Picking Up the Pieces

Chapter Fourteen

The next day dawned bright and clear.

I arose from my bed as the trumpeter sounded Morning Call and walked to the Mess to eat breakfast, joined by four of my officers. The Mess was draped in black unmarked banners and I saw some of the new recruits looking at them, worried. Their normal training schedule had been altered to accommodate the gauntlet and that bothered them. They’d have to get used to unexpected changes in routine — we threw a lot of that at senior recruits — but they’d also have to witness — and remember — the gauntlet itself. I ate as much as I could, but it wasn’t much, despite Peter’s urgings. It was almost like having a mother again. I should have concentrated on paperwork after breakfast — there was no point in looking over Ed’s shoulder as he moved the forces from New Copenhagen to Pitea — but I couldn’t. It was almost a relief when the trumpeter sounded Judgement Day.

“Form ranks,” Russell was bellowing, as I came onto the main training field. Normally, we had recruits and most of the old hands running laps around the field, trying to get into and then stay in shape. Now, we had a line of masked men from A Company, wearing black uniforms that reminded me uncomfortably of Fleet’s uniforms. We’d probably have to change them if someone like Price-Jones got a good look at them. The uniforms were stiflingly hot, but they had one great advantage. No one would know who was under the masks. “Form lines!”

The ten prisoners were marched out onto the field, exposed to the gaze of their fellow soldiers and the new recruits. A handful quailed under their gaze, others stood tall and glared back at the onlookers, refusing to show fear. I absently made a note to keep an eye on the ones who glared back. They’d go far, assuming we didn’t kill them first. Their hands weren’t cuffed, but they’d been warned that they were prisoners until they’d run the gauntlet and if they tried to run, they would be shot. No one, not even the rawest recruit, was blind to the significance of their bare uniforms. All rank badges had been removed.

I stepped forward as silence fell. “During the recent struggle against the Communists,” I said, my voice echoing in the silence, “you abused prisoners in your custody. You beat men and women who had surrendered to you. You broke the rules of war as hammered into your heads during the time you spent here. You knew that you were doing the wrong thing.”

There was a pause. Different worlds had different regulations, but I believed that abusing prisoners while they were in custody would make it harder to take prisoners in the future. If a prisoner acted up, they could be smacked down, but someone who was compliant couldn’t be abused. The recruits had that regulation, along with a dozen others, read to them each morning. They had no excuse.

“You have the choice between the Gauntlet and spending time in the nick,” I continued. “You have all chosen the Gauntlet. Number One, step forward and walk the Gauntlet.”

We’d even stripped their names from them. Number One, I was pleased to see, was one of the defiant ones, but even he was quailing as he approached the line of men holding sticks and waiting for him. The Gauntlet is brutally simple. He had to walk past the men — or run; it didn’t matter — while they hit him with their sticks. I’d chosen A Company because the men were disciplined enough to hurt them without causing permanent damage, but broken bones and even serious injuries were not uncommon. I wondered, absently, if he would break and try to run, or beg to be jailed instead, but he walked onwards…

The first stick glanced off his arm. He was allowed to try to block the blows, although he wasn’t allowed to actually attack the attackers. He gasped in pain and staggered slightly as another man stepped forward and launched a wicked swing at his chest, but somehow he blocked that as well, only to be struck across the back by a third man. He stumbled onwards, blood dripping from his nose after a glancing blow started a nosebleed, and somehow made it through the final pair of men. The last one ignored the stick and kicked the victim up the arse, sending him tumbling to the ground just outside the Gauntlet. He’d barely hit the ground before Russell was there, hauling him to his feet and pinning on the rank badges we’d removed. He’d survived the Gauntlet and was forgiven.

“Take your place,” I ordered, pointing one long finger towards the remains of his platoon. They’d probably rub it in a bit afterwards, but officially he was forgiven — besides, he’d shown commendable bravery in the Gauntlet. “Number Two?”

The next few soldiers managed to walk the Gauntlet without serious problems, but Number Six was hit neatly on the back of his knee and collapsed to the ground. A Company was disciplined enough to wait until he regained his footing before closing in again, but it took him nearly ten minutes to stand up again. It might have been calculated, I realised after a moment, allowing him to catch his breath. I didn’t know if that were true, but if it was… I couldn’t decide if he were being clever or stupid. I’d have preferred to run through the Gauntlet, shielding my groin and eyes, and take my chances. Number Seven tried just that and survived with nothing worse than aches and pains over his upper body and a limp. Number Eight tripped over himself and hit the ground hard enough to hurt. Number Nine went down on hands and knees and tried to crawl through the Gauntlet. That was technically against the rules, but his back and bum got hit hard enough to drive the message home.

“Your turn,” I said, to Number Ten. He’d been one of the ones who had refused to meet the accusing eyes. “On you go.”

He stared at the masked A Company men, looked at Russell’s merciless eyes, and turned to flee. The MPs were on him within seconds, knocking him to the ground and cuffing his hands behind his back, before they marched him off unceremoniously to the guardhouse. After he’d spent the month in the nick I’d promised him, he’d be discharged without a formal ceremony. He didn’t deserve even a dishonourable discharge. We were lucky we’d caught him before he infected an entire unit, or disgraced the army we were trying to build.

I allowed my eyes to move over the recruits. Some had fainted in horror and would be revived later by Russell, who would be uncharacteristically kind to them. Little in their lives had prepared them for such horror and they hadn’t had the benefits of six months hard training to harden them. Others were staring, their eyes wide, wondering what kind of monsters hid under the masks. If the Government kept the Army as I’d designed it, they might find themselves wearing the same outfit, one day.

“The matter is now closed,” I said, firmly. “By mistreating the prisoners, you disgraced yourself and the army. By running the Gauntlet, you paid for your offences and the matter is now closed. Go see the medics and then report back to your units for Evening Call.”

I watched as they stumbled away, wincing slightly at one of the soldiers who was limping badly, and kept my face carefully blank. I hated doing that to anyone, particularly men I was responsible for, but there was no choice. I couldn’t have people who were inclined to abuse prisoners in my army, not when a civil war was underway. The results would be disastrous if enemy fighters were afraid to surrender.

Or at least that’s what I told myself.

A flight of heavy UN-issue transports roared overhead as I walked back towards the guardhouse. The UN had kindly placed them at the disposal of the planetary government — which meant they didn’t have the freighters necessary to carry them back to Earth, where they would have been useless anyway — and Ed had commandeered them to move light infantry from the spaceport to Pitea. It wasn’t a perfect solution and I was worried about a couple of insurgents with SAMs, but it was the best we had. I wished I could leave this matter in Ed’s hands as well, but it was something I had to deal with personally. It would make running the Gauntlet seem easy.

The interior of the guardhouse had been fitting out like a courtroom. There was a high chair for me, a set of four chairs for the senior officers, a witness box and a small cage for the prisoner. It had been designed so that the accused had absolutely no doubt at all about why they were there and it was covered in chains so that an uncooperative prisoner could be restrained. I suspected that the prisoner would try to escape; molesting or raping a civilian girl carried the death penalty. I took my chair, accepted salutes from the other officers, and turned to Peter.

“Bring in the prisoner,” I ordered.

Private Sidney Hershey had served with the UN before joining us instead of returning to Earth, but I honestly couldn’t say that he had come to my attention before. His UN record was utterly unreliable, of course; the officers had to exaggerate so much that he sounded like the reincarnation of every great military officer, combined. My record had started off just as well, and then gone downhill with words that sounded great, but raised hackles everywhere. The UN Infantry regarded caring for your men as unusual.

“The prisoner will stand at attention,” Peter intoned, firmly. He removed Hershey’s hat and placed it neatly on the table as the man stood to attention, or as near to it as he could get in handcuffs and leg irons. I nodded to Peter after Hershey held the pose for a long moment. “The prisoner will be seated.”

He pushed Hershey down into the chair and secured him firmly to the floor. “Private Hershey,” I said, “you stand accused of molesting a local girl during the fighting two days ago. The charges against you were filed by Sergeant Thomas and confirmed by eyewitness statements from two other Privates within your unit. Do you have anything you wish to say in your own defence?”

“The bitch came out with her hands in the air,” Hershey said, after a moment. I guessed he’d taken the time while in the guardhouse to plan his defence. We don’t bother with lawyers for our men; they know their rights, and they know what they are definitely not allowed to do. His only defence lay in convincing us that the charges were misplaced. “I patted her down as per regulations, only to discover that she was concealing a knife in her pocket. I whipped it away from her and cut off her clothes…”

His voice faltered for a moment. He was right; if someone had come out carrying a concealed weapon, we did strip him or her naked to remove any possibility that we’d missed something. The UN and Heinlein had invented hundreds of deadly weapons that looked like something innocuous, until it was too late. There were complaints that females should only be searched by females, but if we didn’t have a female on hand… well, too bad. It was expected to be as impersonal as possible. It was possible that Hershey had simply been arrested by mistake.

“And then I searched her cavities,” he added. “I was midway through my examination when the Sergeant jumped me and knocked me to the ground.”

“That might be true,” I agreed, “but why were you exploring up her cunt? Why did you leave marks on her breasts?”

He said nothing. “The eyewitnesses state, specifically, that you hurt her and she was screaming,” I added. “You took advantage of her helplessness to have your fun with her, against regulations and common decency, disgracing the Legion. Sergeant, remove the prisoner.”

Hershey was luckier than he knew. Normally, Muna would have sat on the panel, and she was death on rapists, but she was lost somewhere in Pitea. I’d taken a risk and sent Jock and the Specials after her, assuming that they could make their way into the city unobserved, but we didn’t even have a lead on her location. Her wristcom was off or destroyed; we couldn’t even pick up a PLB signal. God alone knew where she was now. The images from orbit weren’t telling us much that we didn’t already know about the enemy defences. It looked as if they were expelling people who didn’t agree with their policies. It would help them to keep their food stores for longer.

“Right,” I said, pushing my concerns about Muna aside. “You’ve heard his words and reviewed the eyewitness testimony. We don’t have much to go on, but we need to make a decision fast. Your verdicts, please?”

I carefully didn’t mention that we’d probably end up having to explain our decision to the local government. The girl had been released after she’d been checked by the doctor and would probably be filing a complaint now. The contract we’d signed with the local government, in happier times, was vague when it came to complaints against my men, but I doubted they’d be happy. Frida’s constituency would demand heavy punishment. For once, I agreed with them.

“Guilty,” Russell said, without hesitation. “There was no need to hurt her so badly and she wasn’t resisting him. Take the bastard outside and shoot him now. I’ll volunteer for the firing squad…”

“Thank you,” I said, cutting off what promised to be a long tirade. Russell took indiscipline seriously, as I may have mentioned once or twice before. “Jackie?”

“Guilty,” she agreed. Her voice was icy. “We’ve talked about this farce long enough.”

“Not guilty,” Captain Erica Yuppie said. “We don’t know what was going through his head at the time. Soldiers do stupid things under fire sometimes, as you well know, and he might have thought that he was doing the right thing. We don’t always have time to be gentle when lives are at stake.”

“Guilty,” Captain Robert McClellan said, glaring at Erica. “There is no excuse for his actions.”

“Three guilty votes, one not guilty votes,” I said, flatly. My tone cut off another argument. Erica and Robert had never gotten along very well. “The sentence is passed as guilty.”

“I formally request that my dissent be entered in the record,” Erica said, flatly.

“Understood,” I said, nodding to Tim. The clerk nodded back and made an entry on his computer. “Sergeant, bring in the prisoner.”

We didn’t bother with a black cap or other such nonsense, but Hershey knew the verdict from our grim faces. He quivered, but Peter kept one hand firmly on his arm, ready to knock him down if he tried anything stupid. I wouldn’t have blamed him for trying — he had nothing left to lose — but I couldn’t allow him to escape. Frida was going to be annoyed enough without an escaped molester on the run.

“Private Hershey, this court finds you guilty of molesting one civilian girl without good cause,” I said, without preamble. The UN would have dressed up the verdict in flowery terms and phases, but I saw no need to mince my words. “You will be taken from this court, given one hour to put your affairs in order, and then you will be hung from the neck until you are dead. May God have mercy on your soul.”

The next hour passed slowly. I spent it preparing a press release for the local reporters — or what were left of them after the Communists had slaughtered hundreds of them at the stadium — about the hanging and why it had been carried out. They’d probably misunderstand and misinterpret everything I said, but at least we’d get an explanation out there. Some of Private Hershey’s salary would go to the girl to compensate her for her experience, but the remainder would be sent on to his relatives, or wherever he wanted the money to go. I doubted he’d be leaving it to the Legion, as some Legionnaires, including myself, did.

Peter had supervised the construction of the gallows and we called all of the recruits out to watch, again. They looked pale as Private Hershey stepped out in full dress uniform and was stripped of everything apart from the basic uniform, before being marched to the gallows. I spoke quickly to the recruits, explaining what had happened and why he was being hung, before offering him the traditional last words. He said nothing. The hanging took seconds, but it felt like forever. This time, more recruits fainted and had to be helped away. Hershey’s body was cut down and unceremoniously transported to an unmarked grave. No one would go to mourn at his graveside.

“I’m glad that that’s over,” I said, afterwards. Peter had poured me a small glass of local whiskey and ordered me to drink it. The memory of a body dangling on a rope would be with me for a long time. “Now we get to make war.”

Peter snorted. “Do you think that that’ll make it cleaner?”

“No,” I said, “but at least when fighting the Communists, I know I’m doing the right thing.”

The words ran hollow, somehow.