substance, cutting them off from their commander, from the rest of the Republic, from the rest of the world. They learned nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing. The company marched into nothing, and Jim and Holland found it difficult to look into each other’s eyes.
And yet, there had still been nothing to really disquiet them. The land at the other side of the bridge was bare, and they saw nothing. Philadelphia never mentioned the incident at the bridge, or even asked if they had seen the CP’s sergeant. It was as though none of that had happened.
But it had.
They swept out in a broad arc as they moved into the central part of the peninsula, maintaining a light skirmish line backed up by the cars, which quartered back and forth.
But the infection of disquiet had spread to the men. Garvin, riding with Carmody as they worked into position for a standard two-pronged envelopment of the first fair- sized town they had come to, slapped his hand irritably on the hatch coaming.
“Goddamn it, Bill, look at those riflemen! They’re all over the bloody terrain, exposed seven ways from breakfast, none of their heads down, nothing! They act like they’re on a walking tour.
“A vacuum. We’re slogging around in this freakin’ mental vacuum, and it’s turning a bunch of professional soldiers into milk maids!”
“Easy, Jim,” Carmody said, his own voice ragged. “That goes for officers, too, if we’re not careful!”
“You’re damn right it does! I almost wish something would happen to put the edge back on us.”
A sheet of corrugated iron, snapped out like a crumb- laden tablecloth, would have made the same sudden noise.
He caught a glimpse of soldiers tumbling while the harsh roar of controlled, heavy machinegun fire swept down upon them.
“Holy Jesus!” Carmody said. “You whistled one up that time!” and then the bazooka rocket crashed into the car and exploded.
Garvin crawled down the side of the flaming car somehow, dragging his legs, and tumbled into a ditch. He lay there, sobbing curses, while pain ate him.
It took three days to level the town, going systematically from house to stubborn house after losing a platoon of men to the machinegun emplacements. They found themselves fighting women and children as well as men, and when it was all over, they reformed into a scratch company of three understrength platoons and eight cars.
Jack Holland came to see Jim before they pulled out to continue the operation. He walked into the flimsy barn which had been virtually the only undefended structure in the town, picking his way among the other wounded men.
“How’s it going, Jim?” he asked first.
Garvin shrugged. “Wish I could shake it off as fast as it happened.” He grimaced. “What the hell, I had it coming to me after all these years. I don’t have a real kick.” He looked up quickly.
“Hear anything from Ted?”
Holland shook his head, and the creases bunched up tightly on his forehead. “No. Not from him, or anybody else. I sent in a report on this little place, with a special tagline for Horton, telling him what a crummy job of scouting he’d done. Hoped to get a rise out of him.” He squatted down beside Garvin’s cot and lowered his voice.
“Didn’t get one. I know why, too. Jim, this isn’t any no- man’s land down here. Horton’s men were all through here. They weren’t doing any fighting, though. They’ve spent three years telling these farmers what a bastard Ted is. They handed out a line of crap that’d make your blood run cold. Why do you think these boys were all set up for us? Why do you think they fought like they did? And where do you think they got their weapons?”
Jim whistled softly between his clenched teeth. “What the hell’s going on around here?”
Holland shook his head bleakly. “I don’t know for sure, yet. Listen, I asked for nursing volunteers from the survivors. There’ll be about eight or ten girls coming up here. Maybe they’re grateful for us not fulfilling some of the picturesque promises that were made for us. Maybe they’re not. I’m damned well sure there’s a grapevine in this territory that leads straight back to Horton, and the smart move would be for them to be on it. Well, maybe it can work in both directions. Anyway, take a crack at finding out what you can.”
Jim nodded. “Will do.” He looked up at Holland, who had gotten to his feet again. “What’re we messed up in, Jack? How did all this happen? What made Horton think he could get away with this?”
But there was no answer, of course. Not yet. Perhaps never, and if, perhaps, they did somehow find it out, it might be too late.
Holland’s look said the same. He gestured awkwardly. “Well, I’m about due to shove off.”
“Good luck. I’ll see you in about two weeks, huh?” Holland’s mouth twitched. “I hope so.”
“Well, so long,” Jim said, and watched Holland walking out between the rows of wounded men, saying goodbye to each of them.
His nurse was a girl of about eighteen, a pale, darkhaired shape in the barn’s gloom. Her name was Edith, and her voice was pitched so low that he sometimes had to strain to hear it.
“Hurt?” she asked as she shifted his blankets.
He grunted. “About as much as it should. But don’t worry about it, hon—it’s my department.”
He lay on his back, looking up at her as she filled a glass with water. She’d been coming to tend him regularly for the past five days, leaving the other men to the girls who came with her, concentrating on him alone.
He’d asked her about that. “Shouldn’t you be spending less time on me? I’m not that bad off.”
“But you’re an officer,” she’d answered.
He wondered where she’d picked up that philosophy, and thought of Horton’s men. It made interesting thinking.
“Is that why all you girls are up here? Because it’s your natural duty to tend wounded soldiers?”
“Well… Well, no, it’s just a—a thing you do, that’s all.”
He hadn’t liked that answer. It explained nothing. It was lame with vagueness. Now he looked up at her, and wondered if Holland had been right about the grapevine.
“You always live around here, Eadie?”
She shook her head and handed him the glass, helping him raise his shoulders so he could drink. “Oh, no. I came here from Pennsylvania with my folks. All of us did. There wasn’t anybody living here then.”
He digested that, and wondered how far Horton’s treason had gone.
“Sorry you came, now?”
“Oh, no! If we’d stayed where we were, Berendtsen would have gotten us.”
“But we’re Berendtsen’s men.”
“I know,” she said. “But you’re not anything like him.”
She sounded so gravely positive that he almost laughed, stopping himself just in time.
“Did you know he was married to my sister?”
“Your sister!” He seemed to have shocked her profoundly. “Is she—is she a good woman?”
This time he did laugh, while she buried her face in her hands.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that!”
He reached out and stroked her hair. “It’s all right. And yes, she’s a good woman.”
But he was beginning to understand what Holland had meant about propaganda. Somebody had been giving these people a near lethal dose.
“Now?”
Berendtsen nodded. “It’s the best time. The Army’s dispersed, but the men haven’t really had a chance to start talking yet. It’ll be days before the general public has more than a faint notion that there’s been something odd going on.”
“You shouldn’t have sent Eisner away,” Mary declared with sudden fierceness. “You convinced everybody that you were guilty. They were positive Eisner just didn’t want to face the consequences of what he’d been doing under your orders. So what will they think of the man who gave those orders?”
Berendtsen shrugged. “Does it make any difference what they think? Does it make any difference whether I’m the bloody butcher they think I am or not? Eisner and his men are free, and heading west.”
