Chapter 3

I took the opportunity to examine the enemy trucks. They bore a close resemblance to the 6x6, 1,000 Kg (2½-ton) truck that the Earth armies have been using for years. The main difference that I could see from a quick glance was that these trucks had a longer body. The bed must have been about 30% longer than the ones that NATO used. I guessed that the load capacity was around 1,200-1,500 Kg. From the smell, they were not powered by gasoline, but I couldn't tell what the fuel actually was. If they were diesel and could be made to run off of local vegetable oil, then it might be worth while capturing some.

The tires were not the common pneumatic of my Earth time line, but they were similar. I supposed that they were simply tubes filled with a shock absorbing foam, like the military was switching to for some vehicles. I didn't think that these were ideal tires for this planet, but I was sure that I would find out in due time.

Hasup was talking to the captives from the destroyed village, trying to calm them down. She waved to me, and I pulled the runner from that town with me as I walked over. He had not realized that we had found the women captives and released them, but, when he did, he ran to the group. He swept one of the young women into his arms and began to cry rivers of tears. One of the other women said that the woman he holding was the man's daughter, and the only survivor from his 13 children.

Hasup and I spent about an hour talking to the released women, trying to get a picture of how they were treated by their captors. Most of them, the non-virgins, had been raped multiple times by their captors. However, any of the women who had been found to have an intact hymen were set aside. One of the women heard a soldier comment that they were too valuable to rape, since they could bring as much as 10 times the regular price at the slave auction.

None of the women had fully recovered from their ordeal, but several were already showing signs of wanting revenge for their village's fate and the way that they had been treated. Since women make just as good a guerrilla fighter as a man, sometimes better, I thought that I might have several recruits staring me in the face. I asked Hasup to make note of the ones that she thought would make good recruits; I would talk to them about the possibility later.

That evening, the mourning ritual for the dead children was winding down. The headman came to me, along with several of the other men from the village. They thanked me for saving them from the raiders, and I tried to be as gracious as possible when I replied.

The headman said, "You obviously know much about fighting. We would like for you to stay here and become a member of our village. That way, you could continue to protect us from the raiders."

I answered, "Thank you for your praise, but my companion and I cannot stay for very long. However, we can stay long enough to teach you how to defend yourselves. Would that be acceptable?"

"We are a peaceable people. I don't know if we can learn to fight. And we don't have the kind of weapons that you do, so we would be helpless against more of the raiders."

"Anybody can learn to fight to defend his family and his village. I have been training villagers to defend themselves for years. My weapon is called a shotgun, and I can get one for every person who wants one. I can also supply all of the ammunition you would need."

"In that case, in my official position as headman of Karak-a-bolva ("the small village called Karak"), I ask that you teach us how to fight and supply us with the shotguns."

"I will be happy to do that, Onlat-bin. When do you want to start?"

"John-bin, can we start tomorrow morning? I will make the announcement then and introduce you to the village at that time, if that is acceptable to you."

"That will be quite satisfactory. Our first job will be to clean up the battlefield so that the enemy will not know that we can fight. That way, they may not try to revenge themselves on you."

"Excellent! Now, let us eat. We want you and Hasup-binsa to join us for the feast honoring the souls of our children as they ascend to heaven."

The next morning, Onlat called the whole village together and formally introduced Hasup and me as the saviors of their village. He explained that we could not stay around indefinitely, but we could stay as long as necessary to train the villagers to fight. They would be given the miraculous shotguns to use for fighting the raiders. Onlat called me up to explain what the villagers had to do.

I explained that any man, woman, or older child was welcome to join the band of defenders. I told them that the shotguns were easy to use, but were not toys, because they would kill friends if they were used carelessly. I asked all that wanted to volunteer to join me in 30 minutes under a large tree where we would have shade and could be comfortable. I pointed to the tree I had in mind. This brought a gasp from the multitude, so I asked Onlat what was the problem?

This tree was sacred, and used only for the most important village meetings. Women and children were not allowed there, only the most respected men of the village.

I answered that the tree was ideal, then. There was nothing more important than forming a defense force for the village, and every fighter was important, no matter the gender or the age.

Onlat looked at me for a moment, and then nodded his head in agreement. He reiterated my command for the meeting under the tree, and said that he would be there. That brought out a look of eager anticipation from the crowd of villagers, and I thought that I was off on the right track with them.

Thirty minutes later, Onlat, Hasup, and I were standing near the tree trunk waiting for people to show up. Virtually the whole village showed up, so it was obvious that I was going to have to weed down the crowd. I said that any child under 14 years old was too young, and any adult over 55 years old was too old, so they needed to leave. There was some grumbling, but they did leave. Next, I said that any woman who was pregnant or nursing a baby had to leave.

This cut the crowd to less than half its former number, but there were still too many for the first company to be trained. With only Hasup and me to do the training, I had to get the first group down to about 25 or 30 people. I then asked for everybody left to do 10 pushups after I demonstrated what a pushup was. Aha, that did it. Only 19 men and eight women could do that, so I sent everybody else away and chose these 27 as my starting group. I explained to the remaining people that others would be joining them later, but Hasup-binsa and I had to start with a small group at first.

Both men and women normally wore a kind of kilt which fell below the knees and nothing above the waist. The women were proud to show off their breasts, but I could see that the common attire was going to cause problems. I told everybody to go home and come back in 30 minutes dressed in only a loin cloth and, for the women, a binding around their breasts so that they would not flop and jiggle while they exercised. The women were somewhat insulted that I wanted them to cover their breasts, but I convinced all but one to follow my orders. Thus, when they came back, I only had seven women to work with.

When they got back, I showed the need for the new uniform by sparring with Hasup. I dressed in the traditional kilt and Hasup wore only her panties and bra. She consistently threw me around until I stripped off my kilt and worked only in my jockey shorts. At that point, I had the freedom to protect myself and to throw her about. The recruits quickly got the message from this demonstration, and I got no more argument or sour looks about the clothing requirements.

Hasup and I remained dressed only in our underwear to show unity with the troops. The next thing we did was to return to the site of the firefight and remove all of the corpses. For lack of anything better to do, we burned them. The vehicles were harder to dispose of, but we pushed them into the woods where they would not be easily seen from the road or from the air. The Bustols did use some spotter planes to search for villages, but they had no fighter planes. I planned to make use of that fact later on in the campaign.