The Living Will Envy The Dead by Christopher Nuttall Page B

nearly a third of our recruits went South – the Spanish War, the First and Second World Wars and most of the conflicts since then.  Mac himself had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and he had a brother and two cousins who had been overseas when the Final War began.  God alone knows what happened to them.
     
    But they didn’t like the thought of conscripting their young men, rather than the veterans, to man the barricades.  I didn’t like the thought either, but there was no choice.  The veterans would be used as the hard core of the defences, of course, but they were also needed elsewhere.  Ray Thompson, one of the Section Leaders, was also a highly-experienced Civil Engineer.  I was going to need him, so should I have sent him out to be shot at by refugees and the raiders I knew would be coming?
     
    It wasn't elitist, as some people alleged about the protection details surrounding our commanding officers in Iraq, but a matter of sheer practicality.  A man like Ray – or General David Petraeus – is too valuable to risk needlessly.  They had spent years developing their art and couldn’t be wasted on sentry duty.  It sounds harsh, but I would sooner waste a PFC than a General, unless the General was a real incompetent.  The Army wasn’t always good at ensuring that the right people got promoted and was a living embodiment of the Peter Principle; men and women always rise to the level of their own incompetence.
     
    “And we are going to have to tighten our borders,” I continued, once that argument had been concluded.  Democracy in action can be an ugly thing.  “We cannot take more refugees in than we can handle.”
     
    A dry cough snapped my attention to the Reverend Thomas McNab.  He was Mac’s second cousin – or something; I was never quite sure how they were related – and the President of the Board of Deacons of the First Baptist Church.  He was also the preacher at the church, which counted about a third of the population as members.  He was pretty much the leader of Ingalls’ religious society and, therefore, a person regarded with considerable respect.  He looked a little like Dermot Morgan.
     
    I eyed him carefully.  I respected Thomas; he was a decent man who never compromised his principles, but I was never a great respecter of organised religion.  I believed in God, but not in his human servants.  The Mullahs who had led the insurgency against us in Fallujah had been nothing, but a criminal racket, dressed up in the robes of Islam.  They’d taken their cut from each hit, each tribute and everything else the followers had done, while urging them out to die against us.  You don’t want to know what they did with the women and young boys…
     
    “You are talking about turning away folks in need,” he said, gravely.  He would have gone far as a politician if he hadn’t felt that politics was an unworthy role.  “Do we not have an obligation to help those in need, as the Good Samaritan helped the Jew?”
     
    I hesitated for a moment.  “The Good Samaritan, Father, was in no danger,” I said, finally.  “Every new mouth we take into our care will be a drain on our resources, which are limited enough.  If we can hold out long enough to start bringing in a new crop and cooperating with other towns and villages, we can care for more, but we cannot sacrifice ourselves to help others.”
     
    Thomas scowled, but accepted the point. 
     
    I ran through the rest of my agenda quickly, effectively creating a Cabinet.  Neil Frandsen, the de facto head of the farmers in the area, became Farming Manager, with the responsibility of coordinating with the other farmers to provide food.  Rebecca, who had had some success with microfarming, joined him.  Herman ended up doing logistics and weapons production, although he had warned me that when we started to run out of bullets, we were going to be in serious trouble.  The various armouries, gun clubs and suchlike had had plenty