"All right, Brigade-Major," said Charley, looking down from the stand at the ranking officer in the formation. "Dismiss your troops."
The Brigade-Major, who had been standing like all the rest facing the stand, wheeled about.
"Atten-shun!" he snapped, and the amplifier sensors of the stand picked his voice up and threw it out over the men in formation as they had projected Charley's voice. "Dis-miss!"
The formation did not disperse. Here and there, a slight wavering in the ranks showed itself, and then the lines of standing figures were motionless again. For a long second, it seemed that nothing more was going to happen, that Charley and the mercenary soldiers before him would stand facing each other until the day of Judgment… and then somewhere among the ranks, a solitary and off-key bass voice began to sing.
"They little knew of brotherhood…"
Other voices rapidly picked it. up.
"… The faith of fighting men -
"Who once to prove their lie was good
"Hanged Colonel Jacques Chretien..."
- And suddenly they were all singing in the ranks facing us. It was a song of the young Colonel who had been put to death one hundred years before, when the Dorsai were just in their beginning. A New Earth city had employed a force of Dorsai with the secret intention of using them against an enemy force so superior as to surely destroy them utterly - so rendering payment for their services unnecessary while at the same time doing considerable damage to the enemy. Then the Dorsai had defeated the enemy, instead, and the city faced the necessity of paying, after all. To avoid this, the city authorities came up with the idea of charging the Dorsai commanding officer with dealing with the enemy, taking a bribe to claim victory for a battle never fought at all. It was the technique of the big lie; and it might even have worked if they had not made the mistake of arresting the commanding officer, to back up their story.
It was not a song to which I would have had any objection, ordinarily. But now - suddenly - I found it directed at me. It was at Pel, Moro, myself, that the soldiers of the Expedition were all singing it. Before, I had felt almost invisible on the stand behind Charley ap Morgan. Now, we three civilians were the focus of every pair of eyes on the field - we civilians who were like the civilians that had hanged Jacques Chretien; we who were St. Marians, like whoever had shot Kensie Graeme. It was like facing into the roaring maw of some great beast ready to swallow us up. We stood facing it, frozen.
Nor did Charley ap Morgan interfere.
He stood silent himself, waiting while they went through all the verses of the song to its end: -
...One fourth of Rochmont's fighting strength -
One battalion of Dorsai -
Were sent by Rochmont forth alone,
To bleed Helmuth, and die.
But look, look dawn from Rochmont's heights
Upon the Helmuth plain.
At all of Helmuth's armored force
By Dorsai checked, or slain.
Look down, look down, on Rochmont's shame
To hide the wrong she'd done,
Made claim Helmuth had bribed Dorsais -
No battle had been won.
To prove that lie, the Rochmont Lords
Arrested Jacques Chretien,
On charge he dealt with Helmuth's Chiefs
For payment to his men.
Commandant Arp Van Din sent word:
'You may not judge Dorsai,
'Return our Colonel by the dawn,
'Or Rochmont town will die.'
Strong-held behind her walls,
Rochmont Scorned to answer them,
Condemned, and at the daybreak, hanged,
Young Colonel Jacques Chretien.
Bright, bright, the sun that morning rose
Upon each weaponed wall.
But when the sun set in the west,
Those walls were leveled all.
Then soft and white the moon arose
On streets and roofs unstained,
But when that moon was down once more
No street nor roof remained.
No more is there a Rochmont town
No more are Rochmont's men.
But stands a Dorsai monument
To Colonel Jacques Chretien.
So pass the word from world to world,
Alone still stands Dorsai.
But while she lives, no one of hers,
By foreign wrong shall die.
They little knew of brotherhood -
The faith of fighting men -
Who once to prove their lie was good
Hanged Colonel Jacques Chretien!
It ended. Once more they were silent - utterly silent. On the platform Charley moved. He took half a step forward and the sensors picked up his voice once more and threw it out over the heads of the waiting men.
"Officers! Front and Center. Face your men!"
From the end of each rank figures moved. The commissioned and non-commissioned officers stepped forward, turned and marched to a point opposite the middle of the rank they had headed, turned once more and stood at attention,
"Prepare to fire."
The weapons in the hands of the officers came up to waist level, their muzzles pointing at the men directly before them. The breath in my chest was suddenly a solid thing. I could not have inhaled or exhaled if I had tried. I had heard of something like this but I had never believed it, let alone dreamed that I would be there to see it happen. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the angle of Charley ap Morgan's face, and it was a Dorsai face in all respects now. He spoke again.
"The command to dismiss has been given," Charley's voice rang and reechoed over the silent men, "and not obeyed. The command will be repeated under the stricture of the Third Article of the Professional Soldier's Covenant. Officers will open fire on any refusing to obey."
There was something like a small sigh that ran through all the standing men, followed by the faint rattle of safeties being released on the weapons of the men in ranks. They stood facing their officers and non-commissioned officers now - fellow soldiers and old friends. But they were all professionals. They would not simply stand and be executed if it came to the final point. The breath in my chest was now so solid it hurt, like something jagged and heavy pressing against my ribs. In ten seconds we could all be dead.
"Brigade-Major," said the level voice of Charley. "Dismiss your troops."
The Brigade-major, who had turned once more to face Charley, when Charley spoke to him, turned back again to the parade ground of men.
"Dis - " No more than in Charley's voice was there perceptible change in the Brigade-Major's command from the time it had been given before, "-miss!"
The formations dissolved. All at once the ranks were breaking up, the men in them turning away, the officers and non-coms lowering the weapons they had lifted to ready position at Charley's earlier command. The long-held breath tore itself out of my lungs so roughly it ripped at my throat. I turned to Charley but he was halfway down the steps from the platform, as expressionless as he had been all through the last few minutes. I had to half-run to catch up to him.
"Charley!" I said, reaching him.
He turned to look at me as he walked along. Suddenly I felt how pale and sweat dampened I was. I tried to laugh.
"Thank God that's over," I said.
"Over?" He shook his head. "It's not over, Tom. The enlisted men will be voting now. It's their right."
"Vote?" The world made no sense to me, for a second. Then suddenly it made too much sense. "You mean - they might vote to march on Blauvain, or something like mat?"
"Perhaps - something like that," he said.
I stared at him.
"And then?" I said. "You wouldn't… if their vote should be to march on Blauvain - what would you do?"
He looked at me almost coldly.