When the Devil Dances

But this time Mansfield had him dead to rights. The colonel had become a little too complacent, a little too regular in his schedule. And Mansfield had used all the tricks. A dummy was occupying his bed so no one would know he was stalking the night. No one had seen him crossing the compound so none of the troops would give him away this time. And a female trooper who really needed the colonel to sign a waiver so she could be promoted out of zone, a waiver that had been approved by her company commander, the sergeant major and the adjutant, had spent the evening plying the colonel with Bushmills. With any luck his defenses would be low enough that Mansfield would surprise him for once.

He crouched lower and leaned to the side, peering around the sign announcing that this simple single-wide trailer was the residence of the commander of the Ten Thousand. He glimpsed a shadow and consulted his watch. Yes, it was precisely the time the colonel should be showing up. He readied the pen and prepared to spring as a voice spoke over his shoulder.

“You lookin’ for me, Mansfield?”

Major Mansfield stood up and looked at the figure that was now standing on the stoop of the porch. Now that it was in the light it was clear that the figure was both shorter and darker than the colonel. And wore the wrong rank.

“Sergeant Major Wacleva, I am, frankly, shocked that you would stoop so low as to assist this juvenile delinquent over my shoulder in his avoidance of duty!”

“Ah, don’t take it personal, Major,” the young looking sergeant major responded in a gravelly voice. “It is the age-old dichotomy of the warrior and the beancounter!”

“Since when did you get cleared for words like ‘dichotomy’?” the adjutant asked with a laugh.

“Since the colonel spent half the night getting plastered with Brockdorf,” Wacleva responded sourly. He pulled out a pack of Pall Malls and tapped out a cancer stick.

“Yeah,” Cutprice said with a laugh. “Did you know she was a philosophy major before she enlisted?”

“Yes, I do, Colonel,” Mansfield answered testily, finally turning around to look at the officer. “Which is why she’s one of the very few people I know who can read the Posleen mind. And did you know she needed your signature to get her promotion to E-6?”

“Why the hell do you think I’m standing on a roof in the freezing cold?” Cutprice asked. He took the pen out of the S-1’s hand. “Which one is it?”

“Oh, no, you’re not getting away that easily,” Mansfield answered. “Among other things there’s a real strange one in here. I think we might need to send a squad down to North Carolina to spring one of our officers.”

“Who’s in North Carolina?” Cutprice asked, stepping lightly off the roof and landing on sprung knees. “Goddamn it’s nice to be young again.”

“No shit,” the major responded, landing next to him. “I think the last time I could be assured of doing that and not killing myself was in ’73.”

“With all due respect, sirs, yer both wimps,” the sergeant major growled. “Try being old before ’73. I couldn’t do that when I was datin’ yer mothers.”

Cutprice chuckled and reached for the sheaf of papers. “Gimme the 3420, I promise I’ll do the rest.”

Mansfield and the sergeant major followed the colonel into the trailer and Mansfield extracted a sheet of paper from the pile as the sergeant major went to the sideboard. “One 3420, complete and ready to sign,” Mansfield said.

“Hmm.” The colonel read it carefully. The game went both ways; Mansfield had twice inserted orders transferring himself to a command slot so the colonel was now careful to read the documents he signed. “This looks kosher,” he said, scrawling a signature.

“So is this,” Mansfield said. “There are two documents here. One is from Captain Elgars and the other is from her original shrink.”

“Elgars doesn’t ring a bell,” Cutprice said, picking up the printout of an e-mail.

“And it shouldn’t, she’s never been ‘with’ us, so to speak,” Mansfield said. “She was at the Monument, the sniper who is the reason it has a brand-new aluminum top.”

“Hang on a bit,” the sergeant major rasped. “Redhead, broken arm. What’s she doing as a captain?”

“Just about everybody that was there got battlefield commissions,” Mansfield pointed out. “Unless they specifically turned them down,” he added with a “hrum, hrum.”

“Well, I didn’t turn it down, it’s just a reserve commission and I’m acting in my regular rank,” the sergeant major said with a grin. “That way when I retire I get major’s pay and in the meantime nobody can make me a fuckin’ adjutant.”

“Elgars was in a coma so she wasn’t in a position to turn down a promotion to first lieutenant,” Mansfield continued. “And she got promoted in her zone automatically, since she was officially on the roll as patient status.”

“That’s the silliest fucking thing I ever heard,” the sergeant major said, pouring himself a drink and setting the bottle on the table. Then he paused. “Naw, I take that back. I’ve heard sillier stuff. But it’s close.”