The medics were doing a lot of business in the mud and rain that night.
Another Marine did what she could to staunch the inky blood flowing from the man’s back.
Trouble went on deeper into the nightmare.
Here a hostile huddled in a fighting hole that had been missed, rising just enough to shoot Marines in the back who missed him in the dark and passed him by.
A sergeant coming up late caught him the second time he tried that stunt and put three rounds in the back of his head. Then the sergeant hollered for a medic.
He needed two. He got one.
From that hole, another half dozen rose to surrender. The Marines moved on, leaving one of their own to guard the docile. But one of them was more desperate than cowed. A grenade came at the Marine, exploding in her face. Some of the surrendered took metal fragments, too, but the one who tossed it now took off running.
Trouble turned at the sound of the grenade to his rear. A lightning flash showed a horrible scene, but it also let him get off a snap shot of at the one running from it.
He crumpled into the mud and slid into a hole. Trouble dropped back, to put two more rounds into that one’s head and call a medic for the Marine.
One of the captured ones, a young kid, was already doing what he could for her. Likely, she’d never see again. Trouble rustled up a medic and a wounded Marine. One took over the care of her. The other made sure there were no more surprises from this bunch.
Naked and shivering in the cold, they walked off the mountain ahead of the wounded Marine.
Trouble attached himself to a squad clearing out one serious trench system in the second line. The corporal ahead of him rounded a corner—and was jumped by a guy with a knife who had hidden out in a shallow hole dug into the side of the trench. Covered with mud, he was invisible in the night until he moved.
The two rolled in water and mud at the bottom of the trench. The Marine ditched his rifle and pulled his bayonet. Trouble tried to get a shot at the attacker, but had to give it up.
With both covered in mud, he was none too sure which was which.
The Marine finally slipped his bayonet up under the man’s chin, then drove it deep. The attacker collapsed atop the trooper.
Trouble pulled the body off.
“Thanks, sir.”
“I tried to shoot him, but I wasn’t sure which of you was which.”
“No, problem, sir,” the corporal said, searching the muck and mud for his rifle. “There were times there I wasn’t sure which I was.”
That was the way of the second line. A hundred separate, desperate battles, fought with knives and fists as much as with guns and grenades. When the butcher’s bill was settled up, there were more Marines down than at the first line—and fewer prisoners.
“Something tells me the next one is gonna be a bitch,” Gunny said.
“So let’s get us moved out of this target and settled in for what rest we can get,” Trouble said. Vu was one of those being carried down the mountain. Dumont was the only lieutenant Trouble had left. They and the sergeants moved Marines up the mountain a good two hundred meters before letting them go to ground.
The artillery barrage began crashing in behind them almost thirty minutes later, to the second.
Nice I can count on something from 1st Corps, Trouble thought.
Then again, with him getting all this action, there must be little left for Ruth.
At least he wanted to think that.
SEVENTY-THREE
CAPTAIN MARY RODRIGO stared into the dark up the road to Camp Milassi. Lightning would flash, and she’d see the same thing she’d seen before.
Then came a lightning flash, and there might have been something different.
A second lightning flash definitely showed something different. A short column of men moved slow, hunched over against the hail and sleet, but they were moving toward the dam.
“We got company coming,” Mary said to those huddled in the chill of the dam’s operations center.
“Had we better douse the candle?” Ruth asked.
“I think they’ve already seen our little light in the darkness,” Mary said, “and, if you don’t mind being a target, it might focus their simple minds on a place to go.”
Ruth made a face, but she stopped her walk toward the candle.
“Everybody down,” Mary said, getting her own head below the level of the windows used to observe the dam and its environs from the command center. Most of the dam’s evening shift were already sitting on the floor, along with Mary’s two Marines: Cyn and Debbie.
They made a final check of their M-6s and weapons load and, keeping low, trotted to Mary’s side. One at a time, they put their heads up to observe the approach to the dam from the Army camp off in the hills to the west of them.
One or two lightning flashes later, and they ducked down beside Mary.
“Looks like a bit of a firefight. I make them to be about twenty,” Cyn said.
“I agree,” Debbie added.
“Ruth,” Mary said, and Captain Trouble’s wife slid across the floor to join her. The boss man and the guy known as Ralph did the same.
“Twenty armed men are coming this way,” Mary said. “To walk fifteen klicks in this weather, you know they’re hardcases. My Marines will try to keep them away from the dam, but those shivering bastards get a vote in that.”
Mary reached for Ruth’s automatic, took it from its holster, and clicked the ammo options from sleepy darts to deadly. She handed it back to Ruth.
“These guys are willing to kill thousands of people downstream. They will kill you in the blink of an eye. We take no prisoners, and we shoot to kill. Have you ever killed a man, ma’am?”
“I was ready to kill my ex, but Trouble saved me the job,” Ruth said.
“Sorry, ma’am, but tonight, if you get them in your sights, you shoot to kill because they’re going to be doing the same to you.”
In front of her, in the dim light, the Marine wife took a deep breath. “If I see them, I kill them.” The hard face she put on gave Mary some hope that she could do that.
“The first one is never easy,” Mary said. “We’ll do our best to keep them away from here.”
“But they’ll have to come here for the tackle and those levers,” the boss man said, nodding toward the big yellow-and-red-striped metal rod.
“Yep,” Mary said. “We’ll keep most away, but you’ll have to kill any that get by us.”
“Can I come with you?” Ralph said. “I know this place. Unless you’re planning on standing out in the open and letting them have a good shot at you, I can help.”
“I never plan for a fair fight, but you might get shot,” Mary warned.
“It’s on my bucket list. Don’t die until someone’s shot at me. And don’t die then. I got a lot left to do.”
“You make sure you get to do it all,” Mary said with a chuckle.
They headed out the door. Ralph led them across the yard and into the dam. “There’s a passage here. No use us staying out in that mess.”
Mary could get to like this guy.
A hundred paces or so, he turned back toward the outside. “That’s the guardhouse. Nice metal sides, but a target for sure.”
“We don’t want to be in there, but we don’t want them there, either. Debbie, go rig some explosives to that door.”
Debbie trotted out into the rain and was back soon. “Somebody’s going to get a charge out of opening that,” she warned them, grinning.
“There’s that truck over there,” Ralph pointed out, and Mary sent Cyn to set herself up underneath it.
“And those pipes,” he said, pointing out a dozen steel sixty-centimeter pipes.
“Debbie, you shoot down them for starters and crawl in them when they get in the yard.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Debbie agreed, and headed out.
“That leaves you,” Ralph said, looking around. “The road is up there. It’s got nice concrete barriers to kee
p cars from falling down on us. There are only two ladders down, that one here”—he pointed—“and one over on the other side. I’ve assumed that they’d march in the way they usually drive, but there is this longer way.”
“Which we’d better cover. Have you ever fired an automatic?”
“Never touched one, ma’am. A guy couldn’t own a gun under Milassi.”
“Well, he’s dead,” Mary stated the obvious, “and you don’t want to be.” She handed him her sidearm and gave him the two-minute course on gun safety and usage. “Don’t use this unless you have to. To save your life. Maybe to save mine. You understand. You are not a soldier. Don’t attempt what we do on your own damn dam.”
“I wouldn’t let someone walk off the street and run my operations center,” he said. “I think I understand what you’re getting at.”
Mary looked him in the eye. Maybe he’d find it in himself to kill for his own life. Possibly he might be able to kill for hers. Hopefully, he wouldn’t get buck fever and start shooting before she wanted.
The rain came down in sheets and pillowcases. The troublemakers took their time arriving. But Mary had guessed right. The light did draw them.
They came down the approach road, deployed in loose bunches of twos and threes. No Marine sergeant would allow that kind of messing around. If Mary read them right, most were senior sergeants with a couple of captains thrown in. There might have been a major, but no one seemed in charge.
Mary guessed they didn’t expect trouble.
Stupid them.
The other Marines let them get well into the kill zone before Mary took her first shot.
It was not like shooting fish in a barrel. The yard was a whole lot bigger than a barrel, and these fish shot back.
Some shot too damn well.
Mary used the concrete barriers for cover, but never shot from the same place twice. Shoot off two rounds, duck, scoot down the way. Pop up, choose a target. Shoot. Then repeat.
Still, she got nicked in the ear. Way too close for comfort.
Mary let it bleed and kept up her fire.
The shoot-out seemed to last forever.
Mother Nature lit them up once in a while with lightning and pounded them with sleet and rain. Mary gave up on gently pulling the trigger; her fingers were too frozen. She yanked the unfelt trigger. The rifle fired when it wanted to and not before.
Some dude did try to use the guardhouse for a hangout. He got a big surprise. Debbie might have overdone it. It blew out in all directions. One sheet of metal wall sliced another guy in half.
These really were hardcases. Their sins must be horrible and plentiful, to keep up the fight so they could wash away Petrograd and tens of thousands of women and children.
Mary and her Marines dropped them one by one by one, but they just kept coming, even after being hit, in some cases hit two or three times.
Mary’s hit took down two as they charged the command center, but another two made it into the building.
The candle upstairs in the operations center went out as the door slammed behind them.
Mary slung her rifle and slid down the ladder rungs as fast as she ever had in the mines. She trotted carefully for the command center.
Not carefully enough. A “dead” body rose up and aimed her way. Behind her, an automatic spoke three, four times, and the body did die sincerely this time.
Mary turned. A rather pale Ralph was holding his pistol with both hands, just like she’d taught him, still aimed at the fallen enemy.
“Thanks,” Mary said, and raced for the door.
She need not have hurried. Above her, as she yanked open the door, an automatic barked. Machine pistols replied on full auto, but that didn’t last very long.
Mary sprinted up the stairs. At the top she found two dead, sodden bodies, machine pistols close at hand. Ruth was relighting the candle.
“Your shoulder’s bleeding,” Mary said.
“Yeah, I guess one of them got me,” Ruth said, as matterof-fact as any Marine.
Mary went to slap a bandage on the wound as Ruth gently settled to the deck.
“Dear God, don’t let anyone shoot Trouble,” Mary heard Ruth pray before she passed out cold and fell over.
SEVENTY-FOUR
TROUBLE WAS GLAD to be in one piece, but other than that, there wasn’t a whole lot to be glad about this miserable morning.
It was cold, muddy, and wet in all of Mother Nature’s variety. It had actually snowed for five minutes, causing a few Marines to break into song about a white Christmas.
A few artillery shorts put an end to that levity.
Artillery put an end to way too much. Maybe someone on the other side of the hill was getting smarter, or maybe the tubes were drooping, but more shells fell short of the second trench line and into the bit of ground where Trouble had spread out his Marines to wait between the second and final trench lines.
And friendly artillery wasn’t doing as good a job of keeping the heads down up above. More and more fire came from there. To Trouble, it didn’t seem like his friendly artillery was any less heavy. Maybe it was as Gunny was wont to say: “The really big scumbags who thought they could stay safe in the third line are now finding out different.”
Everything pointed to the next fight being unshirted hell.
In all the hammering noise of the battlefield, a new pop drew Trouble’s attention to where the Highlanders had their command post. A rocket arched up into the rain.
The colonel was signaling the artillery to pour it on for fifteen minutes, then check fire for the infantry to finish the fight.
A lightning bolt took the rocket in midair before it could blossom. If it exploded, it was lost on Trouble.
And likely lost on the forward artillery observer.
Trouble waited for the next flare. He waited a long time.
It didn’t come.
Scowling at the luck, Trouble retrieved a rifle from beside a poncho that now served as a body bag, checked its load, pocketed two extra magazines, and began to make his way toward the Highlanders’ CP.
He took a few near misses and shot a few rounds back for the favor. He arrived at the CP just as a young woman was taking off at a run for the rear.
“She’s my last messenger,” Colonel Stewart muttered. “Three guys didn’t make it.”
“She’ll make it,” the color sergeant at his elbow said. “She’s the fastest runner in the battalion.”
She ran like a gazelle; fast, steady on her feet, through mud, into shell holes and up again. Shots followed her, but she forced them to take deflection shots, zigging and zagging to throw them off.
“Smart girl,” the color sergeant whispered.
But an artillery shell doesn’t care how smart you are. It just swats you down with no mercy, and a shell caught her in midstride as she leapt out of the second-line trenches.
“Damn,” came from all hands in the CP.
“What’s wrong with the Very pistol?” Trouble asked.
The colonel pointed the antique at the sky and pulled the trigger. There was a click and nothing else.
Trouble shrugged at the fates. “I’ll take the message.”
“You got a command to lead, sir,” the color sergeant said. “I’m up next.”
“You got your thirty years in, McPherson,” the colonel said. “Your approved retirement papers are in your pocket.”
“And likely too wet to read, Colonel. I’m the one to go. If an old sweat like me can’t get there, then no one can.”
“You’ve used up all your luck, Color Sergeant,” the colonel said.
“So I’ll use guile, sir,” and the sergeant ditched most of his gear before starting out at a low crouch. He walked at first, then dropped into shell holes just as the automatic weapons from the trench line above began to chatter.
Around Trouble, kilted men laid down cover fire. A man with a knee mortar popped off rounds. Trouble joined in the volleys.
Now the color sergeant was crawling
and slithering from shell hole to shell hole, just a bit of moving mud almost impossible to tell from the rest. He tumbled into a section of the second trench line and crawled out of it a good ten feet to the left of where he went in.
Random shells flew close, but he ran at a crouch. Rifle fire and machine guns reached for him, but he slipped away from them untouched.
Trouble spent part of his time providing cover fire and the other part glancing over his shoulder and half cheering, half praying him on.
The color sergeant was almost to the first trench line when a long shell hit behind him and blew him into the air.
He crumpled into the mud and just lay there. From the trenches above, fire picked up, reaching out for the fallen Highlander. Trouble turned and quickly emptied his magazine at any muzzle blasts that sparked before him.
“He’s got him,” drew Trouble’s attention back to the color sergeant.
A trooper, muddy bandage covering the crown of his head and one eye, had crawled from a shell hole and latched onto the sergeant. Together, they slipped and slid back to that hole. Trouble only started breathing again when the two disappeared into what safety that muddy hole offered.
“We’ll need another runner,” the colonel said with a sigh.
“Maybe not, sir,” Trouble said.
The soldier who’d saved the sergeant was up, out of the hole, dragging himself through the mud, sliding and slipping toward the first trenches. He rolled into one, disappeared for what seemed like forever before pulling himself up, and again crawled and slid down the mountain.
Above them, a mortar gave vent to the 1st Corps’ rage, reaching out, falling first long, then short, then left, then right of the trooper. He slipped into a shell hole as the next round landed right behind him. Three more rounds hit in rapid succession, then the mortar fell silent.
And the trooper was on his feet, stumbling forward, slipping but getting back up to fumble his way some more. He found a friendly bit of mud, sat on his rump, and slid a good twenty feet downhill as the mortar again tried to reach for him but missed.
Then two Highlanders were helping support the man and hurrying him from the battle’s hell.
To Do or Die (A Jump Universe Novel) Page 35