Chapter Thirteen – Girl Stuff
American comic and film maker Woody Allen was once asked in an interview if his success had made a difference in his relations with women. “It’s made a huge, a fantastic difference,” he said. “Now I strike out completely; strike out totally, with a much higher class of women.”
The musketeer infantry trotted after the cavalry and found work destroying a couple of knots of Midis who had stood and thought to form circles with their spears pointing outwards. As previously agreed, the cavalry looked for easier targets while the infantry moved up and dealt with the hold-outs. A single volley almost wiped out one knot. Another surrendered. After that the cavalry, fury spent, rounded up Midis who had dropped their weapons and pushed them into the path of the advancing musketeers. BD trailed along, occasionally helping with translations. That meant Gideon’s command soon had more than 2,000 prisoners, many of them wounded.
“Mr Toms march our prisoners back to their camp so they can clean up all the bodies and help with their own wounded. They can use whatever food and medicine they’ve brought with them. Good work everyone! Captain Parker.”
“Sir.”
“Keep your guys going along the main road, scouting on either side. Deal with any Midis with weapons, ignore the rest. Any prisoners you take, strip them of weapons and shields, cut off the colored bands they have,” this meant they lost their status as warriors, “and point them back towards their homes.”
“Yes sir – if we’re going to stay out, sir, we haven’t got anything with us.”
“We’ll send cars to resupply you, so you can set up a camp tonight – I’ll get the drivers to call you.”
“What about the horses?” asked BD when the officers had gone. “What will they eat.”
“The horses can eat grass,” said Gideon pointing to the planet’s brownish grass on one side of the road. “Even more nutritious, for horses, then the stuff on earth or so I’m told. There’s plenty of food for them still – winter hasn’t come.”
“They can eat whereever they are?”
“Pretty much. In the days when horses were a factor in military campaigns on Earth, going where there was enough for them to eat was a factor, but for the moment I don’t have to worry. This part of the plateau has plenty of grass. Have to store up fodder for them soon though, and there’s some back at the summer camp. Winters can be severe, I’m told.”
“Snow on the ground most times,” said BD, “and always up here for a while. We’ve even got a ski resort up in the mountains there.” She pointed North West to where Gideon could just make out snow-covered peaks above the forest. He had been aware that there were other human camps, but he had not given them much mind previously, as he had no means of reaching them. Now he thought that the cars may be able to get there. They started walking back towards the structure, past the large group of Midi prisoners sitting on the ground, waiting for others to be rounded up. Many of the Red Bands stared daggers at Gideon. They knew he was the human general. Gideon ignored them.
“I would like to get back to my son, soon,” said BD.
“You’ll have to stay with us a couple of days until all this lot returns, and then I guess we can drive as far as the nearest Midi outpost in one of the cars, along with any other human who wants to go back. What happened to your husband incidentally? Is he still around?”
She shook her head. “Killed by the Midis in the first couple of days. He was one of the few to resist, if only by yelling that it was all an outrage and the Midis would answer in court and so on. He was trying to organise a passive resistance protest when they killed him.”
“Passive resistance…” Gideon exclaimed, then stopped himself. “I’m sorry to hear that. He sounds like a man of convictions.”
“The right convictions, maybe, at the wrong time,” said BD, then she changed the subject. “You’re going to send the Midis back?”
“Can’t really keep them,” said Gideon. “Just take their weapons, cut off those tags of theirs and send them on their way.”
“That’s mean enough, actually. They put great value on those tags. Marks their cast.”
“It’s either that or kill them. I don’t have the guys to run prison camps for so many of these creatures and no means of building them and feeding so many would be a real pain. We’re obliged to do something about the wounded and that’ll be bad enough.”
“Guess.”
“Where is the nearest outpost, anyway?”
“A few Midis were left at Terminus. It took us about four days to get here from there – slow going with all our carts ‘n stuff and mostly uphill, but just an hour or so in one of the cars at the most. There’s nothing between there and here apart from a car charging station.”
“Saw Terminus marked on the maps – end of the network?”
BD nodded. “The Eastern-most point in the monorail line. No one lives there but there are some sheds for the railway, a camping ground beside the stream for those who like that stuff, and a bridge across the stream. That’s it.”
Gideon filed away the information that a bridge across a stream might be a natural choke point, without realising that it would later become vital.
“Not into camping huh…”
They walked on chatting amiably, Gideon forgetting his command cares for the moment, until they reached the now much battered Midi camp site. In the days of battles fought with muskets on earth, the other side’s camp site was a prime target for looting, but the Midi’s personal possessions were of no interest to humans, except perhaps as souvenirs. A few human slaves had been liberated in the battle and Captain Janice Morrison, head of Room Nine although this was never acknowledged, had organised them to search the Midi camp for anything that might have intelligence value. This meant anything in writing. Room Nine also planned to speak to some of the prisoners.
“Find anything much?” asked Gideon. The slaves, of all ages and sexes clothes mostly in rags, stared in awe at the human commander. A few waited to introduce themselves. “A lot of tents and huts chief,” said Morrison. “Haven’t found the command tent yet.”
“It’s over there,” said BD pointing further back in the area that had been spared destruction in the fighting. “Only place you’ll find anything in writing if that’s what you’re looking for. We passed the body of General Kang back that way.” She gestured at where the column had been. “I saw him try to stand in the way of the cavalry. I’ll take his ceremonial dagger if you don’t mind and give it to his senior wife. He treated me like dirt, but she was nice enough and they set great store by those things.”
“Sure,” said Gideon. “Show us the tent and then get the dagger before the prisoners come back.”
The command tent proved to be a largish structure of canvas with carpet on the floor and even a couch with an occasional table on which a cup had been left, and a dining table with chairs - all items that had been looted from Haven City.
“General Kang lived large,” said Gideon to Morrison who had come with him.
They pushed aside a flap of canvas to find themselves in the general’s sleeping quarters, with his ample bed and writing table complete with dispatch case and medieval-style pen and ink. To both officers surprise the dispatches - the writing itself looked like a series of blocks and lines - were written on lined foolscap paper looted from Haven.
“Can you read Midi writing?” asked Gideon of Morrison.
“Couple of the older guys we freed say they’ve been studying it. BD’d be helpful with this.”
“She’ll be going back in a couple of days. Her son is still in Haven City.”
“Of course, I heard she had a son.”
Gideon was always surprised at the way that Havenites, especially the women, often knew, or at least knew of, almost everyone else in the settlement. In his previous life of just a few months ago on Earth he had known his immediate neighbours but not very well.
The officers checked out the surrounding tents to see who might be permitted to sleep so close to the general. One of these, directly opposite a back entrance to Kang’s tent, contained a single, low bed with a robe of black material that felt like velvet to touch left lying on it. The mattress, the same general thickness as human mattresses, had a pad with a button on one side. Gideon touched the button and the bed shrank down into a single sheet. He touched the button again and it reflated. In its single sheet form it could be folded up and placed in a backpack in one corner of the tent. A pouch on the front of this pack contained odds and ends of electronics, including one which might be described as a thumb drive but with a connection that would not fit any human device.
“Looks like the enemy of The Witches hung out here,” said Gideon. “I’ll take this device into them when I report and see if they’ll show us what’s on it.”
BD, when she returned, could not add much to this.
“His name sounds something like Du’Buce in English except you sorta got to sing it. He gave me a device which taught me the basics, with pictures. I guess he didn’t want to bother learning English. He spoke pretty good Midi.”
“We’ll just keep calling him Black Robes - you have that teaching device now?” asked Gideon hopefully.
“Had to leave it back in Haven City.”
By the time they got to the gorge bridge the musketeer infantry had returned with the prisoners and two officers waited for Gideon with reports. One of these was last night’s dancing partner and senior medic Frederica who handed him the casualty list – five dead and twenty wounded. One horse had to be destroyed and two were wounded. That was an extraordinary light toll, given the extent of the victory, but they were still casualties his force of musketeers could ill-afford. Fortunately, the wounded were mostly expected to recover. Then there was Major Powling, one of the older Haven administrators who had managed to walk away from Midi captivity into the Musketeer camp and was now the force’s quartermaster. He reported that ammunition stocks were low.
“But we only fired a few rounds.”
“The musketeers still have their cartridges but after we issue replacements we won’t have much left. We’ve been training a lot, remember. We have to make more. Then there is the question of food reserves.”
Gideon sighed. “I’ll catch up later,” he told BD. “Major can you arrange a place for BD here to sleep for a couple of nights?”
“I knew your father, BD,” said Powling. “Sorry to hear about your husband. You have a son?”
“I remember you – Jim, isn’t it?”
Major Powling nodded.
“I need to get back – Gideon says when the roads are clear.”
“Yes that would be wise.”
“For meals put her at the command table,” said Gideon. Powling looked up at that but said nothing. “BD gotta go. I’ll come and get you later. I want you to come with me to the Witches. You can tell me how they compare with the Black Robes guy you’ve been dealing with.”
Gideon took a few minutes to deal with Powling, then was about to recross the gorge bridge to see what was happening with the prisoners when he was confronted by Kat, her musket slung on her back. She had been in the musket line that morning.
“You asked BD to dinner?” she said.
“I did no such thing. I asked that she be put on the command table, so that I can learn more about our enemies.”
“You want to talk about army stuff on a date?”
“You’re being annoying again. It isn’t a date, I told you. We’ll be sitting at a table filled with musketeer officers who will no doubt be watching our every move. What are you doing away from your unit, musketeer?”
“We were just watching the Midi prisoners clean up and I got special permission to deal with this urgent matter,” said Kat, again completely unabashed.
“Urgent matter,” spluttered Gideon. “Since when are my interactions with a civilian interpreter urgent in any way, and I thought I told Room Nine to stay away from my romantic affairs, or lack of them in this case.”
“This isn’t Room Nine, I’m with two platoon C Company now, as you know, and a few of us have decided to keep an eye on this stuff, in case you do something dumb…. Sir.”
“Finally, you remembered to say sir. Dumb, huh, I thought we were fighting so that people could make their own dumb choices, rather than be slaves?”
“You’re taking her to see the Witches later, I was told, sir,” said Kat, emphasising the last word.
“Have you been speaking to Major Powling?”
“The quartermaster? No, I head this from someone in A Company. You’re taking her to see The Witches.”
“You’re forgetting the sir again. Yes, to find out more about the other side. There’s someone or something that looks a lot like the Witches directing this on the other side. BD can even speak a few words of their language.”
“Oh yes, I heard she’s pretty good at languages..”
“Musketeer, I’m busy,” said Gideon, cutting her short. “This discussion is now over. Return to your unit before I insist that you stand double guard duty tonight.”
That finally got rid of Kat but whenever Gideon spoke to BD afterwards, even when he thought they were alone, he was aware of being under the scrutiny of an intelligence service of greater efficiency than anything he could devise. This was irritating particularly, as he knew, BD would soon return to her very young son and that he was unlikely to see her again for some time. One consolation in taking her to see the Witches was that, for a few minutes at least, he would be away from prying eyes, or so he hoped.
Agnes, Tabatha and Sabrina were lined up in their usual order.
“Greetings great ones,” said Gideon. They had finally agreed on how he would address them collectively. “This is BD who was freed in the recent battle which we won.”
Then BD spoke to them in their own language – “twitter, twitter”.
The Witches stiffened and, Gideon thought, collectively gasped.
Tabitha twittered back and BD responded hesitantly, waving her arms as she had a tendency to do when speaking. Gideon had warned her about hand gestures and she was careful to keep them muted. Then Agnes spoke, BD replied, then Sabrina, and it went on from there for many minutes, while the mere male, Gideon, who was to report of a full battle on The Witches doorstep, was kept waiting. Eventually Gideon cleared his throat.
“Do the Great Ones want to hear my report?”
BD then said something, laughter in her voice, waving a hand in his direction. The three witches put their heads back and uttered a joyous, high pitched warble. They were laughing, Gideon realised with astonishment. After that The Witches listened to his report, accepting his requests for more food and ammunition as routine details. Machinery somewhere deep inside the structure would handle that. More as a matter of form, as Gideon suspected that the Witches wanted to get back to talking to BD, Tabatha asked what the musketeers intended to do next. Gideon had already decided on the next move but was reluctant to say anything in front of BD – she was going back to the enemy after all. Instead he said he would have a strategy meeting with his officers and report back. Barring some sort of disaster, however, the Midis were unlikely to be upsetting them by knocking on the front door any time soon.
The business of the meeting concluded the Witches turned their attention back to BD. As Gideon understood nothing of what was being said, he spent his time looking at the portraits on the wall, without learning much. At one point BD said the word “creepy”. Gideon glared at her.
“Not you,” she said to him, then she said something to the Witches, indicating Gideon and the Witches laughed again. The conversation was renewed. After what seemed to Gideon to be a very long time, BD finally said, “Okay, let’s go”, put her hand on Gideon’s arm and steered him towards the exit. To Gideon’s astonishment the Witches stood up and filed off their dais to walk with them to the door, hands or perhaps claws, folded across their stomachs. It was the first time he had seen them standing and they proved to be slight, coming up to Gideon’s chin.
“You were a real hit,” he said, when they got outside. BD laughed. “I was a guy at a girl’s meeting in a different language.”
“I didn’t mean to hijack your meeting, but you got what you wanted, didn’t you?”
“As far as the Musketeer’s needs are concerned, true – but what about the connection between The Witches and your black robed friend. What can you tell me about that?”
“They all know him and agreed with me when I described him as ‘creepy’, although I had real trouble translating the word.”
“That’s who you were talking about.”
“Of course – don’t worry The Witches had different words for you.”
“I’m sure they do but what is the connection between The Witches and Black Robes? You didn’t show them that device we’d picked up at the Midi camp.” Gideon had given the item to BD for that purpose.
“Oh – yes, I forgot, but I’m going back tomorrow. I got invited to what amounts to afternoon tea with them.”
“What? And does this invitation extend to me?”
“Us girls only, I’m afraid, or rather those who can speak the language. I get to meet some of the others.”
“Humph! I’ve been here months and never got beyond that throne room. You’ve been here five minutes and you’re their darling.”
BD smiled. “You know what interested them the most was the fact that I have a small son. No children have been born to The Witches for a very long time. I’ll get to the connection with Black Robes and the device I promise.”
They parted. He had work to do, she had to make her own arrangements for staying, and call the woman who was minding her son. They had a set time she could call. They would meet again at dinner. Although they parted with smiles, Gideon still felt that as he’d been sidelined in his own meeting, BD would think of him as irrelevant. Then Kat turned up yet again, fronting him in the nook with a desk that passed as his office.
“I’m going to have to talk to your company commander about keeping his Musketeers busy,” said Gideon. “You’re here again instead of outside bullying Midis.”
“I’m on stand down. I’ve got to do sentry go-round tonight. Then I’ll impress our prisoners with how ferocious I am so that they won’t try stupid stuff.”
“Well let’s see how that goes,” said Gideon, amused.
“That means I have a few moments to tell you that BD came away from her meeting impressed.”
“Really,” said Gideon. “It seemed to me I was intruding in her meeting. She got invited to afternoon tea somewhere else in the structure none of us have been, while I get left to be attacked by Midis.” Gideon did not much care about the invitation and did not want to go if The Witches were just going to twitter with BD all the time, but it was something to complain about.
“That’s just it,” said Kat. “The invitation was a special thing that no one else has been given. Girls like that exclusivity and if you’ve had a hand in getting it for them then that impresses, and impressed is good. Plus, The Witches really boosted you to her.”
“They did?” Gideon had given up trying to get Kat to call him sir in these encounters. “I didn’t understand anything of what she and the Witches said to one another but the only times the conversation turned to me, The Witches laughed. I’ve never seen them laugh before.”
“The reference was brief but heartfelt,” said Kat. As he had parted with BD maybe twenty minutes previously, Gideon wondered how all this detailed information had filtered down to an ordinary musketeer so quickly. “Coming from them it matters.”
“What you’re saying,” Gideon said, “is that women will listen to what other women say, over men, even when the women are of an alien species.”
“Correct,” said Kat cheerfully. “Who cares what guys think. The Witches told BD they now won’t deal with any other person officially.”
“They won’t? They haven’t told me this.”
Kat shrugged. “That’s what I heard. You brought another human to them who claimed authority – they thought he was crazy.”
“That was Bishop.”
“Aaaah! Now I understand,” said Kat. “I bet he raved at them about passivism and gender equality and they switched off – just like we do in his classes. Now for dinner tonight play it cool..”
“Musketeer,” said Gideon.
“You want to be friendly but don’t moon over her or be ridiculously attentive – guys are so obvious like that..”
“Musketeer!”
“Let the conversation take its course. If you guys watch a film afterwards – I know you do this on one of the devices - don’t try and sit beside her…”
“MUSKETEER!”
“Yes?” said Kat, innocently.
“Thank you for your insights into my meeting with The Witches, but I draw the line at advice on romantic interactions. If you don’t go away, I will require Captain Hannigan” (that was Kat’s company commander) “to find you a great deal more to do than just guard duty tonight.”
“Snippy, snippy,” muttered Kat as she left.
Despite having sent Kat away, Gideon more or less followed her advice in that he was friendly to BD in the following days but made no serious claims on the interpreter’s time or company. As she was attractive and lively, there was no shortage of musketeers competing for her attention, and Gideon had plenty to keep him occupied, including a strategy meeting.
“There’s a force of Midis at Terminus,” he told his senior officers later on the same day as the battle. “We’re taking the place and installing our own garrison.”
“Then what do we do?”
“We start raiding. There are plenty of Midi farms and even villages between here and Haven they’ve established since taking over. There are human slaves in those houses and villages. We take the slaves back to Terminus.”
“Ahhhhhh!” said his officers collectively.
“We don’t kill anyone unless they want to resist. We don’t touch Midi families or homes or mess with those shrines that they build. We make it clear we are only here to free the slaves, and that should save some fighting.”
“Won’t we want our territory back?” asked Captain Toms.
“Maybe,” said Gideon. “But we can worry about that stuff later. It’s a big planet, For the moment we just don’t have the capacity to take and hold territory. The legion we beat up yesterday was just one of several they can call up and we don’t want to be in a place where the Midis can come at us from several directions at once. Beyond Terminus as I hardly need to tell you, its plains. Our cavalry has proved to be pretty good, but there’s not many of them. We’d be steamrollered. So, we set up base at Terminus and raid and we’ve gotta be quick. When the Midis figure out what we’re doing, they’ll move the slaves. I want A company on the road in an hour marching hard, carrying the rations they need. We’ll use the e-cars for supply.”
“Winter is coming and we don’t have tents,” said Captain Hannigan. “They’ll have to camp out two nights at least, maybe three.”
“Musketeers can light fires and wrap themselves in groundsheets. The Midis at Terminus will know real soon about the defeat, but I don’t want to give them time to call for reinforcements. We take the place fast and start raiding with a combination of cavalry and maybe the e-cars if they can be spared from supply tasks and, oh yes, the aerial recon guys are also going down to terminus. Let’s work out how to make the recon stuff fit with cavalry and raiding parties. I’ll come down myself in a day or so. We’ll send B company as well when things are sorted here and maybe the artillery. Let’s get busy.”
Gideon later warned BD not to talk about what she had seen and heard, not that it really mattered. By the time she got back to Haven City, the Midi commanders would know what the humans were doing, and Gideon had not told anyone what he really hoped - that the Midis would be provoked into attacking the humans, at a place of his choosing - a fortified spot - and hopefully one legion at a time. If the odds were too great he would scurry back to the structure with its bridge choke point and heavy mortars.
“Don’t worry,” said BD, “I’m human, female and captive and that all equals worthless slave as far as the upper crust Midis are concerned.”
“Worthless?”
“Worthless as a person but useful in some respects like humans find hunting dogs useful. Put them to work while out hunting but otherwise keep them in kennels.”
“Sounds grim – pity you can’t take your son and dash for Terminus.”
“We’d never make it. The Midis may seem primitive in some ways, but they do understand the need to patrol and humans are not supposed to move around without their Midi owners. If I can get close enough to Haven City when you drop me off, getting back to Richard, my son, shouldn’t be a problem – coming out with him would be a big one. In any case I expect to be sold.”
“Say, what? Sold?”
“Sure, there’s already an active slave market in Haven City and Kang’s wives will have no use for me. Very likely I’ll be bought by yet another general who dreams of me translating human pleas for mercy.”
“Despite what’s happened here?” said Gideon.
BD shrugged. “These guys don’t learn so easy – and, oh yes, here’s the stuff you wanted from device you found.” She indicated a mound of papers in a corner.”
“Is this all?”
“The bulk of the stuff were entertainment programs which, trust me, you won’t understand or want to watch. Sending text files to human devices seemed way too complicated so I got them to print out the one file that would be remotely interesting to us humans. It was in German. They can translate if you want.”
“German?”
Gideon crouched down and looked at the top page of stack, the title page of a book in old-fashioned type. The title was “Vom Kriege”. Below that was the author Karl von Clausewitz, a city and a date – Berlin, 1832.
“Will you want a translation?” asked BD again. The name of the author had meant nothing to her.
“Don’t bother – the title usually translates to ‘On War’. It’s one of the classic works of military theory. The author was a Prussian general.”
“You mean it’s a book from earth?” said BD. “Why is Du’Buce – Black Robes - reading that stuff?”
“I have no idea,” said Gideon.