"You can't understand the hobo temperament, Chief. There is not one in a hundred who could be depended on to observe the strict self-discipline necessary for such an enterprise. Suppose you were able to arm all of them with projectors -- I don't say that is possible, but suppose you could -- you still would not have an army; you would simply have an undisciplined rabble."
"Wouldn't they fight?"
"Oh, sure, they'd fight. They'd fight as individuals, and they would do quite a bit of slaughter until some flatface caught them off guard and winged them. "
"I wonder if we can depend on them as sources of information. "
"That's another matter. Most of the road kids won't have any idea that they are being used to obtain military information. I'll handpick not over a dozen to act as reporters to me, and I won't tell them anything they don't have to know."
Any way he looked at it, simple, straightforward military use of the new weapons was not expedient. Brutal frontal attack was for the commander who had men to expend. General U. S. Grant could afford to say, "I will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer," because he could lose three men to the enemy's one and still win. Those tactics were not for the commander who could not afford to lose any men. For him it must be deception, misdirection -- feint and slash and run away --"and live to fight another day." The nursery rhyme finished itself in his mind. That was it. It had to be something totally unexpected, something that the PanAsians would not realize was warfare until they were overwhelmed by it.
It would have to be something like the "fifth columns" that destroyed the European democracies from within in the tragic days that led to the final blackout of European civilization. But this would not be a fifth column of traitors, bent on paralyzing a free country; but the antithesis of that, a sixth column of patriots whose privilege it would be to destroy the morale of invaders, make them afraid, unsure of themselves.
And misdirection was the key to it, the art of fooling!
Ardmore felt a little better when he had reached that conclusion. It was something he could understand, a job suited to an advertising man. He had been trying to crack it as a military problem, but he was not a field marshal and it had been silly of him to try to make a noise like one. His mind did not work that way. This was primarily a job in publicity, a matter of mob psychology. A former boss of his, under whom he had learned the racket, used to tell him, "I can sell dead cats to the board of health with a proper budget and a free hand."
Well, he had a free hand, all right, and the budget was no problem. Of course, he could not use the newspapers and the old channels of advertising, but there would be a way. The problem now was to figure out the weak points of the PanAsians and decide how Calhoun's little gadgets could be used to play on those weak points until the PanAsians were sick of the whole deal and anxious to go home.
He did not have a plan as yet. When a man is at a loss for a course of action, he usually calls for a conference. Ardmore did.
He sketched out to them the situation up to date, including all that Thomas had learned and all that had come in by television through the conquerors' "educational" broadcasts. Then he discussed the powers that were made available to them by the research staff, and the various obvious ways in which they could be applied as military weapons, emphasizing the personnel necessary to use each type of weapon effectively. Having done so, he asked for suggestions.
"Do I understand, Major," Calhoun began, "that after rather pointedly telling us that you would make all military decisions you are now asking us to make up your mind for you?"
"Not at all, Colonel. I have still the responsibility for any decision, but this is a new sort of military situation. A suggestion from any source may prove valuable. I don't flatter myself that I have a monopoly on common sense, nor on originality. I would like for every one of us to tackle this problem and let the others criticize it. "
"Do you yourself have any plan to offer us?"
"I am reserving my opinions until the rest of you have spoken."
"Very well, sir" -- Dr. Calhoun straightened himself up -- "since you have asked for it, I will tell you what I think should be done in this situation -- what, in fact, is the only thing that can be done.
"You are aware of the tremendous power of the forces I have made available." Ardmore noticed Wilkie's mouth tighten at this allocation of credit, but neither of them interrupted. "In your resume, you underestimated them, if anything. We have a dozen fast scout cars housed here in the Citadel. By refitting them with power units of the Calhoun type they can be made faster than anything the enemy can put into the air. We will mount on them the heaviest projectors and attack. With overwhelmingly superior weapons it is only a matter of time until we will have the PanAsiatic empire beaten to its knees!"
Ardmore wondered how any man could be so blind. He did not himself wish to argue against Calhoun; he said, "Thank you, Colonel. I'll ask you to submit that plan written up in more detail. In the meantime does anyone wish to amplify or criticize the colonel's suggestion?" He waited hopefully, then added, "Come now, no plan is perfect. You must have some details to add, at least."
Graham took the, plunge. "How often do you expect to come down to eat?"
Calhoun cut in before Ardmore could call on him. "Well, I'm damned! I must say that I consider this no time for facetiousness."
"Wait a minute," protested Graham, "I didn't mean to be funny. I'm quite serious. That's my department. Those scout cars are not equipped to keep the air very long, and it seems to me that it will take quite a long time to reconquer the United States with a dozen scout cars, even if we located enough men to keep them in the air all the time. That means you have to come back to base to eat."
"Yes, and that means the base will have to be held against attack," Scheer put in suddenly.
"The base can be defended with other projectors." Calhoun's tone was scornful. "Major, I really must ask that the discussion be confined to sensible issues."
Ardmore rubbed his chin and said nothing.
Randall Brooks, who had been listening thoughtfully, pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and began to sketch. "I think Scheer has something, Dr. Calhoun. If you will look here for a moment here, at this point, is your base. The PanAsians can encircle the base with ships at a distance greater than the range of the base projectors.
The greater speed of your scout cars will be unimportant, for the enemy can well afford to use as many ships as necessary to insure our craft not getting past the blockade. It's sure that the scout cars will have the projectors with which to fight, but they can't fight a hundred ships at once, and the enemies' weapons are powerful, too -- we mustn't forget that."
"You're right they're powerful!" added Wilkie. "We can't afford to have a known base. With their bombardment rockets they could stand back a thousand miles and blow this whole mountain out of the ground, if they knew we were under it."
Calhoun stood up. "I'm not going to remain here and listen to misgivings of pusillanimous fools. My plan assumed that men would execute it." He walked stiffly out of the room.
Ardmore ignored his departure and went hurriedly on, "The objections made to Colonel Calhoun's scheme seem to me to apply to every plan for open, direct combat at this time. I have considered several and rejected them for approximately those reasons, at least for reasons of logistics -- that is to say, the problem of military supply. However, I may not have thought of some perfectly feasible solution. Does anyone have a direct warfare method to suggest, a method which will not risk personnel?"