CHAPTER 8 
CHAPTER 8
Armand Devereaux was feeling twitchy. He wanted to be useful, but that wouldn’t happen unless people got hurt, which he didn’t want. He was constantly worrying about hygiene at the moment. He scratched three days of beard and could smell his sweat-soaked uniform again. They just didn’t have the immunity for most of the local bacteria, and they had field conditions at best. It would get cruder before it got better.
He waited while Barker trimmed his beard off, leaving a Fu Manchu mustache, then took the shaver.
He yanked the cord, felt it spin up like a gyroscope and buzz, and started applying it to his chin.
It wasn’t great, and left him with bristles, but that was safer for his skin than being smooth, since he was prone to pseudofolliculitis, and it was more comfortable than spiky curls.
He was still sweaty, but felt fresher trimmed. He’d need a haircut soon, too.
At least they were all done with diarrhea for now. But he had to stay on everyone to cook meat well done. Dalton and Oglesby liked it rare, and that wasn’t safe here.
Food had other issues. They needed variety, and salt. Then, some of the squad would have medication. He’d heard Spencer mention GERD. There wasn’t much he could do on a field expedient basis for that.
And the women would need sanitary supplies. How did you improvise that in the field? He had a couple of boxes of tampons to plug into bullet wounds in an emergency. Those wouldn’t last long. Then what?
He’d determined what day of the year it was, approximately, by timing dawn to dusk and calculating against the latitude. He’d set clocks at local noon. On the one hand, he was glad to help. On the other hand, knowing the day with no idea what century had pissed most of the troops off.
There really wasn’t anything he could do except identify problems. He’d need to talk to Spencer and Alexander, since they had some experience in primitive skills, and Barker did. Otherwise, he and Oglesby would have to ask the locals to explain their superstitions. They probably had some herbal remedies that were better than nothing.
His worrying was interrupted when Spencer shouted, “Dalton, Devereaux, Barker, Ortiz, come with me. We’re going to clear some brush.”
He climbed to his feet and dusted off. That would at least keep him busy.
Spencer talked as they walked.
“Weapons loaded, no goddamn discharges, okay? Everyone keep an eye out for wolves. We have two axes, two machetes. So that’s two people chopping, two trimming. Though we may drag some back and trim in camp, since it’s only fifty meters or so. Stay in buddy pairs, and make sure you don’t leave me alone.”
The terrain was all hummocks and dips with stalks and weeds. The ditch was a shallow contour with an occasional deep eroded section in the bottom, and cattails and grass sprouting lush from those.
Spencer continued, “The fifth person is going to be starting a fire around the base of a tree and knocking it down that way. That’s how we’ll rest from chopping. Eventually, we’re going to need about eight hundred small trees for the palisade, a hundred more for reinforcements, and another few hundred for lodging and other buildings. I plan to rotate the smaller troops through, but I want a good start today so I can gauge the probable time involved. Got gloves?”
“I do,” Barker said.
“Yeah, and me,” Ortiz said.
Devereaux said, “Sergeant Spencer, I volunteer to start with the fire.”
“Ah, pyro, are you?”
“Yes, sir, Sergeant. I am a huge pyro.” He grinned. Burning a tree sounded like fun.
“Why haven’t I seen you at the club meetings, then? Sounds good. Burn the base of that one.”
“Sure. Sergeant Barker, can I borrow your lighter?”
“Damn, what kind of second rate pyro doesn’t have his own lighter?” Barker grinned and tossed over his Zippo.
“We may as well use that one first,” Barker said. “Since the fuel evaporates. And we can always bring something from the fire in camp.”
Spencer said, “Also, Devereaux, is there anything like poison ivy here we need to know about?”
He thought for a second. “Assuming it’s like modern A-stan, some nuts, like pistachio. I’d say if it’s a fuzzy vine, don’t touch it. Watch for berries. Stick to actual wood or woody vines.”
“Okay. Why don’t you have a fire going yet?”
“Working on it.”
“And the commander suggested we use personal names. I’m not sure about that. I like being friendly, but we need discipline. So I’m likely to stick to using formal address, but I don’t mind if we’re a bit casual and laid back about it.”
Dalton said, “What about this one, Sergeant?” He was next to a straight tree about six inches in diameter.
“Yup, good size. Get to chopping. Keep an eye out for drop angle.” Spencer chose one himself and started swinging.
Armand stuffed a pile of dead leaves and twigs around the base of the tree in question. It was about six inches diameter at the base, reasonably straight, and looked like a tree. That was good enough for now.
The Zippo was hot before he had reliable flames, but once lit, the pile burned smoothly enough. He walked back and forth, clenching handfuls of small twigs and leaves, then stuffing them into the embers at the base. The flames licked up a bit, scorching the bark. Filthy yellow smoke rose. It stung his eyes when the wind shifted, and made him sneeze. He backed away, in case that was something toxic.
The growth here wasn’t like anything he’d seen back home. This was a mad nest of everything growing, tangled around itself and the trees. Ortiz and Barker slashed away with their machetes, clearing paths while waiting for a tree.
It was slightly cooler under the trees, but damper, and the fire quickly made him hot again. Behind him, he heard the hollow chunk of axes hitting bark.
He found some deadwood nearby, snapped it into chunks and piled it in close. He suspected it would take several hours to burn a tree down. In the meantime, he could do others. There were four other trees of similar size. He stuffed them with a mess of leaves and debris, added twigs, and dragged fire over to get them lit.
The ditch was probably seasonally wet. Some of the debris looked to have washed along with water. There was a lot of low scrub. He wondered if they were going to leave that or chop it out. It also might not fare well after the trees were down.
“I lit four more, Sergeant Spencer,” he said as the NCO came back from the chopping.
“Yes, however many you can get going, then I’ll have you swap out with Ortiz.”
“Roger that.”
Setting fires was fun, but it was work to keep them where they should be. He moved around, kicking embers and fuel in close, making sure he didn’t actually burn the tree, just the base.
He had to slow down. It was tempting to build bigger fires. That wouldn’t work. Slow and steady was the key. That, and not getting acrid smoke in his eyes.
“Timber!” Dalton had one down. Three minutes later, so did Spencer. Then Ortiz had one down from machete chops, without an axe.
Spencer said, “Okay, Devereaux, Armand, right? Cool. Swap with Ortiz. Ramon. Just realized the two of you are our medical element.”
“Such as it is, yes.” He took the axe from Ortiz, who was sweating and panting.
He paused a moment, doffed his shirt and redonned his Camelbak. He made sure his medical kit was nearby.
With a nod to Ortiz, he found a tree and started chopping.
He didn’t have much experience chopping. He realized that in a hurry, and everyone else did, too.
Barker came over and said, “Here, slide your hand up, then down, bend so you come into the tree like that. You’re going to notch it. Don’t worry how neat it is, just take this half of it out—on the side it leans toward. Then you come around back and you’re going to chop there until it falls.”
“Thanks. Not many trees to chop in Queens.”
“Come to Missouri. We got a crapton.”
He was glad for the borrowed gloves. He could tell from the exertion and movement he’d have blisters without. It took five minutes to erupt enough sweat to soak his shirt.
They stayed busy. In twenty minutes, he had the tree cracking, and shouted, “Timber!” It seemed silly, but it was a fair warning. It crashed down through the limbs of other trees, and bounced onto the ground.
He swapped off with Ortiz for a machete and trimmed branches, starting with the smallest. They’d have a lot of decent sized firewood when this was done. He tossed the limbs into a pile, which Alexander retrieved an armful at a time, and stacked closer to camp as a fence.
Spencer said, “We’ll drag all the trimmings down to make a barricade. It’s better than nothing, will at least slow animals and potential intruders.”
“And then we burn it.” He found an angle that worked, and chips flew as he hacked into the limb.
“Yes, but slowly. That’s cooking fuel, and we’re going to need heat in winter.”
“How does an engineer unit do this in the field?”
Spencer said, “With several aircraft loads of gear. We’re going to be busting ass every day.”
He kept at it for a bit, then Ortiz said, “Swap off, go to the fire.”
He nodded, and drank more water. Damn, he was thirsty. He gulped several swallows and felt it pool in his stomach. He wiped sweat from his eyebrows.
Spencer called “Chow break,” and he realized it was near noon.
They had a dozen trees down, each about a foot diameter, and a dozen smaller ones. Barker leaned into the first one he’d lit the fire under, and it cracked, threw sparks at the base, and fell.
That became a game, with Dalton doing a flying kick that knocked down a tree, and had him drop to the base and roll through the embers. He skittered out of the sparking coals.
“Son of a bitch!” he shouted.
Armand said, “Yeah, don’t do that.”
The man lay down, and Armand took a quick look. He probably had some soft tissue abrasion even through his pants, and the impact likely hurt, but there was no sign of major trauma.
Spencer said, “So don’t do that again, anyone.”
Dalton limped toward camp, chagrined. Armand sighed in concern, then grabbed one of the downed trees by a lower limb and started dragging. The others each took a section or the end, and hauled it across the landscape.
He was glad it was only fifty yards or so. And he was glad he’d be able to sit down and eat.
Martin Spencer looked at the down timber and considered. Twenty-five small trees in a morning. If they could do that twice every day, it would take two weeks to chop the trees, then a month or so to trim and align them, and another month to set them. It wasn’t going to be fast. But some of the bigger trees would make main supports, and their top halves were still enough for a palisade spike as well.
All that chopping would denude the ditch, and take quite a few of the trees along the stream, too. On the other hand, that gave a clearer field of fire.
Elliott said, “I agree the loose stuff can be piled around the perimeter. It means moving it twice, but we need some sort of delineation. And damn, I wish I had a full company of engineers. Or a full company of anything.”
“It’ll take longer as we clear the area, sir,” he reminded.
“I know. And we’ll need to start planning on firewood, too, for both cooking and later for warmth.”
“What about interim shelter?”
Elliott said, “Barker suggested a tepee. We can use ponchos and tarps to cover it.” And dammit, he wanted a tent fast, but they did need some kind of screening.
“Yeah, that’s likely quickest. We’ll want one really serious log cabin as HQ and redoubt. Shake or slate roof, not thatch.”
“Yes, that was my plan. The vehicles work meantime. Nothing animal or native can get into them. What about other log cabins? They’re warm.”
He said, “I like them, but they do take a lot of work. I’d call that a long-term project. We can make hooches from saplings lashed together and covered with hides.”
“Do you really think we need one each?”
He’d expected that question. Young officers for some reason often didn’t grasp why. Did he have no idea why young men would want privacy? Hell, he wanted some himself.
“Sir, buddying up is great for a few weeks, or even a couple of months. After that, people are going to go bugnuts. And you can expect the younger guys to want native women after a while.”
Elliott scowled. “Yeah. I’d say no way in hell would I ever find them interesting, but I don’t think that’s a realistic assumption.”
“We’re going to need to brief everyone regularly, have staff meetings, and disseminate info. Can you believe it? Lost in the goddamn Stone Age and we’re going to have everything but PowerPoint.”
Elliott actually smiled. “Our own personal hell.”
The LT worked on site layout. As the bivouac resolved, Spencer was impressed. Elliott wasn’t doing badly, now that he had his head on, and to be fair, they’d all been pretty fucked up the first couple of days.
Elliott was an engineer officer. He’d laid out a camp with sticks stuck in the ground. Alexander and Trinidad were standing as markers while he walked a line back from them and placed another stake.
Then it was back to chopping trees. The ditch was running out of timber fast. There might be another twenty good trees if they were lucky, though the slimmer ones would work for Barker’s tepee. Then there were some smaller straight ones they could stack up for hooch construction or such. They might as well take them all.
“Hey, Sergeant Spencer,” he heard Dalton call from atop Charlie 9, and turned.
South and uphill, a lioness stared at them from the dappled shadows of the ditch.
“Okay, no one move fast, keep your eyes open, and have rifles ready. If she attacks, it might take a dozen shots to put her down even with the machine gun. Which means you have to hit. Is everyone out of everyone else’s line of fire?”
“Hooah,” “Yes,” “Yup.”
“Do we have any rocks we can throw also?”
Barker said, “No, and I’m going to cut some saplings for spears as soon as she’s gone.”
Shortly, the graceful beast turned and padded away.
“She may come back. Might have smelled lunch. But we smell like a dead goat, which means we’re a predator. Keep eyes open, whoever’s watching the fire.”
The palisade was a joke to start with. They really didn’t know how to do it. It sounded good—wood ash for an alkali base to protect the wood, dig a hole, set a pole, pile up dirt. Then you realized you had to put them side by side in a trench, and keep them upright, not sagging. They had to be lashed to each other and to cross pieces. Logs weren’t machine cut, so there were gaps, and each one took twisting until it fit right. The ditch in front had to be evenly deep and wide. They had to dig around rocks, and dig some of those out then refill. They had two shovels and an E-tool, and some buckets for hauling. Barker tried to lash a shovel together from split wood and a sapling, but it might only be good for shoveling snow. It wasn’t usable for digging.
The logs piled up faster than they could set them. Three days in they had a dozen uprights buttressed in place, looking pathetic.
The tepee was easier. Barker and Trinidad did it with machetes in an afternoon. They chopped and set a tripod of sapling poles, more poles around that, some tarps and ponchos, all lashed with parachute cord, and they had a mostly dry place to sleep. That was easy. It gave them something to point to as an accomplishment. The covering flapped in the wind gusts. It was crowded and dank, but it was overhead cover. Between it and the trucks, everyone could sleep flat.
Spencer was glad they had Barker along. He was the go-to guy at this stage. Higher tech would be his, but the burly old sailor knew his primitive craft. His spears were straight saplings, peeled and scraped, with large nails embedded in the tips for now.
“I’ll knap flint later, or we can saw some metal bar from the seats to use.”
Dalton asked, “Won’t it need to be tempered?”
Spencer said, “It doesn’t for what we’re doing, and it would have to be carburized first. Stone will work just fine, or those hypodermic-looking bone points the natives use.”
Five spears, a rack to hold them, a tepee, a fire place with hot rocks to cook on. It was the barest bones Army camp he’d ever seen, but it was something. Then a lot more sticks got stuck into the ground to serve as clothes hangers and boot trees, and a couple of logs got rolled over by the fire as seats.
Midmorning on the third day on site, September 6 by their calendar, late into the local summer, Barker showed them a crude screen.
“The latrine has a wall. It’s on this side only so far, but we can piss in peace, and not be ogled.” He grabbed the structure. It was two saplings set into the bank, wedged and buttressed, then woven with boughs. It would also be a windbreak.
“Here’s the seat.”
He’d peeled three thick limbs and lashed them in a triangle. They were set on posts that ran to the rocks. Underneath it was flowing water.
“Ortiz and I diverted a channel. It’s rock lined. That slab is safe to stand on,” he pointed at a flat chunk of limestone. “It may dry up in summer, and ice may be a problem, but for now, we have a place to sit, and it’ll wash downstream.”
It wasn’t even as good as a porta-potty, with no roof. They also didn’t have a paper substitute yet. Wiping with rocks, Afghan style, wasn’t appealing.
Devereaux said, “Everyone needs to designate a cloth or an old T-shirt as a wiping rag, and wash it after use. You can hang it on a stick to dry. Eventually we’ll make soap or vinegar for sterilizing.”
That wasn’t really any better than rocks.
In the morning, Sean Elliott awoke to the rising orange sun to find Barker frying something on the fireplace rocks. It was goat.
“Thanks,” he said, as he took a skewer. “Though I’m hoping we can get something else soon.”
“Should be able to, sir. We can get fish in a day or two. Likely some big trout and some kind of sturgeon analog, and it’s spawning season soon. There are antelopes, but those will take a brain shot. There’s some kind of big cow, Spencer called it an aurochs. We’ll need nets or blunt arrows for pheasant and such. We’ll have variety, it’s just going to take a while.”
“Good. I’m also thinking about some kind of vegetable for the nutrition, though.”
Caswell came back from gathering green stuff. He’d never missed vegetables until he didn’t have any.
Between the two NCOs, they’d put together a fairly effective kitchen. One ammo can had been scoured clean and was kept full of water, which was boiled and dumped into the cooler, to reduce future infections. Another was used for each day’s leftover bits, which were simmered with bone, blood and fat into a broth. It was greasy to the palate and fairly bland, but it was probably nutritious. He could manage a bite a meal, no more. They had skewers for roasting, flat rocks for frying and baking, and a couple of thin knives, close enough to kitchen knives to work. One had been Spencer’s, one Alexander’s. They used leftover drink cans for steaming and roasting small vegetables. Those would burn out eventually, and he wasn’t sure about ingesting aluminum vapors. It probably didn’t matter long-term. The cans were well blackened already.
Oglesby looked hungover as he rolled out. Spencer groaned and creaked, but seemed alert once up. Dalton looked fresh from the get go.
Caswell came over and said, “I found a few things, sir. Besides cattails, there’s dandelions, wild plantain, garlic, mustard, various sunflower type things, and some pine nuts or needles maybe.”
“Do any of those make a nice biscuit?”
She shrugged. “Maybe the cattails, if we can find a way to grind them.”
“Damn. Not much variety.”
She shook her head. “No, sir. Most of what’s edible here is animals. That’s why I gave up being a vegetarian for the duration.”
“I’m glad for your knowledge.” Yeah. Not having to move in with the stinking locals was worth the work, and all the knowledge helped.
She said, “Also, everyone needs to be careful with nuts. There are probably almonds here, and they’re probably toxic.”
“Toxic?”
“Cyanide.”
“Then how did we make them edible?”
Dalton muttered something about God, and she said, “I don’t know exactly. Early agriculture was just encouraging plants that were edible. Cultivation came later.”
Barker said, “I’m hoping there’s wild rice in the river. We can see about pudding at least.”
Something would be nice. “Please. But how long is all this going to take?”
Barker shrugged as he poked meat with a stick. “Yeah, we have ten people, sir. I don’t know what we can do.”
Spencer said, “I’d love to trade for some stuff with the Paleos, but I don’t know what we have.”
Trinidad said, “Sir, I can trade some stuff from them.”
“Without a common language?”
“I managed with Chinese, Indonesians and Koreans without a language in common.”
“Okay. What are you thinking?”
“Trinkets. We have tools to make them.”
Barker said, “We can make some nice wooden beads using sticks chucked in the drill.”
Trinidad said, “You can, but not even that. Metal blades and files make carving much easier. Wooden spoons are better than those spatulas they use. We can also eventually make alcohol in better quality and quantity.”
Barker said, “Hah, I get to feed firewater to the natives. Awesome.”
“I expect the salted meat would prove popular.”
“You think that’s enough?”
“They have hides from every animal, and an existing industry to tan them.”
Barker said, “I’ll teach them bark tanning. That’ll give us more variety of leather, too.”
It was so frustrating. They had more than enough skill and knowledge. They had too few tools and not nearly enough people. With a company, or at least a couple of platoons, they’d easily build everything they needed in a year or two, and be at least at colonial levels of technology. As it was . . .
“What about bows?”
“What about them?”
“We’re going to be using them. They’ll figure it out soon enough. We swap an apprenticeship for more goods.”
Trinidad twisted his face up. He said, “I may need Oglesby for abstract concepts. Though I think I can pantomime that.”
Spencer said, “Next problem is that winter is coming. It seems to be September here.”
Devereaux said, “I said it was. Once equinox hits, I’ll know exactly.”
“Awesome. But I’m worried about having dried food on hand, and firewood. The food will need to have a lot of fat. We’ll need to dry berries.”
Barker said, “Pemmican, jerky, and smoking. We’ll need a smokehouse. It can be a small tepee.”
“It never ends,” Elliott said with a sigh.
Alexander said, “My charger can keep the truck batteries up, while we have light, and we can feed off the inverter there. Anyone else got solar?”
“Small one for my phone,” Caswell said. “If you bring me your phones, I’ll keep them charged for you. I have the universal jack kit. I won’t loan it out.”
Barker said, “Got one in the tool box. It’s good enough for phones, not laptops.”
“So we’ll be using phones as nightlights, notepads, entertainment.”
“But not GPS,” Oglesby said.
Dalton held his up. “I have compass and a weather setup with a small probe. And the compass I used to get to the trucks.”
Spencer yelled, “Yes!” then “Sorry, sir. All I have is this.” He held up a basic phone, and a pocket compass that was second rate at best. It would find north, but wasn’t going to work for actual navigation. “But my flashlights are both rechargeable. One USB, one via charger, which I have here.”
Damn. That was good.
Elliott said, “I’m reluctant to commandeer personal possessions.”
Spencer grinned. “I’m reluctant to let you, but since you’re letting me borrow your shaver, I’m okay with letting you use one of the flashlights.”
“Thanks. And yes, I want to keep the truck batteries charged so we have night vision. Also, I don’t mind if you listen to music while sleeping, but keep the volume down in case you have to react, Hooah?”
“Hooah, sir,” people replied.
Sean Elliott had a schedule, but the troops kept varying it. Usually, they had good ideas, but it did slow down the wall.
By the eighth day, Alexander and Caswell had lashed together a hut with a slant roof. There’d been some amusement, because the saplings were cumbersome, but he’d made the guys heel. He asked if they wanted help, only to be brushed off with a curtly polite, “We have it, thanks.”
It wasn’t bad. They’d used twisted bark instead of paracord, thatched the roof and reinforced it with MRE packets and cardboard from water flats with the plastic still wrapped around. It should keep them mostly dry. It also reduced crowding in the tepee and gave them some privacy.
By the tenth, the site had forty feet of palisade along the west.
He observed, “Well, that’s half of one side, then we need to do two more sides, then figure out what the hell we’re going to do on the stream side.”
Spencer said, “It makes a good block to anyone on foot.”
“Sure. But it won’t stop arrows.”
“Our armor and the range help with that. We can fix that later.”
“Agreed. But eventually I want us buttoned up.” He was much less sanguine than the older NCO.
Caswell said, “We can make a wattle fence over there and use it to pen goats. That means a steady supply of meat. It also slows any attacker a bit, and they’ll make noise coming in.”
“I like it.”
“I’d really like a roof and more windbreak on the latrine. Can we use some goat hides? They’ll cure in the sun.” They already had ten hides drying and getting stiff. Barker and Caswell assured him they could make softer leather, too.
“For now use the hides,” he said. “Eventually I want to split some shakes.”
The Army loved formations, but Sean Elliott didn’t want to get in the way of work. They met around the fire in the morning, and at night, and stuck to field conditions. There was no reason to stand around in groups. They did calisthenics to warm up, and a response exercise to potential threats.
After breakfast, he walked up above the kitchen area, down the path they’d already worn through the brush and between two trees. At the stream, he opened the lid on his Camelbak, and plunged it into the cool, clean water. Once they had gotten past the “intestinal distress,” the water here was pretty good. It was tasty, though occasionally earthy, clear and clean enough, and ran right through the camp. That made it easy to stay hydrated. He wondered why this area wasn’t occupied by locals already.
That done, he went back to Charlie Nine to go through plans.
He seemed to always be looking at plans. At least he could have them on a laptop, and Alexander even had Photoshop, PowerPoint and AutoCAD. That and the solar charger meant saving paper, and the ability to create substantial maps and documentation. Which meant he was stuck here, not out digging in poles. They had little enough manpower, and it wasn’t kind, but true, that the females just weren’t up to the heavy lifting the males were.
Onscreen, he adjusted a vertical for one of the lodges they planned to build, letting the worries run on their own mental channel. The weather was decent enough that he was quite comfortable in the back of the vehicle. He wondered how long that could continue. They’d need firewood soon, and that meant fireplaces in each hut. Crap. There was some way of doing them in wattle and daub, he recalled. Maybe Spencer knew. Oh, right. Caswell had mentioned that. But he’d feel a lot better with stone or sod. There were enough rocks here. They kept finding them while digging the ditch.
Dalton came up to the rear, knocked on the side and said, “Sir, do you have a moment?”
“Yes,” he replied. It would be good to take a break. He stretched. There was just no way to be comfortable in the back of these things.
Dalton climbed up and sat across from him.
“Tomorrow is Sunday. Do we have any plans for worship service?”
“I hadn’t planned on any, sorry.” Yeah, they needed at least a little down time, and a chance to talk to the Lord. No one else was going to get them out of this.
“Would it be okay if I hosted something?”
“Please do. Keep in mind the Catholic members may want to do their own thing, and I suspect Alexander and Spencer will not want to participate.”
Dalton said, “Yes, sir. I don’t want to be pushy, but I do want to hold a service.”
“I’ll put the word out tonight.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“No problem.”
That evening, they had goat for dinner again, but it was a little different.
“Mushrooms?” he asked.
Caswell said, “There was some tree fungus in the ditch. I made sure to do a spore test. And I’ve eaten some.”
Barker said, “I sautéed them in suet on the rock.” He pointed at a flat chunk of slate set on four stones. There was a bed of coals underneath. They’d gone from a rock next to the fire, to a griddle over it. “There’s a little bit of kidney mixed in for salt. I rinsed it well. Unrinsed kidney is nasty.”
It didn’t sound that appetizing. He lined up gamely, though.
Instead of skewers, they had more flat rocks to eat off. The slate worked well enough, as long as you didn’t have too much liquid. One dribble of grease ran off and over his wrist and cuff.
He wondered how long MRE spoons would last. Otherwise, it was pocket knives. He assumed they could whittle spoons from wood, or at least chopsticks.
The mushrooms weren’t bad. A bit mild, but it was good to eat something other than meat. They were a little salty tasting. There were some kind of grassy herbs mixed in. They tasted surprisingly good. The goat was just goat. It had been interesting for a couple of days. Now it was just food.
Barker said, “We’ve got some cattail we can turn into flour. We’ll see how that goes. We also need to start looking for eggs, and birds we can clip and keep as layers and roasters. I’m sure there’s some kind of wild rice down there.”
“No wheat, I assume?”
Caswell said, “Any grass seed is edible. It’s just not really worth the effort, and it won’t taste like much. That’s a Neolithic Revolution development, sometime in the next five to ten thousand years.”
She kept her eyes down on her platter, but he could see her tearing up. She didn’t have close family, that he was aware of, but that didn’t make it easier.
They were here forever. It was a life sentence at hard labor, and there was no appeal.
“Okay, we’re going to have nightly formations, and they’re going to be informal, but mandatory, unless you’re detached or sick. Corporal Dalton has something.”
Dalton stood up and said, “Tomorrow is Sunday, so I’m going to set up between the trucks at about oh nine hundred. I’ll be spending some time with the Bible and anyone is welcome to join me. We may build a church eventually, but for now, we’re the church.”
Elliott said, “I’ll be there. Medic Devereaux, your turn.”
Devereaux stepped forward, and took a good, authoritative stance.
“Health is critical. My supplies are limited, facilities nonexistent. So, first, sanitation. We have water. Use it. Creek water is better than not cleaning. Clean when you use the latrine, before meals, bed, whenever you can. You know we have that box of soap, shampoo and other stuff the civilians sent for the Afghans. It’s ours now. We’ll use that until it runs out. Save the shampoo to use as soap, too. It’s for hand washing, not laundry or hair.
“We’ll have a laundry detail using water and possibly homemade soap. The latrine is designated, no pissing or crapping around the camp. I know some of you use drink bottles to urinate in at night. That’s fine, but keep them well-separated and save them. We can’t spare any. And I haven’t seen nearly enough tooth brushing. I talked to Lieutenant Elliott. You will all brush your teeth for two minutes at formation.” There were giggles and chuckles, but he kept on. “We will time this. You will brush your teeth for two minutes after each meal and thirty seconds after each snack. I have almost no facilities to fix teeth, and dental caries can kill you. It is not a joking matter.
“I’ve treated two of you for blisters and one for splinters. We have gloves. Use them until they wear out and your hands toughen, and we’ll need to try to make more. We need your hands. Wear your gloves, the sex life you save may be your own.” Devereaux smiled and pointed as if it was a commercial.
Sean chuckled, and hoped no one got offended, but who the hell were they going to complain to?
A moment later, the rest laughed, too. Good.
The medic continued, “If you get injured, see me as soon as you can. Every blister, splinter, hangnail, I need to put eyes on, just in case. Don’t wake me for minor stuff, but do see me at sick call in the morning. It won’t be formal, but I’ll be here. And we will have PT.”
There were some groans as he said that.
Sean said, “Yeah, I feel it, too. We don’t know when or if we can get home. We’re just hoping whatever happened sorts itself out. Depression is possible, anxiety, whatever. No, not whatever, I mean other issues, I don’t want to minimize them. And we’ll have more as we go. Talk to each other if you need to. And talk to me.” He took a deep breath. “UCMJ remains in effect, but any problems we can resolve here will stay here, and I will keep the communication privileged. Assuming we get back, I’ll be reporting on events, not thoughts or comments. Consider me the chaplain in that regard. There has to be one. I’m not very religious, but I take your welfare seriously. I’ll say again—anything that doesn’t need to be shared, I’ll keep as privileged. We can’t have a lot of secrets here, and the environment means our ROE has to change.”
He pointed through the purple dusk. “Charlie Eight vehicle is designated a private area for now. Each of us gets one day or night to use it for sleeping, meditation, music, whatever, undisturbed. We’re a small group. We all need privacy and escape. The only reason anyone should knock and go in is if there’s a life or death emergency. We need the safety valve.”
That had been Spencer’s idea, and it made sense, once he thought about it.
“And with that, Sergeant Devereaux is going to lead us in brushing our teeth.”
It took a couple of minutes for everyone to dig their kits out. He was about to make a snarky comment about Caswell having an electric brush, very Air Force, when Doc pulled one out, too, saving him from making an ass of himself. No one had expected to be here, and he’d heard they cleaned better. He’d make do with his old reliable. He had a well-worn spare, and there were a dozen or so in the care box, so they could manage a few years.
There was something ridiculous about standing in a circle, brushing. It was almost childish. But, he knew it was easy for troops in the field to neglect it, and it was critical. He brushed vigorously and well.
Half a minute in, he realized Barker was humming the Jeopardy theme. Within seconds, they all were, and stifling giggles.
“That’s two minutes,” Devereaux said. “Honor system for other meals, but don’t neglect it. All I can do for bad teeth is pull them.”
Spencer said, “Well, you might manage a temporary filling with hot pine pitch. It’ll need replaced every month or so.”
That was disturbing, and didn’t cause anyone to laugh.
Every time Elliott thought things were as primitive as they could get, something like that came about and shocked him again.
Armand felt better with a morning sick call instituted. It let him do his job. Most of the stuff was minor, but fixing minor stuff prevented major issues.
This morning, Alexander had a tick on her ass, rather close to the perineum. Easy enough to guess it jumped aboard while she was relieving herself.
She was bent over the seats in the back of Charlie Eight, facing the ramp to offer what privacy there was, though most of them had relaxed about body modesty. And this was not a bad view, but he was working.
“Semi-professional question,” he asked.
“Laser hair removal. Worked very well,” she replied, anticipating the question.
“Okay. Well, that will help prevent sweat rash and make parasites easier to locate.” The tick was middling fat. He pulled her skin taut, grabbed a lighter and said, “Heat coming, hold still.”
A flare of flame and it twitched, crackled and popped. He swapped lighter for tweezers and started gently working the mandibles loose.
“That was part of my thinking, not just social,” she said. “I’ve also had tubal ligation and endometrial ablation, so I won’t be having any issues with pregnancy or periods.”
“Understood,” he said. He wasn’t going to say “Lucky you” because he didn’t know the background. He made a tiny incision over the bite and applied a suction cup for a few seconds. She hissed and said, “Ouch.”
“Not safe for me to have more kids,” she said. “And my hormones are bad enough with my thyroid issues.”
“How are you doing with those?” he asked as he swabbed the site with a precious drop of alcohol. Spencer and Barker insisted they could have a still going in a few months, but . . .
She hissed in pain and flexed her ass, and damn, that looked pretty good.
She said, “Running out of medication, then I’ll start having problems with mental acuity, sleep, memory, and weight.”
“I’ll see what I can come up with,” he said reassuringly, but he had no idea what to do about that.
“All I have would be eating the thyroids of animals, and trying to find stuff with zinc in it. It might help. I read something about it somewhere, but I have no idea how reliable it was.”
“Yeah. I don’t know, really. We’ll do what we can. It’s clean. It might itch. Try not to scratch it.”
“Roger. Thanks.”
She straightened her uniform while standing.
From Charlie Nine’s gun turret, Caswell called, “Approaching party!”
They both scrambled for weapons and down the ramp.
It was a local hunting party, coming up from the north, waving and calling. They carried meat, and one of them limped painfully between two friends.
Elliott shouted, “Oglesby!” uphill toward the stream, where more trees were being cut.
Caswell stayed up top, covering them with her rifle. Everyone else had gotten armed, and the tree party had a good crossing fire zone.
As they got closer, Armand could see the injured man had been gored by something with a horn.
“Tell them to bring him in. Get a poncho down for me to work on.” He ran back inside to grab his pack.
Barker had a poncho from the tepee fast. At Oglesby’s direction, they laid the casualty on it. Armand moved in and started assessment. It was cramped between the seats, but he preferred overhead cover to open sky.
The man was a tall, lanky bastard. Armand was 6’2”, and this guy was almost a foot taller, with long, lean muscles and little fat. He was mostly tall in the limbs, but his torso wasn’t short, either.
He had thoracic damage, probable pneumothorax from the weezing and gurgling sounds. Seeping, wet wound. Probable broken ribs. Cuts and abrasions all over, including a nasty hematoma and a superficial scalp wound.
Elliott was alongside, and said, “I’m a combat lifesaver, can I assist?”
“Yes, keep him calm, look at the minor stuff and get it clean. Oglesby, tell him this will hurt, but I can heal him.”
“I’ll try.”
Spencer said, “If the spirits favor him.”
“Oh, right,” Oglesby said and continued in Paleo.
He took vitals, and listened to the chest. Yes, traumatic pneumothorax, and possible lung damage. Not good.
Elliott asked, “Not to be a dick, but how much of our resources will this take?”
“Not much.”
“Good. It’s neighborly and I want to help, but there are limits.”
“I know.” Yeah, he knew. Once he ran out of stuff here, that was it. Cleaning, bandaging and suturing would be all that was left.
The locals jabbered to each other, and to the patient. They brought out some weed that they lit from the fire and made pronouncements to the sky, and anointed what he presumed was the man’s spear with animal blood.
“If you can, please explain to them I need some distance.”
Spencer said, “Tell them the healing spirits need room to approach.”
Oglesby said something. They backed off, but started moaning and crying in sequence, to appeal to the spirits, he supposed.
“Somebody hold him down. This is going to hurt.”
“Anesthetic?” Elliott asked.
“I’d rather save it for us. He’s already getting antiseptics I can’t replace, and I figure he’s more used to pain than we are.”
“True.”
“And barely conscious as is. The ribs broke clean, but in two directions.” He pulled on gloves. He had fewer than five hundred pairs, but he didn’t know what germs this guy had, and there was no need to spread any of his. Hopefully they’d not need them that often.
He manipulated the ribs into rough position. They’d heal, and be ugly, but shouldn’t get in the way of the pleural sac.
He wiped down the wound area and applied a Hyfin Chest Seal. Then he wrapped the chest with Ace bandages, moving them carefully under the man to minimize movement.
“He will need to stay here a couple of days, and not be moved a lot. I’ll need to use a magic needle to treat the lung every few minutes.”
They seemed to accept that, after lots of back and forth, and gestures.
Spencer asked, “Can we haul him into the tepee?”
“If we’re careful, yes. How many caretakers can they leave, LT?”
Elliott’s face moved as he thought, and replied, “One.”
“Sounds good. I’ll need to stay with him and monitor.”
“Okay. We can handle one up and one injured.”
Oglesby said, “Sir, they’re offering to bring us food or help in some other way. I took the liberty of explaining the treatment a bit.”
Elliott asked, “What did you say?”
“That the horn had damaged his lung, and it was necessary to get the lung back to shape so it could heal.”
“They got that?”
Oglesby said, “Sure. They’ve killed enough animals to know what lungs are. They just aren’t clear on how they work exactly, or what to do when damaged.”
“Ah. Well, tell them we’d welcome food. Do they need help with the kill?”
“Yes, they’d like to leave meat here, and go for the rest. Then they’ll send a runner to their village.”
Spencer said, “Alright. Everyone remain armed in Condition Two, and keep control of your stuff. Oglesby, stress to them the tepee is a spirit place, and no possessions can be removed or borrowed inside.”
The bleeding was controlled; it looked as if the man’s breathing would recover, and he’d live, though he was moaning in pain as he regained full consciousness. There was no feeling like that of saving another man’s life. Armand smiled.
“Okay,” he said. “Four people, roll the poncho as an emergency stretcher, and carefully take him inside.”
The next morning Oglan, the hunter, was much improved. He nibbled on some meat and drank a little broth. He coughed a few times and writhed in pain when he did, but smiled afterward.
The Paleos looked very confused as the soldiers brushed teeth. They understood there were so many gadgets, but really had no clue what most were, nor even about their bases. They didn’t recognize the vehicles as anything other than odd huts, but kept staring at them.
Spencer wondered if they could keep the natives around a bit longer. They were happy to haul logs, raise them up and help set them. They figured out a shovel in short order, and understood axes, as a much larger version of their own clubs and hand axes. In an afternoon, another fifteen feet of palisade went up.
“This thing keeps lions and wolves out?” one had asked through Oglesby.
“Yes.” It would also keep people away, but he wasn’t going to say that.
“You should give us the stick that chops trees.”
“I’m afraid we can’t. We need both of them.”
“Will Arman Healer heal others?”
“Yes. But not everyone can be helped. It also takes the support of the spirits.”
“You should know the best spirits, with all the fine things you have developed.”
Dalton said, “We do. Our God can do all, but He does what is best for all, which isn’t always best for one.”
Oglesby had translated it automatically before Martin could say anything. He felt a buzz of worry.
He said, “Careful, son. The no proselytizing rule applies here, too.”
“Hey, they asked, Sergeant. I can only witness what I know.”
“Yeah, and if the Oglan guy dies, you’ve just told them that our super spirits don’t care about them. Not an auspicious start to the church you want to build.” The man meant well, but there were political and diplomatic things to consider, and he was too damned eager to talk about his god.
Dalton twisted his mouth. “Okay, I’ll wait until he’s better.”
“At least.”
A man named Isria, asked, “Will this stop !Katchathaynu?”
Oglesby looked as confused as Spencer.
“What is that?” Oglesby asked for them.
The man held a hand in front of his nose, another in front of his forehead, with first finger extended.
“Woolly rhinos,” Martin said. “Yes, it should stop Kachat-hainew. They will think it’s a cliff and go around.”
He hoped Oglesby was learning from this. Lots of talking was going on.
A five minute attempt at chopping brush into firewood ended when one of the natives gashed himself with a machete. The man wrapped a leather strip around it, and Martin helped him limp into the tepee, so Devereaux could stitch him up.
“Yeah, a couple of sutures to hold it and I’ll wash it clean with water.” Spencer sent Dalton to get water boiled from the fire, though the water in the mountain brook was surprisingly clear and clean.
“How’s the other guy?”
“Lucky. The horn was blunt and didn’t pierce his lung. Though the pneumothorax would likely have killed him, or at least crippled him.”
“Glad he’s going to make it.”
“Yeah, well, I expect they’ll want sick call now.”
“As long as they exchange labor, I think we can work out a deal.”
“We should teach them how to make soap.”
“They know that ash and fat cleans the crud off their hands, and they wash in the river in summer.”
“I’d like them to use more of it.”
Martin figured where that was going.
“Especially the women?”
“PREEcisely.” Devereaux grinned.
Martin said, “That’s probably coming eventually.”
“Yeah. Life with two chicks you can’t touch is not much of a life.” Devereaux rolled his eyes.
“Seeing as I’m missing my wife, my sons and my daughter, I’m all sympathy, dude.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that, Sergeant.” Doc did look genuinely sad on his behalf.
He leaned out the door, grabbed a stick and heaved it at the horizon, watched it spin, tumble and drop.
“Hell, it’s not your fault. But . . . I mean, they’re not missing me, because they haven’t been born yet. Except I’m not going home. So they’ll think I’m dead in a blast, or worse, MIA. I’ll never know what happens to them, except it hasn’t happened yet. And I promised Andrew I’d teach him to drive next year. So much for that.”
Then he was tense and flushed again. It had been a month, and that wasn’t long enough to come to terms with something that was worse than death in many ways.
“Well, I miss Mama. My father and I were never close, and he left after they split. We talk now and then, but he’s not significant. I guess that makes me the lucky one here. But my mother’s going to need a caretaker eventually, and it won’t be me.”
His patient winced and hissed as he pulled a suture tight.
“Sorry. Okay, let me clean it and we’ll be done.”
The native man certainly didn’t understand the words, but the tone and the washing carried the message. He smiled as Devereaux bound the leather strip back around his leg.
“Tell Oglesby I’ll need to pull those sutures in a week. And could someone bring me a bite? Even goat?”
“Can do. And you’re in luck. They had chunks of cow. So we’re having steak. They also brought some salt.”
“Who’s cooking?”
“Barker and Caswell.”
“I think I love them. In a fraternal fashion.”
They were both thinking a lot more than fraternally about Caswell, and she was a problem.
Martin helped the man out the doorway, and he walked gingerly but steadily. It wasn’t a crippling gash, but fairly deep, and he’d better keep it clean. He reeked of sweat, but seemed fairly kempt otherwise. His hair was tied back in a ponytail and had obviously been brushed.
Devereaux said, “Oglesby, tell him we need to take the sutures out in a week, and to change the bandage for a clean one twice a day. Stress it has to be well rinsed and dried between uses. The bandage, I mean.”
“Got it.”
He wandered to the outside fire, where, judging by the smell, Barker and Caswell had herbs and salt and something else and meat.
“Hey, Devereaux would like a snack.”
“Of course,” Barker said, and peeled off a thin piece of tough but juicy looking steak. “But you keep your hands off until dinner.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Caswell was lashing together two quite comfortable-looking chairs, or at least the frames. They’d need leather or woven seat sections. She was working on another, using straight sections of branch, leather thong and a knife.
“Those look good.”
“They’ll look better with footstools and woven seats. And I may be able to make a rocker.”
“Oh, hell yes.”
They were doing it. They were building stuff from the 1800s. They’d never get home, but they would manage to survive comfortably.
“How goes the garden?”
She waved at the tilled spot she’d scraped out with the E-tool.
“Well, I’ve planted everything I can identify, and it’s real late in the season. It’s mostly to get practice. I’ll plant more rows of each next year. The LT and Sergeant Barker think we can put in field tile and irrigation on the other side. So each year we’ll have tenderer, sweeter fruit and veggies, and eventually a few nut and apple trees. But, sir, understand that’s a project that will take decades or centuries. We’ll never see it.”
She’d said, “sir.” She’d slipped into Air Force lingo.
He said, “It’s a start for us. The next generation will carry on.”
“Which next generation is that?”
“Yeah, I realize it’s not going to be ours. Probably adopted.”
She said, “That’s an entirely different level of diplomacy, sir. It may not work.”
“Well, we’re going to try. It’s all we can do.”
He watched her lashing a T joint, which seemed to be socketed as well. It was likely she could bore a hole afterward and set in a pin. It was amazing how fast that skill had gone from an historical hypothetical to something they did easily. Bore a hole, hammer in a twig as a dowel.
“I do wonder,” he said, “if we’ve affected some timeline and the vehicles will get excavated at some point in the future. Or if they’ll remain hidden somewhere for a long time. Or destroyed. Or maybe we’re in an alternate timeline.”
Between yanks on the leather thong, she shrugged.
“No way to know, sir. It’s all possible, I guess.”
She was a problem. She was skilled, yes. She was a useful shot, yes. Practical enough. Her vegetarianism got dumped in a moment once they were in trouble. But she had an abrasive personality, and that very strong liberal arts streak that was at odds with both her practicality and often with reality. She didn’t like reality, and wanted it not to be.
She was quite good looking, which meant pretty damned hot by deployment standards, which meant the hottest piece of ass in this particular universe. It was obvious to Martin she wasn’t interested, and he didn’t blame her, but damn, she looked good bent over in the stream. Gina Alexander was nice enough, and looked a lot younger than she actually was, but Caswell, damn. And if he felt it, then the young bucks felt it. If she hinted at availability, they’d fight. Then there were the Paleos . . .
They really did need some liaison with the native women, except that required another layer of diplomacy, safety, birth control, and delicate negotiations. And then they’d likely expect kids. In fact, they’d been begging for them.
Not this year. That needed to be understood.
“Important formation tonight, spread the word.”
“Roger. And make sure no one shows anything modern around the Paleos.”
“Oh, crap, you’re right.”
Yeah. Nonfunctional stuff was just stuff. A lit iPod or flashlight was magic.
The word got spread and the balance of the hunting party came back with more meat. They jabbered and groped at each other, then most of them left, leaving three caretakers for whatever the injured guy’s name was. Elliott had conceded on that when they worked so industriously.
The steak was very chewy, but it was steak, Regina decided. Now she knew what aurochs tasted like. It tasted like chewy, stringy, under-aged steak. Still, it wasn’t goat.
She was glad she and Caswell had their own hut. The tepee was going to be snug with four extra bodies. She’d also need to tell the watch to make sure the Paleos didn’t go exploring. She was not interested in being seduced.
Home was gone, this was home now, like a permanent military barracks crossed with a college dorm, until the kids grew up.
Caswell was not a great hoochmate. She had all these theories, some of which Gina agreed with. But she took everything to a logical conclusion that came down to blaming white males, or white people in general, without regard to the fact that she herself was about the whitest person here.
Elliott stood, stepped into the firelight and said, “Keep eating, but I’m going to cover a few things. This is for us, Oglesby, so don’t translate.”
“Got it. They’ve started to grasp a handful of words. Nouns, affirmatives, negatives.”
“Roger that. Okay, the palisade is coming along, and we’ll thank our friends for that in a bit. We’re getting more variety of food. We’re working on individual shelters though I’m leery of spreading out too much, or of concentrating in one tent. There really isn’t a good answer. Sergeant Caswell has made two really nice chairs this week, and I’m hoping she’ll make more. Then we can use leather for some stools. It’s nice not to sit on the ground or rocks.
“Wear whatever is appropriate for the weather and work. There’s no Uniform of the Day. If PTs work for you, wear them, just keep in mind they’re not as durable. Part of me would prefer you not mix uniforms, but if it’s necessary, I won’t complain.
“We have enough power for devices at present, but only two flashlights can be recharged, so the rest of you will have to rely on phones to get around at night, and not in front of our neighbors, yet. We do have rechargeable batteries we can use in another light.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us, but be proud of what we’ve done so far. We’re making good progress on everything, and it’ll get easier as we continue to acclimate, and learn as we go.
“The important thing for tonight is a social issue. I know some of you are interested in closer relations with the locals, for both extra labor, and social interaction, including the women.”
There were chuckles and a hoot, and Regina said, “I’m not interested in the women.”
That got laughs and a “Boo!”
“I’m glad you can joke about it,” Elliott said. “I’m sure eventually we’re going to have closer involvement. But Sergeant Spencer and I have decided we’re postponing that for a year.” He paused to let that sink in.
That made sense. Though it would keep stress on them here. She didn’t see any better option, though. The men were going to be rutting idiots.
“After we have our own village, tools, and know what we can do, and what we need, then we’ll see about allowing others in, slowly, and making sure they acclimate to us and don’t try to displace us. We have a huge tech advantage, but we’re only ten. They’re hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands. The best way to avoid trouble is just to avoid them, at least until we feel each other out and learn how to interact without offense. They apparently thought us rather rude at first for not swapping partners and not giving enough of our stuff. Keep that in mind.”
Dalton said, “To be clear, we’ll reconsider this in a year, not that all bets are off, right, sir?”
“Exactly. Don’t ask me about it until next year. Then we’ll discuss the issue. You all get input, but I’m the CO, just as if we were POWs. We’re soldiers in a lost, detached element, until we get things organized. Then and only then will we consider how to adapt things. I’m not saying this is how we’ll do it, but we might go by expiration time of service, adjusted to the current calendar. Or by age. Or some other way. But you’re still under orders until we have that discussion. Hooah?”
“Hooah.” The men generally did not look pleased. Caswell was hard to judge. She seemed to be weighing the matter.
“Okay, make sure you take care of hygiene including teeth. No lights while we have guests. Now we’ll thank them. Oglesby, bring them up.”
Oglesby grabbed a small package of hide from Barker. He unwrapped it and held something glittery up in the light.
“These are small arrowheads that Bob Barker chipped out of a beer bottle someone left in Number Eight. They’re really shiny, and sharp.” He carefully handed a pair of them to each of the three hunters, and two more to the lead man. “Give these to Oglan.”
The locals ooed and aahed appropriately, seeming delighted with these acquisitions.
Spencer said, “I’m not worried about the bottle glass. It’s just glass, and if someone does a detailed analysis in fifteen thousand years, they’re less unlikely than two MRAPs.”
There were nervous laughs.
The locals cheered, and kept scraping the arrowheads against their nails. They were impressed, and that was positive. Dalton and Barker kept them penned on that side of the fire, so they couldn’t mingle.
It would be a long time, though, before she’d consider living with them, or anything more. A long time. The men were quite attractive, well built, and friendly, but the culture was too foreign, and she still liked soap and shampoo. And her toothbrush. That box of sundries was worth more than its weight in gold. If only it had toilet paper and beer.
She found her way to the latrine in near pitch black, shivered in nervousness astride the seat, then made her way back past the fire to her hooch. It was definitely fall, and she was glad of warmth of the bag, as much as she hated the enclosing shape. Caswell’s presence next to her was reassuring, even if they’d never be close friends. She laid her rifle on the platform next to her, and zipped up to sleep.
“Night,” she said.
“Night,” Caswell replied. “I really wish the LT had told them to fuck themselves raw with the locals.”
“I know,” she said. “The Army’s the Army. It is what it is.”
“Until we get all the manliness to deal with.”
“It’ll be fine for a year,” she said.
“I doubt it.”
Gina wasn’t sure. There were reasons that was a complex matter for her, and she wasn’t going to discuss them here.
She lay there listening to the frame creak and walls shift in the breeze. It wasn’t much of a hooch at all, but at least she didn’t have to bed down with all the men. That was okay if there was lots of discipline, but here, different story.
Shortly, there was a spattering sound of raindrops, then more. It turned into a steady splash, and then she felt large drops falling onto her bag from a leak in the roof.
That was going to suck.
There wasn’t any way to avoid it, she doubted the tepee was any drier, and Doc and Oglesby were sleeping in the trucks. She could run for a cab and sleep sitting up, or she could stay here and wake up in a puddle.
It was just too damned much effort to get up. She felt the water leak through and start soaking her.
Her phone was charged, she had headphones, and Evanescence at least kept her brain warm as she itched to sleep in the wet. At least her ass had stopped burning.