The Living Will Envy The Dead (13 page)

I didn’t like that.  I’d fought conscripts in Iraq and most of them had been piss-poor soldiers.  They’d had to be driven into battle at gunpoint.  The British had done better, back in the First World War, with conscripts treated the same as volunteers, once they had been called up to battle.  They hadn’t had such a finely-tuned training program as the modern-day USMC, but by the end of the war, the BEF had been the most powerful force on the planet.  The Arab armies that relied on conscripts had often proven nothing, but broken weeds.  The Arab armies that
didn’t
use conscript labour often had manpower shortages.  The Chinese came up with the saying ‘good iron is not used to make a nail, nor a good man to make a soldier’ but I’d have been surprised if there wasn't a comparable Arab saying.  Conscripts who didn’t want to be there and weren't properly supported could turn into disasters.

And the last thing I wanted was to be shot in the back by someone who resented training, or that I’d put him on the front lines.

There was little choice, as I said, but I still wasn’t comfortable with the decision.  I’d mainly put training in the hands of other veterans from the town – it might have been a mistake, in hindsight, but it wasn't as if I could recruit training officers from Texas – and supervised as best as I could.  We’d left out most of the training that a regular American soldier would undergo, not least because we represented about a dozen or more different services or combat units between us, but we focused on the important issues.  They learned how to shoot – most of them already knew – and they learned how to follow orders.  Their appearance was a joke – God knows, if we actually did go to war, they certainly wouldn’t
look
like soldiers – but they were learning.  They did have some problems learning to salute at the right time, but I could forgive them that, as long as they did their duty.  Besides, it can be dangerous to be saluted in a combat zone.  A watching sniper might see that you were in command and put you out of play, permanently.

“Hey, boss!”

I turned to see Rose coming up behind me.  Like many of us these days, she wore body army, with a mask covering most of her face.  A great shame, in my view, but the last thing I wanted was for people to start breathing in fallout if the winds changed sharply.  I’d had Sergeant Isaac Chang give everyone a tense lecture on the realities of fallout, as opposed to the myths and legends, and some people were starting to relax.  I wasn't sure if I approved of that, but…

“Rose,” I said, cheerfully.  I’d barely seen her in the last two days, in between organising the training periods and supervising the defences.  We’d had to shoot several people who had tried to force their way into the defences and drive away several hundred more.  We’d also taken in forty men with experience or skills we needed and their families.  Several of their sons had been added to the training soldiers.  “What’s up?”

She smiled dryly as she stopped beside me, barely breathing hard.  “Another group just tried to cross country,” she said, meaning that they’d attempted to come around the defences.  I wasn't sure if they were probing attacks or just random motion, but I had the nasty feeling that we were in for some trouble.  “They retreated when they were challenged by a patrol.”

I nodded.  Ideally, we would have had sensors scattered all around the perimeter, but that wasn't an option at the moment.  The EMP effects seemed random – they weren't; anything that had been shielded, or protected in some other manner, had survived almost undamaged – but they had been real.  The armoury hadn’t had many sensors in the first place and most of them were useless now.  I’d had patrols watching the approaches and, at night time, snipers waiting with NVGs.  We’d shot several people who had attempted to approach at night.

“Good,” I said.  I’d been wondering why I hadn’t heard the shots.  The world was so
silent
these days.  I hadn’t seen an aircraft in the skies since the Final War.  “Well done.”

“Thanks,” Rose said, dryly.  She’d been looking forward to staying in the city, but thanks to me, she hadn’t…and it had saved her life.  “I was talking about something with Deborah and she thought I should ask you.”

I lifted an eyebrow.  Deborah was pretty much a grandmother to the entire town.  Her kids had grown up and had started families of their own, but she’d embraced everyone.  Non-judgemental, despite being a Deputy, she was everyone’s friend and offered advice to anyone who needed it.  I rather liked her myself.  She was very far from the classic image of Mrs Grundy, who lived to spoil everyone’s fun.

“I noticed the guards,” Rose said.  I blinked.  She’d been involved with setting the whole system up.  Of
course
she had noticed the guards.  “I also noticed the soldier-boys, and the men you had training them, and the men you had guarding the prison.”

I frowned, unsure of where this was going.  I’d sent another section of men over to the prison as soon as possible, allowing some rotation of the guards, but I hadn’t made much use of the prisoners yet.  I wanted the prison empty – it was pretty much a perfect fortress for us, once modified a little – but I didn’t have everything set up here to handle the prisoners.  A handful had useful skills we could use, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to trust them as anything, but brute labour.

“Yes…?”  I asked, finally.

“They’re all
men
,” Rose said.  I didn’t bother to deny it.  Apart from Rose, Deborah and a handful of others, they were all men.  I’d also done my best to keep the women away from the front lines, such as they were.  “Why haven’t you conscripted any of the women?”

There were actually several possible answers to that question, but for once I was lost for words.  I am not opposed to the idea of women in combat.  Teaching women how to shoot, according to the Drill Sergeants, is easier than teaching men.  (They were shouting at us after a slightly less-than-perfect drill, so they may have been exaggerating a little, but there was an element of truth in it.)  Women are often at much more risk than men on the battlefield and they tend to bear the brunt of occupation.  Forget Iraq for that;
we
were far more civilised than we had any right to be.  The Russians, when they invaded Germany in 1944-45, looted, raped and burned their way across the country.  I thought – and still think – that an armed and deadly girl is the greatest possible deterrent to rape.

But I didn’t want to lower standards either.  A Marine, by the time he graduates, is a walking killing machine.  We don’t all look like steroid-abusing bodybuilders – Mac does, but he’s not a Marine – but we’re extremely tough.  The requirements are harsh and – let’s be blunt here – few women can hack them.  A woman, all other things being equal, will lose a fight to a man.  If we accepted women in the Marine Corps, with all the other issues that that implied, would we lose some of our fighting power?

(And, if we did accept women without lowering the standards, how few women would we get?  How long would it be before we were urged to lower the barriers?  I’d seen that happen in New York to allow for ‘diversity.’  The city had wanted to have more women and African-Americans in high positions, but instead of training them up – particularly the latter – they lowered standards instead.  They did no one any favours.  Those who earned their positions were suspected, unfairly, of having cheated.  Those who didn’t were treated with contempt.)

But that wasn't the real reason.

“We need to keep the women back,” I said, finally.  Rose glared at me.  I suspect that she thought I meant barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.  “Rose…”

“I am the second-best shot in your entire force,” Rose said, angrily.  “I earned this position and I earned my promotion to the big city.  Are you now telling me, and every other woman, that we’re going to be disenfranchised permanently – again?”

I understood her anger.  A woman in a position of power is a challenge to any man – and Rose, as a Deputy, had been challenged more than anyone else on the force.  She had had to earn her reputation the hard way and now I was threatening that.  Contempt from up above would rapidly trickle down to the lower ranks and the rest of the town.  Rose wasn't a Feminazi by any means, but she’d earned her position despite her sex.  She wouldn’t let me take it away without a fight.

“No,” I said, grimly.  “Listen…”

It wasn’t an easy explanation to give.  The only other person who knew was Mac, and Mac had been with me when we’d hashed it all out.  The human race’s total population had just fallen drastically.  By my most optimistic calculations – which later proved to be far too optimistic- at least half the population of America and the entire world had been killed, or would die in the coming weeks and months.  The human race might be down to a billion.  I know that there were people who were ranting about overpopulation, but it struck me that the Final War hadn’t been a particularly good solution…and it had killed the most productive sections of global society.  In a way, despite my words earlier, it
had
killed America.  Whatever we formed from the rubble would be very different in many ways.

But our priority would be building up our population again.  I’d already started that when I’d arranged for children to be brought into Ingalls, even if their parents were denied access.  That wouldn’t last forever, though, but we’d still have whatever children were born into the community.  They would be born into a very different world, but they’d be born and we were going to need them.  We could not afford to waste a single breeder.

Look, one man can have children with as many women as he has the stamina for, assuming that he has enough women.  Say, like in one of those space-age pornographic videos we were passing around, when it’s one woman a day for the poor imprisoned man who has the job of fertilising them.  Sounds terrible, right?  One woman can only have one baby at a time.  Yes, she could have twins or even triplets, but on average, one woman, one baby.  Fifty women and one man wasn’t a disaster.  Fifty men and one women was social collapse.

And there were plenty of ways things could go wrong.  There was a small amount of fallout in the air and more might be on the way.  A girl who breathed in too much fallout might miscarry, or worse, give birth to a mutated child.  (And no, not like the X-Men.  I’m talking about a child being born without limbs, or eyes, or in one extreme case a brain.)  A pregnant woman who was underfed would pass on her problems to her child.  A woman with AIDS or Cancer might infect their baby…there were too many possible problems to list.  The child-bearing women had to be given the best of everything; the best food, the best drink, the best medical care and the best protection.  We couldn’t afford to lose even one to an enemy bullet.  We had to keep them inside and cosseted.  We had no choice.

I’d worked out the maths back after the Town Meeting.  Ingalls had a population of around 3000 men and women.  With additions, it might reach 4000 before we had to put a stop to all immigration for fear of succeeding ourselves to death.  We had, roughly speaking, around 1200 women of child-bearing age (keeping it a little vague, of course; women can get pregnant very early on, but it’s not always healthy) and another 400 or so who would grow into child-bearing age.  They
had
to be protected.  If they weren't protected, they might become infected and lose their ability to bear children, or be kidnapped by outsiders.

I have a feeling that problems like this are what started the whole ‘subjection of women’ thing.  A woman who can bear children is a valuable commodity in a primitive age, or, for that matter, in modern-day Africa or the Middle East.  She has to be protected, not only for her own good, but for that of her family or tribe.  The shocking devaluation of rape victims – personally, I preferred shooting the rapists – in such societies might have its origins in women who, when raped, could no longer bear children, or bore their rapist’s child.  I hated that kind of logic and even considering the fact that we might have no choice, but to embrace similar measures, shocked me.  It was…well, un-American, un-Western, a direct offence against everything I held dear.

Rose listened, without saying a word, as I stumbled through the explanation.  I could relax with her, but not then, not when she had to hear something she would find loathsome.  I didn’t blame her.  If I’d been one of those porn stars in a Lombardi Production where I had to impregnate the entire tribe of women, I wouldn’t have been happy either.  Sex is a wonderful thing between a man and a woman – provided, of course, that you get between the right man and the right woman; all right, I’ll be serious now – but I wouldn’t want to cheapen it.  I’d done too much crawling around whorehouses in my younger days.

“I see,” she said, finally.  “I have a proposal.”

I listened as she outlined her own suggestions.  They were simple enough.  I had actually intended something similar, but I wasn't going to tell her that.  The girls would get training in shooting – those who didn’t know how to shoot before – and other training as well, making them far more than just barefoot and pregnant.  They hadn’t been barefoot and pregnant in the first place, but I didn’t point that out to her either.  She was on a roll.  She also insisted on continuing mixed classes at the school, when it was reopened, just so that boys would see girls as more than just sexual partners.  I took her point.  I have a feeling, although I cannot prove it, that the general low regard for women in some parts of the world comes from lack of exposure.