“This way,” John said.
Harry Smith nodded, and together they pushed it upstream, under an overhang of wild olive and trailing vines. Smith reached in, rocking it to one side with his weight, and pulled the stopper. Water gurgled into the whaleboat, and it sank rapidly in the chest-deep stream.
“I’ll put a few rocks in her,” Smith said. “She’ll be here when y’all get back. So’ll I be. Good luck, sir.” He racked a shell into the breech of his pump shotgun.
“Thanks. To you, too—we’re all going to need it.”
* * *
Heinrich Hosten looked at the thing that twitched and mewled on the table. The Fourth Bureau specialist smiled and patted it on what was left of its scalp.
“Yes, I’d say they’re definitely planning on something to do with the train,” she said. “Can’t tell you exactly where, though—the subject didn’t know, that’s for certain.”
Heinrich nodded thanks as he left. Outside he stood thoughtfully beside his horse for a while, looking around at the buildings of the little town, then pulling a map from the case at his side and tilting it so that the lantern outside the Fourth Bureau regional HQ shone on the paper. When he mounted, he turned towards the barracks, his escort of riflemen clattering behind him through the chill night.
“No, don’t wake Major van Pelt,” he said to the sentry outside the main door. It had been a monastery before the conquest, perfect for its new use; a series of courtyards with small rooms leading off, and large common kitchens, refectories for mess halls. “Who’s the officer of the day?”
That turned out to be a very young captain. Heinrich returned her salute, then smiled as he stuffed tobacco into his big curved pipe.
“Hauptman Neumann, what’s a junior officer’s worst nightmare?”
“Ah . . .” Captain Neumann knotted her brow in thought. “Surprise attack by overwhelming numbers?” she said hopefully.
“Tsk, tsk. That would be an opportunity for an able young officer,” Heinrich said genially. “No, a nightmare is what you are about to undergo; an operation conducted with a senior officer along to look over your shoulder and jog your elbow. What forces are stationed here in Campo Fiero?”
“One battalion of the Third Protégé Infantry, currently at ninety-eight percent of full strength, and a squadron of armored cars—five currently ready, three undergoing serious maintenance. That is not counting,” she added with an unconscious sniff, “police troops. Plus the usual support elements.”
“Troops so-called,” Heinrich said, nodding agreement. He turned to the map table that filled one corner of the ready room. “Ah, yes. Now, find me a train schedule. While you’re at it—I presume your company is on reaction status? Good. While you’re at it, get your troops ready to move, full field kit, but no noise. Nobody to enter or leave the barracks area.”
He stared at the map, puffing with the pewter lid of the pipe turned back. Now, he thought happily, if I were a rebellious animal, where would I be?
* * *
“Good choice,” John said.
Bianci grunted beside him. “The bridge would have been better, but there are blockhouses there now—a section of infantry and a couple of their accursed machine guns at each end. With signal rockets always at the ready.”
John nodded. Oto was up; the smallest of Visager’s three moons also moved the fastest, and although it was little more than a bright spark across the sky, it did give some light. Enough to see how the railway track curved around a steep rocky hill here, falling away to a stretch of marsh and then a small creek on the other side. The guerillas numbered about sixty; Bianci hadn’t offered to introduce anyone else, which was exactly as it should be.
“We got quite a few trains at first,” Bianci said. “But then the tedeschi began making villagers from along the lines ride in carriages at front.”
“You can’t allow that to stop you,” John said.
Bianci glanced his way, a shadowed gleam of eyeball in the faint moonlight, the smell of garlic and sweat.
“We didn’t,” he said. “But the villagers began to patrol the rail line themselves . . . to protect their families, you understand. So now we pick locations far from any habitation. Like this.”