The president's War Council was meeting in his office, and Romlar was there. He had a standing invitation, though he didn't regularly attend. General Belser's expression was stoney with suppressed anger, so instead of starting with Fossur's intelligence review, Heber Lanks opened the meeting with a question: "Does anyone have anything we need to get out of the way before Colonel Fossur brings us up to date?"
Belser heaved to his feet. "Yes, by Amber, I do! And I'm going to demand that something be done about it!"
Inwardly Lanks sighed; Eskoth was a difficult man. "Tell us about it," he said.
"He knows about it!" the general said, pointing at Romlar, "and so does he!" He pointed at Fossur. "And I suspect he does too!" he added, gesturing at Vestur Marlim. From the way he glared at his president, he suspected Lanks knew as well. He launched on. "Last night I learned that four—four!—enemy brigade bases were attacked by two batteries each of our pack artillery! That is eight batteries committed to action without my permission or previous knowledge! Someone is covertly trying to take away my command! And if something like this happens again, I shall resign!"
By all means do, Fossur thought. The president turned to him.
"Do you know anything about this?" he asked.
"As liaison officer," Fossur said, "I've had your permission from the beginning to attach men to Colonel Romlar's units, so we and they would be closely familiar with how an elite force operates. I've been aware that the men assigned have accompanied the mercenaries into action as early as the Great Raids. I should comment also that I've questioned a number of these men, debriefed some of them in detail, and they and I all feel they learned a great deal from their experiences. In fact, they and their officers have been almost uniformly excited by what they've seen and observed."
He turned his gaze to Belser. "I do not try to keep a finger on everything that happens in operations that are established and going well. I did not know in advance about the artillery action you mentioned; I learned about it last evening, as you did. And I must admit surprise that such an operation was carried out under the guise of 'observing.' "
Fossur turned to Heber Lanks. "After the first raids, the Komarsi were forced to expend considerable effort and resources in strengthening their bases. This required different tactics on the mercenaries' part, and resulted in their mortar attacks on five bases. Since then the Komarsi have been forced to mount more, larger, and farther-ranging patrols, which the mercenaries have routinely attacked and really pretty much massacred. As I've reported to you previously. Now it seems that most of the patrols sent out, particularly those sent to patrol at larger distances, commonly go out and sit in some relatively secure position, hoping the mercenaries don't find them.
"My usual intelligence sources didn't learn this; mercenary reconnaissance patrols observed it. And decided to take advantage of it to shell the bases. Having no artillery of their own, they borrowed some—guns and gunners—from unit commanders they'd come to know. Nonetheless, most of the personnel involved were mercenaries. The guns, with mercenary escorts, were disassembled and packed to locations accurately identifiable on forestry maps, where they were reassembled. The mercenaries provided strong infantry protection for the batteries, and strong mercenary patrols ranged the vicinity. They had their own fire observers ahead to direct the fire. Bombardment was by daylight, when there were no visible muzzle flashes, and the Komarsi never located them. When our batteries had expended their ammunition, they disassembled the pieces and withdrew. They had no casualties. No equipment was lost. The enemy suffered painful losses of personnel and material.
"It seems to me that this was an excellent operation—one I recommend we repeat. My information is that the units involved are very enthused, and eager to do more of it. If the Komarsi increase their patrols, the mercenaries will eat them up. And if they don't, we can injure them at will."
As Fossur sat down, Vestur Marlim got up, a small, sharp-faced, and just now angry man. "Mr. President," he said, "I applaud this cooperation between Colonel Romlar's troops and our own. It's the sort of thing we should be doing. I applaud anything that punishes the Komarsi for their assault on our country and our people." He turned to Belser then, thrusting his face toward him. "Of course you weren't asked or informed. If you had been, you'd have forbidden it!"
His tone moderated then, for remarkably, Belser showed no anger, and this cooled his own. "In the south you were a lion," he said. "Since then—something has happened to you."
Normally Belser stood to speak. Now he stayed in his chair as if tired. "In the south I lost more than six thousand men, killed, captured, or disabled. And we lost all the resources we need to win this war. Our food supplies shrink daily, and we cannot replenish more than a small fraction of them. We cannot replace munitions expended. To fight with no prospect of winning is to waste lives."
The president spoke gently to him then. "What would you have us do, Eskoth? Surrender?"
Belser's voice was soft, hardly recognizable. "No. I do not know what to do." He looked away then, and Fossur stood, his voice quiet.
"Mr. President," Fossur said, "I have nothing I need to report." He looked around. "If no one else does, perhaps we should adjourn and meet again tomorrow."
"Not yet." Lanks stood and looked around the table. "We have not had an explicit, stated policy since we lost the south. That is my failure, and I'm going to remedy it now. But first let me say that I am president of the people. And the people, at least most of their soldiers, want us to fight. They'd like us to win, but that isn't the key issue; they want us to fight. And we are going to because they want us to, if for no other reason.
"And if we fight, we should do it in a way that grasps whatever chance we do have of winning. Using whatever works. We must show the rest of Maragor that we have heart, that we can hurt the Komarsi, that he is not the force they may have thought he was. We have already begun to do this, or Colonel Romlar has, and we must begin to take the larger role in it ourselves. We must define that role and play it to the hilt!
"Much of Maragor has seen the cube of the Great Raid, seen or at least heard of it. And much, perhaps most, of Maragor would love to see us win. Neither Engwar nor his father, nor his uncle during his regency, made many friends on this world.
"I will increase my efforts to gain their help. This will not be easy, given our geographic position, our lack of a coastline now, but I see possibilities. Ambassador Tisslor believes that, if the war becomes sufficiently troublesome for Komars, sufficiently unpleasant, Engwar will face sentiment to end it." The president paused, looking less than happy. "Perhaps not giving up all they have gained, but much of it. Enough that we can be a viable republic again, a nation that can feed its people."
Once more he paused, then went on quietly. "Who knows what may happen if we persist and strive.
"At any rate, there you have it. A policy: We will fight." He turned to Fossur then. "On your recommendation, I adjourn this meeting till tomorrow morning at eight. We will then discuss specifics."
The council got up and left without anything more being said.
Belser left the president's house and walked, rather than strode to his office. Sitting behind his desk, he looked tiredly at his in-basket. His door opened; his secretary stepped in and closed it behind him.
"General, Colonel Romlar would like to speak with you."
Belser looked up and said nothing for several long seconds, then answered. "Send him in."
The sergeant motioned Romlar in, then left them. Belser gathered a little of his old iron, though none of the fire. "What is it, Colonel? I'm a busy man."
Romlar moved a chair close to the general's desk, and sat down uninvited. "General," he said, "I have never led an army. I have never led a division, or even a brigade. Our specialty is small unit tactics against larger and more powerful opponents, tactics most efficient in circumstances like those we find here.
"In the north, the only effective way to hurt the Komarsi is with tactics of the sort I have used. But I have only one short regiment. You have in your army many backwoodsmen who can readily be trained to carry out the sort of actions we do. Readily trained because they already have the most important personal skills needed, and the necessary attitude. My regiment won on Terfreya when it had little more than begun its training, had finished just one year out of six! And we started training as unruly adolescents with none of those skills."
He paused, then leaned toward the general. "Let us select men from your regiments for their experience as woodsmen. Let us train those men, enough for a battalion to start with. And turn them loose on the Komarsi."
Belser said nothing, simply looked at him, seemingly without anger. After a long and silent half minute, Romlar got up. "Thank you, general. I appreciate your granting me the time for this talk. I hope to see you tomorrow morning."
Belser nodded acknowledgement. Romlar bowed slightly and left, Belser watching him out the door. Then the general noticed something on his desk, which Romlar must have left. He picked it up: a food bar, one of the merc's imported iron rations, honey-sweetened, rich with nuts and wrapped with chocolate. He examined the label, then unwrapped it and bit off a piece, chewing thoughtfully.