Cursing, Mark floorboarded the Jeep and headed for the timber. Driving deep into a forest, away from the battleground, he pulled over, off the old dirt road, and switched off the engine.
Mark removed his field jacket and gave it to Peggy. He could see that the woman had been beaten and tortured. Despite that, she was still beautiful.
Mark poured raw alcohol onto his shoulder wound and bandaged it hurriedly. Peggy crawled into the front seat beside him.
“We’re beaten,” she said flatly.
“Not yet,” Mark said grimly. He slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. “Goddamnit!” he cursed. “I just didn’t count on Hartline doing anything like that.”
Her bitter laugh lifted his eyes toward her. “You can count on Hartline doing almost anything,” she told him. “He is brilliantly insane and perversely twisted; and so are a great number of his men.”
“You sound like you know him well.”
The sounds of battle were coming to a close, with only an occasional shot being fired far in the distance. Mark felt like a traitor for running out on his men. But there was still a chance he could regroup some of his people. But it was a slim one and Mark knew it. And he didn’t know if he wanted to see those who refused to fire. He thought he might try to kill them.
The taste of defeat was brass-bitter on his tongue. The word coward kept coming to him.
But Mark knew he was no coward; he had faced too much adversity in his life to be a coward. He just wished he could have done more.
As if reading his thoughts, Peggy said, “That battle was lost before it began back there, and Sam Hartline knew it. Said as much. There was nothing you could have done to change any of it. What is your name?”
“Mark. Mark Terry.”
“I’m Peggy Jones. Yeah, I know Sam Hartline.” The words rolled harshly from her tongue. “I was his . . . house nigger for a time, reporting back to Lois Peters, and she to the resistance. But he knew what I was doing all along and the information he gave me was deliberately false. I ... got away from him – don’t ask me how – but he finally tortured Lois until she gave away where I was hiding. I can’t blame her for that. He tortured her to death. It was . . . terrible what he did to her. I will never get that picture of her out of my mind.
“Then,” she sighed, “he had a high old time with me. I . . . really don’t want to say what he did to me. It was sexual, most of the time. I will never be able to bear children. The IPF people . . . fixed me.” She lifted her arm and pulled back the sleeve of the field jacket, showing Mark the tattoo on her arm. “Hartline and a lot of his men and the IPF people as well are perverted. They enjoy inflicting pain; and Hartline likes to do it in a sexual manner. And that is all I’m going to say about that.”
Mark touched her hand. “You don’t have to say anything, Peggy. Some of the refugees that came into our area told us a lot about Hartline. What the women said was . . . sickening.”
Her eyes, filled with the horror of what had been done to her, touched his eyes. “We need to get to a safer place, Mark, and I need to fix up that shoulder of yours.”
Something deep within Mark, something very soft and gentle, moved slightly, touching him in a manner he had never known before. He was unsure of the origin or the meaning. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Right. And. . . Peggy?”
He looked at him. “Yes?”
“People do adopt kids, you know.”
He put his good arm around her and she put her face against his chest and wept.
“Holy Mother of God!” Juan whispered. “That isn’t warfare – that’s evil.”
He stood gazing in disbelief and shocked horror at the line of APCs coming at them, naked women and naked young boys and girls roped to the front of the carriers.
“Take a look at what is coming up behind them,” a soldier said, his voice hushed with shock in the early morning.
Juan lifted his binoculars to his eyes. After a moment, he lowered them and began cursing, long and passionately, in his mother tongue.
“What do we do, Juan?” The question came out of the knot of company commanders standing behind him. It was a question Juan did not want to hear, but one he knew had to be answered.
After a moment that seemed like an eternity to Juan, he said, “We stop them; we have no choice in the matter.” There was a deathlike quality to his reply.
“Juan, we can’t – ”
“Yes, we can!” Juan whirled around, his face ight with anger as he recalled Ben’s words: “If they can’t cut it, Juan, let me have it all up front.” And Juan’s reply now returned to haunt him: “They will do what I tell them to do. They might not like it, but they will do it.”
God, Juan silently implored the Almighty, let my people have the courage to do this awful thing.
“We have to stop them!” Juan shouted the words.
A company commander lowered his binoculars, tears streaming from his eyes, rolling in rivers down his cheeks. “The little ones are all crying,” he said, his voice breaking under the strain. “The – ”
“Stop it!” Juan shouted.
“... Old people are naked and barefooted. Must be two-”
“Goddamn it, fire!” Juan screamed. He looked up and down the line of the first defense. “Fire on them, goddamn you!”
“...Or three hundred of the old people.” The man appeared to be in shock.
Juan slapped the man, the force of his open-handed blow rocking the man’s head back, bringing blood to his lips.
Juan jerked up a rifle, firing at the mercenaries, the IPF, the young and the old. A few more defenders joined him. But most did not. They could not.
The forces, under the command of Colonel Fechnor, drew closer.
Juan’s men began backing off the small ridge, bucking under the awfulness of what lay before them, growing nearer with the screams and cries of the young and the old.
“You have no place to back up to!” Juan shouted at his men.
Over the rumble of the APCs and Jeeps, the sounds of the children’s weeping drifted to the men on the hill. About a third of Juan’s first line of defense stayed by his side, fighting at his orders. The others drifted back, not out of cowardice, but because they loved life so much they could not bear to fire on the very young and the very old.
“Cobardes!” Juan screamed at the backs of his men. “Chacals!” But he knew those men were not cowards or jackals. They simply could not bring themselves to fire on helpless old people and babies.
“Fall back to the river!” Juan yelled to those men who elected to remain by his side. Far in the distance he could see trucks rolling toward the bridge at Blair. He turned to his radio operator. “Order them to stop,” he told the woman.
She shook her head. “I have them now, sir. They say they are not defeated or running away. They say they will defend our homelands, but they will not kill women and babies and old people.”
Alvaro, Juan’s brother, hurried to his side. “Juan, we have about one minute before we meet eternity.”
The screaming and the crying of the children lashed to the front of the APCs was now very clear. The old people were stumbling, almost down from exhaustion. They were being prodded forward by rifle barrels.
The taste of the defeat was ugly on Juan’s tongue. He gave the order he knew must he must give to save at least some of his forces. “Fall back!” he shouted.
As Juan rode in the Jeep, crossing the bridge over the Missouri River, he muttered, “God help Ben Raines.”
THREE
Ben listened grimly to the reports from the Rebel’s LRRPs. He stood in his command bunker and cursed. When he ran out of obscenities, he looked at the woman manning the radio.
“Sorry about that,” he apologized.
She grinned. “I haven’t heard such cussing since the time my daddy caught me in a hayloft with a kid from down the road.”
Ben felt some of the anger leave him and he grinned at her. “I bet that was quite a moment.”
Ben laughed. “OK. Get on the horn and tell Colonel McGowen to cut and run. Head south. Instruct Colonel Ramos to break through his south lines and do the same. Order all forward units to hunt holes and get in them and keep their heads down until they receive orders from me to resume guerrilla activities. No last-ditch stands for any unit. No heroics out of anybody. Pull back. We’ll regroup along Highway 60 in southern Missouri, from Springfield to Poplar Bluff. Pull back with all speed.”
“We’re retreating, sir?”
“No,” Ben told her. “We are executing what the marines used to call a strategic withdrawal. Get to it, Sergeant.”
“This isn’t as much fun as the hayloft,” she said.
Chase walked into the battle-scarred bunker. “I’ve got badly wounded people, Ben. To move them at this time would be endangering their lives.”
“Move them,” Ben said. “It can’t be avoided, Lamar. We don’t have a choice.”
The doctor looked at the man for a long moment. Then he nodded his head. “All right, Ben. I’ll start pulling them out now.” He turned to leave.
“Lamar?”
The doctor turned around.
“I’m sorry, Lamar.”
“I know, Ben. I’m sorry, too.”
Gen. Georgi Striganov was furious. The deaths of the old people, the young women and the children did not bother him as much as what it had done to his self-image. The Russian perceived himself as a fair and just person. History might well paint him as an evil person for condoning something like this. That bothered him more than anything.
“I gave no orders to do anything this monstrous!” Striganov raged at Sam Hartline and Colonel Fechnor. “Killing old people and little children.”
“Only a few old niggers died,” Hartline said. “One nigger woman took a round in the guts and one got her brain cooked when her hair caught fire. There were a few greasers killed over in Iowa. No big deal. Anyway, if you have to yell at somebody, yell at me,” Hartline told him. The deaths of the young and old bothered him about as much as swatting a fly “Colonel Fechnor was assigned to my command and he was only obeying orders like any good soldier.”
Col. Valeska Fechnor breathed a silent sigh of relief. He would have to think of some way to repay Hartline for getting him off tenterhooks. This could have turned into a very ugly scene.
General Striganov calmed himself slowly by taking deep breaths and clenching and unclenching his fists. He turned away and gazed out the front of the open tent. He would have to tell his historians that it was the mercenary who ordered the old and the young used in such a horrible manner; let future generations know that he, personally, had nothing to do with anything so monstrous.
“Anyway,” Hartline said with a smile, “we won, didn’t we? Raines is pulling his people back, turning tail and running. So the victory is ours.”
“Ben Raines is most definitely not turning tail and running,” the Russian told the mercenary. “He is merely executing a perfectly logical military option. I would do the same if the situation was reversed. One battle does not win the war. And do not attempt to do with Ben Raines what you succeeded in doing with the inferior minorities. General Raines would not hesitate to shoot. He would not like it, he might weep while giving the order, but he would shoot. Don’t ever think otherwise.”
“Yeah,” Hartline agreed. “You’re right about that, I guess.”
Striganov withered him silent with a cold look. “I am almost always correct, Sam. And never again do anything of today’s magnitude without first consulting me. Is that clear?”
“Clear as rain,” the mercenary said, the scolding bouncing off him. Hartline had a hide of iron.
“Yes, sir,” Fechnor said crisply.
“Very well,” Striganov said. “The matter is closed. We shall count our dead, give them a proper soldiers’ burial, then map out strategy for the upcoming campaign against General Raines. And it will not be an easy one. Do not – either of you – delude yourselves into believing otherwise. Unless we are lucky enough to kill Ben Raines – in combat – his people will fight forever, constantly a thorn in our sides.”
“Have some of your people down in Tri-States ambush him,” Hartline suggested.
“No,” Striganov said. “I will not stoop to Raines’s level of fighting. Not yet, at least. Besides, you can bet Raines will ferret those people out when he gets back. If he gets back. I was arrogantly wrong when I admitted to him I was aware of his Jewess bed-partner. My mistake. I shall be big enough to admit it. All right, now then, how great were the losses of the black people?”
“Fifty to sixty percent,” Hartline told him. “Maybe seven to eight hundred got away. Certainly no more than that.”
“Their leaders?”
“Al Maiden is dead. Mark Terry got away. Took Peggy with him and cut out.”
“Peggy?” Striganov questioned. “Who is Peggy?”
“No one of any importance.” Hartline waved the question aside.
“The Mexicans?” The Russian glanced at Colonel Fechnor.
“They fared a bit better. My men have counted some five hundred dead. We took less than two hundred prisoners. The rest ran away like cowards.”
“Pursuit?”
“None. My men stopped at the Missouri River. As you ordered.”
“Good. Very good, Colonel. I commend you.” He walked to the tent opening. “Now, gentlemen, let us honor our gallant dead.”
Ike was furious when he met with Ben. Ben let the ex-SEAL blow his tanks until he wound down. Ben then waved his friend to a seat.
“I was plenty pissed too, Ike. But then I got the whole picture from a survivor out of Malden’s command.” He told Ike what the IPF and Hartline’s mercs had done.
Ike sat in horrified silence for a few seconds. “Ben... that’s the worst goddamned thing I ever heard of. Jesus Christ! Kids and old people.” He shuddered his revulsion. “I will admit my guys pulled some pretty raunchy shit in ’Nam, but nothing like that.”
“It’s low, buddy, I’ll sure go along with that. Well, it’s done, and nothing we can do about it. Let’s get down to hard facts, buddy: How many people did you lose?”
“Too goddamn many. I lost just about twenty-five percent. Another ten percent wounded so badly they’re out of action for weeks – maybe months. Equipment fared a lot better. We got ninety-five percent of our howitzers and armor out.”
“Thirty-five percent of your command, then?” Ben questioned, a deep and very personal sense of loss touching him. He knew every man and woman in every unit.
“At least.”
“Don’t feel too badly, Ike. My figures are just about the same as yours. Cecil’s bunch took one hell of a pounding, too. He lost almost forty percent. And I hate to see Hector’s losses when he comes in.”
“I know he took a beating. When Hec’s left flank caved in – wrong choice of words – was overrun – he lost an entire company right there. Last radio contact I had with him, he told me he took some heavy losses. Striganov really threw some people at him. Hec told me he was outnumbered four, five to one.”
“I’ve sent out scrambled messages for any survivor to the east to come across at Cairo. That’s why I asked you to leave people there. I got a hunch they’ll be in pretty bad shape. Chase is sending medical teams over there to assist.”
“You heard Malden’s dead?”
“No. I hate that. We were beginning to be friends. Mark Terry?”
“I just heard he was wounded, but managed to get out. He rescued one young woman from the front of an APC.”
“They’ll be drifting in pretty soon, I imagine. I hope so. We’re going to need all the warm, breathing bodies we can muster.”
“Plans?”
Ben shook his head. “I don’t know what we’re going to do, Ike. I want a fully attended meeting of the minds as soon as everybody gets in.”
“I wonder if the Russian knows how really weak we are?”
/>
“I doubt it. And he must not find out. If he threw everything he had at us right now, he’d hammer us into the ground.”
It was a downhearted and beaten group of men and women that straggled southward toward Cairo, Illinois. Although they did not speak of the horror, the picture of the naked women lashed to the front of the APCs and the old people stumbling along, frightened and humiliated, was a mental scene none could erase from their minds.
And for many, the thought nagged at them: Was I acting cowardly by refusing to shoot?
It was a question that many would never resolve to any degree of satisfaction.
Mark and Peggy encountered the first group of troops from New Africa at Du Quion, Illinois. Mark, his resentment toward them still a hot fire within him, at first would not acknowledge their presence. He drove past them without speaking, waving or even looking directly at them. Outside of the deserted town, he pulled over, conscious of Peggy’s unwavering stare on his face.
He parked on the shoulder, sighed and then cut off the engine. He turned to face her. “What is it you want me to do, Peggy?”
“I want you to go back and rally your people. The fight isn’t over, Mark. The fight can’t ever be over until the Russian and Hartline are both dead and the dream of . . . of the master race is dead with them.”
“Those people back there are cowards,” Mark said, jerking his thumb in the direction from which they had just come.
“Oh, Mark, they aren’t any more a coward than you are. And in your heart you know that’s true. They’re confused and troubled and I’m sure they feel they let you down.”
Anarchy in the Ashes Page 22
