Solon spoke the words well. "Congratulations, soldiers, and welcome to the privileges of your new position. General?"
Another man stepped forward, part of Consul Solon's entourage. Solon handed him the microphone. He had streaming gray hair tied in a loose ponytail, and the same blue-black uniform as the guard Valentine had seen outside the Reaper's door, though his legs from polished boot-top to knee were wrapped in black puttees. The thinness of his legs and clear, hard eyes made Valentine think of some kind of predatory bird."
"Officers and men of the light infantry," the man said. "I'm General Hamm, of the Third Division. I'm your new commanding officer. We're the best division in the Trans-Mississippi, both now and once we're through mopping up that hillbilly rabble." Valentine wondered briefly how his hillbilly rabble felt about that choice of words. "You'll find I expect a great deal, but when this is all over, you'll get a great deal in return. In my old grounds in Texas, those who served me well in war found security in peace.
"Elan, right down to the company level, is important to me. Especially in my light infantry. You'll move fast and fight hard, grabbing ground and holding it until supports arrive. As a sign of your special bravery you'll carry a symbol, your bolo knife."
He looked over his shoulder. The diesel ground forward and stopped before Valentine. Hamm hopped up into the bed. "Help me, will you, Colonel? I like to hand these out personally."
There were long green crates within, like footlockers. Valentine lifted the hinged lid on one. Rows of sheathed machetes rested within. General Hamm picked one out and handed it to him. "Yours, Colonel. A handy little tool. Got the idea from those blades some of the Wolf guerillas carry. You'll find I've improved the design."
"All the troops carry these, General?"
"No, just you lights. The heavy infantry get flak jackets and masked helmets. Consider yourselves saved a heart attack. That armor's Pennsylvania-built; it's hotter than hell down here."
Valentine unsheathed a blade. It was long and rectangular, a blade on one edge and saw teeth on the other. It widened slightly near the handle, which had a wire cutter built into the guard just above the blade. The metal was coated with a dark finish for night use.
Solon had retired to his SUV. Valentine, with the help of a corporal, handed up knife after knife to the general, who passed them out, each with a little word of commendation to the files of men brought forward to receive them. They returned to their company positions. The general took up a blade as well.
"You've got your blades. Your bolos. It was an old war cry, and soon you'll be shouting it again, when we go up into the mountains and get the poor bastards unlucky enough to be facing you. Let's try it out, shall we?
"Bolo!" he shouted, then lifted his hands to the men.
"Bolo," they shouted back.
"Not good enough!" Hamm said. "Booolo!"
"Bolo!" the men screamed back. "Booolooo!"
"Louder!" the general bellowed. He unsheathed the blade, brandishing it in the air. "BOLO!"
"BOLO!" it came back to him, a wall of noise. Valentine joined in, the scream so long repressed escaping. With it went some of his pain. He looked out at the thicket of waving, blackened steel. The general was right. He wouldn't care to be up against them either.
* * * *
The next item on Solon's itinerary was a train ride. They took the ferry across to the north side of the river. Above them workmen and prisoners fixed I-beams to the pilings of the old bridge. Xray-Tango was rebuilding the railroad bridge first; the road bridge would come later. They stepped out of the ferry and took the short walk to the old rail yard.
The officers, a melange of three generals, eleven colonels-including Valentine-and an assortment of accessory captains and lieutenants, ate a buffet served on the platform before boarding the flag-festooned train for its inaugural ride. The beginnings of the line to run, once again, west from the Little Rock area to Fort Scott had only been cleared a few miles northwest, but in those few miles it went to a station near Solon's prospective Residence, even now being constructed on a hill thick with trees, where once a golf course, lakes and the houses of the well-to-do stood. The nukes had flattened and burned house and bole alike, but a grander estate would rise from the ashes.
Valentine tried to keep his hand off his holster as he exchanged pleasantries with the braided Quislings. Solon was a gracious host, and introduced him to a few others as "Colonel Le Sain, a protege of Xray-Tango." Xray-Tango introduced him to others as an officer nominated to command by Consul Solon himself. As the new officer in the coterie, Valentine received a sort of reserved attention. The generals nodded to him, the colonels seemed suspicious of him, and the lesser officers watched him. One lieutenant in particular pursued him, popping up at his elbow and clinging to him like a wart.
"Your Colonelcy would care for some more wine?" the unctuous lieutenant, a man named Dalton, asked.
"I'm fine, Lieutenant."
The man looked at the turned backs all around them, and lowered his voice. "A man in your position deserves a few comforts to forget the hardships of command. Ask anyone; I'm the sort that can make good things happen. I can make bad things disappear. Pfssssht." He punctuated his conversation with sound effects. "You'd find me good company, and I'm looking for a good billet."
Valentine had already brushed off one captain angling for a staff position; he didn't want a Quisling with aspirations toward pimphood hanging around his camp. He asked Xray-Tango about it when they got a moment together on the train.
"Solon's at fault for it, really," Xray-Tango said. "He hands out promotions like a parade marshal throwing candy. They join his military advisor's staff until he can fob them off on someone. A lot of them are sons of important men in Dallas, or Tulsa, or Memphis. Anyone who helped him. Some of the officers had trouble fitting in back home, but they've done good service to the Higher Ups, so here they are. We've got generals who are illiterate, colonels who are pederasts; you get the picture."
"They should have gone down to New Orleans, then. They'd've fit right in." Valentine looked out the window as the train crawled west, blowing its whistle every minute on the crawling, festive trip. The official one. Another train with construction supplies had gone out on a test run a few days before.
"The bad ones have an unerring instinct for not getting themselves killed, have you ever noticed it? Colonel Forester took a bullet in the ear on the banks of the Black. General Cruz was sharing a foxhole with three men when a 120mm mortar round paid them a visit. Three privates got a helluva funeral, we had to bury them together because we couldn't tell who was who. Hamm's predecessor, General Patrick O'Connel, our best division commander last summer, had a birthday party and someone decided signal flares would really set off the cake. Six officers died when the house burned down."
"Idiots. But six? Fumes get them?"
"The fire spread fast. There were a lot of papers in there; they tried to fight it to save them. The general traveled with his own supply of gasoline. They locked it up good. Too good-no ventilation. Whoof."