Hubbard, L. Ron (4 page)

"What's up?"

Malcolm realized then, possibly from the sharpness of the tone, that he had done wrong.

"What's up?" repeated the lieutenant insistently.

Malcolm put a good face on it. "I shouldn't tell you, but we're out of touch with England. There's been no food for three months."

"That isn't all you can tell me!'

Malcolm squirmed. "Well, if you'll have it. G.H.Q. is recalling all field troops. General Victor is thinking of withdrawing from our present base into the south where there may be some fertile area. It will be better for all of us." Sycophant that he was, he sought to allay further questioning.

"I was sent expressly to get you. Your ability is well known and appreciated, and Victor feels that, with you guiding operations, we cannot fail."

The lieutenant brushed it aside. "You're telling me that England
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not England but those damned Communists there
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have forbidden us ever to return."

"Well
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the quarantine did that."

"But it left room for hope," said the lieutenant.

Malcolm was silent.

"They're afraid," said the lieutenant. "Afraid we'll come back and turn their government appetite over dixie." He laughed sharply. "Poor little shivering fools! Why, there aren't ten thousand British troops left in the world outside of England. Not one man where there was once a thousand.

We've battered French and German and Russian and Italian and German again until we're as few as they. First we came over to get machine tools and food. Then, with one excuse or another they began to tell us false tales of impending invasion but it has been two years since we could locate anything you could call a political entity on this continent. We can't go home because we'll take the sickness. And what are we here? We're mixed up with fifty nationalities, commanded by less than a hundred officers, scattered from Egypt to Archangel. Ten thousand men and ten million, twenty million graves. Outcasts, men without a country. A whole generation wiped out by shot and starvation and sickness and those that are left scarcely able to keep belly, ribs and jacket together. And they're afraid of us in England!"

It had its effect upon Malcolm. He had been out only two years. Sent originally full of hope and swagger with a message for General Victor from the supreme council and never afterwards allowed to return home. For a moment he forgot his fear of a field officer, remembering instead a certain girl, weeping on a dock. "I'll get back some way. It's not final. I'll see her again!"

"Not under Victor, you won't.

"Wait," cautioned Malcolm, afraid again. "He's your superior officer."

"Perhaps," and in that word Malcolm read direful things.

"But you'll obey him?" said Malcolm.

"And go back to G.H.Q.? Certainly."

Malcolm sighed a little with relief. How dull these field officers were at times! Didn't they ever hear anything? But then, thirty or more outfits had innocently obeyed that order, little knowing that they would be stripped of their commands immediately upon arrival and asked to be off and out of sight of the offended staff. But, no, the lieutenant would not understand until the whole thing was over. There was nothing unreasonable in this to Malcolm. Importance now was measured only by the number of troops an officer commanded. It was not likely that the staff would leave mutinous field officers at the head of soldiers and thus menace the very foundation of the general staff.

"They've had their way in England," said the lieutenant. "Yes. They've had their way."

Malcolm was troubled again. He quickly redirected the lieutenant's line of thought. "It will be all right when we have a new post. Well carve out a large section of fertile country and there'll be food enough for all."

"Yes?" said the lieutenant.

Malcolm could read nothing from that at all. He shivered involuntarily, for he had heard strange tales from out of the darkness of the Continent.

"What's this?" said the lieutenant. "Fever? Carstone! Draw a drink off that Belgian alcohol machine gun and give it to Captain Malcolm."

"Thanks," said Malcolm, affected.

The lieutenant got up and stretched. To look at him one would not suspect that he had been starved his entire life, for his body was firm and healthy. He had been born into hardship and he had thrived upon it. He smoothed out his blond hair with his fingers and set an Italian duriron helmet upon his head. He shrugged into his tunic and buckled his belts. Out of habit he checked over his automatic, examining each bullet in the three clips.

Mawkey, a little fellow with a twisted spine and a set of diabolical eyes, who usually waited upon the lieutenant, came forward with a rag and wiped the lieutenant's boots. Then, from a broken limb he took down the bulletproof cape which had been captured from a Swiss nearly four years ago. It was inch-thick silk, weighing almost thirty pounds in itself and weighted further by the slugs. Which had lodged in it and which could not be cut out without ruining it. Mawkey fastened it about the lieutenant's shoulders and then began to pack the shaving effects into a gas-mask container.

"Where have you been?" said the lieutenant.

"I took a personal scout," said Mawkey, pointing to his superfine eyes, the best in the brigade. He grinned evilly. "Russians begin to move about daylight; they creep down ravines toward here. I see officers on hummock up there." He pointed to an exposed hill. "See them?"

"No. Just a cap here and there."

"The officers, you say?"

"See! The sun hit a field glass!"

"I didn't but we'll take your word "Good Heaven, man," said Malcolm, "you're not just going to sit here and wait for them!"

"Why not? Would you have us charge across the open at men with artillery?"

"No, but
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"

"Take it easy," said the lieutenant. "Sergeant, bring all but two posts in.

Be ready to march in ten minutes."

"Yessir."

"March?" said Malcolm. "But where?"

A sentry came wriggling out of the brush and ran to the lieutenant. "I zee seex, seven Russian patrol come." And he pointed west.

And an instant later two more sentries came in breathlessly, pointing to the south and the east. The Russian post of command had already been indicated in the north.

"You're caught!" said Malcolm. "They've spotted you by your fires!"

"Bulger, throw on a few green sticks to make more smoke," replied the lieutenant. "Have you got all the wrong caliber ammunition, Pollard?"

"And some from the fortress down there, sir."

"Good. Put a squad to work gathering all the dry wood in sight. Stand by to throw it on the fires. Carstone, better check your pneumatics."

"Yessir."

"Yessir."

"Toutou, stand by to head the rear guard and pick your men."

"Yess, yess, mon lieutenant."

"Good Heaven, old boy!" said Malcolm. "Of what use is a rear guard when there is nowhere to retreat? Oh, yes, I know. I'm steady. But every time I see one of you field officers preparing a defense or attack, I get a headache. You aren't according to the book, you know, not at all. I say, how fine it would be to have some artillery ourselves."

"Worthless stuff."

"Eh?"

"If I had an antitank rifle and a trench mortar, what would be the result?

Lord, didn't they prove that years ago? One side cancels out the damage of the other by inflicting just as much. Chap called Napoleon brought artillery into style, or so these French tell me. Absolutely useless stuff except for pounding down a wall. As useless as airplanes. Too many casualties and grief for too little fun."

"Fun?"

"Why not? Herrero, give Bulger a hand with his kettles. "

The camp was boiling with efficient activity. Carstone's crews were hard at work upon the pneumatic machine guns. Once they had been run by gasoline with the hand compressors as auxiliary. But now there was only the auxiliary. Four men were priming them to full load while Carstone checked their battered gauges. Born out of the problem that a machine gun is always located by its noise, the pneumatics. had stayed to solve the problem of scanty ammunition, for they fired slugs salvaged from British issue in which the powder had decayed. And there were plenty of such dumps. They were mismatched weapons at best, for their carriages had been intended for ambitious supersonic weapons which had been designed to kill at five hundred yards. But these, when their condensers had failed and their batteries could not be replaced had long since become part of the European terrain, only the wheels and mounts surviving.

The lieutenant paced about the clearing, checking up, watching for the last posts to come in and the first Russian to appear.

And then the Weasel popped up, yelling, "Shell!"

An instant later everyone heard it and then saw it. It was a trench mortar, tumbling down the sky. Somebody, having pity for a man who had never seen one, bore Malcolm backward into cover of the caisson. The bomb struck and exploded, directly in the center of the clearing. Shrapnel screamed wickedly as it tore through the already maimed trees.

In that shower of death it seemed preposterous that any of the hundred and sixty-eight could have escaped, for the trench mortar was of very large caliber. But the fragments had barely ceased screaming when men again populated the clearing. A swift survey showed that only a kettle and a pack had suffered and the latter but slightly.

"Toutou!" said the lieutenant. "Take cover in that passage mouth to cover us."

"Yess, yess, mon lieutenant."

"Double file, follow me!" cried the lieutenant, striding to the top of the largest entrance of the fortress. At the top he paused. "All right.

Quickly. Down with you." And he passed his hurrying men by him and below with a gesture.

A shrill piping, growing stronger, again cleared the place as though by magic. The three-pounder blazed out and shrapnel again hammered the wood. But the men were up and hurrying through its smoke before branches had ceased to fall.

"Pollard!" said the lieutenant.

"Yessir," replied the sergeant major.

"Give a hand. Get down below there, Malcolm. Were all right. All below, now."

With the sergeant's help the lieutenant began to pile the dry brush upon the fire. Mawkey, in the entrance, yelped, "Mortar!"

It burst almost on the fire.

The lieutenant and Pollard slipped out from behind cover and completed the piling of the brush. Then, with the boxes supported between them, they began to empty two hundred pounds of assorted and cast-off bullets through the brush pile. An old device it was, almost as old as cartridges themselves but oldest things are often the surest.

"Shell!" howled Mawkey.

The piping ended in a roaring flash. The top of a tree leaned slowly over and then plummeted to earth. The lieutenant, up again, pulled the glass visor of his Italian helmet down over his face and wrapped his cloak tightly about him.

"Get down with our people there!" he shouted to Pollard.

The sergeant was reluctant, but he obeyed. By now, because of the pauses caused by the shells, a few of the cartridges were beginning to explode, in the brush pile. Slugs occasionally made the silk cloak whip up about the skirt. The lieutenant emptied the last box and dived down into the entrance.

Behind them a slow firing had commenced to mount in volume.

The lieutenant lifted his visor and thrust through the crowd which was huddled in the outer chamber. He raised his hand in the honored signal to follow him and plunged off along a corridor. The pavement was very uneven, broken up by roots. Here and there steel beams in the roof had rusted through to let down piles of rubble. About a hundred and twenty yards up the line they passed a barrack in which tier upon tier of collapsed bunks still held the skeletons of men who had been caught by the direct hit of a gas shell. Above, on another level, the twisted and corrosion-congealed remains of big guns stood like prehistoric monsters, forgotten by time.

From observation slots along the way, sheets of light came through, flicking along the passing column.

"I didn't know any of these were left." said Malcolm in an awed voice. "I'd heard about them being used once. How many dead there are here!"

"Fortress fever, mutinies. Toward the last, the pioneers had a trick of lowering gas grenades through the observation slots from above!'

Malcolm tripped over a sprawled human framework and a shaft of light caught in the gold of medals as they tinkled down through the ribs. He hurried on after the lieutenant.

There were whispers about them as the few surviving rats hid from them; rats once bold enough to attack a sleeping man and tear out his eyes before he could awake.

The column moved quietly. Long ago they had discarded the last of their hobnails, for these had a habit of scraping against stones and giving a maneuver away. They kept no step or order of march, for each, as an individual, had his own concern, his own method of caring for himself, and so they strung out far. Even though it had been years since such a fortress had been garrisoned by any of them, they instinctively took precaution against direct hits on the tunnel roof above them.