by Ralph Dennis
Behind him, at the ticket window, the clerk knew that he had his best chance and that another one might not come. He didn’t take the time to step through the baggage window. The fear was so great in him that he ran for the counter and took a headfirst dive through the opening in the cage. He almost cleared the counter. A trailing foot caught the side of the cage and turned him. Instead of landing on his hands and knees his left shoulder took the impact. He heard the tearing as the shoulder separated. He got to his feet. His left arm dangled useless. He pulled the arm across his chest and jumped over the overturned bench. When he reached the platform he stopped. He might have jumped from the platform and down to the tracks if he hadn’t heard Corporal Lester yell at him. “Over here.”
He ran in the direction of the voice. Out of the light and into the darkness, he didn’t see Private Black, who crouched there. He tripped over Black’s feet. Corporal Lester had to back away to avoid the flying form as it hurtled toward him.
Part of the plan hadn’t worked.
Corporal Lester had had the huge man at the railroad crossing in his sights. He had aimed for the widest part of him, his body trunk. He’d sighted in and relaxed and then sighted in again.
The sound of gunfire from the other side of the roundhouse had startled him. He’d been between sighting in and relaxing, and he’d had to move his finger away from the trigger to keep from sending a round into the sky.
He had taken a deep breath, had let it out slowly, and had been lining up on the big man again when the Indian, above him and to his left, had stood in the lighted doorway and had fired twice. His shots had been answered from inside and the Indian had swung away and dropped in the shadows.
Corporal Lester had forgotten all his basic training, his time on the rifle range. His finger had jerked at the trigger. The Springfield had moved, and the round had gone high and wide of the man’s left side.
Lester had cursed. He had fumbled with the bolt and rammed another shell into the chamber. He’d sighted in, but the huge man was not at the crossing anymore.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
It happened so fast that Duncan MacTaggart wasn’t certain what he was seeing or hearing.
The progress along the back streets was smooth enough. Captain McGuire had the lead. MacTaggart was on his heels, and the other ten men dogtrotted in single file behind him. Urgency pushed them. They didn’t use a scout, even though it was unknown land. All the talking, the questioning of Corporal Lester hadn’t furnished a single fact about the alleys, the back lots, or the buildings on the south side of the tracks. What Lester knew of Wingate Station he’d seen from the platform of the train station.
And, sure enough, they got trapped in open land. It was a flat dirt field that was a potential killing ground. First they reached a stack of pipe that was about nine feet long and perhaps four feet high. It was a natural barrier that ran at a right angle to the rear wall of the roundhouse. About eighty yards away, straight ahead, was the road.
Captain McGuire stopped behind the mound of pipe. It was good cover for a couple of breaths. He allowed his men a blow. He counted to thirty in his head, and when he didn’t see anyone in the field in front of him he decided it was clear, and he led his squad around the left end of the stacked pipe.
Most of his men cleared the pipe. The last man in the file was level with it when they heard the truck. Bright headlights stretched down the road. As the driver cut the steering wheel hard right, the twin beams swept toward the twelve startled men. McGuire went down fast. Behind him, without a signal, the rest of the squad landed on knees and elbows. The headlights never quite reached them. The driver braked the truck, and the lights faded immediately.
MacTaggart kept his head raised. He saw the man’s shape detach itself from the far corner of the roundhouse. The man had gray hair that was almost luminous in the dim light.
The driver stepped down from the truck’s cab and walked past the gray-haired man and out of sight down the road. A young soldier beside MacTaggart hadn’t seen the guard at his post. He shifted, and there was the scrape of a belt buckle against a stone. MacTaggart clamped a hand on the man’s arm. “Be still.”
The guard took a couple of steps toward the center of the field. He stopped as if to turn an ear toward that section of the field where the squad was. MacTaggart had the sawed-off shotgun in front of him. He placed his finger on the double triggers. Ahead of him, the gray-haired man, after about thirty seconds, lowered his weapon and backed away. He reached the corner of the building and melted into the shadows there.
It was 10:05. Still fifteen minutes before the attack was to begin.
Next to MacTaggart the soldier who’d made the noise had been holding his breath since then. Now he released it and it came out like a thin whistle.
Jesus God, MacTaggart thought, but the whistle ended and the guard hadn’t moved. He hadn’t heard it.
A soundless shift in front of him, an inching backward, and Captain McGuire was shoulder to shoulder with him. His lips were only an inch away from MacTaggart’s ear.
“No way to take him without sound.”
“No.”
“Got ourselves trapped.”
“Yes.”
“The best cover’s behind us … the pipes.”
“I’ll pass the word,” MacTaggart said.
“We’ll have to wait for Black to begin it at the station.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Make another plan.”
MacTaggart couldn’t. He leaned toward the soldier on his left and passed the message. “If the shooting starts, take cover behind the pipes.”
Ten minutes passed. Five minutes to go.
It was then the strange thing happened.
Another man joined the watch. They talked, though the words weren’t audible to MacTaggart, and the man with the gray hair passed the weapon to the other man. He backed away and took a couple of steps toward the section of the field where the squad was hidden. He spun and lifted a hand. At that moment the other man pointed the weapon and touched the trigger. The gray hair exploded and turned into pink dusting powder.
Shocked that it had happened so fast, MacTaggart raised the shotgun and lined it on the man with the Thompson. Until he heard the Thompson fire he hadn’t known they were dealing with automatic weapons. It changed the game, and he made his decision to try to take out the man with the Thompson. That weapon could not be matched by rifles and pistols.
Before he placed the shotgun’s butt against his shoulder, there was a yell at the far side of the building. The man with the Thompson backed away from the man he’d just killed.
The butt settled on MacTaggart’s shoulder as the man reached the corner of the roundhouse. MacTaggart realized he had missed his chance. He pulled the double triggers, and the pellets smashed into the bricks and threw out a dust storm. The man he’d aimed for, however, was beyond the wall, and he didn’t think he’d hit him.
“Bloody hell,” MacTaggart said. He broke the shotgun and peeled out the casings with his thumbnails. Next to him Captain McGuire staggered to his feet and ran for the mound of pipes. He made it to the cover, and the eight men who followed him were safe as well.
Two other soldiers, slower to react, started their run late. A hail of .45 caliber slugs cut them down in mid-stride.
MacTaggart remained flat on the dirt, below the Thompson’s fire. He thumbed a pair of shells from the belt across his chest and inserted them. He closed the breech and swung the shotgun toward the corner of the building.
The deafening clatter stopped. The barrel of the Thompson was pulled away. The drum is empty, MacTaggart thought, and he considered his options. He could retreat to the stacked pipe. But off to his right was the parked truck. It would spread the line of fire. It would almost give them a cross fire. If he could reach the truck. He scrambled to his feet and took off at a low run. He kept waiting for the renewed blast of the Thompson. He braced himself for it. It didn’t come. He reached the front of the t
ruck. He left his feet and rolled and clawed through the dust until he was under it.
The blasting began seconds after he was behind the front-right tire. A second automatic weapon had been added to the first, and the heavy hail of fire rattled and screeched off the hollow pipes.
It was a questionable distance for the sawed-off shotgun. It was probably beyond its killing range. Cutting and stinging only, he thought. Still, facing a shotgun would make you wet your pants, and the men behind the pipe needed time to steady themselves and get ready to squeeze away a few rounds of their own. MacTaggart could buy them that time.
No other way. The Lord be with me. He had a quick thought about Peggy waiting for him in London. What was he doing here when he could be there? Being foolish, that’s what. And then he placed two spare shells on the ground in front of him.
He settled the shotgun at his shoulder. He pulled both triggers.
At the first sound of the gunfire the major was in the doorway of the boxcar. He’d carried a case of the bullion from one of the far corners, and now he held it out to the little man, Jean. “God’s mercy,” the little man said. He lowered his hands and backed away. Tom clutched the case so it wouldn’t fall between the boxcar and the tailgate of the Bulldog.
“What was that?” Jean asked.
“Trouble.” Tom carried the crate into the truck and stacked it in place. When he returned to the tailgate Jean was at the side of the truck, about to swing down to the ground.
Harry met him there. “Go on with the loading. We’ll handle this.” He looked past the little man. “Major?”
“Here.” Tom pushed past Jean and dropped to the ground. He took a deep shuddering breath and followed Harry. “What’s going on?”
Harry stepped close to him and lowered his voice. “That Frenchie just …”
Harry’s jaw fell. From the left, the direction of the depot, there was rifle fire and then pistols.
“What the hell?”
Another rifle fired. This time it was closer. They watched as Gunny ran toward them. He fell to his knees, and Harry thought he was hit until he saw Gunny begin a roll and a crawl away from the tracks.
Tom reached for the Thompson he’d left propped against the side of the truck. Just then there was the harsh boom of a shotgun at the rear of the roundhouse.
Harry yelled, “See to Gunny.” He sprinted down the side of the road toward the post the captain had set up. He found Johnny there, rubbing brick dust from his eyes.
“How many?”
“I don’t know.” Johnny edged forward and stuck the barrel of the Thompson past the corner of the building. He fired a sustained burst that burned air over the field behind the roundhouse. He backed to the cover of the wall and looked down at the Thompson. “Shit, the drum’s empty.”
Running footsteps approached them from behind. Richard Betts might have run past them if Harry hadn’t put out an arm. He pressed Betts against the wall and jerked away the Thompson he carried. He passed it to the captain and handed the one with the empty drum to Betts. “Put a full drum on that one.”
“Together?” Johnny said.
“I don’t see why not.” Harry charged his Thompson and stood next to the captain. “You say when.”
“Now.”
They stepped away from the covering wall, firing as they moved. The short bursts from the two weapons swept the field from left to right. Each man fired about twenty-five rounds. When they ducked behind the corner, Harry thought he was blind and deaf. He leaned against the wall and waited for the sensation to pass.
Richard Betts returned with three spare drums. He squatted over Johnny’s Thompson and replaced the empty one. He tossed the drum aside.
“That truck out there,” Harry said. “I don’t like six million dollars in no-man’s-land.”
“A lot of work for nothing,” Johnny agreed.
Harry tapped Richard Betts on the chest. “We cover you, you think you could reach the truck?”
“Might be.”
“We’ll keep the heads down for you.”
Betts hefted the Thompson and edged forward.
“You say when.” Harry watched him.
“When.” Richard Betts stepped past Harry and bent low. The first five yards, and he decided it was going to be no trouble at all. Another long stride. Behind him Harry was about to move away from the wall when the blast of the shotgun checked him. He pressed so hard against the wall that the bricks cut into his back.
The flare of the shotgun at the front of the Bulldog was the last thing Richard Betts saw. Something as wide as green chain lumber slammed against him and threw him high into the air. For the whole time he was in the high curving leap he was still alive. His mind registered the flare, and he thought it was an explosion under one of the green stumps. He knew that what tore his chin and throat apart was a green root, and his mind told him he had made a mistake with the time count on the fuse.
The leap ended.
Blood pooled under Randy.
The entry wound was below his ribs on the left side. The exit hole was slightly lower.
“I can’t move my legs,” Randy said.
“You will.” Clark took off his shirt and pressed it over the two wounds. The blood continued to pour. It soaked through the shirt in seconds and covered Clark’s hands. “It’s the shock. You’ll get the feeling back when the shock’s over.”
“Bubba, I’m freezing.”
That nickname. What Randy called him when they were children and Randy was just beginning to talk. He hadn’t used that name in years, not since he’d started doing all those crazy things.
“I’m scared, Bubba.”
“You hold on. Soon as I can I’ll get the captain over here. He’ll know what to do. And if he doesn’t, Gunny will. He’s been in a war.”
He smelled it then. Randy’s bowels had loosened.
“You still cold, Randy?”
He shoved one of his bloody hands under Randy. He moved it to the chest area. He was searching for a heartbeat.
There wasn’t one.
Private Black crawled the last few feet across the platform and dropped over the side with hardly a sound. He stared over the planks at the crossing. He didn’t see the man who’d been stationed there.
“You get him?”
“This is the ticket clerk,” Corporal Lester said. He nodded at the man who sat clutching his left shoulder.
“That is not what I asked.”
Lester looked away. “He moved. There was gunfire and he …”
“So you didn’t?”
Corporal Lester didn’t answer.
There was the chatter of automatic fire to the south. A shotgun boomed its deeper voice.
Private Black looked at the corporal with contempt. This man had no other spirit. He was a dog without teeth and with no courage.
“There is one man left inside. We see what he decides to do.”
Watchful, he became the owl.
Captain Whitman grabbed his left forearm and clenched his teeth. “Shit.”
“You hit?” Harry caught Johnny’s wrist and turned the arm.
“Stung.” Johnny rubbed it. The skin wasn’t broken. Some pellets, almost spent, had found him when he began his move to cover Richard Betts. Lucky, he’d been lucky. “It’s all right. You locate the shotgun?”
“At the truck.”
“I wish I knew how many …”
“It might be one farmer for all we know.”
“One dirt digger?” Johnny considered that possibility. He jerked a thumb in the direction of the train depot. “That wasn’t a farmer. It sounded like an ’03.”
“I hear Canada picked up some of our surplus.”
“That could mean Army.”
“Question is: How big an army?”
“Beyond me.” Johnny heard scraping sounds and looked behind him. Gunny Townsend, pale and shaky, lumbered toward them. “Yeah, Gunny?”
“Major says we better get out of here. It’s falling in
on us from all sides.”
“The second truck loaded?”
“Just about.”
From the direction of the truck a blast of the shotgun. It did no damage. The slugs rattled against the wall and down the street past them.
“How about the other truck? We just leave it?”
“He’s telling us something,” Harry said to Captain Whitman. “That shotgun says we don’t go in his direction. I say we cut our losses.”
“Down from twelve million to six?”
“We’ve already lost two shareholders. We might lose a few more.”
It made sense. Johnny pressed against the wall and backed away. He made a flat loop around Gunny. “Cover us here until we’re ready to leave.”
Gunny let Harry pass him. He brought the shotgun high, at the ready.
MacTaggart stared at the lump, the form of the man he’d just killed. He’d been the first man MacTaggart had killed since the Big War. And that poor fool had been an accident. He’d been putting down cover, and the man had run right into the full pattern of it.
Still no sound from beyond the stacked pipe. Perhaps that was the sensible choice. From that angle there were no targets. From his own position, from beneath the truck, he couldn’t see elbows or knees either.
A handful of rock rattled against the hood and the windshield of the truck above him. It came from the direction of the stacked pipe. He shifted about and looked past the tire. As he watched, three soldiers broke the top line of the pipe and moved along it. Their heads and shoulders were like a row of mechanical ducks in a shooting gallery. The soldiers reached a point almost level with the truck and waited there.
MacTaggart knew what they wanted from him. He turned his upper body and drew the shotgun toward him. He set the butt in the hollow of his shoulder and lined up on the corner of the roundhouse. He fired one barrel. A quick look behind him and he saw the three soldiers vault the pipe and run toward him. He faced the building again and fired the second barrel.
Clark knew there should have been some tears in him. There just weren’t. His mother, if she’d been alive, would have cried for a solid year. It would have been a year of weeping and wearing black and only eating enough to keep her alive so that she could carry out the mourning.