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Joe winced. He said carefully, “I came up from the ranks, Miss. Captain is quite an achievement, believe me.”

“Up from the ranks!” She took in his clothes again. “You mean you’re a Middle? You neither talk nor look like a Middle, captain.” She used the caste rating as though it was not quite a derogatory term.

Not that she meant to be deliberately insulting, Joe knew, wearily. How well he knew. It was simply born in her. As once a well-educated aristocracy had, not necessarily unkindly, named their status inferiors niggers; or other aristocrats, in another area of the country, had named theirs greasers. Yes, how well he knew.

He said very evenly, “Mid-Middle now, Miss. However, I was born in the Lower castes.”

An eyebrow went up. “Zen! You must have put in many an hour studying. You talk like an Upper, captain.” She dropped all interest in him and turned to resume her journey.

“Just a moment,” Joe said. “You can’t go in there, Miss–“

Her eyebrows went up again. “The name is Haer,” she said. “Why can’t I go in here, captain?”

Now it came to him why he had thought he recognized her. She had basic features similar to those of that overbred poppycock, Balt Haer.

“Sorry,” Joe said. “I suppose under the circumstances, you can. I was about to tell you that they’re recruiting with lads running around half clothed. Medical inspections, that sort of thing.”

She made a noise through her nose and said over her shoulder, even as she sailed on. “Besides being a Haer, I’m an M.D., captain. At the ludicrous sight of a man shuffling about in his shorts, I seldom blush.”

She was gone.

Joe Mauser looked after her. “I’ll bet you don’t,” he muttered.

Had she waited a few minutes he could have explained his Upper accent and his unlikely education. When you’d copped one you had plenty of opportunity in hospital beds to read, to study, to contemplate–and to fester away in your own schemes of rebellion against fate. And Joe had copped many in his time.

III

By the time Joe Mauser called it a day and retired to his quarters he was exhausted to the point where his basic dissatisfaction with the trade he followed was heavily upon him.

He had met his immediate senior officers, largely dilettante Uppers with precious little field experience, and was unimpressed. And he’d met his own junior officers and was shocked. By the looks of things at this stage, Captain Mauser’s squadron would be going into this fracas both undermanned with Rank Privates and with junior officers composed largely of temporarily promoted noncoms. If this was typical of Baron Haer’s total force, then Balt Haer had been correct; unconditional surrender was to be considered, no matter how disastrous to Haer family fortunes.

Joe had been able to take immediate delivery of one kilted uniform. Now, inside his quarters, he began stripping out of his jacket. Somewhat to his surprise, the small man he had selected earlier in the day to be his batman entered from an inner room, also resplendent in the Haer uniform and obviously happily so.

He helped his superior out of the jacket with an ease that held no subservience but at the same time was correctly respectful. You’d have thought him a batman specially trained.

Joe grunted, “Max, isn’t it? I’d forgotten about you. Glad you found our billet all right.”

Max said, “Yes, sir. Would the captain like a drink? I picked up a bottle of applejack. Applejack’s the drink around here, sir. Makes a topnotch highball with ginger ale and a twist of lemon.”

Joe Mauser looked at him. Evidently his tapping this man for orderly had been sheer fortune. Well, Joe Mauser could use some good luck on this job. He hoped it didn’t end with selecting a batman.

Joe said, “An applejack highball sounds wonderful, Max. Got ice?”

“Of course, sir.” Max left the small room.

Joe Mauser and his officers were billeted in what had once been a motel on the old road between Kingston and Woodstock. There was a shower and a tiny kitchenette in each cottage. That was one advantage in a fracas held in an area where there were plenty of facilities. Such military reservations as that of the Little Big Horn in Montana and particularly some of those in the South West and Mexico, were another thing.