Free Secret Sanction by Brian Haig

the old-timers’ club. There’s sort of an unwritten tradition in the Group that after five or ten years in another battalion, a lot of the sergeants put in for transfer to Smothers’s battalion.”
    “Why would they do that?” I asked. I thought I knew the answer, but it never hurts to ask.
    “Camaraderie, I suppose.”
    We had arrived back at the chapel tent, and I could see several soldiers gathered and anxiously waiting. Father O’Reilly obviously had priestly things to do,and I’d heard everything I wanted to hear, so I thanked him and we parted ways.
    As soon as he was gone, Delbert said, “That was really helpful.”
    “Yeah? Why’s that?” I asked.
    “He was trying to communicate motive. He’s the confessor of four men in that team, and he was trying to offer us their motive.”
    “Maybe,” I said, looking over at Morrow.
    “Is there something we didn’t hear?” she asked.
    I pulled on my nose a bit. “That old-timers’ club thing. That bothers me.”
    Delbert said,“Sounds like a good idea to me. Sort of a grouping of the elite of the elite.”
    “Maybe.”
    “You think there’s more?”
    “Depends.”
    “On what?”
    “This is a combat unit, Delbert. A battlefield veteran is a very different breed than a green buck sergeant who might be highly trained but has never been truly tested. It’s the green guys who can get you killed. They might break under pressure. They might make mistakes, like maybe put a blasting cap in the wrong way, or use incorrect radio procedures and give away your position.”
    “I still don’t get it,” Delbert said.
    “The old-timers’ club sounds like a survivors’ union. A guy spends five or ten years, and he becomes eligible. He gets to spend the rest of his career with seasoned, battle-tested pros, the kind of guys who don’t make mistakes.”
    “And something’s wrong with that?” Morrow asked. “Maybe not.Your chances of survival go way up, since I’d suspect the First Battalion is very choosy about who it takes and who it turns down.”
    The two of them nodded, and I decided not to expose everything else I suspected. Like General Partridge mentioned earlier, I’d done time in the infantry, whereas Delbert and Morrow put on their JAG shields straight out of law school. Some things you just gotta be there to learn.
    We arrived at General Charles “Chuck” Murphy’s wooden building about ten minutes later. I could have ordered Murphy to come to my building, but there were limits to how much I wanted to shove people around.There’s a fine line between being a legal barbarian in search of the truth and being a spoiled brat, and I’ve always been a stickler for nuances.
    Actually, I wouldn’t know a nuance if it hit me in the face, but I didn’t want to push my luck with Murphy. At least, not yet I didn’t.
    As it was, Murphy actually met us at the door, which made me damned glad I hadn’t ordered him to come see me, because this courteous, meeting-us-at-the-door thing sort of evened it out.
    I said, “Morning, General.”
    He said, “You look like crap, Drummond. What’s the matter, not sleeping well?”
    I put on my bitchiest pout.“It’s the damned accommodations here. I’m used to an air-conditioned hotel room, with a well-stocked bar and a big double bed. These damned tents and cots are killing me.”
    He emitted a very manly, contemptuous chuckle, then led us inside and up some stairs to the floor where his office was located. A burly sergeant major, who looked as though he lived in a weight room, growled something as we walked by. I kept a wide berth and hoped he didn’t bite.
    The general’s office was fairly spartan for a man of his rank, containing a long field table that was being used as a desk, two smaller field tables, two metal file cabinets, and two flags, one of the American variety and the other red in color, with a big white star in the middle. A visitor was supposed to be impressed by the austere, abstemious