"Come on, Santee. Those young recruits need to be trained by the folks who know what they're doing."

Santee looked tense and nervous, the opposite of his blithe confidence at the Battle of the c.r.a.pper, where he hardly got to fire a shot. "Frank, I'm an old, crotchety b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I know it. I have no patience for fools. I don't speak any German and I don't think my wh.o.r.ehouse j.a.panese will help. I'm an old relic. Find some other stupid f.u.c.king idiot about twenty years younger than me. I'm going to go get me some aspirin and then I'm going back to the reloading shed. Shoot me if you want. No." He turned and stomped off.

Mike and Frank stood there, watching the receding Chief Weapons Scrounger. Frank shook his head. "He's a relic, all right, and a curio too. Fits that d.a.m.n gun license of his."

Mike was philosophical. "Some people will either work alone or not at all. You can't push a rope."

"Yeah, I suppose. He's happy and productive in a job the army needs doing. I guess it's better to just leave him alone."

Ten minutes later Santee joined Eddie in the reloading shed. "Stupid f.u.c.kers still want me to be a drill sergeant!" he said. "Can you imagine me teaching a bunch of stupid p.i.s.sant kids? Shee-it. How are you doing there?"

By now, Eddie knew Santee well enough to kid him, just a little. "Mr. Santee? You're teaching me. Does that mean I'm not a stupid p.i.s.sant?"

Santee barked laughter. "You can't be all that bright or you wouldn't be here. Humph. Now how much powder are you putting in those cases? And where are the bullets we'll be using?" Eddie showed him both, to Santee's approval.

"Say Eddie, I noticed you had to go help with Driscoll's computer when all the other privates were policing up the fired bra.s.s. How did you swing that?"

Eddie trusted Santee enough by this time to let some of the truth out. "Well, I'd been asked to help them when I had the time. I just sort of decided having the time then was the best way of not freezing my fingers and getting torn up by the briars." Eddie glanced up a little apprehensively, checking for Santee's reaction. He needn't have worried.

"Good thinking. A smart solider avoids the grunt work if he can-as long as you're there at the fight, I mean. And you were. I saw you do some stupid things in that battle, but Jeff did 'em even stupider, and you have to back up your friends sometimes."

Eddie just nodded. He didn't like to think of how close it had come to a bloodbath, down there by that outhouse. If the converted coal truck hadn't come in when it did, he wasn't at all sure he'd still be alive.

"Fight when you need to," Santee said, "just don't be a hero. They die too quick."

"Not me. Idiot-I mean Jeff-can be the hero." He turned back to the loading bench. "Get us all killed next time," he muttered.

The next day, Santee heard voices inside the reloading shed. He hesitated, then stood outside to listen. It sounded as if Eddie had two younger boys there and was showing them around. "We're keeping the loads down to minimum levels so the bra.s.s will last longer and we use less powder. We can't do that for the machine gun, and we're loading Julie's ammo specially."

"Cool!" said one of the younger boys. "Can we try it sometime?"

"Well, I don't know... Mr. Santee is in charge of things here."

"Pleeease?" came the wheedling reply.

Santee had heard enough, and walked in the door. He said sternly, "h.e.l.lo, Eddie. h.e.l.lo, boys. Eddie, can I see you a minute?"

The "Uh-Oh" looks among the boys were priceless. Santee managed to keep his face straight.

"Uh, sure." said Eddie. "Don't touch anything," he said to the boys.

Outside, the two walked far enough away from the shed to be out of earshot.

Santee finally let loose the grin he'd been hiding. "So, it's not every day you get to whitewash a fence, eh, Tom Sawyer?"

Eddie beamed, relieved that he wasn't in trouble and rather pleased that Santee realized what he was doing. "Yeah."

"Okay then, time for a command lesson. If one of those kids double-charges a round and blows up a rifle, or worse yet a person, who's to blame?"

Eddie thought a second, and his face got serious "Me, I guess."

"Yep. So if you want to make this work, you better watch them. Keep the shifts short so they stay interested. Come up with safety checks for each round you load-after you put the powder in, a wood dowel should drop to the same level in each case."

"I'd thought of something like that. One caliber and load at a time, too."

Santee nodded. "Make a schedule. That shed is too small for a bunch of boys in there. I'll try to get Frank to talk up how important reloading is when he's around any teenaged boys. That should get you all the help you want." Eddie nodded, his face earnest.

"Now I'm going to go back in there and give you and those boys the safety lecture of your life, and read you the riot act on letting anyone in there unsupervised. That should scare them into taking this seriously... Tom Sawyer."

Santee picked a beautiful day a few weeks later to try out their hand-loaded ammunition. He and Eddie took two hunting rifles, a .30-06 and a .308, along with a few hundred round of ammo loaded to various speeds. The idea was to find a mild but accurate load for each of the two main rifle calibers, and then try some full-power loads for the M-60 and Julie's wickedly accurate sniper rifle. (One of Julie's targets was hanging in the reloading shed, so all the shooters in town knew what it-and she-could do.)

To keep the noise from disturbing the townspeople, they'd picked a shooting area far out of town, down a lane that led past the area of the Battle of the c.r.a.pper. They tied the rifles, ammo, and various spotting scopes and shooting gear to a primitive, unsteady cart they'd cobbled together and towed the whole a.s.sembly behind Eddie's dirt bike. Eddie rode slowly and carefully, shutting off the motor and coasting downhill whenever possible to save precious gasoline; Santee walked alongside.

On the far edge of the battle site they pa.s.sed a small clearing. "Look at that," Eddie said. He stopped the bike and pointed. "Germans have been out here with wood-axes. I wonder how long it took to chop that big tree down?"

"Hard to tell. I had to chop firewood by hand when I was your age, and it was a Pure-D b.i.t.c.h when the wood was tough. I had a good steel axe, too. The natives here probably don't have anything but bronze or iron axes."

"Miz Mailey would know, I guess, or another one of the teachers." Eddie got off the bike to examine the tree. "What I'm wondering is why they did this. It was after the battle-see here where the axe cut through this bullet track-but they just left most of the tree here after they cut it down. I'd only go to all that effort if I wanted that wood."

Santee was puzzled too, and scouted around the area. "Can't really tell, I guess. Maybe something scared them off? There are wolves around here; I've heard them at night. Or boars; I know wild boars are pretty mean and run in packs. Still, it doesn't make sense-there are at least four sets of footprints around here, and four people with axes should be able to take care of themselves. Weird."

They shrugged and went on toward their shooting area, which Eddie's friends had helped scout out for them. It was in a valley formed by a small creek, pointing up a gentle slope so stray shots wouldn't escape. They didn't expect this first set of ammunition to be particularly accurate.

a.s.suming that the point of aim with their lower power ammo would be off, they'd brought large sheets of cardboard with targets at the top, and now they set them up at one hundred yards. Then they put on earm.u.f.fs and safety gla.s.ses and started systematically testing the ammo, one load for one target, not adjusting for aim, just to see where the bullets were hitting and how they were grouping together.

After the second set of shots Santee squinted into the spotting scope. "Pretty good group there, Eddie. What load is that?"

"What?" Eddie took off his earm.u.f.fs, and Santee repeated the question while he took off his own. "Uh, #14. I left the details back in town."

"Not a problem, just keep notes like we talked about."

Eddie scribbled. "Okay, got it. Let's go get the targets so we can measure... What was that?"

"What was what?"

"I heard something, like a scream. A long ways off." They paused, making no noise, waiting.

"There!" Eddie said. "You hear it?"

"No, but if you heard a scream, I believe you. I don't have young ears. Where'd it come from?"

"Can't tell. Maybe over that way." He pointed vaguely off to the left.

Santee quickly reloaded the two rifles and gave one to Eddie. Grabbing the spotting scope with one hand, he started up the side of the small valley, in the direction where Eddie had pointed, motioning for him to follow.

When they got to the top of the slope, they could see a farmstead about a half mile away; smoke was coming from one of the buildings. Santee quickly dropped p.r.o.ne and set up the spotting scope, peered through it, and stiffened. "d.a.m.n. s.h.i.t. There's some b.a.s.t.a.r.ds down there sacking that farm. The house is on fire, and I just saw a half-naked woman being chased by three guys. s.h.i.t."

"I'll go get the ammo." Eddie said, and rushed off before Santee could say anything. In a few minutes he was back with the canvas bag that held all their bullets, and had thought to throw in the canteens full of water. Santee had moved over to a low spot beside a fallen tree. Eddie dropped the bag beside him and began sorting out the ammo, which had gotten jumbled. He found a box of .30-06 for himself and handed a box of .308 to Santee.

"Eddie, put on your m.u.f.fs. I'm going to try a Julie and at least scare 'em good. They're bringing up a horse and wagon, I guess to haul away their booty."

The first shot wasn't close, but it kicked up dirt where he could see. By the time he'd fired the fifth shot and the magazine was empty, he was. .h.i.tting near the wagon, and he'd definitely provoked a reaction. The marauders turned the wagon to face him and started whipping the horse. He saw six or eight men run to the wagon as it started across the field toward them.