Chapter Twenty-Five.
Half an hour later, with much of the serious business concluded, the discussion turned to lighter subjects.
Walt observed, “I have lots of books on military history. Whenever I read anything about army rations, I don’t think the author ever used the word ‘tasty’ to describe them.”
Old Billy was too busy chewing a mouthful of ‘tasty’ to do more than mumble.
Walt stared at his plate. “This is amazing. You said this is called a brownie?”
The man in charge of the captain’s protection detail, Master Sergeant Titus, call sign “Dagger”, said, “We have come a long way from smoked meat and hardtack.”
The two terrifying body-guards that had accompanied the captain at their first meeting had disappeared. They had been “put away till next time.” Walt had never learned their real names, but the man had been called “Back-Stabber” and the woman had been called “Gutt’em”.
Every single one of the soldiers that had anything to do with them had treated them with some serious respect. Judging by the amount of stripes they had on them, they were high-ranking individuals. They had been replaced by four not quite so terrifying body-guards.
Walt had watched “Gutt’em” walk away and point at a supply wagon. She had said something that he hadn’t made out. Every man and woman around that wagon had taken it apart, looking for what she wanted.
It turned out she had wanted a brownie.
Walt shook his head.
Boca chuckled, “It’s a lot better than eating squirrel stew every day. Or rattlesnake.”
La Mousa chuckled, “Captain Zapata does a really nice jackrabbit confít. Where the hell he got duck fat, thyme, and baby potatoes in the desert outside of Chihuahua Mexico in summer is beyond me.”
Captain Alvarado asked, “When the hell were you fine dining on a flat rock with him?”
“About…twenty-five years ago, I think it was. He was just a sub-leftenant and we were out looking for a very nasty bandit party.”
The scout looked at him and asked, “How the hell did you end up on a scouting mission with Zapata?”
“This was way before he talked General Friesen into sending him to the Scout/Sniper School. He was six months out of the academy, a junior assistant intelligence officer and George. There was heavy bandit activity in the area, S-2 estimated about thirty men. Zapata was the one who had to write up the reports, and he got to see first-hand what the bandits did to people. It upset him pretty badly.”
“At some point, he ended up talking to a goat-herder who told him about a spring somewhere in the desert near Charco de Peña where his family used to water their animals. The last time the poor guy had been there, his parents and his brother had been killed and most of their flock had been stolen by a large group of ‘evil men.”
“Zapata had filed reports and tried to convince captain Maxwell that the bandit group that were terrorizing the district weren’t hiding in the mountains. They were operating out of an oasis out in the middle of the desert.”
He shook his head. “Captain Maxwell said he would not send out a cavalry troop on a wild goose chase on the word of a drunk goat herder that Zapata had met in a brothel.”
“Zapata tried to arrange a meeting between the captain and the goat herder.”
La Mousa shook his head sadly, “After losing his family, the poor man slit his wrists before the captain would see him. The poor bastard turned into a Walker. Since the leftenant couldn’t get anyone to believe him, he went AWOL to go find them.”
He took a drink of water, then continued.
“I was a supply clerk back then. The leftenant stole a bunch of supplies and equipment, some horses, and kidnapped a young private soldier named La Moussa. The young private had gotten suspicious and tried to verify the paper work the Leftenant was using to requisition a shitload of explosives.”
Boca laughed out loud. “Are you kidding me? I’ve never heard this story!”
“Well, he was ordered to keep his mouth shut and Second Army tried to cover it up because it was a little embarrassing. I was never ordered to keep quiet, but it was heavily implied that a tonne of trouble would land on me if I ever mentioned it.”
After another sip of water, he continued, “When he took off the blindfold and untied me, we were twenty klicks out in the desert. I had no frickin’ idea where we were. He told me what he was doing and asked me to help him. Then he ordered me to help him. I told him that was an illegal order but he convinced me that if things didn’t work out, he would tell command that it was all his idea and he had held a gun to my head. Then he said he would tell them he threatened the poor ignorant private with a court martial if I didn’t help him. And he swore he would take all the blame if we got in trouble. As you all know, he is a very persuasive man.”
“What happened?”
“Oh… we wandered around in the desert, fine-dining while sitting on hot rocks and tree stumps. We ran into a herd of Night Walkers and spent a beautiful night on a pile of small rocks before we planted them. We ran out of food and water. I ran out of hope of ever seeing my favorite cantina ever again. “
“We found the bandits hide-out and trapped them in the desert. Then I rode back to Chihuahua and brought back the cavalry while the leftenant pinned the bandits down. Most of the bandits were captured alive, and sub-leftenant Zapata was thrown in the brig for a week while they figured out what to do with him.”
Master sergeant Titus looked at La Moussa, shook his head and said, “You have a real gift for understatement, Moose.”
Alvarado looked at Walt and Old Bill, shrugged and said, “It appears I was wrong; he’s been thrown in the brig six times.” Then he went back to his dessert.
Old Billy asked curiously, “How did you trap the bandits in the desert?”
The Sergeant Major shrugged, “Ah, it’s kind of sad, really. All those explosives he stole from the army? One night he snuck in the horse paddock while I was outside of the camp, causing a distraction. We had dug up a couple of the Night Walkers we had planted. I cut them up in pieces and dropped them in a line upwind of the camp. The scent drove their dogs crazy and everyone was concentrated on that side of the camp perimeter, ready to defend against a Walker herd. Any way, he broke into one of the outbuildings, grabbed eight bags of corn feed and attached a quarter kilo of Composition-8 and a time fuse to each of them. He dropped them in a big circle and all the horses crowded around to get a late-night snack.”
Master sergeant Titus whistled. “Shit, two kilos of C-8?”
Boca winced. “Must have turned them all into mincemeat.”
“It flattened a whole quarter of the compound.”
Walt and Old Billy looked confused. Old Billy asked, “What is C-8?”.
Titus asked, “Do you know what explosives are? Black powder, TNT, and Dynamite are the most common.”
“We know what Dynamite is.”
Titus looked up at the sky and made small wiggling motions with the fingers on his left hand while making some mental calculations.
He said, “C-8 is about thirty times more powerful than the same amount of Dynamite, by the weight of the explosive in the dynamite.”
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Boca spoke, “That much explosives probably killed everything within one hundred meters.” Noticing the blank stares, she clarified, “One hundred and ten yards, or thereabouts.”
Walt and Billy looked at each other and said, simultaneously, “Damn.”
The captain looked at them. “It sounds terrible. And it’s very sad that those poor animals were killed, but denying the enemy the ability to move or flee is a valid military tactic. Those bandits were captured alive and had their day in front of a judge. And a doctor. I’d be willing to bet none of those men ever heard anything said in the courtroom where they were tried.”
“What happened after that?”
Everyone looked at the Sergeant Major. He shrugged. “The ringleaders met the hangman. The rest of the bandits were sent to The Isle of Youth for rehabilitation. Captain Maxwell was found wanting in a command review. He got a poor evaluation and ended up retiring later that year. I was promoted to private first class.”
“Sub-leftenant Zapata was given a right bollocking, a vague letter of commendation, and then a quiet transfer to the Fifty-Fifth Dragoons. With orders to keep his big stupid mouth shut. And the rest, as they say, is history.”
Everyone at the table chuckled.
Old Billy asked the Sergeant Major, “What was he like back then? I was there in the room when he met with the mayor and the city council. He was pretty…coarse. He seemed either really self-confident or really foolish. And just out of curiosity, what would have happened if the mayor had killed him?”
Captain Alvarado answered when all the soldiers turned and looked at him.
“Depending on what master sergeant De La Cruz told me, I might have declared the city an enclave of the Brotherhood. We would have surrounded the city, killed the defenders on the walls, smashed down the gates and lined all the city officials up against the wall and shot them. The populace would have been disarmed, then we would have turned our attention to rooting out collaborators for a short time. Any slaves would have been freed and offered sanctuary. And then we would have continued our pursuit of the bastards who abducted the doctors”.
Noticing the shocked looks on their faces, he smiled and said, “Thankfully, it didn’t come to that.”
The Sergeant Major was quiet for a moment, then scowled at the captain.
Alvarado shrugged and said, “Don’t look at me like that Shawn, they deserve to know the truth.”
The Sergeant Major continued, “And now that The Captain is done scaring the shit out of you, captain Zapata is a very confident man. Even back then, he had no doubts about what he was doing. Many people underestimate him, even many of our own people.”
The captain took over with a wave of his fork, a small piece of brownie still on the end. “Most people, they see his brash exterior and his penchant for saying things to annoy people. But when he does that, he is getting people to place him in a category. They think he’s an arsehole and a stupid one at that. And once they have decided he’s a stupid arsehole, they seldom change their minds about him or pay close attention to what he is doing. That means he can do things and people will view his actions through a lens of their own making. Not seeing what he is really doing until it’s too late. They just assume he’s doing what a stupid arsehole would do. The man is not a fool. What people seem to forget is you don’t get to be a senior officer in the army if you are stupid. You especially don’t get to be known as one of the most effective combat commanders in the army if you are stupid.”
Alvarado continued, “He has a great sense of humor and he was always pleasant to be around. He was always happy to share a meal with people that were close to him, and he was, I mean is a superb cook.”
“When on training missions, he always brought things along that he would use to make dinner in the jungle or the desert edible. Most people don’t enjoy eating bugs, snakes or tree sloths, but he could actually make you look forward to it. He really cares for the welfare of the people under his command. I’ve heard that he isn’t as quick to joke or laugh anymore, but I think that probably has more to do with the fact that he is in command of an Assault Group.”
Boca asked, “Captain, you sound like you know him pretty well. You served together?”
“Not really. We spent the same year at the War College. We were in the same student company, but we didn’t really run in the same circles. He spent most of his off-duty time with the Special Forces types. I asked him about it once and he said he was trying to bring some respectability to their little group of snake eaters. To show that not all regular officers were uptight arseholes.”
The Sergeant Major looked slyly at the captain. Then said, “When they get put in command, even the nicest people turn into giant arseholes.”
Alvarado’s head snapped around with an angry look on his face, but when he saw the smirk on La Moussa’s face he smiled and said “You go to hell Shawn. And place yourself on report for disrespecting an officer.”
Master sergeant Titus reached over and lightly smacked La Moussa upside the back of his head. In a dutiful way that suggested that this was a re-occurring thing.
Alvarado continued, “As you can guess, Boca, that was a bunch of boll…uh, nonsense. He tried to downplay his connections, but there were several classmates that knew of his ties to the Kiowa and the S.O.F. community. To be honest, he always seemed a little annoyed with the rest of us regular officers.”
Old Billy asked, “S.O.F community?”
“Sheriff, your military history books, did they ever mention the ‘Green Berets’, or ‘Force Recon?’”
“The ‘S.A.S’ or the ‘S.B.S? The ‘Spetsnaz’, or the ‘S.E.A.L.S.?”
Walt nodded. “Yes, those names are familiar. If I remember rightly, they were small groups of men that did suicidal or impossible things without the suicide and in spite of the impossibility.”
Alvarado laughed, “Special Operations are defined as ‘Military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, trained, and equipped forces, manned with selected personnel, using unconventional tactics, techniques, and methods of employment.”
“Some of our Generals call them demented geniuses, deranged killers or bloody madmen. Special Forces types are extremely professional, but unconventional and thus unpredictable. They find solutions to problems in a way that defies logic. A little wild, kind of crazy. These are scary things for the generals.”
"Once, the 2rd platoon of the 1st Regiment was sent into an area to quell an insurgency. They were there for an entire summer, and they never fired a shot. They taught the locals how to grow crops more efficiently."
Old Billy and Walt looked on quizzically.
The captain shook his head. “Captain Zapata has spent many years in the Special Operations Forces and has been involved with them on many special projects and assignments. He didn’t enjoy pretending to be refined and civilized, which is what is expected. The army is very conservative, señores. Generals don’t like change or things that are unconventional. New things are untested and can lead to casualties or defeat.”
“The army expects its senior officers to behave in a certain way, señores. Civilized. Calm, cool and collected. They like predictability, although predictability can be a very dangerous thing in itself.”
He took a drink of water. “Combat commanders are entrusted with a truly terrifying amount of power to do good or evil. For example, there were no pillaged or burned farms in this area you claim as yours. You could have easily been considered our enemies, or allies of our enemy.”
Walt and Billy watched the captains face go from warm and engaging to cold and expressionless.
“I could have walked through this valley and killed every man, woman, child, and dog we encountered and suffered no consequences other than the stain on my soul.”
The soldiers nodded, while Walt and Billy looked at the captain with a new expression on their faces, with fear in their eyes.
Alvarado shook his head, “As far as the captain losing his sense of humor. When you are responsible for the welfare, training and especially the actions of over thirteen hundred men and women, you can indeed lose your sense of humor.”
Walt asked, “Thirteen hundred men? I thought an assault company was about five hundred men?”
Alvarado answered, “The 31st Assault company does not go into battle by itself. The 31st assault Group comprises three companies, the 31st and 32nd Assault, and the 8th supply company. One assault company acts as reinforcements for the other. The assault companies also trade off being the primary and the secondary. That way, one company does not lose too many experienced soldiers at one time. After a battle, the next company takes over for the other while the first refits and trains new soldiers that are transferred as replacements. In theory, both can be deployed to attack at the same time, but that would be an extraordinary situation. In this case, we left our sister company in Fort Hancock, at El Porviner, but brought our supply company.”
The captain pushed his plate away from him and took a drink of water. He continued, “In some armies during the early twenty-first century, our group would be called a battalion, and my rank would be Leftenant Colonel. Our unit's original structure had captains commanding companies of 60 to 100 soldiers. But as we moved into Mexico and Texas, we started leaving platoons in forts to protect towns and cities from bandits and Walkers. That meant you ended up spreading your unit thinly to protect a large area.”
“So, the army started assigning more men to a company. The squads went from four fire teams to ten. Then the field artillery teams became a part of the squads, along with the marksmen and the heavy weapons teams. Then the scout elements. Ten years ago, the army re-organized the companies when the Brotherhood began engaging us in pitched battles. Now a company is made up of four to five platoons of a hundred men each, each capable of acting on its own or with the entire company.”
Captain Alvarado was facing the city walls. He spotted movement just as one of the soldiers barked something out to the soldiers in the formation.
“Huh. Pardon me, but it seems we are getting more back in than we sent out,” the captain observed. He pointed toward the city and smiled.
“Well, would you look at that.”