The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted

Chapter 23

"It is suicide," Morton shivered.

"Not at all. Good sense. If that swine Zennor is still looking for me - he certainly won't be looking among the troops. I have this pass dated for today. I return to base early since there is not much doing in the old town tonight. Then I go to the latrine, the PX, all the other exciting places where the troops assemble, and talk to the lads. And do some other interesting things which it is best you don't know about. Don't worry about me." I could worry enough for myself I thought, darkly. Once back in the army there were a number of problems I would have to tackle. And all of them were dangerous.

"But how will you get out again?" Morton asked, his voice speaking as though from a great distance, cutting through the black brooding of my thoughts.

"The least of my worries," I laughed hollowly. And indeed it certainly was. I turned to the ever-patient Stirner who had been listening to us in silence. "You know what to do with the cassettes?"

"It will be as you planned. Volunteers are already waiting to distribute them to even more volunteers who will go forth and do good deeds just as we did. It was inspiring!"

"Indeed it was. But no sallying forth until tomorrow night in the very earliest. The password must be spread, there must be eager volunteers to make this a mass movement. Because once the officers catch wise things will become difficult. The railroad will be watched or stopped altogether. If that happens other transport must be provided. Keep things moving though, until I get back. You are the authority on desertion now."

"How long will you be away?"

"Don't know. But for the shortest amount of time that is possible - that I can guarantee."

There was little more to say, nothing more to do. I squared my cap upon my head and turned to the door. "Good luck," Morton said. "Thanks." I was going to need it.

As I walked back through the empty streets toward the Vaillant section of town I fought off the depression that accompanied the uniform I wore. Nor could I drown my sorrows in drink, since money was worthless here and I had returned Stirner's wirrdisc. Soon I was walking among the inaccessible, brightly lit palaces of pleasure, pressing my nose against the window just like the other uniformed figures that roamed the streets. Some leave! Although the evening was still young, many of them were already drifting back toward Fielden Field where the camp had been built. I joined in this Brownian movement of despair.

Bright lights burned down upon the barbed wire that encircled the green grassy meadows, where once the good citizens of the city had taken their ease. Green no more, pounded now into dust and filled with gray army tents erected to house the troops. No effete comforts for the conquering soldiers; they might get spoiled. The officers, of course, lived in prefab barracks.

It took all the strength of will that I possessed to join the line of depressed figures that moved toward the MPs at the gate. While my intelligence told me that the last thing to be expected was a soldier with a pass illegally entering the camp, the animal spirit within me was screaming with anguish.

Of course nothing untoward happened. Dim little eyes stared out from under the matt of thick eyebrows, scanned the familiar pass, waved me back into captivity. The sweat cooled from my brow and I jingled the few coins in my pocket that the freedom-bound soldier had been happy to leave behind. There was just about enough of them to buy an understrength beer in the PX. Anything is better than nothing.

I found this depressing establishment easily enough. I just traced the sound of rock-drilling and western music to its source. The PX bar was housed in a sagging tent vaguely illuminated by light bulbs that had been specifically designed to attract flying insects. Here, at rough tables of drink-sodden wood, sitting on splinter-filled planks, the troops enjoyed the pleasures of warm, bad beer. I bought a bulb and joined them. "Got room for one more?"

"Cagal off."

"Thanks a lot. What is this - cagal your buddy week?"

"It's always cagal your buddy week."

"You sound just like the civilians in town." This aroused some interest. The heavyset speaker now focused his blurred vision on me and I realized that all of the others at the table were listening as well.

"You got a pass tonight? We get ours tomorrow. What's it like?"

"Like pretty grim. They won't serve you. If you like grab a drink they close the bar and all go home."

"We heard that. So what's the point of going in. Nothing."

"Something. You get to leave the army, travel far away, eat good food, get drunk. And kiss girls."

Wow, did I have their attention now. If eyeballs were gun muzzles I would have been blown out of existence in an instant. There was a dead silence at the table as every head swiveled in my direction.

"What did you say?" a hushed voice asked.

"You heard me. You go down to where the restaurants are and walk slow. If someone says to you 'Do you like fresh air?' - just say that you do, you do. Then go with them. They'll get you civvies to wear, a ticket out of town - and set you up on the other side of the country where the MPs will never find you."

"You are cagaling us!"

"No way. And what do you lose by going along with it? Whatever happens - it got to be better than the army." There were no arguments with this. Only the muscled guy with the suspicious mind found what he thought was a loophole.

"If what you are telling us is true and not the old cagal - then what are you doing back here?"

"A very good question," I stood up and held out my pass. "I came back for the bundle of letters from my mom. This pass is good until midnight. See you in paradise - if you want to come."

I left them and moved on to the next group who were in the corner of a latrine shooting dice. I palmed the dice and won some good pots which drew their attention, gave them my orientation talk and left.

I worked at this until it was almost midnight when my pass ran out and my story would take on a dubious taint. I had planted the seeds in fertile ground. The word would spread instantly through the latrine rumor network. And if I knew my draft dodgers not one of them would return from pass tomorrow night. That should cheer General Zennor up!

So plan number two must now be put into effect.

For what I had to do next I needed a bit more rank. There would be no slow crawl up through the noncommissioned ranks this time. I had tasted the heady glory of being an officer and I was spoiled forever. So I headed for the lair of those brightly-plumaged birds of prey: the officers' club. I found it by backtracking the drunks. The higher the rank the stronger the booze; this was the army way. I passed a staggering pair of majors, each holding the other up, lined myself up on a colonel flipping his cookies into a hedge, took a sight over an unconscious captain in the gutter and saw my target glowing on the horizon. I skulked off in that direction and took refuge behind some bushes where I had a good sight of the entrance.

It was strictly a bachelor affair and all the worse for it. Obscene songs were being sung loudly and off-key. At least two punchups were going on in the grass outside at all times. There was some coming, of sober officers just off duty, but much more going of officers drunk out of their cagaling minds. I watched from hiding until my prey emerged, stumbled, and came toward me singing hoarsely under his voice.

He staggered under the only street lamp. A captain, about my size, lots of fake medals and decorations, just what I needed. A simple armlock from the rear, correct pressure applied, struggle feebly, unconscious, then into the hedges with him. A piece of cake.

He passed muttering by. Silent as a wraith I moved, pounced, seized, applied pressure…

And found myself sailing swiftly through the air to crash into the hedge.

"So - revolt in the ranks," he snarled, relatively sober and on guard in an instant, crouched and approaching. I struggled to my feet, feinted with my left hand and chopped down with my right. He blocked and would have kicked me in the stomach if I hadn't jumped aside.

"Want to kill an officer? Don't blame you. And I have always wanted to kill a private. Good time right now." He advanced - and I retreated. The medals had not been fakes. With great skill I had managed to find and attack what was probably the only trained combat officer in this army. Tremendous!

"Death to all officers!" I shouted and swung a wicked kick at his groin.

He was bright enough to know he was woozy, so instead of trying to block he stepped back. I kept the kick going which pulled me around to face in the other direction.

And ran away. Discretion is the better part of valor. He who fights and pulls his freight lives to fight another date. I had no macho points to make. I just wanted to stay alive!

Dive and shoulder roll over a hedge. Roaring, he crashed through it right behind me. There were tents ahead, hard boots pounding after me. Jump over a tent rope, dodge under another. A shout and a crash behind me. Good - he had tripped over one of the ropes. A few paces gained. Run, fast as I could. Between the next row of tents and back to the street. A building up ahead, loud music and the sound of breaking glass coming from it. I was at the rear of the officers' club.

Time to go to ground. Through the gate and into the yard, gate closed behind me, no sign of pursuit.

"You had your break, quit cagaling off, get them cases in here."

A fat cook stood at the rear door of the kitchen under the light, blinking into the gloom of the yard. Figures stirred as the enslaved KPs moved, as slowly as possible, to the stacks of beer cases. They had their jackets off, wearing only undershirts in the steamy heat of the kitchen. I took off my own jacket, rolled it and pushed it behind the cases, seized up a beer case and followed the others inside.

Kitchen police. The most demeaning servitude in the army - which is an establishment that prides itself on demeaning servitude. KP was so degrading that it was forbidden, by military law, to give KP as a punishment. So, naturally, it was always given as a punishment. Up before dawn, laboring until late at night. Washing pots, cleaning out disgusting grease traps in the underground plumbing, slaving at the most menial tasks that generations of warped minds had created. It was absolutely completely impossible that anyone would volunteer for this service. I would never be looked for here!

I carried the case past the cook who was acting KP pusher. He had a filthy chef's hat on his head, sergeant's stripes tattooed onto his beefy forearms, and was brandishing a long ladle as a weapon. He scowled as I passed then pointed the ladle in my direction. "You. Where you come from?"

"It's a mistake," I whimpered. "I shouldn't be here. I didn't do nothing like what the first sergeant said I done. Let me go back…"

"If I have my way you will never go back," he screamed.

"You will die in this kitchen and be buried under the floor. You're on pots and pans! Move!"

Harried by blows from the ladle I moved. To the giant metal sink to seize up the filthy metal pot waiting there. A simple labor, washing a pot. Harder perhaps when the pot is as big as you are. And another and another - and still another. Steam, hot water, soap, labor with no end.

I worked and sweated until I felt that enough time had passed for any excitement and search to have died away. As I straightened up my aching back crackled loudly. I wiped a soggy forearm across my dripping forehead. My hands were bleached, my fingers as wrinkled and pallid as long-drowned slugs. As I looked at them I felt my anger growing - this was no fit job for a stainless steel rat! I would be rusting soon…

The ladle crashed down on my shoulder and the choleric pusher roared his ungrammatical commands. "Keep working you're gonna be in trouble!" Something snapped and blackness, overwhelmed me. This can happen to the best of us. The veneer of civilization worn thin, the lurking beast ready to burst free.

My beast must have burst most satisfactorily, thank you, because the next thing that I was conscious of was hands pulling at my shoulders. I looked in astonishment at the gross, flaccid form beside me, a pair of giant buttocks rising high. I had my hands about the pusher's neck, had his head buried in the soapy water where he was apparently drowning. Shocked, I pulled him up and let him slip to the floor. Gouts of water poured from nose and mouth and he gurgled moistly.

"He'll live," I told the circle of wide-eyed KPs, "Any of the cooks see what happened?"

"No - they're all drunk in the other room."

"Great." I tore the KP roster from the wall and shredded it. "You are all free. Return to your tents and keep your mouths shut. Unhappily, the pusher will live. Go." Eagerly, they went. I went too, to the pegs where the cooks had discarded bits of uniform as they worked in the heat of the kitchen. There was a formerly white jacket with sergeant's stripes on it. Perfect for my needs. Donning it I strode into the kitchen, in my element, no need to skulk, and on into the dining hall and barroom.

It was wonderful. Music played, officers roared, bottles broke, songs were sung. Uniformed figures slumped over the tables while others had slid to the floor. The survivors were well on their way to join the succumbed. I pushed through this alcoholic hell and greatly admired the unconscious drunks. I was still aching from the captain's spirited defense. I had rediscovered a dictum that must be as old as crime. Rolling drunks is easier than mugging.

A major in the space service caught my eye, prone on the floor and snoring. I knelt next to him and stretched my arm out next to his. Same length; his uniform should make a fine fit.

"Washa?" a voice muttered from above and I realized that my bit of tailoring measurement had not gone unnoticed.

"The major is on duty later. I was sent to get him. Come on major, walkies, sackies."

I struggled to lift the limp figure, aided very slightly by his friends. In the end I seized him under the arms and dragged him from the room. His departure was not noticed. Through a door and down a hall, to a storeroom filled to the ceiling with bottles of strong beverage. He would feel right at home here. With the door secured I took my time about stripping him and donning his uniform. Even his cap fitted well. I was a new man, rather officer.

I left him dozing out of sight behind the drink. Straightened my tie. And sallied forth to save the world. Not for the first and, I had the feeling, not for the last time either.