Читать книгу The Last Mission Of The Seventh Cavalry - Charley Brindley - Страница 9

After Alexander and Sharakova returned from their walk of inspection, the platoon carried the weapons container into the edge of the woods, where they built two campfires and broke out the MREs.

“While we’re eating,” Alexander said, “keep your helmets on and your weapons handy. Before dark, we’ll set up a perimeter and rotate on guard duty. We’ll do it by twos all night. Now, let’s talk about what we’ve seen and heard today.”

“Who were those people?” Kady asked.

“Which ones?” Alexander asked.

“The attackers.”

“I don’t know who they were,” Autumn said, “but they were vicious.”

“And nasty,” Kady said. “With those bearskin robes, they looked like buffalo dogs.”

“Yeah,” Lori said, “buffalo dogs is about right.”

“Look at that,” Kawalski said. “These people are still going by. How many more are there, Sarge?”

“We walked for about a half-mile,” Alexander said. “Behind this group of men, there’s a huge herd of horses and cattle. Behind that comes the camp followers. There are women, children, old people, and numerous sutlers with their wagons full of wears. Behind them are a lot of ragtag people. It’s like a whole city on the move.”

“I wonder where they’re going,” Kady said.

“It seems to me,” Alexander said, “they’re going in the general direction of that big river we saw. Beyond that, I have no idea.”

“Hey,” Private Lorelei Fusilier said, holding up one of the MRE packaged meals. “Anybody got menu seven?”

“Yeah,” Ransom said. “Meatloaf.”

“You got Butter Buds?”

“Maybe. What you got to trade?”

“Green hot sauce.”

Everyone laughed.

“Good luck trading off that crap,” Karina said.

“You got menu twenty,” Kawalski said, “right, Fusilier?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you got Cherry Blueberry Cobbler.”

“No, I ate that first.”

“Here, Fusilier,” Alexander said, “take my Butter Buds. I hate those things.”

“Thanks, Sarge. You want my green hot sauce?”

“No, you can keep that. Anybody got a guess as to how many soldiers are in this army?”

“Thousands,” Joaquin said.

“I bet there’s more than ten thousand,” Kady said.

“And about thirty elephants.”

Karina had finished her food, and now she tapped away on her iPad.

“Here come the camp followers,” Kawalski said.

As the women and children walked by, many of them spoke to Alexander’s soldiers, and some of the children waved. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits, even though they’d probably been walking all day.

The soldiers of the Seventh couldn’t understand the language, but they returned the greetings.

“You know what I think?” Kawalski said.

“What?” Alexander took a bite of SPAM.

“I think news of our defeat of those bandits has spread all the way down the line. Have you noticed how people are smiling and starting to treat us with a little respect?”

“Could be.”

A large four-wheel wagon passed by, with a man and woman sitting on a bundle of hides in the front of the vehicle. Two oxen pulled them along. The woman smiled as she looked at the soldiers, while the man held up his hand in a salute.

Joaquin returned the man’s greeting. “That’s the first fat guy I’ve seen.”

Karina looked up from her iPad. “Yeah, me, too.”

“What are you reading, Karina?” Kady asked.

“My textbooks. I’m working on a degree in pre-veterinary medicine.”

“Are you online?”

“I wish,” Karina said. “I tried to connect again, but there’s no signal. I’ve got all my books on a microchip.”

Two riders came along the trail, from the front of the column. When they saw the platoon, they left the trail and dismounted.

“Hey,” Kawalski said, “it’s the elephant girls.”

Karina put down her iPad and went to greet the two women. Alexander, Kawalski, Lojab, and Kady followed.

The women stood by their horses, holding onto the reins. They seemed hesitant, unsure about how to approach the strangers. Their clothing was similar to the other women on the trail, but the cloth had a finer weave, and the cut was more formfitting. The colors of taupe and fawn, with bits of red trim, looked fresh and lively. Their outfits consisted of short tunics over unfooted Thorsberg trousers, and their leather sandals had beaded tassel embellishments around the ankles.

Karina held her hand out to the brunette. “Hello, it’s good to see you again.”

The woman smiled and took Karina’s hand, then spoke a few words.

Karina shook her head. “I don’t understand your language.”

The blonde said something to Kady.

“Can’t you speak English?” Kady asked.

The other woman spoke again, then the blonde said something.

“You know what they’re doing, Sarge?” Kawalski asked.

“Talking a lot and not saying anything?”

“I think they’re trying out different languages on us.”

“Yeah, well,” Lojab said, “I think they’re idiots. Why can’t they speak English like everyone else?”

“It’s all Greek to me,” Kady said.

Alexander looked at Kady. “You could be right. Hey, Spiros,” he said into his mic.

“Yeah, Sarge?” Private Zorba Spiros said.

“Where are you?”

“I’m right here, at the other campfire.”

“Come up here, on the double.”

Spiros was soon standing beside Alexander. “Wow, they’re hot.”

“You’re Greek, right?” Alexander said.

“My parents are.”

“Try some Greek on these people.”

“I don’t speak it very well.”

“Can you say, ‘Hello, where the hell are we?’”

Spiros spoke two words, paused, looked at the ground, then at the trees. “Um…” he said, then asked a question in Greek.

The two women stared at him for a moment, then looked at each other. The one on the right asked Spiros a question.

“What?” Spiros said, holding out his hands, palms up.

The other woman asked the same question.

“What is it, Spiros?” Alexander asked. “Are they speaking Greek?”

“Yeah, but…”

“But what?”

“It’s not Greek like I learned. It’s sort of…a different dialect or something.”

The first woman asked another question.

“I think they asked what language I spoke, then she asked if we came from Iberia.”

“Ask her how far we are from Kandahar,” Alexander said.

Spiros asked the question, and the one on the left responded. “She asked, ‘How far to where?’ They never heard of Kandahar.”

The woman said something else.

“Hey…” Spiros stared at the blonde.

“What is it?” Alexander asked.

“I think they’re speaking Linear B.”

“Linear what?”

“Linear B,” Spiros said.

“Wait a minute,” Karina said. “Linear B was never a spoken language. It was an ancient form of written Greek.”

“You mean,” Kawalski said, “they’re not speaking modern Greek?”

“Yes,” Spiros said. “Do you remember, in high school, reading the Canterbury Tales and some of it was written in Middle English?”

“Yeah,” Alexander said.

“If someone spoke to you in Old English, you would have a hard time making it out, but some of the words are the same as they are now. That’s what I’m hearing, some Greek words I understand, but many that are ancient Greek.”

The woman with brown hair touched Spiros’s arm and asked a question.

Spiros looked surprised, then shook his head. “No.”

“What did she say?” Alexander asked.

“She asked if we’re Romans.”