Hatfield out here with some people to help you move it."
"I"ll have it ready."
"Welcome to the First Railway Company, Sergeant Torbert." The chief held out his hand.
"Sergeant Torbert. I like the sound of that," Torbert said, shaking the chief"s hand.
The next morning Private Ludwig Bode was playing solitaire on the office computer at his desk. The desk was in front of the TacRail office. Ludwig was congratulating himself on the easy job he had found. He was surprised when General Jackson and a younger man walked up the hall toward his desk.
"Gut Morning, General," Bode said. Coming to attention and trying to turn off the computer monitor at the same time wasn"t working out too well.
"Is Lieutenant Pitre in, Private? Tell her I"m here to see her."
"Yes sir, General. The lieutenant and Chief Schwartz are going over the morning reports right now. You can go right in."
"Wait here, Bill," Frank said to the younger man as he entered the office. Inside he found Lieutenant
Pitre and Chief Schwartz standing by the desk looking over some paper work.
"Good morning Lieutenant, Chief. I stopped by to see how things were going and to bring you a new man," the general said. "He will be perfect as your top sergeant, Lieutenant. He"s a combat veteran up- time and in the here and now. With your two up-timer sergeants being the town drunk and a loafer whose only real job before the ring of fire was mowing gra.s.s, you need someone who knows what he"s doing."
"Thank you, General," Elizabeth said. "We always need more people, but Torbert and Hatfield are doing
a good job. And Torbert hasn"t touched a drop since the Ring of Fire."
"Be that as it may, Plotz is yours." Frank opened the door and called, "Come in here, Bill. This is Bill Plotz, veteran of Desert Storm and Bosnia. He won a Bronze and Silver Star and has a Purple Heart with two cl.u.s.ters. He was a crew chief in the mine before it closed and acted as a sergeant in the battle of the c.r.a.pper and at Jena. Besides that, he"s one of the hardest men in town. He"s just the man you need to get your people under control. The story about how Hatfield pulled one over on you about those coveralls is all over town."
"General, while Hatfield didn"t show the best judgment with the coveralls," Elizabeth said, "I gave the
okay on their issue. It was a good idea because many of my people were down to rags."
"Don"t cover for him, Lieutenant. Maybe he"s going to do a good job and maybe he should go back to shoveling coal at the power plant; time will tell. But for now you have First Sergeant Plotz as your top soldier and he"s going to watch over Hatfield and his merry men." With that closing comment General Jackson strode out of the office.
Elizabeth turned to Chief Schwartz, "Chief, you were going to check with Sergeant Torbert about how much more of that rail from the lumber trail is serviceable. I think you should to do that now and then stop by the locomotive shop and pick up a coverall for yourself. I"ll bring the first sergeant up to speed on the unit."
Elizabeth could tell by the worried look on his face that the chief thought she couldn"t deal with Plotz by herself. It was also easy to see that Sergeant Plotz had little respect for her rank or skills. After a year in the MPs and her informal Officer Basic Course under Gunnery Sergeant Duke Hudson, Elizabeth knew she could hold her own.
"Well, First Sergeant, what do you know about railroads? You realize you"re going to be serving over men more knowledgeable and experienced than you?" Elizabeth asked.
"Ma"am, I think the general made it clear my job is to keep the men in line and not to be creative. I"ll
leave that to the management types," First Sergeant Plotz replied.
"And you think I"m one of those management types, First Sergeant?" Elizabeth asked.
Plotz looked at Elizabeth"s jump wings which she had transferred to her coveralls that morning. "No,
ma"am. Two groups of people I never argue with are paratroopers and MPs and I understand that you
have been both. So I guess you"re not one of those management types."
"Actually First Sergeant, I"m one of the managers of our little enterprise and you"re going to have to be one also if you stay with us. And as a management type your style had better fit with mine or we"re going to be working at cross purposes, I hope you understand that. If you"re going to be the first sergeant of the rail company you"re going to have to learn to be creative. And First Sergeant, you mentioned the MPs. From what I remember from my reading of police records your command style is quite different from mine. And you"re going to use my style. Is that understood, First Sergeant? Or do I tell General Jackson to find another home for you?"
"No, Lieutenant. I think I"ll stay with the railroad for a while. You never know, I might become one of
those management types"
"Fine, Top. Let"s go down to the train shop and introduce you to the train crew, and then over to the mess to meet Sergeant Liesel Schmidt who runs our commissary squad or else you won"t get fed. Then we"ll go to the rail shop and meet the track crew. You know Hatfield and Torbert, but you don"t know Born. All the soldiers need to know who you are."
* * * Elizabeth and Chief Schwartz were at the unit mess having a cup of hot soup when PFC Rau came up to them out of breath like he"d been running.
"Fraulein Lieutenant, Herr Schwartz, I was out hunting and I came across something you really need to see."
"What is it, Private?" Elizabeth asked.
"Fraulein Lieutenant, it looks like some iron tracks going into a hole in the ground," Rau replied.
"Chief?" Elizabeth asked.
"Ma"am, it sounds like an abandoned dog hole mine to me," said Chief Schwartz. "We really need to look at this; there could be some stuff we could use there."
"I couldn"t agree with you more. Let"s grab some of the others and have a look," Elizabeth replied.
When they got to the old mine, they found about twenty yards of track going into a boarded-up entrance.
It looked as if it had been abandoned for years.
Elizabeth and the chief looked at each other like they"d won the lottery. "Chief, am I seeing what I think
I"m seeing?" she asked.
"Ma"am, I just wonder what else we"re going to find once we get these boards off," said Chief Schwartz.
"Anse, Bill, let"s get everyone up here, get this place opened up and start getting this stuff out of here."
"Chief, why don"t we move some of our prefab track out here? We could get some more equipment here
and haul it back," Elizabeth said. "Ma"am, I"ll send word back to Torbert to get things moving this way. We"ll also need some lights to go looking in this old mine. No telling what we"ll find once we open things up. We should also get some lumber out here for trusses," Chief Schwartz replied. * * *
The old mine was a beehive of activity. The track layers were starting to clear a route back toward the road while Elizabeth, the sergeants and Chief Schwartz were waiting for PFC Rau and some of the younger personnel to open the mine.
"Private Rau, you found this, you have the first look," Elizabeth said, handing him a flashlight. When the first board came off the entrance, Rau shined the flashlight in the hole.
"Fraulien Lieutenant, what is this?" asked Rau.
"Corporal Rau, you"re looking at two narrow gauge coal mining cars," Elizabeth said.
"Fraulien Lieutenant, I"m not a corporal."
"You are now," Elizabeth said, glancing at Chief Schwartz with a smile on her face.
"Chief, how deep do you think this puppy goes?" Elizabeth asked.
"Ma"am, I don"t know," Chief Schwartz replied. "But I"d be willing to bet that since we found one of these old mines there"ll be some more around here."
"Ma"am, you should also talk to Henry Dreeson and some of the other old-timers," Anse Hatfield said.
"There could be a few more of these abandoned operations around here."
"First Sergeant Plotz, take charge out here. Get Sergeant Torbert"s crew to lay track right up to the end of this track. Then have Sergeant Hatfield"s men continue clearing that entrance. When they finish, send them for their locomotive and don"t let anyone into the mine until Chief Schwartz and I get back,"
Elizabeth said. "Chief, I think we need to go to town and talk to the mayor and some more of the old- timers."
* * * About an hour and a half later, Elizabeth and Chief Schwartz arrived at City Hall and asked to speak to Mayor Dreeson. "Henry, we found something that could really help us out but first off, do you know Lieutenant Pitre," the chief said.
"Only by reputation. I understand you were a pretty good cop when you worked for Dan Frost," Mayor Dreeson said, smiling. "Well, sir, sometimes I miss the police," Elizabeth said. "But right now I"m working on a military narrow gauge railroad. Mr. Mayor, we found an old mine with a couple of narrow gauge rail cars and a bunch of track. I don"t know how much you know about what we"re doing, but the track and rail cars are perfect for our project."
"I knew there was work on railroads, but this is the first I"ve heard about anyone doing something with narrow gauge," Mayor Dreeson replied. "Mr. Mayor, we"ve been experimenting with narrow gauge for a couple of months now. We converted Anse Hatfield"s garden tractor as our first locomotive, scrounged up a couple of others that we"re converting, and we"re now working on a larger locomotive based on a Subaru Justy," Elizabeth said. "At the same time we came up with a few cars on the old lumber trails that we"re rebuilding. Our biggest problem is track. Strap rail is not worth a hoot and there isn"t enough of the good rail we"re finding on the old lumber trails. If we can find more of it, the First Railway Company can be truly operational."
"Why don"t I call Ken Hobbs, and you can show us both what you"ve found. I think we might be able to help you out and in more ways than you think," said Mayor Dreeson. * * * "This was my uncle"s old place," Ken Hobbs said as he looked at the mine entrance. "There are a couple more of these around here, too. You should be able to get a bunch of track out of them."
"What about the old Joanne mine?" asked Mayor Dreeson.
"You know, I didn"t think about that," Ken replied. "Didn"t they have a couple of locomotives, too? And
what about the line that went through the middle of town? I seem to recall that the town didn"t have
enough money to pull up the tracks so they were just paved over."
"You know, I plumb forgot about that one," said Mayor Dreeson. "Bill, Lieutenant, you probably just got a couple of miles more track there alone. You also got me thinking about something. We need to go over to the Joanne mine. I think you"ll want to see this. We also need to go back to City Hall and look at a couple of old maps."