“They’re shifting left.” She looked up to see Hruska. The noncom pointed to the company in front of her position. Small knots of men curled leftward. They hugged the ground and were visible only for seconds.
“Move some men to that end of the gulley,” she ordered. It was too late to shift artillery fire. Anyway, if the Highlanders ever got to the top of the ridge, the ranchers wouldn’t hold them. She held her breath and waited.
There was the scream of incoming artillery, then the night was lit by bright flashes. VT shells fell among the distant enemy on the left flank. “Pour it on!” she shouted into the communicator. “On target!”
“Right. On the way.”
She was sure it was Falkenberg himself at the other end. Catlike she grinned in the dark. What was a colonel doing as a telephone orderly? Was he worried about her? She almost laughed at the thought. Certainly he was, the ranchers would be hard to handle without her.
The ridge above erupted in fire. Mortars and grenades joined the artillery pounding the leftward assault column. Glenda Ruth paused to examine the critical situation to the right. The assault force five hundred meters away was untouched and continued to advance toward the top of the ridge. it was going to be close.
She let the artillery hold its target another five minutes while her riflemen engaged the company in front of her, then took up the radio again. The right-hand column had nearly reached the ridges, and she wondered if she had waited too long.
“Fire mission. Flash Zebra Nine.”
“Zebra Nine,” the emotionless voice replied. There was a short delay, then, “On the way.” The fire lifted from the left flank almost immediately, and two minutes later began to fall five hundred meters to the right.
“They’re flanking us, Miss,” Sergeant Hruska reported. She’d been so busy directing artillery at the assaults against the ridge line that she’d actually forgotten her twenty men were engaged in a firefight with over a hundred enemies. “Shall we pull back?” Hruska asked.
She tried to think, but it was impossible in the noise and confusion. The assault columns were still moving ahead, and she had the only group that could observe the entire attack, Every precious shell had to count “No. We’ll hold on here.”
“Right, Miss.” The sergeant seemed to be enjoying himself. He moved away to direct the automatic weapons and rifle fire. How long can we hold? Glenda Ruth wondered.
She let the artillery continue to pound the right-hand assault force for twenty minutes. By then the Highlanders had nearly surrounded her and were ready to assault from the rear. Prayerfully she lifted the radio again.
“Fire Mission. Give me everything you can on Jack Five—and for God’s sake don’t go over. We’re at Jack Six.”
“Flash Jack Five,” the voice acknowledged immediately. There was a pause. “On the way.” They were the most beautiful words she’d ever heard.
Now they waited. The Highlanders rose to charge. A wild sound filled the night. MY GOD, PIPES! She thought. But even as the infantry moved the pipes were drowned by the whistle of artillery. Glenda Ruth dove to the bottom of the gulley and saw that the rest of her command had done the same.
The world erupted in sound. Millions of tiny fragments at enormous velocity filled the night with death. Cautiously she lifted a small periscope to look behind her.
The Highlander company had dissolved. Shells were falling among dead men, lifting them to be torn apart again and again as the radar-fused shells fell among them. Glenda Ruth swallowed hard and swept the glass around. The left assault company had reformed and was turning back to attack the ridge. “Fire Flash Uncle Four,” she said softly.
“Interrogative.”
“FLASH UNCLE FOUR!”
“Uncle Four. On the way.”
As soon as the fire lifted from behind them her men returned to the lip of the gulley and resumed firing, but the sounds began to die away.
“We’re down to the ammo in the guns now, Miss,” Hruska reported. “May I have your spare magazines?”
She realized with a sudden start that she had yet to fire a single shot.
* * *
The night wore on. Whenever the enemy formed up to assault her position he was cut apart by the merciless artillery. Once she asked for a box barrage all around her gulley—by that time the men were down to three shots in each rifle, and the automatic weapons had no ammo at all. The toneless voice simply answered, “On the way.”
An hour before dawn nothing moved on the hill.
VIII
The thin notes of a military trumpet sounded across the barren hills of the Gap. The ridges east of Falkenberg’s battle line lay dead, their foliage cut to shreds by shell fragments, the very earth thrown into crazy-quilt craters partly burying the dead. A cool wind blew through the Gap, but it couldn’t dispel the smells of nitro and death.
The trumpet sounded again. Falkenberg’s glasses showed three unarmed Highlander officers carrying a white flag. An ensign was dispatched to meet them, and the young officer returned with a blindfolded Highlander major.
“Major MacRae, Fourth Covenant Infantry,” the officer introduced himself after the blindfold was removed. He blinked at the bright lights of the bunker. “You’ll be Colonel Falkenberg.”
“Yes. What can we do for you, Major?”
“I’ve orders to offer a truce for burying the dead. Twenty hours, Colonel, if that’s agreeable.”
“No. Four days and nights—160 hours, Major,” Falkenberg said.
“A hundred sixty hours, Colonel?” The burly Highlander regarded Falkenberg suspiciously. “You’ll want that time to complete your defenses.”
“Perhaps. But twenty hours is not enough time to transfer the wounded men. I’ll return all of yours—under parole, of course. It’s no secret I’m short of medical supplies, and they’ll receive better care from their own surgeons.”
The Highlander’s face showed nothing, but he paused. “You wouldn’t tell me how many there be?” He was silent for a moment, then speaking very fast, he said, “The time you set is within my discretion, Colonel.” He held out a bulky dispatch case. “My credentials and instructions. ‘Twas a bloody battle, Colonel. How many of my laddies have ye killed?”
Falkenberg and Glenda Ruth glanced at each other. There is a bond between those who have been in combat together, and it can include those of the other side. The Covenant officer stood impassively, unwilling to say more, but his eyes pleaded with them.
“We counted 409 bodies, Major,” Glenda Ruth told him gently. “And—” she looked at Falkenberg, who nodded. “We brought in another 370 wounded.” The usual combat ratio is four men wounded to each killed; nearly sixteen hundred Covenanters must have been taken out of action in the assault. Toward the end the Highlanders were losing men in their efforts to recover their dead and wounded.
“Less than four hundred,” the major said sadly. He stood to rigid attention. “Hae your men search the ground well, Colonel. There’s aye more o’ my lads out there.” He saluted and waited for the blindfold to be fixed again. “I thank you, Colonel.”
As the mercenary officer was led away Falkenberg turned to Glenda Ruth with a wistful smile. “Try to bribe him with money and he’d challenge me, but when I offer him his men back—” He shook his head sadly.
“Have they really given up?” Glenda Ruth asked.
“Yes. The truce finishes it. Their only chance was to break through before we brought up more ammunition and reserves, and they know it.”
“But why? In the last revolution they were so terrible, and now—why?”
“It’s the weakness of mercenaries,” Falkenberg explained crisply. “The fruits of victory belong to our employers, not us. Friedland can’t lose her armor and Covenant can’t lose her men, or they’ve nothing more to sell.”
“But they fought before!”
“Sure, in a fluid battle of maneuver. A frontal assault is always the most costly kind of battle. They tried to force the passage, and we beat them fairly. Honor is satisfied. Now the Confederacy will have to bring up its own Regulars if they want to force a way through the Gap. I don’t think they’ll squander men like that, and anyway it takes time. Meanwhile we’ve got to go to Allansport and deal with a crisis.”
“What’s wrong there?” she asked.
This came in regimental code this morning.” He handed her a message flimsy.
FALKENBERG FROM SVOBODA BREAK PATRIOT ARMY LOOTING ALLANSPORT STOP REQUEST COURT OF INQUIRY INVESTIGATE POSSIBLE VIOLATIONS OF LAWS OF WAR STOP EXTREMELY INADVISABLE FOR ME TO COMPLY WITH YOUR ORDERS TO JOIN REGIMENT STOP PATRIOT ARMY ACTIONS PROVOKING SABOTAGE AND REVOLT AMONG TOWNSPEOPLE AND MINERS STOP MY SECURITY FORCES MAY BE REQUIRED TO HOLD THE CITY STOP AWAIT YOUR ORDERS STOP RESPECTFULLY ANTON SVOBODA BREAK BREAK MESSAGE ENDSXXX
She read it twice. “My God, Colonel—what’s going on there?”
“I don’t know,” he said grimly. “I intend to find out. Will you come with me as a representative of the Patriot Council?”
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