“But, once exposed to the heat of it, it welds you into a bonding, not only with friend, but foe, that no one else, no matter how close to you, will ever be able to share.”
* * *
Yeah, thought Melville, there was a lot of that going around today.
There was a brief respite as the enemy kept staggering back. Melville turned to Petreckski, who had just spoken to the engineer commander and was now standing beside him. “Any thoughts?” he yelled.
“Yes, sir,” he shouted into Melville’s ear “The engineers say they’re ready, and there is another ‘Thou shalt not,’ in the Bible besides the Ten Commandments. ‘Thou shalt not be afraid for the arrow that flieth by night, nor for the pestilence that walketh at noonday.’ So let us fear not, and get the hell out of here!”
“Volley grenades, and fall back!” Melville shouted, looking back at Broadax to be sure she heard. She smiled, nodded, echoed the command, and the reserve all hurled a grenade.
The reserve, positioned back behind the firing line, was better able to hear and respond to this command. Around Melville the command was echoed, but many members of the firing line were concentrating so hard that they didn’t hear the order. These individuals were manhandled back by their comrades, or grabbed by the reserve, and in a matter of seconds the entire line was falling back at a dead run. Melville popped a smoke grenade to cover their retreat, as did Petreckski and a few other leaders.
They raced across the bridge, the medics supporting a few wounded, the BARs bringing up the rear. As they left the bridge, the far end exploded, sending a cloud of wooden shards spinning into the sky. For a brief instant the debris seemed to hang in the sky, and then it came sailing back down. Giving substance to the water drops, and a new meaning to the term “a hard rain.”
Melville watched with wonder and horrified admiration as some of the engineers were launched into the air with the explosion. Bits and pieces of them came down with the debris. The rain greatly increased the possibility that fuses might not work, so they didn’t take the time or the risk to rig the bridge to be blown from afar. Instead the engineers set off the explosion while some of them were still on the bridge. They’d traded certain death for the absolute certainty that the bridge would be destroyed.
Others may sing of the wine
and the wealth and the mirth,
The portly presence of potentates
goodly in girth;—
Mine be the dirt and the dross,
the dust and scum of the earth!
They ran their weary way up the final slope to the Pier with a steady, shuffling gait, the healthy supporting the wounded. Behind them the artillery battery was punishing the enemy as they tried to make their way down the steep ravine, across the rushing stream and back up again. Eventually they’d make it, but by then the fleet would be gone.
As he trotted up the road Melville began to realize that he was wounded in several spots, spots which began to ache now that the battle was over. On the way Melville conducted a head count and, miraculously, all their troops were with them, although most of them were wounded. A close inspection of the monkeys’ belaying pins disclosed the great number of hits that had been deflected by their little friends. The secret of the monkeys’ ability was now well and truly out of the bag.
At the top of the hill the Stolsh admiral, the high commander of the forces on Ambergris, met Marshall DuuYaan. With tears streaming down his face the old admiral looked down the road and then faced his marshall. “Where is myy rear guaard?” he asked.
The marshall tore off his mangled, blood streaked helmet and tossed it to the ground with one final, sad “clunk.” Drawing himself to his full height in his dented, besmirched armor, he replied, “Sire, I aam the rear guaard.”
” ‘Ere now. Wat about us, damit!” muttered Broadax, “I seem ta recall ‘at we was there too!”
“Aye,” replied Hans, “an’ all the other boys ‘at died out there; the great, glorious, God damned, magnificent bastards.”
And Melville whispered to himself,
“Theirs be the music, the colour, the glory, the gold;
Mine be a handful of ashes, a mouthful of mould.
Of the maimed, of the halt and the blind in
the rain and the cold—
“Of these shall my songs be fashioned, my tale be told. Amen.”
Then they boarded their ship. The Stolsh had considered destroying the Pier with demolitions charges after the last refugees boarded. Denying this valuable resource to their enemy would have been tactically and strategically wise. But they couldn’t bring themselves to destroy an ancient, living creature that had served them well and faithfully across the years. They were as likely to destroy their world, another living creature that had befriended and aided them across the centuries. They would return, and when they did, old friends would be waiting for them.
Fielder had already taken their share of the refugees aboard. Many new hands had flocked to join Fang’s crew during their period on Ambergris, and most of them had already been integrated into the crew. Now the first officer took charge of getting the ship under way while Melville saw to their wounded. The captain would be needed to command his ship if the Guldur opposed the evacuation fleet, but for now he must see to his injured shipmates.
Melville insisted that the worst cases be tended to first. Finally it was his turn. Through the dim haze of his pain he saw Lady Elphinstone and smiled. Ah, now for an encouraging word. One medicinal dose of ancient, soothing Sylvan wisdom, coming up . . .
“Thee again?” she said, looking at him with a warm, sad smile that belied her words.
“I think it was George Bernard Shaw who said, ‘I want to be thoroughly used up when I die.’ ”
“That may be sooner than ye think. Hast thou not learned that people die here?”
“Thanks,” he replied. Responding to her expression and not her words he returned her smile and forgot his pain for a moment. “I needed an encouraging word. You’re a good friend.”
“One does what one can. So, can I have thy stuff?”
Chapter the 14th
Transition: The Rose is within the Thorn
O wad some Power the giftie gie us,
To see oursels as ithers see us!
Robert Burns
The honorable Milton Carpetwright didn’t make it to the Pier for evacuation. Shutting the curtains and cocooning inside his office meant that he and his staff didn’t get sufficient warning of the collapse of the defenses. His squad of marine guards did discover the danger, however belatedly, and tried to evacuate him. He dithered, and then he died, taking most of the consulate down with him. Pretending that the outside world doesn’t exist proved to be bad policy. Sooner or later the big bad old world will come knocking at your door, or knocking it down, as the case may be.
Only one of his marine guards had managed to fight his way out, and that was the redoubtable Corporal Petrico. Mighty tales were already being told of his blazing pistol craft, with a .45 in each hand, as their dwindling band of marines tried to carry the diplomat to safety. They had fought every step of the way, but the hapless, incompetent consul had been his own undoing in the end.
“Cap’n, we tried ta keep dat pockin’ diplermat alife. We did,” said the little armorer in tears. He was stretched out in their operating room as Lady Elphinstone tended to his many wounds. “Bud ‘e wass usaless. If’n ‘e coulda ‘elped jist a lidder bit we mida safed ‘im. Bud da pocker dinkent no one end off a pistul frum da udder. He wass dedd wate. Dedd wate. It wass like pissin’ up a rope efer step a da way. Wit dem mawdikkers cummin’ at us conskantly.”
“It’s not your fault, Corporal,” said Melville kindly. “You did all you could.”
“Aye,” said Fielder bitterly. “Less time on the golf course and more time on the range. That is the recipe for survival. Any man who doesn’t follow it deserves what he gets, and God damn him for every good man he takes down with him.”
Melville hated to speak ill of the dead, but in the end that summed it up and all he could do was nod.
Aside from Corporal Petrico, only one other consulate staff member was successfully evacuated from Ambergris. He was that rarest of creatures, a citizen of Old Earth. Cuthbert Asquith XVI had decided to make a foray into two-space, to see “primitive, exotic worlds.” Upon being contacted by the government of Earth, the Westerness foreign ministry was happy to oblige by giving Asquith what seemed to be a safe billet in a sleepy little consulate. So it was that Asquith purged his body of all nanotechnology, reversed some minor gene engineering, and arrived on Ambergris just in time for some of the excitement he thought he was seeking.