The tactics of mistake

12

They met in Eachan Khan's office a week later - Cletus, Eachan and the four other top officers among the Dorsais. There was Eachan's second-in-command, Lieutenant-Colonel Marcus Dodds, a tall, quiet, narrow-boned man. There were also a major with a shaved head and expressionless features in a hard, round, blue-black face, with the single name of Swahili, a Major David Ap Morgan, who was thin and slightly buck-toothed and as fair-skinned as Swahili was dark; and, last, there was Captain Este Chotai, short, heavy-fleshed and handsome, with narrow eyes in a slightly mongoloid face. They sat around the long conference table in Eachan's wide office, with Eachan at the head of the table and Cletus seated at his right.

"And so, gentlemen," said Eachan Khan, winding up his explanation of Cletus' presence in their midst, "we have a new commanding officer from the Alliance Forces. I'll let Colonel Grahame speak for himself from this point on."

Eachan got up from his chair at the head of the table and stepped aside. Cletus rose, and Eachan took Cletus' former place at the table. Cletus moved over behind the chair Eachan had occupied, but he did not sit down immediately.

Instead, he turned about to look at the large map of Etter's Pass-Two Rivers area projected on the wall behind him. He looked at it and something deep, powerful and unyielding moved without warning through him. He drew in a slow deep breath and the silence of the room behind him seemed to ring suddenly in his ears. The features of the map before him seemed to leap out at him as if he saw, not the projected representation, but the actual features of jungle, hill and river that they represented.

He turned about and faced the Dorsai officers. Under his gaze they stiffened and their eyes narrowed as though something massive and unknown had stepped suddenly among them. Even Eachan stared at Cletus as though he had never seen him before.

"You're all professional soldiers," said Cletus. His voice was completely flat, without inflection or emphasis, but it rang in the room with a finality that left no room for doubt or argument in its listeners. "Your future depends on what you'll be doing in the next two weeks. Therefore I'm going to tell you what no one else on this planet yet knows, and I'm going to trust you to keep that information locked inside you."

He paused. They sat staring at him like men in a trance.

"You're going to fight a battle. My aim isn't going to be to kill the enemy in this battle, but to force him to surrender in large numbers, so if all goes according to plan you ought to win with little or no casualties... I don't guarantee that. I only say that it ought to be that way. But, in any case, you'll have fought a battle."

He paused for a second, looking into their faces one by one. Then he went on.

"Behind me here," he said, "you see the upland area into which you're going to move at the end of this week for further jump-training and jungle practice. This practice isn't just to fill time. The better shape your men are in at the end of the training period, and the better they know the area, the better chance they'll have to survive in the fight, later. Colonel Khan will give you your specific orders. That's all I'll tell you now. As I say, I don't want you to tell anyone, not even the men you command, that any sort of real action's in prospect. If you're the kind of officers I think you are, and they're the kind of men I think they are, they'll absorb the feeling that something is going to happen without your having to tell them... That's all."

He sat down abruptly and turned to Eachan.

"Take over, Colonel," he said to Eachan.

Eachan, unmoving, continued to gaze at him for just a fraction of a second longer before he rose, cleared his throat and began to describe the patterns of movement of the various units from Bakhalla into the Two Rivers area.

Four days later support ships of the type that had flown Cletus with Lieutenant Athyer and his troops up to Etter's Pass began ferrying the mercenary soldiers to Two Rivers. Cletus went up on one of the early flights and toured the area with Eachan Khan. Cletus' first concern was for the town or village - it was really more village than town - of Two Rivers itself.

The settlement was actually a tight little V-shaped clump of condominiums and individual homes surrounding a warehouse and business section and filling the triangular end-point of flatland where the valleys of the Blue and Whey rivers came together. This patch of flatland extended itself, with a few scattered streets and buildings, up the valley of each river for perhaps a quarter of a mile before the riverbanks became too high and steep for much building to be practical. The town was a community supported essentially by the wild-fanning of a majority of its inhabitants, wild-farming being the planting, in the surrounding jungle areas, of native or mutated trees and plants bearing a cash crop without first dividing up or clearing the land. A wild-farmer owned no territory. What he owned was a number of trees or plants that he tended and from which he harvested the crops on a regular basis. Around Two Rivers a sort of native wild cherry and mutated rubber plants introduced by the Exotics four years ago were the staple wild-farm crops.

The local people took the invasion by the Dorsais in good spirits. The mercenaries were much quieter and better-mannered in their off-duty hours than were regular troops. Besides, they would be spending money in the town. The locals, in general, paid little attention to Cletus, as, with Eachan Kahn, he marked out positions for strong points with dug-in weapons on the near banks of the two rivers just above the town and down within the open land of the community itself. When Cletus had finished, he had laid out two V-shaped lines of strong points, one inside the other, covering the upriver approaches to the town and the river junction itself.

"Now," said Cletus to Eachan, when this was done, "let's go take a look up beyond the pass."

They took one of the support ships that had just discharged its cargo of Dorsai soldiers and was about to return to Bakhalla for another load. With it they flew up and over the area of Etter's Pass and made a shallow sweep over the some ten miles of mountainous territory beyond it to where the ground sloped away into the further jungle that was Neuland territory.

"I expect the Neulanders will be coming around to see what we're doing," he said to Eachan, "as soon as their people in Bakhalla tell them the Dorsais have moved up here for training. I want this side of the mountains kept under observation by men who won't be spotted. I assume you've got people like that?"

"Of course!" said Eachan. "I'll have a watch on up here all twenty-six hours of the day. How soon do you want it to start?"

"Right away," answered Cletus.

"I'll have men started out in half an hour," Eachan answered.

"Anything else?"

"Yes," Cletus said. "I want those defensive strong points, in and above the town, dug in, with an earth wall inside and sandbags outside so that it's at least six feet thick at the base and seven feet above the level of the ground outside."

Eachan frowned slightly. But his reply was laconic. "Yes, Colonel," he said.

"That's it, then," said Cletus. "I'm headed back to Bakhalla. I'll have the ship drop you back down at Two Rivers first. Are you planning on coming back to town later?"

"This evening," he answered, "as soon as I've got all the men moved in here and set up. I'm planning on commuting. Here, days - Bakhalla, nights."

"I'll see you back at the city then," said Cletus. He turned to the pilots of the support ship. "Take us back to Two Rivers."

He dropped off Eachan and went back to Bakhalla. There he found his work waiting for him - in two stacks, for, in accepting a role as Bat's deputy commanding officer of the Dorsais, he had in essence taken on another full job. The Dorsais operated with a small to nonexistent Headquarters staff, as they did in all areas requiring noncombatant personnel. In the field, each Dorsai was his own cook, launderer and bottle washer, and each officer was responsible for all paper work involving his command. Away from the field, in barracks so to speak, men were hired from the regular fighting units, at a small addition to their ordinary wages, to work as clerks, cooks, vehicle drivers and the rest, but in the field there was none of this.

Those Dorsais, therefore, who ordinarily would have lightened Cletus' paper workload concerning the mercenary soldiers were now in battle gear up at Two Rivers. It was this fact that also required Eachan to commute back to Bakhalla every night to take care of his own paper work.

Cletus, of course, had the use of the staff Arvid had collected to help in making his forecasts of enemy activity. But members of the staff, including Arvid himself, were fully occupied with their regular jobs, at least during normal working hours. Cletus had set them to functioning as a research service. They were collecting information on both Neuland and the Exotic colony, plus all the physical facts about Kultis - weather, climate, flora and fauna - that pertained to the two opposed peoples. This information was condensed and fed to Cletus as soon as it was available; at least half his working day was taken up in absorbing and digesting it.

So it was that the first five days after the Dorsais had been moved up to Two Rivers, Cletus spent at his office between the hours of seven in the morning and midnight, with very few breaks in between. About seven o'clock of the fifth evening, after the rest of the staff had already left for the day, Wefer Linet showed up unexpectedly.

"Let's go catch some more Neulander guerrillas," Wefer suggested.

Cletus laughed, leaned back in his chair and stretched wearily. "I don't know where there are any, right now," Cletus said.

"Let's go have dinner then and talk about it," said Wefer craftily. "Maybe between the two of us we can figure out how to find some."

Cletus laughed again, started to shake his head, and then let himself be persuaded. After the dinner, however, he insisted on returning to his desk. Wefer came back with him, and only reluctantly took his leave when Cletus insisted that the work yet undone required his immediate attention.

"But don't forget," Wefer said on his way out, "you'll call me if anything comes up. I've got five Mark V's, and four of them are yours on half an hour's notice. It's not just me, it's my men. Everyone who was with us there on the river has been spreading the story around until I haven't got anyone in my command who wouldn't want to go with you if another chance comes up... You'll find something for us to do?"

"It's a promise," said Cletus. "I'll turn up something for you shortly."

Wefer at last allowed himself to be ushered out. Cletus went back to his desk. By eleven o'clock he had finished the extensive and detailed orders he had been drafting to cover the actions and contingencies of the next two days. He made up a package of the orders, which were to be passed on to Eachan Khan for application to the Dorsai troops, and, going out, drove himself in a staff air-car to the Headquarters building in the Dorsai area.

He parked in front of it. There were two other cars waiting there; the one window of Eachan's office that faced him was alight. The rest of the building - a temporary structure of native wood painted a military light green that looked almost white in the pale light of the now-waxing new moon overhead - was dark, as were all the surrounding office and barracks buildings. It was like being in a ghost town where only one man lived.

Cletus got out of the car and went up the steps into the front hall of the building. Passing through the swinging gate, which barred visitors from the clerks normally at work in the outer office, he went down the corridor beyond the outer office to where the half-open door of Eachan's private office was marked by an escaping swathe of yellow light that lay across the corridor floor. Coming quietly up on that patch of light, Cletus checked, suddenly, at the sound of voices within the room.

The voices were those of Eachan and Melissa - and their conversation was no public one.

Cletus might have coughed, then, or made some other noise to warn that he had come upon them. But at that moment he heard his own name mentioned - and instantly guessed at least half of the conversation that had gone before. He neither turned and retreated nor made a sound. Instead he stood, listening.

"I thought you liked young Grahame," Eachan had just finished saying.

"Of course I like him!" Melissa's voice was tortured. "That's got nothing to do with it. Can't you understand, Dad?"

"No." Eachan's voice was stark.

Cletus took one long step forward, so that he could just see around the corner of the half-open door into the lighted room. The illumination there came from a single lamp, floating a foot and a half above the surface of Eachan's desk. On opposite sides of the desk, Eachan and Melissa stood facing each other. Their heads were above the level of the lamp, and their faces were hidden in shadow, while the lower parts of their bodies were clearly illuminated.

"No, of course you can't!" said Melissa. "Because you won't try! You can't tell me you like this better - this hand-to-mouth mercenary soldiering - than our home in Jalalabad! And with Dow's help you can go back. You'll be a general officer again, with your old rank back. That's home, Dad! Home on Earth, for both of us!"

"Not any more," said Eachan deeply. "I'm a soldier, Melly. Don't you understand? A soldier.' Not just a uniform with a man walking around inside it - and that's all I'd be if I went back to Jalalabad. As a Dorsai, at least I'm still a soldier!" His voice became ragged, suddenly. "I know it's not fair to you - "

"I'm not doing it for me!" said Melissa. "Do you think I care? I was just a girl when we left Earth - it wouldn't be the same place at all for me, if we went back. But Mother told me to take care of you. And I am, even if you haven't got the sense to take care of yourself."

"Melly... " Eachan's voice was no longer ragged, but it was deep with pain. "You're so sure of yourself... "

"Yes, I am!" she said. "One of us has to be. I phoned him, Dad. Yesterday."

"Phoned deCastries?"

"Yes," Melissa said. "I called him in Capital Neuland. I said we'd come anytime he sent for us from Earth. We'd come, I said, Dad. But I warn you, if you won't go, I'll go alone."

There was a moment's silence in the darkness hiding the upper part of Eachan's stiff figure.

"There's nothing there for you, girl," he said, hoarsely. "You said so yourself."

"But I'll go!" she said. "Because that's the only way to get you to go back, to say I'll go alone if I have to - and mean it. Right now, I promise you, Dad... "

Cletus did not wait to hear the end of that promise. He turned abruptly and walked silently back to the front door of the building. He opened and closed the door, banging the heel of his hand against it noisily. He walked in, kicked open the gate in the fence about the outer office area and walked soundingly down the hall toward the light of the partly opened door.

When he entered the office room, the overhead lights had been turned on. In their bright glare, Melissa and Eachan still stood a little apart from each other, with the desk in between.

"Hello, Melissa!" Cletus said. "Good to see you. I was just bringing in some orders for Eachan. Why don't you wait a few minutes and we can all go have a cup of coffee or something?"

"No, I... " Melissa stumbled a little in her speech. Under the overhead lights her face looked pale and drawn. I've got a headache. I think I'll go right home to bed." She turned to her father. "I'll see you later, Dad?"

"I'll be home before long," Eachan answered.

She turned and went out. Both men watched her go.

When the echo of her footsteps had been brought to an end by the sound of the outer door of the office building closing, Cletus turned back to face Eachan and threw the package of papers he was carrying onto Eachan's desk.

"What's the latest word from the scouts watching the Neulander side of the mountains?" Cletus asked, watching the older man's face and dropping into a chair on his side of the desk. Eachan sat down more slowly in his own chair.

"The Neulanders've evidently stopped moving men into the area," Eachan said. "But the scouts estimate they've got thirty-six hundred men there now - nearly double the number of our Dorsai troops. And they're regular Neulander soldiery, not guerrillas, with some light tanks and mobile artillery. My guess is that's better than 60 per cent of their fully equipped, regular armed forces."

"Good," said Cletus. "Pull all but a couple of companies back into Bakhalla."

Eachan's gaze jerked up from the packet of orders to stare at Cletus' face. "Pull back?" he echoed. "What was the point in going up there, then?"

"The point in going up there," said Cletus, "was to cause Neuland to do exactly what they've done - assemble troops on their side of the mountain border. Now we pull back most of our men, so that it looks as though we've lost our nerve. Either that, or never intended to be a threat after all."

"And was that what we intended?" Eachan looked narrowly at Cletus.

Cletus laughed cheerfully. "Our intent, just as I say," he answered, "was to make them assemble a large force on their side of the pass through the mountains. Now we can pack up and go home - but can they? No doubt you've heard the army rumor - and by this time the Neulanders will have heard it too - that General Traynor and myself were overhead discussing an invasion of Neuland, and that we made a special trip up to Etter's Pass to survey it with that in mind."

"You mean," said Eachan, "that deCastries and the Neulanders will be sure that we really meant to invade them?"

"I mean just the opposite," said Cletus. "There's a great deal of truth to the fact that a liar is always going to suspect you of lying and a thief'll always suspect your honesty. DeCastries is a subtle man, and the weakness of subtle men is to suspect any straightforward action of being a screen for some kind of trick. He'll be sure to have concluded the rumor was leaked specifically for the purpose of causing him - and Neuland - to move a lot of troops into position on a false invasion scare, which would evaporate then and leave them looking foolish. Consequently, being the man he is, he'll have resolved to play along with our game and take advantage of us at the very moment we plan to be chuckling over his embarrassment."

Eachan frowned. "I don't believe I follow you," he said.

Cletus nodded at the package of papers. "It's all in the orders, there," he said. "You'll start withdrawing men from the Two Rivers area early tomorrow, a shipload at half hour intervals. As each shipload gets back here and gets sorted out, turn them loose on three-day passes."

Eachan stared at him, grimly. "And that's it?" Eachan said, at last.

"That's it - until I give you further orders," said Cletus, getting to his feet. He turned about and headed toward the door.

"Good night," said Eachan behind him. As Cletus went out the door and turned left to go off down the corridor, he caught a glimpse of Eachan, still standing behind the desk, looking after him.

Cletus went back to his quarters and to bed. The next morning he allowed himself the unusual luxury of sleeping late. It was 10 A.M. by the time he drifted into the Officers' Club for a late breakfast and just short of noon when he finally arrived at his office. Arvid and the staff Arvid had accumulated there were all diligently at work. Cletus smiled at them like an indulgent father and called them all together.

"I'm flying up to Two Rivers this afternoon," he said, "to supervise the windup of the Dorsai exercises up there. So there's not much point in your feeding me with a lot of information material that'll go stale between now and Monday morning anyway. I've been working you all above and beyond the call of duty. So take the rest of the day off - all of you, that is, except Arvid" - he smiled at the big young officer - "and I'll see you again at the beginning of next week."

The staff evaporated like a scattering of raindrops on hot pavement after a tropical shower. Once they were gone, Cletus went carefully around the office, making sure all its security systems were in working order and ready to be put in operation. Then he came back, sat down opposite Arvid's desk and reached over to pick up Arvid's phone. He dialed the number of the Navy base.

"This is Colonel Cletus Grahame," he told the duty petty officer at the far end. "Would you try to locate Commander Linet for me, and have him call me back? I'm at my office."

He put the phone back on Arvid's desk and waited. Arvid was watching him curiously. Cletus got up and walked over to his own desk. He picked up his own phone there and brought it back to exchange it for the phone in front of Arvid. Arvid's phone he took back to his own desk.

He punched out the first two digits of the five-digit number that would connect him with Bat Traynor's office. Then, with the phone activated, but the call incompleted, he pushed the phone from him and looked over at Arvid.

"Arv," he said, "some time in the next few hours Eachan Khan's going to be calling me. If anyone but Colonel Eachan calls, I've just stepped out and you don't know when I'll be back. But if Colonel Eachan calls, tell him that I'm on the phone to General Traynor at the moment - and I will be. Ask him if you can take a message, or say I'll call him back in a few minutes." Arvid frowned in slight puzzlement - but the frown evaporated almost immediately into his usual agreeable expression.

"Yes, sir," he said...

"And now?" he asked, after Cletus had made the call.

"Now, we wait."

Wait, they did - for nearly two hours, during which perhaps a dozen unimportant phone calls came in and were neatly fielded by Arvid. Then the phone Cletus had moved from his desk to that of the lieutenant buzzed abruptly and Arvid lifted the receiver.

"Colonel Grahame's office, Lieutenant Johnson speaking - " Arvid broke off, glancing over at Cletus. "Colonel Khan? Yes, sir... "

Cletus had already picked up Arvid's phone and was completing the punching of the proper sequence of numbers for contact with Bat's office. In the background he heard Arvid saying that he could take a message. Bat's office answered.

"This is Colonel Grahame," Cletus said into the phone. "I'd like to talk to General Traynor right away - in fact, immediately. It's red emergency."

He waited. There was a fractional delay at the other end of the line. Arvid, meanwhile, had hung up. There was silence in the office. Cletus could see out of the corner of his eye how Arvid was standing, watching him.

"Grahame?" Bat's voice exploded suddenly against Cletus' ear. "What's all this?"

"Sir," said Cletus, "I discovered something, and I think I ought to talk to you about it right away - privately. I can't tell you over the phone. It's got to do with the Coalition and it involves not only us, here on Kultis, but the whole Alliance. I'm at my office. I've given my staff the rest of the day off. Could you make some excuse to leave your office and come over here so that we could talk privately?"

"Talk? What is all this - " Bat broke off. Cletus heard the other's voice, suddenly withdrawn from the mouthpiece of the phone, speaking distantly to someone else. "Joe, go get me that file on... the plans for the new military district south of town."

There were a few more seconds of pause, and then Bat's voice came back close to the phone but muted and cold in tone.

"Now you can tell me," he said.

"I'm sorry, sir," said Cletus.

"Sorry? You mean you don't even trust the phone circuits to my office?"

"I didn't say that, sir," answered Cletus evenly. "I only suggested that you make some excuse to get out of your office and meet me privately over here at mine."

His voice was almost wooden in its lack of expression. There was a long pause at the other end of the phone circuit. Then Cletus heard Bat's indrawn breath hiss sharply.

"All right, Grahame," said Bat, "but this better be as serious as you're making it sound."

"Sir," said Cletus seriously, "without exaggeration, it concerns not only the highest Coalition personnel presently on the planet, but members of our own Alliance command here in Bakhalla as well."

"See you in fifteen minutes," said Bat. The phone circuit clicked in Cletus' ear, and then went dead. Cletus put the phone down and turned to look at Arvid, who was staring at him. "Eachan's message?" Cletus prompted gently. With a start, Arvid came out of his trance.

"Sir, the Neulanders are attacking Two Rivers!" he burst out. "Colonel Khan says they're coming in both by air and through the pass - and there's less than three companies of Dorsais left in Two Rivers, not counting a few scouts still out in the jungle who'll have been captured or bypassed by the Neulander troops by this time."

Cletus picked up the phone and punched for Lieutenant-Colonel Marcus Dodds at the landing field by the Dorsai military area.

"Colonel Dodds - sir?" said the lean, quiet face of Eachan's second-in-command, appearing in the small phone screen.

"Have you heard about the Neulander attack at Two Rivers?"

Cletus asked.

"Yes, sir," Dodds answered. "Colonel Khan just messaged us to stop all release of men. We're starting to get them turned around now."

"Good," said Cletus. "I'll join you shortly."

He broke the circuit, put the phone down and crossed the room to an arms cabinet. Unlocking it, he took out a pistol belt and sidearm. He turned and tossed these to Arvid. Arvid put out one hand automatically and caught them.

"Sir?" he said, puzzled, "the Neulanders aren't attacking in the city, here, are they?"

Cletus laughed, reclosing and locking the arms cabinet. "No, Arv," he said, turning back to the tall lieutenant, "but the Neulanders have started to move up at Two Rivers, and Dow deCastries is the kind of man to want to take out insurance, even when he has a sure thing. I'd look a little strange wearing a sidearm, but you can wear it for me." He turned back to his desk phone and punched for the Navy base.

"This is Colonel Grahame," he said. "A little while ago I put in an important call for Commander Linet... "

"Yes, sir," said the voice of the ensign who had answered the phone. "The commander's been trying to get you sir, but your circuits were busy just now. Just a minute, sir... "

Wefer's voice broke in on the line. "Cletus! What's up?"

"You offered me the use of four of your Mark V's," Cletus said. "I need only three of them. But they have to move upriver between here and the town of Two Rivers, at the confluence of the Blue and the Whey. That's nearly two hundred and thirty miles of river travel. Do you think they could make it between now and, say, an hour before dawn tomorrow?"

"Two hundred and thirty miles? Between now and an hour to dawn? Nothing to it!" shouted Wefer over the phone circuit. "What's up?"

"The Neulanders have moved regular troops across the border at fitter's Pass," said Cletus, in a level voice. "They'll be attacking Two Rivers shortly after sunup tomorrow. I'll give you the details of what I want you for later. But can you move your Mark V's to within a mile downstream of where the two rivers come together and hold them there without being seen?"

"You know I can!" said Wefer. "But you'll be in touch?"

"I'll be contacting you before dawn tomorrow," said Cletus.

"Right! We're on our way!" The phone clicked dead at Wefer's end.

"Go ahead, Arv," said Cletus. "Wait for me outside at the car. I'll be along in a minute."

Arv stared. "We're leaving?" he said. "But, sir, isn't the general due... "

His voice ran down into silence as Cletus stood patiently waiting. "Yes, sir," he said.

He went out.

Cletus put the phone in his hand back down on the desk by which he was standing. He glanced at his watch. Some eight minutes had gone by since he had spoken to Bat, and Bat had said he would be here in fifteen minutes. Cletus made a last tour of the office to make sure all the security devices were in order. Then he let himself out the front door, pulling the door to, but leaving it slightly unlatched, with the trap spring activated. The next person to walk through that door would find it closing automatically behind him, locking him into an area from which escape was not easily possible.

Cletus turned and went out to his staff car, where Arvid waited. They drove off toward the BOQ.