. Marta made the cake. Porras spent what must have been half her monthly stipend on Alma’s present, then put Maria’s name on it; perhaps so Maria wouldn’t think she was trying to steal Alma back. It was warm, homey. All Maria missed, all Alma missed, were that her family didn’t come. Alma especially missed Emilio, but he was off to Cazador School. He had managed to call and ask his sister to get something for Alma from him. She did, of course.
* * *
Emilio wrote Maria again, once, while on a short break. When she answered she told him that she certainly would go to his graduation, stick, kilts, and all.
She did, later, go to her brother’s graduation. Their parents didn’t. Emilio wasn’t there, anyway. The legion had let Maria know, through channels and in advance, as gently as possible, that he wouldn’t be. The letter the legionary chaplain had hand-delivered said that a rope up a cliff had broken, no fault of Emilio’s. He had fallen several hundred feet to his death. At the ceremony his entire class answered “Here!” when his name and honorary rank were called. It wasn’t until then that Maria started to cry.
Emilio was buried at Camp Bernardo O’Higgins in the mountains, not so far from Camp Spurius Ligustinus. His headstone was marked, “Centurion Junior Grade Emilio Fuentes, CCA: Todo por la Patria.”
He had left his insurance to Maria, but she put it in the bank for Alma’s future.
She went to visit his grave sometimes. She missed him a lot.
Interlude
Carrera and Parilla sat in the private theater of the legion’s headquarters. There came a whirring of a video player being loaded. As the projection screen flashed to darkly colored life, Parilla said, “This had better be worth my time, Patricio.”
Carrera smiled, cryptically, and said, “Just watch, Raul.”
The screen showed a dusky shot; that perpetual semi-twilight of the real jungle. The scene lightened to show the backs of a group of miserable trainees under ponchos, struggling through the muck, heads and bodies bowed under the weight of helmets and overstuffed rucksacks. The sounds of the jungle—insects, antaniae, monkeys, parrots, and trixies—were lessened as an unseen woman began to sing to the accompaniment of a guitar. The song had been partly plagiarized from a civilian hit down in Southern Columbia.
“On an endless muddy tank trail on an island out to sea
You can hear the jungle growing, you can hear the small birds sing.”
Then the scene shifted enough to see that the poor critters tramping the muck were women. They had put some real effort into looking almost incredibly wretched.
“And your mind turns back in time, back to the girl you used to be.”
The scene flashed to a well-dressed high school girl, young, pretty, a party dress on, laughing—probably flirting—with some boys. Flash again to the same girl. Fatigues, rifle, helmet, pack. On screen she pulled herself up a steep, jungle-grown bank—slowly, with difficulty—using roots for handholds. Then she was over and walking again.
“But my memories are fading from the pain down in my boots
And I’ll march for twenty miles today, there’s nothing else to do.
I’m not asking for a free ride, though I wish the march were through.
And here I am…”
With a face that radiates confidence and worth, the girl turns and looks almost directly into the camera…but a little past it. Maybe as if she were looking into the future.
“…I’m on the march again.
There I am, I’m leavin’ today.
There we go, so far, so far again.”
Back to the girl with the boys. The camera backs up. The scene with the boys plays on the page of a book, like a scrapbook or photo album. Then:
“Aqui soy yo. It’s another day.”
Still the book, but the scene freezes. The page turns and it’s a still shot of the muddy trail again. The girl, the Amazon, is now looking directly at you. The picture moves again. She smiles.
“We near the place to overnight. We pass a group of men.”
That was the scene, a tired maniple of girls trudging past a tired maniple of boys.
“I can feel them staring at me though I haven’t slept since when.
So I act like it’s all nothing even though I’m near my end…
I can just make out their whispers ‘Are those girls or are they boys?’
And impossible, silly fantasies of home and hearth and joy.
And for just a little moment I can feel I’m one with them…
And here I am, I’m on the march again.
There I am, I’m moving today.
There we go, so f
ar, so far again
Aqui soy yo. It’s another day.”
Again the scene shifted to a group of women soldiers moving at night under fire. A parachute flare hung in the dark blue. Tracers arced overhead. There was no sound of artillery, but flashes lit the night sky in the background. The flashes were demo charges; more predictable than artillery; safer as well.
“Underneath the burning sky-flares; God, I want to get away,
But I know my sisters need me so I hold on until day
And the sweat drips down like rain drops while I try to hide my shakes…”
The sun arose on the screen. Spilling mud behind themselves, a few Ocelots showed up. The Amazons began to load aboard them.
“Don’t think of rest, don’t think of food, there’s duty to attend.
The ears will soon stop ringing and the pounding in the head
For there’s always one more mission ’til we’re discharged or we’re dead.”
One of the girls commanding an Ocelot turned, again, to look into the future, past the camera. She was wearing a T-shirt that was about to break under the strain of her breasts. The camera panned back and a squad of Amazons, hand-picked for looks, was staring directly into it. With an irregular lurch, the tank moved out onto the road. The girls swayed with the rocking of the tank over the uneven ground, but they never took their eyes from the camera. “Why aren’t you here?” those eyes asked.
“Aqui soy yo. I’m on the road again.
Aqui soy yo. We’re rolling today.
Aqui soy yo. Who knows how far again?
Aqui soy yo. Another day.”
Carrera killed the video. He said to Parilla, “Raul, we began showing that two weeks ago in movie theaters. We show a shorter version on TV. Recruiting for the Tercio Amazona has dropped by seven percent since that video first was shown. It’s equally true that male recruiting has jumped by sixteen percent in the same period.”
“Go figure,” Parilla conceded, with bad grace.
“That means a gain of almost two hundred men over an expected loss of one point four Amazons actually making it eventually into the tercio. Over just two weeks, Raul.”
At hearing those figures, Parilla conceded, “All fucking right, Patricio. You were right and I was wrong. Don’t rub it in.”
“I won’t,” Carrera answered. Handing over an intelligence report, he said, “We have too much to worry about now without arguing between ourselves. Read.”
Chapter Twelve
For the warrior there is nothing more blessed than a lawful strife.
Happy the warriors who find such a strife coming unsought to them as an open door to Paradise.
—Bhagavad Gita, II, 31, 32
Maria:
Within just under two years we had reached a size that allowed us to have all three echelons: regular, reserve and militia, albeit at much reduced strength. It was then that all the first class of centurion school graduates, and a few of the second class, were allowed to actually take off our stripes and carry our batons, at least when the militia was called up to train. At other times, we were merely sergeants and corporals. I still had a year to go to finish at the university, so I stayed in the reserve echelon for the time being. It was made pretty plain to me that if I wanted to become a regular, a full-time soldier instead of a teacher, upon graduation, I would be welcome.
When the militia was called up, the batons, or “sticks,” were our sole insignia of rank. Only the tips would tell someone what that rank was; black for optio, black and bronze for centurion, J.G. (junior grade—the lowest class in the centurionate…me), bronze for senior centurion, silver for first centurion and gold for sergeant major. We also were paid at those ranks whenever we were on duty at them. I’ll admit, I didn’t think that was overgenerous.
The thing that amazed me, on those first days when we began calling up the militia echelon, was the way some of them seemed to expect us to be quite a bit different from the Gorgidas soldiers who had run their basic training. I’m not sure those women understood that we had been put through the wringer by the same schools, Cazador, CCS and OCS, that had trained Gorgidas.
I remember one young trooper with something of a chip on her shoulder. No, I won’t mention her name, she turned out well enough in time. (By the way, we didn’t really mind little chips; we all had them ourselves. There’s a point of intolerance, though.) Inez Trujillo, now Tribune Trujillo and our commander, was walking the line, conducting a simple in-ranks inspection. She looked one girl up and down, listing her various deficiencies of dress in rather humiliating detail, possibly made more humiliating by the fact that Inez showed no personal animus in her comments, just professional observation. She walked on.
I was following Trujillo through. Marta followed me, taking notes. Softly, out of one ear only, I heard this girl mutter “bitch” after my commander had passed.
I didn’t even stop to think about it. Furious, I just swung my baton across the stupid girl’s face, knocking her to the ground, stunned but not quite unconscious. To Marta, I said, “Seven days confinement, unpaid, hard labor, bread and water…and get her slovenly carcass back at attention.” Writing that down, Marta then picked the girl off of the ground, shook her twice, slapped her, and let go. She didn’t fall again.
Trujillo pretended not to have noticed. If she had noticed and had admitted to it, I would have had to have given that girl a much more serious punishment.
You are probably confused now as to how the troops could tell what rank we were at any given time. Really, it was very simple. I wore stripes pinned to my collar whenever the militia wasn’t around. When they were, or when there was a social or other event that required or suggested the higher rank, I took off the stripes and picked up my baton. I was “centurion” with the baton, “sergeant” otherwise. The only ones who could have gotten confused were the other reservists who saw me in both configurations. They got used to it pretty quickly, though. After all, they were privates for the most part normally, but sergeants and corporals when we called up the militia.
* * *
The legion gave some of us the opportunity to star in a recruiting video once. Marta and I both did it, her in the hatch of a light tank though she was not a tanker. The video played on TV Militar and in most of the movie theaters in the country.
Even as she took the pay for it, Marta complained extensively about our being used.
The money from the video paid for me to get Alma into a better school than she’d been going to, a Catholic School, actually. She liked it. She liked it especially when I came to pick her up in kilts.
Ever see small children with a soldier? If you ever do, watch carefully. The soldier isn’t just a big person in a funny suit to a child. They’ll gather around the trooper at a respectful distance, and just stare up at her with big wondering eyes. Then one of the braver ones will come forward and try to touch the uniform, hesitant and afraid. When the soldier doesn’t object—we never do—they’ll all gather closer and every one of them will touch that uniform, or the skin, if they dare.
You see, to a child, a soldier is magic. I doubt that the country or culture much matter; soldiers are magic to anyone who isn’t too blind to see. Children, I’ve noticed, see some things more clearly than most adults do.
I’d felt it myself, many years before. When I was out shopping with my mother on Via Hispanica, and Second Tercio had marched by, I’d felt that magic, too. I didn’t quite understand back then, though. I guess I was too old already to see clearly.
Of course, to Alma, I was magic in a different way. I was “Mommy.” So she’d just stand away and let the other boys and girls have their brief touch of mana. After all, she got to walk home, hand in hand with this person who was magic to all her school friends. I suspect that was mana, too.
* * *
“Mama, do you have drill again?” Alma asked me when she saw me checking my rifle and other gear. I hadn’t put on the armor yet. That could wait until I was out of sight.
<
br /> I answered, “No, baby. It’s an alert. Now run over to the Rosales’ apartment and wait for Abuela Lydia to come and get you. It shouldn’t be long.” God, that hurt.
“Si, Mama.”
I don’t think I’ve mentioned how it came about that we ended up at war. It didn’t make sense to me at the time. It still doesn’t, not entirely.
When I’d joined the thought of our actually having to fight never entered my head. Would I have joined up if I thought war was a real possibility? I doubt it, not the way I was then. Now? I’ve got less standing between me and my brain than a guy does. I wouldn’t go eagerly. But…I’d still go. After all, I went, didn’t I?
You remember that helicopter that got shot down the day Alma and I met Carrera? For a while that looked like the end of our problems. Everything calmed down for several months afterwards. A calm before the storm, I’d say it was.
While I was at training, things got much more serious. I’ve heard a lot of different rumors, more than a little propaganda, too, concerning why. Be that as it may, right around the time we were dividing up the beer in our barracks at Camp Botchkareva, the enemy started provoking us again.
They’d alert a few of their troops, roll or helicopter them to an assault position not far from one of our casernes, and wait for us to go on alert. Sometimes it was just a few troops; but sometimes it was everything they had. You never knew but that one of those alerts would turn into an actual invasion.
So naturally, our side had to respond. For the cost of anywhere from a hundred to about ten thousand of their troops having to delay their sleep by a few hours, our boys—maybe a couple of hundred thousand of them, sometimes—would have to get out of their beds, leave their families, and report to their units. Remember that we were mostly citizen soldiers. Except for the six percent or so that were full-time regulars, everybody had a civilian job. Sure, this gave us an awful lot of combat power when everyone was mobilized. But every time the enemy forced us to call up the troops it hurt our economy…and our troops’ paychecks or businesses, most of them.
