Lines of Thunder: The First Days on the Front (Lines of Thunder Universe)

by Walter Blaire

  This group of Southies was outnumbered by Gole’s platoon, but it had perfectly synched to the conditions. They were hard to see and they weren’t being hit. Even as Gole studied them, they gained the edge in suppressive fire. Soon they had his platoon locked in defensive cover, only able to snap off a few answering rounds at a time.

  In a deeper shell hole nearby, Lieutenant Elyseuran lay on his back with a torn fragment of map in his hands. Corphy crawled back and forth the limit of his cover, hectoring the platoon to increase its fire.

  None of the boots in the platoon seemed especially concerned. Putting aside the looming possibility of death, the firefight had an almost workaday feel, as if this was long-established and routine procedure, even boring, and they knew how it would play out. Perhaps they expected their greater numbers to tip the scales again. Then, when they locked the southern squad under cover, they would advance and finish them off. That was how it usually worked for Gole at home, during training.

  Gole gathered the scene in mere seconds, but the dirt berm in front of his face suddenly danced of its own accord. He realized he was receiving enemy fire. The Southies had picked him out of the dark chaos despite his painted face. He dropped back into cover and moved laterally several yards to another pile of dirt.

  Rather than give the enemy another chance by showing himself again, he peeked sideways around his mound of dirt and tried to locate Grulle. The platoon stretched past the enemy position on both sides, halfway encircling it… In fact, Gole thought, one side of the firing line could be sent around the enemy position. The Southies would not notice a difference in the volume of fire because they already had their enemies suppressed. The platoon could flank them, take them from the side, and destroy them quickly with crossfire.

  Gole squirmed to Corphy through the dirt. He said, “The Southies are ripe for flanking and not paying attention.”

  Corphy barely glanced his way. “So you’re an expert now?”

  For a moment, Gole fumbled for words.

  He was put aback by the strangeness of the sergeant’s answer. When it came to fighting and squad-level tactics, every Tachba was an expert. Every one of them had trained for this war from five years old, with little variation from household to household. It wasn’t as if the eternal front ever changed. Learning about suppression, flanking, and the rest was what made a Tachba childhood tolerable at all.

  He tried again. “Three minutes of work and the South is finished.”

  The sergeant finally focused on him. “Scrag, your only role here is to be fodder. Don’t waste my time with fancy dance steps. Your blood-fed is giving high service right next to you. See if you can’t do the same.”

  With that, Corphy crabbed away to yell at someone else.

  Gole stared after him.

  “Fancy dance steps, neh?” Grulle said by his shoulder. “Golephan, I name ye Dancypants.”

  “Is he mad?” Gole wondered aloud.

  “Dancypants,” Grulle nudged his shoulder and broke him out of his thoughts. “Now is time for rifle talk.”

  Still bewildered, Gole unstrapped his rifle and fed a clip into it.

  When the time felt right, he popped out of cover and emptied the clip. He was safe a moment later, extracting the clip and feeding another. He replayed his movement in his mind—when the Pollution took over, it could make Tachba motions too quick to follow. As far as he could tell, he’d accomplished nothing but spending some rounds. He was only certain he had loosed them toward the enemy, which was the recommended direction.

  He emptied two more clips before he rebelled. “This is a waste. I’m going around them.”

  “We’em break the formy, la?” Grulle asked doubtfully.

  “This is a children’s firing line, not a formation.” Gole pushed backward down the incline, digging his boots into the mumblety dirt to keep from sliding too far. He edged sideways, searching the dark for a path to the platoon’s flank. “Get down here, Grulle. What are you waiting for?”

  Grulle slid beside him and slapped a fresh clip into his rifle.

  “Stop!” Corphy snapped from behind them.

  Gole’s muscles locked. “Stopped.”

  “Stopped-meh,” Grulle said.

  “Are you squeakers pissing yourselves and running from service, or are you merely acting without orders?”

  There’s something deeply wrong with this man, Gole thought darkly. It was bad form to give a stop order when it wasn’t needed—each use weakened the training and reminded the Tachba how little control they might really have. Stops were only for emergencies, when the Pollution was about to make an impulsive Tachba do something irretrievable. Gole could have used one at the train before he knocked Corphy over. Here, it was overkill. Even worse was asking a question while they were locked down and couldn’t answer. It was pure bad manners.

  However, Gole had discovered a trick in childhood, to his sister’s despair. For the longest time, he had been able to escape Nana’s teaching sessions. He envisioned ice-cold water pouring down his spine. He shivered free of the lock and glared at the sergeant.

  “Which I’m flanking these Southies myself, sir,” he said, “to get this over with. Give me two more boots and I’ll get it done faster.”

  Corphy was so astonished by Gole’s immediate response that he didn’t have a ready answer.

  Of course, Gole had shown Grulle the same trick. Grulle said, “Permission-meh sarnt, get-meh back to-fighting?”

  “Get back to it, blood-fed,” Corphy said tightly. “Get far away from here if you know what’s good for you.”

  Grulle jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, “La, going-far, sarnt.” He scrambled into the dark, precisely the direction Gole had picked, and was quickly out of view. Gole watched him leave with a stab of irritation he knew was unjust. His brother, always so damn eager to please.

  He turned back to the sergeant. Corphy was giving him what he supposed was a menacing stare. Really, there were bullets flying! How broken was this man’s mind that he couldn’t prioritize his attention? Though Gole knew it was the Pollution lashing him to get back to the fight, he let impatience take control of his mouth. “Sergeant, why is the entire platoon hung up on one Southie hand-squad? Why aren’t we through them and finishing the patrol already?”

  “Lieutenant!” Corphy called over his shoulder. “Pass the word for the lieutenant.”

  6

  Lieutenant Elyseuran slid next to them a minute later. He looked somehow fresher than the other soldiers, and he took them in with a quick, cheerful grimace. “This one again, sarnt?”

  “Which he’s not fighting, sir, and now questioning orders.”

  The humor dropped off the lieutenant’s face. “Are you not enjoying the war, Gole?”

  “A three minute crawl, sir, and we have South flanked,” Gole said quickly. “A crossfire and we either roll them up, or they fall back and we chase them like a hunting party.”

  “Why do you think we could flank ’em? Fighting from holes is not the same as fighting at home. Three minutes turns into three hours if you get lost.”

  This is more like it. Whatever Corphy’s problem, it didn’t afflict the lieutenant. Gole jerked his head back up the route they’d taken. “I saw it as I came in, the whole spread. I might get lost, but your regulars? They’re lying around shooting into the air. Let’s get through these Southies and on with the patrol.”

  The lieutenant turned to Corphy. “Seems our new general has a fresh idea.”

  “He’s distracting us,” Corphy said. “The South is rolled up anyway. Three minutes or thirty minutes, it’s over. There’s only five of them.”

  “Three,” the lieutenant corrected.

  “That couldn’t be, sir,” Corphy said. “Three fingers in a hand squad?”

  “Maybe they’re flanking us instead, neh?” The lieutenant joked. He crawled back up and peeked over. “I see two Southies missing every shot, left and right. The one in the middle with the red cap is giving precision fire. That�
�s the thumb of the hand, I’d imagine.”

  When the lieutenant lowered again, Gole risked a look. One of the Southies, the middle one, indeed wore something on his head. Impossible to tell with this distance and light, but it could have been brown or clay-red.

  “The South don’t flank,” Corphy said shortly. “I think we plinked those first two fingers and the rest of the hand is toiling on.”

  “Yet the South hasn’t been acting like the South lately.” The lieutenant thought for a few seconds while the firefight sputtered around them. “Gole, when we get back, I’ll talk to you about when to have ideas. Locking down two of us to chat, while under fire? That don’t work. Teaching you the rudiments like we’re an older sister? That kind of handholding is madness out here. Even a blood-fed should see it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Gole said. Honestly, he was surprised the lieutenant had humored him even this far.

  “All the same,” the lieutenant continued, turning to Corphy, “send some boots around to finish this up. If nothing else, we’ll have a new angle on the southern monsters.”

  “Splitting the unit?” Corphy shook his head. “When we don’t need to?”

  “Corphor, don’t get stubborn on me.” Impatience edged the lieutenant’s tone.

  “Yes, sir. We flank the Southies, and so says the lieuty.” Corphy shot Gole a glance of pure malevolence. “I’ll send some boots who don’t need the world explained to them.”

  The lieutenant pulled out his map again. “Sergeant, the next time I see you jawing with this squeaker rather than winning the war, I’ll question your service. Chatting under fire, really!”

  If possible, Corphy filled with more anger. “Which it won’t be permitted again.”

  “Of course it won’t. Now send some boots hunting, then get back here and—ah!”

  Gole and Corphy turned to the lieutenant.

  He was a gurgling mess. His jacket was torn open across his belly. He kicked with one leg, stiff with agony, as his stomach spilled into the dirt. His other leg lay at a grotesque angle beneath him. It was connected to his torso only by a seam of canvas and a narrow strap of flesh.

  Even as Gole took this in, the lieutenant received another hit. His shoulder slammed into the ground as if it had been stomped by a boot heel. A cloud of blood-moist dirt exploded in their faces.

  Gole reeled away from the lieutenant, sliding deeper downwards into cover. Corphy’s reflexes were better. He grabbed the lieutenant’s belt and pulled him down too.

  “From there!” Gole pointed. The shots had come from the side.

  From the side!

  Corphy dropped the lieutenant and whipped around with his rifle, cutting loose with a full clip where Gole had indicated. He targeted a notch in the ground that Gole hadn’t noticed, and sure enough as the rounds impacted the dirt, a shadowy figure emerged and relocated. It was one of the Southern soldiers, and the Southie had a clear view of the main platoon, which faced the other direction.

  “Those hateful scrags,” Corphy said, outraged. He swapped clips and cranked off more shots too quickly for Gole to follow. “On the right!” he screamed over his shoulder. “Contact on the right! Move to cover! Enemy contact on the right!”

  The platoon responded slowly, as if the order were outside of procedure. The soldiers clambered sideways, trying to reorient. One boot merely rolled on his back to look around—and caught a round in the chin that sent his helmet pinwheeling into the air.

  “Fucking shoot your gun!” Corphy screamed in Gole’s ear.

  Gole snapped awake and fired suppression where he thought the southerner might be. More incoming fire from another direction. Gole reoriented and squeezed off an answer, desperately hunting for the enemy position. Positions, because there were two so far. Gole had no idea where to point his stupid rifle.

  A Southie hand squad had five fingers, and if three soldiers were in front of them then they had two on their flank. But what if this is more than just a hand squad? Gole simply didn’t know.

  Squad tactics were one thing, but front-line experience was something else entirely. Corphy had Gole beat in that regard, so he checked to see where the sergeant was aiming. Nowhere: Corphy was back at the bottom of the hole, working on the lieutenant. He scooped intestines back into a pile on Elyseuran’s stomach and buttoned the coat over it. Then he untwisted the nearly detached leg. All of it seemed pointless and patently unhelpful at the moment.

  Gole turned back to the threat. The flanking Southies displaced quickly, shifting positions, snapping off shots on the move. For as long as possible, they would maintain the initiative and prevent the platoon from recovering its balance. There were only two of them, but they quickly knocked down two more of Gole’s platoon. Then three. Then four.

  Corphy was back at Gole’s side, bringing his rifle up. He said, “This is getting grim—”

  The sergeant’s helmet danced, and his head snapped back. He slid down the hole but quickly clambered up again. The Southie bullet had scored a shiny crease into his rilled helmet. His chin strap dangled, broken, and a sheet of blood covered his face where the buckle had sliced his forehead.

  “Can’t crawl back the way we came,” Gole said, “no cover from the crossfire.”

  “The South was never this smart,” Corphy said.

  “Orders?” Gole said.

  Corphy didn’t answer. He tried to see over the lip of the shell hole and received a spray of dirt in his face.

  “Orders, sir?” Gole didn’t want to browbeat the noncom, but he truly had no idea what should happen next. This situation well and truly exceeded his experience. Surely the calm, professional soldiers he’d seen earlier would know how to handle this.

  But Corphy merely shook his head.

  “Doggie-gees,” said the lieutenant from the bottom of the shell hole. He had to repeat himself, as his voice was too weak to carry over the fire. This was a term that Gole knew at least. The lieutenant meant defensive grenades, the ones shaped like cans rather then the round ones used on the offense.

  “Right, and doggie-gees it is,” Corphy said, relief clear.

  Gole had just grabbed a grenade out of his satchel when a whistle sounded. The sharp sound pierced the high crackle of rifle fire, and it came from the direction of the flanking Southies. It wasn’t them whistling, however. It came from behind them and it was a northern signal: two rising shrieks that meant “watch fire.”

  The platoon’s fire dropped away, and a volley of shots emitted near the Southerner’s positions. A quick exchange of fire.

  Another.

  Then silence.

  A face appeared over a ledge of dirt, right in Gole’s gunsight.

  “Grulle!” he shouted.

  The blood-fed grinned and made a crude gesture at Gole.

  The three original Southies, still in their strong position, unleashed a volley at Grulle with every sign of displeasure. He dropped quickly back into cover.

  It was clear to everyone what had just happened. The blood-fed had circled behind the flankers and taken them out. The flankers had themselves been flanked.

  The platoon was free to turn its attention back to the remaining Southies.

  “All right you scrags,” Corphy yelled, “clear out that nest.”

  They moved with something Gole hadn’t seen yet: real anger. It was as if the flanking trick had made it personal. The platoon charged overland, firing whenever possible, but aggressively closing the distance to the enemy’s position. Gole followed on their heels, causing no discernible damage with his own shots.

  When the platoon was close enough, they filled the Southie’s position with oggie-gees. The offensive grenades went off with a string of pops, louder than the gunfire.

  When they finally crested the Southie’s position, they found the pit empty. The enemy had already fled.

  7

  The return to the trench was not the relief Gole expected. The Pollution picked that moment, finally, to make him feel invincible. He crept behind his tirel
ess blood-fed, hating the world, even hating the soldiers around him, and nearly vibrating with the desire to turn around and single-handedly attack the South. Someone in a red cap deserved punishment—for tricking the patrol, for treating them all like children, for shooting the only officer who actually seemed reasonable and sane.

  “Heard you got the lieutenant killed,” said a voice underneath Gole.

  It was the soldier from earlier, the one who liked sarcasm. Dephic. The platoon had paused for a minute’s rest, and they were all so covered in filth that Gole had crawled across him like another mound of dirt.

  “The lieutenant isn’t dead,” Gole said, shifting to the side. “And it wasn’t me, it was the South.”

  “You didn’t salute him, none? I swear I told someone not to salute at the front.” Dephic followed as Gole tried to get away. “Not sure if it was you or some other squeaker.”

  Gole muttered, “I only pointed out we could hit the Southies from the side. The lieutenant had just decided to try it, and he pulled out his map. That’s when they hit us from the side.”

  “Nah, Southies don’t hit from the side.”

  Gole almost faltered, perplexed. “Were we at the same gunfight?”

  “Dephic means that the front is full of confusing shit,” said a new voice. Yet another soldier rolled over in the mud, directly in Gole’s path. This one was the old-timer, Malley. “The South don’t crawl a hundred yards to shoot you from the side, not when you’re ten yards in front of them.”

  “I feel I have to insist,” Gole said evenly, though he felt like he was going mad. “Someone killed six of the platoon, and shot the lieutenant’s leg off.”

  “Oh, that was the South, all right,” Dephic said. “But it was some other accident, and we only caught the fall-out. Maybe it was part of a different hand-squad.”

  “Maybe it was the same hand-squad,” Malley suggested, “but the two flankers were coming back from fetching something and they got lucky.”

  “Or maybe they were always there, and we simply put ourselves in a bad spot,” Dephic said. “Don’t make the South out to be anything but witless primitives. Don’t give them credit for something that was probably a simple accident. The eternal front loves a good joke.”