by Tom Kratman
“Have you seen my platoon optio?”
“She was here, Centurion. But she cut off to the right. I don’t know why.”
Dammit, Marta, where the fuck are you?
“How much jellied gas do you have left in the tanks?”
Ponce answered, “Maybe about half full, enough for a few bursts of a couple of seconds each.”
“Okay. Ponce, take three girls and one flamethrower with you. The other one and two troops go with me. You men cover the bunker’s sole exit. Nobody gets out.”
Ponce struck first. The two women with her opened up with their rifles at the firing ports that dotted the outside of the bunker. Then Ponce stood up and began to try to jet her fuel right through another port.
Someone must have seen her stand and fired on her; made a lucky shot. It didn’t hit her, but it did hit the tank of jellied fuel.
As if in slow motion, the first spurt of flame burst from the ruptured tank. The spurt became a fireball. Ponce’s face turned from determination to surprise to horror. The fireball expanded. The hair on her head flashed into smoke. Her eyes melted a moment before the flame covered her features. Ponce screamed. She, and the two Amazonas with her, were caught in the fireball from her burst tank.
Maria wanted to vomit, not for the first time. Instead she prayed. Our Father, who art in heaven…
Maria’s side of the bunker was an easier approach than Ponce’s had been. There was a sharp drop of about three feet that covered her as she crawled closer to it. She felt her knee come to rest upon a rounded object that felt a lot like a pole. It was a pole, a pole made of sections, one of the ones used to hold a camouflage net above the ground. There were more of them about.
Maria thought…
“I’ve got an idea. You two with the flamethrower, gather up four of these pole sections each. Join them. Then cut something to tie a grenade to the end. On my command we’ll pull the pins and shove the grenades right through those firing ports. Flamethrower, after you hear the three bangs put the nozzle right into the middle port and let ’em have it.”
She had to tell them twice, so rattled were they.
After several minutes, one of the woman said, “Ready, Centurion.”
“On three,” Maria commanded. “One…two…three!”
Even over the sounds of battle raging around, they could hear the people inside that bunker as they scurried like rats to try to find some cover from the three little bombs that suddenly appeared at the ends of poles at the bunker’s ports. There was a boom, boom, boom, the last two coming close together.
Even before Maria shouted, “Go, go, go!” the woman toting the flamethrower was already scampering up to the firing port. She pushed the nozzle into the center port and squeezed the trigger.
Flames burst out of all three, more or less simultaneously. The people inside must have been still alive, most of them, despite the grenades. They shrieked.
The ingeniera shrieked too as the back draft of flame began to roast her hands. Still, even with her hands roasting, she kept the fire up until her nozzle sputtered out. Then she dropped the nozzle and slid to the ground, sobbing as quietly as she could. Maria ran to her, stripped the tank from her back, then dragged her back by her feet.
“Don’t you go into shock on me, girl. No time for that.” To the larger of the two ingenieras left with her, Maria said, “Put her across your shoulders and get her out of here,”
Maria risked taking a stand and looked around at the ruins of the camp. I don’t know the full price we’ve paid but it looks like a good night’s work to me. Tracers—red and green—crisscrossed back and forth over the entire area. Looking toward what she knew was the enemy motor pool, she saw the sky was red with flame. Their tents were burning, too. No fire was coming from their mortar position. A good night’s work, she thought. Mission accomplished.
Marta again huffed up, still leading the surviving machine gunners. “I saw a group of them trying to rally. We shot the cocksuckers up pretty good. I doubt they’ll stop running anytime soon, the ones we left.”
In the distance the women thought they heard helicopters, a lot of them.
“I’m surprised it took them this fucking long,” Marta commented.
“Me, too…a little. If the enemy are sending reinforcements there is no way we can hold the camp and town.”
“No,” Marta replied, “not with the survivors being as exhausted as they are. Besides…there aren’t that many of us left.”
Maria agreed. “We don’t have to stay. Our orders were to trash the place, not to hold it after trashing it.” Again she looked at the flames and smoke on every horizon. “I think we’ve trashed it. Gather the girls and start pulling out.”
From the cargo pocket of her uniform Marta pulled out one of the two star clusters she’d put there earlier. They were both red, the signal to break off, get out of the camp, and split off to the various hides.
Marta fired one, then the other. When the second one burst into bright red light she and Maria went into a low crouch and started moving back to the breach.
Ordering Marta on ahead, Maria waited at the breach while her remaining girls and boys passed through. The reports they gave as they passed told a heartbreaking story. The platoon was ruined.
I hope that the rest of the maniple is in better shape. She didn’t dwell on that, being too mind-numbed, even to mourn. That would come later, and in private. When Maria had seen what she assumed had to be the last of her troops out past the breach she started to follow.
Maria had made it maybe halfway through the wire when something, a delay-fused shell more than likely, went off close behind her. That was the last thing she felt for some time.
Interlude
The first man off of the helicopter said, “Damn, what a mess!”
The second man said nothing; he was too busy throwing up.
The third man, a sergeant, said, “Quit jawin’, quit gaggin’. Get your butts out to the perimeter. That way!”
Even the sergeant felt his stomach lurch, though, as he viewed the scene around him.
Death had held a feast for some of its friends. None of them had decent table manners. Bodies and parts of bodies lay every which way.
Most noticeable was a burned out tank. The driver was wedged partway out of his hatch. The tank’s own gun had blocked his further escape. He had burned slowly, the sergeant surmised.
Not far from the wreck of the tank, a smear on the dirt linked an upper torso and head at one end, feet at the other. The expression on the face was ghastly to behold, especially on a woman.
Other soldiers, friendly and enemy, lay sprawled in every conceivable position. Some hung on barbed wire. Some could be seen, were one to look, crouched down in the bunkers in which they had died. It was not wise to look too closely, however, as some bunkers had been treated with flame. The bodies in these stank abominably.
The sergeant paused to cover a woman whose skirt had blown up to her waist. He shook his head, regretfully. “I always did like the pipes,” he said, to no one in particular.
Around the camp its former defenders sat, apathetic, staring into space. That…or they continued shrieking as an overworked medical team attempted to give what help was available.
The sergeant paid these last no mind. As he led his men to reseal the breach in the wire, helicopters—many more of them—whooped to a landing.
Ahead of the sergeant a soldier shouted, “Hey, Sarge. I found a live one.”
Chapter Eighteen
“So far from God and so close to the Tauran Union”
—Diana Porphyry, Helvetian politician
Maria:
I awoke screaming. Something between my legs and on my right nipple was hurting me…badly. My body shuddered and spasmed out of my control. My arms and legs twisted and twitched against the bindings that held me to a metal chair. I was naked, my legs held open by whatever held me to the chair. My eyes were covered by something, tape and gauze it must have been. Distantl
y I heard a whirring sound. Other than that, I was alone with my agony.
I didn’t know how I had gotten there. The last thing I remembered was waving some of my girls through some barbed wire. Had I been killed? Was I in Hell? My Lord, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Eventually I came to realize that the whirring and the pain were related somehow. When it increased so did my agony, my uncontrolled screams, and the spastic twitching of my body. When it slowed down or decreased in volume sometimes the pain just dropped to the level of intense discomfort.
It never quite went away. Even when the whirring stopped altogether I still burned between my legs and on my breast. But at those times I could cry because I didn’t have to scream. I could also sense things that my mind couldn’t quite latch on to when the pain was more intense. I smelled charred wood and flesh. I am in Hell, I thought.
I began to pray out loud. But I could barely hear my own voice saying “O, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee…” I wished for a priest. Are there priests in Hell?
I don’t know how long this went on. An hour? An eternity? Suddenly the pain dropped to a mere burning and the wrappings around my eyes were torn away. Half-deafened already, I was blinded by the light.
Two women, Gendarmerie women, stood by a field telephone. I was unfamiliar with the patch on their left shoulders. I still don’t know what three tranzitree blossoms means. Wires ran from the phone to me. A man, a Gendarmerie officer, towered over the women, gesturing and shouting. He pointed at me, then at the telephone, and shouted some more.
Not Hell after all. Not exactly.
Another man began to detach the wires. He had to probe in some intimate places to do so. He could have raped me for all I cared just then. He could have done anything if it would only stop the pain. When the wires were detached he considerately draped a coarse cloth over me, then began to cut away my bindings. I felt more pain as blood rushed back into hands and feet long deprived.
The officer gave me a cigarette, offered me some water. He spoke Spanish with a funny, but understandable, accent. At least I could understand him if he looked directly at me and spoke very loud. He asked me my name.
“Maria,” I answered. “Maria Fuentes.” It was hard to talk after all that screaming.
“Look, Maria, I’m terribly sorry for what those two did to you. One of them lost her husband here at this place. Another lost her boyfriend. They blame you for that.”
“War,” I answered through my scream-strained throat.
“Yes,” he agreed. “A terrible thing, isn’t it? But tell me, why did you attack this place? You must have known it would cost you dearly.”
“War,” I said again.
“Yes, well, you had better come with me.” He led me outside. Once my eyes adjusted to the fierce sunlight I recognized the command bunker we’d destroyed. He took me to their eating place. On the way I saw a line, a long line, of bodies. Ours.
Zuli was there. She looked so natural in death. Almost as if I could nudge her and bring her back awake, back to life. Zamora was a few places down from Zuli. She wore a smile I hadn’t seen on her since long before. Ponce and the other two after her I could not recognize by individual features. The three pitiful little balls, all curled into a fetal position, were side by side. The Cazadors who’d been burned to death were a larger group of carbonized lumps, farther down the line. One body, badly mutilated but unburned, still clutched a set of pipes in her arms while the breeze tugged at her kilt.
I stopped hobbling and started to cry. The Gendarmerie officer was very considerate. He let me alone for however long it took.
At the mess tent he coaxed me and encouraged me to eat something. All the while he kept saying what a terrible waste it all was. I said nothing.
Suddenly, he stood to attention. An officer senior to him began to berate him viciously. Two women, the same two that I’d seen before, stepped up to stand on either side of me. They gripped my arms.
* * *
“Fuentes, Maria. Centurion, Junior Grade. Service number 112-47795.”
“Why the attacks?” one of them demanded. “Why now?”
“Fuentes, Maria. Centurion, Junior Grade. Service number 112-47795.”
The electricity from the telephone cranked up a bit more. I guess they were in a hurry. There are less painful ways but they tend to be slow. If you’re in a hurry, the old fashioned way is best. I screamed and spasmed. “Fuentes, Maria…” I passed out again.
* * *
“Maria, please Maria. You’ve got to tell them what you know. Why did you women attack? What was the purpose? I can’t stand to see them doing this to you. Please tell them.”
* * *
It might have worked. It almost did. But then I remembered some counterinterrogation training we’d had at Cazador School.
Good cop; bad cop. My “rescuer,” Fournier his name, was the good cop. The others were bad. I spit in his face.
Once I realized this, it was easier to hold out. I got more information from Fournier than he did from me, although I didn’t have any real use for it. I discovered, for example, that of the twenty-nine attacks we had launched, only seven—mine included—had actually succeeded in breaking in and trashing an enemy base. I learned that our casualties were over a thousand men and women, against maybe half that for the enemy. We would be hard put to replace those losses. The question was whether the enemy would be willing to replace theirs.
I hadn’t been able to find out anything about how Fifth Mountain had done. But, since they wouldn’t tell me, I had to guess that we’d managed to pull enough air onto ourselves that the Montañeros had most likely succeeded. I felt a little better from the thought.
* * *
“Fuentes, Maria…Centurion…Junior…Grade. Service…number…”
* * *
I’d have broken, eventually. Anyone will. And that’s okay. Information is only good for a while. After a period of time it just isn’t useful anymore. Then you can spill your guts. Besides, I didn’t really have any information. I’d told them we’d attacked because we’d been ordered to. Which was true.
But I had my suspicions. Montoya had told me more than maybe he knew. We had been ordered to attack all across the occupied area for no more reason than to suck up enemy air power, to wear it out so that it would be down for a few days. Why? I couldn’t be sure. Maybe Carrera needed a few days breather to adjust our forces without interference from the air. Maybe he just needed to give the boys a break from constant air attack. Maybe…? Who knew.
* * *
Around midnight they threw me into a little dark room with only a tiny, barred window and only one, locked, door. I rested on the bare concrete, my arms and legs too cramped to move to the cot that stood against one wall. Besides the pain, I was suffering from profound humiliation. The electricity had made me lose control of my bowels and bladder. The swine hadn’t even let me clean myself up.
I forced myself to stop sobbing, biting my tongue, clenching my teeth and what I could of my fists, and forcing slow deep breaths into my lungs. They might be able to force sound out of me with their damned electricity. I’d be damned if I’d give them the satisfaction of hearing me cry if I didn’t have to.
It was cold, there on the concrete. A half inch or so of water had gathered, not enough to drown myself; unfortunately, so I thought. Drowning would have been a mercy.
I thought about ways to kill myself. They’d left me nothing, not even any clothes or a blanket I might have been able to unravel into a cord to hang myself with. All that was available was maybe to try to beat my own brains out against a wall. And for that I lacked the strength to even try.
I thought about holding my breath ’til I turned blue, thought of Alma and laughed a little. Then—still thinking of Alma—I did cry after all, but not loudly.
Alma? Would I ever see her again? Probably not, I supposed. I knew I would never see most of my friends in this life. They were lying in a shallow grave the enemy
had dug outside the wire. Earlier Fournier had taken me up to see them shoveled into the clay. I guess he thought it might help to break me. It hadn’t. I was proud of those girls. I was even proud of the idiot boys.
Had it been worth it, all the suffering and death? Had it been worth it, everything I’d gone through to become a soldier? I didn’t know then. It would be a while before I found out if it had been worth it or not.
I fell asleep thinking of happier times.
* * *
A long, continuous, low rumble awakened me. It took me a while to figure out what the sound was. Have you ever heard several hundred machine guns firing sustained fire from a couple of kilometers away? Neither had I, but that sound was what I imagined it would be like.
I wasn’t all that curious at first. Little by little, though, curiosity arose. I made a tentative stretch of an arm, then another. Cramps shot through them. It wasn’t all that unbearable, considering what I been through already.
The legs were worse. Maybe more muscle means more pain from cramping. Still, I was able to get to all fours and crawl to the wall underneath the window.
The wall was a problem. It wasn’t smooth, but it offered no holds to my fingers either. I managed to use it, however, to support me partially while I forced myself to stand. The window was still too high to see out of.
I got my fingers hooked onto the inside sill and pulled, willing my feet and legs to stretch upward. That was hard. They’d taken a small hammer to several toes in each foot. Likewise to two of the fingers of my left hand. Both my thumbs were dislocated.
The sound grew louder as my head neared the window. Finally I could see. But I couldn’t have told you what I was seeing. I didn’t know for sure which direction the window faced towards. I guessed it was west.
There to the—west?—I could see what was creating the sound. It looked like a million strobe lights flashing continuously. The light was reflected from and through the clouds. More than ever it seemed like those several hundred machine guns. I tried to count the number by adding up however many flashes I saw in what I guessed was half a minute. I couldn’t count the flashes that quickly. I gave that up after several tries.