But then this fire, too, began to dwindle and become more sporadic, until there was only a single gun snapping from moment to moment. When it, at last, fell silent, Cletus took the electric horse up and swung wide, away from the river into a position about five hundred meters upriver. Here he hovered, and waited.
Sure enough, within a very few minutes, he was able to make out movement in the jungle. Men were coming toward him, cautiously, and once more spread out in a skirmish line. The Neulander guerrillas, having encountered renewed evidence of what they thought was at least a sizable force at the lowest crossing, had chosen discretion over valor. They were withdrawing to the next higher crossing, where either their passage would not be barred or they would have the comfort of joining forces with that other group of their force which had been sent to cross at the middle ford.
Cletus swung wide once more, circled in, away from the river, and headed upstream toward the second crossing. As he approached this general area, he slowed the electric horse, to minimize the noise of its ducted fans, and crept along, high up, just under treetop level.
Shortly, he made contact with a second group of the guerrilla force, also in two skirmish lines, but a good nine hundred meters yet from the middle of the three river crossings. He paused long enough to plant another row of singleton personnel mines on trees in a line just downriver from the crossing, then slipped upriver again.
When he reached the area inland of the ford, highest up on the Blue River, where Jarnki and the others waited, he found that the third group of guerrillas, approaching this highest crossing, were not on schedule with the two other groups below. This upper group was already almost upon the crossing—less than 150 meters from it.
There was no time here for a careful reconnaissance before acting. Cletus swept across thirty meters in front of their first skirmish line, firing one long whistling burst from his cone rifle when he judged he was opposite the line's center.
Safely beyond the farther end of it, he waited until the snapping of answering fire from the guerrillas had died down, and then slipped back across their front once more, this time pausing to plant four singleton mines in their path. Once he was back beyond the downriver end of their lines, he set off a couple of these mines and began firing again.
The results were gratifying. The guerrillas opened up all along their front. Not only that, but, fortunately, the men he had left at the crossing, spooked by the guerrilla firing, began instinctively returning it with their cone rifles. The result, as far as the ear could tell, was a very good impression of two fair-sized groups in a fire-fight.
There was only one thing wrong with these additional sound effects Cletus was getting from his own men. One of the heavily whistling guns belonged to Jarnki; and evidently, from the sounds of it, the corporal was on the ground within fifteen meters of the front guerrilla lines—up where the exchange of shots could well prove lethal to him.
Cletus was tempted to swear, but stifled the urge. He pulsed a sharp message over his throat mike communicator to Jarnki to fall back. There was no response, and Jarnki's weapon went on speaking. This time Cletus did swear. Dropping his electric horse to just above the ground, he threaded the vehicle through the jungle cover up to right behind the corporal's position, led to it easily by the sound of Jarnki's firing.
The young soldier was lying in the prone position, legs spread out, his rifle barrel resting upon a rotting tree trunk, firing steadily. His face was as pale as the face of a man who has already lost half the blood in his body, but there was not a mark on him. Cletus had to dismount from the horse and shake the narrow shoulder above the whistling rifle before Jarnki would wake to the fact that anyone was beside him.
When he did become conscious of Cletus' presence, the convulsive reaction sent him scrambling to get to his feet like a startled cat. Cletus held him down against the ground with one hand and jerked the thumb of the other toward the crossing behind them.
"Fall back!" whispered Cletus harshly.
Jarnki stared, nodded, turned about and began to scramble on hands and legs toward the crossing. Cletus remounted the electric horse. Swinging wide again, he approached the guerrillas from their opposite side to ascertain their reaction to these unexpected sounds of opposition.
He was forced, in the end, to dismount from the electric horse and wriggle forward on his stomach after all, for perhaps ten meters, to get close enough to understand some of what was being said. Happily, what he heard was what he had hoped to hear. This group, like the group farthest downriver, had decided to stop and talk over these sounds of an unexpected opposition.
Painfully, Cletus wriggled back to the electric horse, mounted it and flew a wide curve once more back to the crossing itself. He reached it just as Jarnki, by this time back on his feet, also reached it. Jarnki had recovered some of his color, but he looked at Cletus apprehensively, as if expecting a tongue-lashing. Instead, Cletus grinned at him.
"You're a brave man, Corporal," Cletus said. "You just have to remember that we like to keep our brave men alive, if possible. They're more useful that way."
Jarnki blinked. He grinned uncertainly.
Cletus turned back to the electric horse and took one of his boxes of singleton mines. He handed it to Jarnki.
"Plant these between fifty and eighty meters out," Cletus said. "Just be sure you don't take any chances on getting shot while you're doing it. Then hang back in front of those Neulanders as they advance, and keep them busy, both with the mines and with your weapon. Your job is to slow those Neulanders down until I can get back up here to help you. At a guess, that's going to be anywhere from another forty-five minutes to an hour and a half. Do you think you can do it?"
"We'll do it," said Jarnki.
"I'll leave it to you, then," said Cletus.
He mounted the electric horse, swung out over the river and headed down to make contact with the group of guerrillas moving toward the middle ford.
They were doing just that when he found them. The Neulanders were by this time fairly close to the middle crossing, and right in among his mines. There was no time like the present—Cletus set them off, and compounded the situation by cruising the Neulander rear and firing a number of bursts at random into them.
They returned his fire immediately; but, shortly after that, their return shooting became sporadic and ceased. The silence that followed lengthened and lengthened. When there had been no shots for five minutes, Cletus circled downriver with the electric horse and came up behind where the middle-crossing group had been when it was firing back at him.
They were not there, and, following cautiously just under treetop level, he soon caught up with them. They were headed upriver, and their numbers seemed to have doubled. Clearly, the group from the lower crossing had joined up with them and with common consent both groups were now headed for the highest crossing and a reunion with the group scheduled to cross there.
It was as he had expected. These infiltrators were saboteurs rather than soldiers. They would have been strictly ordered to avoid military action along the way to their destination if it was at all possible to avoid it. He followed them carefully until they were almost in contact with the group of their fellows pinned down at the highest crossing, and then swung out over the river to reconnoiter the situation at that crossing.
He came in from above and cautiously explored the situation of the upper guerrilla group. They were strung out in a ragged semicircle the ends of which did not quite reach the riverbanks some sixty meters above and thirty meters below the crossing. They were laying down fire but making no real effort to fight their way across the river—as he listened, the sound of their firing dwindled and there was a good deal of shouting back and forth as the two groups from downriver joined them.
Hovering above ground level, Cletus produced a snooper mike from the equipment bar of the horse and slipped its earphone to his right ear. He swung the snooper barrel, scanning the undergrowth, but the only conversations he could pick up were
by ordinary members of the guerrilla force, none by officers discussing the action they would take next. This was unfortunate. If he had been up to crawling fifty meters or so to make a personal reconnaissance—but he was not, and there was no point considering it. Reconnaissance on the electric horse would by now be too risky. There remained the business of putting himself in the shoes of the guerrilla force commander and trying to second-guess the man's thoughts. Cletus half-closed his eyes, relaxing in the same fashion as he had relaxed that morning in order to conquer the pain of his knee. Eyelids drooping, slumping bonelessly in the saddle of the horse, he let his mind go free.
For a long moment there was nothing but a random sequence of thoughts flowing across the surface of his consciousness. Then his imagination steadied down, and a concept began to form. He felt as though he was no longer sitting on the seat of the electric horse, but standing on the soft, spongy surface of the jungle floor, his camouflaged suit glued to his body by sweat as he squinted up at the sun, which was already past its zenith, moving into afternoon. An irritation of combined frustration and apprehension filled his mind. He looked back down at the circle of guerrilla under-officers gathered about him and realized that he had to make an immediate decision. Two-thirds of his force had already failed to get across the Blue River at the time and places they were supposed to cross. Now, already behind schedule, he was faced with the last opportunity for a crossing—but also with the opposition of enemy forces, in what strength he did not know.
Clearly, at least one thing was true. The infiltration of this group he commanded had turned out to be not the secret from the Exotics that it had been expected it would be. To that extent, his mission was already a failure. If the Exotics had a force here to oppose him, what kind of opposition could he expect on the way to the coast?
Clearly, the mission now stood little or no chance of success. Sensibly, it should be abandoned. But could he turn back through the paths now without some excuse to give his superiors so that he would not be accused of abandoning the mission for insufficient reason?
Clearly, he could not. He would have to make an attempt to fight his way across the river, and just hope that the Exotic forces would oppose him hard enough so that he would have an excuse to retreat …
Cletus returned to himself, opened his eyes and straightened up in the saddle once more. Lifting the electric horse up just under treetop level once more, he tossed three singleton mines at different angles toward the guerrilla position, and then set them off in quick succession.
Immediately, also, he opened up with both his rifle and sidearm, holding the rifle tucked against his side and firing it with his right hand while firing his sidearm with the left.
From the crossing, and from the two other sides of the guerrilla position, came the sound of the gunfire of his soldiers upon the Neulanders.
Within seconds the guerrilla force was laying down answering fire. The racket was the worst to disturb the jungle so far this day. Cletus waited until it began to die down slightly, so that he could be heard. Then he took the loudspeaker horn from the crossbar of the electric horse. He lifted the horn to his lips and turned it on. His amplified voice thundered through the jungle:
"CEASE FIRING! CEASE FIRING! ALL ALLIANCE FORCES CEASE FIRING!"
The cone rifles of the men under Cletus' command fell silent about the guerrilla area. Gradually, the answering voice of the guerrilla weapons also dwindled and silence filled the jungle again. Cletus spoke once more through the loudspeaker horn:
"ATTENTION NEULANDERS! ATTENTION NEULANDERS! YOU ARE COMPLETELY SURROUNDED BY THE ALLIANCE EXPEDITIONARY FORCE TO BAKHALLA. FURTHER RESISTANCE CAN ONLY END IN YOUR BEING WIPED OUT. THOSE WHO WISH TO SURRENDER WILL BE GIVEN HONORABLE TREATMENT IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE ESTABLISHED RULES GOVERNING THE CARE OF PRISONERS OF WAR. THIS IS THE COMMANDER OF THE ALLIANCE FORCE SPEAKING. MY MEN WILL HOLD THEIR FIRE FOR THREE MINUTES, DURING WHICH YOU WILL BE GIVEN A CHANCE TO SURRENDER. THOSE WISHING TO SURRENDER MUST DIVEST THEMSELVES OF ALL WEAPONS AND WALK INTO THE CLEARING AT THE CROSSING IN PLAIN SIGHT WITH THEIR HANDS CLASPED ON TOP OF THEIR HEAD. I REPEAT, THOSE WISHING TO SURRENDER MUST DIVEST THEMSELVES OF ALL WEAPONS AND WALK INTO PLAIN SIGHT IN THE CLEARING AT THE CROSSING WITH THEIR HANDS CLASPED ON TOP OF THEIR HEAD. YOU HAVE THREE MINUTES TO SURRENDER IN THIS FASHION STARTING FROM WHEN I SAY NOW."
Cletus paused for a moment, then added:
"ANY MEMBERS OF THE INVADING FORCE WHO HAVE NOT SURRENDERED BY THE TIME THREE MINUTES IS UP WILL BE CONSIDERED AS INTENDING TO CONTINUE RESISTANCE, AND MEMBERS OF THE ALLIANCE FORCE ARE INSTRUCTED TO OPEN FIRE UPON SUCH INDIVIDUALS ON SIGHT. THE THREE MINUTES IN WHICH TO SURRENDER WILL NOW BEGIN. NOW!"
He clicked off the loudspeaker horn, replaced it on the horse and quickly swung toward the river, out and around to where he had a view of the clearing without being visible himself. For a long moment nothing happened. Then there was a rustle of leaves, and a man in a Neulander camouflage suit, his hands clasped over his head and some jungle grass still stuck in his bushy beard, stepped into the clearing. Even from where Cletus watched, the whites of the guerrilla's eyes were visible and he looked about him apprehensively. He came forward hesitantly until he was roughly in the center of the clearing, then stopped, looking about him, his hands still clasped on top of his head.
A moment later another guerrilla appeared in the clearing; and suddenly they were coming from every direction.
Cletus sat watching and counting for a couple of minutes. By the end of the time, forty-three men had entered the clearing to surrender. Cletus nodded, thoughtfully. Forty-three men out of a total of three groups of thirty guerrillas—or ninety—all told. It was as he had expected.
He glanced down along the riverbank to the place, less than ten meters from him, where Jarnki crouched with the two other men who had been left here to defend this crossing and were now covering the growing mass of prisoners. "Ed," Cletus transmit-pulsed at the young corporal. "Ed, look to your right."
Jarnki looked sharply to his right, and jerked a little in startlement at seeing Cletus so close. Cletus beckoned to him. Cautiously, still crouching low to keep under the ridge of the riverbank, Jarnki ran up to where Cletus hovered on the electric horse a few feet off the ground.
As Jarnki came up, Cletus set the vehicle down on the ground and, safely screened from the clearing by the jungle bushes before him, stepped stiffly off the horse and stretched himself gratefully. "Sir?" said Jarnki, inquiringly.
"I want you to hear this," said Cletus. He turned to the horse again and set its communications unit for the channel number of Lieutenant Athyer, over on the Blue River. "Lieutenant," he pulse-messaged, "this is Colonel Grahame." There was a short pause, and then the reply came, crackling not only in the earphones plug in Cletus' ear but over the small speaker built into the electric horse, which Cletus had just turned on. "Colonel?" said Athyer. "What is it?"
"It seems the Neulander guerrillas attempted to infiltrate across the Blue River crossings here, after all," Cletus said. "We were lucky and managed to capture about half of them—"
"Guerrillas? Captured? Half … " Athyer's voice faltered in the earphones and over the speaker.
"But that isn't why I messaged," Cletus went on. "The other half got away from us. They'll be headed back toward the pass, to escape back into Neuland. But you're closer to the pass than they are. If you get there with even half your men, you ought to be able to round up the rest of them without any trouble."
"Trouble? Look … I … how do I know the situation's the way you say it is? I … "
"Lieutenant," said Cletus, and for the first time he put a slight emphasis on the word, "I just told you. We've captured half their force, here at the upper crossing on the Blue."
"Well … yes … Colonel. I understand that. But—"
Cletus cut him short. "Then get going, Lieutenant," he said. "If you don't move fast, you may miss them."
"Yes, sir. Of course. I'll message you again, shortly, Colonel … Maybe y
ou'd better hold your prisoners there, until they can be picked up by support ship … Uh, some of them might get away if you try to move them through the jungle with only your six men." Athyer's voice was strengthening as he got control of himself. But there was a bitter note in it. Clearly, the implications of the capture of a large group of enemy infiltrators by a desk-bound theoretician, when Athyer himself was the sole field officer in command of the capturing force, was beginning to register on him. There was little hope that General Traynor would overlook this kind of a failure on his part.
His voice was grim as he went on.
"Do you need a medic?" he asked. "I can spare you one of the two I've got here and send him right over by one of the support ships, now that secrecy's out and the Neulanders know we're here."
"Thanks, Lieutenant. Yes, we could use a medic," said Cletus. "Good luck with the rest of them."
"Thanks," said Athyer, coldly. "Out, sir."
"Out," replied Cletus.
He cut transmission, stepped away from the electric horse and lowered himself stiffly to the ground into a sitting position, with his back to a nearby boulder.
"Sir?" said Jarnki. "What do we need a medic for? None of the men got hurt. You don't mean you, sir … ?"
"Me," said Cletus.
He extended his left leg, reached down and took his combat knife from its boot sheath. With its blade he ripped open his left pants leg, from above the knee to the top of his boot. The knee he revealed was extremely swollen and not pretty to look at. He reached for the first-aid kit at his belt and took out a spray hypo. He put the blunt nose of the spray against his wrist and pulled the trigger. The cool shock of the spray being driven through his skin directly into his bloodstream was like the touch of a finger of peace.
The Tactics Of Mistake Page 8
