"I don't understand," the Sumeri said, in English.
McNamara translated to Parilla who answered, through him, "You've earned t'e right to keep t'em."
Sada felt unmanly tears begin to form. He bit his upper lip and, nodding gratefully, returned the colors to their bearer. He saw Qabaash the Fierce suddenly lose his dejected demeanor and stand tall. By the time Sada turned again, Parilla had retrieved his sword from McNamara and was offering that back as well.
The tears began to course then in truth. Sada hung his head in embarrassment. Parilla just smiled broadly and slapped the Sumeri's shoulder, saying something in Spanish that Sada had no clue to.
McNamara handed a small hinged box to Parilla, who took from it a medal on a ribbon. This Parilla hung about Sada's neck while his head was bowed.
" What? " the surprised Sumeri asked.
XI
"Can you identify forty or fifty men-officers, noncoms or enlisted, makes no difference, except I'd prefer some of each-who just did a really good, really courageous job here?" Carrera had asked. "I mean soldiers that everyone in your brigade would recognize as being number one fighters, first-class men?"
"Forty or fifty? I could probably give you four or five hundred." Sada had answered with pride, standing there on the green strip as the two worked out the final details of surrender.
"No… let's not be too ostentatious. Forty or fifty will do, for now."
"Follow t'e commander," McNamara said to Sada, as Parilla walked to the group of fifty Sumeris who had followed just behind the colors and were centered in middle of the remnants of the brigade. Sada did so, with the sergeant major following. Another legionary followed the sergeant major, bearing a scrounged metal tray on which were laid out fifty Steel Crosses.
"What the hell is he doing?" Sada asked of the sergeant major.
"T'ere is no bar in our regulations," McNamara answered, "to decorating for bravery an enemy who has fought well. As a matter of fact, if you read t'em t'e right way, it is required, at least where possible."
"No shit?" Sada asked.
"No shit… sir."
Well, this was certainly something different. With a very odd mix of feelings, Sada followed Parilla as he walked down the five ranks of ten and hung a medal around the necks of each of the Sumeris Sada had identified as particularly worthy. At each man Parilla shook hands and said a few words, technically incomprehensible but in practice quite clear. "Good man… brave soldier… it was an honor to fight you… wear it with pride."
With the presentation of the last award, Parilla again shook Sada's hand. Again they exchanged salutes. Sada walked back to his position in front of his staff while Parilla went back to the reviewing stand.
Carrera gave the order to Sada, "Have your soldiers ground arms."
Unit by unit, starting from the right of the line as they faced, the remnants of the Sumeri units grounded their rifles and machine guns on the grass strip, the men bending at the waist to carefully lay the weapons down before recovering to attention.
When the last unit had disarmed, Carrera ordered, "Have your brigade follow me." With another head nod, the pipes and drums picked back up again. The Sumeris began to march, first marking time in place and then, as the way cleared, wheeling left or right and moving forward behind the colors following their commander who, in turn, followed Carrera.
The honor guard from 1st Cohort stepped out to stand beneath the reviewing stand, between the eagles and the boulevard. When Carrera reached the stand he turned his eyes to the right and saluted the Dux and the Eagles. The sergeant major ordered, "Present… arms."
Carrera dropped the salute and continued on.
Taking the hint, Sada gave the command, "Eyes… right," and rendered "Present Arms" with his clan's sword. The colors of his brigade dropped to a forty-five degree angle until he ordered, "Ready… front." The silver eagles likewise lowered but to a lesser degree.
As the group of Sumeris Parilla had just decorated reached the stand they, too, executed an eyes right. Parilla saluted and dropped it. Then Parilla began to applaud. The staff on the stand joined him, holding the applause until the Sumeri honorees had passed.
That night, Sada met with Parilla and Carrera in a large and tacky office in one of the local municipal buildings that had been mostly spared in the fighting. The cheap but ostentatiously gilded furniture glinted in the now dim and then flaring kerosene lamps.
Fahad was in attendance in case translation should be needed.
"Your men? Settled in? Fed? Watered?" Parilla asked in his marginal English.
"Yes, sir," Sada answered. He was still in mild shock at the decent, even gallant, treatment he and his men had been accorded. Indeed, back in the wire-ringed temporary camp in which he and his troops were housed under first class Misrani tents his staff was still scratching their collective head.
"I have to apologize for the food," Parilla said, through Carrera. "Frankly, we're not eating all that well, either. We're supposed to have a somewhat improved supply situation in a few days."
"That's fine," Sada said. "After a week of boiled camel and rice, and not much of that, the men are happy just to be full."
"Drink?" Carrera offered, indicating a mostly full bottle and some mostly clean glasses.
"Please. We Sumeris are not, generally speaking, Salafi fanatics, you know."
Fahad poured for the four. There was no ice so it was scotch, neat.
They sipped, in silence and contemplatively, for a few minutes before Carrera began to speak.
"The FSC-led coalition has ordered your entire army to disband, the fucking idiots," he said heatedly. "Allegedly they'll provide a month's severance pay, at least to the officers."
Sada laughed, low and deprecatingly. "I can't even begin to tell you what a bad idea that is. You're going to suddenly un employ several hundred thousand young men, all trained to arms, and-my brigade excepted-with every reason to hate your guts. Oh, my. Saleh, wherever he's hiding, must just be coming in his pants over that one."
"Not us," Carrera corrected, "the FSC. Seems some civilian, neverheard-a-shot-fired-in-anger-idiot there, decided for the military that troops who had run away and surrendered were just not worth keeping around. Mind you, the money was all allocated to keep them under arms and employ them. But, no, this dipshit civilian with never a day in uniform thinks he knows better."
Sada shrugged. "Well," he admitted, "they're mostly not worth keeping around for the good they can do the FSC. At least not any immediate good. They're worth keeping around for the harm they might do if left to their own devices."
"We agree," Carrera said. "That's why we don't want to let your brigade go."
Seeing Sada bridle at the thought of his men spending some uncountable amount of time locked up behind wire, Carrera hastened to add, "Wait. I don't mean we want to keep them as prisoners past the time we must. I mean we want to hire them. And you."
Well… that was different. "So that's what all that pageantry was about."
"Partly," Carrera admitted. "But only partly. You and your men deserved it, too. What we have in mind, what we need, is three things. We want to hire about one hundred and fifty of your men as auxiliaries. They'll go to school to learn Spanish for about four months. Then they'll be assigned right down to century level to act as guides and interpreters for our units."
"That's… do-able," Sada agreed. One hundred and fifty men was only a fraction of the men he had who would need employment.
"The second thing we want is for you to reform a regular brigade of three or four infantry battalions. Call it two to three thousand men. You and they will fall under command of the legion and, frankly, be used."