|
“Now, I want you to remember that no bastard ever won
a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb
bastard die for his country. Men, all this stuff you’ve heard about America
not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse
dung. Americans traditionally love to fight. All real Americans, love the
sting of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble
shooter, the fastest runner, the big league ball player, the toughest
boxer…Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play
to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in Hell for a man who lost and
laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war.
Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans. Now, an Army is
a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This individuality stuff
is a bunch of crap. The biggest bastard who wrote that stuff about
individuality for the Saturday Evening Post, don’t know anything more about
real battle than they do about fornicating. Now we have the finest food and
equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the world. You know. . . My
God, I actually pit those poor bastards we’re going up against. My God, I
do. We’re not going to shoot the bastards, we’re going to cut out their
living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We’re going to
murder those lousy Hun bastards by the bushel. Now some of you boys, I
know, are wondering whether or not you’ll chicken out under fire. Don’t
worry about it. I can assure you that you’ll all do your duty. The Nazis
are the enemy. Wade into them. Spill their blood, shoot them in the belly.
When you put your hand into a bunch of goo, that a moment before was your
best friends face, you’ll know what to do. Now there’s another thing I want
you to remember. I don’t want to get any messages saying that we are
holding our position. We’re not holding anything, we’ll let the Hun do
that. We are advancing constantly, and we’re not interested in holding onto
anything except the enemy. We’re going to hold onto him by the nose, and
we’re going to kick him in the ass. We’re going to kick the hell out of him
all the time, and we’re going to go through him like crap going through a
goose. Now, there’s one thing you men will be able to say when you get back
home, and you may thank God for it. Thirty years from now, when you’re
sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee, and he asks
you ‘What did you do in the great World War Two’, you won’t have to say,
well, I was shoveling s#!t in Louisiana. Alright now, you sons of b!tches,
you know how I feel. I will be proud to lead you wonderful guys into battle
anytime, anywhere. That’s all.”
General George S. Patton Jr.
Jericho
stood before the lines of men. In the dark hall, the blonde-haired figure
stood out against the black-dressed specialist that stood at attention.
Atop the pedestal at the back of the large room, the knight kept his hands
behind his back, his smile kept to a minimum.
“Many have wondered for ages if we would ever reach
this point,” Jericho
said, his strong voice carrying over the lines and lines of waiting,
at-attention men. “Many, since the birth of the Brotherhood of the Sun,
have wondered if we would ever have the strength, the power, the sheer
might, to stand up to the Illuminati. And now, we can see the answer to
those worries. And the fruits of their caution and patience.”
“For years, for centuries, the Brotherhood is sought
to free the world of the Illuminati’s control,” Jericho announced. “We, the Hand of the
Brotherhood, have been at the forefront of that endeavor. We have been the
ones who had stood forward and faced down the agents of the Illuminati for
the good of all humanity.”
“Time and time
again, the Illuminati have thwarted our efforts, finding ways to hide from
us, or to use their ageless power to bear against, to crush us. And all the
while, they dominate the world, the soulless puppet-masters who would
control everything. The world and all life would be at their whims, toys to
satisfy their wanton desires and childish whims.”
Jericho
smiled. “No longer.”
“We are committed now,” Everett
said, speaking to the black and red ballroom in the Kentucky hotel. With the single light
lowered on him, he spoke with the commanding presence of the ageless
tradition of knights behind him. “We are committed to war. We are committed
to once again taking up arms against a foe. But now, unlike some street
crime pact, or some small group of gang members or local thugs, we are going
to be addressing the threat of the well-trained and dug-in warriors of the
Hand of the Brotherhood.”
Everett
turned around in the crowd, looking over the sea of knightly faces. “This
will be a war fought like none any of us have ever experienced. This will
not be a clandestine, silent operation like we’re used to. This will not be
the dark of the night, strategic operation. This will be war, in all its
horror and wonder. You’ve heard the legends of your grandfathers about the
World War. Those legends will be yours all too soon.”
“War is inevitable,” Jericho said, standing proudly. “There is
no doubt that the forces of the supposedly righteous American government
will come at us. The Army. The Air Force. If we’re lucky, maybe even the
Marines.” Some laughter rose up from the room, and Jericho smiled all the wider at it. “And
we shall repel them all. We shall send them away, with their high-tech
tails between their legs, basking in their failure as true soldiers, as
true warriors.”
“This age has lost its lust for battle, has lost its
lust for blood and the true experience of seeing the whites of his foe’s
eyes,” Jericho
shouted. “The so-called soldiers of this generation can do little more than
march in a pretty line and fire a gun. They can pull a trigger, push a
button, and walk straight. Long gone are the self-capable warriors of the
ancient world. Long gone at the true fighters, the true soldiers.”
“This could very well be the moment we’ve all been
waiting for,” Everett
said. “We have all dreamed of the day when the knights would rise up again,
and face down the foe that threatened our homeland. Well, now that foe is
the Brotherhood of the Sun.”
“We will be out-numbered,” he said morosely. “We will
be out-manned. We will be in a weak position, trying to take what appears
to be a damn-near impenetrable fortress, designed to repel any assault, no
matter how large.”
“And it is in that arrogance that we shall prevail,” Everett maintained, a
strange confidence over-taking him as he spoke. “For the least likely often
proves the most dangerous. The bacteria kills the great elephant. And so
shall we, the small force of the knights, destroy the Brotherhood of the
Sun.”
“No force can stand against us,” Jericho declared. “They may think that
they are capable. They are wrong. They may think they are powerful. They
are wrong. They may think they stand a chance. They ARE WRONG!”
The cheers rose up, echoing in the dark room.
Resounding violently off the dark walls, the lines and lines of Hand agents
cheered and applauded, shaking their fists in the air as they trumpeted
their leader’s words. And standing before them, Jericho stood tall, smiling at his army.
“We face our greatest challenge,” Everett said. “And in facing it, we shall
see through to the other side, our greatest victory. The spirits of the
knights of old are with us. And they shall help us to perceiver, against
whatever odds we might face.”
Everett
stepped back a bit from the light, swallowing. “We shall return to our
homes tomorrow, to load up and to say our last good-byes. Make no mistake;
some of us will not come back from this crusade. Spend Monday with that
sentiment. For on Tuesday morning, we shall meet at the chosen site. Our
intelligence is sketchy, but our hearts are true. We shall find our way to
victory, against all odds.”
“We are might for right,” he said, in summation. “For
what is right, for what is fair, for what is just, and for what is moral.
Let us hope that by this time next week, we shall be able to hold our heads
high and walk away from the battle proud of our victory.”
Everett
lifted his right hand up to his face, holding his two fingers between his
eyes, as if the blade of a sword. He lowered the hand and stepped out of
the light.
The knights departed.
And like his
peers, Everett
faded into the shadows, already preparing himself.
|