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SUPPLIES INTERCEPTED
Valentine had heard that once the sign claimed Southern Command had intercepted and confiscated their shipment. A few of the Bears visited the tent, tore it down, and bounced the churchmen on an improvised trampoline made out of the tent, explaining that if Southern Command had intercepted a food shipment, they'd be eating it.
Since being bounced almost high enough to see the Ohio River over the hills and trees, the missionaries had cut down on the specificity of their claims.
Always-hungry Bears had great noses for food.
He dismounted long enough to clear the legworm driver and Duvalier-a blanket-covered carbuncle on the mossy back of the worm-into the fort.
A block-and-log guardhouse stood at the gate now, along with an unmanned machine gun position. They were positioned well to cover each other. Valentine saw a couple of doughnuts resting on a sill, an easy reach through the window of the guardhouse.
"Crumbs on your uniform, son," he told the guard.
"Sorry, Major." The private brushed the crumbs off.
"Let's watch the eating on sentry duty. We don't want our friends across the highway thinking we're slack." He forced a smile.
Valentine scowled at the corporal standing at the guardhouse door. He didn't like this kind of petty officiousness, especially when he was riding into camp dirty, unshaven, and dressed in a collection of odds and ends that barely qualified as guerilla-wear. But a quiet word and a glare or two now were better than going to the man's captain, who'd roll it downhill to a lieutenant or sergeant, and the poor kid would hear about it tonight or the next day, with all that added momentum.
Once through the woods and to the fort proper, Valentine thanked the worm driver and checked off on a list of supplies he'd carry back to their Gunslinger allies. He woke Duvalier and sent her to the showers, then walked up to the great house that served as Fort Seng's impressive headquarters.
He noted new gravel on the athletic field and some log bleachers. Baseball and basketball were the traditional sports of Southern Command, but for some reason the men of Fort Seng loved kicking around soccer balls outside and Ping-Pong indoors. It had probably started because that was the only athletic gear at hand. They'd added some rule modifications of their own that brought it closer to rugby or football. Exciting stuff to watch, but Valentine hadn't had the chance to do much but goaltend during practices yet.
There were some new vegetable beds in on the mansion grounds as well. Time was, when a sergeant wanted to drill his platoon, he'd take them to "the field" or "the hill." There they'd crawl, run, walk, squat, and roll until he or she could smell the sweat. Colonel Lambert changed that. She preferred exercising the troops under her care by having them build or haul or dig, and if the fort didn't need gravel or lumber or rubble cleared away that week, well, the city of Evansville did.
Valentine approved-for the most part. He voiced a concern that Evansville had to look on their allies at Fort Seng as soldiers first, and a handy source of disciplined labor a long second. Evansville had to organize itself, the day might come when Lambert's battalion would move out and be gone for a year.
No new faces at headquarters. Lambert was off at the big guns that watched over the river, so he reported to her acting adjutant, a former Quisling he'd trained up for the long march across Kentucky last year. She'd been promoted to captain and, next to his old top sergeant, Nilay Patel, was probably the best officer at Fort Seng. Captain Ediyak had proven her worth since day one as a Southern Command recruit, and Valentine was pleased to see her under Lambert's wing.
Through the doorway, Valentine saw an unfamiliar man wearing a major's cluster sitting in Lambert's office reading personnel files. He had the hard, glitzy look of a headquarters type, like polished chrome. He needed reading glasses but didn't put them on his nose. Instead he lounged there with one bow in his mouth, nibbling thoughtfully as he read through the lenses. Ediyak didn't mention him so Valentine didn't ask.
"Once you're cleaned up, there are a couple new faces you need to meet," Ediyak said. She always reminded Valentine of the models in the old magazines, big eyed, delicate, and thin. He knew the delicacy was only skin-deep. She was as strong as any woman at Fort Seng, just small boned from a youth on short rations. Her family had been nobodies in the Kurian Deep South, so as a little girl she probably hadn't seen a ham from one Thanksgiving to the next.
"Need, not want?" Valentine poured himself a glass of water from her office carafe-a nice piece of silver, the old mansion was full of flashy gewgaws its former Quisling owner had collected-and sat down. Ediyak knew him well enough to know that when he was off his feet protocols were relaxed and she could speak freely.
"Depends. We've had a couple more Bears come in. That makes five this month, I believe. These last two were busted out of their outfit for talking monkey about Martinez and his new 'defensive stance.' Or maybe they want to be where there's still fighting. One of them said something about your old unit, the Razorbacks."
Talking monkey was Southern Command slang for throwing feces, to put it politely. The Razorbacks were an ad hoc unit formed on the march into Texas, and had been disbanded a few years back after nearly being destroyed in the siege of Dallas.
"I never say no to Bears. Gamecock is good with discipline problems. We could use them. There's a Kurian tower being built about sixty miles southeast of here, more or less."
"The colonel will need to hear about that."
Valentine nodded.
"There's also someone the Miskatonic sent. Between us, I think Southern Command didn't know what to do with her, so she got shipped out here. She claims you're the only one that can appreciate her ideas."
Valentine noticed the major in the next room had been looking at the same page for the last minute without moving his eyes.
If headquarters wanted to spy, let them. Their officer would return and report that yes, Fort Seng is woefully short of Southern Command's Interior Utility Gray paint and individual field toilet paper packs.
"A nut?"
Ediyak crinkled her nose and mouth into an expression half pucker, half smile. "More like a zookeeper-well, you'll just have to meet her. She's set up above the stables, so she can be near her little menagerie. I'd introduce you, but I've got the desk."
"I'll try and find her on my own."
"Ask for Victoria Pellwell. Tall. Hard to miss."
