One large-caliber gun was trained on their position. It fired on anything that moved. There was also a laser, with several mirrors that could be moved about between flashes. The laser itself was safe. So were the mirrors, because the monarchists never fired twice from the same position.
The men shot at the guns and at where they thought the mirror was anyway until Peter ordered them to stop wasting ammunition. It wasn’t good for morale to lie there and not fight back, though.
“I bet I can locate that goddamn gun,” Corporal Bassinger told Peter. “I got the best eyesight in the company.”
Peter mentally called up Bassinger’s records. Two ex-wives and an acknowledged child by each. Volunteered after being an insurance man in Brooklyn for years. “You can’t spot that thing.”
“Sure I can, Lieutenant. Loan me your glasses, I’ll spot it sure.”
“All right. Be careful. They’re shooting at anything they can see.”
“I’m careful.”
“Let me see, man!” someone shouted. Three men clustered in the trench around Bassinger. “Let us look!” “Don’t be a hog, we want to see too.” “Comrade, let us look—”
“Get away from here,” Bassinger shouted. “You heard the lieutenant, it’s dangerous to look over the ramparts.”
“What about you?”
“I’m an observer. Besides, I’m careful.” He crawled into position and looked out through the little slot he’d cut away in the dirt in front of him. “See, it’s safe enough. I think I see—”
Bassinger was thrown back into the trench. The shattered glass fell on top of him, and he had already ceased breathing by the time they heard the shot that hit him in the eye.
That day two men had toes shot off and had to be evacuated.
They lay on a hill for a week. Each night they lost a few more men to minor casualties that could not possibly have been inflicted by the enemy. Then Stromand had two men with foot injuries shot by a squad of military police from staff headquarters.
The injuries ceased, and the men lay sullenly in the trenches until the company was relieved.
* * *
They had two days in a small town near the front, then the officers were called to a meeting. The briefing officer had a thick accent, but it was German, not Spanish. The briefing was for the Americans and it was held in English.
“We vill have a full assault. All international volunteers vill move out at once. We vill use infiltration tactics.”
“What does that mean?” Captain Barton demanded.
The staff officer looked pained. “Ven you break through their lines, go straight to their technical areas and disrupt them. Ven that is done, the war is over.”
“Where are their technical corpsmen?”
“You vill be told after you have broken through their lines.”
The rest of the briefing made no more sense to Peter. He walked out with Barton after they were dismissed. “Looked at your section of the line?” Barton asked.
“As much as I can,” Peter answered. “Do you have a decent map?”
“No. Old CD orbital photographs, and some sketches. No better than what you have.”
“What I did see looks bad,” Peter said. “There’s an olive grove, then a hollow I can’t see into. Is there cover in there?”
“You better patrol and find out.”
“You will ask the battalion commander for permission to conduct patrols,” a stern voice said from behind them.
“You better watch that habit of walking up on people, Stromand,” Barton said. “One of these days somebody’s not going to realize it’s you.” He gave Peter a pained look. “Better ask.”
Major Harris told Peter that Brigade had forbidden patrols. Surprise was needed, and patrols might alert the enemy of the coming attack.
As he walked back to his company area, Peter reflected that Harris had been an attorney for the Liberation Party before he volunteered to go to Santiago.
They were to move out the next morning. The night was long. The men cleaned their weapons and talked in whispers. Some drew meaningless diagrams in the mud of the dugouts. About halfway through the night forty new volunteers joined the company. They had no equipment other than rifles, and they had left the port city only two days before. Most came from Churchill, and because they spoke English and the trucks were coming to this section, they had been sent along.
Major Harris called the officers together at dawn. “The Xanadu techs have managed to acquire some rockets,” he told them. “They’ll drop them on the Dons before we move out. Owensford, you will move out last. You will shoot any man who hasn’t gone before you do.”
“That’s my job,” Stromand protested.
“I want you to lead,” Harris said. “The bombardment will come at 0815 hours. Do you all have proper timepieces?”
“No, sir,” Peter said. “I’ve only got a watch that counts Earth time. . . .”
“Hell,” Harris muttered. “Okay, Thurstone’s hours are 1.08 Earth hours long. You’ll have to work it out from that. . . .” He looked confused.
“No problem,” Peter assured him.
“Okay, back to your areas.”
Zero hour went past with no signals. Another hour passed. Then a Republican brigade to the north began firing, and a few men left their dugouts and moved onto the valley floor.
A ripple of fire and flashing mirrors colored the ridge beyond as the enemy began firing. The Republican troops were cut down, and the few who were not hit scurried back into their shelters.
“Fire support!” Harris shouted. Owensford’s squawk box made unintelligible sounds, effectively jammed as were all electronics Peter had seen on Santiago, but he heard the order passed down the line. His company fired at the enemy, and the monarchists fired back.
Within minutes it was clear that the enemy dominated the valley. A few large rockets rose from behind the enemy lines and crashed randomly into the Republican positions. There were more flashes across the sky as the Xanadu technicians backtracked the enemy rockets and returned counterfire. Eventually the shooting stopped for lack of targets.
It was 1100 by Peter’s watch when a series of explosions lit the lip of the monarchist ramparts. Another wave of rockets fell among the enemy, and the Republicans to the north began to charge forward.
“Ready to move out!” Peter shouted. He waited for orders.
There was nearly a minute of silence. No more rockets fell on the enemy. Then the ridge opposite rippled with fire again, and the Republicans began to go down or scramble back to their positions.
The alert tone sounded on Peter’s squawk box and he lifted it to his ear. Amazingly, he could hear intelligible speech. Someone at headquarters was speaking to Major Harris.
“The Republicans have already advanced half a kilometer. They are being slaughtered because you have not moved your precious Americans in support.”
“Bullshit!” Harris’s voice had no tones in the tiny speaker. “The Republicans are already back in their dugouts. The attack has failed.”
“It has not failed. You must show what high morale can do. Your men are all volunteers. Many Republicans are conscripts. Set an example for them.”
“But I tell you the attack has failed.”
“Major Harris, if your men have not moved out in five minutes I will send the military police to arrest you as a traitor.”
The box went back to random squeals and growls; then the whistles blew and orders were passed down the line. “Move out.”
Peter went from dugout to dugout. “Up and at them. Jarvis, if you don’t get out of there I’ll shoot you. You three, get going.” He saw that Allan Roach was doing the same thing.
When they reached the end of the line, Roach grinned at Peter. “We’re all that’s left, now what?”
“Now we move out, too.” They crawled forward, past the lip of the hollow that had sheltered them. Ten meters beyond that they saw Major Harris lying very still.
“Captain Barton’s in command of the battalion,” Peter said.
“Wonder if he knows it? I’ll take the left side, sir, and keep ’em going, shall I?”
“Yes.” Now he was more alone than ever. He went on through the olive groves, finding men and keeping them moving ahead of him. There was very little fire from the enemy. They advanced fifty meters, a hundred, and reached the slope down into the hollow beyond. It was an old vineyard. The stumps of the vines reached out of the ground like old women’s hands.
They were well into the hollow when the Dons fired.
Four of the newcomers from Churchill were just ahead of Owensford. When the volley lashed their hollow they hit the dirt in perfect formation. Peter crawled forward to compliment them on how well they’d learned the training-book exercises. All four were dead.
He was thirty meters into the hollow. In front of him was a network of red stripes woven through the air a meter above the ground. He’d seen it at the Point: an interlocking network of crossfire guided by laser beams. Theoretically the Xanadu technicians should be able to locate the mirrors, or even the power plants, but the network hung there motionless.