Sometime during this discussion, a piper had begun a tune. Several junior officers took claymores from the wall and began sword dances. Tommy was out of his chair, watching one dancer real close. There were shouts for Tommy to join in. Kris suspected the dancer had more to do with Tommy's attention. That particular second lieutenant had a lightness to her step and a particularly broad smile when her whirling brought Tommy in view.
Emma bent close to Kris's ear. ''Your ensign seems to have found a friend.''
Kris shrugged. ''Plenty of my friends have friends,'' she assured her. The story of my life.
The dancing was interrupted as the beef was announced. This particular animal got major honors. Sergeant, pipes, and drums led the way as two servers carried a full roasted carcass in on a pole. The mess cheered as the first slice was cut and offered to the president of the mess. She deferred to the Highlanders' Colonel, who in turn deferred to his Marine guest. Hancock accepted it, cut a large portion off and, with his fork still in his left hand, bit into it. Only after he declared it perfect did the servers begin to cut and distribute choice cuts to the rest of the mess.
''You have a very interesting way of doing things,'' Kris told Emma when the pipes marched out again.
''It's our tradition.''
''When we are done with this fine beef, I have a question about your traditions.'' A thick slab of roast beef was soon set before Kris. She discovered that Yorkshire pudding looked more like a roll and that at least the English tradition of stewing their vegetables had not survived. That was one bit of merry old England that Kris would not mourn. When the cheese and fruit were brought in with much less fanfare, Kris turned to Emma.
''Was it traditions like these that took your battalion up Black Mountain?'' That got nods from all in hearing. ''My Colonel suggested I hear from Regimental Sergeant Major Rutherford the story of Black Mountain, the way he told it to you both before and after you put on the uniform. Colonel Hancock thought he'd tell me about it during the Dining In.''
''Oh, no,'' Emma shook her head. ''The Regimental Sergeant Major would never enter the officers' mess. Certainly not during Dining In.'' Kris was beginning to suspect there was the right way, the wrong way, the Navy Way, and the Highlander Way. No wonder the Society of Humanity was having so much trouble keeping them all together.
One of the captains turned to Emma. ''Why don't you tell her the story. I've heard you enlighten your new lieutenants. It wasn't just the nuggets that were spellbound in the mess those nights.''
It took a bit more coaxing, but soon Emma turned from her selection of cheeses and fruit. She patted her lips with an immaculate white linen napkin, laid it down, then started. ''If you paid attention in civics class, you know the situation on Savannah was bad. The old government had used its army to beat the civilians into submission. The soldiers spent more time on rape and murder than drill. More hours roaming the streets with knives and clubs than on the rifle range.
''Then Savannah had its first free elections, thanks in no small way to Kris's dear, if not yet departed, ancestors. The big players ran for the exits, taking with them their numbered bank accounts on Helvetica. That left just the little people, the ones who did the raping and the murdering, not the ones who ordered it. The army, such as it was, retreated back to its cantonment in the hills above the capital. Most folks were glad to be quit of them. Let them stay up there and starve was the mood of the man on the street. Unfortunately, the man in command knew there was a dam up there under First Corps control. Open those sluice gates, and the capital, with most of its people, would be washed away. They'd made Ray Longknife a general, but put few troops at his command. Those he had were professionals. And those he had included the Fourth Highlanders of proud LornaDo.''
''Hear! Hear!'' rang out up and down the table, and Kris discovered that the mess had grown very quiet. Glasses were raised in toast. Embarrassed to share this sacrament of her hosts with seltzer water, Kris followed their lead, then flagged down a server. ''Whiskey, please.'' She'd be ready next time.
''There's a lot of gadgets in modern war, gizmos that can make a man think he's a soldier when he's not. The First Corps had them all, and if their people were none too sure how to work them, they could hold guns to the heads of technicians who would. There would be a bloody butcher bill for any and all who tried to invade their camp.
''Never trust an enemy to play fair, and never trust a Longknife, period,'' Emma said with a smile for Kris. ''If he couldn't beat them with new soldiering, he figured to take the bastards down the hard, old-fashioned way. So he came to the Ladies from Hell, and the fancy Marines that held the line beside us. He offered us a night black as the devil's own heart, full of rain, thunder, and lightning. Then he added his own bolt from hades, an electromagnetic pulse that stripped a thousand years of contrivances from every soldier within fifty miles. Radar, radios, even night-vision goggles became just more dead weight for the poor booties to lug. With a will, Highlanders and Marines stripped their rifles of computers and vision gear. It was iron sights and cold steel for the rest of that night. So two hundred brave Highlanders and fifty dumb jarheads took off for a walk in Satan's rock garden.''
''Hear! Hear!'' again rang out. Kris's drink had just arrived. Glasses were raised all around. In proud blue and red, Colonel Hancock raised his glass high. ''Dumb is right. Dumb as fence posts. Nobody smart would take the job.''
Before the glasses were down, Colonel Halverson was on his feet. ''To the bloody Marines. The only ones man enough to take the Ladies from Hell to that dance.''
Kris raised her glass, and took no offense. Grampa Trouble had many a woman in his platoon on that hill. There were men, and then there were men.
''In the teeth of the storm, we went up Black Mountain. The first line hardly knew we were there before they had to choose: fight and die or surrender and take their chance with a jury. The second line was warned by the flash of our guns. Machine guns spat and mortars belched. Cannon spoke…all blind. Men lived and men died by the throw of a demon's dice. Here a platoon, there a squad moved forward across death's ground. They found their way into fighting holes and trenches. Men fought and men died while the fiends piped their own wild jig until the second line was ours.''
''Hear! Hear!'' again was answered with a toast. Kris drank, but the warmth in her stomach could not dispel the chill that made her shiver. Emma's words had transported her, the entire mess. They were there, in the lightning-streaked dark, in the shell-shattered rain. The troopers of the battalion that dark, distant night weren't men but gods.
''Our own cannon cockers applied themselves to their work with a will, lashing the second trench, then lifting for the third. Not a man of rifle and steel that night could help but bless the gunners who made the cowards duck and cry and throw their hands up at the first sight of steel or kilt.
''But as we closed on that final goal, the gunners did not lift their brimstone fire. Our Colonel fired the agreed-upon flare, but the enemy was waiting and drowned his proper color in a shower of lying hues. The gunners looked in despair to fathom the bayonet's intent. Runners were sent, but feet could not outfly bullets. Three men ran with the Colonel's words. Three men died.
''Then up stepped Color Sergeant McPherson, he whose twenty years were up, who carried his discharge papers in the pocket over his heart. ‘I'll carry the message, Colonel. If an old fox like me can't cross that ground, no angel in God's heaven can.'
''The Color Sergeant slipped out of the trench like a ghost. Like a mist on the moors, he flitted from shell hole to shell hole. When flares turned stormy night to tempest-torn day, he froze like a rock. Shells flew at him, bullets reached for him, the enemy grabbed after him—and missed. No minion of hell could touch that messenger of our God.