Robert Frezza - [Colonial War 01]

by A Small Colonial War (epub)

  People reacted in unexpected ways. Certainly there had been small trace of the fearful little man with an ulcer that Colonel Lynch’s staff had derided.

  Vereshchagin smiled sadly. There was something poignant and compelling about Kosei Higuchi and seven brown men bearing the last name of Gurung—as did almost everyone in that clan and that company—lined up in a row, keeping their faith to the last with the rituals of their calling.

  Haerkoennen interrupted his thoughts. “Captain Yoshida, he’s very upset. If you can break for a moment, you can get him off me. Sanmartin is here, too.”

  “It needn’t wait, Timo. Send Yoshida,” he commanded.

  Yoshida jarred him from his reverie. Haerkoennen had understated. Yoshida was seething over having been relieved.

  “Lieutenant-Colonel Vereshchagin, Major Haijalo had no right to relieve me in the manner in which he did, in front of my men, he had no right to relieve me at all, he . . .”

  "I believe Major Harjalo ordered you to report to me, Captain Yoshida. Do you know how to report to a superior officer, Captain Yoshida?”

  Vereshchagin’s voice cut Yoshida finely and deeply. Yoshida drew himself fully erect and saluted.

  “Sir, Captain Yoshida. I have been relieved of command, I am reporting as directed by my superior officer for reassignment, sir!”

  “Very good. I instructed Major Harjalo to relieve you. I was dissatisfied with your company’s progress. I am satisfied with his actions, which were undertaken at my direction. Major Henke will take over B Company in addition to his own for the present. When we find the time, you may sign over your accounts and property formally. At this moment, we are in something of a war. We will find something else for you in a day or so.”

  “Sir, my company advanced as well as it could under the circumstances prevailing on the battlefield. I protest this action removing me from my command!”

  “Your protest has been duly noted. The action stands. Chiharu, you have many talents, but you are not suited to field command,” Vereshchagin replied dreamily, as if acting out some scene in a drama.

  “Sir, I believe I have been unfairly singled out for opprobrium and respectfully request that I be reinstated. Otherwise, I shall be forced to carry my protests to the brigade commander.”

  “Captain C, go ahead,” Sanmartin commented from outside the door. “You’ve got the battalion commander, the brigade commander, and the task group commander all sitting in the same chair. The Boers made a clean sweep.”

  “Chiharu,” Vereshchagin said gently, “we have been hit very hard, and we are going to have to forget about the usual nonsense for a time in order to concentrate our efforts. You are not suited to a field command. I will find you a different manner in which to contribute.”

  For all his faults, Yoshida was not stupid. For a moment, he stood there. He started to say something, but the words tripped over themselves as he tried to eject them from his mouth. It is a fearful thing, Vereshchagin thought, to see a man so naked.

  “I am sorry, sir. I do not know what came over me. I really could not have been myself,” Yoshida finally said.

  The banality appealed to Vereshchagin. It seemed to represent stability in a disorderly cosmos. It was, however, more than Sanmartin could stand. It had been a long day for Raul Sanmartin. Rudi Scheel had been shot thrice in the chest by a young boy during the mopping up.

  “Who were you, Chiharu?” he called through the door.

  “Chiharu,” Vereshchagin said gently to give him some face, “I am looking for Raul Sanmartin. If you happen to notice him, please send him in.”

  Yoshida excused himself to permit Sanmartin to enter. As Sanmartin dropped into the seat that fate had provided for the occasion, Vereshchagin used the opportunity to examine the steel he was forging. The tone of Sanmartin’s flippancy alarmed Vereshchagin. It betrayed mental exhaustion.

  He selected an approach ruthlessly.

  “My regrets over Rudi. You have made Beregov your acting company sergeant. I agree. I regret that I can afford you little rest.” Lightly, he dismissed the day’s events.

  “You will retain your position as intelligence officer. Matti and Saki’s people will assume other staff functions to the extent we require them. Integrate Rettaglia’s personnel and begin training Muslar to assist you.” Mizoguchi, who would have been a better choice than Muslar, had been shot through the head and had lost the sight in both eyes. A small, ivory netsuke that had been in his family for generations was in the care of Timo Haer-koennen.

  Sanmartin began to say something. Vereshchagin cut him short. “Raul, we are at a linkpoint. We dare not allow a political movement to coalesce.”

  Sanmartin blinked his eyes, and Vereshchagin moved to deflect his unvoiced questions deftly.

  “The Afrikaner masses are poised at the brink of an unknown future. Before they rally around the revolt, we must impress our will upon them.

  “It seems strange to speak in abstraction when reality has intruded so chilly, but Piotr has a theory,” Vereshchagin commented, the gentle rain following the lightning, “that every once in a great while, an opportunity arises for a few soldiers to tip the scales while thrones and powers dangle naked.”

  “Napoleon had a dictum that God is on the side of the big battalions,” Sanmartin said slowly, to give himself time to think.

  “He also said that the moral is to the material in a ratio of four to one. Sometimes,” Vereshchagin said carefully, “war is not a test of brute strength, a crisis of attrition, but rather a subtle matching of superiorities against inferiorities at a decisive moment. We are poised, delicately. After today, we cannot negotiate, nor do we have the strength to impose a solution by orthodox military means.” He opened his hands compellingly.

  “I need a touch of insanity, Raul. We can gobble up Boer civilians turned soldier by hundreds and never touch the heart of the darkness. Where is it? Find me the lever which will break it,” Vereshchagin asked him, and waited cruelly while the resolve he had calculated to impart manifested itself.

  “By the way,’’ he added, ‘‘I must speak with Juffrou Bruwer. Please arrange this.”

  The sentence galvanized Sanmartin as the glassy sea that was the spaceport had not. Vereshchagin could almost see the interplay of his thoughts in the rippling of his facial muscles. War stripped a man of pretense.

  As Sanmartin got up to leave, even before he reached the door, he began to ponder what he had been asking as well as what he had been asked.

  When Matti Haijalo saw him emerge, he stepped up to the door and knocked discreetly. Hearing the tapping of a pipe on the other side of the thin panel, he turned the lever down and entered. Vereshchagin was curled in his familiar spider seat, softly striking his new pipe against his knee. He coughed.

  “Oh, hello, Matti.” He looked at Haijalo closely. “What is that on your forehead?”

  “Blood, I think. My own, possibly. Sversky and Kiritinitis were cleaning out the power plant, and I went along. They tried to be careful. The place will be fine after they clean it up a bit. I ought to clean up a bit, myself.”

  “You should.”

  ‘.‘You ought to sleep. Both Paul and Piotr have broken off pursuit, and Yuri and I can handle things. Tomorrow, we’re going to need you rested.”

  “I am sure that I will get around to it, eventually, ’ ’ Vereshchagin said distantly. “How is Solchava managing?”

  “Very well, considering. It was a mistake of sorts to let Raul position Coldewe in Johannesburg proper. Between ourselves and the Boers, we pretty well shot the bells out of the place. She and your friend Eva are going to be up to their eyebrows in wounded civs. Hans just sent off another two truckloads.” In Johannesburg, the area around Majubalaan had been leveled. Along the Burgerstraat, all the pretty, pastel houses were decorated with pretty, white stars from small-arms fire.

  Haijalo wiped his forehead, leaving a white streak. “What’s the latest with Piotr?”

  “His company was not overly
happy about what happened to Arkadi Peresypkin. It is not especially obvious, but they have not been overly concerned with taking prisoners. I have spoken to Piotr.” The Iceman’s wrath was a quiet affair, which nevertheless translated itself in concrete terms.

  “How did it go with Beyers? Yuri said that you spoke with him.”

  “Not well, particularly. He wanted to resign. I convinced him otherwise, but his attitude was not reassuring.”

  “In what way?” Harjalo asked.

  “Despair and fright, intermingled. He expects to become a corpse. I want to use him, and I cannot.” The pipe resumed its monotonous cadence. “I need to use him, Matti. Militarily, we have the initiative for the moment, but in political terms, we are on the defensive.” He resumed brooding and found himself staring at the pipe in his hand.

  Haijalo looked at him thoughtfully. “Anton, why not let Piotr do intell. He is very good at it, you will recall. ”

  “Piotr, our flashing sword. Sometimes we have a tendency to try to use the sword in every instance, do we not? I sometimes think to myself that if Piotr had a scrap of imagination, he would be dead ten times over. The thought is neither fair nor accurate. Nonetheless, I know exactly what I might expect from Piotr.” “Are you going to give Chiharu political?”

  “Tomorrow. As much as we affect to despise it, it is a difficult job to do well, and Chiharu has the instincts for it.”

  “So what will he advise?”

  “Radical relocation. Ship the population to the islands and camp them there to isolate the canker before it spreads.” “Moderation in warfare is imbecility. What will you say?” “What can I? It is a penetrating analysis of our position, and we may have no better choice. ’ ’

  “That may be. Have you heard from 1ige yet?” Vereshchagin’s lip moved slightly in a small and uncharacteristic show of distaste. “Indeed. He appears to have an unrealistic appreciation of his importance at our present junction. I regret to say that he was sufficiently insensitive to hint that he would be happy to mediate with the Bond on our behalf. I believe he has been drinking. His facilities will remain shut down, his civil authority will remain a nullity, and his Complex will remain under my control until such time as I direct otherwise.” Haijalo laughed.

  Vereshchagin let his hands rest and closed his eyes. “So tell me, Matti, what choices do we have?”

  “Gods.” Haijalo flopped heavily into the other chair. “We could pull in our horns, gut the refineries, and bastion Complex. Then they either come over to us or revert to savagery. ”

  “The Boer leaders who are attempting to grasp the reins of power have too much blood on their hands to allow it.”

  “There’s Yoshida’s solution. We put the Boers behind wire, scorch everything green and Earthlike, and let the kommandos starve.”

  “Many will flee, many will fight. It would lead to generations of bitterness and oceans of blood, enough of it ours.”

  “Or we could just bull through,” Haijalo continued stubbornly. “We shake out Rettaglia’s contacts for a few leads, trace the Boer kommandos, beat them into the mire, and beat out the embers with a stick. If we move fast enough and strike hard enough . . .’’He didn’t finish the sentence.

  If they could, well and good. If they could not, they would have to grind the Boers down, which would amount to the kind of bloodletting that Vereshchagin’s battalion had hitherto avoided. It was true of men and it was true of battalions: too much combat over too extended a period, and they would break. What separated the brave from the cowardly was a matter of a few months, a few hours, a few minutes more.

  "What do we have, Matti? Ten companies, to crush a hundred thousand Boers? Still, there is the fourth choice.”

  “Which is?”

  Vereshchagin told him, “When we have one, I will tell you.” “Gods.”

  “We do what we must. Have you ever thought of getting married, Matti?”

  “No, not seriously. I never thought I had anything I would want a child to inherit ”

  “We have been away too long, Matti. We are losing touch, I think. All of us. And that frightens me. Is that a bottle of wine you have been holding behind your back? If it is, we might as well drink a libation to someone or another.”

  "It is and we will. To cheer you, I have one bit of low comedy. A few zealots decided to strike a blow at Imperialism by torching the smelter at Mariental. The workers there, Afrikaners all, threw them out bodily.”

  Vereshchagin smiled, despite himself. Haijalo stood and stretched.

  “Is there a message you’d like me to pass along to Natasha?” he asked innocently.

  Vereshchagin opened his eyes. “Are you a matchmaker, too? Every second person seems to be trying to thrust me into the woman’s arms.”

  Haijalo smiled a lopsided smile. “No, Anton. 'You’re as surely marked with the sign of Cain as I.” He traced the design on Vereshchagin’s forehead with the ball of his thumb.

  MEAGHER STEPPED UP BESIDE PIENAAR IN THE LONG RETREAT,

  in the pouring rain. There had been deathly silence in the ragged column as they moved away from the place where the spaceport had been.

  “Your English is too good for a farmer,” Meagher told him, stepping casually over someone’s rifle, cast away.

  Pienaar nodded.

  “I hope you know where you’re going.”

  Pienaar amiably nodded as he felt the muscles in his lower back begin to tighten. The years were long, and they had a way of weighting down the feet.

  “We’ll be lucky to arrive with a tenth of the ones we started with.”

  Pienaar broke his silence. “They are hungry, they stop at the houses. Some will come follow.” A handM of his trusted

  Steyndorpers were at the back, rooting them out with sjamboks. Even ten years past, Pienaar would have done it himself.

  “Fat, bloody chance,” Meagher observed dourly. “That was a nuke back there that took out those poor, bloody fools. You didn’t know about it, did you?”

  This time, Pienaar quietly shook his head. He continued to trudge through the muddy forest steadily.

  “Then your orders were to pull back at a certain time, am I not right? ’ ’

  Pienaar nodded.

  “But you were not supposed to say anything to me, is that not also right?” Meagher asked.

  Again, Pienaar nodded.

  “Someone meant to leave me there, pinning Imps in place when that thing left off, do you think?”

  Pienaar nodded a fifth time, moving forward. He tried to ignore the pain in his legs and side.

  “You did a good job there. I half expected your little squirts to break and run away like those poor, bloody fools of cowboys. Tell me, Hendrik, are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Were you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thought so. It shows. Any children?”

  “A daughter, many years ago,” Pienaar replied, thinking about the child that daughter had been and the wife full of life who had sickened in the plagues and left him nothing but a daughter to remember her by.

  “Where is she, now?”

  “In a hole in the ground back on Earth. I have a granddaughter.”

  “Is she as pigheaded as you are?”

  Pienaar thought for a moment. “Worse.”

  “I’ll stop prying, then. You’re a good man, Hendrik. Too good a man to be a miserable farmer.”

  Pienaar smiled with the rain trickling down his face and the back of his neck. “For a miserable hireling, you are a good man, too.” A moment later, he added, “I am a lousy farmer.” When they halted in the darkness beside the rude path, they had perhaps fifty men. About half of those were Meagher’s cowboys, who had literally nowhere else to go.

  Meagher unfastened a boot and began pouring the water from it. “Lord of hosts, we must have squirts strung out over half the continent,” he averred.

  “They will turn up. Then we can begin to make something of them. Perhaps we will have another chance, h
alf as good,” Pienaar reflected placidly.

  “Do they know where to go? I don’t!” Meagher retorted.

  “We have Friends in all the villages, who were too busy to come out today. They will be sure to tell them,” Pienaar replied. His voice did little to conceal his opinion of these Friends. He and Meagher had spoken to one another, off and on, throughout the night.

  “Did I tell you, Daniel, that we owned a vineyard?” Pienaar began. “Near Kaapstad. My mother’s family owned it in 1770. After my brothers were murdered, it should have gone to me and then to my granddaughter, I suppose. I had a lump of earth from it I would have given her, but they would not let me bring it. I flung it from my hand and none of it clung, but I remember.”

  “We Irish are worse, Hendrik. We can’t tell you about last week, but we can name the women Cromwell’s dragoons raped.”

  “When I listen to my granddaughter tell me how we are destroying this world, our future, I tell myself someone has to do something.” Pienaar interlocked his fingers powerfully.

  Meagher looked at Pienaar quizzically. “So tell me, Hendrik, why are you mixed in all this? It’s obvious you despise these people.”

  “Daniel, we Afrikaners stick together. It is our strength and our weakness. For good or ill, we stick together.”

  “Ah, Hendrik, my man. You can lie to yourself, I suppose, but not to me. Come now, you’ve swallowed a dream as much as any of them. ‘For I will own the Lord my master, and none other. ’ Is that not true?” He paused. “You’re a hell-raiser, Hendrik, my man. Like me, now, admit it.”

  “No, you are wrong. I will tell you why I came, Daniel.” He took an embroidered handkerchief and wiped some of the dirt from his face. “I am an old man, Daniel. I remember what it is we are fighting for. I know the price we are willing to pay for success or in failure. These are my people, after all. These others? As long as they use me, I will not let them forget.”

  “Ah, Hendrik, my man,” Meagher said thoughtfully, “it should be a crime to grow as old as you or I in a trade such as ours.”