Winter Duty

The Discard Run: Winter is the quietest time of the year in Kentucky. The locals retreat to the hearth and their livestock to barns (or to great intertwined piles, in the case of the legworms), and the frequent rains and occasional snow accumulation keep people close to home unless emergency forces them to travel. It is a time for neighbors and small towns to get together and enjoy the indoor pursuits of the season: the final steps in the canning and preserving of the harvest, pursuit of courtship or friendship, sewing circles, and hand tool swap meets.



The column was sped on its way east by two factors. First, they did not have to forage for food or fuel, though where it was available, they were able to buy more with Mrs. O'Coombe's gold. Second, the Kurian Order no longer existed outside Louisville, Lexington, or the crossriver suburbs of Cincinnati-none of which the column was interested in visiting. There were no checkpoints to route around, un-watched fords to find, or patrols to look out for. The only thing their motorcycle scouts had to do was report the condition of the roads or cuts or trails ahead.



Valentine, always willing to see a glass half empty when anything having to do with the Kurian Order was being discussed, maintained that the ease on the eastbound leg would just mean that much more difficulty on the westbound.



Luckily, he couldn't imagine just how right he was.



Lambert had sent word to the clans through Brother Mark of the proposed route tracing the retreat of Javelin, with instructions that any of Southern Command's surviving wounded be made ready for travel and certain frequencies be scanned for radio contact.



They hadn't left many behind, at least many who were expected to live more than a day or two. Valentine doubted they'd need half the bed space that had been allocated in the Bushmaster. Either the soldiers would be recovered enough now to sit, or they'd be beyond medical attention.



Once in the Nolin and Green River Valleys, in this manner they picked up three of their wounded who'd escaped death by their wounds, secondary diseases, or the vengeful Moondaggers who'd followed in Javelin's wake.



The soldiers they picked up, eager to thank Valentine for their collection, were introduced to Mrs. O'Coombe, the true sponsor of their deliverance.



Valentine decided he liked her a little better when he saw her attend to the soldiers they were accumulating. It wasn't an act for the benefit of anyone, especially Valentine, who seemed to have as natural a knack for aggravating her as a piece of steel has for striking sparks when struck by a sharp piece of flint or quartz. She tended to them in a mix of Christian compassion and patriotic fervor. Nothing was too good for those who'd lost so much in the pursuit of the Cause.



He began to enjoy the trip. The cold weather invigorated him, if anything, and apart from delivering anecdotes about the retreat or advice on routes, he had little to do. Mrs. O'Coombe made all the strategic decisions for the column, and the mile-by-mile operations were handled by wagon master Habanero.



Frat was a superb scout, though Valentine was beginning to see why he was still a lieutenant. He wanted to do everything on his own. Run every risk, shoulder every burden, scout every town, be the first through every door. Valentine was impressed with his courage.



Had LeHavre ever said anything like that about his own eager young lieutenant out of the wilds of northern Minnesota? Of course, LeHavre had brought Valentine along differently, keeping him back rather than sending him forward until he found his feet among the men and in the responsibilities of his platoon.



Bee slept outside, snoring softly, her head pillowed on her shotgun. She'd arranged her mane-Valentine could never decide whether Grog hair should be called "mane" or "fur"-into a star to show off the wound she'd received when the Coonskins turned on the Kentucky Alliance.



She was proud of her wound, issued at his side like a stamp of bravery. Valentine wondered just when whatever debt Bee decided she owed him for freeing her would be paid off. She was mysterious about her loyalty, and Valentine's rough-and-ready Grog gutturals weren't up to discussions of intangibles.



But Frat could hold up his end of any conversation. The boy, who'd once possessed a wary, quiet intelligence, had turned into a well-spoken man.



Valentine waved Frat in, heard his report, and then had him sit on one of the tiny camp stools. His long legs made him look a little like a frog ready to give a good loud croak.



"What's with the big bag, son?"



"Saw yours and sort of admired it, sir. All these maps are a hassle."



"I used to carry them rolled up in a tube."



They chatted for a while. Valentine asked about his officers' training, and they shared memories of Pine Bluff. Frat accidentally mentioned a brothel that was either new or had escaped Valentine's notice in his days as a shy, studious lieutenant.



They laughed at their mutual awkwardness. Frat, for admitting that he took a trip upstairs as a rite of passage (always on the house for a Hunter on his first visit, it seemed), and Valentine for living so sheltered a student life that he was unaware of its existence.



Sometimes, their conversations turned serious.



"You ever heard the theory that the Kurians keep the Freeholds in business? That they have allies at the top of our military and government?" Valentine said.



"Well, sir," Frat said. "I think this might be a conversation that wouldn't stand an Honor Code examination."



"The 'sir' stuff only counts when we're standing up. I want your opinion. Disparaging and doubting our superiors is a fine old American tradition."



Frat thought for a moment. "It's something men like to shout after a defeat. They cry, 'Betrayed,' and run. Makes them feel better about running way, or keeping out of it to begin with. If the game's fixed, there's no sense putting any skin into it."



"You've put some thought into this already," Valentine said.



"There was the exact same argument when we got back from Kansas all bloodied, kind of. What's that saying? Never attribute to malevolence what can be explained by stupidity. Something like that."



"I heard it as malice. Interesting that we agree on that. Of course Kur has a few agents in the Free Republics; they'd be fools not to, and we're not fighting fools. Where'd you get that cry, 'Betrayed!'?"



"Those Shelby Foote books you gave me about the Civil War when I signed up."



"Ah, I'd forgotten about that." Valentine had thought the volumes would teach Frat some useful lessons about leadership in adversity.



"If you ask me, Kansas wasn't malice or stupidity. They just got lucky. The whole Moondagger army was training for a run at those Grogs in Omaha. But you know that."



Valentine had a lot of former friends there. Last he heard, after a big battle the Grogs had retreated up the Missouri River Valley and were now finding friends among the Nebraska ranchers he'd met when looking for the Twisted Cross with Duvalier.



"Actually I don't. I was out of the country at the time."



"Kansas was bad. One of the places I was reported killed, as I recall. My platoon was ambushed and I made it away with only two men. I think the others were captured. We tried to follow and see if we could help them escape, but-they were the Moondaggers, you see. Someone told me that Moondagger priests can channel aura to a Kurian just like a Reaper, and in return they get special powers, just like Wolves do, kind of. That's one of the reasons I volunteered to come out here, to get another crack at them."



"What's left of the ones that operated in eastern Kentucky are back in the Bluegrass region, licking their wounds, last I heard, under the protection of a clan called the Coonskins, who betrayed the Kentucky Alliance. The ones who chased us across western Kentucky have been scattered. Not many survived the massacre on the road to Bowling Green. I would have liked a few officers as prisoners, personally, but the legworm clans had women and children to avenge."



"We're heading near there, right?"



"Yes. Corporal O'Coombe was dropped off in the Rolling Fork Valley southwest of Louisville. But we don't want to tangle with them or the Coonskins. Not with two motorcycles and four transport vehicles."



"Isn't the size of the dog in the fight-," Frat began.



"Why aren't you a captain, Frat?" Valentine asked.



"Most of the fights I've been in since Archangel have been losing ones. In Kansas I lost a platoon. Rio Grande was a disaster, or turned into one a long time after I left. Maybe third time's the charm. Seems to me if I'm in charge of a permanent group of Wolves operating in Kentucky, I oughta be a captain at that."



"You're at the damp and sticky part of the bottom of the barrel in Kentucky, you know, Frat. Southern Command has written us off."



Frat listened to the wind for a moment and poked the center of the fire. "They wrote your boys off on top of Big Rock Hill too. They asked me to contribute to a memorial service for you and those Razorbacks when we lost communication when that big gun started blasting you. We got a big speech about how you bought us time and we had to make it count."



Valentine remembered the earth quaking with each fall of Crocodile's monster shells. The poor, maddened dog who had to be shot; the numbed, desperate man who wandered out into the churned earth to seek disintegration in one of the blasts.



"Let's forget that for now," Valentine said, taking his map out of his diaper bag. "Here's where I'd like you to scout tomorrow. . . ."



With that, they lost themselves in operational details until it was time for Valentine to check the sentries before turning in.



A clear, cold night on the banks of the Rolling Fork with the temperature dropping enough for men to sleep curled up with a fire-warmed rock . . .



The Valentingle came hard, so hard that Valentine thought he was ill until he recognized the familiar prickling on his scalp, the feeling that every molecule in his body was lining up to be counted. Valentine was almost nauseous with the alarm.



What the hell is approaching camp? What from hell, make it . . .



Valentine fumbled at his pocket, found the chain, and put whistle to mouth. "Alarm! Take your posts," Valentine yelled.



Something wicked this way comes.



Valentine heard the engine on the Bushwhacker come to life. Clicks and clatters of magazines being sent home sounded all around like crickets.



Valentine found his Type Three and put in a red-striped Quickwood magazine.



"Frat has a visitor. He's coming in with a parley," one of the Wolves said, shining a flashlight on himself as he approached through the brush. "It's a freak-Reaper-with a flag of truce."



Valentine recognized what he saw prodded along by Frat, a forage bag over its head. It was taller, more spindly than most Reapers, and its tightly wound apparel had tufts of fur at the edges. Great wings were folded at its side so they stuck out behind like a pair of curved swords, and it paced with torso bobbing and head bobbing, knees reversed like a bird.



He'd seen something like this before, perched on a limb, watching him load his column back onto boats after their gun raid into Kentucky.



A big scallop-shaped pouch hung from its waist, loose and empty, but apart from that it bore no weapons or other obvious gear.



"Ranks only, please," Valentine said to the gaping men. He glanced up at the clear sky, looking for other fliers, and then addressed the newcomer. "I will keep you blindfolded. No reason for you to look around."



"It is in your nature to quiver in fear." The creature had a high, faintly squawking voice, as though a goose were talking, rather than an ordinary Reaper's breathy whisper. Though softly spoken, the high-pitched words carried through the night like the notes of a flute.



"He knows how to get things off on the right foot," Chieftain said, his twin, gracefully curved forged-steel tomahawks at the ready.



"Those wings give me the loosies," Ma said. "I hate a bird you can't eat."



Bee brought up her big Grog gun and used a tree branch to rest it on with the sights lined up on the Reaper.



Valentine guessed that her gun wouldn't kill it, but it'd tear off an almighty big piece on the way through. The Reaper looked fragile. He wondered if the Kurians had built it to be proof against Quickwood, and was tempted to test it. Give Boelnitz something colorful at last: gunning down an emissary under its flag of truce.



Valentine looked at Mrs. O'Coombe, who had drawn herself up to her full height, hand resting on a pistol belt she'd strapped on. She nodded to Valentine.



"What do you have to say?" he asked.



"We are-how would you understand it?-an important branch of a larger tree concerning itself with affairs in North America. We of like mind are fond of you humans-such a mix of greatness and folly, with your charming notions of assistance to those outside your name. They call us the Jack in the Box. We've done our best to research the source and are somewhat confused, for we have nothing to do with hamburgers and French fries or a winding musical toy."



Its speech had an uncanny sound to it, as though the words were being forced through a vocalization apparatus ill-suited to English, yet it was easy to comprehend the words. Valentine wondered of the bird thing was making noises of the appropriate length, and the Kurian was speaking directly to their brains.



"Let's hear him whistle 'Pop Goes the Weasel,' " Silvertip said quietly to Chieftain.



"Still, there," Valentine called over his shoulder. "Lieutenant, wrap a handkerchief over that bag. I get the feeling he's looking right through it."



Frat threw his rain poncho over the Reaper's head.



"That's better."



"Indeed. We can't smell you anymore, just this musty fabric. What do you use for waterproofing, apart from grotty, bacteria-gathering mammal oils?"



"Reaper blood," Chieftain said.



"What is your real name, Jack in the Box?" Valentine asked.



"Silence, renegade. Return the brass ring you so ill-advisedly carry or we will say no more."



They all stood in silence for five full minutes-Valentine timed it with his watch.



"Perhaps we should start breakfast," Valentine said.



"Return the ring!"



"I earned it fairly. If you want it, try to take it."



"This is one of your flags of truce!" Jack in the Box's avatar said.



"Then speak your piece," Valentine said. "Do you want to surrender to us?"



"I come to offer a bargain. I like the people of this land: their independent streak, their enjoyment of hearty meals and entertainments, their work ethic-but most of all their adaptability. From a few escaped legworms running wild they have built an entire civilization, using them alternately as a food source and transportation and warcraft. They even use the skins of the eggs. No Grog dared penetrate a legworm nest with fresh spawn wriggling about, yet they send teenagers in to snatch the material from under living scythes."



"So you admire the state," Longshot said. "So do I. But I'm not making demands of people who never did me or my kind any harm."



"It is for the superior to arrange the affairs of the inferior. I only choose favorites to improve."



"Leave if all you want to do is argue and waste my beauty sleep," Duvalier said. "I don't have time for this."



"Quit arguing with the thing; it gets us nowhere," Valentine said. "Let's hear it, then."



"That Kentucky be placed under our protection. We will not take one life from your Alliance lands. Not one. No tribute, no flesh of worm or cow or goat-all we will ask is that it remain strictly neutral in the contest between civilization and progress on one side, and atavism and greed on the other."



"Civilization and progress-" Frat began.



"Oh, you only lack the experience of years, boy."



"You lack the experience of who you should be calling boy," Frat said, reaching for his parang.



"Are we done here?" Valentine asked. "You're giving your offer to the wrong people."



"Mankind has always been a herd. Well, two herds. The larger of the two are the dullards, the grotty masses with their simple pursuits of sex and drink and sport. They are easy to keep and thrive with a minimum of animal husbandry. But among you there is an elite, who appreciate art and culture. It's only the passions of youth that seek the physical gratification rather than the mental that has kept your race from progressing out of its current stage. A little more selective breeding and you would have made the leap to thought-energy manipulation on your own. We will fulfill that potential. But we have the time to see it through. Give us a few more generations."



"Baloney," Valentine said.



"You've been among our better vanguards of the new Homo sapiens lux, David Valentine. Have you not seen it with your own eyes?"



Valentine thought of Fran Paoli-no, that made him too uncomfortable. What about the officers Solon collected? Even at the time Valentine admired them. Intelligent, energetic, committed, organized. Cooperative as ants, brilliant as artists-they came so close to establishing their order in rebellious territory captured only a few months before. . . .



Yes, Valentine had admired them.



How had Valentine's memory latched onto Consul Solon's team so quickly? He'd spent years in the Kurian Zone, and his more recent time with, say, Pyp's Flying Circus was more pleasant to consider. Did the Kurian know what mental cards he was holding? Captain Mantilla had said that one's opponents were almost too eager to give the game away, seek the most comfortable mental path.



Was the Kurian putting a few illuminated markers on that path?



"We would almost take it to be universal," Jack in the Box continued. "On the Grog's world they became two distinct races, the golden and the gray, in their terms."



"Eloi and Morlocks," Chieftain said. "Only you feed on both."



"Does the same apply to your Dau'wa?" Valentine asked, using the old Lifeweaver name for the renegades who practiced vampirism.



"On Kur, the weak and the stupid were consumed long ago," Jack in the Box answered. "The most resourceful of us survived. Then they went after each other. But it provided the necessary lessons. We are all sprigs of a few hardy family trees, tested and tested again."



"Tested or twisted?" Valentine asked.



Who are you, Jack? Some Kurian who came off worse in a contest, looking for a safe place to hide? Valentine played music in his mind as he listened, mental chaff against the Kurian exploring his mind. Childhood nursery rhymes worked well, like the one employed by the Bears in the northeast to calm themselves down. The itsy-bitsy spider . . .



"Where would you put your tower?" Duvalier asked.



"We had in mind the Lincoln birthplace. The architecture is pleasing, the location central yet out of the way. It would suit us."



"How many 'us' would that be?"



"We are the only one. For now. But if the time comes, I may have others of my kind take refuge with me. The deal would remain the same. All we ask is to be left alone and for this land to remain neutral."



"Is there an 'or else' attached?"



"There always is. We have intimations of what our brethren are planning. Only my intervention can stop the whirlwind that is about to sweep across this land."



"This isn't for us to decide," Valentine said. "You need to speak to the Kentuckians."



"Events are not altogether in my control, either. I came to you in the hope that you would have that apostate who goes by the name Brother Mark persuade them into wisdom rather than folly. Our brethren are disappointed in the foolish gesture your cousins made in Owensboro. Tell your Brother Mark that Gall has been specified for Kentucky."



The creature reached inside its robes, and Valentine saw fingers shift all around from trigger guard to trigger-save for Duvalier, who's sword appeared with a snick. It produced a white, capped cylinder about the size of a dinner candle high for all to see, and then dropped it at its feet.



"You men like to have matters set down on paper. I give you paper."



"Thanks anyway. We've rolls of it," Duvalier said.



"Perhaps that's for the Kentuckians to say," Mrs. O'Coombe said. "It's their land."



"So entertaining a discussion," Jack in the Box said. "We almost forgot to offer a compliment. Brilliant gambit in Owensboro. You are worthy of your name after all."



"Gambit?" Valentine asked.



"Yes. The bomb. Blowing up some of your own. You won your goal, but the herd you stampeded is heading for a cliff. Keep your workmanship in mind in the coming days as the bodies pile up and this beautiful, rich land becomes a waste."



"We'll take you along to meet the Assembly," Valentine decided.



"No, I know that trick as well. You think you'll use our avatar to locate us."



"Maybe we won't give your avatar a choice."



"All I have to do is have it hold its breath. These flying forms are frail. Their hearts explode if deprived of oxygen for long. But that would be a shame. You will have no way to give an answer."



Valentine hated to admit defeat. "How shall we answer you, then?"



"We will be in touch. But if you ever wish another audience, simply tie a bedsheet on top of one of these vehicles. They will be observed. We will send a messenger."



So, the Kurian knew all about their vehicles. They hadn't seen its silhouette flying around in daylight, so it must search for them at night. Well, there were ways to hide vehicles and disperse lifesign.



"Be vigorous, Valentine. Do not delay even one day. We do not make empty threats; we choose the time and the place of their being carried out. The seeds of the destruction are already planted. My brethren only need to give the signal for them to sprout. You, Valentine, shall be the agent of this land's destruction. It will be your responsibility. The question is, of course, can you handle the responsibility? Can you handle responsibility?"



"You talk too much," Frat said. "The major's under orders, like the rest of us."



"Negotiating such an arrangement, even if the Kentucky Assembly is interested, would take a lot of time," Valentine said. "If this whirlwind is as imminent as you claim, you had better delay it, or you'll find yourself taking refuge in a wasteland."



The bird thing cocked its head. "Keep in touch."



Valentine nodded to Frat, who gave it a vigorous turn. He walked it out of camp.



Valentine turned to Habanero. "Wagon master, see if you can raise Fort Seng on your radio. We need to find out where Brother Mark is."



He turned to the owner of the biggest property in the Free Territory. "Mrs. O'Coombe, I'm sorry, but the needs of Southern Command and Kentucky will have to delay finding your son."



She tore her eyes from the strange strut of Jack in the Box's avatar. "But you said tomorrow we will be in the territory where he'd been left."



"We'll get there. Just not tomorrow."



She drew herself up. "Mister Valentine. I equipped this convoy with the best communications equipment I could find. The transmitter alone is worth one of my barns and its resident livestock. Are you telling me it is not adequate to pass along a message that may or may not be an empty threat?"



"Brother Mark may need transport to whatever responsible parties can decide what to do about this."



"Are you giving me an order?"



"If I have to," Valentine said, careful to keep his rifle under his arm as the camp began to line up behind their respective leaders, the Bears and Wolves with Valentine, the drivers and mechanics and security men and medical staff with Mrs. O'Coombe. Stuck just stood up and stared at Valentine.



Duvalier hopped up on top of the Bushmaster. "Cool off, all of you. I don't know who or where this Jack-in-the-off is, but we start throwing down on each other, he'll be laughing until the robins come back."



The camp broke into a dozen separate arguments over the reality of the threat:



"If a Kurian told me my dick was on fire, I wouldn't look down and give him the satisfaction."



"They always give you a last chance."



"So this Kurian makes peace with Kentucky. What about the rest of them? It's all well and good to be neutral, but others gotta respect it or it don't mean jack."



"It's like a game to the Kurians," Stuck said to Valentine's Bears. "Sometimes their threats are empty; other times they are carried out to the last degree and beyond. They keep us guessing and on edge."



"Just good poker," Chieftain said. "Sometimes you can win a pile on the cheap, if you know how to bluff."



"I have Fort Seng, five-five," Habanero said from the radio.



Valentine walked over to the parked Rover. So much for sleep. "Tell them to get Colonel Lambert on the line. Wake her up if they have to. We need to talk."



You never knew how much of a Kurian threat was illusion and how much was steel. They were like magicians, always diverting attention from the operating hand.



Valentine put a steadying grip on Chieftain's arm.The Bear's hair had risen on top of his head. Valentine had known Bears who turned purple when readying for a fight, or whose eyes lit up like a pair of flares, or who turned into snorting, steaming, turf-tearing bulls. He'd never seen one give himself a war headdress before. Valentine had always assumed that Chieftain's name came from the Bear's characteristic tomahawks.



"Eloi and Morlocks?" Valentine asked, by way of calming him down.



"I could never much stand reading, Major. But I liked that H. G. Wells guy. Except for Food of the Gods; that one was just too weird."



"But maybe the most topical, considering tonight's conversation," Valentine said. But to be honest, he'd skimmed it too when he was thirteen.



"I read my share of the stuff when I was a boy," Valentine said, remembering the long winters in Father Max's library. He'd once thought it profitless idling, but it gave him a truer picture of the world before the cataclysm in 2022 than he received through bits and pieces of the reworked histories of New Universal Church photo-studies children in the Kurian Zone received.



Valentine had sat in any number of New Universal Church lobbies, waiting for free cocoa or bread issued in exchange for attending a short lecture. He'd paged through photograph after photograph of poverty, devastation from war, death by starvation and disease, every horror imaginable and most of them featuring children as victims.



In the Free Territories most of the history the kids learned had to do with the post-2022 resistance and the crimes perpetrated in the Kurian Zone. It was taken as a given that the Old World was a pleasant idyll. One side showed ugly pictures of a hell; the other painted fair, vague portraits of a heaven.



Valentine believed the reality to be a blend. Perhaps whether you lived in heaven or hell depended more on your mental attitude than anything.



Back to the present. One of the drawbacks of aging, Valentine thought from his venerable age of having recently turned thirty, is a tendency to dwell on the past. Living in many of his memories would mean a waking nightmare. Better to think about the future.



With that thought firmly in mind, Valentine examined the baton the flying Reaper had brought. Mrs. O'Coombe's crew was already calling it "Mothman."



The baton case looked like polished bone, possibly a femur from a preadolescent human. Valentine didn't know bones well enough to determine. Besides, the joints were sawn off where the tube had been threaded and capped.



He buried the cylinder and its caps. No telling what the Kurian might have planted in the baton in the way of location devices. For all he knew there could be an audio-video transmitter.



The offer itself took up only one paragraph. There was no signature or date. The paper had a watermark that looked vaguely like a stylized depiction of an eclipse-a ring of faintly red fire, offering just enough of a glow to read the letters in darkness. Perhaps that was the Kurian's version of a commitment.



Valentine touched it with a first-aid kit's tweezers.



A FAIR OFFER OF A SECURE FUTURE



-it began, and went on to outline the same deal the Reaper had spoken of. Autonomy for Kentucky save for the Kurian bridgehead at Louisville-a fair exchange for Evansville-provided it remained neutral in the war.



Frat returned, looking thoughtful, and stowed his rifle and gear. Valentine waved him over to the radio, where he was waiting to see if Lambert could make contact with Brother Mark-then perhaps he and the old churchman could have personal communication.



The lieutenant looked like he'd aged a year since Valentine had last seen him. Had the Kurian figured out a way to siphon off a little aura? He'd decided some time ago that that was what had happened to him at the Owensboro western bridge.



"How'd that thing ever find you, Frat?" Valentine asked. "Did it just flap down?"



"I thought I heard an engine-aircraft, maybe-and went up a hill so I could find a better listening spot.



"It gave a chittering sound from a tree above. I looked up and there it was. I thought my number was up. But it had a white hand towel in each mitt and waved them."



"You shouldn't go poking around alone," Valentine said.



"What, some good ol' boys around here will bend me over and make me squeal?"



"That's a dream date compared to what a Reaper might do to you."



Frat shrugged.



"Frat, one more thing. Did it have anything in that bag?"



"I searched it. Nothing but dog hair and stank. I think that was a ration pouch. Maybe some toy poodle got packed as its lunch."



"Didn't seem like the kind of creature that could fly far to me."



"Maybe the engine noise was from an aircraft, dropping the thing off."



Valentine nodded. "We had a little argument over the management of the column while you were gone. We're going to get Brother Mark."



"Before we get Mrs. O'Coombe's son? Hope you know what you're doing. She seems like a useful woman to know, if you ever decide to turn civilian and take up private employment."