“Thanks, Sarge,” Bill said, stripping off the coils and throwing them out the window.
The sergeant suddenly began vibrating like a plucked string and dropped onto the foot of Bill's bunk. “P‑pocket… shirt… p‑p‑pills…” he stuttered through chattering teeth. Bill pulled a plastic box of pills out of the sergeant's pocket and forced some of them into his mouth. The vibrations stopped, and the man sagged back against the wall, gaunter and yellower and streaming with sweat.
“Jaundice and swamp fever and galloping filariasis, never know when an attack will hit me, that's why they can't send me back to combat, I can't hold a gun.
Me, Master Sergeant Ferkel, the best damned flamethrower in Kirjassoff's Kutthroats, and they have me playing nursemaid in a prison labor camp. So you think that bugs me? It does not bug me, it makes me happy, and the only thing that would make me happier would be shipping off this cesspool‑planet at once.” “Do you think alcohol will hurt your condition?” Bill asked, passing over a bottle of cough syrup. “It's kind of rough here?” “Not only won't hurt it, but it will…” There was a deep gurgling, and when the sergeant spoke again he was hoarser but stronger. “Rough is not the word for it. Fighting the Chingers is bad enough, but on this planet they have the natives, the Venians, on their side. These Venians look like moldy newts, and they got just maybe enough I. Q. to hold a gun and pull the trigger, but it is their planet and they are but murder out there in the swamps. They hide under the mud and they swim under the water and they swing from the trees and the whole planet is thick with them. They got no sources of supply, no army divisions, no organizations, they just fight. If one dies the others eat him. If one is wounded in the leg the others eat the leg and he grows a new one. If one of them runs out of ammunition or poison darts or whatever he just swims back a hundred miles to base, loads up, and back to battle. We have been fighting here for three years, and we now control one hundred square miles of territory.” “A hundred, that sounds like a lot.” “Just to a stupid bowb like you. That is ten miles by ten miles, and maybe about two square miles more than we captured in the first landings.” There was the squish‑thud of tired feet, and weary, mudsoaked men began to drag into the barracks. Sergeant Ferkel hauled himself to his feet and blew a long blast on his whistle.
“All right you new men, now hear this. You have all been assigned to B squad, which is now assembling in the compound, which squad will now march out into the swamp and finish the job these shagged creeps from A squad began this morning.
You will do a good day's work out there. I am not going to appeal to your sense of loyalty, your honor or your sense of duty…” Ferkel whipped out his atomic pistol and blew a hole in the ceiling through which rain began to drip.
“I am only going to appeal to your urge to survive, because any man shirking, goofing off, or not pulling his own weight will personally be shot dead by me.
Now get out.” With his bared teeth and shaking hands he looked sick enough and mean enough and mad enough to do it. Bill and the rest of B squad rushed out into the rain and formed ranks.
“Pick up da axes, pick up da picks, get the uranium out,” the corporal of the armed guard snarled as they squelched through the mud toward the gate. The labor squad, carrying their tools, stayed in the center, while the armed guard walked on the outside. The guard wasn't there to stop the prisoners from escaping but to give some measure of protection from the enemy. They dragged slowly down the road of felled trees that wound through the swamp. There was a sudden whistling overhead, and heavy transports flashed by.
“We're in luck today,” one of the older prisoners said, “they're sending in the heavy infantry again. I didn't know they had any left.” “You mean they'll capture more territory?” Bill asked.
“Naw, all they'll get is dead. But while they're getting butchered some of the pressure will be off of us, and we can maybe work without losing too many men.” Without orders they all stopped to watch as the heavy infantry fell like rain into the swamps ahead‑and vanished just as easily as raindrops. Every once in awhile there would be a boom and flash as a teensie A‑bomb went off, which probably atomized a few Venians, but there were billions more of the enemy just waiting to rush in. Small arms. crackled in the distance, and grenades boomed.
Then over the trees they saw a bobbing, bouncing figure approach. It was a heavy infantryman in his armored suit and gasproof helmet, A‑bombs and grenades strapped to him, a regular walking armory. Or rather hopping armory, since he would have had trouble walking on a paved street with the weight of junk hung about him, so he therefore moved by jumping, using two reaction rockets, one bolted to each hip. His hops were getting lower and lower as he came near. He landed fifty yards away and slowly sank to his waist in the swamp, his rockets hissing as they touched the water. Then he hopped again, much shorter this time, the rockets fizzling and popping, and he threw his helmet open in the air.
“Hey, guys,” he called. “The dirty Chingers got my fuel tank. My rockets are almost out, I can't hop much more. Give a buddy a hand will you… “ He hit the water with a splash.
“Get outta the monkey suit and we'll pull you in,” the guard corporal called.
“Are you nuts!” the soldier shouted. “It takes an hour to get into and outta this thing.” He triggered his rockets, but they just went pfffft, and he rose about a foot in the water, then dropped back. “The fuel's gone! Help me you bastards! What's this, bowb‑your‑buddy week…” he shouted as he sank. Then his head went under, and there were a few bubbles and nothing else.
“It's always bowb‑your‑buddy week,” the corporal said. “Get the column moving!
“ he ordered, and they shuffled forward. “Them suits weigh three thousand pounds. Go down like a rock.” If this was a quiet day, Bill didn't want to see a busy one. Since the entire planet of Veneria was a swamp no advances could be made until a road was built.
Individual soldiers might penetrate a bit ahead of the road, but for equipment or supplies or even heavily armed men a road was necessary. Therefore the labor corps was building a road of felled trees. At the front.
Bursts from atomrifles steamed in the water around them, and the poison darts were as thick as falling leaves. The firing and sniping on both sides was constant while the prisoners cut down trees and trimmed and lashed them together to push the road forward another few inches. Bill trimmed and chopped and tried to ignore the screams and falling bodies until it began to grow dark. The squad, now a good deal smaller, made their return march in the dusk.
“We pushed it ahead at least thirty yards this afternoon,” Bill said to the old prisoner marching at his side.
“Don't mean nothing, Venians swim up in the night and take the logs away.” Bill instantly made his mind up to get out of there.
“Got any more of that joyjuice?” Sergeant Ferkel asked when Bill dropped onto his bunk and began to scrape some of the mud from his boots with the blade of his knife. Bill took a quick slash at a plant coming up through the floorboards before he answered.
“Do you think you could spare me a moment to give me some advice, Sergeant?” “I am a flowing fountain of advice once my throat is lubricated.” Bill dug a bottle out of his pocket. “How do you get out of this outfit?” he asked.
“You get killed,” the sergeant told him as he raised the bottle to his lips.
Bill snatched it out of his hand.
“That I know without your help,” he snarled.
“Well that's all you gonna know without my help,” the sergeant snarled back.
Their noses were touching and they growled at each other deep in their throats. Having proven just where they stood and just how tough they both were they relaxed, and Sergeant Ferkel leaned back while Bill sighed and passed him the bottle.