Chapter 33

Slow pushed her breakfast plate away from her and Polack suddenly became not interested in eating. Cerise and Sally nodded firmly at each other — they had family involved and it is amazing how perspectives alter the closer events get to hearth and home.

"Must bring Henry up to date" Rosemary said cheerfully and picking up her notebook departed in the direction of Officer Quarters access to A tween deck.

Sir Lancelot looked at his companions, and said,

"Allow me to tell you a morality tale.

About a half century ago there was a teenage school teacher in Glasgeigh, full of the milk of human kindness and good will towards her fellow man who felt moved to bring the benefits of civilisation to the wilds of her planet. She volunteered for an aid organisation and was sent to foreign climes where religious strife ran riot and women were regarded as nothing more than chattels.

She was teaching girls how to read and write and all those silly unimportant things like birth control which upset the local male heirachy. The males kidnapped her and sold her as a slave. The caravan she was in was captured by insurgents who used her as receptacle for their semen. She was repeatedly raped on a daily basis and being humorous fellows they negated her contraceptive nannites. To spice up the play over the course of several years they started to 'smooth' her body. She got pregnant twice; both times the babe's brains were dashed out before her eyes; the second time the babe was pulled from her body her uterus went with it. Several days later, a company of my old battalion overran the place and found her. They were going to leave her to die — thought she was a native — but a squaddy recognised her, literally a classmate from her primary school days. She ended up very quickly in my care in the Field Hospital and after a hell of a lot of work, she was fit enough to be transferred back to Enkland. The Battalions rotated through the region and some three years later I was back in the Hospital again. The Brigader got me in the ante room one day and asked me what I knew about a female who had very unofficially come out with a company to this region. It was the rescuing company and the Brig thought it was the school teacher. I didn't know anything about it and said so but the Brig was more interested in her mental state; again I expressed my ignorance. The brass were trying to track down the rumours — appears the supernumerary was camping rough and only made an appearance to the patrols and was a very forward scout. The platoon and company officers were all struck dumb when the brass asked questions and were always losing little pieces of equipment. The Brig wasn't that stupid — his casualty rates were the lowest the Brigade had sustained during the rotations and he knew why. So for about three weeks the Brig parked himself on a small hill with a com set overlooking the compound other than for his office time. He comes down, clears out the com office for about an hour and then calls an officer conference to announce that Ensign R. Peebles had joined the Brigade and was performing the duties of brigade scout. She would have a comset and the day's codes and units contacted were to give great credence to her words. When asked, the units were to maintain resupply of such things like batteries and rations. She rarely came in and usually only to the Hospital for aid equipment. She made my re-acquaintance and we used to have some interesting night time chats and she'd go before sunup. Needless to say she was decorated by the bucket load and was promoted quickly — more because of the politicians who grabbed her coattails. It all came to an end when she took over a company about to be ambushed by five hundred or so irregulars and fought them out of the ambush virtually destroying the ambushing forces. There was a Jazieral vid team embedded with the irregs and so a lot of the ambush went out real time until it became obvious that the irregs were being destroyed piecemeal. After the battle, vid teams rushed to the site and found carcasses strewn around the place. They found the camera man with his head bashed in and his telescopic lens shoved where the sun don't shine. Screams of outrage and horror, further claims of 'prisoners' shot down and wounded massacred — but when you looked closely at the vids there were always weapons evident and sometimes even to hand. Politicians bowed to extremist pressure and cut the Service budget and let it be known that there would be court martials etc. Finally Major Peebles was allowed to resign with full service pensions and disability entitlements. I resigned in disgust and worked at getting my Consultant in Aging and when I set up, Rosemary appeared declaring herself my receptionist and that was that. My wife, Sybil, while she was alive, used to have long laughing conversations with Rosemary. Rosemary helped me nurse my wife through her terminal cancers for which I owe her a great debt.