Chapter Sixteen – Incentivising
Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self-interest – Napoleon Bonaparte
The next day Gideon went down with BD to Fort Terminus as the defences there had become known, sitting in the electric car drawing the supply carts. At the fort he found that the raids had liberated a handful of enslaved humans, including the parents of one of the soldiers still back at the tourist centre converting rifles and making new cartridges. Instead of being grateful for the end to an extremely unpleasant life as a slave, and while still wearing the stinking, torn clothes they had been originally been captured in, shivering a little from a chill wind that blew across the Haven plain, the former slaves complained to Gideon about their son’s life choices.
“Michael is a soldier?” exclaimed the mother, a Mrs Dowding, accosting the colonel, her eyes wide with horror. “But he could be hurt or killed.”
“Well, yes, that’s part of the deal,” said Gideon. “Now if you don’t mind..”
“He must come back with us to the summer camp,” said Mr Dowding. “I’m told you can order this. We’re members of the governing committee so we’re telling you to order him to go back to summer camp.”
“Michael, Musketeer Dowding, volunteered to be a musketeer,” said Gideon. “I didn’t force him, and I’m not preventing anyone from leaving. I sent someone back once, because discipline wasn’t sticking with him, but that guy snuck back anyway.”
After being discovered by Gideon, Musketeer Turnbull had kept out of the colonel’s way. At that moment he had found reasons to be busy at one end of the fortification. Kat, in contrast, had escaped her fortification duties for the moment to chat with BD, while Gideon was being harassed by the Dowdings.
“I didn’t raise my son to go around shooting people,” said Mr Dowding.
“That’s a matter to take up with him, not me,” said Gideon. “Forcing any musketeer to leave against their will is out of question. I can’t recall your son to mind directly, but quite a few of them see their service with this unit as a way of clearing up your mess.”
“How is it our mess?” demanded Mr Dowding, indignantly.
“You just told me you were both on the committee. You didn’t call for help when these creatures started invading.”
“We were trying to make contact – to negotiate and understand their needs,” said Mr Dowding. “Calling in soldiers would have just confused the matter, and some of the Midis might have been hurt.”
“As opposed to humans being hurt,” said Gideon. “How many were killed and put to work as slaves before the musketeers even formed? But this is all a matter for an inquiry. You need to work on justifying your decision to them.”
“Inquiry?” said Mrs Dowding. “What inquiry?”
“There’s bound to be one,” said Gideon. In truth the colonel had not thought about such an inquiry until just that moment, but he was anxious to get rid of the Dowdings. “Do you think earth’s only settlement can be overrun and humans killed while the government committee debated what to do, without someone investigating. What’s the human death toll been to date, hundreds? Thousands? All because you guys refused to authorise military action.”
“This settlement is about peace,” said Mr Dowding, drawing himself up. “The beings in the structure are hardly going to be impressed by violent behaviour.”
“In fact, that’s all The Witches, the creatures in the structure, wanted from humans. They invited us here for military protection. We’ve been talking to them.”
The mouths of both Dowdings fell open.
“If you don’t believe me ask BD.” At the mention of her name, BD looked over and smiled. “She’s even been speaking to them in their language. As I said, look to your excuses.”
With that Gideon left, unaware that he had created trouble for himself with the threat of an inquiry. Like all activists the Dowdings were not about to admit any fault or any error in their arguments, judgements or knowledge of a particular subject at any time, in any circumstances and no matter what evidence was put in front of their noses. They were also skilled at the political game. The two committee members fled back to the structure where they begged their son to come with them, before he met a messy end. Michael Dowding refused. He was later wounded but survived. The Dowdings were then ferried to The Summer Camp, where they told Bishop, still sore from being hit by the cavalry commander, Captain Parker, that they were about to be on the wrong end of an inquiry. They quickly agreed to start their own inquiry into musketeer war crimes when they were able. Good people back on earth, meaning activists of all types, would soon be told about Gideon Swift’s atrocities, whatever they might be.
Gideon heard various reports from his commanders – about a dozen freed slaves had been brought to Fort Terminus to date and more were coming; work on the fort was progressing well – and put together a two car expedition to take BD further out on the Haven plain.
“We’ll take you as close to Haven city as we can,” he told BD as they drove, both in the back seat of the lead car, “but you’ll still be in for a stiff walk before nightfall to get back to your son.”
“His name is Christopher, and you have to meet him,” said BD, “but it seems more like you’re now anxious to get rid of me.”
“When there aren’t a lot of Midis in the way I’ll meet whoever you want, including Christopher. As for getting rid of you, you were the one who wanted to get back to him, and away from an unfortunate, temporary liaison.”
“Unfortunate liaison – huh! You know, Kat was boosting you to me.”
“Was she? I’ve threatened her with disciplinary action so often, to no effect, I sorta hoped she’d think of me as a fearsome ogre type.”
“She doesn’t seem to think that. Even The Witches thing well of you.”
“They’re comparing me with Bishop – it seems they didn’t like Bishop at all.”
The two Musketeers in the front seat chuckled over that.
“Bishop is way too intense,” agreed BD. “What’s this?”
They had come to one of the Midi villages that had been built throughout the Haven plain since the conquest. Like the others this village was a collection of huts built besides one of the settlement’s roads of whatever building material that could be found, and lived in by the poorer Black Bands lorded over by a Red Band chieftain. The Midis generally settled besides the sealed human roads which they considered marvels of engineering more important than the machines they did not understand left rusting in open fields. Now the road had brought them a bunch of humans brandishing the now feared fire sticks demanding their slaves.
Gideon saw one human, an older female, appear at the door of one of the huts with a double arm load of clothes.
“Do your own fucking washing,” Gideon heard her say to a near-by Midi, casting aside the clothes, and walking towards the cars. “Am I glad to see you guys.”
“You might have to take a seat in the carts said one of the musketeers.” Each car was hauling a couple of carts.
“I’ll take it,” she said. “Just let me get my stuff.”
“There’s another village just down the side road,” said another slave, a man in his thirties. “You may wanna get there quick before they send their slaves away and, say, can I get one of those guns?”
“We’ll get you back to the fort first. Lieutenant Masters!” (This was the other officer in the detachment.)
“Sir!”
“Get the second car and carts to that village,” said Gideon, “and bring the humans back here. If its not that far, a few can walk back. I’ll untie the cars from this one and take BD a few more minutes down the road. Smartly now.”
Gideon took a musket and some cartridges for himself and drove on with BD, keeping an eye open for Midi soldiers. It would not do for the human commander in chief to be caught by a Midi patrol. BD was also aware that they were getting too close to Haven City for comfort.
“Just let me out before this bridge,” she said eventually. “I know my way from here. I’ll get there before nightfall.”
Gideon got out too and they kissed lightly.
“Calling is not a good idea,” she said, holding up her phone. “I have to keep it off and hidden most of the time. You can text me, and I’ll call you when I can and, Gideon, be careful.”
“You can count on that,” he said. “You too.” He watched her go. After she crossed the bridge she turned and waved, then went out of sight behind a clump of trees. As Gideon drove back it occurred to him that it might now be difficult for him to leave Haven, if and when the gate was opened again.
The humans barely had time to raid the villages within reach of their base before it turned cold. Gideon had been warned that the winter on the Haven plain could be fierce and, on the uplands, truly icy, but that winter was particularly severe, or so his musketeers told him. Snow had never come that early or piled so high. They set to work chopping wood, cheerfully ignoring forestry conservation orders, both to build substantial shelters for both themselves and the horses and for fires, which they huddled besides. Their sufferings were slight compared with those of French soldiers retreating from Moscow, or German soldiers fighting bitterly to defend sinking dugouts in artic conditions deep in Russia, or even of American revolutionary soldiers at Valley Forge. They did not starve. Witches bread, as their rations were known, did not vary much but it kept them on their feet. They dreamed of hamburgers using the meat from the vats at Haven – animals were not kept for slaughter on the planet – of eggs and strawberries, and of warm beaches and sun-bathing while shivering on guard duties or on endless patrols through a white landscape, occasionally seeing Midi scouts in the distance, then having to thaw out in front of a fire and inspect their toes for frostbite. Maybe it was not that hard, but it was hard enough for them. Later at reunions, just as veterans of Napoleons Old Guard reminisced about the retreat from Moscow, the musketeers often fell to talking about the hard times of that winter.
In the meantime the musketeers converted their weapons to the new-fangled rifle technology and continued their studies of military history.
“Who can blame Hitler for thinking he could beat the Soviets,” said one officer in a discussion group. “The Wehrmacht had knocked over France in six weeks – just six weeks – Stalin had slaughtered his own high command and almost anyone else in the Soviet hierarchy. What independent commentary there was, was either clueless and hostile or obviously mad like the Webbs, a husband and wife team of English academics who wrote books saying what a wonderful and wise leader Stalin was. How was Hitler to know that the Soviets were capable of moving most of their industry behind the Urals, that the Soviet system could raise divisions just as quickly as they could be destroyed or that American industry, which he declared war on, would send so much material to them.”
“Yeah, sure,” said another, “but there was ideological blindness as well. He didn’t realise the Slavs would fight bitterly to defend their homes, or how tough the Soviet solider could be. Then he unleashed the SS in the Ukraine and Belarus, alienating natural allies. Those guys hated the Soviets as much as he did.
The first officer shrugged. “It’s true that the Soviet soldiers pretty soon realised that the Nazi regime was arguably even worse than their own – which is saying a lot – and even the ordinary German soldiers had to steal their food from the local population. But Hitler was a gambler who had good reasons for thinking the Soviet regime would collapse after a few weeks.”
With more Havenites coming of age and going through the new standard training program, Gideon now had about double the force he had commanded at The Bridge, all armed with rifles or muskets converted to rifles, with which they practised markspersonship as the female musketeers insisted that the skill of shooting straight be called. However, The Midis still had many thousands of warriors and were clearly up to something. Room Nine told Gideon that Black Robes had been seen around Haven City, meeting with the Midi generals, who then sat up late into the night, talking earnestly. But his intelligence service could tell him little about what was said at these meetings. Human slaves who knew the Midi language were kept well away. Carts and horses were being collected however, so the Midis planned to attack, and Fort Terminus was the obvious place to strike.
Of more comfort were the reports on the adoption of muskets. Despite the lesson human musket lines firing in volleys had taught them, Midi warriors had mostly decided the new muskets were not worthy of their time. They did not like the need to practice loading and firing and found the kick in the shoulder when the weapon was fired painful. Nor did they seem to understand that firing at specific targets beyond one hundred paces was pointless. Musket armed units were formed, but were composed of Black Bands who were not thought to be of use for much else, or who were being punished. Attempts to form cavalry units failed miserably.
Gideon was encouraged by this but ordered that target practice for the new rifles was to be done at the structure, rather than at Fort Terminus where Midi scouts might see the new weapons being used. The newly formed mortar company also practised at the structure, or rather well away from it on the Western side in order not to bother The Witches. He wanted the new weapons to be a surprise. The Colonel wondered how much of his activities were being reported back the Midis or Black Robes. The answer, as he was to find out much later, was they were getting reports from unexpected sources – but those sources did not understand or appreciate quite what they were looking at.
An electric snow plough was brought out from one of the skiing resorts and used to clear the road between the structure and the fort, so that musketeer companies could march up and down, breath smoking, as they were rotated through garrison duty at the fort. Those on garrison duties patrolled aggressively, although they did not see much. A Midi scout was occasionally sighted at long rifle range, but on Gideon’s express orders the humans did not fire. He did not want the Midis to find out about the power of rifles until it really mattered.
The patrols occasionally picked up human slaves who had escaped nearby villages, their tracks camouflaged by falling snow. These told Gideon and Room Nine about large groups of Midi warriors moving around, and senior Red Bands meeting with each other. There were rumours that the humans were to be dealt with once and for all, but how this was to happen they could not say.
Gideon, for his part, went to the fort as often as he could to share the hardships of its garrison and to gaze out over the white landscape and think of BD. They exchanged texts often. She had trouble keeping her son fed and reasonably warm, probably at the cost of going hungry herself although she did not say this.
While he was at the fort Kat told him that the Get Colonel Swift A Date committee had been disbanded.
“That’s something to be grateful for,” said Gideon. “Room Nine might get back to military matters and tell me what’s going on over there.” He nodded in the direction of Haven City.
“They’re working on it,” said Kat. Her converted musket was slung. She wore a beanie and gloves and so many layers of clothing that she looked almost round and was still shivering. “But I thought I should tell you that BD told us to disband. We were only going to suspend operations and we told her this, but she said she wanted the committee disbanded.”
“Really?” Gideon was interested in this and had long given up telling Kat to butt out of his personal business. “Did she give any reason for the directive?”
Kat smiled. “No, no reason and we didn’t ask, but in this matter what she says goes.”
“What I say doesn’t matter at all, but what she says is vital.”
“Of course,” said Kat smiling again. “But if a horde of Midis come this way, what you say will become important again.”
“I’m glad to hear that at least,” exclaimed Gideon. “But this all seems a legalistic way to interfere in other people’s private lives. Why don’t I form a Get Kat A Date committee? Would any of the male musketeers have any interest, do you think?”
Kat shook her head. “With girls its more of a committee to keep guys away, or maybe keep them all away except one that meets the girl’s exacting standards.”
“Do any guys measure up to your exacting standards?”
Kat pretended to consider this for a moment. “Maybe one or two,” she said.
After that, Kat reluctantly conceded that she had military duties to attend to and moved off leaving Gideon to stare out over the whitened landscape. The problem he faced was an old one, although long obsolete on earth. Finding food for the horses. Despite a late start they had found and stored a heap of forage for the horses before the snow had piled up. This was supplemented by a horde of food pellets found at the Summer Camp, but stocks would run out by spring. He needed fresh grass to keep the horses fed while they roamed the Haven plain. There were now about sixty or so cavalry troopers, which was hardly enough for all the jobs Gideon wanted them to do, but he knew through Room Nine, that the Midis were terrified of them and they had yet to work out an effective way to fight cavalry. He would feel a lot better about moving around on the plain if he knew the cavalry were out there scouting his flanks, with the help of the musketeer’s aerial recon unit.
Once the grass did grow, however, he would face a choice about whether to go out and provoke the Midis by raiding deep into their territory or wait until they came to him. On that day looking out over the white expanse, Gideon decided that unless the Midis started moving soon after spring came, he would go to them. Those musketeers itching for a showdown would get their wish.