The Military Megapack

by Harry Harrison

  Suddenly from down near her feet the girl heard a crunching sound, a sort of a nibbling, as if some silent and very discreet terrier was at work upon the turf. She faltered back; here was no doubt another grotesque detail of this most unnatural episode. She did not run, because physically she was in the power of these events. Her feet chained her to the ground in submission to this march of terror after terror. As she stared at the spot from which this sound seemed to come, there floated through her mind a vague, sweet vision—a vision of her safe little room, in which at this hour she usually was sleeping.

  The scratching continued faintly and with frequent pauses, as if the terrier was then listening. When the girl first removed her eyes from the knothole the scene appeared of one velvet blackness; then gradually objects loomed with a dim lustre. She could see now where the tops of the trees joined the sky and the form of the barn was before her dyed in heavy purple. She was ever about to shriek, but no sound came from her constricted throat. She gazed at the ground with the expression of countenance of one who watches the sinister-moving grass where a serpent approaches.

  Dimly she saw a piece of sod wrenched free and drawn under the great foundation beam of the barn. Once she imagined that she saw human hands, not outlined at all, but sufficient in colour, form, or movement to make subtle suggestion.

  Then suddenly a thought that illuminated the entire situation flashed in her mind like a light. The three men, late of the feed box, were beneath the floor of the barn and were now scraping their way under this beam. She did not consider for a moment how they could come there. They were marvellous creatures. The supernatural was to be expected of them. She no longer trembled, for she was possessed upon this instant of the most unchangeable species of conviction. The evidence before her amounted to no evidence at all, but nevertheless her opinion grew in an instant from an irresponsible acorn to a rooted and immovable tree. It was as if she was on a jury.

  She stooped down hastily and scanned the ground. There she indeed saw a pair of hands hauling at the dirt where the sod had been displaced. Softly, in a whisper like a breath, she said, “Hey!”

  The dim hands were drawn hastily under the barn. The girl reflected for a moment. Then she stooped and whispered: “Hey! It’s me!”

  After a time there was a resumption of the digging. The ghostly hands began once more their cautious mining. She waited. In hollow reverberations from the interior of the barn came the frequent sounds of old Santo’s lazy movements. The sentry conversed with the prisoner.

  At last the girl saw a head thrust slowly from under the beam. She perceived the face of one of the miraculous soldiers from the feed box. A pair of eyes glintered and wavered, then finally settled upon her, a pale statue of a girl. The eyes became lit with a kind of humorous greeting. An arm gestured at her.

  Stooping, she breathed, “All right.” The man drew himself silently back under the beam. A moment later the pair of hands resumed their cautious task. Ultimately the head and arms of the man were thrust strangely from the earth. He was lying on his back. The girl thought of the dirt in his hair. Wriggling slowly and pushing at the beam above him he forced his way out of the curious little passage. He twisted his body and raised himself upon his hands. He grinned at the girl and drew his feet carefully from under the beam. When he at last stood erect beside her, he at once began mechanically to brush the dirt from his clothes with his hands. In the barn the sentry and his prisoner were evidently engaged in an argument.

  The girl and the first miraculous soldier signalled warily. It seemed that they feared that their arms would make noises in passing through the air. Their lips moved, conveying dim meanings.

  In this sign language the girl described the situation in the barn. With guarded motions, she told him of the importance of absolute stillness. He nodded, and then in the same manner he told her of his two companions under the barn floor. He informed her again of their wounded state, and wagged his head to express his despair. He contorted his face, to tell how sore were their arms; and jabbed the air mournfully, to express their remote geographical position.

  This signalling was interrupted by the sound of a body being dragged or dragging itself with slow, swishing sound under the barn. The sound was too loud for safety. They rushed to the hole and began to semaphore until a shaggy head appeared with rolling eyes and quick grin.

  With frantic downward motions of their arms they suppressed this grin and with it the swishing noise. In dramatic pantomime they informed this head of the terrible consequences of so much noise. The head nodded, and painfully but with extreme care the second man pushed and pulled himself from the hole.

  In a faint whisper the first man said, “Where’s Sim?”

  The second man made low reply. “He’s right here.” He motioned reassuringly toward the hole.

  When the third head appeared, a soft smile of glee came upon each face, and the mute group exchanged expressive glances.

  When they all stood together, free from this tragic barn, they breathed a long sigh that was contemporaneous with another smile and another exchange of glances.

  One of the men tiptoed to a knothole and peered into the barn. The sentry was at that moment speaking. “Yes, we know ’em all. There isn’t a house in this region that we don’t know who is in it most of the time. We collar ’em once in a while—like we did you. Now, that house out yonder, we—”

  The man suddenly left the knothole and returned to the others. Upon his face, dimly discerned, there was an indication that he had made an astonishing discovery. The others questioned him with their eyes, but he simply waved an arm to express his inability to speak at that spot. He led them back toward the hill, prowling carefully. At a safe distance from the barn he halted and as they grouped eagerly about him, he exploded in an intense undertone: “Why, that—that’s Cap’n Sawyer they got in yonder.”

  “Cap’n Sawyer!” incredulously whispered the other men.

  But the girl had something to ask. “How did you get out of that feed box?” He smiled. “Well, when you put us in there, we was just in a minute when we allowed it wasn’t a mighty safe place, and we allowed we’d get out. And we did. We skedaddled ’round and ’round until it ’peared like we was going to get cotched, and then we flung ourselves down in the cow stalls where it’s low-like—just dirt floor—and then we just naturally went a-whooping under the barn floor when the Yanks come. And we didn’t know Cap’n Sawyer by his voice nohow. We heard ’im discoursing, and we allowed it was a mighty pert man, but we didn’t know that it was him. No, m’m.”

  These three men, so recently from a situation of peril, seemed suddenly to have dropped all thought of it. They stood with sad faces looking at the barn. They seemed to be making no plans at all to reach a place of more complete safety. They were halted and stupefied by some unknown calamity.

  “How do you raikon they cotch him, Sim?” one whispered mournfully.

  “I don’t know,” replied another, in the same tone.

  Another with a low snarl expressed in two words his opinion of the methods of Fate: “Oh, hell!”

  The three men started then as if simultaneously stung and gazed at the young girl who stood silently near them. The man who had sworn began to make agitated apology: “Pardon, miss! ’Pon my soul I clean forgot you was by. ’Deed, and I wouldn’t swear like that if I had knowed. ’Deed, I wouldn’t.”

  The girl did not seem to hear him. She was staring at the barn. Suddenly she turned and whispered, “Who is he?”

  “He’s Cap’n Sawyer, m’m,” they told her sorrowfully. “He’s our own cap’n. He’s been in command of us yere since a long time. He’s got folks about yere. Raikon they cotch him while he was a-visiting.”

  She was still for a time and then, awed, she said, “Will they—will they hang him?”

  “No, m’m. Oh, no, m’m. Don’t raikon no such thing. No, m’m.”

  The group became absorbed in a contemplation of the barn. For a time no one moved nor spoke. At l
ast the girl was aroused by slight sounds, and turning, she perceived that the three men who had so recently escaped from the barn were now advancing toward it.

  V.

  The girl, waiting in the darkness, expected to hear the sudden crash and uproar of a fight as soon as the three creeping men should reach the barn. She reflected in an agony upon the swift disaster that would befall any enterprise so desperate. She had an impulse to beg them to come away. The grass rustled in silken movements as she sped toward the barn.

  When she arrived, however, she gazed about her bewildered. The men were gone. She searched with her eyes, trying to detect some moving thing, but she could see nothing.

  Left alone again, she began to be afraid of the night. The great stretches of darkness could hide crawling dangers. From sheer desire to see a human, she was obliged to peep again at the knothole. The sentry had apparently wearied of talking. Instead, he was reflecting. The prisoner still sat on the feed box, moodily staring at the floor. The girl felt in one way that she was looking at a ghastly group in wax. She started when the old horse put down an echoing hoof. She wished the men would speak; their silence re-enforced the strange aspect. They might have been two dead men.

  The girl felt impelled to look at the corner of the interior where were the cow stalls. There was no light there save the appearance of peculiar gray haze which marked the track of the dimming rays of the lantern. All else was sombre shadow. At last she saw something move there. It might have been as small as a rat, or it might have been a part of something as large as a man. At any rate, it proclaimed that something in that spot was alive. At one time she saw it plainly and at other times it vanished, because her fixture of gaze caused her occasionally to greatly tangle and blur those peculiar shadows and faint lights. At last, however, she perceived a human head. It was monstrously dishevelled and wild. It moved slowly forward until its glance could fall upon the prisoner and then upon the sentry. The wandering rays caused the eyes to glitter like silver. The girl’s heart pounded so that she put her hand over it.

  The sentry and the prisoner remained immovably waxen, and over in the gloom the head thrust from the floor watched them with its silver eyes.

  Finally, the prisoner slipped from the feed box, and, raising his arms, yawned at great length. “Oh, well,” he remarked, “you boys will get a good licking if you fool around here much longer. That’s some satisfaction, anyhow, even if you did bag me. You’ll get a good walloping.” He reflected for a moment, and decided: “I’m sort of willing to be captured if you fellows only get a damned good licking for being so smart.”

  The sentry looked up and smiled a superior smile. “Licking, hey? Nixey!” He winked exasperatingly at the prisoner. “You fellows are not fast enough, my boy. Why didn’t you lick us at ——? and at ——? and at ——?” He named some of the great battles.

  To this the captive officer blurted in angry astonishment, “Why, we did!”

  The sentry winked again in profound irony. “Yes—I know you did. Of course. You whipped us, didn’t you? Fine kind of whipping that was! Why, we—”

  He suddenly ceased, smitten mute by a sound that broke the stillness of the night. It was the sharp crack of a distant shot that made wild echoes among the hills. It was instantly followed by the hoarse cry of a human voice, a far-away yell of warning, singing of surprise, peril, fear of death. A moment later there was a distant, fierce spattering of shots. The sentry and the prisoner stood facing each other, their lips apart, listening.

  The orchard at that instant awoke to sudden tumult. There were the thud and scramble and scamper of feet, the mellow, swift clash of arms, men’s voices in question, oath, command, hurried and unhurried, resolute and frantic. A horse sped along the road at a raging gallop. A loud voice shouted, “What is it, Ferguson?” Another voice yelled something incoherent. There was a sharp, discordant chorus of command. An uproarious volley suddenly rang from the orchard. The prisoner in gray moved from his intent, listening attitude. Instantly the eyes of the sentry blazed, and he said with a new and terrible sternness, “Stand where you are!”

  The prisoner trembled in his excitement. Expressions of delight and triumph bubbled to his lips. “A surprise, by Gawd! Now—now, you’ll see!”

  The sentry stolidly swung his carbine to his shoulder. He sighted carefully along the barrel until it pointed at the prisoner’s head, about at his nose. “Well, I’ve got you, anyhow. Remember that! Don’t move!”

  The prisoner could not keep his arms from nervously gesturing. “I won’t; but—”

  “And shut your mouth!”

  The three comrades of the sentry flung themselves into view. “Pete—devil of a row!—can you—”

  “I’ve got him,” said the sentry calmly and without moving. It was as if the barrel of the carbine rested on piers of stone. The three comrades turned and plunged into the darkness.

  In the orchard it seemed as if two gigantic animals were engaged in a mad, floundering encounter, snarling, howling in a whirling chaos of noise and motion. In the barn the prisoner and his guard faced each other in silence.

  As for the girl at the knothole, the sky had fallen at the beginning of this clamour. She would not have been astonished to see the stars swinging from their abodes, and the vegetation, the barn, all blow away. It was the end of everything, the grand universal murder. When two of the three miraculous soldiers who formed the original feed-box corps emerged in detail from the hole under the beam and slid away into the darkness, she did no more than glance at them.

  Suddenly she recollected the head with silver eyes. She started forward and again applied her eyes to the knothole. Even with the din resounding from the orchard, from up the road and down the road, from the heavens and from the deep earth, the central fascination was this mystic head. There, to her, was the dark god of the tragedy.

  The prisoner in gray at this moment burst into a laugh that was no more than a hysterical gurgle. “Well, you can’t hold that gun out forever! Pretty soon you’ll have to lower it.”

  The sentry’s voice sounded slightly muffled, for his cheek was pressed against the weapon. “I won’t be tired for some time yet.”

  The girl saw the head slowly rise, the eyes fixed upon the sentry’s face. A tall, black figure slunk across the cow stalls and vanished back of old Santo’s quarters. She knew what was to come to pass. She knew this grim thing was upon a terrible mission, and that it would reappear again at the head of the little passage between Santo’s stall and the wall, almost at the sentry’s elbow; and yet when she saw a faint indication as of a form crouching there, a scream from an utterly new alarm almost escaped her.

  The sentry’s arms, after all, were not of granite. He moved restively. At last he spoke in his even, unchanging tone: “Well, I guess you’ll have to climb into that feed box. Step back and lift the lid.”

  “Why, you don’t mean—”

  “Step back!”

  The girl felt a cry of warning arising to her lips as she gazed at this sentry. She noted every detail of his facial expression. She saw, moreover, his mass of brown hair bunching disgracefully about his ears, his clear eyes lit now with a hard, cold light, his forehead puckered in a mighty scowl, the ring upon the third finger of the left hand. “Oh, they won’t kill him! Surely they won’t kill him!” The noise of the fight in the orchard was the loud music, the thunder and lightning, the rioting of the tempest which people love during the critical scene of a tragedy.

  When the prisoner moved back in reluctant obedience, he faced for an instant the entrance of the little passage, and what he saw there must have been written swiftly, graphically in his eyes. And the sentry read it and knew then that he was upon the threshold of his death. In a fraction of time, certain information went from the grim thing in the passage to the prisoner, and from the prisoner to the sentry. But at that instant the black formidable figure arose, towered, and made its leap. A new shadow flashed across the floor when the blow was struck.

  As for
the girl at the knothole, when she returned to sense she found herself standing with clinched hands and screaming with her might.

  As if her reason had again departed from her, she ran around the barn, in at the door, and flung herself sobbing beside the body of the soldier in blue.

  The uproar of the fight became at last coherent, inasmuch as one party was giving shouts of supreme exultation. The firing no longer sounded in crashes; it was now expressed in spiteful crackles, the last words of the combat, spoken with feminine vindictiveness.

  Presently there was a thud of flying feet. A grimy panting, red-faced mob of troopers in blue plunged into the barn, became instantly frozen to attitudes of amazement and rage, and then roared in one great chorus, “He’s gone!”

  The girl who knelt beside the body upon the floor turned toward them her lamenting eyes and cried: “He’s not dead, is he? He can’t be dead?”

  They thronged forward. The sharp lieutenant who had been so particular about the feed box knelt by the side of the girl and laid his head against the chest of the prostrate soldier. “Why, no,” he said, rising and looking at the man. “He’s all right. Some of you boys throw some water on him.”

  “Are you sure?” demanded the girl, feverishly.

  “Of course! He’ll be better after awhile.”

  “Oh!” said she softly, and then looked down at the sentry. She started to arise, and the lieutenant reached down and hoisted rather awkwardly at her arm.

  “Don’t you worry about him. He’s all right.”

  She turned her face with its curving lips and shining eyes once more toward the unconscious soldier upon the floor. The troopers made a lane to the door, the lieutenant bowed, the girl vanished.