by J. T. Wilson
To defend their God, even if it meant death.
“Sahib Stone! Sahib Stone!” He heard more trotting feet, but these from the direction of the Heart chamber, not the City
“Here!” Nathanial yelled, and he was surprised how hoarse his voice sounded. Two bearded and turbaned soldiers in khaki pushed past the Selenites.
“Major Larkins says to come very quickly. The charges are ready to explode.”
“Keep firing down into that mess in the corridor as you fall back. It should keep their heads down,” Nathanial said. Slinging the two electric rifles over his shoulder he pushed past the Selenites, got them turned around in single file, and gave the come this way gesture. As the soldiers began firing their black powder rifles toward the Drobates, the Selenites looked back down the corridor one last time and then followed Nathanial.
Chapter Fourteen
“A Rescue—For Some”
1.
“MAJOR LARKINS’ compliments, Mister Bedford, and ’e’d be pleased if you’d clear your arses out of his blast site. ’Is words, sir,” Colvin said.
“Eloquent man, the major,” Bedford answered and smiled for the first time in hours, perhaps days—longer than he could remember at any rate. “Jones, come help me to the rally position. Colvin, get your men ready to fall back. Jones and I will cover you from there.”
“You heard the lieutenant,” Colvin shouted. “Mark your targets, space your shots, and pull yer braces up! When I yell to run for it, you run for it. I won’t be repeating myself and any man stumbles will have me boot up his backside.”
Bedford had abandoned his spear for the wounded private’s rifle and Jones half carried him down the slope and through the low break in the second rubble spill. This one was not as high as the first and so commanded far less ground, but it would serve to cover Colvin’s section as it ran back. Once they were past this point all of them could run for it together—in this gravity it would not be hard for Jones or another man to get Bedford back.
Jones settled Bedford in a good vantage point between two boulders close by the gap in the rubble wall and then climbed further up toward the cavern wall, looking for a better position from which to work his particular magic.
“One Section, retire!” Bedford ordered. The men slid down from their perches and trotted back, with Colvin waiting until all of them were clear before following. Once they had all made it through the break in the rubble wall, Bedford started to stand to climb down to them, but the rocks under his feet shifted. He grabbed the boulder for support but the rocks under it shifted as well and it tipped over. Bedford felt a flash of pain that sucked the wind out of his lungs. He fell back to the ground and white spots threatened to overwhelm his vision. His dizziness passed in a moment just as Colvin and another man scrambled up to him.
The boulder was enormous—on Earth it would have turned his left leg into a bloody pulp a quarter of an inch thick. Here it was simply painful, and heavier than Bedford could manage on his own. The private with Colvin stood up to put his shoulder against the boulder but a Russian rifle cracked from somewhere down below and the soldier jerked back and tumbled down the slope.
“How is he?” Colvin called down to the others who clustered around the wounded man who had begun moaning with pain, so at least he lived.
“Broken collar bone,” a private answered.
“Pemberton, get him back to the major. The rest of you lot, up on the wall and keep those Russkies pinned down. We’ll have you out of here in no time, Lieutenant,” Colvin said.
Bedford wasn’t so certain. Normally it would be simple enough for one man to move the rock. The problem was leverage—the man would have to stand in the Russian line of fire, and that would mean death, or at least a serious wound. Bedford could see over the low rubble wall from where he lay and one after another he saw Russian forage caps peek over the top of the original barricade, then disappear back down as British shots knocked rock chips into the air. Bedford looked back at Colvin, who studied the boulder from one angle, then another. He crawled around to the far side and reached up, trying to push it while keeping his body low. After straining without success for a few seconds he repositioned himself and rose up slightly to get better purchase. A rifle cracked and stone chips flew from the boulder inches from his shoulder.
“Yow!” he called out and fell away from the boulder, rubbing his arm.
“You’re hit,” Bedford said.
“No, sir, not so’s you’d notice. Just some bits of pebble. I’ll figure this out I will. You leave it to me.”
“Hand me my rifle.”
“Sir?”
“Just hand me the bloody rifle.”
Colvin did so. Bedford pointed it at the Russian positions on the scarp and propped it between two smaller boulders. He reached in his pockets and pulled out the extra cartridges, piled them next to the rifle. “Now pull your section back and have Larkins blow the tunnel entrance, and no back-talk from you, understand? Not one word. You are not able to move that boulder as long as the Russians are out there, and they are not going away.”
Colvin stared at him for a moment, then at the boulder, and then he sighed and nodded.
2.
“WHAT DO you mean Lieutenant Bedford is not coming?” Nathanial demanded. The Marine’s already beet-red face seemed to turn redder still.
“His orders, sir,” he answered, but facing Major Larkins and Captain Folkard, not Nathanial. “No way to get the rock off his leg while the Russkies have the ridge under fire.”
“Well we have to go back in there!” Nathanial exclaimed. “Drive the Russians back!”
Folkard turned to him. “How are we to do that, Professor? You heard Colvin, there are at least forty Russians in there, perhaps more. Colvin’s men slowed them up, but push them back? Russians are not the best shots, as a general rule, but those are the Lifeguard Jaegers, the picked marksmen of the Tsar’s Imperial Guard. They’d cut us to pieces and then just march right in here. And let me remind you that Tereshkov is still at large somewhere. No, Bedford knew what he was doing. Larkins, set off the charge.”
3.
“IF WE get out of this alive, I’ll have you under arrest for disobedience to orders,” Bedford shouted.
“Myn uffarn!” Jones answered, with a laugh. “I didn’t disobey, did I? Colvin told Number One Section to fall back. I’m not with them, am I?”
“If you think playing the sea lawyer will get you clear of this, you are mistaken.”
“If anything gets us clear of this, Lieutenant, I’ll meet you for a pint of Brains’ best in The Lady of the Fountain. Lovely little public house I knows in Abergavenny, and everyone knows Owain Jones there, too! Tell you what, mind, give us a brilliant idea and I’ll buy you a pint anyway.”
A brilliant idea? Yes, it would have to be marvellously, wonderfully brilliant to bring them alive out of this, and the thought of a nice pint of Welsh bitter did hold a certain appeal. In front of him a Russian stuck his head up above the rim of the first rubble ridge. Bedford squeezed the trigger and his bullet hit two or three feet below the face, knocking rocks and dust up and driving the man down. Bedford opened the bolt and fed in another round. The magazine was fully charged but he would save that for when they made their rush, that and the revolver. Damn! He hadn’t reloaded it from when he’d exchanged with Booth. Well, never mind.
“Is your aim really that bad, Lieutenant, or are you just being polite?” Jones called to him.
“I think I’m just tired of killing people,” he called back.
Jones didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then answered. “I’m tired of it as well, I am. I don’t feels like just lying down and dying for them, mind.”
No, neither did Bedford.
The Lifeguard Jaegers were a four thousand-man regiment back in Moscow—the Russians went in for enormous regiments. About forty or fifty of those four thousand were out there, with an officer or two. If he were sending forty or fifty men to fight the British, and had all those officers to
draw from, he’d make sure the man leading them could at least interrogate prisoners. What had Tereshkov said his name was? Rumyanstev.
“Captain Rumyanstev,” Bedford shouted. “Can you hear me?”
“No. Captain Rumyanstev cannot hear you. He is dead, I am afraid,” a voice called back—a young man, it sounded like, with a very slight accent. “I am Lieutenant Gruzinsky, second battalion, Lifeguard Jaeger Regiment. With whom do I have the honour of conversing?”
“Lieutenant Bedford, Royal Navy. How do you do, Lieutenant?”
“Better than you, I believe, although it appears our mission has been a failure. That was quite effective, bringing down the cavern roof, but permit me to ask why did you not withdraw when you had the opportunity?”
Bedford thought about his answer for a moment but decided he had nothing to gain with a lie. “A rock slipped and pinned my leg.”
“Really? And your men abandoned you? How shocking.”
“They’d have bloody well stayed and died with him to a man, but he ordered them away,” Jones shouted.
“Ah, I see,” Gruzinsky answered with a hint of amusement in his voice. “And tell me, is your leg pinned to the ground also, soldier?”
“Myn uffarn!” Jones hissed, low enough that only Bedford could hear. “And who said Russians don’t have a sense of humour?”
Bedford suppressed a chuckle. “Lieutenant Gruzinsky,” he shouted, “we seem to have reached a standoff. You can rush us and kill us, but we will surely kill some of your men as well, and what does that gain? As you observed, your mission is a failure, and killing us will not change that.”
“What you say makes excellent sense, my friend,” Gruzinsky called back. “There is a problem, however. I am not master of my fate in this matter; my superior will not approve my withdrawal, and as he watches me even as we speak, I see no easy way out of this impasse. In fact, I think he wishes you dead.”
“I saw you gun down my Saltators, Bedford!” a different voice rang out from over the barricade. “Grant and Folkard were fools; I could have dealt easily with them were it not for you. But you will never thwart me again!”
“Tereshkov? Lieutenant Gruzinsky, do you mean to tell me you are willing to take orders from that monstrous creature who calls himself a Russian?”
“I admit to finding his appearance and behaviour…off-putting, I think you would say,” Gruzinsky answered. “But I have my orders from Moscow, and those orders leave me no latitude in the matter. I am under this…gentleman’s command.”
“Does Moscow know what he has become?”
“It matters not, Lieutenant. Moscow may change its mind when they see him, but it is not for me to change it for them. You understand?”
Yes, of course Bedford understood. Duty.
“Well then, we may as well get this over with,” Bedford said.
“Yes, Gruzinsky, rush the swine!” Tereshkov shouted. “But don’t kill Bedford. Drag him back here to me and I will deal with him myself. You will take a long time dying, Bedford, do you hear? A long…”
Crack!
Bedford wasn’t sure what happened, except he knew the shot came from Jones’s position. For a few seconds there was silence.
“What a remarkable shot!” Gruzinsky shouted. “I am beside myself with admiration. How did you manage it, soldier?”
“There’s a gap between two rocks to your right,” Jones shouted. “The monster got excited by his little speech and showed his head.”
“Ah! I see, yes. Oh, well done!”
“Killing your commander will not cause difficulties?” Bedford called out.
“Oh, certainly it will, enormous difficulties! In fact, I see no alternative but to withdraw to our encampment and request further instructions. If I may ask, what is the soldier’s name?”
“Jones the Marksman,” Jones answered.
“Jones the Marksman, if you ever tire of British service, I believe you would make a fine Lifeguard Jaeger. Do svidaniya, Lieutenant Bedford.”
Epilogue
1.
HMAS SOVEREIGN did not leave Luna immediately and the next week became a whirlwind of activity for Lieutenant George Bedford, occasioned by Captain Folkard relieving himself of command on medical grounds, as much to Bedford’s surprise as everyone else’s.
Bedford composed and sent a number of long and detailed reports. He appended a list of casualties and recommendations for decorations, foremost among them Lieutenant Booth and Private Jones, RMLI Detachment, HMAS Sovereign.
He also made a point of commending the actions of Professor Stone who, though technically under arrest, had performed with particular initiative and gallantry. Bedford had hesitated before writing “gallantry”, as he knew Stone would find the word a distasteful characterisation of what he had done, particularly with respect to those two savage battles fought in the gloom of the deep tunnels. Nevertheless it accurately described the actions as the Admiralty understood the term, and if part of Bedford agreed with Nathanial as to the sorry state of the world’s current understanding of gallantry, he saw no profit in sharing that with the Sea Lords.
London’s response was not long delayed. With a substantial body of “armed men of an uncertain disposition” still based somewhere nearby, the Admiralty insisted Sovereign remain on station until a troop ship could bring reinforcements. Sovereign, of course, would have to meet the ship and ferry the troops down, as the only other large vessel with an experimental aether propeller governor, the one which normally serviced Otterbein Station, was in dry dock having suffered a mysterious case of sabotage.
Within four days the troop ship arrived and Sovereign’s cutters ferried down a company of the Rifles as well as a section of two Nordenfelt machine guns with naval crews, and a half-battery of light mountain guns—just the sort of thing to disassemble and carry through lunar passages, or perhaps on a raft down the River of Life. A sharp-looking young lieutenant colonel of the Rifles named Cooper had come with them and hand delivered to Harrison his orders to report back to London for reassignment. The company of Sikhs would stay under Cooper’s command. A new broom would sweep clean, Bedford hoped.
The reference in the orders to “armed men of an unknown disposition” was, Bedford well knew, all part and parcel of the diplomatic dance London managed over the status of Luna. Britain and Russia were not at war, nor did they care to be. Still their interests clashed, and as Britain had assured the world Otterbein Base was purely a research facility—which international treaty clearly forbade—it could hardly accuse Russia of having attempted a major military operation here.
Bedford was no diplomat, but he knew enough to couch his own reports in such a way as to emphasize the rescue operation and the fact that Tereshkov was clearly a demented renegade—not at all an agent of the Tsar. His detailed identification of the Lifeguard Jaegers was included as a separate annex marked Most Secret which he gave to Colonel Harrison to hand deliver upon his return to London via the returning troop transport.
Then there was the matter of Naporrow Bing and the City of Light and Science. British subjects had been treated most disgracefully by the Drobates of the City and Bedford did not doubt they would be made to pay a price for that. There was justice to that, he could not deny. He did sometimes find it disturbing that Britain seemed so much more ready to redress injustices to her subjects when those injustices occurred in a land of potential profit to the Lords, bankers, and industrialists—and did so little to prevent her subjects from coming to harm there in the first place.
Now Bing, the ostensible representative of the resistance in the City, met alternatively with a representative of the Foreign Office and one of the Colonial Office both of whom had come out with the troops—and each treating the other as if a minister of a hostile foreign power—with either Stevenson or Folkard, who could understand the Drobates’ form of mental communication, serving as translator. Grant could as well but was still too far gone to do so, and Bedford would not have trusted him in any case. Co
mmunication with the Drobates would be a challenge, of course, but the need to sort out who in London was actually responsible for dealing with the situation seemed an even greater one. It was not, however, Bedford’s problem.
Bing had taken one day off from his meetings to lead a party by a different route back to his laboratories and collect the twelve Russian prisoners, surly and bored but otherwise none the worse for their experience. Of the others who had wandered away from the party there was no trace. The twelve Russians would travel back to Earth aboard Sovereign and be released amidst much public fanfare—more unfortunate Earthmen waylaid by the Drobates and delivered from captivity courtesy of Britannia. Remarkably, Bedford realised, that was actually the truth. The Tsar, he did not doubt, would be very grateful—in public.
When not in meetings with London’s diplomats, Bing had spent much of his time in a workshop at Otterbein Base with Professor Stone, carefully disassembling the Drobate prosthetic leg, then rebuilding it to the correct length, proportion, and cosmetic appearance to match Annabelle’s missing limb. As Bedford and Annabelle had taken to sharing most of their meals, he knew the extent to which she longed to try on the new leg, although she pretended nothing more than a casual interest in the progress. Whatever impatience she might feel—and Bedford sensed that it burned within her like a Bessamer furnace—she showed only polite interest and support to her friend Stone. Bedford’s admiration for her would have grown, had it anywhere further to so expand. Instead he supposed that it deepened, as he saw more subtle layers to this woman who had entered his life and who, God willing, would remain a part of it.
2.
"AH BEDFORD,” Folkard said, looking up from his book. “Good of you to see me. Please have a seat. Would you care for some tea? The steward has just brought it.”
Folkard saw Bedford hesitate for a moment before sitting and nodding.