Again the room rocked with laughter.
General Tanner waited for the laughter to subside and finally held up his hand. was ‘K. Now then, how many here have pacemakers?”
A dozen hands went up, some of them reluctantly.
was ‘Knowledge,” Tanner said. “You people will be part of HQ’S company. Now then, how many here have bad backs, arthritis severe enough to limit walking or running, or any other debilitating illness that would keep you out of the field?”
Another dozen hands went up, some of them gnarled and twisted from arthritis.
“You’ll join HQ’S company,” Tanner told them as his eyes swept the room. He found a man sitting quietly and unobtrusively, as if attempting to avoid notice. “Now, goddamn it, Larry!” Tanner shouted. General Tanner was stone deaf in one ear and hard of hearing in the other. His normal tone while speaking was that of a top sergeant addressing troops. In a hurricane. “You only have one leg. You got the other one shot off in Laos back in sixty-two. What the hell good do you think you’d be in the field?”
“I’ll be as good as any other man,” the veteran said. “I can still do the bop.” He stepped out into the aisle and did just that, ending the dance with a little soft-shoe routine.
The men in the room applauded.
“All that is very commendable, Larry,” Tanner said. “But what if you break that wooden leg?”
“I’ll use my dick!” Larry retorted. “It’s long enough.”
The men exploded with laughter.
“Yes, Larry,” General Tanner said dryly. “That
would be one solution to the problem, providing a man your age could still get it up!”
It was a full two minutes before the laughter died away.
“You got me there, General,” Larry shouted, a grin on his red face. “I’ll join your HQ’S company and shut my mouth.”
“Fine. Step over there with the others.” His eyes found another man. “Jesus Christ, General Walker!” he roared. “You were with Merrill’s Marauders in Burma during World War II. You’re eighty-five if you’re a day.”
“You give me a Springfield, by God,” the old man stood up erect, white-maned head held proudly, “and I’ll show you kids I can still cut the mustard.”
“Fine, General. That’s good. I’m sure you can, too. But I just don’t know where I could locate a Springfield.”
“Well, why the hell not!” the old general roared. He was as hard of hearing as General Tanner.
“Because the army quit using the goddamned things about sixty fucking years ago!” Tanner returned the verbal sound and fury.
“Why the hell did they do that!” Walker roared. “Oh-yeah. I remember. No matter. That was still the best weapon the army ever had.”
“General Walker,” General Tanner said patiently. “I would be proud and honored to have you join my HQ’S company. Your knowledge of tactics is unsurpassed, and your-was
“Boy,” Walker cut off the sixty-five-year-old retired general. “If you get any sweeter, you’re going to give the whole bunch of us diabetes.”
Again the laughter.
“Speaking of that,” Tanner said when the laughter had faded away.
A half dozen men stood up and joined the group that was making up headquarters company.
was ‘Knowledge,” Tanner said. “All right, boys. We’ve been scrounging and stealing and gathering up equipment all summer. Get on back to your billets and pack up your gear. Kiss your wives and girlfriends goodbye. We move out day after tomorrow. Scouts out at 0600 in the morning. Dismissed-and good luck.”
“Ah, sir,” Emil Hite walked up to the wounded Rebel who seemed to be in charge of the loading of equipment. The Rebel had his left arm in a sling and the right side of his face was heavily bandaged. “May I be so presumptuous as to inquire why you have all these people racing willy-nilly about, creating all this confusion?”
The Rebel officer looked at the cult leader. The contempt he felt for the man was ill-concealed in his eyes. “What business is it of yours, weirdo?”
Emil ignored that slur upon his appearance. “Because if you people are leaving this area, I would like permission to move my poor band of followers in here.”
The Rebel laughed at him. “Why, sure,” he said. “I don’t see why not. Maybe some of what we did here will rub off on you. Just as soon as we’re gone, just slide on in.”
Emil looked around him. He took in the neat fields and gardens, the homes that had been repaired and
painted and restored, the neatly trimmed lawns and carefully maintained sidewalks.
“I thank you from the bottom of my heart, sir,” Emil said. “And on behalf of my people, they thank you for your consideration.” Emil’s mind was racing. He thought: Why, with an idyllic setting such as this, he could attract hundreds, perhaps even thousands more followers into his fold. Just think of all that new pussy! Emil hid his smile and resisted an impulse to rub his hands together in glee. Instead, with his left hand in one pocket of his robe, he scratched his crotch.
“Ughum, bugum, bisco,” Emil said.
The Rebel looked at him. “Flaky son of a bitch!” he muttered.
The Rebel began yelling out orders, his grating voice causing Emil to flinch. The man reminded him in a very painful manner of his old drill sergeant. A most disagreeable fellow. Emil hoped one of the bombs that fell back in eighty-eight landed right on that bastard’s head.
“Once again,” Emil. “I wish to thank you on behalf of my simple flock of worshippers.” Somehow, Emil thought, that never came out just right.
The Rebel looked at him and laughed.
“Juggy, muggy, be bop a lula,” Emil said.
“Joe Cocker to you, too,” the Rebel said, then turned his back and walked away.
“Fuck you,” Emil muttered. “And fuck the horse you rode in on, too.” But he was very careful not to say that too loudly. The Rebel was huge. And very mean-looking.
Emil shuffled away, his robes dragging along the
ground. He caught the toe of one sandal in the hem and almost tripped himself. He ignored the laughter coming from the wounded Rebels.
“Bless you, my children,” Emil said to them.
One of them gave him the finger.
No matter, Emil thought, shuffling away, being more careful where he put his feet. After this, he would be even more revered by his people.
For a very short time.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“The route has been cleared of all mines?” Ben asked Colonel Gray.
“All clear, sir,” the Englishman replied.
Ben turned to Ike. “How about the troops, Ike-they ready?”
“Eager to go, Ben.”
Ben looked at Cecil. “How about your people and the supplies, Cec?”
“Ready to go, Ben. We have supplies for a three-month campaign.”
“We’d better get it done a hell of a lot sooner than that,” Ben said grimly. He glanced at Doctor Chase. “Medical teams ready?”
“Yes,” the doctor replied softly, for once not retorting with a smart crack.
To Hector: “I wish you would reconsider, Hec. You were hit pretty hard and not that long ago.”
“My command, Ben. Where they go, I go,” the Mexican replied. “Besides, you’re forgetting, I have a personal stake in all this.”
Ben nodded. He glanced around him in the predawn darkness. A heady feeling of deja vu swept over him. He had done this before. God, how many times? The massive convoy was silent in the darkness. All motors off. Dew glistened wetly off the camouflaged metal of Jeeps, tanks, half-tracks, APC’S, rolling artillery, mortar carriers, deuce-and-a-halves, tanker trucks and off the helmets of troops and the metal of their weapons.
A messenger walked up to him, a flashlight in his hand. “Dispatches, sir. I found them to be … well, rather unusual.”
“Read them to me, son,” Ben said.
“Yes, sir. This one is from the north, up in Michigan. It’s from Gener
al Tanner and General Walker.”
“Iron-Legs Walker? Captain March or Die, from Merrill’s Marauders?”
“Yes, sir.”
“My God. The man must be pushing ninety!”
“Yes, sir, that’s the one. And General Tanner used to command the Eighty-second down at Bragg.”
“Go on,” Ben whispered. He shook his head. “Jesus God.”
“Mr. President,” the Rebel read the first dispatch under the narrow beam of a flashlight. “Have four hundred and fifty of us old soldiers moving out this a.m. in simultaneous advance with your troops. Do not fear for us. We have lived our lives and lived them well. We have seen the rise of America, and have witnessed her downfall, as well as predicted that downfall. Now it is up to you to put this nation together once more. We believe you are the only man capable of doing that monumental feat. But first we must rid ourselves of General Striganov and his IPF people. We
will dig in at various spots along the Iowa line, just as soon as our scouts report the IPF crossing into Missouri. You will have young people on both your flanks. If we have any sort of luck, we will have the IPF in a closed box. I call the young people the Orphans” Brigade, if you remember that from the Civil War. It fits them well. They’re all tough little monkeys and they’ll more than hold their own. Don’t spend too much time worrying about them. We will be shoving off at first light. Good luck and Godspeed, Mr. President.”
“Dear God,” Ben said, with more than a touch of awe in his tone. “Most of those old boys must be in their sixties and seventies.”
Ike had a large lump in his throat and was afraid to speak.
Cecil looked as though he was fighting back tears.
Chase cleared his throat several times.
Hector was openly weeping.
The messenger’s hands were shaking as he unfolded the second dispatch. “The next two messages are almost identical, sir,” he said. He read: “There are three hundred and twenty five of us to the west, Mr. Raines, and some four hundred to the east. We will be moving out at 0600. We will try to link up with your people on the lower west and east borders of the battleground, putting the IPF in a box when we do. We have no parents, no homes to return to. We are now part of your society, Mr. Ben Raines, and we will follow wherever you choose to lead us. Good luck, sir.”
Ben fought back tears. His voice shook when he spoke. “Children, all children. What are their ages, Sergeant?”
The sergeant cleared his throat. Had one hell of a lump building there. “I believe, sir, their ages range from eight to sixteen or so.” “Eight!” Ben’s reply was almost a shout. “Those are babies.”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said.
Ben shook his head in disbelief and walked away from the small group just as Juan and Mark walked up. They had stood in silence as the sergeant read the messages. They had heard it all. “Ninos,” Juan said. “Little children with guns. Brave little boys and girls.”
“What kind of war is this to be?” Mark pondered aloud. “Little children facing grown men. It’s shameful.”
Just before Chase walked away to join his medical teams, he said, “I used to hope I’d make it to the year 2000. Now I’m not so certain I’m entirely happy about it.”
Ben found Gale in the lightening darkness and put his arms around her. “This time, lady, you don’t argue with me. You’re assigned to the field hospitals in the rear.”
“I know, Ben,” she said softly. “I won’t argue about it.”
“We might not see each other for days, Gale,” he reminded her.
“I know that, too,” she said, pressing against him, taking comfort from the bulk of the man.
“If conditions start going from bad to worse,” Ben said, “I’m sending you to Georgia, to Captain Rayle’s command. And I don’t want any static out of you about it.”
“There won’t be, Ben.” She looked up into his face. “Ben, I want you to know I think you are a fine, good man. You could have walked away from all this, but you didn’t.”
“Yeah.” He smiled down at her. “But then I would have had to listen to you bitch about it for the next fifty years.”
“You got that right, buster.”
He kissed her mouth and then, grinning, patted her on the butt. She slapped his hand away. “OK, babe-take off. I’ll see you whenever and wherever I can.”
She returned the kiss and, grinning, patted him on the butt. She broke free of his arms and walked away into the dim light of early morning, the faint silver from the east picking up pockets of lights in her shortcut, dark hair. The mist hung about her in the Missouri morning.
She looked so small and vulnerable.
Ben walked back to the main column and gave the orders. “Crank them up,” he said.
The morning was filled with the coughing of powerful engines fired into sudden life from the cold metal.
“Colonel Gray?”
“Sir?”
“Scouts out?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hector?”
“Sir?”
Ben held out his hand and the man shook it. “Luck to you, Hec.”
Hector’s teeth flashed white against the olive of his face. “See you after we kick ass, Ben.”
Ben nodded. Both men knew the odds of them kicking
the ass of the IPF were hard against. He looked at Cecil, held out his hand.
“Luck to you, Ben,” the black man said, gripping the hand.
“Take care, old soldier.”
Cecil walked away to join his command.
Juan and Mark shook hands with Ben and the two of them left to link up with their respective commands.
Ben looked at Ike. The ex-navy SEAL grinned boyishly. He said, “Here we go again, El Presidente. Seems like we just got through doing this.”
“I know the feeling,” Ben replied. “Ike, we’ve got to make the first punch hard enough to knock them down. Then we’ve got to stomp them while they’re down. We’ve got to make this as dirty and vicious as we know how. And we’re going to take a lot of casualties doing it.”
“It’s worth it, Ben-you know that. None of us could have lived with ourselves if we’d turned our backs to this.”
“I know. I was only delaying the inevitable.” He held out his hand and the two friends shook hands.
“Luck to you, old warrior,” Ike said.
“Luck to you, old friend,” Ben replied.
The men walked away in opposite directions.
Ben stood in the center of Highway 67 just as dawn hit the horizon, casting his shadow long down the highway. He looked toward the north and lifted his hand, pointing a finger straight north.
“Let’s go!” he yelled. “Go, go, go!” PART THREE Be ashamed to die unless you have won some victory for humanity.
-Horace Mann
CHAPTER ONE
Thousands of tons of men and machines and instruments of war and destruction lunged forward from southeast Missouri. At the same time, young boys and girls moved forward from South Dakota and Indiana. To the north, old soldiers were telling their wives and sweethearts goodbye.
“You’re entirely too old for this nonsense, Sonny,” a woman said, kissing her husband of forty years goods-bye. “But I am so proud of you for doing it.”
The veteran of the early days of Vietnam kissed his wife and grinned at her. She patted the top of his bald head as he said, “Honey, I think civilization will either begin or end within the next few weeks. That is my firm belief. I can’t sit back and watch it all go down the tube.”
She smiled at him. “I want you to come back to me, Sonny. But I can’t help but remember what the Spartan mother told her son as he was leaving for the wars.”
“Either come back behind your shield, or on it,” the husband said.
“I love you, you crazy old soldier.” “Love you, baby.”
The aging warrior picked up his rifle and walked away before his wife could begin weeping.
“Tanner, you old goat,
” the retired general was told by his wife, “how many damn times do I have to tell you goodbye?”
“Hopefully, this is the last time, camp-follower,” he said with a grin.
“Yes.”
“You know the drill, lady, should I not return from this campaign.”
“Up into Canada to the cabins. There the rest of us old gals will live out our lives in peace,” she repeated in rote, a dry tone to her voice.
“The cabins are well-stocked. You’re no slouch with a garden. You’ll have adequate medical supplies to last you for years. You all should get by quite nicely.”
“But I want to get by with you at my side. So come back to me, Art.”
“I shall certainly try, Becky.”
He kissed her and was gone.
“Take care of yourself, honey,” the man said. “I shall. And you come back to me.” “Do the best I can.”
“Look, old girl, this is something that must be done, you know that.”
“Of course I do, Lewis. And don’t get amorous, old man,” she said with a smile, removing his hand from her rump. “We don’t have the time for that. You just do your duty and come back to me.”
“You got your high blood pressure pills, Bob?”
“Right here in my pocket, honey.”
“You come back to be me, lover.”
“I’ll be back.”
But he would never be back.
“After thirty-five years in the military,” a wife told her husband, trying her best to maintain a brave face, “you’d think I’d be used to this.”
“Last time, honey.”
It would be the last time she would ever see him.
The men moved out.
“Ben Raines is on the move,” Hartline informed the Russian commander.
Striganov lifted his head from a report he’d been studying. Disbelief was evident in his eyes. “What did you say, Sam?”
“I said Ben Raines is on the move. Scouts report columns advancing at full speed, heading straight at us from the south.”
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