Bullfrog croaked in what Patel called his "hangman."
The sergeant gave one terrific shrug and spun, bringing Valentine sideways into the ground, but Valentine clung, battered and smashed by Bullfrog's weight, with the same tenacity as Rikki-Tikki-Tavi with his teeth locked in Nag the Cobra's neck. For the honor of his family Rikki wanted to be found dead with his teeth locked in the enemy, and for the honor of Zulu Company's champion wrestler Valentine clung to his choke hold despite the red-yellow-red flashes of pain from his ribs. Then Bullfrog went limp.
Valentine suspected a trick until he felt, and smelled, warm urine on his leg.
"He's done," Valentine said, getting to shaky legs and brushing himself off.
Bullfrog groaned.
"Somebody get the sergeant a towel," Valentine said, breathing into the pain.
"Enough of that, Captain," Meadows barked. He hooked Valentine with his good hand and his thumb and finger, pulling the Cat up. "You men, help the sergeant inside. Captain, you'd better have Narcisse look at those ribs. The rest of you, pay off your bets and get inside. Sun's going down."
Valentine's eyes rose to the tarred bodies hanging from the lamppost. Meadows nodded in understanding.
"Lieutenant Nail, take a detail and get those bodies down. Anyone else feels like fistfighting can work off their aggressions digging six feet down."
* * * *
"You come back from a beating like no man I ever knew," Narcisse said the next morning, applying cool, water-soaked towels to Valentine's battered frame. Unfortunately, Bullfrog's substantial inventory didn't include an ice machine.
Valentine looked at his reflection in the washroom mirror. A great blue-and-purple mark on his chin was just beginning to show a hint of yellow through the skin. The right side of his rib cage looked like van Gogh's Starry Night.
"I've never broken a bone before," he said, feeling around at the soft spot.
Narcisse rapped him across the probing knuckles with her handless arm. "Leave it be, and it'll heal. Just a rib. Count yourself lucky; your lung stayed airy and you got lots of stuff holding that rib in place."
A heavy tread sounded in the basement corridor, and Ahn-Kha's bent-over frame appeared. There was now enough of a mixture of Valentine's column and the guerillas that Styachowski had judged it safe for Ahn-Kha to make an appearance. The Golden One bore a contraption that looked a little like a corset made of tube steel. He'd put it together using the frames of a stack of office chairs he found and leather scraps.
"I adjusted it, my David. Try it now."
Ahn-Kha could be as gentle as a cooing dove when he chose to be. The great arms, thick as well-fed pythons, wrapped themselves around Valentine and then worked the buckles on the brace. Valentine had always had good pos-ture; constant insistence from first his parents, and then the more recently departed Father Max had given him an instinctive, erect carriage, but with the brace on he felt like a heroically posed statue, elbows slightly out. But he could breathe this time, unlike the preliminary fitting.
"Thanks, old horse."
He tottered out into the hallway, walking a bit like a drunk trying to conceal the extent of his load. He couldn't favor his bad leg, the way he usually strode. He made for Meadows, who stood at the far end of the hall, checking off supplies as they were distributed to Valentine's column. A somewhat subdued Sergeant-now Lieutenant, Valentine corrected himself-Frum stood just beside him, the bruise under his chin looking like a hangman's beard.
Colonel Meadows and Bullfrog were comfortable enough with each other that Valentine had suggested that Meadows stay at the hideout with whoever felt unfit for a try at the Boston Mountains. Bullfrog could find jobs for them as guerillas or in some of the settlements under his command. Meadows accepted, and with the help of a staff captain had begun to sort through the horde of Quisling supplies. Everyone seemed happier for it, like tired horses back in familiar stalls.
"All this stuff missing; it'll go against me at the next inspection," Bullfrog said.
"You'll be able to justify it."
"How's that?"
"You were doing your job. Recruiting and equipping warm bodies."
Bullfrog scratched his head, and Valentine turned to Meadows.
"Colonel, I think I'm fit enough to talk to the men. Could you get them together, please, sir?"
The men who couldn't fit underground had to be dispersed every night in case of a prowling Reaper, looking for lifesign where it wasn't supposed to be. Once the sun was well up they usually gathered for meals and news. There had been plenty of the first and not much of the latter lately, though everyone was looking better for a few days' rest.
Styachowski popped up, dabbing a coffee mustache from her lips and showing her old snap-to-it briskness. She'd spent the past day combing through Quisling paperwork with the help of a corporal on Bullfrog's quasi-Quisling staff.
"I'll pass word around as soon as the morning patrol comes in," she said.
"Lieutenant Frum, you think you could send out your men as sentry? I'd hate to have a convoy come by for refueling and spot the whole bunch of us."