Battle Earth III be-3 Page 7

  All of that was gone now. It had been replaced by a cold bitterness and a fear of what was awaiting him. He slouched back as if he was waiting for his own death and had come to accept it. Mitch wondered if he would ever get his friend back, or just a shell of a man who resembled him. When the copters finally touched down at the base they had left the previous evening, it was still in the pitch black of the night.

  There was little relief at having returned to safety and having accomplished what they set out to do. When the door opened, and the ramp lowered, Taylor could make out a line of German military police. General Dupont was stood among them. It was a sight that made him sick. There was no welcoming party. No celebration of missing soldiers having been saved from a horrifying death.

  The Major stepped out to face his fate with his shoulders slung low. He knew in his heart that he did the right thing, but the outcome was a long way from what he would consider ideal. Taylor knew from the moment they left the base, he would be placed on a charge even if the mission went exactly to plan.

  Dupont rushed forward with his MPs as Taylor’s boots hit the ground. He was disgusted by the fact they had no respect for the fallen and those that had been saved. They encircled the ramp as the marines disembarked. Rains climbed out to stop in shock at the sight.

  “What is this shit?” he exclaimed.

  “Major Taylor, you are hereby placed under arrest and to be transferred to the on base detention facility, pending an investigation and judgement by General Schulz.”

  “What the fuck!” shouted Rains.

  He leapt from the copter and blocked the path between Taylor and the MPs.

  “Just because Taylor, here, was the only one with the balls to get this done. You can’t arrest an American officer, anyway!”

  “Major Taylor was placed under the joint European command and will therefore comply with any ruling we make.”

  Rains tried to bellow out another argument, but Taylor interrupted him.

  “Stop, Eddie.”

  The pilot turned in shock.

  “You can’t let this fly? This bullshit cannot stand!”

  “I knew the price I would have to pay for this, and I have already accepted it.”

  “That’s god damn bullshit!”

  “We have a chain of command for a reason, Lieutenant. To challenge it, is to bring discipline crumbling down around us. Whatever price I pay, it will be little compared to what they have been through.”

  He nodded in the direction of Jones and the other POWs. The weak Captain was hauling Walker’s body off the copter with the last of his strength. Dupont’s face changed to a look of utter shock as he stared at the gaunt figures.

  “What the hell happened to them?” he asked.

  He turned to Taylor for answers. The Major looked less than eager to explain. Dupont turned back to the MPs.

  “Strip him of his weapons and armour, and take him away!”

  He snapped back around and glared at the marines who looked on at him with a look of utter disgust and pointed at Silva.

  “Sergeant, get these troops formed up!”

  Parker stepped up to join them and wanted nothing more than to strike the General across the face. But she looked to Taylor and realised it was not the time. They had gotten themselves in more than enough trouble already. A medical crew rushed past the MPs to assist the rescued troops and take away the two dead and one wounded. Taylor watched as they were spirited away while he stripped off his equipment before his detainers.

  The Reitech suit crashed to the ground as Taylor stepped from it and dropped his rifle. There was no more fight left in him. As he unclipped the last of his equipment, he turned to Silva who still ignored the General.

  “Go about your duties, Sergeant. I’ll be in touch soon enough.”

  The General hissed and sighed at the arrogance he perceived in Taylor. Mitch hated him with an even greater burning desire to strike him down. Silva turned and faced his men with a newfound confidence in defiance of the General.

  “You heard the, Major. Form up!”

  The MPs took up positions and led Taylor past the formed up platoon and away from the landing zone. Silva raised his arm in a salute that was quickly followed by the whole unit. Silva could feel the vehement hostility in the General without even looking at him. They had saluted a detained Major and not a General. Silva lowered his arm and turned his gaze to the General. He stared into his eyes as if asking for something from the man. The General sighed at the Sergeant’s lack of respect for his position.

  “Under the command of the Joint European Defence Force, you are hereby ordered to lay down your arms and equipment. You are to be confined to your billets until further notice. Rations will be brought to you when needed, and you will not leave those billets under any circumstances. Any man or woman found to be in breach of these conditions, will find them following in your Major’s footsteps!”

  The troops remained silent. Dupont knew that it was not out of respect for him. Finally, the Sergeant spoke up.

  “Will that be all, Sir?”

  Dupont coughed in surprise at the question. His face lit up in anger, but he knew there was nothing more he could do to the marines. Dupont nodded in agreement, turned and marched away to his vehicle, leaving the MPs to do their work.

  “You heard the man. Lay down your weapons, and get some rest!”

  It was an appealing thought but having to give up everything left a bitter taste among them. They could see trucks parked up nearby. Dupont was quite literally expecting them to remove their kit and hand it in, there and then. They began to strip off their weapons and armour and leave behind the exoskeleton suits which had done them such a good turn.

  When Silva was done, he stood and waited for the last of them to lay down all that they had carried. One of the MPs stepped up to his side and spoke in a thick German accent.

  “Your sidearm, Sergeant!”

  Silva turned with an outraged expression.

  “From my cold dead hands!” he snapped.

  “You have your orders, Sergeant.”

  “This pistol was a private purchase, as allowed by my rank.”

  Silva spat on the floor beside the well-kept military policeman. He hated them in America as much as he did here, but at least his own people understood the law.

  “This base is still US soil, is it not?” he asked.

  The man nodded begrudgingly and could see the other marines becoming restless. He looked at the battle-hardened troops and sighed. Spineless bastard, thought Silva.

  “Alright, NCOs may keep sidearms, but all other weapons, armour and associated issue equipment are to be removed!”

  Silva smirked just a little. He enjoyed seeing how much it pained the MP to be told what’s what. He turned back to the platoon and barked his orders.

  “Fall out and return to billets!”

  It further exasperated the MP that the Sergeant was not marching the platoon across the base, but he was at his wits end. Silva had enjoyed torturing the man but now thought back to their losses both on and off the battlefield. Parker strode up to walk beside him.

  “What do you think they are doing with the Major?” she asked.

  She could guess pretty well as much as Silva, but could not help but ask.

  “He’s in deep shit, no doubt. Schulz will want to make an example of him, and Dupont has lost face just as much. Nobody can doubt that the Major saved soldiers that should never have been left behind, but they will do everything they can do make him suffer.”

  She sighed.

  “What else could he have done? Left our people there to die?”

  “Schulz works on numbers. He’s got dead and wounded back, and officers directly contravening his orders. As far as he is concerned, nothing good has come of this day.”

  “Fucking asshole! If only I could get my hands on him.”

  “You and me both.”

  “What will become of us?”she asked.

  “Schulz will put us
on some shit duties until he realises he needs us. We’ll be alright.”

  “And Taylor?”

  He looked into her eyes and could see her worry.

  “If anyone can wriggle out from this, it’s the Major.”

  Four weeks had passed, and the Major had seen nobody but his guards. The dim-witted and obnoxious military police revelled in their power over a high-ranking officer. The fact that he was American made them enjoy it all the more. He resigned himself to little more than exercising in his cell and lying in a dream for the rest of it.

  Schulz can’t leave me to rot forever. He hadn’t received any news from his guards. He knew that he hadn’t been moved, and so Ramstein had remained in human hands for all that time. It was some relief at least. But Taylor thought of his friends and his Company. What price were they paying for holding the line, and what crap had Schulz thrown them in to?

  The more Taylor thought about his friends, the angrier he became that he was not able to be there for them. He tried his best to remain calm, but the sound of every vehicle and distant rumbling of artillery reminded him of them. Every night he was haunted by the hallowed eyes of Jones the last time he’d seen the Captain. He had long dreamt of getting his friend back, only to lose him again. They probably put him in a mad house, he thought.

  Taylor’s calm snapped, and he leapt up from his bed. He rushed up to the bars of his cage and whaled on them.

  “Get me the fuck out of here! Get me out! Get me out!”

  Chandra sat at the bottom of a muddy trench on the south side of the base. The occasional artillery round screamed overhead, but the line had become oddly tranquil over the last day. She sat with a mug of tea, treasuring the moment. She leaned back and looked up into the bright blue sky where there was not a cloud in sight.

  Looking into the warm sky, she could forget for just a few moments about the desolate landscape around her that had been ravaged by the war. Few trees stood that were not blackened and burnt. The roads had been smashed by artillery until the concrete and mud beside it mixed into almost uniformed rubble.

  The defences of the base consisted of miles of trench works and bunkers. They were the only cover that would be erected in time. She could hear footsteps squelching towards her. The floorboards could only stave off the worst of the rain that rarely let up for more than a day or two. The footsteps were light. Gone were their Reitech suits.

  They were reduced to the same frightened troopers that huddled underground and prayed to only tackle the enemy in vastly superior numbers. They were nothing compared to their enemy, man for man. Friday strode into view with a smile on his face. He rarely showed any dismay or sadness. Perhaps he hid it well, she thought.

  “Major, we’ve just been sent a request for a platoon to fetch and carry.”

  She shook her head in disbelief.

  “Will it ever stop?” she sighed.

  “The General will get bored of punishing us eventually, I’m sure.”

  She turned and looked into his face to see if he really believed what he was saying. Friday always seemed so convincing that it was hard not to believe him.

  “Relay the order and have a platoon get on it.”

  Friday turned to leave, but Chandra interrupted him.

  “Captain, there’s no rush…”

  He turned around to see she was offering him a mug of tea. He smiled politely. Chandra could see he’d wished it was coffee, and that made her grin.

  “All these years, and we still can’t civilise you into the finer things.”

  He took the mug and sat down beside her. He sighed as his body creaked from being on his feet.

  “Any news from the US?”

  “Bits and pieces, but you probably know more than me.”

  “Na, my intel dried up a long time ago. You probably hear more around the mess than I get at briefings.”

  “Then there ain’t a lot to say. Most of the major cities on the eastern seaboard are rumoured to have gone, and they’re now dug in like us.”

  Chandra sipped back on her tea. They’d seen plenty of action the last few weeks, but nothing that came close to the seat of your pants fighting when Taylor was still around.

  “You miss him, don’t you?” asked Friday.

  She smiled.

  “Not in that way, Captain. Life was a whole lot more interesting with Taylor around. We were always at the forefront of the fighting, and we were making a difference every day. What are we now? Reduced to line duty. We’re better than this, all of us, and wasted because a General got pissed off.”

  “Would you take it back? I mean, Taylor’s mission. Would you have stopped him, having known what you do now?”

  She shook her head.

  “No, never! We had a responsibility to the comrades that had been lost. If the General couldn’t see that, then that is his weakness, not ours.”

  “I hear it caused quite a stir among the Commanders, sounds like he didn’t get off lightly either.”

  “That more scuttlebutt, Captain?” she asked.

  Friday chuckled at her awkward usage of his services slang.

  “No, Ma’am.”

  Chandra took some pleasure in the news. She’d heard as such herself, but it was nice to have it confirmed. Schulz should never have forced Taylor and herself into the situation. But with Commander Phillips gone, she had little influence or ways of changing their lot.

  “Word is that the Reitech suits are out for issue, reckon we’ll see ‘em anytime soon?”

  “Fat chance, Schulz will make it his mission to ensure that we never see such hardware again. He wouldn’t want us to actually make any progress in this war?”

  “Asshole.”

  She nodded in agreement.

  “Our time will come again, Captain. We can’t have come all this way to be relegated to the bench. The war is far from over, and we’ll be needed soon enough.”

  A runner came hurtling down the trenches towards them. Monty appeared from around a corner and came to a quick halt in front of them.

  “Ma’am, orders from command. They want a platoon to join a scouting party to the west.”

  “Why the urgency, Private?”

  “Orders, Ma’am.”

  “Alright, relay them to Lieutenant Yorath, and have him follow out the orders.”

  Friday turned to the Major.

  “It’s alright, I’ll do it. Yorath’s been through enough shit. My platoon will handle it.”

  She nodded in gratitude for his kindness.

  “Alright, Captain. You want it, you got it.”

  The heavy brig doors creaked along the corridor. Taylor knew the guards’ routine. The only reason for their presence now would be to bring in a new prisoner, or escort one out. He didn’t flinch from the position he lay in his bed. He’d been given nothing to read or to work his mind. Weeks passed with nothing to do but contemplate and replay recent events in his mind.

  The sidewalls of the cell meant he could only see one other of the cages opposite him, but it was empty. He heard the wails of a few other prisoners held there, but they were mostly soldiers who had lost their minds. Four sets of footsteps approached. In his stay there, the Major had only ever heard two or three approach at any one time. He could already guess that their presence related to him.

  As the steps got louder, the Major sat up in his tiny bed and rested back against the wall. He remained calm and slouched. He would never give those who detained him the satisfaction of feeling he was at their beck and call.

  Two guards came into view and placed themselves either side of the barred door. General Dupont and his assistant strode up to the entrance and halted quickly at the bars. The Frenchman stared in at the Major with curiosity but made no request for the door to be opened. The four men stood before the bars of his cell as if waiting for his move.

  “Can I do something for you gentlemen?” Taylor asked.

  He knew that it infuriated the guards that he treated them like slaves. They rarely knew whether
to treat him as an officer or a prisoner. They all knew that if he ever got out, and was cleared, he would make them suffer for any ill treatment.

  “Major Taylor, you are well aware of the reason for your arrest and detainment,” exclaimed Dupont.

  “Yes, what of it?”

  “I am here to inform you that you will face a military tribunal at some date in the future and that it may become plausible and realistic to do so at a time…”

  “Get on with it, General.”

  Dupont sighed.

  “Your blatant disregard for authority and reckless behaviour has already cost you your command and the lives of more than a few of the soldiers you had a responsibility to.”

  Taylor strode up to the bars quickly with a furious expression on his face. He had tried to remain calm during his imprisonment, but the French General made him sick.

  “What the hell would you know about responsibility? You saw your country fall and sent armies to the slaughter!”

  Dupont smiled with a wicked grin. It amused him that Taylor was behind bars. He could see the hatred that burned inside Taylor. Both men knew that Mitch wanted to tear the General apart. He turned and paced away from the door. He knew there was no way to air his frustration. He finally stopped and turned near his bed.

  “At least tell me the status of my Company, and of Captain Jones.”

  “They are not your Company, Major. They are our Company, under the Joint European Command. The fact you could not get that into your head is the very reason you stand in that cell today.”

  “Please, General, just tell me how my people are.”

  “As a result of your actions, they have been removed from the Reiter programme, and they’re out there doing their job.”

  “You mean they’re getting fucked because of this.”

  “They are paid to do their job, which is to follow orders.”

  “What have you come here for, beyond torturing me with useless bullshit information?”