“Do you?” Dowling brightened fractionally. “Well, bring him in. Maybe we’ll have a better notion of what we’re up against.”
His adjutant saluted. “Yes, sir.”
In came a large, burly Confederate soldier, escorted by three large, burly U.S. soldiers with submachine guns. The Confederate had two stripes on his tunic sleeve. Tunic and trousers weren’t the usual C.S. butternut, but a splotchy fabric in shades of tan and brown ranging from sand to mud. “Who are you?” Dowling asked.
“Sir, I am Assistant Troop Leader Lee Rodgers, Freedom Party Guards,” the prisoner said proudly. He recited his pay number.
“Assistant Troop Leader?” Dowling pointed to Rodgers’ chevrons. “You look like a corporal to me.”
“Sir, they are equivalent ranks,” Rodgers said. “The Freedom Party Guards have their own rank structure. This is to show that they are an elite.” He still sounded proud. He also sounded as if he was rattling off something he’d had to learn by rote.
Dowling had heard that before, though he didn’t know the guards actually went into combat. He thought they were just prison warders and secret policemen and Freedom Party muscle. But they fought, all right, and they fought well. Their tactics left something to be desired, but not their pluck.
“What’s your unit?” Dowling asked.
“Sir, I am Assistant Troop Leader Lee Rodgers, Freedom Party Guards.” Rodgers gave Dowling his pay number again. “Under the Geneva Convention, I don’t have to tell you anything else.”
He was right, of course. Sometimes that mattered more than it did other times. Had Dowling thought Rodgers held vital information, he might have squeezed him. There were ways to do it that technically didn’t violate the Convention. As things were, though, Dowling only asked, “Do you tell the Negroes in that prison camp down the road about their rights under the Geneva Convention?”
“No, sir,” Rodgers answered without hesitation. “They aren’t foreign prisoners. They’re internal enemies of the state. We have the right to do whatever we need to do with them.” He eyed Dowling. “They might as well be Mormons.”
He was sharper than the average corporal. If the Freedom Party Guards really were an elite, Dowling supposed that made sense. “We follow the Geneva Convention with the Mormons we capture,” Dowling said, which was-mostly-true. Then again, the Mormons had more than a few female fighters. They generally fought to the death. When they didn’t, U.S. soldiers often avenged themselves in a way they wouldn’t with Mormon men. That was against regulations and officially discouraged, which didn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Assistant Troop Leader Lee Rodgers only snorted. “If you do, it just means you’re weak and degenerate. Enemies of the state deserve whatever happens to them.” That sounded like another lesson learned by heart.
“How many Freedom Party Guards units are in combat?” Dowling asked.
“More every day,” Rodgers said, which gave the U.S. general something to worry about without giving him any real information. The prisoner folded his right hand into a fist and set it on his heart. “Freedom!” he shouted.
The U.S. soldiers guarding him growled and hefted their weapons. Rodgers seemed unafraid, or else more trusting than most new POWs. Dowling scowled. “Take him away,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” one of the men in green-gray said. “Shall we teach him not to mouth off, too?”
“Never mind,” Dowling said. “We’ll see how mouthy he is when we start advancing again.” That seemed to satisfy the soldiers. They weren’t more than ordinarily rough with the Freedom Party Guard, at least where Dowling could see them. The general commanding Eleventh Army sighed. “He’s a charmer, isn’t he?”
“Yes, sir,” Major Toricelli said. “That’s why you wanted to see him, isn’t it?”
“I wonder if they’re all like that. All the Party Guards, I mean,” Dowling said.
“Well, they sure fight like it’s going out of style,” his adjutant answered. “Those people are fanatics, and the Freedom Party is taking advantage of it.”
“Huzzah,” Dowling said sourly. “Do you suppose we have to worry about them turning into people bombs? That’s what fanatics do these days, it seems like.”
Toricelli looked startled. “Hadn’t thought of that, sir. They haven’t done it yet, if they’re going to.”
“Well, that’s good. I suppose it is, anyhow,” Dowling said. “Of course, maybe they just haven’t thought of it yet. Or maybe they’re going to put on civilian clothes instead of those silly-looking camouflage outfits and start looking for the biggest crowds of our soldiers they can find.”
“Or maybe they’ll start looking for you, sir,” Toricelli said. “The Confederates like to assassinate our commanders.”
“I know I’m not irreplaceable.” Dowling’s voice was dry. “I suspect the Confederates can figure it out, too. Besides, how would they get me? I’m not about to go strolling the streets of Lubbock.” He yawned. “I’d bore myself to death if I did.”
Lubbock held many more people than the other west Texas towns Dowling’s troops held for the USA. It wasn’t much more exciting. And the people here were as stubbornly pro-Confederate as in those small towns. When this part of Texas was the U.S. state of Houston, there were collaborators hereabouts. But they’d had the sense to get out when Jake Featherston conned Al Smith into a plebescite that returned Houston to Texas and the CSA. The ones who didn’t have that kind of sense ended up in camps themselves.
Under both the Stars and Stripes and the Stars and Bars (whose display now violated martial law), Lubbock had been a dry town. Dowling tried to win some popularity among local drinkers by declaring it wet. A couple of saloons opened up-and a minister promptly petitioned him to close them down.
The Reverend Humphrey Selfe looked as if he’d never had a happy thought in his life. He was long and lean, all vertical lines. He wore stark white and funereal black. His voice sounded like that of a bullfrog that had just lost its mother. “Wine is a mocker,” he told Dowling, aiming a long, skinny forefinger at him like the barrel of an automatic rifle. “Strong drink is raging.”
“Judge not, lest ye be judged,” Dowling answered-he’d loaded up with his own set of quotations ahead of time.
Reverend Selfe glowered. He was good at glowering. His physiognomy gave him a head start, but he had talent, too. “Do you make sport of me?” he demanded, as if he’d take Dowling out behind the woodshed if the answer was yes.
Dowling, however, declined to be intimidated by a west Texas preacher skinny enough to dive down a soda straw. “Not at all,” he lied. “But you need something more than fire and brimstone to tell me why a man shouldn’t be able to buy a shot or a bottle of beer if he feels like it.”
“Because God says drinking is a sin,” Selfe said. “I was trying to illustrate that for you.”
“But He also says things like, ‘And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly,’” Dowling said-sweetly. “How do you pick and choose? Remember, ‘Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake.’”
Humphrey Selfe looked like a man who needed wine for his stomach’s sake. He certainly looked like a man whose stomach pained him. “You are a sinner!” he thundered.
“I shouldn’t wonder if you’re right,” Dowling answered, fondly recalling a certain sporting house in Salt Lake City. “But then, who isn’t? I have at least as many quotations that say it’s all right to drink as you do to say it’s wrong. Shall we go on, sir? I’ll show you.”
“Sinner!” Selfe said again. “Even the Devil can quote Scripture for his purposes.”
“No doubt,” Dowling said. “Which of us do you suppose he’s speaking through? And how do you aim to prove it one way or the other?”
“You do mock me!” the pastor said.
Dowling shook his head. He was enjoying himself, even if the Reverend Selfe wasn’t. “No, you said wine was a mocker,” he said. “I haven’t had any wine for weeks.” He didn’t mention strong drink, lest Selfe start raging. “Shall we go on with our discussion? It was getting interesting, don’t you think?”