Hurried footsteps echoed through the stairway. Guy entered the room and snapped to attention.
“Get to work on this half-dead scum,” ordered the captain. “You have enough handcuffs?”
Guy glanced over his shoulder at the prisoners.
“With your permission, sir, we’ll have to borrow a pair from Second Platoon.”
“Get busy.”
Guy ran out. More boots echoed through the stairway as platoon leaders appeared to report that everything was proceeding according to plan. Two suspicious characters had been arrested. The tenants, as always, had rendered active assistance. The captain ordered them to finish up quickly and, when they had completed their assignments, to radio the code word “Tamba” to headquarters. When the platoon leaders had gone, he lit another cigarette and remained silent for some time. He watched the legionnaires remove books from the shelves, leaf through them, and fling them onto the bed.
“Pandi,” he called in a low voice, “get busy with the pictures. But be careful with this one. Don’t spoil it. I’ll take it for myself.” He turned to Maxim again. “What do you think of it?”
Maxim looked at it. A seashore, a broad expanse of water without а horizon, dusk and a woman emerging from the sea. It was windy, chilly. The woman looked cold.
“A fine painting, sir,” said Maxim.
“Do you recognize the place?”
“Not at all, sir. I’ve never seen that sea.”
“Well, what sea have you seen?”
“A completely different one, sir. But it’s my deceptive memory again, sir.”
“Nonsense. It’s the same sea. Except that you weren’t looking at it from the shore, but from a ship’s bridge. And below you was a white deck. At the stem was another bridge, somewhat lower. On the shore, instead of this dame, there was a tank. And you were aiming for the turret. Massaraksh.”
“I don’t understand,” said Maxim coldly. “I’ve never aimed anything anywhere.”
“How can you be so sure of that? After all. Candidate Sim, you don’t remember anything!”
“But I do remember that I never aimed anything anywhere.”
“Sir!”
“I do remember that I never aimed anything anywhere, sir. And I don’t understand what you’re talking about, sir.”
Guy entered, accompanied by two candidates. They began to place heavy handcuffs on the prisoners.
“These people are human, too,” the captain said suddenly. “They have wives, children. They loved someone, someone loved them.”
The captain was obviously mocking him, but Maxim said precisely what he thought: “Yes, sir. They appear to be human, too.”
“You didn’t expect that?”
“No, sir. I expected something quite different.”
Through the corner of his eye he could see Guy’s frightened expression. But he was sick and tired of lying, and he added: “I thought they would really be degenerates, like naked... animals.”
“Naked idiot,” snapped the captain. “You’re not in the forest, you know. Here they look like people. Good, kind people who get excruciating headaches when they’re under stress—just like you do,” he added unexpectedly.
“I never get any aches or pains, sir. Do you?”
“What?”
“You sound so irritated that I thought...”
“Captain!” Guy shouted in a tremulous voice. “I beg to report, sir, that the prisoners have regained consciousness.”
The captain looked at him and smiled ironically.
“Don’t worry, corporal. Your buddy proved himself today to be a real legionnaire. If it weren’t for him. Captain Chachu would be stretched out here with a bullet in his brain.” He looked up at the ceiling and blew out a dense cloud of smoke. “You have a good nose, corporal. I’d promote this rascal to regular private on the spot; massaraksh, I’d even make him an officer! He has the makings of a brigadier: he loves to ask officers questions. But, corporal, now I understand. You had good reasons for your report. So we’ll wait a while before promoting him.” The captain rose, clumped around the table, and halted before Maxim. “We won’t even make him a regular private yet. He’s a fine fighter, but still wet behind the ears. We’ll get him into shape... Attention!” he shouted suddenly. “Corporal Gaal, remove the prisoners! Private Pandi and Candidate Sim, take my painting and all papers in this apartment and bring them to me in the truck.”
He turned and left the room. Guy looked at Maxim reproachfully but said nothing. The legionnaires kicked and jabbed the prisoners to their feet and led them to the door. They did not resist but swayed and buckled like blobs of jelly. The stocky man who had been firing in the hall groaned loudly and swore under Ms breath. The woman’s lips moved soundlessly; her eyes were glazed.
“Hey, Mac,” said Pandi. “Take the blanket from the bed and wrap the books in it. Drag it downstairs—I’ll take the picture. Yeah, and don’t forget your gun, you blockhead! You’re wondering why the captain raked you over the coals, eh? You threw away your gun. Imagine, throwing away your gun during a battle! You nut!”
“Cut it, Pandi,” said Guy angrily. “Take the picture and go.”
In the doorway Pandi turned around to Maxim, tapped himself on the forehead, and vanished. They could hear him singing “Cool It, Mama” at the top of his lungs as he walked down the stairs. Maxim laid his gun on the table and walked over to the pile of books that had been dumped on the bed and floor. Never before on this planet had he seen so many books in one place, except perhaps in the city library. Of course, the bookstores had many more books, but not more titles.
The pages were yellowed with age. Some books were singed, and some, to Maxim’s surprise, were perceptibly radioactive. He didn’t have time to examine them properly.
Maxim packed up two bundles and paused to look around the room. Empty twisted shelves, dark stains where pictures had been hanging—the pictures had been torn from their frames and trampled. Not a trace of dental equipment. He picked up the bundles and started for the door, then remembered his gun and returned. On a desk, beneath plate glass, lay two photographs. One was of a pale woman dandling a boy of about four on her knees. She was young, content, proud. The other showed a beautiful spot in the mountains, dark clumps of trees, and an old tumbled own tower. Maxim slung the gun across his back and returned to the bundles.
7.
Every morning after breakfast the brigade assembled on the drill field to hear the orders of the day before dispersing to their assignments. For Maxim this was the most disturbing part of the day, with the exception of evening roll call. The reading of orders always ended in a frenzied display of loyalty and zeal. Maxim forced himself to suppress his revulsion at this paroxysm of insanity that seized the entire brigade from the commander to the lowliest candidate. He reproached himself for harboring the skepticism of an outsider, an alien; he tried to inspire himself, to convince himself that he must understand their enthusiasm and steep himself in it. But he could not.
Schooled since childhood to show self-restraint, to question, and to dislike high-sounding phrases, he had to control his irritation with his comrades during formation. Following the reading of an order sentencing some candidate to three days in the stockade for arguing with a private, the men would suddenly lose their good nature and sense of humor. Their mouths would fly open and they would begin to roar “Hoorah” with wild enthusiasm. Then, with tears in their eyes, they would sing “The Fighting Legion March,” repeating it as many as four times. Even the cooks ran out and joined in, waving pots and knives frenziedly. Reminding himself that in this world he must conform, he forced himself to join in the singing and to suppress his sense of the ridiculous. But the contrived enthusiasm disgusted him.
Today a burst of enthusiasm followed Order 127, promoting Private Dimbas to corporal; Order 128, citing Candidate Sim for his courageous act during an operation; and Order 129, placing Fourth Company’s barracks under repair. Scarcely had the brigade adjutant returned the orders to his leather map case than the brigadier tore off his cap, took a deep breath, and shouted in a rasping falsetto: “Forward, Legionnaires! Men of Iron!” And on and on. Maxim felt especially uncomfortable today when he saw tears rolling down Captain Chachu’s dark cheeks. The legionnaires bellowed like bulls, beating time with their gun butts on their massive belt buckles. To avoid the sight and sound of this spectacle, Maxim squinted and roared like an enraged takhorg, and his voice drowned out all the others—at least it seemed that way to him. “Forward, fearless men!” he roared, now hearing only his own voice. My God, what idiotic words. Probably composed by some corporal. To go into combat with such words you’d have to be awfully in love with your work. He opened his eyes and saw a flock of black birds, startled, fly silently over the drill field. “A diamond coat of mail will not save you, oh, foe.”