It was an evening without any kind of training, an evening off. In the 2nd Platoon barracks, several trainees were involved in a contest to see who could do the most handstand pushups. Two others were practicing stability by walking on their hands.
Jerym came in with a new raincoat under his arm, unfolded it and hung it in his "wardrobe"—his half of a fifty-inch rod by the head of his bunk. Then he walked to the middle of the long low building and spoke loudly. "Listen up, guys," he said. "We've got an asshole in the platoon. I just went and got a new raincoat because someone cut a slit in the back of my old one."
The place went quiet, a quiet no one broke for a few seconds. Guys lowered themselves from handstands to watch expectantly.
"Maybe the seam just split," Markooris said.
That was Markooris for you: Don't think anything bad till you get shivved. "Nope," Jerym answered. "It was cut. Right next to the seam. I showed it to the supply sergeant, and he agreed."
"Who do you think did it?" Esenrok asked, looking brightly interested.
"Well, you're the leading troublemaker, but it was too sneaky for you." Jerym looked around. "Who's the sneakiest guy in the platoon?"
Several of the trainees turned their eyes toward Mellis's bunk. He'd shown a penchant for practical jokes, till he'd put feces in Romlar's boots one morning just before reveille. He'd made the mistake of telling people in advance what he planned, and after it happened, someone told Romlar, who'd beaten him up for it. Badly. No one, not even Mellis, had told the T'swa who'd worked him over.
"Hey, Mellis," Jerym called, "why do you suppose everyone's looking at you?"
"I didn't cut your fucking raincoat!"
"What you mean is, you've gotten smart enough not to talk about the shit you do."
Mellis dropped from his bunk and confronted Jerym. "You can't prove I did it, because I didn't. So stop talking about me like that!"
Mellis's indignation seemed too convincing to be feigned. "Okay," Jerym said, mildly now, "maybe you didn't. But considering the stuff you have done, you shouldn't be surprised if people jump to conclusions."
Mellis glared. He was the youngest in the platoon, but nearly as tall as Jerym, though slimmer. "You're all mouth, Alsnor," he said. "You think you . . ."
That was all he got out. Jerym punched him in the face and knocked him down. Mellis rolled to his feet, and Carrmak and Bressnik got between them. "Back off, both of you! Remember the rules!"
"He hit me in the mouth!" Mellis almost screamed it. Blood ran down his chin.
"Mellis," Carrmak hissed, "if you want to get the platoon in real trouble, keep yelling that someone hit you!" For a moment he glared, then the glare faded and his voice became patient. "You're the one that got this platoon on probation. You're sixteen and you act like eight. Alsnor backed off on what he said, but you couldn't leave it at that.
"Now, we've got rules here that we all agreed to. After Romlar beat the snot out of you, what was it Sergeant Dao told us?"
Mellis only glared. Carrmak went on.
"He told us if we had any more fights, it'd be speed marches for us, running and walking alternate quarter miles from 2230 till midnight, rain or shine. That makes eight miles with sandbags." He paused, held Mellis's eyes for a moment and added, "Three nights for every fight."
He turned on Jerym. "Alsnor, I'm disappointed in you. You had no business jumping on Mellis the way you did, and with no evidence. You're usually smarter than that. If we get stuck with three midnighters, you're as much to blame as anyone. More!"
Carrmak blew noisily through pursed lips then. Jerym said nothing, holding knuckles that bled from Mellis's teeth, thinking that Carrmak was right.
"Okay," Carrmak said, "I don't suppose it'll work, but we'll try covering this up. Maybe the T'swa will appreciate the effort and let it go this time." He paused, frowning thoughtfully. "Alsnor, you hurt your knuckles uh . . . How did you hurt them?"
"Cleaning his rifle," Esenrok put in, then raised both hands as if to fend off the looks he got. "Really," he said. "He pulled the slide back and it slipped, and his knuckles were in the way!"
"Unh! It sounds about as likely as a blizzard on Kettle." Carrmak looked around. "Anyone here got a better idea . . . ? No?"
The faces around him were glum. "Okay." He turned to Jerym. "You cut your knuckles cleaning your rifle. Just now. We all heard you when you swore, and we saw your hand bleeding. And you—" he said, turning to Mellis, "you hurt your mouth taking a shower. Slipped, almost fell, and bit your lip. Desterbi, you and I saw it happen.
"Alsnor, go to the dispensary, right now."
Jerym nodded, and left at a trot. Carrmak turned back to Mellis. "You go over in ten minutes. If you go now, at the same time as him, there's no way the T'swa will let us get away with this. Go bleed on a towel. We've got to make this look good, or as good as we can. Desterbi, we'll all three have to wet our heads in the shower just before Mellis goes over."
He scanned the others, his eyes stopping at Esenrok. "Esenrok," he said, "you don't look as gleeful as you usually do when there's trouble. Anything you need to tell us?"
Esenrok's head jerked a sharp negative, but he didn't meet the older youth's eyes. Carrmak nodded. "Okay. We'll write this off to experience. We don't need to be geniuses, but we need to act halfway sensible." He raised his voice then. "These T'swa, and Colonel Voker, and whoever it was up the line that decided to set this place up, are giving us a chance to be something. Something I think we all want. And none of us ought to forget that.
"But it's up to us to make it work. Let's don't make 'em decide to give up on us and shut this place down."
The army medic on night C.Q. at the dispensary said nothing worrisome when he treated the lacerations on Jerym's hand, nor later when he treated Mellis's split lip. The platoon decided maybe—just possibly—they'd gotten away with it. Carrmak lay on his bunk, reading, when Romlar came over to him.
"Carrmak."
"Yeah?"
"I want to take you on again."
Carrmak looked at him exasperatedly.
"We'd do it according to the agreement," Romlar went on. "No hitting in the face. No marks for the T'swa to see." His voice was earnest. "You're the champion around here. You've got to give people a chance to challenge you. And I'm a lot stronger than I was. I think maybe I can take you now."
Carrmak shook his head, though not in refusal or negation. "When you're just fooling around," he said, "it's easy to not hit in the face. But when two guys are trying to prove something . . ."
Romlar shook his head stubbornly. "I promise I won't hit in the face if you don't. Even if you do, I won't."
The others had turned to them, watching, listening. Carrmak recognized a situation here. He was the leader because these guys respected him. If they began to question his character and didn't recognize a leader anymore, one that had more than a teaspoon of brains, they could end up in the kind of trouble 4th Platoon was in these days.
"Okay," Carrmak said. "On these conditions: Rassling only; no punching. And that gives you a better chance, because you outweigh me. Also we wait till tomorrow night. The T'swa seem to have bought our lies, but they could still roust us out tonight for a midnight dance with the sandbags. And if you and I had been fighting, we'd never know whether it was us to thank for our troubles, or Alsnor and—whoever."
Romlar saw the logic of Carrmak's conditions and agreed, serious as always.
At 2130 the light blinked in the barracks, and guys started getting ready for bed. At 2145 the lights went out. Jerym lay with his eyes open for a bit, thinking about the evening. Someone had told him what Carrmak had said to Esenrok, and how Esenrok couldn't face him. It looked as if he'd accused Mellis wrongly, all right. He wasn't going to accuse Esenrok of it though. Carrmak was right, he told himself. I've run off at the mouth too much already tonight.
He closed his eyes then, thinking about the fight tomorrow night between Carrmak and Romlar. Second Platoon got leaned on less by the T'swa than any other in the company, maybe in the regiment, and that was because of Carrmak. In 2nd Platoon, the toughest guy was also the smartest, the most sensible. He hoped Carrmak won.
Not that he didn't like Romlar; he did. There was something about the guy he both liked and respected, though he couldn't put his finger on it. It wasn't Romlar's brain, that was for sure. Maybe it was because he stood by his principles, right or wrong.
Jerym's thoughts turned to his scuffle with Mellis; that had been childish. Maybe he'd apologize to Mellis tomorrow. If he did, Mellis would probably act like an asshole and throw crap on him. If so, he'd take it. If he had accused Mellis wrongly, why, whatever shit the twerp might throw, he had coming.
It seemed to Jerym that he'd just gotten to sleep when the lights came on and Sergeant Dao's voice called out:
"All right, 2nd Platoon, everyone on your feet! I am a man of my word: You will make a speed march tonight. You have ten minutes to use the latrine, dress, and form ranks."
Jerym rolled out with tight lips. It was his own mouth, he told himself, that had brought this on.
At breakfast, Sublieutenant Dzo-Tar and Captain Gotasu sat across from each other, speaking Tyspi, while Gotasu's executive officer, Lieutenant Toma, listened with interest. Dzo-Tar was the leader of 2nd Platoon. "So," Gotasu said, "you have put 2nd Platoon on company punishment. It has been our best platoon; perhaps the best in the regiment. Has there been some change in dynamics there?"
Thoughtfully Dzo-Tar chewed a mouthful of eggs and bacon. Company punishment. Even the concept was foreign; they'd had to borrow it from the Confederatswa. "The dynamics appear to be unchanged," he answered. "The same trainee, Carrmak, remains dominant, but there are limits to what he can do. And at this point it would be harmful, I believe, to invest him with formal authority as trainee sergeant. It would set him apart, cut him off from them, perhaps even endanger him. Dao agrees."
He sipped his joma. "Among ourselves these problems never arise. Too many of these young men are not sane. There is great and admirable energy here, but it pulls and thrusts in every direction. In the absence of the T'sel among them, and with warrior appetites, they need policing. And we cannot depend on them to police themselves. Also," Dzo-Tar added pointedly, "it is time to begin teaching them the jokanru."
Gotasu nodded. "And we cannot, while they are like this. The regiment will never become T'sel warriors until they have the T'sel, and we have no means of bringing them to it, at their age." Thick black hands and blunt fingers dwarfed the table knife as he applied jam tidily to another slice of toast. We are warriors, not the caretakers of delinquents, he thought, then reminded himself that that was no longer true. They had been warriors. After the Daghiam Kel, Ssiss-Ka, and Shangkano Regiments had finally been decimated in the Long War on Marengabar, the lodge had offered their survivors this opportunity to teach Iryalan warriors. Most had accepted.
"Perhaps Voker will have a solution," Gotasu went on. "He has the T'sel now, but he gained it only after the Kettle War, when he was already in his middle years. So clearly, age is no prohibitant. I will bring up this matter of the T'sel in staff meeting this morning.
"Meanwhile, have you contemplated assigning a sergeant to live in the barracks with 2nd Platoon?"
"Not yet. I know the 1st and 4th have gone to that, and it has helped reduce the trouble there. But the 2nd is not that unsane, and such an assignment would largely eliminate Carrmak's influence." Dzo-Tars's voice and face were calm, matter-of-fact. "In the final analysis, the solution lies in the T'sel, not in repression. We would do the Confederation a disservice to train repressed savages in the warrior arts."