I wake up to find another six inches on the ground and the snow is unrelenting. Blowing. Pretty. Flecks of silver under the gold of the street lamps. I think for a moment about, I don’t know, something, before I drag myself out of bed and scroll through the wall screen for some waking up music. I find myself caught between the soundtrack for Raumpatrouille and Herb Alpert’s Whipped Cream and Other Delights before deciding on Mclusky Do Dallas. I get down to the floor and begin counting as I push against it.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. And fifteen more. After this it’s twenty sit ups and after that it’s twenty pull ups and after that it’s the shower.
Antarctica is a punishment or a threat of punishment generally conjoined with the words “six years” and “Danish pederasts” for generally any minor infraction, most of the time mouthing off to a Trumpeter. These men, however, were mostly Scottish. Military men from the look of their uniforms.
The formality of rank is all but dropped here. The acknowledgement of rank is sparse; “sir” is almost more of an insult. Men let their beards grow up their cheek bones and their hair fall past their ears, and leave their uniform shirts unbuttoned. Salted meats, canned fishes, lighter fluid, cigarettes, and cheap whiskey is a regular item on the supply request, fancy whiskey, bourbon, brandy, is ordered regularly from Thanksgiving to New Years. Crates for supply shipments are burned rather than reused for shipping and the men enjoy makeshift saunas. Nobody ever checks up on them so long as they put out a signal once a day and a report once a week.
Most of the time, the reports read:
Activity: None
Anomalies: None
Concerns: None
Incidents: None
Questions: None
Requests…
And then came the requests for whiskey, toilet paper, diesel gasoline, batteries, corned beef and bread, pilsner, cigarettes - a lot of cigarettes - and maybe some cigars, and then socks. Always socks. Socks and gloves.
I have those last ones.
I was to be one of thirteen, the thirteenth one.
I’m not here out of punishment. I’m here because… I don’t know.
The men here don’t call me Trumpeter. Because of their largely Scottish background, they call me the Bagpiper. The lead man is a skeletal-faced man: Reid. Frank Reid. He stands six two and is built like a rail tie. He seems OK being my second in command while I’m in, well, command.
In command. A trial. A grooming.
Reid greeted me on the runway with his jacket open and no gloves, already drunk, “Yer already wishin ye wern here!” He shouted it over the engines of the plane.
‘S’cold! Damn cold! You in command!?
“’Ndeed! Leas what ye could call ‘n command!” He looked over my shoulder and asked, “Ye gear!”
My gear!?
“Ye gear! Wheresit!?”
I pointed to the single duffel over my shoulder.
Reid laughed and bellowed, “Thas what they all think when they get here! Les get ye a drink, Trumpeter!”
I’m not a Trumpeter!
“Yer a Bagpiper, then!”
I left it at that.
Reid gave me the run of the place over a few pilsners: “Try te get lager, something stronger, all they cheap-asses’ll send down is pilsner.” He trailed off and continued, raising his glass to look at the amber alcohol, “Beggers cannae be bitchers, na can they?”
I shook my head and lit a square.
The compound was four buildings, two stories by two rooms per side or however you want to look at it; thirty two rooms, you’d think if you counted windows. Alpha building was the command building in the northwest corner, four command offices on the second floor and four admin offices on the first. Bravo building was in the northeast corner and handled communications and air traffic, the second floor was one giant hall with still operable commlink equipment and a giant tower and the first floor housed an office, equipment closet, and the garage. In the southeast corner sat Charlie building in which resided the bunks on the second floor and the mess on the first. Delta building was in the southwest corner; lounge, sickbay, all that jazz. Men lived in Charlie and worked in Bravo. Only two were qualified to work on the equipment in Delta and did so only when necessary. Alpha and Delta were ghost towns since anyone in command normally spent their days in Bravo; Reid’s command office was on the first floor. He was the one recognizably in charge.
And so I sat with Reid in the mess in Charlie, watching him nurse his pilsner and listen to him give me the lay of the land. After a long while, Reid finally asked me my duty assignments.
Straighten the books, tighten the bolts on the ship.
Reid had laughed at that, “Ach! Ye lookin for bolts to tighten, they already got us runnin tight as a drum!” He stopped. “Unless ye talkin about cutting off our liquor. Ye find it hard to get the men’s approval for that.”
I don’t care about that.
“Ye dinnae, na.”
Couldn’t give a shit less. I set my empty glass down and snapped my fingers at Randall, a Samoan, and pointed at it. To Reid, I said, Some Irish in me. You’ll find we’ll get along alright.
“Irish.”
Some. Half.
“Which half you have of whatever bothers me none, slong as yer drinkin half keeps up.”
I have some good halves. Randall set another glass of pilsner in front of me, taking the empty glass away. I lit another square. Thanks, Randall.
“Sa fancy lighter ye got there.”
Got it from a Belgian woman.
“Ye a man of the world, then.”
Been to parts.
“Been to parts.” Reid stared at his glass. “Sunny parts?”
Panama was sunny.
“Ach.”
Yeah. That’s how I felt.
I must have made a face. Reid asked, “Srong, lad?”
Ribs. Cracked. Two of ‘em. Maybe three. Never felt right in the cold.
“Jessus!”
Nah, happened a while ago. No big thing.
After a few sips, Reid asked, “What’d ye do?”
Do?
“To wind up here? What’d ye do?”
I didn’t tell him I was gunning for a promotion. Ribs hurt too much. I’m just here to go over the books. Check ledgers, take inventories, eliminate redundancies -
“Whatta ye mean ‘eliminate redundancies’?”
Beats the shit out of me. They just told me to do that. Also see what needs fixed up around here.
Reid had smirked a little at that.

In my makeshift office in Bravo, the equipment closet across from the real office that belongs to Reid, I adjust the space heater to warm the place up a little. The buildings are expertly insulated but there’s a draft from the garage. I go back to looking over supply requests for the mess extending back to the first of last year. Everything looks to be normal. Poultry, soups, vegetables, breads, whiskeys, beers, coffee, bottled water, all in monthly quantities.
I close up the book of carbon copies and look over the stack of the others. I toss this one next to the stack and attach a Post-It which, in red ink, reads: Lager. Not Pilsner.
Through the window, I see the stairwell door open. Reid and the quadroon Haysell (pronounced ‘Hazel’) come through and Reid, I can hear, says, “Alright, then, ye go check on that, then.”
Haysell says, “I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks,” Reid says following Haysell to the garage door to stop at mine. The garage door lets in a cold bite and closes with a soft thud. “Lemme know when yer ready to move out of those supply requests.”
Actually just finished up last year’s. Haven’t found anything out of the ordinary; might be able to get you your lager after all.
Reid smirks a little at that. “Ye’ll be wantin to see the year before’s then, I imagine.”
Let me hold off on the books, Reid. I’m starting to go cross eyed. How about some inventory?
“Over in the mess?”
Yeah, that would help to verify the numbers.
Reid smirks again. “Ye know, seems to me that they got ye in more of an accountin role than a supervisory one.”
I just have to find the loose nuts and tighten them up a little. Besides, your men already know what the hell they do around here better than I would so who the hell am I to tell them their business?
Reid nods at that. “Ye need any help in the mess, then? I can see if there’s a spare a pair of hands or two.”
Not interested?
“Nah. Been on the wire all day with Otto von Bismarck over at Neumayer.”
Neumayer? What the hell you doing to talking to Neumayer?
“Calm down, Chief; we got one of ours positioned over there. He says there’s trade talks between the jerries and them dumb Dutch motherfuckers over at Sanae.”
That’s nothing new, is it?
“Nah but Otto’s on a tear about things.”
So his name’s really Otto von Bismarck?
“Nah, Nachtwächter. I just call him that to rile him up.”
Alright, well, hey, if anything important comes up, let me know.
“Right.” Reid turns to leave and turns back, “Ah, the fellas will be pilin in to the mess in a while. Probably best to wait until after dinner to take an inventory.”
Shit. I recline in my chair and rub my eyes. I can’t take anymore of these books. I stretch and see a set of books on the shelf for med requests. May as well. What’s sick bay look like, Reid?
“Empty so far as I know.”
Who’s the medicine man around here?
“McIntire. Due up to get shipped back to the states in about two months.”
He keep hours over at the sick bay?
“Nah. Works upstairs with the rest of us, just qualified to run the sickbay is all.”
Qualified?
“Doctor, after all. General practitioner or something.”
Ring him up and tell him I need sickbay unlocked. If he has an office over there, tell him to bring a book because I’m not running outside in this shit from one building to the next every time I have a question.
“Right.”

McIntire is fucking useless. Smug, sloppy, middle aged, know-it-all; couldn’t find a vein if it was staring at him. He’s upstairs in the lounge so far as I know.
I’ve got three skimpy ledgers in front of me. Not a lot of injuries to report around here. The occasional bit of hypothermia. Not a lot of airborne illnesses; everybody gets a check up and a mandatory inoculation before departing for this place.
The first aid kits are gathering dust. Band-Aids and such. I start going through the medicine cabinets and checking the contents against the inventory books.
Quinine.
The line stops me.
Quinine. Capsule form. The good stuff.
I juggle with it in my head and decide to go upstairs and ask McIntire about it. I grab the book and exit sick bay, through the double doors to the hall and hit the stairs for the lounge. I climb the eighteen steps to find the lounge empty.
Fuck.
Step over to the wall panel past the billiard table and dial up Reid.
A rattle and hum, then Reid’s voice comes through as the oscilloscope brightens up green to register a visual display of his voice, “Yeah, Chief.”
McIntire with you?
“Nah, he’s over in the mess here havin dinner. Ye’d do well to do the same.”
Shit.
“Somethin wrong, Chief?”
I got something funny over here. Why don’t you bring me a plate when you finish up yours?
“Ah, yer workin too hard, Chief. Come on over and have a pint. Knock off for the day.”
Nah, just bring a twelve pack over here with a plate when you’re done.
“Hey, says you, Chief. Ye wan a workin dinner, I’ll bring ye one.”
Thanks, Reid. I’ll leave the door unlocked for you. I hit exit on the call and End Communiqué pops up on screen. Light a square. In ten minutes I’ll have a few beers and the ink in the ledgers will start to blur and then fuck it.
I scratch absent-mindedly at the felt on the table.
Alone now, I think about women. Been here a week. I’d like a woman around.

Reid hands me a mess plate and sets a bag of beers on the examining table next to the ledgers. I ask him about tonight’s menu.
“Duck a l’orange or however you say it on a bed of spinach. It’s fucking shit on a shingle with a vitamin drink that tastes the way Windex smells, what do ye expect?”
You know what I’d like? In high school they made this horrible chicken parmesan that I really liked. Only day of the week I bought lunch.
“Institutional food.”
It was decent.
I light a square and Reid says, “They got oxygen tanks in here, Chief.”
Yeah, I can tell you about oxygen tanks, Reid. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.
I pull a beer out of the bag as Reid starts to shake one loose from his pack, “Ye got a hair up yer ass, Chief?”
Yeah, how old are these kits?
“Kits?”
Yeah. Look at this here, pointing at the line, Quinine.
“What’s that?”
An anti-malarial drug. Popular back in World War One, so it might’ve been handed out then. But what are the chances you’d get malaria in this climate?
“I dinnae handle any of that, Chief.” A pause. “‘n fact, I cannae recall ever gettin medical inventory forms or the like.”
Any of the men ever complain of leg cramps? During sleep?
“Who the hell complains about that?”
Never mind. I drum my fingers along the table. I’ll have to ship these off, see if I can get them replaced. There’s probably a mess of unnecessary shit in here.
“We dinnae get too many illnesses. Injuries, either, for that matter. Billy Gosi tripped and twisted his ankle once about… two years? back. Thas about it.”
Taking a sip off my beer and pulling the chipped beef up with my fork to inspect the toast, I ask, What the hell do you guys do here all day?
“What do we do?” Reid laughs. “Ye been here a week and ye still dinnae know what we’re doin here! Thas rich!”
I don’t have a rank on the need to know list, Reid, give me a break. You yourself said I’m doing more accounting than anything.
Reid smirks, nodding, “Yer really in the dark, huh?”
Yeah.
“We’re all Linemen, Chief. Yer at what’s officially known as,” and intoning heavily, almost patronizingly, “Antarctic Corridor Collection Unit… parenthetically ‘for’… Radio And Telecommunication Emissions.”
It takes me a minute. I respond, ACCURATE. Cute.
“Nah, ye dinnae get it, Chief. We’re all Linemen.”
So, you’re all Linemen. I’m still not getting it, no.
“This is the pipe, Chief. Yer in it.”

“I thought ye were aware.”
They don’t tell me shit. I’m six beers in and now that we’re back at my office, I’m cracking seven. And popping Quinine behind Reid’s back. This is it, though. This is where all the echoes and words come through. Twelve men handling -
“Eight men, actually. Eight on overlappin shifts. Eight on, four sleep, or somethin like that. It works out.”
Whatever. Twelve men are responsible for everything. Decide everything.
“We dinnae decide shit, Chief. We just do the verifyin.”
I nod into my beer. You ever been wrong? Curiosity more than anything.
“Wouldn’t remember to be honest with ye. We get more shit in here than we can handle. Somethin comes in and we either verify it, classify it, or reroute it. Then we forget about it and go on to the next bleedin thing.”
This can’t be where they send the insubordinates.
“Ye’d be surprised, Chief. Yer bunk got any windows?” I shake my head. “Yeah. Six month days, six month nights. Eight men on and four men off. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner all the same menu with only a variation here and there dependin on what time it is for ye. And when yer not eatin a meal, yer eatin sixteen hours of noise from the pipe and shittin it right back into it.
“Before I got here, I mean years ago, this place was run by forty men. Science labs and the like, R&D or whatever. Operated under a different name, so far as I understand it, and then the higher ups, they decide to scale back operations. Bravo buildin was about the only buildin they gave a shit about, I guess, so they changed the focus, changed the parameters, and relabeled this shit pit ‘ACCURATE’. Like ye said, cute name.
“Well, some men cannae handle it. Before I was put in command, there were a few crack ups here and there. Words, Chief, words, not echoes, got thrown in the pipe. After all, we are the pipe. Word got out that people lost their minds down here and the higher ups thought it was a fittin threat to keep insubordinate folks in line. Not so prestigious, any more.”
Twelve year sentences; scrubbing toilets with pederastic Norwegians.
“Completely false. Ye pull a six year stint and then yer given the option to go on for another three if yer so inclined. And then another three. And then another three. And then, ye know, we got only one Norwegian here, Grønli, and I dinnae think he’s a pederast. In fact, I think he’s a priest.”
That doesn’t help his case, much.
Reid laughs, and then continues, “Nah, I imagine not.” He stops laughing and then starts back up, “But, yeah, a few crack ups. The one that really… Hmm. About two years before I got shipped down here, there was a bad one. Name of McMillan. Jesse McMillan. I think that’s where our bad rep comes from.”
What happened?
A heavy sigh, probably Reid’s lung capacity, blows from his mouth with agitated force before he asks, “Ye really want to know?” I nod. “I wasn’t here for it but it’s a word, sure enough. McMillan, I dinnae know what made him crack up but the facts, as verified, go like this - and ye’ll pardon me, Chief, for forgettin the timeline verbatim if it isnae in front of me at the moment.
“McMillan put in a full shift. Sixteen hours like every one else. Didn’t say anything to cause alarm in the men, or at least that’s the testimony and none of them work here anymore; their times were up one by one and they got the hell out of here. Dinnae blame them.
“McMillan didn’t report to his bunk that night and Nachtwächter - I told ye about him, he’s our guy at Neumayer now - was doing a security run. Got an empty bunk. McMillan’s. Probably takin a piss. Bunk’s still empty about an hour later or so, so Otto checks the head. Isnae in there.
“Now it isnae anybody’s business what a man is doin up and about when he ought to be sleepin but keepin up with the pipe for sixteen hours gets fatiguin. Ye need to get some sleep or else ye’ll crack up. That’s a certain way, right there.
“So, Otto gets curious and heads down to the mess. Empty. Throws on his coat and heads over to Bravo. Staffed, sure, but McMillan isnae there. Why would he be? He’s off the clock. Otto heads over to Delta and checks sickbay, locked up, and then heads up to the lounge. Finds McMillan stark naked, sittin on the billiard table, staring out the window, and he’s just sweatin buckets. Otto attests to that. Ask him and he’ll tell you to this day that the man looked like he had just jumped out of the shower and hadn’t a towel to dry off with. And then he’s mumblin somethin. Like a chant.”
What was it?
“They asked Otto after it was all said and done and he said he had no bloody idea what the hell McMillan was sayin. Just kept repeatin things over and over again, kind of sing-songy-like. So they grill him, try to get him to remember and Otto says he dinnae know the language but he tries and it turns out it’s ‘madainn mhath oihdche mhath’ just over and over again.”
What’s that?
“Scot’s Gaelic. ‘Good mornin good night’.”
Because there’s no morning. No sunrise or sunset.
“Time is meaninless here, aint it, Chief? Well, Otto says he asks McMillan if everything’s alright and he gets no response. He asks a couple times and McMillan keeps chatterin away his little chant. Says he grabs McMillan’s shoulder and McMillan starts shoutin ‘Dè a tha seo!?’ over and over now.”
More Gaelic.
“Scot’s Gaelic, please, Chief.”
Scot’s Gaelic. What’s that one?
“‘What is this?’ Just ‘What is this? What is this?’ over and over. Otto called over to Bravo and Charlie, got a couple of spare hands and hauled McMillan down to sickbay.”
We got a record of that?
Nodding over my shoulder, “Probably buried in that stack behind ye.”
You recall off the top of your head who the attending physician was?
“Nah. Cannae say, Chief. I read the report when I got bumped up to command and then I stashed it back in here. Otto told me I ought to read it. Otherwise I would’ve never bothered with it; it would’ve just stayed none of my concern. But if yer lookin to talk to the man that tended to McMillan, he’s long gone.”
Just curious about the diagnosis.
“‘Diagnosis’!? The man just cracked up, Chief. That’s the diagnosis.”
So what happened, then? They ship him off?
“Yeah. Horizontally.” I must be making a look. “McMillan - ” Reid clears his throat, “McMillan kept chantin and yellin all the while they’re haulin him downstairs, eyes rollin back in his head, convulsin, sweatin, real mess. And they strapped him down to one of those tables and gave him a sedative and counted to ten and watched and waited and his breathin went back to normal. That’s about where Otto’s involvement ends if I’m recallin it right.” Reid scratches at his chin (one of the few hairless ones on the entire base, probably to keep up appearance of rank) and continues, “Yeah. Pretty sure he says he was done with the matter at that point.
“So McMillan is restin and they got a man standin by at the sickbay just in case, ye know? And they got another man placin the call, ‘Yeah, we got a crack up down here, real bad one, speakin in tongues; we’re going to need a new twelfth. We’ll strap this one down and send him back.’
“Like I said, I cannae remember the timeline verbatim but I reckon that’s about the time McMillan came to. Dinnae know how, probably had a head full of cobwebs, who knows? Dinnae know how he managed to pull it off but he got up, sure enough, and he sneaks up on the man at the door and chokes the life out of him and leaves. Just walks right over to Charlie. Watched the tape they got from Charlie… McMillan strolls through the mess, strolls, almost bleedin floats across the floor, floats right back to the fire equipment. It’s ghostly if ye watch it, Chief, ye gotta watch it with the lights on and the sun out because yer watchin a possessed man.
“And he goes off camera and that’s when the word ‘alarm’ comes across the bottom of the screen and ye can see the sprinklers come on and then there’s McMillan floatin again, right back to the door. Got the axe on him.”
Broke the glass, set off the alarm. What was on the tape from Delta?
“Nobody fired it up. Delta, hell, ye seen it, nothing goes on in Delta. The crew here regard the mess as the lounge, anymore. Keep talkin about haulin the billiard table over as a matter of fact, even though they never get around to it. But nothing goes on in Delta. Alpha either for that matter, so those two run on minimal power. Only thing that keeps them warm is the central furnace under Alpha. All these buildings get heat or none of them get heat. Works the same way with lights and plumbin, all centralized under Alpha. The engine room, we call it. Keeps this shit pit alive. But there are cost cutting measures in place, so surveillance? In Alpha, it’s motion activated. In Delta you have to turn it on manually and with all the commotion, nobody got around to it. So, no, Chief, I didn’t see any tapes aside from thems that comes from Charlie and Bravo.”
Bravo?
“Aye. Bravo. Watched McMillan float in that door right there,” pointing at the door back at the other end of the hall, “Like a ghost. If I e’er imagined a ghost, that’s what McMillan was. Turns and opens the door to the stairwell and floats on up, fire axe in hand. And then there’s the next tape.
“Came up right behind - and I remember this guy’s name, Chief, cannae tell you why - Bill Lester - file said something like a few weeks? a few months? something ridiculous like that away from end of assignment - and swings the fire axe right into his head. Cannae say if he felt it, I just hope he died quick.
“And ye know what I thought while I watched these fuckin tapes? That I’d feel a whole lot more at ease if we had sound on ‘em. Because now I’m watchin the commotion and the silence is just as frightenin as McMillan’s floatin; the crew were probably tryin to figure out why there was a fire alarm over at Charlie. Hell, I still dinnae know how they missed McMillan comin out of Charlie and in to Bravo but they were standin up now, Chief, ye better believe they were standin up, now. I forget this guy’s name, Chief, think it was Fredrick, but he pulls some hero shit and lunges at McMillan while McMillan tries to yank the axe out of Lester’s head. He gets there too late and McMillan pulls it out in time, dodges Fredrick, turns and buries it in Fredrick’s back.
“And then ye see the side of McMillan’s head explode. Had to back it up and watch it again. Another grunt, dinnae remember his name, I see he’s in the back and he draws a bead on McMillan and I watch two little flashes blow out of his sidearm, flash-flash, like that. Report says first one lodged itself between McMillan’s shoulder blade and ribs, shattered the shit out of them but didn’t make an exit. Second one blew clean through McMillan’s head.
“Suppose that’s the ghost story they use to keep the crews out there in the world in line.”
Never heard that one. Just the one about Norwegian pederasts.
“The Linemen know it. All the Linemen know it. Ye’d be hard pressed to find one that hasn’t heard that one rattlin in the pipe.”
How many crack ups you witness, Reid?
“There was one or two. Two. Yankees. One just pissed and moaned constantly until he blew a fuse in the mess and started throwin his and everyone else’s food around. The other was just a crybaby. Yates. He was in charge then. He cracked and started drinkin all the damn time. Sat on the commlink upstairs listenin to silence and just nursin the bottle. By the time he stopped comin out of his office - just sittin in there cryin and drinkin and pissin in a mop bucket, not comin out to go to his bunk and only goin to the mess for another bottle - that’s about the time the higher ups yanked him. Put me in charge and I figured that I’d had enough of readin reports of this shit and the two I had to file were three too many for my tastes, so, well, that’s why things run the way they run around here.”
You filed the reports. You were second in command?
“Ach. There is no ‘second in command’ around here; I just knew how to file reports like those better than the other fellas, so if I was second in command, I was second in command by default: Nobody else wanted the job. Or could do it worth a damn, for that matter.”
I let that sink in. It made sense. Sixteen hours and nothing from the windows to tell you how long you’d been at it. Day and night, taking in all the chatter and crosstalk at what amounts to the single most important communications hub in the organization. Pressure and strain and fatigue all brought together in perfect storm proportions. So the rest of it made sense. The booze, the lack of dress code, the informality of rank. Reid was opening up the valves, letting the pressure out. Otherwise, the crack ups would just keep rolling in and the reports would just keep piling up. Reid had taken the reins and had thrown out every rule that didn’t actually affect how the crew did their jobs.
But, then that’s why I was sent here. Things had gotten slack and they wanted me to tighten ‘em back up. Performance hadn’t fallen, it had actually improved, illness and injury were so rare here that they could reasonably run the sickbay on an “as-needed” basis, the crew requested assignment extensions. But the higher ups saw all of this as a temporary improvement and were waiting for the fallout because the higher ups saw one other thing that should have impressed them but instead ‘concerned’ them.
A total lack of disciplinary action noted in the (regularly late) reports.
What it was was that there was no need for disciplinary action, nobody stepped out of line. What it looked like was that things were getting too loose over here, how long until something went awry? And nobody ever checked up on them. Until now. Until they sent me here. And they sent me with a few objectives. One of which was to ‘eliminate redundancies’, the PC way of saying ‘trim the fat’, get rid of unneeded personnel. I can think of one already; I’m having a beer with him.
They want me to shit can you, Reid.
Reid nodded and said, “Aye, I know that.”
You didn’t say anything.
“Ach, I made the dumbassed mistake of extendin my assignment again. Had to, I look at my crew and I cannae think of a one that would be decent enough to take over. Perhaps Murphy. Strong, superior, but still young. Haysell’s a good one, too, a little more seasoned. I mean, these men are in charge of the pipe and someone needs to be in charge of the men in charge of the pipe. But I knew that the higher ups wanted me out, just couldn’t find a good reason to get rid of me as long as the numbers were up. And to tell ye the truth, when I heard the word come down the pipe that they were sendin someone out to perform inspections and take inventory, I knew that they were investigatin me.”
And you didn’t say anything.
“I dinnae mind, honestly, because, well, as long as we’re using the word ‘honestly’, Chief, I’ve been on the verge of crackin up for about four or five years now.”
How have you kept from - I mean -
“How do I keep it in check? How far did ye get in yer sickbay inventory?”
I stopped at Quinine.
“Alphabetical?”
Yeah.
“If ye got down to ‘V’, ye’d find we’re out of valium. When we ran out of that, I reckoned that I couldn’t place an order for more without getting pegged, so I did the research and found that diazepam was the same fuckin thing and erased the letter ‘D’ from the inventory and kept the ‘D’ drugs in the ‘V’ bottles. When that ran out, I went after the benzodiazepine and did the same thing. And we’ve been out of all those for about two weeks. All I’ve been doin since is drinkin.”
You’re cracking up because you’re the only one that’s not slacking on all the peripheral rules.
“Not true, Chief. Haysell, Murphy? Those two are as straight-laced as they come. Just dinnae know who I can hand the baton to, y’know?” He pauses, continues, “I should’ve seen where we were getting low on those meds and opted out of extending. Now I got another two years left.
“I’m ready to go home, Chief. Leave this shit to them.”
I think about it for a minute. You ever look under ‘X’?
“Xanax? I thought about it. I’m done with pills, Chief. I’m done with running ACCURATE.”
I can recommend a reassignment. Get you thrown over to a sunny place. I can’t promise anything but -
“I’m done with the whole thing, Chief. I been drinkin to combat the crack up that’s due to come any day now and it just isnae enough. Helped a little at first but I guess I flushed all the meds out of my system by now. I can feel it creepin up my spine and tinglin in my extremities. Sometimes it feels like there’s a fire behind my face and in my guts it’s just bubbles and knots. I’m done. I want out.”
You know that’s not possible. I’ll put it in my report that you need a vacation. I can throw a word in the pipe tonight, even.
“Ye dinnae know how to work the equipment and I can’t have ye compromise what command I have in front of my men when ye have them operate it for ye. What would they think? What would they think of me, then, Chief? That I couldn’t cut it. That I cracked up like the others.”
You’re only human, Reid. You just need to get away from this shit, for good.
“Yer right, I do.” Reid gets up from the milk crates he’s been sitting on and walks across the hall to his office. I get up to follow but he locks the door as I get to it.
Reid?
He sits down behind his desk and reaches into one of the lower drawers.
Reid! What are you doing!?
I relax only a little when I see Reid put a bottle of Seven Crowns on his desk. He smiles warmly at me before rolling his chair back from the desk. I then see his foot stretch out and, with his heel, he rolls a mop bucket closer to himself.

There are twenty five eyes on me in the mess (Murphy and Campbell wear glasses - myopic, you see - and Sellers has an eye patch) and Campbell, out of his crooked mouth, asks, “What’s the word on Reid, Bagpiper?”
Reid has been - There are orders, emergency orders, for Reid to be transferred, there’s a situation up in Panama that requires his expertise.
Muir’s not buying it, “Bullshit! It dinnae come through here!”
Maybe you just haven’t heard of it yet, Muir.
“Ach, it’s bullshit! Isnae nothing happenin in Panama and we all damned well know it. The old man has cracked up.”
Twenty five eyes stare at me, lifeless but expecting, bored and owed. Alright, so, you want the truth, huh? Is that what you’re after? Why? So you can go about talking shit about how Reid cracked up? The guy let everything slide to keep you guys from cracking up and then -
Murphy stands up, “No, sir. We want to know the truth so that we know if we’re at risk as well. If Reid, of all people, sir, could crack up, then that means that any one of us could crack up.”
I nod at that. Yeah. Fine. He cracked. He just wanted to save face was all. I should’ve known better than to assume these guys could be bullshitted really. So I tell them, Yeah. He cracked up. There.
“Hey, Bagpiper,” comes out of Muir again, “Hey, man, Reid knows that we’d find out sooner than we could be lied to. He knows that if there was any white wash, we’d see right through it, there’d be no way to save face.”
Haysell blurts out, “That’s real fucking great, Muir! Why don’t you shut your fucking mouth!?”
“Nah, man, it isnae about that. Nah, listen, Bagpiper, if’n ye can get through to him, I mean if ye can get through to him at all, tell him his boys already knew before ye could say shite and that his boys understand and we appreciate his sacrifice for us.” And then, almost as an afterthought, Muir takes it back, “Nah. Just tell him we dinnae know anything. Tell him it‘s OK. Tell him we’re still his boys.”

In my office, I finish up my reports. I decide to recommend both Haysell and Murphy in the end, joint command. As far as pulling in a twelfth, I also recommend bringing Nachtwächter back from Neumayer, even though I know the higher ups won’t go for it but I’m done coming up with ideas. I was done yesterday when I watched an extraction crew load Reid on to his plane home or wherever they were taking him. He went without a fight; I caught McIntire’s useless ass in the hall and told him to dump Reid’s piss bucket and hang some air fresheners in his office, place smelled like a fucking hamster cage.
Now I stand here waiting for my plane, and I have only three recommendations in my report:
Haysell / Murphy, Joint Command of ACCURATE
Transfer Otto Nachtwächter to ACCURATE
Lager, not pilsner
I also take copies of the McMillan reports with me, remembering to watch them in the daylight with the windows open.
But, yeah, Reid left without a fight. When he saw the extraction team, he got up and unlocked the door, asking them to let him grab his coat.
He hadn’t shaved in the two days he spent holed up in there and, from the smell of things, hadn’t taken a bar of soap in there with him, either. He reeked like a brewery and his eyes were glassy and jaundiced and across his long, skeletal face he wore a serene smile. He strolled over to me and dropped the keys in my hand, “Whichever bastard ye hand these to, Chief, tell em... tell em… ah, the fuck I care ye tell em? Just dinnae go takin those yerself, Chief.”
Then I watched them, from the garage, load Reid on to the plane.