The tactics of mistake

21

Cletus awoke about midafternoon. He felt stiff and a little lightheaded, but rested and extremely hungry. Athyer was still sleeping heavily, like a man under deep anesthesia.

Cletus ate and joined Swahili and Arvid.

"How many of the men are in?" he asked Swahili.

"There're twenty-six who haven't shown up yet," answered Swahili. "We got most of the rest in during the next hour after you got here."

Cletus nodded. "Good," he said. "Then they should be slept up enough to operate by twilight. We'll get busy right now with the ones that are already rested. The first thing we need is a vehicle."

So it happened that a Brozan truck driver sliding on his airjets down the single fused-earth highway leading into the small mining town of Watershed unexpectedly found his way barred by half a dozen armed men in gray-blue uniforms, each with a small blue and white flag of the Advanced Associated Communities stapled over the left breast pocket. One of these, a tall officer wearing a circle of stars on each shoulder tab, stepped up on the foot-rest entrance to his cab and opened the door.

"Out," said Cletus, "we need this truck of yours."

Two hours later, just before sunset, that same truck drove into Watershed from a highway that had been strangely unproductive of traffic during the last 120 minutes. There were two men in the cab without caps on and they drove the truck directly to the headquarters of the small police detachment that had the duty of keeping law and order in the mining town.

The truck pulled into the parking compound behind the police headquarters, and a few moments later there was the sound of some disturbance within the headquarters itself. This, however, quietened, and a few moments later the fire siren above the police headquarters burst to life with a whooping like that of some mad, gigantic creature. It continued to whoop as the townspeople poured out of their houses and other buildings to find the town surrounded and the streets patrolled by armed soldiers with blue and white flags stapled over the left breast pockets of their uniform jackets. By the time the sun was down, Watershed had awakened to the fact that it was a captured community.

"You must be crazy! You'll never get away with it!" stormed the manager of the stibnite mines when, with the mayor of the town and the head of the local police contingent, he was brought into Cletus' presence at police headquarters. "The Brozan Army's headquartered at Broza City - and that's only two hours from here, even by road. They'll find out you're here in a few hours, and then - "

"They already know," Cletus interrupted him, dryly. "One of the first things I did was use your police communications here to announce the fact that we've taken over Watershed and the mines."

The mine manager stared at him. "You must be crazy!" he said at last. "Do you think your five hundred men can stand up to a couple of divisions?"

"We may not have to," said Cletus. "In any case, it's no concern of yours. All I want you and these other two gentlemen to do is to reassure the local people that they're in no danger as long as they keep off the streets and make no effort to leave the town."

There was a note in his voice that did not invite further argument. With a few additional half-hearted attempts at protest, the three officials of Watershed agreed to make a joint community call over the local phone system with the reassurance and warning he had asked them to deliver - following which, he had them placed under guard in the police headquarters.

It was in fact less than two hours before the first elements of the Brozan Army began to arrive. These were flying transports loaded with troops who quickly ringed the village at a distance of about two hundred yards inside the edge of the forest surrounding the town. Through the rest of the night, other troops, heavy weapons and armored vehicles could be heard arriving. By dawn, Swahili and Cletus concurred in an estimate that close to a division of Brozan soldiery, bristling with everything from belt knives to energy weapons, enclosed Watershed and its two hundred occupying Dorsai troops.

Swahili was in good humor as he handed the field glasses back to Cletus, after making his own survey of the surrounding forest area. They were standing together on top of the communications tower, which was the tallest structure in the town.

"They won't want to use those heavy weapons indiscriminately, with all these local people on hand," said Swahili. "That means they're going to have to come in on foot - probably all around the perimeter at once. I'd guess they'll attack inside the hour."

"I don't think so," answered Cletus. "I think they'll send someone in to talk, first."

He turned out to be correct. The surrounding Brozan troops did nothing for the first three hours of the morning. Then, toward noon, as the cloud-veiled sun over Newton was heating the northern landscape, a command car flying a white flag slowly emerged from the shadows of the forest and entered the town from the highway. It was met at the perimeter of Watershed by soldiers instructed in preparation for this meeting, and it was escorted by them to the police headquarters. There, a small, spare general in his early sixties, flanked by a round man perhaps ten years younger and wearing a colonel's insignia, dismounted and entered the headquarters building. Cletus received them in the office of the commander of the police detachment.

"I'm here to offer you surrender terms - " The general broke off, staring at Cletus' shoulder tabs. "I don't recognize your rank?"

"Marshal," Cletus answered. "We've shaken up our table of organization and our titles on the Dorsai, recently. Marshal Cletus Grahame."

"Oh? General James Van Dassel. And this is Colonel Morton Offer. As I was saying, we're here to offer you terms of surrender - "

"If it was a matter of sending surrender terms, you'd hardly have needed to come yourself, would you, General?" Cletus broke in. "I think you know very well that there's no question of our surrendering."

"No?" Van Dassel's eyebrows rose politely. "Maybe I should tell you we've got more than a full division, with a full complement of heavy weapons, surrounding you right now."

"I'm aware of that fact," said Cletus. "Just as you're completely aware of the fact that we have something over five thousand civilians here inside our lines."

"Yes, and we're holding you strictly accountable for them," said Van Dassel. "I have to warn you that, if any harm comes to them, the liberal surrender terms we're about to offer you - "

"Don't try my patience, General," interrupted Cletus. "We hold those civilians as hostages against any inimical action by your forces. So let's not waste any more time on this nonsense about our surrendering. I've been expecting you here so that I could inform you of the immediate steps to be taken by the Advanced Associated Communities with regard to Watershed and the mines. As you undoubtedly know, these mines were developed on land purchased from Broza by the Advanced Associated Communities, and Broza's expropriation has since been ruled illegal by the international court here on Newton - although Broza has seen fit until now to refuse to obey that court's order returning the mines to the Advanced Associated Communities. Our expeditionary force has already notified the Advanced Associated Communities that the mines are once more under their proper ownership, and I've been informed that the first contingents of regular AAC troops will begin to arrive here by 1800 hours, to relieve my command and begin to function as a permanent occupying force... " Cletus paused.

"I'm certainly not going to permit any such occupying forces to move in here," said Van Dassel, almost mildly.

"Then I'd suggest you check with your political authorities before you make any move to prevent them," said Cletus. "I repeat, we hold the townspeople here hostage for the good behavior of your troops."

"Nor am I willing to be blackmailed," said Van Dassel. "I'll expect notification of your willingness to surrender before the next two hours are up."

"And I, as I say," answered Cletus, "will hold you responsible for any hostile action by your command during our relief by the regular troops from the Advanced Associated Communities."

On that mutual statement, they parted politely. Van Dassel and his colonel returned to the Brozan troops encircling the village. Cletus called in Swahili and Arvid to have lunch with him.

"But what if he decides to hit us before the relieving troops get here?" asked Swahili.

"He won't," said Cletus. "His situation's bad enough as it is. The Brozan politicians are going to be asking him how he allowed us to take over Watershed and the mines here in the first place. He might survive that question, as far as his career is concerned - but only if there're no Brozan lives lost. He knows I understand that as well as he does, so Van Dassel won't take chances."

In fact, Van Dassel did not make any move. His division surrounding Watershed sat quietly while his deadline for surrender passed, and the relieving forces from the Advanced Associated Communities began to be airlifted in. During the following night, he quietly withdrew his forces. By the following sunrise, as the newly landed AAC soldiery began to clear an area of the forest outside the town and construct a semipermanent camp for themselves, there was not a Brozan soldier to be found within two hundred miles.

"Very well done indeed!" said Walco, enthusiastically, when he arrived at Watershed with the last of his own troops and was ushered in to the office Cletus had taken over in the police headquarters building. "You and your Dorsais have done a marvelous job. You can move out any time now."

"As soon as we're paid," said Cletus.

Walco smiled, thinly. "I thought you might be eager to get your pay," he said. "So I brought it along with me."

He lifted a narrow briefcase onto the desk between them, took out a release form, which he passed to Cletus, and then began to remove gold certificates, which he stacked on the desk in front of Cletus.

Cletus ignored the form and watched coolly as the pile of certificates grew. When Walco stopped at last, and looked up at him with another broad smile, Cletus did not smile back. He shook his head.

"That's less than half of what our agreement called for," Cletus said.

Walco preserved his smile. "True," Walco said. "But in the original agreement we envisioned hiring you for a three-month term. As it happens, you've been lucky enough to achieve your objective in less than a week and with only a quarter of your expeditionary force. We figured full combat pay for the whole week, however, for the five hundred men you used, and in addition we're paying you garrison scale not only for the rest of your men for that week but for your whole force for the rest of this month as well - as a sort of bonus."

Cletus looked at him. Walco's smile faded.

"I'm sure you remember as well as I do," said Cletus, coldly, "that the agreement was for two thousand men for three months, full combat pay for everybody during that period - and no pay at all if we weren't able to deliver the stibnite mines to you. How many men I used to make that recovery, and how long I took, was my concern. I expect full combat pay for three months for my entire command, immediately."

"That's out of the question, of course," said Walco, a little shortly.

"I don't think so," said Cletus. "Maybe I should remind you that I told General Van Dassel, the Brozan commander who had us encircled here, that I was holding the civilian population of Watershed hostage for his good behavior. Perhaps I should remind you that I and the men I brought here with me are still holding these people hostage - this time for your good behavior."

Walco's face became strangely set. "You wouldn't harm civilians!" he said, after a moment.

"General Van Dassel believes I would," replied Cletus. "Now I, personally, give you my word as a Dorsai - and that's a word that's going to become something better than a signed contract, in time - that no single civilian will be hurt. But have you got the courage to believe me? If I'm lying, and your takeover of the mines includes a blood bath of the resident townspeople, your chances of coming to some eventual agreement with Broza about these mines will go up in smoke. Instead of being able to negotiate on the basis of having a bird in the hand, you'll have to face a colony interested only in vengeance - vengeance for an action for which all civilized communities will indict you."

Walco stood, staring at him. "I don't have any more certificates with me," he said at last, hoarsely.

"We'll wait," answered Cletus. "You should be able to fly back and get them and return here by noon at the latest."

Shoulders slumped, Walco went. As he mounted the steps of the aircraft that had brought him to Watershed, however, he stopped and turned for a parting shot at Cletus.

"You think you're going to cut a swath through the new worlds," he said, viciously, "and maybe you will for a while. But one of these days everything you've built is going to come tumbling down around your ears."

"We'll see," said Cletus.

He watched the door shut behind Walco and the aircraft lift away into the sky of Newton. Then he turned to Arvid, who was standing beside him.

"By the way, Arv," he said, "Bill Athyer wants to have the chance to study my methods of tactics and strategy at close hand, so he'll be taking over as my aide as soon as we're back on the Dorsai. We'll find a command for you, out in the field somewhere. It's about time you were brushing up on your combat experience anyway."

Without waiting for Arvid's response, he turned his back on the younger man and walked off, his mind already on other problems.