"Seems to me they're pacified already. How many do you lose each week?"
"You won't get far questioning the General, Valentine. The men love him. He's daddy and Santa Claus and Moses all in one. Have patience, the Promised Land is there."
"The Promised Land is occupied. We don't have forty years. We shouldn't be acting like we have forty days. Inertia and illness are going to kill your General's army; the Quislings and the Kurians are just going to be buzzards feeding off the corpse."
"Look, Valentine, I'm liking you less and less by the minute. You ever talk to me like that again and I'll deck you. You weren't here when it was raining Reapers, or when we got blown out of Fort Scott by so many guns you'd think
they had enough to land a shell every six feet. Martinez took five thousand beat-up men who were ready to surrender and pulled us back together. Southern Command put him in charge of the central Ouachitas after that. He's keeping us fed and armed without any help from a rear that plain vanished on us. Quit questioning him, or I'll turn you in as a traitor."
"In the Free Territory that trained me two officers speaking in private could criticize anyone without the word treason being thrown around. You swing on me anytime you like, as long as the men aren't watching. If you do it where they can see I'll have you up on charges for striking a fellow officer, Captain. Write up a report if you want. I'll be happy to repeat everything I've said word for word to the General."
They returned to the wagon, both simmering. Post had Narcisse and Mrs. Smalls in the wagon and everyone else lined up behind it. Randolph's platoon had been dispersed to form a screen. When all was ready, they hitched the team to the wagon and set off. Valentine elected to walk beside Ahn-Kha and the Grogs, picking the way southeast and ready to chop a path through the growth blocking the hill road if necessary. They forded a river and rested the team after the crossing.
"Why did you leave the Quickwood, Daveed?" Narcisse asked as they rested. Valentine was inspecting a wobbling wheel on the wagon, wondering if it would make it the rest of the trip.
Valentine glanced around, and found himself gritting his teeth at the gesture. He was used to looking over his shoulder in the Kurian Zone, but here, in the middle of titular comrades, the precaution grated.
"The boys we're joining up with, they're one rung on the ladder over the bandits on the borders between the Kurian Zones and the Freeholds. For all I know this General is getting set to go Quisling. He's keeping a lot of men who might be useful elsewhere liquored up and lazy. Their camp's in a state any junior lieutenant in a militia company wouldn't allow, but that doesn't stop them all from talking like they're the last hope of the Ozarks."
Mrs. Smalls rubbed her lumbar while her husband went to get her a drink from the river. "Some sergeant tried to disarm your funny-talkin' island men while you were with the Grogs. Mr. Post put a stop to it."
"I'm liking this Captain Randoph less and less," Valentine said.
* * * *
"Whoo-hoo boys, horsemeat coming in!" a voice called from beside the road.
Valentine saw machine-gun nests set to cover the bend in the road running up against the taller hill of the camp. They'd been set up while there were still leaves on the trees and now looked naked against the hillside.
"We're here," Randolph said from the saddle of what had been Valentine's horse. The column had made good time; it was barely afternoon of the second day since setting out from the shadow of Magazine Mountain.
"This isn't much of a road, but it's obliging of the others not to patrol it," Post said.
Randolph's platoon led them up the hill, the Grogs and marines sweating to help the wagon up the incline.
"Damn, they got them ape-men with 'em," one of the idlers said, pointing with the stained stem of a pipe.
"Prisoners? I thought we were getting a new company," the other said. "It's not even a sergeant's platoon. Thunderbolt Ad Hoc Rifles-bah."
Word spread through camp and men gathered, hoping to see familiar faces. The Jamaicans, in their strange blue uniforms, excited some comment among the men with dashed hopes.
"Can I speak to a supply officer?" Valentine asked. "I have to feed and billet my men."
Valentine heard a buzz at the back of the assembled men. General Martinez strode through. There was something of Moses in him after all; the men parted like the Red Sea at his presence. Some removed their hats or wiped their eyeglasses clean as he passed, gorgeous in his braided uniform coat, Van Dyke aligned like a plumb line.
"Welcome back to the Free Territory, Captain Valentine," Martinez said. "Those rifles your men have; Dallas Armory, aren't they?"
"Yes, sir, we took them off the post at Bern Woods. Those were the ones who ambushed us coming back across the Red."
"Every man counts here. Every man is important," the General said, loudly enough for all to hear. "The Grogs are another story. They'll run back to their buddies as soon as they see 'em. Sergeant Rivers, shoot the Grogs."
A man with stripes sloppily inked on the arm of a long trenchcoat pulled up a shotgun.
"Sir, no!" Valentine said. "They're my men. Let me-"
"Shoot, Sergeant," Martinez ordered. The gun went off. A Grog fell backward, his chest planted with red buckshot holes, his legs kicking in the air.
Ahn-Kha ran from the back of the column, knocking aside Valentine's old marines as he burst through them.