by David Drake
“I can and will,” Allenson replied coldly. “That lighter is under military control and this is a combat zone. Get back into line and wait your turn or I’ll send you back up.”
He had half-turned away when the man grabbed his arm rudely and pulled.
“Listen soldier-boy. You’ve got no right to tell me what to do. If you think that poncy backwater colony aristo accent impresses me then—”
Allenson backhanded the man across the face. The lighter owner sat down hard on his rounded butt, face now florid for reasons other than over-consumption of rich foodstuffs. A small riverlet of blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth from where his lip had been crushed against his teeth. The man wiped the blood of with his hand and stared at it in horrified fascination,
“I don’t have time for this crap,” Allenson said, recovering control with great effort. “And I don’t have time for you. I will shoot you if I see your fat face again in the next hour. Now get out of my sight.”
Allenson shifted his attention back to filling the lighter. One of Ortiz’s troopers moved the now silent lighter owner on using the toe of his military issue boot. From the enthusiasm he put into the task Allenson surmised that he had personal issues with florid-faced men in business suits. No doubt his views were based on past experience.
The next lighters loaded without incident. A constant stream of boats arrived in the bay to wait their turn. Allenson made sure he exchanged a word or two with each skipper as he pulled in. He recognized one matelot as having made an earlier trip. The man grinned when Allenson thanked him for coming back.
“Not sure I rightly had much of a choice, squire. Lady Allenson is meeting the returning lighters with some bloke called Krenz in tow. Very persuasive, she is.”
He reflected.
“’Course it helps that she is also offering twenty percent bonuses for the second trip, thirty for the third and so on.”
“I see,” Allenson replied faintly, now understanding why the queue of empty lighters off Slapton Ferry was not diminishing.
He blanched to think about how he was going to lose this particular cost in the budget. Oh well, a problem for another day.
As the day wore on Allenson noted that the type of soldier forming the columns changed from more disciplined regulars to frightened and confused conscripts. A greater percentage of them carried the badges of regiments of the Eleventh rather than the First Brigade. Frightened men and lethal weapons make a dodgy combination. With hindsight, an issue was inevitable. It came in the form of a panicky shout from a packed lighter about to cast off.
“That man there, yes you. Why are holding a bloody grenade? It’s not live is it?”
“Don’t know, Corp, it might be.”
“Shit! Get rid of the fecker.”
“Nooo . . .” Allenson screamed but it was too late.
A small gray object arced out of the lighter on a trajectory leading to the dock where the next line of evacuees waited patiently. It hit the stabilized soil with a ceramic clink.
You could spot the veterans and regulars among the waiting soldiers right away. They were the ones who immediately flung themselves face down. Their inexperienced comrades remained upright gawping. Allenson was among those taking cover so he didn’t directly witness what happened next but it was easy enough to reconstruct.
The grenade bounced off the foot of a prone trooper. It rolled gently back towards the lighter, sparking off mass panic. A wave of men hurtled from the landward side of the lighter towards the opposite wale, in the process bowling over the protesting skipper. The overcrowded lighter promptly capsized, dropping its passengers into the water.
Allenson lifted his head at the howls of fear and screams for help. The grenade sat innocently about two meters from his nose, a gray cylinder about fifteen centimeters long and four centimeters diameter. It didn’t look right. There should be fine-spaced indentations to act as guides for the blast that would transform the casing into a shower of lethal splinters.
His stomach lurched when the cylinder gave a faint click followed by a loud pop. Thick yellow vapor rushed out of a valve arrangement at the top. The air filled with smoke.
“It’s a feckin’ marker flare,” Nolan said, his voice thick with mixed emotions of relief and anger.
Allenson jumped to his feet. He kicked the flare off the dockside into the water, eliciting further screams. It flared briefly below the surface before dying. The sea wind whisked the yellow smoke away to reveal chaos.
The activity churned up the mud, staining the water brown and releasing foul odors.
“Stand up you idiots,” Allenson broadcast through his datapad. “The water is only waist deep. Why do you think we are only using shallow-draft lighters?”
Sheepishly, drowning men found their feet and waded towards the dock to be lifted from the water by their comrades. A half dozen or so had managed to drown. Bodies floated faced down. More victims were probably trapped under the overturned lighter.
Allenson surveyed the mess soberly.
“You men, don’t bother climbing out of the water. We don’t have time for salvage operation so someone has to drag the wreckage out of the way. Guess who’s volunteering as I don’t see why the rest of us should get wet. We’ll pass you some ropes.”
It took thirty valuable minutes to clear the channel for the next lighter. Allenson sent the waders back up to the station to dry off before they re-joined the queue. He made it look like a punishment. The real reason was that he was concerned they would suffer hypothermia out on the Bay in an open lighter.
As it turned out he was wasting his time. The sky darkened, filling with black clouds, and the first spots of rain pattered lightly onto the pools of water in the surrounding marshes.
“Some hot cafay, sir?” Boswell said, proffering a thermos flask.
“Where did you spring from?” Allenson asked.
He waved a hand.
“Never mind, just pour the cafay.”
Allenson warmed his hands on the cup and sipped at the contents. It tasted vaguely metallic but was wet and hot. Its temperature was its most important quality when he tipped it down his throat.
“Thank you, Boswell.”
“Sorry I lost my head on the frame, sir, when we were shot at.”
“Your first time in a fight?”
“No, sir, but it’s the first time anyone has shot at me with a sodding great cannon.”
Allenson laughed humorlessly and turned his coat collar up against rain that had become more insistent.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it in time.”
“Yes, sir,” Boswell said doubtfully. “Another cup?”
Allenson looked at his drink, surprised to see it empty. Had he really gulped a cup of burning liquid down so quickly? Apparently so.
“I believe I will.”
He held out the cup.
The chain of lighters cycled through Slapton Ferry smoothly under Ortiz’s control but it all took time, too much time. Allenson was amazed that the Brasilians had left them alone this long. Surely they must have scouts out who had spotted what was going on. His enemy was professional, but fortunately methodical, and geared to a war of materiel and position rather than maneuver.
He didn’t underestimate the Brasilian military, but they moved step by step like a sleepwalker, consolidating each gain before preparing for the next advance. He supposed you had to work like that in the Home Worlds, where the concentration of troops per kilometer of line was so high. Generals who stuck their necks out got their heads cut off. Here in the emptiness of the colonies it was different.
There were no lines of any length or permanence. Small armies clashed when they collided at strategic points and, if a position fell, the next defendable place might be as far as a frame ride away. A war ebbed and flowed over around fortified bases and cities like a flash flood rushing to pool around boulders and high ground. And like a flash flood an army’s fortunes could recede as quickly as they advanced.
Allenson’s musings were interrupted by the ringing of bells. Now he knew he was seeing things.
A farm servant drove a herd of quadrupeds through the swamp towards the ferry. The clanging came from bells affixed to collars around their necks. The animals were lithe, scrambling surefootedly through the mud and leaping from tuft to tuft of grass.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he heard Ortiz shout at the rustic.
“Bringing my flock to the ferry like I always does at this time o’ year,” the drover replied.
“Well you can’t. The ferry has been requisitioned. Don’t you know there’s a war on?”
“Nowt to do with me. My animals have to go to market now or I won’t get the best price,” the rustic said with what to him was clearly inarguable logic.
Allenson began to think he was starring in some sort of theatrical farce.
“Hey shoo,” Ortiz said, waving his arms at the beasts, which looked up startled.
They shied away nervously from the waiting line of troopers.
“Don’t you be scaring them,” warned the drover.
At that moment the black sky split with the white flash of an electrical discharge. A peal of thunder followed scant tenths of a second later. The storm was right on top of them and the rain came down in determined sheets.
It was all too much for the flock. The animals turned about and scattered into the marsh, chased by the outraged rustic. Allenson’s datapad chimed and he switched it on. Rainwater poured down the screen, distorting the hologram, but he recognized Hawthorn.
“The first of Kaspary’s men are trickling in. He’ll be with us within twenty minutes or so with the rest of his regiment’s survivors.”
“Understood,” Allenson said.
They were all out of time.
CHAPTER 24
Plots and Plans
Up to this point Allenson had given no thought to how many men might be left behind to be put in the bag by the advancing Brasilian army. He had driven the evacuation as fast as possible and that was that. Nevertheless he was pleasantly surprised to find the station almost completely empty when he reached it.
Hawthorn greeted him at the administration block that was serving as a headquarters out of the rain. Inside a handful of men wearing the red and black slashed badge of Kaspary’s Greenbelts sipped hot drinks.
“Where is everybody?” Allenson asked.
“The odd trooper still turns up but we’ve shipped out those who maintained enough cohesion to make it here,” Hawthorn said. “They’re probably the only ones worth saving anyhow.”
“How many bayonets does Kaspary have left?”
Hawthorn shrugged.
“Perhaps two hundred.”
“So damned few,” Allenson replied softly.
He didn’t bother to subtract the number from the Greenbelts’ theoretical establishment to work out the casualties. He hadn’t the time or mental strength. Later would do, maybe never if it slipped his mind.
He was fooling himself, of course. Casualties suffered as the result of his orders never slipped his mind. He just couldn’t deal with it now.
“Then there’s the wounded,” Hawthorn said casually.
Allenson just looked at him.
“You probably noticed that I only sent walking wounded down to the lighters,” Hawthorn said.
Allenson hadn’t noticed.
“Where are they?” he asked.
“In the warehouse opposite.”
“Show me,” Allenson ordered.
“Why, Allenson? There’s nothing you can do. Let the medics get on with their job.”
“Show me!”
Hawthorn took him to a newish one-story warehouse that was in noticeably better condition than the others. It was as silent as a temple inside. Sedated troopers were laid out in rows, burnt skin and the stumps of amputated limbs encased in solidified therapeutic foam.
A woman watched when he walked past her. She had no hair and her eyes stared out of foam skin covering her face and head. A breathing tube ran through the foam in the area of her mouth. Orderlies carried a corpse to the back of the warehouse where bodies and body parts were stacked under disinfectant slime. People in combat uniforms clearly marked by the diagonal red and white stripes indicating medics moved silently up and down the aisles checking their charges.
A woman hurried over to Allenson and held out her hand.
“Dr. Sal’Framagh, I’m in charge here.”
“Thank you for the care you’re giving my men,” Allenson said.
“It’s what we’re for,” she said briskly.
“How did these people possibly get here with such terrible injuries?” Allenson asked.
“Their comrades bring them in mostly, but some make it under their own efforts. You would be surprised what people can do in extremis.”
“No,” Allenson replied, “I wouldn’t.”
“They would never have survived the lighters,” Hawthorn said, gesturing at the recumbent figures.
“No, I can see that,” Allenson replied.
He pulled himself together.
“Doctor, I have no right to ask, and it certainly isn’t an order . . .”
“But you want to know if medical staff will stay with the wounded until the Brasilians arrive to take over their care,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Some of my unmarried personnel have already volunteered. I will be staying myself, of course.”
“Of course,” Allenson said gently.
He uttered some meaningless platitudes.
“I want all those people to receive public commendations,” Allenson said to Hawthorn once they were outside.
The history books would record that General Allenson was the last one out of Slapton Ferry that night and they were almost right. When the barge lifted and started back to Port Trent the last of Kaspary’s rearguard was still boarding a lighter.
Allenson had precious free time to think about the strategic situation on the way back instead of simply reacting to events. The problem was the more he thought the less he liked the options. He managed to snatch a couple of hours sleep but took another Nightlife after they landed at his Port Trent headquarters just after dawn. He called an immediate meeting of his staff, which gave him just enough time to snatch breakfast.
He had to force himself to eat. Allenson was not exactly a gourmet at the best of times but everything tasted metallic and was difficult to swallow. Nightlife side effects were showing. There were other stimulants that mitigated the impact but he was loath to go down that road as he could end up taking drugs to moderate unwanted effects of the drugs he had taken to counter the first set of side effects.
On the other hand he was incredibly thirsty, another symptom of the drug. While he breakfasted he searched through his datapad for an old document; something he had read a long time ago and only half remembered. When he found the file he was soon so lost in it that he forgot how bad the food tasted.
Buller, Ling, Hawthorn and the staff were present when he entered the conference theater. Looking round he noticed that Buller was no longer a shoe-in for the worst dressed officer in the room award. He and Hawthorn now also competed for that honor.
“If you would bring us all up to speed on the situation, Colonel Ling,” Allenson said after seating himself.
Ling walked to the podium in the center and activated a hologram showing a three-dimensional map of the area.
“The Brasilians are massing all along the south of the Buller Line. They have the Douglas Hundreds completely sealed off. We must assume that any of our troops still there are lost.”
“The terrain hardly offers suitable concealment for guerrilla operations,” Hawthorn said.
“Quite.”
“What forces do we have manning the Buller Line?” Allenson asked.
Ling spread his hands expressively.
“The equivalent of a handful of scratch-built companies; most of the garrison has fled back
to Port Trent. We’re trying to round them up now.”
Hawthorn snorted.
“The Brasos can walk in any time they like. Good thing they don’t know that.”
Brasos was a new one on Allenson, but it was only a question of time before his men found a derogatory nickname for the enemy. It was what troops did to offset the uncomfortable feeling that the enemy was three meters tall.
“Options, gentlemen?”
There was a silence.
“Anyone?” Allenson asked again.
Ling coughed.
“Well, if nobody else has any ideas. . . . As I see it we have three choices,” Ling said.
He ticked them off on his fingers.
“We can evacuate the scratch companies as soon as the attack starts, heavily reinforce the Line with fresh troops from the Trent Line and make a fight of it, or we can compromise and feed in just enough troops to bleed the Brasilians with a view to eventually pulling back.”
Buller shook his head.
“No compromises. They’re just a way of avoiding making a decision and inevitably turn out badly.”
“I agree,” Allenson said. “I suspect that we might be bled dry faster than the enemy. Equally, I distrust allowing the Brasilians to suck us into a set piece battle where they hold all the cards. I remind everyone that the fortifications on the Buller Line face north.”
Buller cleared his throat but said nothing.
“I choose option one, then, Colonel Ling. Clear the line out, if you please.”
Ling made a note on his pad.
“That does offer the Brasilians the possibility of bypassing the Trent Line by crossing the Valerie in their amphibious armor. Then they could attack Port Trent directly.”
Buller rubbed his hands together.
“Excellent, we’ll stop them in the city itself. I can make every building a fortification and every street a firetrap.”
“I believe you,” Allenson said softly. “But tell me, Colonel, if you were the Brasilian general how would you crack such a nut?”
“Not easily,” Buller replied. “You isolate sections of the city block by block using heavy cannon fire and reduce each block with artillery, but that’s the beauty of it, you see. The defending troops dig into cellars and trenches and occupy the rubble as soon as the bombardment stops. At some point the enemy has to cease so he can send in his infantry. The attackers have all the disadvantages in the resulting firefight. Rubble makes a great defensive position. We’ll bleed them with attrition as they clear out each section of city. Their materiel superiority will be at a discount in an urban battle. It’ll be man against man, rifle against rifle.”