Hubbard, L. Ron (12 page)

"What do you mean?" said both men sharply, with uneasy glances at the door.

Hope had suddenly blazed in their faces.

The lieutenant went on about the task of cleaning his muddy boots.

The barracks had originally been intended to accommodate a thousand men and so there was ample room for two hundred and eight. But for all that the place was damp and gloomy and, to soldiers who had begun to depend upon mobility rather than barricade for protection, it was too near from wall to wall and, compared with the sky, too close from ceiling to floor.

A silence fell upon the Fourth Brigade as they went about preparing their abiding place. For the first few minutes they feverishly got things in order and then, that accomplished, they touched up themselves. But more and more as the hours passed, they glanced inquiringly toward the door. Two or three times false word came that the lieutenant had arrived and there was a scurry of activity to make certain everything was all right. They supposed, naturally, that General Victor would accompany the lieutenant upon this inspection and, above all things, they did not want to disgrace their officer.

Bulger put dinner off and off until everyone was fairly starving, for he did not want to have the place messed up with food and smoke. Finally Pollard gave the word and Bulger's two scarecrows broke up some desks and benches to build a fire under the air outlet. There was another burst of activity to get supper through and cleared away before the inspection should come. And then, once more, they relapsed into waiting.

Little by little the tension died from them. They felt empty and neglected.

They did not even know the time, for they no longer had the sky. A mild attack of claustrophobia was creeping over each of them.

In short, their morale was slipping. As long as they could remember, they had had the lieutenant in sight or alarm distance, and now that they did not know where he was, they felt nervous. What if something should happen? Of course, they knew nothing could happen, but still
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"An enemy command over that ridge, sir. About three hundred and fifty and machine guns."

"Weasel! Scout the position. Pollard, make sure we can march in ten minutes. Bulger, apportion those supplies. Carstone, are your guns in condition? Good. Stand by."

"Sir, there's damn near a regiment in that town."

"Pollard! Stand ready to feint a front attack. Hanley! Prepare to take cover on the right. Toutou! Your outfit take cover on the left. Carstone!

Make ready an ambush. When Pollard sucks them out, roll up their flanks, cut their retreat and give Carstone his chance!'

Yes, what if something should happen?

What if something had happened?

Gian went over his artillery again and wiped away some mythical dust and gave his men seven brands of Hades if they slipped up again.

"What you think, Gian?" said Toutou.

"How can I know what to think? These staff officers!"

"The sun's down. At least, those helios aren't working."

"He said he'd be back," said Gian.

"But he hasn't come back," said Toutou.

They wandered away from each other.

"Maybe he got sick all of a sudden," said Weasel. "Maybe he got sick and we weren't there!"

"Maybe they fed him some poison," said Bulger. "They know nothin' about food in a rat burrow like this!"

"Was he all right when you saw him last, Mawkey?" said Weasel for, the thirty-second time.

"Yes," said Mawkey. "He'll be along. He hasn't seen those other officers for a long, long time and maybe he's sick of talking to stupid rabbits like us."

"Sure, that's it," said Bulger.

But nobody believed it.

There was another false alarm, and everybody eased down as soon as the noncom was clearly seen in the door. Nobody knew him, but as he was a sergeant major, Pollard received his greeting.

"I hear this is the Fourth Brigade," said the newcomer. "I'm Thomas O'Thomas of the Tenth Regiment, Second Brigade, Third Division, Tenth Army Corps." But when he said it he looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was listening. "That's the old outfit, of course," he added. "Major Swinburne commanding."

"Sergeant major Pollard, at your service. Second in command of the Fourth Brigade. Come in and have something."

"I thought that was food I smelled."

"Right you are," said Pollard, leading his guest back to the square on the floor which was Pollard's office.

Thomas O'Thomas didn't miss anything as he came down the barrack. He saw haversack after haversack bulging with food and loot, belt after belt full of ammunition. This outfit was wealthy!

"And Heaven blind me!" said O'Thomas. "Artillery!"

"Yes-s-s indeed," said Gian.

"There are some guns around here but they're shot out until a crew won't touch them. And these here weapons look like new."

Gian beamed happily and was greatly taken with Thomas O'Thomas.

Pollard seated his guest at the table and signaled to Bulger to have a man bring some barley soup and bark tea and real flour bread. O'Thomas could hardly believe his eyes and nose and, without apology, fell to with voracity.

"Some more?" said Pollard. "Theres plenty."

"Plenty?" said Thomas O'Thomas.

"A bigger dish, Bulger."

Thomas O'Thomas slurped avidly through that and a third and then, scoffing off the tea with its liberal portion of beet sugar, felt that the age of miracles had returned.

"How do you manage it?" said Thomas O'Thomas.

"It's the leftenant!" said Pollard. "He thinks of rations and bullets and the brigade, and nothin' else."

"Blind me! What an officer!"

"We picked this up in four days," said Pollard.

"Four
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Aw, now, there ain't that much food in this whole bleeding country, drum."

"There is. That's the kind of commanding officer we got. "

"We bloody well starved in the Tenth Regiment. That's why we came back here. But there ain't a thing to eat in this hole, let me tell you. And since they relieved Major Swinburne of his command, we never get nothing."

"They ... they what?" cried Pollard, half on his feet.

"Why, certainly. Every time a field officer comes back to this rabbit warren, the staff takes away his troops and hands them over to some simpering mamma's boy that'd run forty miles if he ever heard a rifle cocked. And let me tell you, when you get your new officer you'll find out all about etiquette saluting and playing nurse
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" He found, suddenly, that he was surrounded by a group of tense faces belonging to all the noncoms of the organization. "Oh, I say, you chaps. You seem to be worked up!"

"What happened to your command officer?" said Pollard.

"Well, he was just relieved, that's all. We hated to lose him, because he was a fine man. A wonderful field officer and we all liked him. But what can we do? We haven't even been able to find out what happened to him."

"You haven't
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See here!" said Toutou. "You actually let them take him away from you and never made a move to find him?"

"When we got it through our heads," said Thomas O'Thomas, "we were already broken up into other outfits, just like you'll be. Wait and see. They'll spread you thin. That way there ain't no way you can give trouble' He felt uneasy, as though they didn't approve of him quite. "If you don't mind, now, I'll be going. I slid past the guard. Nobody is supposed to come here yet, you know."

"You mean were isolated?" said Pollard.

"Well, call it that. They don't want anybody to start any trouble, you know!' And so, bidding them farewell, Thomas O'Thomas left.

O'Thomas' going was the signal for the whole room to begin talking at once.

Even the carriers, beasts of burden though they had been made by him, became anxious for the safety of the lieutenant lest they thereby receive a worse fate than having to eat well and work hard.

Before they had even started to get this talked out, two more high-ranking noncoms filtered in, on the alert for food. They were fed and they were pumped thoroughly.

"Look, you chaps," said one. "There's no use getting worked up. When the mutinies commenced they equipped all these barracks with regurgitant gas.

Calm down or you'll have it dumped on your heads." Several more noncoms got through the guard and these added further confirmation.

"Your command officer?" said one. "Why, if he was a field officer, it's pretty plain what's happened to him. I'm from old Tin Can Jack's Hellfire Highlanders and I know. Tin Can Jack couldn't get us back three weeks ago and so he sloped."

"He ran away?" said the brigade, incredulous.

"And left you?" said Bulger.

"The whole blooming eighty-nine of us. He had to save his life, didn't he?"

"His life
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" in horror.

"You ain't got any idea of these new staff officers," said the noncom from the Hellfire Highlanders. "You see, when they killed the last dictator in England and set up the B.C.P., it was General Victor what turned his coat and handed over the London garrison to the Commies. Him and all his officers. And when that was done, the B.C.R had to do something for him and they was scared of him, because a traitor once may be a traitor twice and so they just shipped him over here with all his blinking officers to remove General Bealfeather. So they aren't nothing, these staff officers, but a lot of whipped cream and gold braid and they're scared of the field officers
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"

And so it went throughout the night. The stores of the Fourth Brigade went rapidly down and their alarm went rapidly up. They paid good food for information, despite the repeated warning, sotto Voce, that they wouldn't get such fare here in the garrison. They were too desperate to care.

And when morning came, finding them without sleen they were at last quiet.

At least, Malcolm found them so.

"Attenshun!" barked a noncom they hadn't seen before.

Captain Malcolm came in. He was freshly shaved and laundered and he carried a crop under his arm and wore gloves. He scowled when he saw that very few had come to their feet. He turned and beckoned in a picked squad of garrison soldiers. Sullenly, the Fourth Brigade stood up.

Malcolm looked them over, not very complimentary to their condition, or deportment, or weapons. Pollard followed him around more to keep him from doing anything than to aid his inspection.

At last Captain Malcolm came to the center of the room. He felt that he should make a speech.

"Soldiers," said Malcolm, "you are, of course, in very sorry shape! From what the Fourth had seen of the garrison, they did not believe it. And your discipline, it is plain to see, has been very slack." There was a mutter and Malcolm glanced around to see if the garrison guard was handy and alert. "However, as soon as you are split up into your new organizations and your ranks filled from theirs, we shall go about improving you. As your commanding officer, I
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"

"Beg pardon?" said Pollard.

Malcolm glanced back and was reassured by the garrison guard. "Sergeant major, if you wish to see the orders,"
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gently sarcastic
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"I shall be glad to show them to you."

"The only orders we recognize," said the stolid Pollard, "are those that comes from the leftenant's mouth."

"Oh, now, see here, old man, I
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"

"I said it and I'll stick by it. Call this mutiny or anything you like, but you ain't going to do anything to our leftenant!"

Malcolm backed a pace and then stiffened with anger. "I care to call it mutiny! Sergeant of the guard, arrest this man!"

"Touch him," said Toutou. "Just go ahead and touch him."

"And this man," said Malcolm, pointing to the burly Toutou.

"Sergeant of the guard," said Malcolm, "sound the alarm. "

The clamor went screaming through the fortress.

"In a moment," said Malcolm, "we'll have an adequate force here. You will be relieved of your food and given strict confinement. Sergeant of the guard, take this brigade sergeant major in custody as well as his thick-skulled friend."

The sergeant hesitated a moment. But he heard troops coming on the run and it looked like a cheap way to make face for himself He advanced and laid a hand on Pollard.

A revolver cracked and smoke writhed from Hanley's fist. The sergeant caught at his guts and began to scream. The guards tried to get through the door and away but pinned themselves there by their very anxiety. Malcolm, white-faced, sought to claw through them.

A rifle blazed and the back of Malcolm's head came off, splattering the others in the door. Malcolm's arms kept on beating and then froze out straight.

Carstone's pneumatics began to pop like champagne corks and the blood began to flow. The door, in thirty seconds, was barricaded by the bodies of the garrison men.