B00C74WTKQ EBOK (19 page)

Sheila Johnson was on duty in the ship’s radio room. She and the duty officer, Matt Reynolds, had broadcast the call to arms earlier that evening and listened as it had been repeated over and over. It was soon apparent that the entire globe was tuned in to what was happening in Texas as the word spread rapidly from continent to continent. Sheila had been following Adrian’s exploits by radio for over two years, just like nearly everyone in the United States. It didn’t surprise her that his story was avidly followed around the world. She had often gossiped with her female co-workers about the romance between Adrian and Linda, and they all eagerly awaited any new tidbit of information.

Shelia and Matt sat in front of the radio panel in their usual silence, each absorbed in their own thoughts. Sheila’s console indicated radio traffic on one of the encrypted frequencies and she turned up the sound to listen. She heard Adrian talking, and quickly punched Matt in the shoulder. He took off his earphones to listen.

“…if you heard the radio broadcast calling for volunteers to fight, then you pretty much know what all I’ve been up to, Linda. Over.”

Sheila turned up the volume a little, she didn’t want to miss a single word between these two. She would be the gossip Queen for a month!

“We heard it, Adrian. It came as a total surprise, thinking you were down there just looking around before coming home and all of a sudden you’re leading Texas in a war with Mexico. I should have known you wouldn’t just look around and come back, not you.” She laughed nervously before saying “Over.”

“Yeah, well…I didn’t exactly go looking for this. Kind of still surprises me, too. This is going to be a big war, but the consequences of not fighting it are dire. We have to stop this before it gets going or everyone is going to suffer, and badly. Over.”

“I know, I know. You just can’t help yourself. It’s one of the million things I love about you. We’re already gearing up to come down and fight; the entire Fort Brazos Militia will be there, including me. Give us three weeks or so and we’ll be together again. Over.”

“Speaking of love, Linda, I have a lot to say on that subject, but only one question to ask…”

Sheila was shocked when Matt reached over and turned the sound off. “What the...?” she started to ask.

Matt looked at her with a calm and level gaze, “Some conversations should be private, Sheila. Some things we don’t need to listen in on. He requested an encrypted radio sent to her for a reason. He could have talked to her over the open air, but he had something private to talk about. Let them have their privacy; lord knows they deserve it.”

Sheila fumed. She knew Matt was right, but she still wanted to listen. “Damn him all to hell and gone, that was going to be juicy.”

It took three days for Adrian to get to the rally point outside Cotulla, sixty-eight miles north of Laredo. They drove straight through, stopping only to switch drivers every four hours.

Adrian was driving and the other two were awake as they crossed over a little river and neared the rallying point. Looking over the guard rails, Adrian saw a camp with what appeared to be at least two hundred tents.

“That was fast.” Adrian exclaimed. “Very fast. I didn’t expect to find anyone here yet. Damn good sign, I hope.”

As they approached the camp, Adrian was amazed to see what he guessed to be four hundred people. As they stopped the truck and dismounted, someone shouted out, “General Bear is here!” They were quickly surrounded by some of the toughest men and women Adrian had ever seen gathered in one place. He wasn’t sure he was going to survive the back-slapping and hand pumping that quickly ensued.

Adrian, Ryan, and Jose exchanged a meaningful glance over the heads of the volunteers. They had their work cut out for them, but they just might have a chance.

Chapter 21

T
he next three days were
a frenzy of activity, with more men arriving daily. They came on foot, on horseback and by a multitude of trucks converted to wood gas and home-made liquid fuels from alcohol to diesel fuel. Adrian was continually amazed at how many were answering the call and their ingenuity in transporting themselves. He was also surprised at the number of women. They hadn’t come as camp followers either, they had come to fight

To defend Texas
, as he heard over and over. Texas, not the United States of America, but Texas. It was a common refrain. “What did the federal government ever do for us? They knew a solar storm could wipe us out and all they did was keep taking that special interest money. The bastards.” Adrian heard it often.

His first action on arrival was to assemble all the volunteers, which was no problem since they had come running when the word spread he had arrived. They eventually settled down under the highway overpass, which Allowed Adrian to climb the embankment high enough to see all their faces. The overpass reflected his voice, making an impromptu amphitheater. It was standing room only with everyone squeezing in tightly. At this point he had a rough head count of four hundred and fifty men and women.

“First I want to thank each and every one of you for showing up. We have a bloody battle ahead of us and I don’t expect it to be anything other than extremely difficult. But this is our land and by God no one is going to take it from us!” He shouted the last sentence and was immediately the recipient of loud shouting back from the crowd. He allowed them to settle down a little, then continued; as he did they quickly fell silent to catch every word.

“We’ll win by being organized and moving with discipline. We’ll be outnumbered. Badly outnumbered. They have more soldiers and more weapons than we do. But we have your courage and we’ll be organized into groups that can move swiftly and strike like a rattler.”

More cheering erupted, and Adrian again waited a few moments before continuing. He knew they needed this emotional release, and it was an excellent method of bonding them together.

“Other than the fact that they will out-number and out-gun us, we’ve got ’em licked.” Adrian said quietly and with a smile. “Fact is I feel kind of sorry for them, but not so sorry that I don’t want to kill every last one of the sons-of-bitches!” His voice rose to a loud roar at the end.

More cheering, and this time laughter mixed in with it.

Adrian waited a beat then continued. “We’ll set up several groups to organize this campaign. First we’ll create an incoming group. They’ll greet new arrivals, interview them and assign them where they’ll do the most good. This group will begin by interviewing each of you to find out how you can best help. When they come around give them your full cooperation. Part of what they’ll be doing is asking for an inventory of food and arms. We’ll have to distribute any extra food and arms as evenly as possible. We’ll all need to go on food rationing immediately. Food is going to be one of our biggest problems, it takes a lot of food to feed an army and we don’t have supply lines behind us to help. But…neither do they”

Adrian stopped to let that sink in before continuing. “I’ll choose unit commanders based on the results of the interviews by an incoming staff and then by personal interviews and any recommendations that anyone might have. From the interview results each person will be assigned to a combat company. Companies will be designated by alphabet such as Alpha, Bravo and hopefully all the way to Zulu.”

“Once assigned to a company you’ll move to your company area in the camp and begin training as a unit. Your Company Commander will choose his lieutenants and platoon squad leaders, basing his or her decision the same way I base mine. I’ll review each Company roster with its Commander and confirm those assignments. Training will cover the basics of ground warfare. We won’t bother with the niceties of parade ground drilling, but we will cover the basics of formations and movement and communication. I have a good idea of the tactics we’ll use, and we’ll train on those extensively.”

There was a murmur of approval from the crowd. Adrian continued.

“I’ll also create an intelligence branch. Their job will be to monitor the enemy location and disposition and report to me for overall planning. Troops will be assigned to the signal corps for carrying messages, dispatches, and troop movement and engagement orders. We’ll also need to establish a medical corps for battlefield treatment of wounds—if you have particular skills in that area, be sure to let your commander know.”

“Within a very few days each of you will have your assignment, will know what’s expected of you, and you’ll know where you’re supposed to be and what you’re expected to be doing. When the time comes—and it will come very soon—we will progress in an orderly fashion to the battlefield, deploy with discipline and strength and then deliver a very serious and deep ass-kicking.”

Once again cheers rang out. It took several minutes for them to simmer down enough for Adrian to ask, “Okay, now let’s get the questions and answers rolling. Who wants to go first?”

One man quickly stood and shouted out “General Bear is it true that you slept with a grizzly and gave her babies?”

The crowd erupted into loud laughter and a lot of hooting and general applause.

Adrian had been asked this so many times that he’d finally given up trying to explain the truth, though he’d only recently learned to roll with it. He smiled and waited for the laughter to die down then held up his hand and quickly got silence. “Yes it’s true, and I have the scars to prove it,” he said unbuttoning his shirt to show the scars that ran from his navel up to his cheek. “That’s what home-made whisky will do to you.”

At this laughter rang out as some of the men and women bent over from laughing so hard.

Adrian buttoned his shirt back up and as the laughter slowly died he said, “And she keeps calling asking me to come back.” This started another round of laughter. Adrian smiled back and waited, he knew they had to get this out of their systems before the real questions would start.

“General, what flag are we going to use?”

This caught Adrian off guard, he hadn’t thought about a flag. “Damn good question and one that should be put up to a vote right now. Let’s hear suggestions and then vote on them.”

“How about that rattlesnake with ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ flag?” someone shouted. A loud cheer went up at this suggestion.

Adrian said “Let’s see a show of hands. I’d call that unanimous.” More cheering. Adrian asked “Anyone here have the ability to make us a flag like that?” Several people raised their hands. Adrian nodded. “Those of you with your hands up please get together and see what you can do. I think it should also have ‘Texas’ on it somewhere, don’t you?” More cheers. “How about
‘Don’t Tread On Texas’
?”

Adrian looked up, he didn’t think it was possible but it sounded as though the bridge would be pulled down on them from the sheer volume of the cheering.

Adrian fielded a series of routine questions after that. Where to set up sanitary facilities, did he know how many more volunteers would come in, and so on. One woman asked if he was authorized to perform marriages. Adrian replied, “No ma’am, but I’m willing to bet dollars to donuts there’s a half-dozen preachers here right now.” Several men and women raised their hands to let everyone know they were, indeed, preachers.

“That reminds me,” Adrian said, “we also need a Chaplain’s Corps. You folks, please see me after the meeting.”

After that the rest of the meeting was more subdued as the volunteers imagined the upcoming duties of the Chaplains.

The days blazed by far too fast for Adrian to be comfortable with. Every day new volunteers arrived in droves. Keeping up with getting them interviewed and assigned to their companies was a full time operation in itself, but there was much more to do. Adrian set up training regimens for the company commanders to follow. As soon as the companies were operating with a semblance of order, they would train company to company and then move on to full battle tactics.

He created a Messenger Corps whose duty was to quickly and accurately relay messages to and from the battlefield in case their limited number of radios became an issue. Adrian chose Ryan and Jose to be his Adjutants, his top staff. They were kept in constant motion coordinating the volunteers in their training and assignments.

The men the Admiral sent arrived and everyone was extremely happy to see them. When the river boat trucks arrived in convoy, with the trucks full of troops and tanker cars of fuel, all of the volunteers broke discipline and rushed to greet them. Adrian sent runners to the Company Commanders to allow this break in discipline without punishment. They were volunteers, after all, and some allowances had to be made until they were closer to combat conditions.