"I certainly do!" The plain raw gold pointed up the gold braid and piping of the uniform even better than gems would have done. I was thinking that a pair would be still handsomer, with just crossbones instead of all that confusion at the bottom. "Does the base PX carry them?"
"No, the PX here never sells them." He added, "At least I don't think you'll ever be able to buy one here—I hope. But I tell you what—when we reach a place where you can buy one of your own, I'll see to it you know about it. That's a promise."
"Uh, thanks!"
"Don't mention it."
I saw several of the tiny skulls thereafter, some with more "bones," some with fewer; my guess had been correct, this was jewelry permitted with uniform, when on pass at least. Then I got my own chance to "buy" one almost immediately thereafter and discovered that the prices were unreasonably high, for such plain ornaments.
It was Operation Bughouse, the First Battle of Klendathu in the history books, soon after Buenos Aires was smeared. It took the loss of B. A. to make the groundhogs realize that anything was going on, because people who haven't been out don't really believe in other planets, not down deep where it counts. I know I hadn't and I had been space-happy since I was a pup.
But B. A. really stirred up the civilians and inspired loud screams to bring all our forces home, from everywhere -- orbit them around the planet practically shoulder to shoulder and interdict the space Terra occupies. This is silly, of course; you don't win a war by defense but by attack—no "Department of Defense" ever won a war; see the histories. But is seems to be a standard civilian reaction to scream for defensive tactics as soon as they do notice a war. They then want to run the war—like a passenger trying to grab the controls away from the pilot in an emergency.
However, nobody asked my opinion at the time; I was told. Quite aside from the impossibility of dragging the troops home in view of our treaty obligations and what it would do to the colony planets in the Federation and to our allies, we were awfully busy doing something else, to wit: carrying the war to the Bugs. I suppose I noticed the destruction of B. A. much less than most civilians did. We were already a couple of parsecs away under Cherenkov drive and the news didn't reach us until we got it from another ship after we came out of drive.
I remember thinking, "Gosh, that's terrible!" and feeling sorry for the one Porteno in the ship. But B. A. wasn't my home and Terra was a long way off and I was very busy, as the attack on Klendathu, the Bugs' home planet, was mounted immediately after that and we spent the time to rendezvous strapped in our bunks, doped and unconscious, with the internal-gravity field of the Valley Forge off, to save power and give greater speed.
The loss of Buenos Aires did mean a great deal to me; it changed my life enormously, but this I did not know until many months later.
When it came time to drop onto Klendathu, I was assigned to PFC Dutch Bamburger as a supernumerary. He managed to conceal his pleasure at the news and as soon as the platoon sergeant was out of earshot, he said, "Listen, boot, you stick close behind me and stay out of my way. You go slowing me down, I break your silly neck."
I just nodded. I was beginning to realize that this was not a practice drop.
Then I had the shakes for a while and then we were down—
Operation Bughouse should have been called "Operation Madhouse."
Everything went wrong. It had been planned as an all-out move to bring the enemy to their knees, occupy their capital and the key points of their home planet, and end the war. Instead it darn near lost the war.
I am not criticizing General Diennes. I don't know whether it's true that he demanded more troops and more support and allowed himself to be overruled by the Sky Marshal-in-Chief -- or not. Nor was it any of my business. Furthermore I doubt if some of the smart second-guessers know all the facts.
What I do know is that the General dropped with us and commanded us on the ground and, when the situation became impossible, he personally led the diversionary attack that allowed quite a few of us (including me) to be retrieved—and, in so doing, bought his farm. He's radioactive debris on Klendathu and it's much too late to court-martial him, so why talk about it?
