Lieutenant Zhao led his men up the road, away from the camp, in files at each side of the road. The men looked spooked. Valentine thought it best to call out from cover.
"Lieutenant Zhao. It's Valentine."
Zhao waved his right hand like he was wiping a table. The men crouched from the front of the lines and rolling backward, like rows of dominoes tumbling.
"Valentine who?" Zhao said. His hair was unkempt, his face was pitted from acne and he wore filthy glasses, but the only thing lacking in him as an officer was experience. Valentine had learned he was smart, hardworking and organized, which had led him to give him a company. But he'd evidently lost his head.
"Captain Valentine. Careful with the guns, men," Valentine said, stepping out from the rubble.
"Sir, did the Kurian go down?"
"I called it off. What happened at the camp?"
"The guard-tower had a machine gun for covering the yard," Zhao explained. "They slung it around and started shooting. Maybe they have night vision gear. We didn't go any farther. There's no cover for a hundred yards around the wire. I didn't want to risk those kind of casualties."
"Lieutenant, there's five hundred men in there, maybe more. Five hundred of our men, POWs. I want them back."
"I... I... I was using my judgment," Zhao said.
"I won't question it. Let's go have another look."
"We're going back?" a private said.
"If you were behind that wire, what would you want us to do?" Valentine said, looking at the objector. "Let's turn around, men. Who's in charge of your rear guard, Zhao?"
"Sergeant, umm ... Franks is in charge of the tail of the column."
"I didn't say tail of the column. I said 'rearguard.""
Zhao looked at his feet, miserable.
"Let's turn it around, Lieutenant. I'll scout ahead with the Bears."
"Thank you, sir."
Valentine and the Bears doubled the column.
"Christ, I hate all these little generators," Nail said. The lights of the prison yard glowed beyond the tumble of shattered buildings.
"Do you?"
"Of course."
"Be glad for them. I mink Groschen is going to get his chance with that gun."
* * * *
Time enough? Time enough ? Valentine wondered. Valentine had seen Kurian concentration camps by the dozens. This had to be one of the shabbiest he'd ever seen.
The camp was wired into sections of thirds, one-third for women, the center third for guards and the most crowded part for the male prisoners. A single tower stood over the central common yard-judging from the road ruts, trucks came to pick up and drop off prisoners. The fence, just a series of stout poles to hold concertina wire was not even double layered, or electrified, or topped with razor wire. At each corner of the camp, outside the wire, was a sandbagged guard post. Prisoner and guard alike lived under prefabricated roofs; the walls were nothing more than pieces of tent and tarp, though the guards' tents in the center had openings that served as windows. Valentine's nose picked up the smell of corn flour baking in the only complete structure in the place-a Quonset hut set in the guards' section.
The guards' section was a frenzy of activity. The guards were piling up boxes and sandbags at either end of their Quonset; nervous men peered out from under their helmets, rifles ready. Zhao had thrown enough of a scare into them that they had abandoned the outer guard posts, but four men still remained in the tower. The machine gun that so frightened Zhao was positioned to cover the road.
"What do you think?" Valentine asked Nail, after having Zhao take his men and spread them out to the front of the camp. He watched another Bear, the quasi-giant Rain who'd bearded Martinez, heat the blade of his knife with an old liquid lighter, careful to keep well out of sight of the camp. Not that the men would have much night vision outside the brightly lit camp.
"Piss-poor layout, even for a temporary camp. Why do they still have all the lights on? It's like they want us to pick 'em off."
"Look at that," Rain said. "The poor bastards in there aren't waiting for us."