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rendezvous at Blind Creek Point four miles down. Most of us should make it.
And we have found out what we came to find Out, The Hard Heads are back, and
in number. Now move, men."
"Just a minute," said an unfamiliar voice. "I will give the orders
here." Or was it a familiar voice with an unfamiliar ring to it?
"Who said that?"
"I said that. And I will be obeyed. Are you not accustomed to taking
orders from an officer?" asked Lieutenant Littlejohn.
"The Lieutenant will be obeyed," said Sergeant Rand. "And what are the
Lieutenant's orders on this?"
"First we will trigger off the action with an apparently casual shot.
And then we will retreat, but not back the way we came. We will run very low
down this gully here on the edge of the Marsilia complex. And we will gather
in a pocket on the other end. There appears to be very good cover there. And
three men, Mueller, Redwolf, and Cross, will hold this end till we are all
down. It's narrow and crested here, and three men can hold it for a while.
And, once we are in the pocket, they will have to come to us, and singly, or a
few at a time. The gully is narrow. And it is bound to have a back door."
"But, Lieutenant, that's two hundred yards. And it's only crawl cover.
They'll shoot us like turkeys as we go down. And what's the use of holding one
end of the gully when the entire length of it would be open to them?"
"But how would it be open to them? How would they get at it?"
"Are you crazy, Lieutenant? They'd cross that clearing in fifteen
seconds and have us head on."
"The clearing? But that's the Marsilia. They surely wouldn't venture to
cross that."
"Lieutenant, you're in a child's world. I'm sure the Hard Heads will not
respect the Marsilia, as you call it."
"Then this is better than I hoped," said the Lieutenant. "If you don't
understand, then maybe they won't either. I read a warning once about
over-estimating an enemy. It makes for timidity, Now, if you are ready, men, I
will give the order."
"How about it, Rand?" asked Meadows. "We are looking to you."
"Do you know what you're doing, Lieutenant Littlejohn?" Rand asked.
"Yes, I know what I'm doing."
"The Lieutenant will be obeyed," said Sergeant Rand.
"I have just looked into my coffin," said Pop Parker. "I hadn't
particularly wanted a dirt one, but it looks as though I will get it."
"The beauty of the dirt ones is that they will fit anyone," said Pvt.
Crawford. "And there are always enough to go around. But we will soon fill up
eighteen."
"I only knew one man who seriously claimed to be afraid of nothing,"
said Sergeant Rand. "But the peculiar thing is that he was afraid to die when
the time came. He's the only one I ever remember who was afraid to die when it
came down to it. A man usually isn't afraid of death when it comes really
near. But he's embarrassed over it. it's an awkward and unaccountable thing.
And it cannot meet your eye when it comes. It's a shuffling skulker. But it's
no great thing to die. Anyone can do it. The defeating thing is to have to do
it needlessly."
"And tell her not to wait for me " For I'm not coming home," sang PFC
Jennings softly.
"The order will be the rifle shot of PFC Redwolf," said the Lieutenant.
"Corporal Mueller has already given him his target. Have you still your eye on
your man? Then aim quickly and fire. Now move, men, move. And don't worry
about a thing."
Redwolf killed the Hard Head behind the kapok tree with a good shot, and
then things began to pop. The old devil was unchained and all sorts of things
began to come out of the pit.
Mueller, Redwolf, and Cross hunched down behind the crest, and the
remaining patrolmen crawled and stumbled and ran low, down the gully. Mueller
and his two men could probably have held the end of the gully for several
minutes, except that they would be out-flanked in a matter of seconds.
For the trigger had set the whole jungle into motion. The hills rose
like green waves, and the earth burst open. The jungle-line ejected more than
a hundred of the enemy, green-brown men, moving like sure animals. No ribbon
clerks these. They were the old Hard Heads, the killer soldiers who struck
like a giant rat pack, all musk-animals, meaner than men, sharp pack-running
killers.
And, as the fifteen patrolmen stumbled down the gully, those Hard Heads
charged at them with a loose crackle of fire, came across that green-purple
meadow rapidly, more than a hundred of them with less than seventy-five yards
to go. Not over ten seconds for it. They came in a black rush like the teeth
of one great cutter blade. They came light and fast. And then, somehow, heavy
and fast.
They charged to take the fifteen men strung out single, crawling on
their bellies down the narrow ditch. Fifteen men with not over fifteen inches
of cover, and no firing room at all. Sitting ducks. Lying down ducks. Plain
dead ducks.
"Somehow I never intended to die on my belly like a snake," said
Meadows. He was nicked, and he watched a spate of red and black blood mix with
the green hot mud in a pattern that was also a premonition. He wasn nicked [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]