CHAPTER ONE
“Die hard, Fifty-seventh, die hard!”
—Lieutenant Colonel William Inglis,
Battle of Albuera, 1811
Cristobal Province, Balboa
But for the blasted skeletons of dead trees, the landscape resembled something of a moonscape. Fully half of the visible ground, and quite possibly more than that, was composed of craters, themselves now filling with poisoned water, seeping from traumatized soil. Repeated concussion from still impacting artillery sent ripples from the edges of the craters, across the water, to meet in the rough center and then roll back again.
Bodies and parts of bodies lay in every manner of undignified death and ruin. Some of those bodies were small, reptilian, and winged.
Carrera, standing on the lip of a large crater, closed his heart to the presence of so many destroyed bodies. At least, he tried to. They were just things, he told himself, from which all value had been taken, except for the memories stored in the hearts of their loved ones. He closed his own heart, too, to the future wailing of mothers, once the Tauran casualty lists had been collected and sent onward. He really didn’t want to think about the wailing of his own country’s mothers. Instead, he summed it up, indirectly, with a well-remembered quote from a king of Old Earth: An assegai has been thrust into the belly of the nation. There are not tears enough to mourn the dead.
Staring down into the reeking water, he mentally measured and thought, A one-eighty, if I had to guess. Then he looked up at the source of the water’s rippling, watching a battery of eighty-fives pounding away at some group of Taurans who simply refused to surrender, despite Janier’s orders. Several large piles of expended casings grew behind the guns, far more than they had managed to carry forward with them. Streams of gunners trotted between holes in the ground and their guns, carrying at least one shell under each arm.
Awfully decent, really, for the Taurans to stand guard on the fifty or so thousand shells we left behind against this day. And I have to give Fernandez’s crew credit, too, for digging into the Tauran manuals and figuring out how much “net explosive weight” we’d have to put in each dump to make it against their rules to simply blow them in place without having shelters dug for everyone. And then, after a while, I suppose they must have just forgotten about the shells, what with more pressing concerns at hand.
The gunners’ ballet grew old after a time. Carrera signaled for his vehicle, an Ocelot Infantry Fighting Vehicle, driven by Jamey Soult, to come pick him up. The driver swung around the crater slowly, careful to avoid the uncertain lips of the larger hole, though he could not avoid the stinking muck of the smaller ones.
“Where to, boss?” Soult shouted, over the roar of the engine, slowing down then to avoid covering his chief in muck.
Climbing on top, then beating his boot heels against the side of the Ocelot’s turret to remove the caked-on mud, Carrera had a sudden idea. He eased himself, feet first, down into the turret, put on his own combat vehicle crewman’s helmet, and said, “Take me to the FDC for that battery,” pointing index and middle finger in the direction of the firing.
“Roger,” Soult said, taking off gently to avoid spinning his treads and maybe becoming stuck. The Ocelot was amphibious, but not, as they said, “Mud-phibious.” About one hundred and fifty meters shy of what looked to be the battery’s fire direction center, the craters mostly gave out, leaving relatively smooth and firm soil for the vehicle to negotiate.
At the battery, one officer—a Tribune named Ramirez—rushed over while pulling a protective—most would say “gas”—mask away from his face. Saluting, he reported in with his own name and his battery nomenclature.
Carrera jumped from the vehicle to the ground, then asked, “Why the mask, Tribune?”
“The fumes will get to you eventually, sir. And this area”—Ramirez gestured around with a circling finger—“is already about as thick with fumes as a man can stand.”
“Fair enough,” Carrera said, agreeably. “What are you firing at and for whom?”
“It’s a maniple-sized group of Anglians, we think, Duque. They’re pretty well dug in and disinclined to surrender. We shooting on behalf of a cohort from Second Tercio, Second Cohort.”
“Hmmm . . . Jamey?”
“Velasquez’s Cohort, boss,” Soult answered immediately. “Want I should get them on the line.”
“Yeah, do.”
It took Soult perhaps seven minutes to find and set the radio on the pertinent set of frequencies and then get himself into the radio net.
“What’s the hold up, Jamey?” asked Carrera.
Frigging war on and better things for them to be doing, Soult thought. Rather than his having to answer Carrera, the Second of the Second answered him.
“Who do you want to speak to, boss?” Soult asked.
“Velasquez or his exec or his sergeant major.”
Fifteen seconds after that, Soult announced, “Sergeant Major Cruz, sir. You’re in the green.” That last was a standard phrase for, your communication is encrypted so you can presume to speak freely. The warning really wasn’t necessary; the encrypted radios gave off a notice that one could speak freely in the form of a beepbeepbeep.
Beepbeepbeep. “Cruz?” Carrera asked into the microphone, following several distinctive beeps that confirmed the encryption.
Beepbeepbeep. “Yes, Duque.”
Beepbeepbeep. “Who are you fighting and why won’t they surrender?”
Beepbeepbeep. “Anglians, sir, and some mixed in Cimbrians and Hordalanders, we think. Tough bastards, don’t know when they’re beaten.”
Beepbeepbeep. “How many are there and what are you doing to deal with them?”
Beepbeepbeep. “We’ve got them pretty well pinned in their position with artillery and mortars. While their heads are being kept down, we’re working our way around their flanks.”
Beepbeepbeep. “What kind of artillery and mortar support do you have?”
Beepbeepbeep. “A battery of eighty-fives and another of one-five-twos, five sections of mortars from the cohort and another battery of heavy mortars Fourth Corps has loaned us the support of.”
Beepbeepbeep. “Okay, I understand. But I put it in the order that we need prisoners, a lot of prisoners. Have you or anyone tried to explain to these guys that the battle is effectively over?”
Beepbeepbeep. “Yes, sir. They didn’t seem interested in listening, where disinterested is defined as fired a volley over the heads of the parlimentaires we sent to talk to them.”
Beepbeepbeep. “Right. Okay, tell your boss to pull your companies back and, as soon as they’re back, lift the artillery and mortars. I’m heading your way directly.”
Soult scowled while staring straight ahead through the windshield of the Second Cohort four by four he’d temporarily exchanged for the Ocelot. He muttered something unintelligible.
“What was that, Jamey?” Carrera asked, while tying a white cloth to a bark-covered pole picked up from the ground, likely the victim of some fast moving steel shard.
Changing neither his scowl not his focus, Soult snorted angrily and said, more distinctly, “I’ve seen you do some boneheaded things over the years, but this is just that one step beyond stupid all the way to insanity.”
“Oh, come on; I’ve done dumber shit that this.”
“Name one,” Soult demanded.
“Flew to enemy occupied territory to meet a girl?”
“That was defensible,” Soult countered. “This is just fucking ridiculous.”
Carrera finished the white flag, then stood silently for a long minute. Finally, he wiped one hand across his face, sighed and said, “This is defensible, too, Jamey. Maybe more importantly, it’s for the good of my soul.”
Soult shook his head, resignedly, the scowl disappearing. “Still stupid,” he insisted, chin down and mind expecting the worst.
Velasquez and Cruz, standing not far away, simply shook their heads, faces kept carefully blank.
Carrera pretended not to notice. Instead, he demanded, “Now tell me again what your orders are.”
Velasquez, being senior and in command, replied. “If they kill you, we butcher them to a man, hacking the wounded into spareribs and tossing survivors on the points of our bayonets. If you’re not back in an hour, same thing. But if they give up, you want us to stand and cheer, salute and give them an honor guard to the POW camp.”
“Very good. Now have you got those half-dozen each cans of legionary rum and cigarettes I asked for.”
Passing over a satchel that looked about the right size and bulged in about the right way to be holding two hundred and forty disgustingly strong cigarettes and forty-eight ounces of preposterously strong rum, Cruz said, “The pogues I confiscated these from are not happy campers, but fuck ’em. I put in a couple of can openers, too.”
“With luck, Sergeant Major, I’ll be able to make it up to them.” Turning to the cohort commander, Carrera asked, “Now, your boys are all under cease fire?”
“Yes, sir,” Velasquez answered. “But the number of guns and mortars we have to support us is going up by the minute.”
“I’m sure. Jamey, how many Cruz de Corajes are in the case?”
“Twenty-one,” Soult answered.
“That’s good enough. Get about a dozen of them ready. And see if we can’t get another few gallons of rum, will you?” Carrera twisted to take his pistol from its usual holster, then tossed that underhanded to Soult. “And away we go.”
This is possibly even dumber than Jamey knew, Carrera thought, inching his way over the broken, chewed up ground and shattered, fallen trees. He had to work his way around some progressivines, torn up by the barrage as was everything else, but remarkably resilient and thick.
With all the fires having lifted, those guys have got to be primed to fight off an assault. And with all the crap in the air they probably can’t.
“’Alt!” said someone in some variety of an Anglian accent, “Oo goes there, friend o’ foe?”
“A foe who means you well,” Carrera answered. His eyes strained to make out where the voice was coming from. But whoever and wherever the speaker was, he was damned well camouflaged, indeed. “Can you take me to your commander?”
“Nao; all th’ officers is dead, bu’ one, and ee’s bloody useless. We go’ a sarn’ major oo migh’ wan’ to talk with ya.”
“Bring me to him, then, please.”
“Wha’s in that bag yer carryin’?”
“A gift, but it has to go to your sergeant major. You can carry it if you like.”
“Roight. Ease i’ off yer shoulder and pu’ i’ on th’ ground. Gen’ly!”
“I’ll do that,” Carrera agreed, “and gently.”
First driving the pole bearing the white flag into the dirt, Carrera hooked his now freed right thumb under the carrying strap that ran over his left shoulder, then slid it off. He clutched the strap tightly with all fingers, then lowered the satchel to the ground.
His right hand then curled around the pole. “Now can one or more of you come take charge of me?
Two armed men in battle dress stood up warily, both keeping their rifles’ muzzles pointed in Carrera’s general direction.
Oh, they’re good all right; I still can’t see where they were hidden. He looked again, taking in bandages, one of them leaking a spot of red. Both wounded, too. Tough bastards; I can hardly wait to send them home.
The smaller of the two came forward, even as the larger trained his rifle more precisely on Carrera’s head.
“’Oly shi’! Are you really . . . ?”
Carrera nodded solemnly. “Patricio Carrera, Dux Bellorum of the Timocratic Republic of Balboa. And we really don’t have that much time. Please take the satchel—that, or let me carry it—and get me to your sergeant major.
“I’m not armed, but you can take the time to search me if you insist. However, if you’re willing to skip the formalities, you and your regiment have my parole for as long as I’m here. By the way, what regiment is it, if I can ask?”
“Die ’ards, sir.”
“Ah, the old Fifty-Seventh. I might have guessed.”
“I think we’ll accep’ yer parole, sir. But I ’ave ta blindfold you.
“That’s fine, go ahead. Who are you, by the way.”
“Corporal Cleric, sir” the Anglian answered, tying a thick-folded cravat-type bandage around Carrera’s eyes. When he was done, he placed his rifle in his right hand, reached down to pick up and sling Carrera’s satchel crossways, and then put his left around Carrera’s bicep to lead him into the interior of the perimeter. “Thus way, sir,” Cleric said. “Carruthers, you stay ’ere.”
“Roight, Corp.”
Someone was weeping, intermittently, not far away, and with the sound of heartbroken agony. A deeper voice said, “If you must die, Smithers, at least die like a man. Quietly.” The weeping stopped.
“Sarn’ Major,” Cleric announced, as he guided Carrera down the sharp and ragged slope of a large crater, “you ain’ gonna believe oo’s come callin ’” To Carrera he added, “You can take the blindfold off now, sir.”
“Deserter is it, Cleric?” asked the sergeant major of the regiment, with disgust. “If so, he’s the dumbest bastard in two armies.”
“You’re possibly half right, Sergeant Major,” Carrera agreed, lowing himself to sit on the muddy side of the trench. “About the dumb part, that is. Indeed, I’m pretty sure that you and my warrant could agree on that completely.”
Not knowing he was repeating Cleric’s own words, albeit in a higher class accent, the sergeant major said, “Holy shit!” before standing to attention and rendering a proper salute.
Not really expecting that—Should have, I suppose—Carrera stood again and returned it, then returned to his seat.
“Sergeant Major,” he said, “we need to talk. We seriously need to talk.” Glancing at his watch, Carrera added, “And at this point’ we’ve got a bare forty-three . . . no, forty-two minutes to do it in.”
“If I may ask, sir; to do what?”
“Hopefully arrange some way to keep from all of us getting killed,” Carrera replied, “Ummm . . . RSM . . . ?”
“Ayres, sir, RSM Ayres.”
“Thank you. Me, I guess you know.”
The RSM said, softly, “Oh, yes, we know,” and then shuddered slightly. Carrera didn’t think it was about him, exactly, or even his being there, but something else, maybe something having to do with the battle.
“We’re not surrendering, sir.” The RSM pointed at a radio with an obvious bullet hole in it. “Shot it myself, sir, when the order to surrender came. We’re not interested.”
“All your officers are dead?” he asked. No sense saying that the corporal let that information loose. That wasn’t changing the subject; that was an attempt to figure out if there was anyone above Ayres who might surrender.
“That, or badly wounded, a couple, and unconscious,” Ayres replied. “All but one, sir. Major McQueeg is in a deep bunker, playing with himself last I saw. He . . .”—and there was that shudder again—”he broke during the bombardment.”
“Don’t be too hard on him,” Carrera said. “The Tauran Union Expeditionary Force was under a bombardment that may as well have been nuclear.”
“I never thought especially well of the major, anyway,” said the RSM. “But we . . . all of us”—there was a worse shudder, this time, and maybe an impossible glisten in the eye—“we mostly collapsed. For a while, anyway, we did.”
“Then don’t be too hard on yourselves, either. I’m telling you, that bombardment was as fierce as anyone has ever faced. There no shame for anyone in whatever it did to them. None whatsoever. I mean that.
“And, besides, you bounced back well enough, didn’t you? This will help some more.
“Excuse me a moment,” Carrera said, reaching into the satchel. From it he selected by feel a can of legionary rum. This he pulled out and set on his knee, then reached in for a P-15 folding can opener.
“I’ve got a cup for myself,” he said, genially. “You folks?”
“I do,” answered Cleric. “RSM, where’s yer own? I’ll fetch it.”
“That’s the real legionary stuff?” Ayres asked, then told the corporal, “In my pack; where else?
“We captured some early, not long after we landed, but haven’t seen any in a while. It’s pretty ferocious.”
“It’s supposed to be cut with water, yes,” Carrera said, working the can opener to create two thin slices in the top of the can of rum. “And it’s strong, but you could mix it in with loose shit and be sure that all you were drinking was the shit; no microscopic bugs would survive it. And it doesn’t do bad things to your arteries, like the purification pills do.
“Corporal?”
Cleric who, by this time, had retrieved Ayres’ enameled tin cup and his own, passed the two cups over.
Carrera hesitated a moment. “Hmm . . . let me think . . . forty-eight ounces . . . call it about . . . ah, fuck it, we’ll make it healthy; there’s not enough for everyone to have a decent last drink no matter how I ration it. Or . . . how many men still fit, RSM?”
“I can’t tell you that, sir.”
“I understand,” Carrera agreed, “but surely that only counts if I am going back.”
“Aren’t you?”
Shaking his head, Carrera answered firmly, “No. I’ve had enough. I’ve done enough. I’ve been at the core of wickedness beyond your wildest imaginings, always for what seemed a good reason, of course.” Carrera’s eyes grew distant for a moment. “Yes, it always seemed like there was a good reason.” He shook his head, recovering composure. “And orders I’ve already given are going to add considerably to what I’ve already done, too.
“In about . . .” he consulted his watch, “call it thirty-five minutes, now, the bombardment’s going to start again, much heavier though, this time. If you men are willing to stand it and die to the last man then I’d be proud to stay here and die with you.”
“Oh, don’t be silly, sir,” said Ayres. “Not your regiment. Your honor isn’t involved.”
“It’s not about my honor, RSM; it’s about what I said. I’ve just had it. If I could have talked the Die-hards into surrendering then maybe, just maybe, I’d have brightened my soul enough. But I can see already that that’s just about impossible. So here I stay.”
Ayres remonstrated, “Sir, we can’t surrender. Our colonel had us bring the colors with us here. ‘Colors that aren’t risked are useless,’ he said, ‘meaningless and valueless.’ I suppose he had a point. But just surrender and give up the colors that are—at least in parts of them—over four hundred years old? That came from Old Earth with the regiment? For an enemy’s children to point at and gloat over? Not a man here but wouldn’t rather die than live to see that.”
“I see,” Carrera agreed, reaching to take one of the tin cups. Into this he poured a couple of fingers of rum, maybe two ounces’ worth. He handed that cup to Ayres, saying, “now be sure to cut if fifty-fifty or it will be undrinkable.” He filled up the corporal’s cup to the same level, but without repeating the warning. Then he took his own cup and canteen from their pouch, poured, put the can down, and then added a good deal of water to it.
Taking a sip he announced, “Perfect. Now where the hell, RSM, did you get the idea that we’d take and keep your colors?
“Sir?”
“It’s just not our way. There’s not even a slight trace of honor or glory in humiliating a foe who fought hard, well, and bravely. It would demean us, make the victory cheap and hollow.
“No, no, RSM; if the Fifty-seventh decided to spare itself to fight another day, maybe against an enemy that really needs a good dose of killing, it would march out of here with its colors flying, drums beating—my warrant is trying to scare up some drums, but I can’t promise—and a bullet each held in their cheeks.”
Ayres looked intently into Carrera’s face and saw no guile there. Without first bothering to cut the rum, he took an unhealthy slug, then began to cough uncontrollably. After a thorough back pounding from Cleric, the RSM asked, “Are you serious?”
Carrera stared him straight in the eyes and answered, “Never more serious in my life.”
“So fill up your glasses,” Ayres recited, softly, “And show your regard, by drinking the health of each jolly Die-hard.” A more gingerly sip followed that.
“Cleric,” said the RSM, “round up for me the senior noncom in each company.”
“Best be quick, Corporal,” Carrera added. “And take the rum and cigarettes to pass out!”
To Ayres Carrera added, “there’s not really enough rum to go around, but my warrant officer, Jamey Soult, should have more by the—”
“Soult, is it, sir? Soult?” Ayres began to laugh near uncontrollably. In between guffaws, and he could get the words out, “Of fucking . . . course . . . it would have . . . just have . . . to a be a Soult . . . who’s going to . . . watch us surrender . . . a Soult!”
One of these days I’m going to have to ask someone what’s so funny about this regiment surrendering in front of a Soult.
Soult answered, “Roger,” then replaced the microphone on its hanger and leaned back against the side of the Ocelot. The fucking Pied Piper, he thought, scowling as he leaned, arms folded, against the hull of the Ocelot he’d retrieved. There hadn’t been enough room in the four by four for all the rum and cigarettes. He thought he heard singing, too, but, if so, it was very soft. It grew louder though, as the singers began to emerge from the sound-absorbing trees and stumps.
In the warrant’s view, Carrera marched out of the smoke and mist at the head of a column of Anglians. Between the column, three across, and himself, a color guard carried and escorted two banners. The Anglian rank and file . . . Well, them and the others who attached themselves to them, they’re shot up pretty badly, a good chunk of them, but no one’s letting anyone fall behind and anyone who needs help, a friendly shoulder or whatever, is getting it. And, I guess I did hear . . .
“. . . a rampart or guarding a trench
Neither bullet nor bayonet our progress retards,
For it’s all just the same to the jolly Die-hards . . . ”
I don’t know how he gets away with this shit, I really don’t. But I suppose I’d better produce the rum and cigarettes he asked for. Oh, and tell him that the package to the ALTA was delivered, safe and sound.