Warren Murphy: Chained Reaction

But only innocent Walker knew what the voice was.

"Treason. Rank and utter treason has occurred and the party is over. I tried to be understanding

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with you. Reasonable with you. Moderate with you. And what do I get in return ? Treason."

"That's Bleech, isn't it?" whispered one recruit.

"Shhhh. Maybe he can hear," said another.

"Where is he anyway ?"

"Shhhh. You wanna make it worse?"

"Treason," came the colonel's voice. "Pay attention while you hear the insidious ingratitude of one of you. No more kid gloves. No more kindergarten wrist-slapping. Treason calls for death and one of you will die today for this infamy. If only I had exercised discipline before," said Bleech to his unit, most of whose members had scars from his "little reminders" as he liked to call the punches and kicks and crop whips, "I wouldn't have to exercise this ultimate discipline now. You can blame me, men. If I had been firm before, one of you wouldn't have to die now."

The recruits all looked to Walker Teasdale who was still standing up, leaning on his rifle.

Atop the hill, Colonel Bleech took a toasted English muffin from his orderly, who had crawled with it so as not to be seen by the recruits down in the little valley across the muddy stream. The colonel thought it would have been highly unmili-tary, when staging a punishment, to be seen receiving a toasted English muffin with sweet butter and jam. So he ordered the young aide to crawl to him.

Bleech saw the terrified young men below him waiting on his words. It was good to hang them out like this, make each one think, if possible, that he was the one going to be executed. Bleech knew full well that you executed people, not so

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much of because of what they had done, but because of what you didn't want the survivors to do.

What the young recruits did not know was that for every nose broken, every groin shattered, there had been a plan.

Those with permanent damage were scheduled for inside work, after the "great day" came. But Colonel Bleech never broke a limb or caused permanent damage to anyone on his combat squads. He disguised this cunning with feigned rage. Nothing like being angry to hide the fact that you were a thinking man.

"Treason," boomed Bleech, taking a buttery bite from the muffin. His orderly was on the ground and a drop of melted butter landed on his forehead. Bleech dismissed the man who crawled back down the far side of the hill. Bleech let the word "treason" hang out above the valley below as he finished the muffin, licking the sweet red jam from his lips. It was a British jam and he didn't like British jams. Not enough sugar or tartness. The whole thing tasted like dental cement.

Bleech slipped his notes from his neatly pressed shirt pocket. "We have all been betrayed. And not just to the Russians or the Chinese. No ... worse. We were betrayed to those who can do us the most damage, who can destroy everything we have worked and trained for. Treason."

Bleech sensed he wasn't reaching the men and from many years of correctly judging these things, he knew his senses could be trusted. They should have been looking nervously at each other, but instead all were staring now at one recruit,

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the one recruit who could not possibly have violated the code of honor of the unit.

They were looking at Walker Teasdale and Bleech could not understand why. Teasdale had only one fault-he wasn't mean enough. But other than that, he would be the last person to violate an oath of secrecy.

Colonel Bleech did not like things happening by accident and down there, among his seven hundred men, something was happening that he had not planned. He had planned his training and perfected it and now he had a unit he would take into the bowels of hell and would not lose a single man needlessly. He knew what they thought and what they did and their staring at Teasdale annoyed him.

Bleech continued his harangue but watched the men spread out in the valley below.

"Here is the treason. Here is a letter we intercepted. It reads like this:

" 'Dear Sir. More than a year ago I signed up with a special unit of the army. It offered extra pay, extra benefits, and a cash bonus of three thousand dollars for my enlistment. Instead of the usual basic training, we have been in training for ten months. The officers strike us at will. We cannot communicate with our families. Half the training is teaching us how to whip people and chain people. Now, I know this is not the regular army. For one thing, there's no paperwork, hardly. And another thing is there are no negroes in the outfit and we watch movies about how bad they are and how wonderful the old South used to be. What I want to know is this army regulation and how can I get out of it. I hate it.'"

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Bleech paused. And then he knew what he would do. He would seize the surprise and make it his own. If they thought Walker Teasdale was the culprit, let them. It would be more of a surprise. But this time it would be his surprise.

"Teasdale, come up the hill," he bellowed.

The young raw-boned boy moved slowly, his feet leaden with a sudden tiredness of a body unwilling to go to its end.

"Move. Double time, Teasdale," said Bleech into the microphone.

When he was close, Colonel Bleech switched off the microphone and said in a hushed voice, "Teasdale, come here. I'm behind the tree."

"I know, sir. I saw you."

"Walker, it's not you. Don't look so ashen-faced, son. You did not write this letter. You never would. I know that."

"It's my day to die, Colonel."

"Nonsense. You're going to be the one doing the executing. We'll play a little joke on the boys, eh?"

"It's my day to die, sir."

"Have you told them that?" asked Bleech, his fat crewcutted head nodding down toward the little valley.

"Yessir."

"That explains it. Don't worry. You're going to live. You're one of my best men and my best men live because I want them to live. We need good men."

"Yessir," said Teasdale, but his voice was still heavy.

Colonel Bleech switched on the microphone.

"Now, there is a trooper sitting on a rock, by

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the stream, hiding himself away from me. Come up here. No, not you. The one looking- away from me. Drake. You, Drake. Trooper Anderson Drake. Get up here."

Walker Teasdale knew Drake. He had complained a lot, said he was going to do something about it, and a few weeks ago stopped complaining. Drake had been saying he had never heard of an outfit like this. Drake had been saying the outfit must be illegal. Teasdale thought he was lucky to be in an outfit that was unlike any other because that meant it was special. Teasdale was proud to be part of a special unit. That's why he had joined.

And the bonus also paid for another four acres of rich bottom land, which was cheap back home in Jefferson County because the roads w.ere so bad you couldn't get your harvest to market. Teasdale gave the money to the family, all but five dollars of it, with which he bought a shiny red box of chocolate candies at the big store in Nawl's Hollow and gave that to his girl who put it away for later, although Walker was sort of hoping she would open it then, but he rightly couldn't blame her because when they had become engaged and he had gotten her a similar box, he had eaten most of them, and all the cream-filled ones.

He watched Drake make it up the hill stumbling more than ordinarily, and Teasdale, knowing Drake was clumsy on obstacle courses, came to the conclusion that those who did badly at their soldiering were also most likely to be those who violated the rules the most. Walker lumped this together as some sort of contagious badness

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within the person, spilling over from bad work to bad conduct.

Drake, a red-haired boy from Altoona, Pennsylvania, who tended to sunburn easily, had a crimson face by the time he got close.