First to Fight (13 page)

Claypoole ignored Goudanis and said, “New Guy, you got money? You’ll need money in town tonight.” He dug deep into a cargo pocket and produced a wad of bills. “Here.” He looked about defiantly. “See, it isn’t like Chief said, I don’t expect you to spring for me tonight. I know you haven’t gotten paid yet.”

“Uh, thanks, New Guy,” Dean said, surprised a second time by the generosity of the men but determined not to give in to Claypoole’s badgering. “Lance Corporal . . .” Claypoole snickered and Dean paused briefly. “Uh, Juice gave me some already.”

Claypoole shrugged and put the money back into his pocket. “You run out, New Guy, give a holler. I’ll be around. Unless you call me New Guy again. Then we got trouble. Okay, Juice, main gate? Fifteen minutes?” Goudanis nodded. “Hey, Juice,” Claypoole added as an afterthought as he went out the door, “let’s fix New Guy up with Big Barb tonight.” Claypoole laughed raucously and ran down the hall, shouting to other Marines to meet him at the main gate in fifteen minutes.

“Uh, Juice,” Dean was having trouble calling a lance corporal by a nickname, “isn’t it against regulations or something for Marines to go on liberty in utilities?

“In a civilized place, yes. But you’re on Thorsfinni’s World, just outside Bronnoysund. This place is the tail end of the planet that’s been called the lower colon of Human Space. There isn’t much in the way of what anybody would consider civilized amenities. We’re better off wearing clothes that can stand hard wear when we’re on liberty. Besides, these people are as hard as the rocks in their fjords. So no frills with these folks, and the colonel doesn’t play garrison dukshit games with his Marines. And do you think the ’Finnis up here care what a man wears when he’s on the town? Did you know that in winter, when it’s fifty below, they think it’s
fun
to break the ice on the Bothnia and go
swimming
in the goddamned river?

“Now, it
is
against regs to wear civilian clothing around here, unless you go to New Oslo,” Goudanis continued. “But for that you’ve got to take leave, unless you get lucky and pull courier duty to the embassy there. But let me tell you something about leave: so long as you’re with the 34th, when you aren’t deployed on a mission, you’ll be training in the boonies, so you won’t have much time to vacation. Save up your leave to use when you go to a real world, or cash it in when you’re discharged. I been in six years now and got over a hundred days on the books. Man, that’s more’n three months’ pay! And if you ship over, well, you can go home or someplace.” The way Goudanis emphasized “someplace,” it was evident to Dean that he did not think much of wherever home was for him. “And remember this,” he added, “travel time doesn’t count as leave.”

Dean zipped up his utility jacket. “Who’s Big Barb?”

“You don’t wanna know,” Corporal Leach said as he looked through the door to see if they were ready yet. Juice, you been tellin’ him about Big Barb?”

“Nah, Chief, bigmouth Claypool just had to bring the subject up.”

Leach grinned. “Don’t let him get on your nerves,” he said to Dean. “Claypoole can be a pain in the ass, but when the going gets rough, he’ll back you up. All right, people!” Chief shouted. “Transportation to the frigid delights of Bronny awaits us!”

The liberty bus bounced and swayed as it roared down the steep gravel road to Bronnoysund, snuggled in a bend of the Bothnia River about five kilometers from the mouth of the fjord emptying into the Nordenskold Sea. The town wasn’t far from the main gate, within easy walking distance, but the Marines going on liberty rode the bus anyway. The bus wasn’t going on its rounds to carry them, it was on its way to pick up the men who’d stayed in town overnight and were too hungover or otherwise disoriented to make it back to base on their own.

The twenty Marines seat-belted into straight-backed and thinly cushioned seats in the passenger compartment laughed and shouted back and forth, eagerly anticipating their night on the town. “You see, Dean,” Chief shouted into his ear from the seat next to him, “we don’t use liberty passes in the 34th. Most places you gotta get a pass from your first sergeant to go on liberty, if you’re a sergeant or below: You sign it out from the duty NCO before you go out and sign it back in when you return. The duty NCO, who’s usually a PFC or lance corporal who screwed up and got stuck with the duty, checks you out and checks you back in, and if you screw up, he’ll log you in and the Skipper’ll pull your pass for punishment.”

Dean nodded.

“See,” Goudanis shouted from the seat behind him, “this is a hardship post, and they give us a break from the normal dukshit rules that apply throughout the rest of the Fleet, where the pogue Marines go.”

Claypoole, sitting up behind the driver’s console, began to sing, and several other men took up the tune in time to stamping feet and clapping hands:

You ever been to the Grenadines

Where the place is full of shade-tree queens?

Oh, the grout is bad but the scabs is worse,

So beat your meat for safety first.

“Pipe down back there!” the driver shouted over the intercom. “You’re making so much noise I can’t concentrate on the goddamn road!”

The noise level increased and the men began shouting in unison for the driver to turn the bus on its side.

CHAPTER

TEN

The bus ground to a halt and the driver pushed the button that whooshed the door open, but he was barely fast enough to keep the first men from slamming into it. “First fire team: lock and load!” Leach hollered as he rushed headlong out, followed by the rest of the platoon.

Bemused, Dean scrambled off the bus and stood in the settling dust a safe distance from the Marines who were still exiting. The bus was parked by itself in one corner of a huge graveled lot. The lot sat beside a dirt road lined with wooden buildings, none of which was over two stories high. At the end of the road, about half a kilometer beyond where the Marines stood, Dean could see the light from the setting sun glinting off the Bothnia River. The communications masts of several large commercial seagoing vessels poked up above the buildings situated down there on Bronnoysund’s waterfront, the main commercial district of the town.

Much of the town was in the shadow of the rugged peaks that formed the walls of the fjord, and a chill wind swept small clouds of dust and pieces of wastepaper across the parking lot. Dean drew his field jacket closer.

Claypoole, his face flushed and eyes twinkling with amusement, slapped Dean on the shoulder. “Cold, New Guy? Hell, this is summer in these parts. Wait’ll winter comes!”

Nobody took off right away; they gathered in an informal formation in front of corporals Eagle’s Cry, Leach, and Kerr. Eagle’s Cry, as senior man present, addressed the junior men. “Listen up,” he said. “We’ve got three new people with us tonight. They don’t know their way around Bronny, they don’t know the people, they don’t know anything about the local customs. Do not, I say again, do not let them wander off by themselves or otherwise leave them alone tonight. Be a damn shame to lose a man before he even gets to meet everyone in his squad. Also, don’t let
them—
and don’t
you
—get into any trouble you can’t get out of on your own. We,” he gestured in a way that included the other corporals, “don’t want to have to dig you out of any pit you get yourselves into. And if you get into more trouble than we can get you out of, don’t worry about what the Skipper or Staff Sergeant Bass will do to your sorry asses, worry about what
we’re
going to do to you when you get out of the brig. Now, get out of my parking lot and have a good time.”

Everybody scattered.

“C’mon, New Guy, we’re goin’ to see the elephant.” Claypool trotted off down the road.

Dean looked around for McNeal and Chan. The three of them fell in with Ratliff, Goudanis, and a couple of other Marines whom Dean had probably met but whose names he couldn’t remember. They trailed along behind Claypoole. “New Guy can do whatever he wants to,’’ Ratliff said. “But first we’re going to Helga’s for a steak.”

Steak?
Dean had had a real steak once, from a cow, a tough, well-cooked piece of meat about two inches square that he’d consumed in two bites. He hadn’t liked it very much.

“C’mon, Dean,” Goudanis said, putting his arm around the new man’s shoulder. “First we eat and drink, then we drink, and then we drink some more.”

None of the citizens they passed on the street paid the Marines much attention. Many of them were big people, even the women, with fair complexions and light-colored hair, though there was a large minority of other physical types and complexions. Their cheeks were ruddy with the glow of good health and they wore simple, sturdy outer garments that looked to be made from natural fibers of some sort. Noisy vehicles running on oversized wheels lurched and sputtered along the rutted roadway.

“What’s that smell?” Dean asked. Ratliff shrugged. “You’ll get used to it. It’s a combination of the wood and coal they burn to heat their homes, the cheap tobacco they grow in greenhouses to smoke, and the, uh, internal combustion engine. Yeah,” he said when he saw the surprised expression on Dean’s face, “their vehicles operate on gasoline-powered engines. This world has vast oil reserves and the stuffs easy to get at, so they got used to it. Now you go to New Oslo, which you will before you leave the 34th, they have modem energy systems there, but this place is several hundred klicks from New Oslo and four hundred years behind the rest of Human Space. This is the
frontier.
Enjoy it while you can, ’cause when we go on a deployment, you’ll consider this real good living.”

“And don’t forget the fish,” Juice said. “That smell’s from the canning company that operates down at the waterfront. Fish, lumber, and reindeer meat are the major industries for the people who live in Bronny.”

The signs they passed on the shopfronts and street corners were in a strange-looking language Dean had never seen before. The letters were the same as the Roman alphabet he was used to, but some had lines through them, and there were extra dots and circles in unexpected places. The conversations he overheard as they passed people along the street were in a guttural language that seemed to rise and fall in tone as the people spoke. “Hey, do they know English in this place” he asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Juice replied, “but they also speak the language they brought with them from Old Earth: Norwegian. These are very traditional people.”

“Well, do they resent our being here or something?”

“Why do you ask that?” Ratliff asked.

“I dunno. Nobody’s even nodded at us since we got off the bus. They just seem to be ignoring us.”

Ratliff laughed shortly. “Sure they like us, Dean. What looks like them ignoring us is just their way of being polite. They think it’s rude if you look at a stranger on the street. Nah, they like us sure enough. We spend our pay in their town, and when we get drunk we don’t mind fighting with them. The ’Finnis love to drink and they really love to fight when they’ve been drinking. We have that in common.”

“Hell, Dean, what do you think they have to do for entertainment around here but fight and drink?” Juice added.

“And fuck,” McNeal said.

Ratliff laughed. “That too, but they don’t talk about it—and they don’t do it in public.”

Helga’s was a warm and clean family restaurant with a well-stocked bar along the back wall. A dozen tables, each set for four, filled a spacious dining area. Only one was occupied, by a middle-aged couple apparently in their late sixties, finishing a quiet meal. The man was wearing a large bandage on his forehead. He looked up and smiled when the Marines came in. Dean noticed he was missing several front teeth. “Hah, Rabbit,” he shouted. “Ve haf gud fight last Saturday, yah?” He pointed to the dressing on his head.

“Yo, Mr. Malmstrom. Hi, Mrs. Malmstrom,” Rabbit called to the pair. To Dean he whispered, “
She
put the bump on the old guy’s noggin, not me. It was Claypoole who started the fight when he tried to pick up Mrs. Malmstrom. He mistook her for a whore. She was gonna bean him with a beer schooner, but Claypoole ducked and she bounced it off her old man instead.” Goudanis led them to a corner near the bar, where they put two tables together and seated themselves. Instantly a huge blond woman bustled up to the Marines.

“Helga!” Juice shouted. “Food! Steak!”

“Ach, my boys!” she squealed. “You eat good tonight, but no fighting!” She wagged an index finger as big as a sausage at the Marines. “Oooh, who are dees gud-looking young men wit’ you tonight?” she asked, hands on her enormous hips, looming over Dean, Chan, and McNeal like a mountain.

“New men,” Ratliff answered. “This salty one here,” he clapped a hand on Chan’s shoulder, “is Chan. This is his second duty station. The dark one is McNeal, and the redhead is Dean.”

“Ach, you are too skinny, my darlings,” Helga crooned. “Helga will fatten you up!”

“Beer and steaks, then,” Ratliff ordered.

“Yes, beer,” Juice cried, and then sang, “Beer, beer, beer cried the privates, merry men are we, there’s none so fair as can compare with the fighting infantreeeee!”

When the steaks arrived, they completely covered the huge platters on which Helga served them. They were two inches thick, so tender and juicy they almost melted in Dean’s mouth. He had never tasted such wonderful meat before.

“Where do they raise the cows this meat comes from?” Dean wanted to know.

“They’re from reindeer,” Ratliff mumbled around a mouthful, “the ’Finnis breed them special for eating.” He swallowed and then chased the meat with a huge gulp of the potent pilsner that was another specialty of Helga’s. “All the reindeer on this planet—there’s more of them than people—are descended from three cows the first colonists brought with them, along with a sperm bank drawn from the herds that used to roam all over Norway back on Old Earth.”

“You ever seen a reindeer?” Goudanis asked.

“Only pictures. They’ve been extinct on Earth for a long time.”

“You’ll see the real thing when we get out in the boonies. Let me tell you about reindeer. They’re walking latrines with a clothing rack on their heads, and you get downwind of a herd, you’ll wonder how such things can taste so good.”

Gradually the other tables filled up with diners, some of whom nodded affably at the Marines as they took their places. Soon the air was hazy with pungent smoke from the large black cigars both the men and the women smoked, even while they were eating. The noise level increased and Dean found he had to raise his voice to be heard at their table. He didn’t mind. They had finished two large schooners of Helga’s beer each and he was experiencing his first alcohol buzz since before he’d enlisted in the Corps. He was also feeling warm, full, and very satisfied for the first time in more than six months.

Leach offered his companions cigars. Goudanis lighted his without hesitation, sucked in a lungful of acrid smoke, held it a moment, and then expelled noisily. “Ahhh,” he sighed, savoring the flavor of the tobacco.

Dean had never smoked before. He couldn’t afford tobacco back on Earth so he’d never picked up the habit. Goudanis flicked a small blue flame from a lighter, and when the tobacco started to burn, Dean sucked the smoke deep into his lungs, as he had seen the others do. It burned intensely and he began to cough uncontrollably.

Goudanis laughed and pounded him on the back. “We didn’t know how to smoke either, before we came out here. Try it again. You’ll get used to it.”

Dean doubted he ever would—or that he’d ever stop coughing. He looked around at the other diners, but nobody seemed to have noticed his discomfort. A sudden wave of dizzy nausea passed over him and he thought he was going to vomit, but the feeling passed as quickly as it had come. Cautiously, he sucked again on the cigar, expelling the smoke through his nose. Well, it wasn’t half bad that time, he thought. In the next fifteen minutes he managed to smoke half his cigar down. Leach and Goudanis, on the other hand, had smoked theirs only about a third of the way. They winked at each other as Dean puffed happily away on his cigar.

“Now, m’boy,” Rabbit said, leaning conspiratorially across the table, “it’s time to introduce you to Big Barb.”

“No,” Juice exclaimed in mock horror, “
not
Big Barb, no, no!”

“Yep,” Ratliff said as he motioned for one of Helga’s waitresses, a buxom young blonde, to bring their check. The entire meal cost twenty-five kroner. “Leave a fiver for Miss Haraldsson,” he told the other two and got to his feet. Dean stood up too quickly and almost lost his balance.

“Whoa, there, PFC Dean,” Goudanis cautioned as he steadied Dean with one hand. “Watch yourself tonight. The beer these people drink is mighty potent.” Dean gave an embarrassed laugh.

Outside, complete darkness had descended upon the town and the temperature had dropped to a cool ten degrees Celsius. The brisk night air burned in Dean’s lungs as he slowly breathed it in. Overhead in the clear night sky thousands of stars twinkled down at them. Being unfamiliar with the local constellations, Dean couldn’t tell where he’d just come from, but he knew that not so very long ago, he’d been out there where the light from those stars had been generated hundreds of years ago. Now he was on Thorsfinni’s World. When the light had started out from the star that had most recently shined on him, this place hadn’t even been discovered yet. The thought made him catch his breath.

Dean never forgot that brief moment. He felt good, physically, but more important, he really felt good about himself. He was comfortable, with men he respected, and they were treating him as one of their own. And now they were off to see Big Barb, whoever that was.

Big Barb’s was a combination hotel, bar, dance hall, bordello, and ship’s chandlery and outfitter’s that occupied a two-story warehouse along the waterfront. It was a favorite hangout for the Marines from Camp Ellis, as well as for the crews from ships in the harbor.

The “elephant” was Big Barb herself, one of the largest, most foulmouthed women Joe Dean could imagine. She did not allow cursing or fighting in her establishment, unless it was she who was doing them. And there was plenty of both all the time at Big Barb’s. The fighting among her patrons was usually over the women, and the cursing took place over the prices she charged for use of the rooms on the second floor. Big Barb broke up most of the fights herself, and with great relish.

Big Barb did not waste money on decor. The dance floor was just a huge space cleared of tables. Patrons were served at the bar, beer only, in large earthenware mugs that cost nothing to produce but ten kroner if you broke one. Gambling was allowed and, next to the girls, was the place’s chief attraction. Dance music was provided by the patrons themselves, those who could play some kind of musical instrument. Usually when one of the Marines danced with one of Big Barb’s girls, they were serenaded by jeers and lewd comments from the other patrons. But nobody jeered when a sailor or two from one of the fishing boats danced a lively reel or hornpipe to a tune played on an accordion or a fiddle or harmonica.