Cavalier

Chapter Ten

The next morning when he gets to the base, bright and early at oh-eight-hundred, David meets General Abner in a hallway close to David's office. He can't bring himself to be surprised when the General stops him, pulling him into a smaller, less-frequented break room nearby. "There are a lot of eyes on you, soldier," he says, and David nods and represses the urge to say, tell me something I don't know.

"I'm doing my best, sir," David says, and Abner nods, eyes piercing David like arrows as he tries to get a look at David's soul.

"Your report was good. A little sparse, but good."

"Not much happened yesterday, sir," David says. "I can only go so far with embellishing before it becomes a lie."

Abner purses his lips. "You better watch it, David—"

"Captain!"

Abner steps away as David turns and doesn't let his sigh of relief escape. Eleazar to the rescue. "I'll talk to you later," the General says, and David doesn't doubt it. By the time that Eleazar gets to him, Abner is long gone in the direction that he came from.

"You alright?" Eleazar says, skipping the pleasantries and looking just over David's shoulder. He's trying not to read David, which David appreciates very much; one of his least favourite things in the world is when his friends pretend they're shrinks.

"Yeah, I'm alright. Just Abner being Abner. 'S alright."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." But David does a quick self-evaluation anyways, judging how sweaty his palms are and how much his stomach is rolling and whether or not his thoughts are even allowing him to make the observations in the first place. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Eleazar makes smiling look really easy. "Alright."

-

The day passes in a blur, and before David dismisses everyone he takes a poll on what they should do with their first ever bonding weekend. The majority are split between two choices, camping and sailing, and they're split for a long time by the time they vote but Benaiah must have done some pretty persuasive talking when David wasn't around because the numbers for sailing, when he counts the votes, are significantly lower than they had been.

Either that or Benaiah rigged it. The fact that there's the correct number of votes doesn't mean a thing; Benaiah is still among the stealthiest men in their unit, if not the stealthiest. He could muck with the vote somehow. He sends in the request for leave Thursday before he leaves and it's sitting in his inbox early Friday morning; he prints it off and puts it in his pocket for safekeeping.

They leave around noon, once everybody is finally accounted for on base. It's a disaster and a half, of course; it rains a lot, half of the unit didn't bring enough clothes because they didn't count on this much rain, and the sound of rain on a tarp isn't the most conducive sound to fall asleep to. They get over their grumbling early in the weekend, though, and by the time the end of their excursion comes along they're doing things that definitely won't be making it home, never mind into any official report. Not even Jonathan will hear, even if Jonathan is at his most determined.

During their last supper, before they load the vehicles and head home, Benaiah holds up his bottle of beer in a mockery of a toast. "To David and his mighty men!"

David is taking a sip of his pop when Benaiah speaks; the pop makes a quick exit from his nose. "What? Benaiah, no—"

But the men cheer, the sober ones more subdued than the slightly intoxicated ones but they all still cheer. David says, "I object."