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The Sesimite
There lives a terrible creature in the jungle. It travels by night and lives under waterfalls. The locals say that it has feet that point backwards and it can walk down cliffs. It wanders by crossroads and it kills for food. It has the name of Sesimite to the people who share its land. It is called the Basilisk by outsiders.
A Sesimite causes lonely travelers to disappear. It can appear as an old man or a young boy. It offers to share food by its fire or asks for food at a camp. Its form is deceptive however. It is a huge and powerful creature and it can make people believe that it is something small and weak.
The tale is that it can take the form of the small basilisk lizard – the one that is rock colored but for a red stripe on its head. A young boy was lost in the jungle and came across an old man by a fire. The man offered to share his food and the boy was hungry. As the boy ate he accidentally knocked over his plate and it broke. When he reached down for the pieces he saw the old man’s feet. They pointed backwards and the boy knew that he was trapped by the Sesimite. Tales said that the Sesimite would spare young children but the boy did not want to take the chance. He seized a potsherd and flung it at the man and it struck him in the head. As the monster fell backwards with a red wound in its head, the boy fled. That is why the basilisk has a red head.
Sesimite is a hungry cold blooded killer in the jungle. He travels by night.
Van Houwen was a tall man with a broad chest and long arms. He had a ruddy face that seemed always to be red and he wore his red haircut short and spiked upwards. He lived by the mercenaries creed and he lived for the money he gained from that profession. Van Houwen had come from the neutral Netherlands to make money from the war between the Americans and their neighbors. His government had paid him to recruit a band of warriors and had sent them in a closed train across Byzantium to the jungles on the border between America and Germany.
Their job was to be insurgents. They fought a war with no objective for victory. They fought to fight. They took money from any side and they traveled where they would. The locals feared them and would leave if they had any warning. Unfortunately, Van Houwen’s warriors were good. The could travel all night and appear without a sound at early morning. They were mercenaries and they did their jobs well. His enemies feared him and his friends feared him more.
Colonel Wittenberg sat at Staff and listening impatiently to officers offering standard solutions to new problems. Germans trained their officers in every detail. There were case books for every situation. Soldiers were drilled and drilled until everything became second nature. Wittenberg had come up through a different path. His peers assumed that he was a “Von” Wittenberg because he was an officer. In reality he had started as an NCO in a position his middle class family had purchased for him. His skills in the border wars that were epidemic had earned him promotion. His skillful defenses during the near breakdown of the military during the American invasion had won him a commission.
Wittenberg knew the western frontier. He had lived in the jungle and fought over the mountains. As he listened to one officer after another propose variations of larger and slower armies to fight the guerillas, he felt his frustration welling up.
He interrupted, “Yes, yes, large slow columns may work against a civilized opponent but they have no chance of catching small armies that melt away faster than troops can advance. This enemy needs no base of supplies – they live off what they capture from us. They have no barracks and home that they need to defend. They can fight when they want and flee when they need. Lessons from the past do not prepare us well for dealing with the changing times we live in.”
Snorts of disgust and derision rose up in protest from down the long table where the generals sat with their helmets neatly set in front of them. A noise from an upstart unlanded colonel was not well received. General Munchen, at the head of the table, pounded down with the heel of his hand. “Gentlemen, this is the first opposing opinion that we have heard today. Even if it is incorrect it could still guide us to a solution. Let us give young Wittenberg a chance to express himself and then discuss the shortcomings.”
Munchen looked down the table. “Please continue. We will be interested to hear your solution.”
Wittenberg gulped quietly. He thought to himself, “Now see where your temper has gotten you!” With a brief pause, during which he pretended to be reading notes, he pressed on.
“We don’t know where these forces came from and more importantly, who is paying them. We need to decide on our advantages and push forward on several fronts. First, espionage branch needs to infiltrate or otherwise discover which nation is actually paying for this revolt. Second, we need to stem the onslaught while we are working on the diplomatic side. If we can cause a bloody repulse or two, we should buy time. Mercenaries don’t take money to die. They don’t want to fight. They want profit and terror.”
“But how do we achieve the necessary battle if not with trained troops in formations?” interrupted Munchen.
“By deciding on our real advantages. We have supply and weapons. We have trained soldiers that fight for a cause rather than money. That means that we have a trust that they do not. We can plan more thoroughly. But for this to work, we need different formations. We need small and flexible teams that can travel light and more for days without contact. We need leaders that know the ground and who can plan an entire campaign, not just the reaction to sporadic attacks.”
Wittenberg stopped because he had lost his energy. “There, I have said what needed to be said.” And he sat down.
A general stood up. “This formation could not succeed. We could not keep the necessary discipline. It is discipline that has always given us the edge to win our wars. We have always been a poor country and we have made up for our deficiencies with our will. A scattered weak force would drain the force from the mailed fist that is our army!”
“And that mailed fist was blunted by the Americans,” stated Munchen. The other general flushed and sat down. “Our will does not make up for the cavalry that our enemies have but we don’t. It does not make up for their massed artillery.”
“I think…. that the young colonel’s plan could be tried out.” He waved his arms palm down in a placating gesture in response to the growls from around the room. “We need somebody close to the action and who can be flexible. Somebody who has already spent time in the region and fighting. Somebody with authority but still junior enough that his failure will not be a great problem.” Munchen again looked down the table.
Wittenberg had the feeling that all air had been sucked out of the room. His focus became pinhole sized and directed at the mouth of General Munchen. “Young Wittenberg will have the command and responsibility for the ground forces that will control the mercenaries. He will develop a plan for the espionage and diplomatic options that will support the attack.
“In the meantime, we will have need for our armies again. We know that the Inca have taken up the battle with the Americans. They have deadlocked both armies far in the north and away from Germany. The Kaiser has asked us to regain Cologne and Bremen while the Americans are spread so thin. We will call up the reserves in secret and mass them on the borders. We expect to cross the borders in three weeks. In the meantime young Colonel Wittenberg will carry on his campaign and will help to secure our flanks and to secure the countryside once we have reoccupied it.”
He smiled a humorless smile. “The people of that captured countryside have been enjoying the soft American life too well it seems. They will remember their duty when German arms visit them again.
Carlos watched the huddled backs of his two companions as they slopped down a path through the blinding rain. Everything seemed to be in excess in the jungle. Too much sun, too much heat and when it rained, too much rain. The difficulty was to find a time to be dry. Clothes and leather rotted almost while a person watched. Metal rusted unless taken care of continuously and religiously. Thus Mbutu and Klaus up ahead walked with tents of canvas pulled over their heads to keep their guns and kit dry. Once a gun was ruined it had to be thrown away. Things like that became valuable.
There were jungles and jungles. The dry jungles to the south had vast regions of scrub full of toads and iguanas. This jungle was the rainy kind. Deep ravines and valleys full of concentrated and clinging green greeted visitors with an unwelcome embrace. Just as suddenly, steep and red earthed peaks could thrust themselves upwards from the edge of trees. Streams were flat and curved and glowed with an almost unhealthy turquoise essence. Openings in the canopy were rare and usually won by the descent of some great leafy monster. As soon as a tree toppled however, the neighbors crowded into the opening, looking for their chance to reach up to the burning sun.
Walking through the rain was never fun. The paths were traces at best. Under the force of a downpour they became rivers. The clay soil became a slippery and clinging morass. However, for Carlos and his friends, they could never afford to stop. Of all the people in the jungle, they had the least desire to be found. At the same time, they had the most friends.
Carlos had been tracked down at the bedside of Simon some months before. He expected to be found and arrested, but he needed to make the trip. However, things worked out differently than he thought they would.
The man’s name was Boone, he said. He would ask no questions about Carlos’ past. Only, did he want to help people who needed the special kind of help that a soldier could supply?
At that moment, in that hospital, Carlos felt he was at a crossroads. For all his command knew, he had died out on the battlefield defending a tank that was now blown up. “I’m tired of fighting mister. I’m tired of watching my friends die and watching people who could have been my friends die. My best friend lies here with his legs crushed and shot apart. I don’t know what this means any more. I’m tired of the fight but that is also all I know how to do it seems.” Carlos spread his hands in frustration.
“Buddy, I can’t speak for how you feel. But there are people, farmers and cattlemen, small, normal people who are caught in this war and they cannot defend themselves. I’m not looking for people who want to be noble. I’m just looking for people that want to make a tiny difference that means something to some very unimportant people. We need soldiers for a personal war. We especially need people who have fought in the east – maybe people who can speak some German.” He looked hopefully at Carlos.
“I don’t know. I, I don’t have a plan. I need to find my friends. We’ll all go together or not at all.”
“’K. Here’s where you can find me for the next two days. You should know, it’s your own country that is asking you to do this. And they’ll help. But they won’t ever admit that they know you. Just gotta be honest.” Boone passed Carlos the address and disappeared into the darkened corridors of the hospital. Carlos heard nurses coming to investigate the noise from their conversation.
He reached down to Simon and put his hand on his forehead. “Just be safe, pal. Don’t worry about me,” he spoke to his sleeping friend.
Carlos spent the next day looking for the field aid tents where Klaus and Mbutu had been taken. Again he approached in the night and found the two. It took little convincing to get them to pick up and leave. They sneaked into the dark and talked. Later they found Boone.
And months later, the three of them were marching through an endless jungled forest in an endless rain. They had their friends and had given up their pasts. Their future was only a grey and rainy path.
There lives a terrible creature in the jungle. It travels by night and lives under waterfalls. The locals say that it has feet that point backwards and it can walk down cliffs. It wanders by crossroads and it kills for food. It has the name of Sesimite to the people who share its land. It is called the Basilisk by outsiders.
A Sesimite causes lonely travelers to disappear. It can appear as an old man or a young boy. It offers to share food by its fire or asks for food at a camp. Its form is deceptive however. It is a huge and powerful creature and it can make people believe that it is something small and weak.
The tale is that it can take the form of the small basilisk lizard – the one that is rock colored but for a red stripe on its head. A young boy was lost in the jungle and came across an old man by a fire. The man offered to share his food and the boy was hungry. As the boy ate he accidentally knocked over his plate and it broke. When he reached down for the pieces he saw the old man’s feet. They pointed backwards and the boy knew that he was trapped by the Sesimite. Tales said that the Sesimite would spare young children but the boy did not want to take the chance. He seized a potsherd and flung it at the man and it struck him in the head. As the monster fell backwards with a red wound in its head, the boy fled. That is why the basilisk has a red head.
Sesimite is a hungry cold blooded killer in the jungle. He travels by night.
Van Houwen was a tall man with a broad chest and long arms. He had a ruddy face that seemed always to be red and he wore his red haircut short and spiked upwards. He lived by the mercenaries creed and he lived for the money he gained from that profession. Van Houwen had come from the neutral Netherlands to make money from the war between the Americans and their neighbors. His government had paid him to recruit a band of warriors and had sent them in a closed train across Byzantium to the jungles on the border between America and Germany.
Their job was to be insurgents. They fought a war with no objective for victory. They fought to fight. They took money from any side and they traveled where they would. The locals feared them and would leave if they had any warning. Unfortunately, Van Houwen’s warriors were good. The could travel all night and appear without a sound at early morning. They were mercenaries and they did their jobs well. His enemies feared him and his friends feared him more.
Colonel Wittenberg sat at Staff and listening impatiently to officers offering standard solutions to new problems. Germans trained their officers in every detail. There were case books for every situation. Soldiers were drilled and drilled until everything became second nature. Wittenberg had come up through a different path. His peers assumed that he was a “Von” Wittenberg because he was an officer. In reality he had started as an NCO in a position his middle class family had purchased for him. His skills in the border wars that were epidemic had earned him promotion. His skillful defenses during the near breakdown of the military during the American invasion had won him a commission.
Wittenberg knew the western frontier. He had lived in the jungle and fought over the mountains. As he listened to one officer after another propose variations of larger and slower armies to fight the guerillas, he felt his frustration welling up.
He interrupted, “Yes, yes, large slow columns may work against a civilized opponent but they have no chance of catching small armies that melt away faster than troops can advance. This enemy needs no base of supplies – they live off what they capture from us. They have no barracks and home that they need to defend. They can fight when they want and flee when they need. Lessons from the past do not prepare us well for dealing with the changing times we live in.”
Snorts of disgust and derision rose up in protest from down the long table where the generals sat with their helmets neatly set in front of them. A noise from an upstart unlanded colonel was not well received. General Munchen, at the head of the table, pounded down with the heel of his hand. “Gentlemen, this is the first opposing opinion that we have heard today. Even if it is incorrect it could still guide us to a solution. Let us give young Wittenberg a chance to express himself and then discuss the shortcomings.”
Munchen looked down the table. “Please continue. We will be interested to hear your solution.”
Wittenberg gulped quietly. He thought to himself, “Now see where your temper has gotten you!” With a brief pause, during which he pretended to be reading notes, he pressed on.
“We don’t know where these forces came from and more importantly, who is paying them. We need to decide on our advantages and push forward on several fronts. First, espionage branch needs to infiltrate or otherwise discover which nation is actually paying for this revolt. Second, we need to stem the onslaught while we are working on the diplomatic side. If we can cause a bloody repulse or two, we should buy time. Mercenaries don’t take money to die. They don’t want to fight. They want profit and terror.”
“But how do we achieve the necessary battle if not with trained troops in formations?” interrupted Munchen.
“By deciding on our real advantages. We have supply and weapons. We have trained soldiers that fight for a cause rather than money. That means that we have a trust that they do not. We can plan more thoroughly. But for this to work, we need different formations. We need small and flexible teams that can travel light and more for days without contact. We need leaders that know the ground and who can plan an entire campaign, not just the reaction to sporadic attacks.”
Wittenberg stopped because he had lost his energy. “There, I have said what needed to be said.” And he sat down.
A general stood up. “This formation could not succeed. We could not keep the necessary discipline. It is discipline that has always given us the edge to win our wars. We have always been a poor country and we have made up for our deficiencies with our will. A scattered weak force would drain the force from the mailed fist that is our army!”
“And that mailed fist was blunted by the Americans,” stated Munchen. The other general flushed and sat down. “Our will does not make up for the cavalry that our enemies have but we don’t. It does not make up for their massed artillery.”
“I think…. that the young colonel’s plan could be tried out.” He waved his arms palm down in a placating gesture in response to the growls from around the room. “We need somebody close to the action and who can be flexible. Somebody who has already spent time in the region and fighting. Somebody with authority but still junior enough that his failure will not be a great problem.” Munchen again looked down the table.
Wittenberg had the feeling that all air had been sucked out of the room. His focus became pinhole sized and directed at the mouth of General Munchen. “Young Wittenberg will have the command and responsibility for the ground forces that will control the mercenaries. He will develop a plan for the espionage and diplomatic options that will support the attack.
“In the meantime, we will have need for our armies again. We know that the Inca have taken up the battle with the Americans. They have deadlocked both armies far in the north and away from Germany. The Kaiser has asked us to regain Cologne and Bremen while the Americans are spread so thin. We will call up the reserves in secret and mass them on the borders. We expect to cross the borders in three weeks. In the meantime young Colonel Wittenberg will carry on his campaign and will help to secure our flanks and to secure the countryside once we have reoccupied it.”
He smiled a humorless smile. “The people of that captured countryside have been enjoying the soft American life too well it seems. They will remember their duty when German arms visit them again.
Carlos watched the huddled backs of his two companions as they slopped down a path through the blinding rain. Everything seemed to be in excess in the jungle. Too much sun, too much heat and when it rained, too much rain. The difficulty was to find a time to be dry. Clothes and leather rotted almost while a person watched. Metal rusted unless taken care of continuously and religiously. Thus Mbutu and Klaus up ahead walked with tents of canvas pulled over their heads to keep their guns and kit dry. Once a gun was ruined it had to be thrown away. Things like that became valuable.
There were jungles and jungles. The dry jungles to the south had vast regions of scrub full of toads and iguanas. This jungle was the rainy kind. Deep ravines and valleys full of concentrated and clinging green greeted visitors with an unwelcome embrace. Just as suddenly, steep and red earthed peaks could thrust themselves upwards from the edge of trees. Streams were flat and curved and glowed with an almost unhealthy turquoise essence. Openings in the canopy were rare and usually won by the descent of some great leafy monster. As soon as a tree toppled however, the neighbors crowded into the opening, looking for their chance to reach up to the burning sun.
Walking through the rain was never fun. The paths were traces at best. Under the force of a downpour they became rivers. The clay soil became a slippery and clinging morass. However, for Carlos and his friends, they could never afford to stop. Of all the people in the jungle, they had the least desire to be found. At the same time, they had the most friends.
Carlos had been tracked down at the bedside of Simon some months before. He expected to be found and arrested, but he needed to make the trip. However, things worked out differently than he thought they would.
The man’s name was Boone, he said. He would ask no questions about Carlos’ past. Only, did he want to help people who needed the special kind of help that a soldier could supply?
At that moment, in that hospital, Carlos felt he was at a crossroads. For all his command knew, he had died out on the battlefield defending a tank that was now blown up. “I’m tired of fighting mister. I’m tired of watching my friends die and watching people who could have been my friends die. My best friend lies here with his legs crushed and shot apart. I don’t know what this means any more. I’m tired of the fight but that is also all I know how to do it seems.” Carlos spread his hands in frustration.
“Buddy, I can’t speak for how you feel. But there are people, farmers and cattlemen, small, normal people who are caught in this war and they cannot defend themselves. I’m not looking for people who want to be noble. I’m just looking for people that want to make a tiny difference that means something to some very unimportant people. We need soldiers for a personal war. We especially need people who have fought in the east – maybe people who can speak some German.” He looked hopefully at Carlos.
“I don’t know. I, I don’t have a plan. I need to find my friends. We’ll all go together or not at all.”
“’K. Here’s where you can find me for the next two days. You should know, it’s your own country that is asking you to do this. And they’ll help. But they won’t ever admit that they know you. Just gotta be honest.” Boone passed Carlos the address and disappeared into the darkened corridors of the hospital. Carlos heard nurses coming to investigate the noise from their conversation.
He reached down to Simon and put his hand on his forehead. “Just be safe, pal. Don’t worry about me,” he spoke to his sleeping friend.
Carlos spent the next day looking for the field aid tents where Klaus and Mbutu had been taken. Again he approached in the night and found the two. It took little convincing to get them to pick up and leave. They sneaked into the dark and talked. Later they found Boone.
And months later, the three of them were marching through an endless jungled forest in an endless rain. They had their friends and had given up their pasts. Their future was only a grey and rainy path.
thank you for this Golden Bear
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