by E. E. Knight
I shot a javelin into the air, it fell to earth, I knew not here....
Valentine kept the doggerel to himself. They could hardly move any more, so they might as well fight. Where Javelin finally landed would—must!—be remembered. One way or another.
Javelin's camp was buzzing with rumor.
"I've got a message from Colonel Bloom, men," Valentine said, breaking in on breakfast. The men sat on their sleeping mats in neat rows, eating. He nodded to the commissary boy, and some of the kitchen boys brought out fresh hot coffee.
A few heads turned. Some in groups at the back kept eating. Others held out mugs for more coffee.
He climbed up onto the roof of cranky Old Comanche, the sole remaining truck. "We crossed the Mississippi to help the locals create a new Freehold," Valentine said.
"I don't know how you feel about it, but we came here to do a job. We ran hard across Kentucky on the way there, and then fought our way back. Our trail is marked by graves—some of ours, lots of theirs.
"Headquarters just received some startling news. Evansville's been taken by the local resistance. They've got barges full of grain, pork, medical supplies—everything we're short of. They're short of training and guns.
"On this side of the river Kentucky's as sick of the Moondaggers as we are. The legworm clans between Bowling Green and the Appalachians are fighting, hard. Not raiding, not burning a few bridges to give them some negotiating leverage with the Kurians. They're in it for keeps."
They stopped eating the keyed tins of legworm meat marked WHAM. That was something.
"The reason the city there fell that is that most of their militia's been impressed by the Moondaggers. What's left is willing to come over to the Cause.
"You've had some hard fights. You all know you've given it to the Moondaggers even harder. They're filling out those positions opposite with militia ordered to kill or die. Their division isn't even able to hold an entire line at our front."
A few of the men stood up, as though trying to see through the hill toward the enemy positions. That was something else.
"I think we can guess what they mean to do. Hold our beat-down brigade here until they can reestablish their lines of communication and supply, keeping their fingers crossed that we'll surrender. It's been three days. The Wolves keep hearing activity on the other side of their hills—why haven't they attacked? Last Chance told us that we'll die tomorrow. Let's shut him up for good. They're the ones worried about how much worse it'll get tomorrow, not us.
"I know what you're thinking: You've heard this story before. A populace rising, all we have to do is go help them, mid wives to a new Freehold. I'm telling you what I've heard from the resistance. Maybe it's wrong, maybe it's lies, maybe they're trying to get us out of our ditches and into the open. "
"Let's take them up on it. Put their money where Last Chance's mouth is. I wonder how often, in the history of the Moondaggers, they've been on the receiving end of an assault. Bears in the spearhead, Wolves snapping at their flanks, and a real assault by trained men coming in behind mortar fire. "
"And a Cat opening up that asshole in the swinging chair," Duvalier said, suddenly beside him. "If you boys will loan me a couple of claymores from the front of your positions, I'll see if I can't plant a couple around the Moondaggers' headquarters."
"Whar's a little thing like you gonna hide claymores?" Rollings called. He'd come up with some lovely new boots, probably taken from a Moondagger officer.
Duvalier opened her coat, flasher style, showing her improvised harness with clips and holsters and knife sheaths, but the men whistled at what was under her tattered old T-shirt.
Valentine spoke again. "I've told you what I know. Maybe they're setting us up for another sucker punch, with everything, including the bodies hanging from lampposts in Evansville's, a sham. Fine. I'm tired of running anyway. But I don't think it's another trick. I've got a feeling this is the day. This is the day when the tide turns. I'm asking you all to turn and fight with me. Our retreat's over." He considered his words to the Quislings across the river, decided they could be improved on. "From now on, it's forward. If we fall, we'll fall with honor."
Valentine stifled a few cheers before it became general by holding out his hands.
"Quiet, Javelin Brigade. Let's not do anything to spoil the surprise."
* * * *
During the day they came under some distracting shellfire. They were 120mm mortars, Valentine knew, having become intimately familiar with the sound of mortar calibers on Big Rock Hill. If anything, it helped settle Valentine's mind. An army baiting them to attack by feigning weakness wouldn't waste resources on random harassing fire. Duvalier made a quick scout of the enemy right that night. Valentine heard her report in the new assault headquarters, far forward, masquerading as an artillery observation post. They were close enough forward to draw sniper fire, so they had to keep their heads behind logs and brush.
"That greased-up kid is right about one thing. There's nothing but some nervous farmers and shopkeepers in front of you here, stiffened by Moondagger units behind. They pulled the best of them back to help with the disorder in their rear."
"How do you know that?" a lieutenant asked.
"I was close enough to taste splatter when one of them took a piss. I was able to pick up a couple of conversations."
Valentine could smell blood on her. "That's not all you did."
She wetted her lips. "They had a big machine gun backing up their line with a couple of our Moondagger friends manning it. Don't know if it was there to keep the men up front from running or not, but the loader was asleep and the gunner was jacking off. Couldn't resist a target of opportunity."
Valentine communicated her report, leaving out the story about the dead onanist, over the field phone. Bloom decided to put into effect the assault they'd begun planning after dismissing the boy for a meal and a return swim. They'd leave a skeleton line on the right opposite the Moondaggers and gather for the last effort on the left.
Duvalier shoved some legworm jerky in her mouth and had a cup of real coffee. "I'll take those claymores now, if you've got them," she said.
"Going to be a hero at last?" Valentine asked.
"No. I just like the odds. Their sentry positions out there are about as much use as a screen door in a flood. I'll plant the claymores in their headquarters dugout and wait for a full house. Just hope your guns don't drop a shell on me."
Valentine chuckled. "No ammo reserve. It'll be the shortest barrage in history."
She disappeared and he walked the positions, anxious. Especially after an illumination flare fired. Maybe Duvalier flushed a deer or threw a rock to get the Quisling militia looking in the wrong direction for her final wiggle through the lines.
He inspected the Bears. Gamecock had them in three circles. Chieftain already had his warpaint on. Silvertip was tightening the spiked leather dogskin gloves he liked to wear in a fight.
The Wolves had already left, half of Moytana's under his lieutenant command to reinforce the right—just in case—and the other half to move along the riverbank and see if they could slip around between the Ohio and the Quisling positions on the left. Valentine authorized Moytana to start the action. The rest of Javelin would follow them in, with Gamecock's Bears leading the way.
Valentine's company was at the forefront. They'd creep forward and provide covering fire for the Bears.
"Thanks for the chance, sir," Rand said, squinting. One of the lenses of his glasses had been blown out and he'd filled the pane with a bandage. It was easier than keeping one eye closed all the time. "I won't let you down."
"Another dirty job," Valentine said to the men as they filed up.
Valentine gaped at Glass. His uniform was carefully pressed and he had a barbershop shave. More important, Ford and Chevy had fresh belts for the .50s.
"Where did you find .50 ammo?"
"That little redhead of yours dropped a couple of boxes off after her last scout. She's stron
ger than she looks."
"Nice of her."
"She said I was to kiss you when the attack started, sir."
"I see you shaved for it."
"Turns out Chevy here was some kind of trained servant for an officer. I started shaving and he got all excited, so I let him do it. Wasn't much of a beard anyway."
"Someone might mistake you for a soldier and shoot at you," Valentine said.
"Just want this war to be over one way or another. If we're hitting the Moondaggers with not much more than guts and bayonets, I thought I might as well look nice, just in case. And it won't end until we quit playing defense and start digging these ticks out of our hide. I caught a little of that speech of yours. I've heard the same before. Hope you mean it."
"I do," Valentine said. "But I'm just one major."
"With a death sentence, I heard. Stuff like that happens to a lot of the good officers. Cocker, who organized Archangel. We lost Seng in Virginia."
"Think there's a reason for that, Glass?"
He shrugged. "Troublesome animals in a herd get culled first. That's all I'm saying. Watch yourself, sir."
Ford and Chevy started blowing air through their cheeks because they were falling behind the other men. Red Dog gamboled, too excited, or stupid, to tell a battle was in progress.
"Take care of them, Glass," Valentine said.
Patel brought up the rear, walking with the help of his canes again. He nodded to Valentine, as though too busy to pause and chat.
Valentine trotted over to him. "I thought I left you safe over on the other side of the river."
"A lieutenant with a full company of Guard walking wounded is helping in Evansville now. They said there was to be a battle. This is my place"
"Not with those knees, Sergeant Major." Valentine said.
"Cool night," Patel said. "Fall's well on the way now. They're always bad when the weather turns."
"Don't go forward with the rest. I want the company on our flank, just in case the Moondaggers launch a counterattack from their positions." Valentine had written the same to Rand, but he'd seen young officers get carried away with excitement before. "Find some good ground where you can hold them up."
"Yes, sir."
"That's all, except be careful."
"When am I not careful?"
"When you're throwing yourself on top of Reapers, for a start," Valentine said.
Patel shrugged, his eternal half smile on.
"Thanks, my friend," Valentine said. "For all you've done on this trip."
"Just doing what I always do," Patel said. "Seeing to it that young soldiers get to be old soldiers."
* * * *
Moytana must have found a good target of opportunity, because Valentine, manning the forward post, heard firing from the riverbank. Well behind the titular Quisling line.
Valentine picked up the field phone.
"General Seng. Repeat. General Seng," he told command.
Valentine made a note of the time: 4:16.
Within a minute the brigade's last few shells came crashing down on the Quisling positions. He wondered if that militia had ever faced artillery fire before. Valentine remembered his first hard barrage on that hill overlooking the Arkansas and Little Rock. It made one frightfully aware of just how hard the enemy was trying to kill you, felt almost like a personal grudge.
Whistles sounded all along the brigade's right as the fire slackened—not by design but by lack of ammunition.
Valentine heard the bark of Ford and Chevy's .50s and watched Javelin go forward, Bears in the lead, the dirt and dust of the artillery falling on them like snow as three hard-fighting wedges pierced the militia positions.
He felt for the Quislings. Indiana stockholders who wanted more land for their herds, men who wanted to own a trucking company, boys told by their Church officiates that militia service was the path to security for their parents and siblings, a good mark for the family record. Rousted out of their beds, told to put on uniforms they wore six weeks a year, picking up unwieldy bolt-action rifles fit more for intimidating a mob than turning back Gamecock's raging Bears.
The odds and ends of the Kentucky Alliance urged their mobile fortifications into action. Just the sight of charging worms might be enough to send most of the Quislings running: They resembled a yellow avalanche moving uncannily uphill.
Valentine saw Tikka in their midst, expertly hanging off the side of her mount and using her saddle as a rifle rest. Their affair still sparked and sputtered along, though they were both too dirty, tired, and hungry to do much but quickly rut and depart like wary rabbits in fox country. Valentine wasn't sure he could even put a name to what they had, but it was something as natural as the fall Kentucky rain, and just as cleansing.
He thought of the artistic swell of her buttocks. Mad thought, with shells and bullets Hying in at least three directions.
Bloom's command car bounced forward.
The Moondagger batteries joined the fray, but only a few shells fell, still heavies, hard to adjust to meet a fast-moving attack. Hopefully the tubes would be in the brigade's hands within a few hours. In the hands of trained spotters, they'd be handy against river traffic, especially if they had some white phosphorous shells that could be set to air burst.
The first reports began to come back to headquarters. The militia had simply dissolved into little groups of men lying on their faces, spread-eagle in surrender. There were reports of the Moondaggers doing as much damage to the Quisling militia as Javelin. The Wolves were finding trails blocked with bodies, shot by their alleged allies as they retreated.
It was Glass' kind of operation. No heroism required.
Valentine looked around the forward command post.
"That's a nice-looking province there," he said, pointing to some ground occupied by his company where they had a good view of the Moondagger postions. "Let's move forward. Signals, get ready to lay a new line. We're shifting operations forward."
He found Rand looking a little frazzled. "How's your first battle going?"
"It's a little more exciting than I'd like, sir," Rand said.
A wailing cry broke out from a shallow between the small hill of the observation post and the beginnings of Kentucky's rollers in the distance. A wave of Moondaggers poured up in a counterattack from the center. The phrase "gleam of bayonets" crossed Valentine's mental transom. The warrior poets were right—it is an unsettling sight when they're pointed at you.
Glass' machine guns cut into them but the Moondaggers ignored their losses, firing back wildly. They fell onto the outer edges of his platoon, fighting with curved dagger and rifle butt as grenades killed friend and foe alike. Bee was suddenly beside him, emptying her shotguns to deadly effect.
Then they were at the edge of the command post. Bee grabbed two bayoneted rifles thrust at her—Valentine heard her grunt as she seized the hot barrels—and poked the bearded men back, knocking them down like an angry mother snatching up dangerous toys. She reversed one rifle to have the long bayonet ready and used the other as a club to knock Moondaggers off their feet, sticking them like beetles on Styrofoam.
Rand fell without a cry, a bullet not caring that it cavitated one of the best brains Valentine had ever met.
Valentine, grenades bracketing him and vaguely bothered by the stickiness of Rand's blood on his face, did his best to cover Bee and Glass' gunners with his submachine gun. He reloaded, and only after emptying the gun again did he notice that he'd just wasted a full magazine of Quick wood bullets. Stupid!
Then a company of Guard engineers came forward, firing their light carbines, and it was over. Wounded Moondaggers, still lashing at their enemies with their knives, were shot and shot again until they quit crawling.
Bee poked at a loose flap of skin ragged from a bullet hole in her thigh like a child investigating a tick.
Valentine told Bee to put Rand in the shade of a beat-up medical pickup and get her wounds looked at, had Patel pull the company back together and see ab
out ammunition supply, and then sent a bare report of the repulsed counterattack back to Bloom.
Javelin Headquarters was on the move to the old Moondagger positions.
"Sir, radio report coming in from the Wolves!" Preville relayed. "The Moondaggers are running. Running! They're quitting and running hard up the highway to Bowling Green. Their legworm supports are going with them."
A lieutenant checked their large-scale map. "They keep heading down that highway, and they'll be getting into Mammoth country."
"Wonder what the Mammoth thought about the little catechism from those men the 'Daggers sliced up," Valentine said. "I wouldn't want to have my truck break down there."
"Wouldn't surprise me if they built a wooden cage or two," Patel said. "It's the end for them."
"Not the end," Valentine said. "Not even the beginning of the end." As Churchill might have put it, it was just the end of the beginning.
With the Moondaggers broken across Kentucky and perhaps beaten at last, a fatal crack in the foundation of the Kurian Order had been opened. Like any fault in a structure's foundation, it might not be easily seen or the danger recognized at first. But that first crack would allow more to appear, branching out until the whole edifice crumbled.
Even such an awful pyramid as Valentine had spoken of back at Rally Base could be undermined and brought down, in time.
Valentine hoped he'd live to see the fall.
About the Author
E. E. Knight graduated from Northern Illinois University with a double major in history and political science, and then worked a number of jobs that had nothing to do with history or political science.
