Guided by the sergeant's rifle barrel they funneled into a line of men shuffling past a table made of boards laid across tree stumps. As each one reached the table he was handed a spoon and a tin plate of food and a cup.509Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJKxCPYQJcN
Aloj's eyes raked across his plate. Kabobs and pork soup! And coffee in the tin mug. He held his plate and cup close to his chest as if afraid somebody would steal them.
Through the line the three boys stopped and huddled together. Already accustomed to being herded they froze, waiting for the sergeant to direct them. The sergeant flicked a glance at them and then nodded at a tree several yards away where three other boys already sat eating. They bolted across to the tree and threw themselves down to the ground. Aloj grabbed his kabob stick and rammed the meat cubes into his mouth, grabbed his spoon and slurped spoonfuls of the soup into his mouth, and swallowed so fast his throat hurt from the soup's heat. Only when his stomach began to fill up did he slow down. Finally, when his plate and bowl were empty, he turned to his coffee. He drank it slowly, savoring each black drop as it slid past his tongue.
When all his food and coffee were gone, Aloj set the spoon and cup into the plate and sank back, feeling for the first time he could recall what it was like to have enough to eat to fill him up.
Most of the others were finished, too, he saw, including the three boys who had been sitting under the tree when they arrived.
Aloj wondered if it'd be safe to ask some questions now. Carefully, quietly, he leaned toward the boy nearest to him. "What's your name?"
The boy's eyes flickered at Aloj, but mostly he watched the sergeant. "Vladisar Tasić. Don't talk too loud."
Aloj glanced back at the sergeant, who seemed to be busy talking to several of the other men, and all of them were attending to some kind of a paper---it looked like a map---spread on the ground between them. They seemed to be arguing.
Aloj leaned forward again, and, speaking just above a whisper, said, "How long have you been here?"
"At the fortress? Three months. Longest I have been in any camp."
Aloj searched Vladisar's face. It was blank; it neither welcomed nor threatened. He wondered if his own face looked that way to others. "Do you have a family?"
"I have---had---two older brothers. Gone. Killed----a Syldavian raid. My mother---I don't know where she is."
"And your father?"
The faintest shadow of something passed Vladisar's face, so quickly Aloj wasn't sure he really saw it. "My father," said Vladisar quietly, "was---recruited. By the Syldavians." Slowly and carefully he raised his coffee cup to his mouth. Aloj saw that his hand shook, but again it was only a flicker.
"Syldavians?" Aloj said suddenly. "But you are.....we are...."
"We are not. My father was Syldavian. I am only half Bordurian."
In the silence that fell Aloj slid back from Vladisar, in line again with Tokar and Kszar, as if it were safer to distance himself from the pain Vladisar must feel. "Did you---tell them? The officers?
"Oh, no. If I had told them my father was Syldavian---or at least fighting for them---they would have shot me."
"Why?"
"They would have known I was a bad risk. A bad soldier."
"But you can't....nobody could...."
"Fight against his father?"
Aloj nodded. He felt rather than saw Kszar and Tokar as they too nodded.
"Well, for a while I just---aimed at soldiers my own age. Or officers. Not anyone who might have been---my father's age. But it doesn't matter now. He's dead. He was killed in the last big battle. But the BCD---Captain Maric---they never knew about it." Vladisar raised his cup and drank the last of his coffee. Then his eyes met Alo's like two flat hazel stones flung out in anger. "And if you tell them," he said softly, "I will kill you. Because I am here to fight for Borduria."509Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfoVeKMqF9R
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Two or three minutes passed, and Aloj realized Vladisar would not say anything else right now. In any case, he had told them all they needed to know, and that was what they must not trust him with either their confidences or their friendship---certainly not their friendship.
While he was sitting in silence, watching Vladisar, Aloj caught a movement to his right. Two soldiers had brought a large basket and placed it on the ground near them. Instantly all the men around the rose and hurried over to put their plates, cups, forks and spoons into the basket. Aloj, Kszar and Tokar followed.
When the basket had been carried away, the soldiers all relaxed, drifted back into the sketchy shelter of the trees, and dropped to the ground. Many lay back and went ot sleep, some sat talking quietly.
Tokar, who seemed to be restless, glared at Aloj, nodded slightly, and wandered off. Aloj knew that he was off to find out what he could about their new prison. Aloj and Tokar went back to the place where they had eaten and sat down. Tokar lay back and closed his eyes, but Aloj sat up, silently cataloging everything he could see.
First off, he wondered if he could make a good guess at how many men were in the fortress. counting the 30-odd men who had come with them in the trucks, and those sentries outside and inside, plus those he could now see, he figured there were at least 200, maybe more. But even 200 didn't seem like a very big force with which to fight a war. Especially when some of them---himself, Tokar and Kszar, and probably many others----were recruits barely a few hours into the army. When I was sent to bed last night, he thought, I was a 12-year-old kid working in a packing shed loading sausages. Today I'm a 12-year-old soldier, but I still don't know anything except how to load sausages. I sure hope we manage to get out of here before we have to fight any battles.
"Where's Tokar?" muttered Kszar.
"Looking around. He'll be back," said Aloj. "If he doesn't get into trouble snooping around---" And only because he knew how Tokar did it, Aloj was unable to tell that he had managed to see a lot of the camp by the time he returned a few minutes later.
"It's bigger than I thought," said Tokar quietly as he sank down beside Aloj and Kszar. "But if we could get over the fence..."
"Probably guarded..." said Aloj.
"Sure guarded," said Tokar.
"Of course. So that's out. And the gate is guarded too. But trucks go in and out," suggested Kszar.
They considered this. Some of the trucks were open flatbeds, some had side rails, a few were covered with tarpaulins.
As they were looking at the trucks, the boy who was sitting next to Vladisar spoke. "No. You are not going to escape---desert, that is. Not now. Not ever. They search all the trucks before they go out---or come in.
"Com in? Why do they search the trucks when they come in?" asked Aloj, remembering that the truck in which they had arrived had indeed been searched. "Why would anyone want to break in?"
"To exterminate us. Syldavians."
'Oh." Aloj nodded glumly. Tokar looked disappointed.
Kszar sat up and leaned forward. "What's your name? Are you a---recruit?"
The soldier---a body of maybe fourteen--sat up stiffly. "I am Davor Lazsak. I was in school. I quit to become a soldier. I'm going to help win our right to live."
Aloj stared at him. He couldn't believe that anyone really wanted to fight in this war. Or any war. So long as he could remember he and his friends, the people of his village, had had one single common cause---to avoid a nuclear war with the West that, everybody knew in their hearts, no one could win. No amount of leaflets, speeches, or slogans from the Party had persuaded them that East was preferable to West, that communism was good and capitalism, as practiced by the Americans, was bad. And certainly nothing had persuaded them that this current war was going to make a better world in any case. "Why?"509Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2NLLiYj3Cr
As Aloj's question hung in the air, they saw a ripple of movement spread through the camp. Davor squinted at the officers, who had rolled up their map and were getting ready to move off. "They will start training you now. Yes---I want to serve Borduria. I want to throw those Syldavian killers out. We will win---and we will have our own state---elections---freedom---peace..."509Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7AyekOozRj
They were all on their feet now, and Aloj and the others were careful to do quickly and exactly what everyone else did. The boy soldiers headed for the tent where the uniforms had been handed out, and they followed. Aloj hoped they were going in the right direction. He didn't want to be a soldier, but he had sense enough to know that from now on the only choice left to him was to be a soldier---and a good one, if he could. There didn't seem to be any way out of the fortress, and he had a fair idea that Sergeant Oluja had ways of making life very painful for one who didn't learn to be a good soldier---quickly.509Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqBFy1Q5Bdo
"Peace?" whispered Kszar hurried along. "When was there any real peace? Bordurians and Syldavians have been fighting each other for four hundred and forty two years. One side was determined to eliminate the other. Neither side ever did. What makes you think this one will be any different?"509Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIzUCUSGAXN
Now the sergeant was coming at them like a tank. With the barrel of his rifle he quickly sorted them out, sending the experienced men to the left and the new recruits to the right. As Davor turned left, Aloj saw him cast one last shocked look at Kszar. Davor's lips moved silently. "Four hundred and forty-two?"509Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe9f8jQYqLt
