“We must pull back,” he told Naxa reluctantly. “Send runners to the other ker-nolls and ensure they hear the horns.” There must be a single ker-noll to command the entire attack next time, he smoldered. Or Second General Ign should have come himself. There is no need for independent coordination of a mob, but an army needs a commander on the scene. That is something else I learned today. “Tell the ker-nolls to order their troops to spread out, to run for our trenches. There is no danger of pursuit, but the flying machines will burn us all if we stay together!”
Naxa looked doubtful. “If we just flee, won’t our own warriors still behind us think we turned prey and kill us?”
“No,” Jash assured, hoping he was right. “Not if we re-form as we near our lines, before we reenter our trench. It will be difficult and we will be vulnerable then as well, but we must attempt it.” He paused. “And not only so we won’t be killed.” He’d taken command of a larger force in disarray once before and realized it was time to do so again. “Pass that order as well.”
Jash’s Slashers were already pulling back, his overheard command circulating among them. He was sickened by what they’d endured, only to fail, but was more than satisfied with his troops. He’d discovered another new feeling that day, something else that required a word. Satisfaction was part of it, but there was more of something else as well. With a final glance at the one-eyed giant kneeling by the fallen human and Lemurian and shooting his hand garrak amid a field of dead, covered with too many of his Slashers, Jash suspected he knew a word for how he felt—and was fairly certain he’d meet the giant again.
* * *
* * *
The whole grassy plain between the two trenches was burning when Silva and Chack carried Risa back down in the trench and up the other side. Gunny Horn and Lawrence followed, carrying Major Simon Gutfeld. Both were dead, riddled and bloody. Enrico Galay and several others were behind them, loaded down with their weapons. Horn, Galay, and Lawrence had already been fighting their way toward the center when the whole Grik attack fell apart, the end beginning when Horn, desperate to take some heat off his troops so they could at least reload, wrapped leather cartridge box slings around the barrel of a .30-caliber machine gun, picked it up, and advanced behind it. Lawrence joined him with Horn’s BAR. The leather cooked and so did Horn’s left hand, but it started the bubble that eventually popped. Not that any of them much cared about that just then.
Pam’s face was covered with blood, streaming from under her hair, where a Grik musket ball had blown a hole in her helmet and cut her scalp. She didn’t seem to notice, except to occasionally dab at the blood in her eyes with her sleeve as she worked on Tassanna. The commodore had a more serious wound in her upper right shoulder. Both stared in horror, and tears gushed through the drying blood on Pam’s face, when Risa and Gutfeld were gently laid down to join the long row of corpses growing behind the trench. Horn looked grim as he took his BAR back from Galay and sat heavily, exhausted, breathing hard. The fur on Chack’s face was wet with blood and tears, and his eyes were bright in the light of the burning prairie.
Silva’s face was like stone, and he’d pointedly avoided looking at Risa’s. He hadn’t looked directly at anyone at all, in fact, since they’d found him beside his friend on the battlefield. At first he hadn’t even responded; he just knelt there, slowly ejecting spent, blackened brass cartridges from the Colt and inserting six more from his pockets. Now he gazed at Gutfeld. “I’ll swan,” he said roughly. “Now ol’ Simy’s gone too.” He sighed. “He was a right guy, an’ went out good, but this ain’t no right kinda war no more.” His voice turned bitter. “Good folks dyin’, fightin’ goddamn vermin!” Finally, reluctantly, his eye turned to Risa’s face at last, and a huge fat tear raced down his grimy cheek. Hesitantly, he caressed her furry chin and gently closed her mouth.
“Go to him,” Tassanna whispered urgently to Pam.
“He don’t need me,” Pam hissed back. “He don’t need anybody.”
Tassanna blinked reproach. “You are not that stupid.”
Pam motioned helplessly at the bloody compress between the ’Cat’s chest and shoulder.
“I am well enough. Go. He needs you more thaan I right now.”
Silva jumped slightly when Pam wrapped her arms around him. “Jeez,” he started to snap, then he slumped. “Hiya, doll,” he finally managed, looking at her. “You look awful.”
Pam snorted wetly. “You don’t look so hot yourself.”
Silva shrugged loosely and looked at Horn. “We’d all be goners if Arnie an’ Larry hadn’t waded in when they did, hittin’ ’em on the flank. Lizards still get too focused on what’s right in front of ’em. Good thing, I guess.” His eye strayed back to Risa. “She an’ Simy gave ’em a show too. Somethin’ about her made the Grik up close not wanna tangle with her.”
“Baddest-ass ’Cat Marine they ever saw,” Horn whispered. “Nobody in their right mind would’ve gotten close, one leg or two. And Simy . . . Shit!” he exclaimed abruptly and stood.
“Where are you going?” Chack asked.
“I’m . . . I have to check on my people on the left.”
“Rest first,” Chack ordered, offering his canteen. “Drink. I haave a little left. Let Laaw-rence drink as well, then give the rest to Paam for the wounded.” He looked toward the enemy position, but it was obscured by smoke and flames. And Nancys were stooping on it now, washing the trench with fire. “The Grik will not attaack again tonight, I think, but will probably soon resume their bombardment. If not from laand, then the river.”
“All the more reason to get them squared away,” Horn insisted.
Chack snorted. “You fought your first aaction as a senior officer today, yet you are an NCO to your core. Don’t you think the Raider and Maa-rine NCOs under your comm-aand can maan-age without you a while longer?”
Horn nodded reluctantly and sat heavily again, taking a sip from Chack’s canteen.
“We haave been through much today,” Chack said gently, finally kneeling beside Risa himself, opposite Silva and Pam. He glanced at Tassanna watching them. “Together we haave lost much as well.” His gaze swept around, encompassing Lawrence and Galay, all the survivors and the slain, then went down to the beach where Arracca’s flames illuminated the wounded gathered there. More were headed down, many more, most on stretchers or carried in blankets. He wished he could protect them better, but there were more wounded than fighters now. Particularly with no water, the fighters needed to conserve what energy they had left for improving their position and fighting, or the wounded stood no chance at all.
Finally Chack’s gaze settled on Silva. “I know you loved Risa in your way—prob-aably the same way I did.” He shook his head. “I will never aask again, because it doesn’t matter. Whaat you need to know is thaat Risa loved you too.” He looked at Pam. “And you. Just as importaant, you must know she died on Saanta Caatalina, not here, as soon as she lost her leg.”
“Bullshit,” Silva snapped. “An’ you’re an asshole. She was never the sort to just give up! An’ they got wooden legs an’ such now that would’a had her back in the fight. Maybe not in the middle of it,” he conceded, “but in it.”
“Perhaaps,” Chack said, then sighed. “But you knew Risa. Do you doubt the waar was already killing her, little by little, even before her wound? The waar had become her life, as it haas for too many of us—her brothers and sisters—and one way or another it had reached a turning point. She thought it had turned against us here and we’d all be together in the heavens this night. She sought an end consistent with her nature. An escape from her wound, in a way, but also from the waar. She may still be right about our fate,” he added grimly, “but she was also wrong, because whether we survive or not, Cap-i-taan Reddy, First Fleet, and Gener-aal Aalden’s expeditionary force will be here tonight or tomorrow and the waar will turn.” He gestured at the smoldering battlefield. “The enemy r
emains more numerous than we and is haarder now thaan ever. We’ve forced him to learn new things, and he’s done it too well. We must also learn, since I expect this will be the laast time we fight as we almost always haave: behind breastworks as they come to us to die.
“No,” he continued, “the war will turn to something we caan’t imaa-gine in our darkest dreams as we take it to the Grik in their streets, among their homes, in places they must defend. Thaat, my brothers and sisters, will be a haard slog, as you would say, and perhaps Risa is well out of it.” He sighed again. “And it caan’t last much longer; we’re too tired and so are the Grik.” He blinked thoughtful determination. “We’ll destroy them within a year—or they’ll destroy us just as quickly in this terrible, wrongful place.” He also caressed Risa’s face. “It was she who made me a waarrior, a soldier,” he confessed. “But her spirit was already ebbing, and I would’ve spared her what I fear is yet to come if I could.” Abruptly, he stood. “So I rejoice thaat she is now at rest,” he said, though his tone belied his words, “and her soul will rise to the Heavens. She waatches us even now, and would scold us for our grief.”
“Are you done?” Pam asked sharply. “Okay, my turn.” She shrugged. “Sure, I was jealous o’ Risa”—she squeezed Silva hard—“even though I had no call. I guess it was because she got to fight, more than anything, an’ all I ever get to do is patch everybody up when they’re done.” She stood. “But I’m gonna do my job, just like she did, to the bitter end. If she’s really watchin’, that’s what she’ll expect of all of us.” She paused. “What’s that?” she demanded, poking Silva’s bayonet wound, clearly visible through his ripped T-shirt. He winced. “Gonna need stitches. Again. Are you shot in the ass again too?” she demanded of Lawrence.
He shied away. “I not shot at all—just Grik ’lood.”
“Good. Make way for Gunny Horn. Lemme see your hand.”
The BBs on the water—there seemed to be four of them now—all opened up, lashing the position with exploding shells, and they tumbled back down into the trench.
“Gonna be a long night,” Silva grumped.
“They’re pulling back their galleys,” Chack observed, seeing the smaller oared ships churning upstream in the light of the flashing guns.
“Yep,” Silva agreed. “They must’a finally got the word that Captain Reddy’s comin’. They’re gonna need all them warriors pretty soon.”
A big shell burst forty yards away, fragments whistling around them.
“And we’re going to need all of ours,” Chack agreed.
CHAPTER 31
////// January 1, 1945
The dusk barrage was fairly brisk and caused more suffering among the beleaguered defenders, but it lasted only about half an hour before the four Grik BBs and (they estimated) six cruisers sullenly ceased firing. That seemed to coincide with a belated effort to reach them with a few rockets from beyond the bend, but of the twelve that came, only one landed in the perimeter, and it did no damage. Chack estimated the range at about three miles, so now they knew the distance at which the repurposed air-defense weapons were ineffective against surface targets. After that, except for an occasional shot from the entrenched batteries across the charred plain, it remained mostly quiet for the rest of the night, and the BBs and cruisers just sat out there, waiting. There were about a hundred Grik galleys too, seen by a scouting motor launch, lingering out of sight beyond Arracca’s smoldering corpse. There was little doubt what they meant to do at dawn. The rest of the galleys had been glimpsed rowing back upriver, their dreams of crossing the strait and reconquering Madagascar at least temporarily crushed.
Chack was up all night reorganizing the defenders and distributing what little ammunition they had left. There was no water left at all, besides what could be taken from the river and boiled. Nobody was ready to drink the filthy brown ooze straight. Not yet. Silva, Horn, and Lawrence helped Chack until he sent about a third of their force and both machine guns down to the beach under Major Galay. That effectively eliminated Horn’s and Lawrence’s independent “commands” and left less than two thousand still in the trench. Chack told his groggy friends to get some rest near the center of the line, where they could quickly move wherever they were needed, and they gratefully trudged away. Chack came by as the sky began to brighten and found them all clustered together among the sleeping troops. Lawrence was curled in a ball at the bottom of the trench, and Horn was snoring loudly. Pam, just relieved and probably more exhausted than any of them, was curled up against Silva’s side, oblivious to the fact that Petey had returned from . . . wherever he went and draped himself halfway across her shoulder as well. Chack started to pass on and let his friends rest a little longer, but he caught a flicker reflected in Silva’s open eye. He stopped and crouched.
“Them Griks on the river are waitin’ for Captain Reddy,” Silva whispered. “They’re gonna make a stand.”
Chack nodded. “I expect them to attaack us here as well, from the water and the laand.”
Horn had stopped snoring. “So, what’s the dope? You get any on the radio?” he asked thickly. “Is First Fleet going to get here in time?” he asked more specifically.
“First Fleet has been fighting all night,” Chack said, “not only against enemy ships but to baash its way across their wrecks. Salissa has liter-aally been doing that, crushing sunken cruisers beneath her or aside.” He shuddered. “While considered an excellent expedient at first, I don’t think Ahd-mi-raal Keje expected to have to do it so often, and even Big Saal caan only take so much. The river finally broadens, however, and they will get here,” he emphasized, “but I caan’t say when, or whether it’ll be in time for us. The gaalleys are obviously pre-paaring to attaack from the river with a force at least equal to what I sent to face them, but I suspect that is only to weaken this position—which it haas done,” he confessed. “There is movement in the enemy trench, and I expect his greatest effort here.” He stood. “I will be baack. I may as well begin prepaaring our troops to face the day. You might waant to do the same.” With that, he strode away.
Pam sat up and stretched, dropping Petey behind her back. “Agh!” she hissed, jumping up. “You little shit! I thought you were somethin’ . . .” She shook her head. “Weird dreams.” She took an unsteady step. “I better get back to work down at the tents.” She paused and looked back at Silva. “Be careful, Dennis.”
“You too, doll. See you after a while.”
“Little shit eat?” Petey inquired, eyes still closed as he crawled back up on Silva.
“Not yet,” Silva said, also standing.
“You think they’ll come?” Horn asked.
“Yeah. No. Who knows?”
“How much ammo you got?”
“None for my Tommy gun or forty-five, sixteen rounds for the Doom Stomper, an’”—he displayed the nickel-plated Colt—“thirty-two rounds for this thing, not countin’ what’s in it.” He smirked. “Thirty-eight total. That’s how long the skipper has to save our asses.” He climbed out of the trench and unbuttoned his trousers in the direction of the enemy. He could see them now, the day brightening quickly. “Sonova goat,” he murmured. “Just look at them lizards! Practically paradin’ into their formations! Never thought I’d see such a thing.”
Snickering, several Shee-Ree joined him in urinating toward the Grik. In their culture, they were claiming a possession. Silva chuckled as he buttoned back up. “I’m so dry, I’m surprised I had the water for that—but at least I got to take a piss on Grik Land itself!” He slid back into the trench.
“So, this is it, huh?” Horn asked.
Silva ignored him. “Hey, you remember a fella named Mack Marvaney? Gunner’s mate third, I think, or maybe he was still just a striker then. Stood us all around at that dive in Shanghai—can’t remember its name—after that fight with those Brit gunboat swabs?”
Horn tried to concentrate. “Yeah, maybe.”
/>
“Poor bastard didn’t last hardly twenty-four hours on this shithole world. Goofy lizards on Bali got him, first time we ever really went ashore. Different kind o’ lizards from Grik, but still smart, see?”
“You thinking maybe he was the lucky one?” Horn asked.
Silva looked at him, surprised. “Hell no! Just think of all the fun he’s missed!”
Horn was mystified. “I swear. You shift gears faster than anybody I ever knew. Most people might at least have to double clutch it after losing a pal like Risa. Aren’t you still chopped up about her at all?
Silva considered. “Yeah, I’ll miss her,” he admitted, “an’ I expect I will as long as I live. But you know, either ol’ Chackie’s right an’ she’s still with us, havin’ a peek from time to time . . . or she ain’t. No use worryin’ about it—except when I’m in the crapper. He’s right about one thing, though: this war changed her from all fun to all gun—an’ if there’s one thing I’ve learned, you can’t take nothin’ for granted. That’s why I rared up an’ asked Pam if she wanted to get hitched.”
Horn was even more amazed. “What did she say?”
“‘No way in hell,’” Silva replied, as if it hadn’t fazed him at all. Maybe it hadn’t. “Who knows what that really means, comin’ from her? But I asked, an’ she had her chance, so I ain’t got that hangin’ over my head no more. That’s what matters, right? I figger Risa went out as good as anybody’d want to, an’ did her heap o’ livin’ with no regrets. Me too—or me either.” He waved his hand. “Whichever.”
River of Bones Page 49
