by RW Krpoun
Mac and his men scrambled back as the roof crumbled away from beneath their feet, and an instant later every crazy in the vicinity was charging onto the fallen rubble and over the crumbling stump of a wall, ignoring my fire and Captain’s from the other tower in their eagerness to get to grips with the foe.
It went bad very fast; Nhi shouted and pointed: the crazies at the breaches into the school had stopped trying to pile through and were attacking the wall between the two holes, widening it rapidly. A controller must have come up unnoticed in the crowd and bent them to his will. I fired two long bursts into their midst and then the gun jammed again.
Grabbing up my carbine, I added its fire to what the Judge and his men were putting out, but the weakened wall gave way too quickly and the crazies poured inside, out of our field of fire.
Reloading the Krag, I hesitated, unsure what to do next. The MG.08 was not in a useful position anymore as the tower was not designed to fire into the presidio, and Nhi and I weren’t going to be able to move the heavy gun by ourselves. There were between two hundred and three hundred crazies left and they had access to two buildings within the walls; we could count on at least one controller as well, inside the school. The presidio was an egg: all the defenses were focused outwards, and now the crazies were inside our shell. If they spilled out onto the parade field we were done for.
“Grab the empty belts and the oil can,” I said, pulling the cotton from my ears. I slung the full belts around my neck and grabbed the canvas tool kit. “Get to the church roof.”
The church was our fallback position, where the orphans, non-combatants, and reserve ammunition were housed, along with ten days’ food and water. I was expecting to have a running fight to get to it, but the crazies were staying inside the buildings for now.
Mac, the Judge, and their men were already there, along with Brothers Andrew, Lars, and Paul; Captain and his men were on their way.
“Glad you made it,” I dumped the belts and slapped Mac on the shoulder. “When the roof went I figured you were a goner.”
“It was closer than I liked-we lost three men,” the big man shook his head.
“Only one of the nine from the response force made it out of the school,” the Judge observed grimly. “We took a beating.”
“So did the crazies,” I pointed out. “Close to three quarters are down, I figure.”
“That went to hell quickly,” Captain observed as he joined us. “Mac, I never saw you move that fast before. Seth, are they going to turn that machinegun on us?”
“Nope. Its jammed, and even if they know how to clear it they’ll end up with a hundred-pound single-shot rifle: we took the belts with us.”
“Thank the Lord for that. What now? They seem to be sitting tight.”
“Getting organized and waiting for dark,” Mac sighed. “They won’t need much light to find the church.”
“I agree,” Brother Andrew said. “They will not want to breach the final stronghold with the zombies in an uncontrolled manner as they cannot risk the children being attacked. The next attack will be to secure the presidio and the ground level of the church. From there I expect human servitors will mount the final attack so as to take the children alive. A few zombies may be used, but only so many as can be fully under control at all times.”
“That might be hard-I killed at least one controller, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who got lucky,” I pointed out. “Still, the advantages are on their side. I wish I had brought more dynamite-we could rush those two buildings and knock ‘em down on top of them.”
“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” Captain said absently. “But we ain’t finished yet. We need to grab the machinegun while they’re standing pat, and look at maybe putting them into a crossfire come sundown. We can still win this thing.”
“That’s right,” I nodded. They’re hampered by the need to take the kids alive-we kill enough crazies, they won’t get the job done. Mac, grab a couple stout lads and lets go get the MG.08. Brother Andrew, I hope you have given light for night combat some thought.”
“I have,” he said somberly.
Chapter Fifteen
The enemy was content to remain in the two buildings as we made our preparations. We recovered the MG.08 and set it up on the church roof, where I cleared the stoppage, broke it down, changed the extractor, and cleaned the weapon with Nhi’s assistance.
Others broke down the interior barricades that were no longer useful and transferred sacks of sand and adobe bricks to build a rampart along the inner sides of the church roof, and around the roof of the cookhouse, which was nearly at the center of the east wall. This was to be Captain’s new position, and it prompted an argument.
“Never send out a detachment you cannot support, that’s in the book,” I pointed out as I scrubbed carbon from the MG.08’s bolt carrier.
“The book doesn’t cover this, hoss” he grinned. “Look at that position: square in the center, flanking them as they emerge from their hidey-hole to attack the church. They’ll have to split their force, which is never good, or hit us first, which gives you a shooting gallery with this big noisemaker.”
“That is true, but it won’t count for much when they’re tearing the building out from beneath you.”
“It’s the strongest building in the place-it has been completely rebuilt since the orphanage was established.”
“Great. It can still get pulled down. Then what will you do?”
“Go over the wall.”
That stumped me-obviously, the crazies wouldn’t follow; of course, if they did, they could be out-run, and in any case that would simply draw off bodies the necromancer couldn’t spare. “Its your funeral.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Who are you going to take?”
“The same six I had with me before; we’ve gotten used to each other.”
“Make sure you aren’t slow going over the wall-Mac was lucky to have gotten away with his life when that roof caved in.”
“You know, I recall having a mother, and she didn’t look a bit like you.”
“I don’t believe you had a mother. I expect you just crawled out of the bilges and starting talking.”
Brother Simon approached and waited for the bickering to stop; he was a saintly looking type from the landed class in southern Mexico. “Mister Peak, Doctor Wurfel is still confined.”
“Good place for him.”
“He is confined outside the areas you are defending. He should be released.”
“Look, if we release him, he’ll run, and I am not certain whose side he’s on. If he talks, he could tell the opposition things about our defenses.”
“With respect, Mister Peak, his cell is windowless, and he has not left it in nearly three days.”
“That’s a fact,” Captain conceded. “Hell, what could he tell them that they don’t already know? They got a real education on what we’re capable of today.”
“All right,” I shook my head. “Captain, keep a bag over his head until he’s clear the gate. Do we have any spare revolvers?”
“Several.”
“Give him one with about thirty rounds, and a horse, one of those we picked up along the way, but not the best. Brother Simon, get him a full canteen and a sack of food, a couple days, whatever you think.”
“Thank you, Mister Peak.”
“You’re getting soft in your old age,” Captain winked, climbing to his feet.
Brother Andrew came by a few minutes later. “We are moving the children and food supplies to the roof,” he advised me.
“Why?”
“Because the enemy will set the zombies to breaching the church, knowing that we must move them to keep them safe. If we move in a panic that would leave us on a roof with little food and water; if we do it now we can bring more supplies with us.”
“That’s not optimistic thinking, Brother Andrew.”
“I am not in an optimistic mood, Mister Peak. Our scouts have signaled that several a
rmed men have made it into the breached buildings.”
“Yeah, that’s why we’re not trying to creep up and shoot through the holes: they’ll be expecting that.”
“You seem remarkably calm, Mister Peak.”
“I would like to say I’m a remarkable man, but the fact is, I’ve been here before. When the Boxers rose and they sent us to relieve Peking, we were a tiny block of blue in a sea of Boxers. I never thought you could make an entire Regiment seem small. We won through, and we came out alive, most of us. Don’t let them defeat you up here,” I tapped my head. “That just means you’ll lose.”
He nodded somberly. “I agree. It has just been a long time since I saw young men die. We lost twelve brave young men today, four Chinese, eight Mexicans.”
“Yeah, one of them was with me on the tower until I sent him to help out at the breach.” I hadn’t really thought about Chabo. “You know how the cards are dealt, Brother: times like this you spend munitions and men. It’s the nature of war.”
“Yes. They laid down their lives in defense of others-there is no greater love. I gave the Mexicans Absolution before the battle, at least. The Chinese followed their own faith.”
“Yeah, speaking of which, I wouldn’t mind getting that again before the next attack, Brother. I’m a sinful man, and my odds are not very good.”
“Which odds?” he smiled.
“Either.”
The sun crept closer to the horizon, both too slow and too fast. The orphans distributed a light meal as we finished up the roof barricades and what shoring up of the church’s walls we could manage. We also hauled up water in every container we could find and put up several extra support pillars to help the church’s roof support all the extra weight.
Privately I did not think that we would need so many supplies, as this matter should work itself out in the next dozen hours or so, a day at most. Either the necromancer would get the children, or we were destroy so many of his tools that he would have to withdraw.
“The sun is setting,” Nhi observed; we were sitting in the tower where we had fought earlier, watching the necromancer’s camp. I had just shot and killed the mount of a horseman trying to make it to the breaches, but the man managed to get into a gulley before I got a hit on him.
“Seems like it does that damn near every day.” I thumbed rounds into the Krag’s box. When it was full I had twelve rounds left in my belt.
She shook her head. “You are not a man of great wit.”
“Witty men do not find themselves in these sort of situations.”
“Watching the sunset with a pretty girl?”
I laughed. “Not often. Not for a long, long time.”
“Some in this place will not see it rise again.”
“Everyone has their last sunrise and sunset.”
“That’s true.” She leaned her head against my shoulder. “When you watch a sunset, remember me.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just held her close and watched the sun sink below the horizon.
They came for us two hours after full dark. It wasn’t a surprise, as they pushed down walls to make their egress faster. Captain’s men had been throwing torches out in the courtyard to keep enough light to see what they were up to, and when we heard the crashes of the walls falling we lit four large oil lamps, These were big old-fashioned whale-oil-burning lamps like they used on ships, with polished metal reflectors two feet across, one at Captain’s position and three at the church, which gave us enough light to shoot. The Chinese started firing off rockets that burst into three yellow fireballs about two hundred feet up, and one or two of the balls would drift slowly to the ground, while the rest dropped like rocks.
I had bet Mac a dollar that they would not split their forces, and another that the church would be their target; as it was we both broke even because they didn’t split and went straight for Captain’s position first. I didn’t think that was their best move, but I wasn’t complaining, either.
They hadn’t been idle during the last few hours: the crazies came out in a column lugging tabletops and planks nailed together as barriers to gunfire, set so all we could see from the church was the wooden barrier and their feet.
That was something of a surprise, but it was actually counter-productive as I could see the lighter-color of the inner wood exposed by the 7.92mm rounds passing through and adjust my fire more accurately. I set the MG.08 low, waist high, and aided by the wood knocked down at least twenty-five crazies with my first belt, about half of whom lacked the use of one or both legs from the wounding. And you didn’t have to knock down too many crazies before the barrier fell and was left behind.
It appeared that the riflemen on the roof with me were going for head shots, but I kept chopping at the crazies’ mobility, figuring that a zombie on its belly would breach no walls.
They swarmed around the cook shack and attacked its walls, most using tools as the parade field was too narrow to let our fire jumble their ranks as we had earlier.
Captain had a surprise waiting for them: he rolled three five-gallon kegs filled with kerosene thickened with a little coal-tar creosote and wrapped in leftover fuse tipped with blasting caps. Flames suddenly blossomed amongst the crowd attacking the wall, and human figures coated in fired staggered wildly about, setting ablaze the clothes or hair of those they bumped into.
The extra light helped our accuracy, but the flames died out fairly quickly and the assault on the stone resumed until we saw a rocket trailing green sparks shoot up from the wall: the signal that Captain and his men were departing.
Two walls of the cookhouse crumbled, although the lamp still hung from its wall-support, illuminating the crazies as they turned and started towards us. They didn’t all turn of their own volition-I saw a man punched off his feet by one of my bursts, and his dying agonies clearly showed him to have been living. There were controllers amongst them.
A bullet smacked into one of the dirt-filled ammo crates we were using as cover and both Nhi and I hunched. She shouted directions to one of the Judge’s boys who was detailed to our support for just that circumstance, and between her instructions and the muzzle flash of the next shot he was able to end that particular Chuj’s career.
Me, I stayed focused upon the gun, waiting for the rifle bullet that would blow my face apart as I poured measured, aimed bursts into the crazies advancing purposefully towards us. I had hoped when they first appeared that the cookhouse would have proven to be a greater distraction, but that wasn’t the way our luck was running tonight.
There weren’t all that many crazies left when compared to the total number the necromancer had started with, but coming across that parade field they looked like Sherman’s army on its way through Georgia. And we didn’t have much room to work with, not much over a hundred yards total. As they drew close the Chinese and older orphans deployed another fireworks display, but these had seen it before, and while they slowed markedly and a few stopped outright, it was only a temporary hitch in their assault. A hitch we brutally exploited-I blew apart skulls and shattered torsos with long-raking bursts during the hesitation, secure in the knowledge that with less time came less concern for heat build-up or reloading belts.
As the front ranks surged to the church wall the orphan booms swung out and clay posts filled with gravel and black powder rained amongst the enemy, but not for long-there hadn’t been much time to assemble the components since the last attack. The Chinese harried them with strings of firecrackers, which seemed to annoy the crazies and cost them a few tools.
I disengaged the traversing and elevation mechanism so I could slew the machinegun to its lowest depression and poured twenty-rounds bursts into the crazies as they rushed to the church, both to attack the wall and to enter the ‘bullet shadow’ where our weapons could not easily reach, and where the MG.08 could not bear at all. Steam jetted from the water jacket vent as I pounded away, but there was nearly a belt left when they passed out of my field of fire. Hastily refilling the nearly-empt
y water jacket, I blew apart a dozen crawlers with the remains of the belt.
“Stay here and keep an eye on the gun,” I yelled at Nhi over the gunfire, and raced for the trapdoor leading into the church, encountering Captain already there and climbing down the ladder. He had circled around and gotten up the wall by way of a knotted rope lowered by Brother Lars. Nhi, unsurprisingly, ignored my instructions and followed me.
“Stay here and make sure they don’t pull up the ladder on us,” I yelled at her as I started down the ladder, and this time, reluctantly, she obeyed.
Sibley and Red Hawk followed me down, the former armed with a Bergman lever-action shotgun I recalled seeing in the wagon we captured in Sinaloa a lifetime ago, and the latter with two revolvers, copies of Smith and Wesson Russians taken in the same outing.
The church was lit by two candles; the altar and all religious items had been moved to safety and the benches which had served as seating had been braced against the walls to shore up the aging stone construction.
“You know, hoss, I’m thinking this might not be the best idea I’ve ever had,” Captain observed as he ducked around a vertical beam wedged in place to support the extra weight on the roof.
“Well, its too late now.” I glanced at Sibley, wondering if he was looking for a quiet place for some revenge. “You’re taking the volunteering business seriously.”
He grinned tightly. “I’m having some second thoughts about how I’ve lived my life.”
“Well, defending a church and orphans against the violently ambulatory dead ought to stack up pretty solid against a bit of larceny and a lie or two told to a pretty woman.”
“That’s a keystone in my planning,” he confessed.
“You and me both.”
The crazies were pounding away at the walls, and mortar and plaster were sifting down on our side-it was becoming pretty clear we would have company before long. Overhead the rifles still banged away, and I had no doubt that the crazies were losing members of their ragged band every passing second, but there was always that awful equation between time, numbers, and the strength of the wall.
