So he needed to arrange an escape.
An escape—not his escape.
There was no way they could all escape, but maybe some of them could. The ones who weren’t going to escape needed to buy time for those who could. He looked around at the others. Most were still huddled around the fire trying to keep warm. They’d lost nearly all their blankets when the horses ran, so it had been a very miserable night. Miserable and terrifying. The Martian had loomed over them the whole time, never straying far even when it appeared to be walking a perimeter around them.
“Everyone, listen to me,” he said in a low voice. Some of the people stirred, but some didn’t. “Hey! Wake up! We’ll be moving soon, I guess, and we need to make plans!” The rest finally turned and he could see everyone looking at him in the pale light. “We need to plan an escape. We don’t want to go where this thing is taking us. We have to get away.”
“It’ll kill us with that ray it has!” protested one of the men from Ramah. “We won’t get twenty yards!”
“If we all run in different directions, it won’t get all of us. Some of us will get away.”
“Are you crazy? You wanna die?”
“No, but unless we do something, that’s what’s going to happen to all of us! This thing isn’t taking us wherever it’s taking us for some damn tea party!”
“I’m with you, Sarge,” said Private Urbaniak. “A quick death’s better than whatever these monsters have in store for us. But why not do it in the dark?”
“The thing seems to see in the dark better than we do. In daylight at least we can avoid falling down when we run.”
“Yeah, makes sense. So what’s your plan?”
“I was watching it yesterday and it generally kept about fifty yards behind us. That’s no good for us to try anything. But sometimes if we slowed down or we hit some rough ground it would come up right behind us to hurry us along. Today when that happens again, I’m gonna make a break and run right under the thing and back the way we came. It’ll have to turn to go after me. When it does, that will be the signal for the rest of you to scatter.”
There was a long silence and then Becca Harding said: “You’re going to be killed, Sergeant.”
“Does sorta put you right on the bull’s-eye, Sarge,” said Urbaniak.
“Maybe,” said Dolfen, “but if the two of you with rifles take a pot-shot or two as you run, we might be able to get the thing turning in circles and not know where to shoot. But you have to move fast! Scatter and keep moving until you can get away clean or find some good spot to hide. Miss Harding, you get on that fool horse of yours and ride hard and don’t look back! You hear me, girl?”
She didn’t answer, but Mrs. Gordon was quick to ask her to take her boy with her and the boy immediately insisted on staying with his mother; the girl offered her horse to the two of them and some of the other civilians started objecting to the whole plan. Dolfen let it go on for a minute but then cut them all off.
“Shut up! All of you! We are going to do this, so be ready! If any of you don’t want to run, that’s your choice, I can’t force you. But the rest of you all have to go in a different direction and here is what we’ll do.” He assigned a different direction by compass point to each of the people and hoped they wouldn’t clump up into easy targets. He wasn’t sure the girl was going to do what he told her, but there was no more time to argue. The Martian had become aware of their movements and apparently decided if they were rested enough for that, they were rested enough to move. It hooted at them and moved in, waving its tentacles. Dolfen was half-tempted to try the plan right then, but no, the thing was on alert. They needed to wait.
So they got to their feet and started moving. His legs and feet were aching and stiff with cold. He was cavalry, dammit, not infantry! Another reason not to try it now: he needed to get his muscles warm and stretched out before he tried any running. They stumbled along as the sun came up, all of them looking at him every few seconds until he told them he’d give them warning before he gave the command to run. After a while, the girl, leading her horse which she refused to ride, came up next to him.
“I don’t want you to die, Sergeant.”
“Well, I don’t want me to die, either, but we have to try something.”
“But why do you have to be the decoy?”
“I’m in command. It’s my job.”
“Maybe if you took my horse you’d have a better chance.”
Dolfen snorted. “That critter won’t leave you, Miss. I try taking him and he’ll circle back to you and get all three of us killed.”
“Then let me be the decoy. I can move a lot faster on horseback.”
He sighed. He had known it was going to come to this. “No. It’s my job. You just run and keep running.”
“But…”
“Hey, what’s that?” Private Cordwainer was a little in front of the rest. He stopped and pointed off to the northwest.
“What?” For a moment he was afraid that the man had spotted another Martian and that would totally ruin any escape attempt, but no, he didn’t see any of the towering machines. What was…Oh.
The nearly level rays of the sun were lighting up a strange line across the horizon. It stood out brightly against the darker sky beyond. His eyes suddenly picked out a few familiar landmarks and he realized where they were except…
“Gallup is just over there, maybe six or seven miles, but what the hell is that?”
“Looks like some sort of wall…”
“But where’s the town? We ought to be able to see it from here!”
But they couldn’t see it. The mysterious wall blocked off the view. What was it? Something the Martians had built? Why? And what was left of the town behind?
They had all stopped, and now the Martian machine was close behind and hooting at them to move. “Let’s go,” said Dolfen. “There’s a gully up ahead, I think. When we hit that be ready to run!”
There were no arguments now. The wall in the distance seemed more ominous than the machine right behind them. The people all clustered together until he ordered them to spread out a bit. The more dispersed they could be right at the start, the better. But the damn girl stayed close to him. Was she going to mess this all up by trying to help him? What could he do to give her the best chance? He really didn’t want her to get killed…
He saw the gully about a hundred yards ahead. “All right, get ready! When we get to the gully, you all cross on over. I’m going to hold back and then reverse direction. When you hear my pistol, run like I told you!”
Dolfen was as frightened as he’d ever been in his life. It felt like there was a block of ice in his stomach. But he pulled out his pistol and held it against his chest so the Martian couldn’t see. For all the good it will do! Might as well throw rocks. But maybe it will get its attention.
They reached the gully. It was only about eight feet deep, but the sides were fairly steep. They scrambled down into it and then the others went up the other side, the girl tugging on her horse’s lead. Dolfen stopped at the bottom, took a deep breath, turned and…
What the hell?
There was a man. A man crouched in a little crevice in the side of the gully. He must have walked right past him without seeing… But he was holding something… something smoking. “Keep going!” the stranger hissed, waving with his free hand. Dolfen stumbled backward to the far side of the gully, just as one of the metal feet of the Martian machine stepped down into it.
The man leaped out of his hiding place and looped what he was holding around the ankle joint just above the foot. Two bundles, connected by a rope; bundles of… dynamite!
“Run, you idiot!” screamed the man, who instantly took his own advice and dashed away, down the gully. Dolfen gawked for a moment and then clawed his way up the other side and flung himself flat on the ground. An explosion slammed him even flatter; it felt like a horse had landed on him, knocking the breath out of his lungs. A cloud of smoke and dust enveloped everything. Get up! Mov
e! He hauled himself to his feet, gasping and coughing.
The Martian was right there.
As the wind blew the smoke away, he found himself staring right into the red, glowing eye of the Martian, not ten feet away. Two of the machine’s legs were still on the far side of the gully, but the foot of the third leg had been blown off by the explosion and the whole thing had stumbled forward. One metal arm was braced on the lip of the gully and the head was almost on a level with him. He stood there frozen as the two far legs stepped down, one after the other, and then the machine straightened up. The other arm, the one holding the heat ray device, swung up and out and a horrible buzzing filled the air.
But then there were other noises: shouts and screams and rifle shots, and he saw more men, men in uniform, appear from along the gully, charging toward the Martian. Another explosion slammed into him and he nearly fell. But so did the Martian. A cloud of smoke billowed up from the rear of the machine and it staggered a few steps to the side, jerking awkwardly with its truncated leg. Dolfen scooped up his pistol from where he’d dropped it, but what to do now? Run? Attack?
The heat ray shrieked to life and a blast of fire struck the ground thirty yards to his left and then swept toward him, incinerating everything it touched. He flung himself forward and leaped back into the gulley, and tumbled down the slope until he was nearly under the machine. He could feel the heat through his uniform. He scrambled along on hands and knees until he was behind the thing before he stood up.
A soldier appeared next to him swinging two bundles of dynamite connected by a rope as if it was a bolas. He let go and it soared up and up…
…and bounced off the Martian and fell almost at Dolfen’s feet.
He stared at the smoldering fuses on the dynamite and then at the Martian which was turning his way, heat ray still blazing. Without thinking, he grabbed the rope and flung it upward with all his might. The dynamite bundles spun in a lazy arc… and then wrapped themselves around the arm holding the heat ray.
The incandescent trench had almost reached him when the other man tackled him, knocking him aside and sprawling them both on the ground. An instant later, the dynamite exploded, again punching the air from his lungs. The roar was deafening and the smoke blinding, but the heat suddenly cut off and a moment later the heat ray device, as big as a steamer trunk, thudded to the ground a few feet away from him, the metal claw still clutching it.
Ulla! Ulla! Ulla!
A call, like an undulating siren, rang out. Dolfen’s stunned ears could only hear it faintly, but he could feel the vibrations it made deep in his chest. He twisted around, still half-pinned by the other man, and saw the machine drag itself out of the gully and start to limp away. Smoke was trailing from a spot near one hip, and sparks were spitting out of the stump of its arm.
More troops with bombs were converging on it. Ants attacking an elephant. But these ants can sting! Another explosion and the machine staggered again. Dolfen struggled to his feet and then climbed to the top of the gully. The Martian had lost another foot from the last bomb. It was trying to run, but it nearly fell.
Ulla! Ulla! Ulla!
The thing spun in a circle, its smaller tentacles lashing out wildly. One man was hit by them and went flying. But another closed in from behind and his bomb tangled on the already damaged hip joint. The blast rent the air and the entire leg was torn off, fragments tumbling away in all directions. The Martian made one last futile attempt to keep its balance and then came crashing down to the ground. It lay there for a moment as if stunned, but then its remaining limbs started thrashing about. A man dashed in and tossed another bomb onto the thing’s head. The explosion didn’t rip anything off this time, but the machine finally stopped moving and an eerie silence fell as the smoke cleared.
Dolfen stood there gawking, He fumbled out his canteen, but his hands were shaking so badly he could barely get the cap off and take a drink. Only then did he realize his mouth was full of grit. He choked and spat before taking another swig.
“Nice throw, Sergeant. I thought we were both dead.”
He looked and saw the man who had tackled him and was surprised to see major’s leaves on his tunic. “Uh… well, thank you, sir. If you an’ your men hadn’t come along I think we were all gonna be dead. How… how’d you manage…?”
“We were, uh, scouting. Spotted your fire last night. Saw you folks were in trouble and decided to do something about it. You’re 5th Cavalry, Sergeant…?” The man was shouting and Dolfen realized that he was, too. They were both half-deaf from the explosions.
“Dolfen, sir. Yeah, we’re with the 5th. Got the holy hell beat out of us a few weeks back. Me an’ some of the others an’ some folks we picked up were trying to get back to Wingate.” He gestured at the wall in the distance. “What’s going on, sir? What’s that? Where’s the rest of the army?”
“My name’s Comstock, and well, the situation is a bit complicated…” The man had been grinning with a lunatic grin, but now he wasn’t. “The army…”
“Hey, Major!” called one of the new men. He was standing close to the Martian machine and waving. “Something’s happening here!”
Major Comstock immediately sprinted toward the machine. Dolfen followed more slowly. His legs were still shaking. As he walked, he saw that there were only eight or nine men with Comstock. And one of them was dressed in civilian clothing; he was scribbling furiously in a small notebook. Dolfen’s own people had scattered as he’d ordered, but they were all drifting back in now. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the girl on her horse, holding Mrs. Gordon’s boy.
He reached the group that had clustered around the machine’s head. The thing didn’t look nearly so large now, smashed and beaten, but it was still pretty big. And he immediately saw what had attracted everyone’s attention. A round door or hatch had opened up in the side which was about five feet off the ground. Some smoke was drifting out of it.
“Can you see anything inside?” asked one man.
“No, it’s too dark—wait! There’s something movin’!”
Everyone stepped back. Those who had weapons raised them. Dolfen squinted, trying to see into the dark hole, but the bright morning sun, reflecting off the metal skin of the machine, made it impossible to see anything. At least at first. But after a moment it was clear that something was, indeed, moving and it was trying to get out of the hatch. Dolfen watched in revulsion as several thin, gray, snake-like things emerged from the darkness and gripped the edges of the opening. Several more appeared and then there was a burbling hiss from inside the hole and a larger gray lump heaved into view. A Martian. The Enemy.
Dolfen swallowed uneasily as the thing came into view. There was no doubt it was hideous. A cluster of the tentacles surrounded a parrot-like beak which must be the thing’s mouth. Two dark, bulbous eyes glittered wetly in the sunlight, but it was impossible to tell where they were looking; there were no whites surrounding them. A smell like rotting fish filled the air and he nearly gagged. The thing pulled again with its tentacles and tumbled forward, out through the hatch, and fell to the ground. All the watchers stepped farther back.
The thing hit the ground like a soggy sack of grain. It didn’t seem to have any bones to give it shape and it just sagged and oozed. It gave off another burble and its tentacles waved feebly. In spite of Dolfen’s revulsion and anger, he couldn’t help but feel a touch of pity for this awful thing. So ugly, so helpless without its machines. It wasn’t even very large. Not the least bit threatening now.
“Damn,” said Major Comstock. “I’d love to take this thing back with us as a prisoner. Sergeant, is there any way we can rig something to carry it in?”
For an instant Dolfen thought the Major was talking to him, but then he saw another man with chevrons on his sleeve.
“Bloody hell, sir,” answered the man with a noticeable Scottish burr in his voice. “I don’t know as we’ll even be able to carry all of us, let alone this monster!”
“Well, send someon
e for the horses and we’ll see what we can…”
The roar of a gun from close behind sent everyone scattering. Another shot and then another and another. He looked back and to his astonishment there was Becca Harding. She had the Henry against her shoulder and she was working the lever-action and firing again and again.
Into the Martian.
The bullets tore into the soft flesh of the creature making terrible wounds from which poured a dark liquid. The thing was waving its tentacles franticly and giving off an awful wail, but then the limbs fell limp and the noise stopped.
And still the girl kept shooting, a terrifying look of rage on her young face. She emptied the rifle, all sixteen rounds, into the thing and then kept working the action and pulling the trigger, even after the gun was empty until Dolfen gently took it away from her. The girl’s face was streaked with tears, and those hate-filled eyes turned to look at him.
“It’s dead, Becca. You killed it. Good job.”
The civilian with the notebook stepped over to the girl and asked: “What’s your name miss?” and he wrote it down when she told him. Who was that guy?
“Well, saves us a bit o’ trouble,” said the other sergeant. “Unless you want to take this mess with us.” He rolled his eyes. “Sir.”
The major sighed and walked over to the oozing remains. “No, no, the British already have dead samples and I doubt we can learn much from this.” He put his boot against the Martian and gave it a little shove. It rolled over with a ghastly squish and everyone froze as a new horror was revealed. “God in Heaven!”
On the newly turned side of the Martian there was a translucent sack, and inside was… Another Martian? It must be. It was a miniature version of the larger one. Eyes, beak, tentacles, all the same except it was only the size of a small dog. Its tentacles seemed to be pushing against the side of the sack that held it. The major came up and squatted down to look closely at it.
The Great Martian War Page 24
