by Tom Kratman
Food was followed by a lecture from a mullah, the lecture mostly concerning the iniquity of the besiegers, the duty of all Moslems to fight in the jihad, and the rewards of paradise. Dawud was no dummy and absolutely didn't like the direction in which the sermon was plainly going.
He liked it even less when the fighters had begun passing out arms and ammunition, and explaining, briefly, how to load, aim – more or less – and fire the things. The insurgents had the boys practice dry firing a few times before they led them off, by various routes, with two insurgents to each group of ten boys to ensure there would be no "desertions."
The last thing the fighters had done is explain the boys' mission. "Better for you to keep going in the attack," they'd added. "We'll support you in that. But death at the end of a rope awaits any so cowardly as to turn around from their duty."
* * *
A sound eerie to Balboan ears poured across the desert floor. It was a muezzin calling over loudspeakers.
Jimenez looked out over the dry and barren desolation that stretched from the circumvallating berm to the edge of the city. There was one almost full moon tonight, Hecate, plus partial luminescence from another, Bellona. Thus, even without using his night vision goggles, he could see easily across the open expanse.
Oh, oh, he thought as the first armed combatants stepped out into the light and began to walk forward.
"Engage now, sir?" asked the platoon centurion laying next to Jimenez on the friendly side of the berm. He had seen them too.
"No . . . no, wait until they hit the leading edge of the minefield. Any we can draw out and kill, are that many fewer we'll have to fight when we finally assault the town."
* * *
The speakers on one of the near minarets crackled to life as the boys emerged from their shelters on the edge of town. A muezzin began reciting from the Koran over the speakers, his recital focused on the path of holy war.
One boy – Dawud thought it was the last one who had been taken in the vehicle that had brought him in – lay down in dirt, apparently taking cover. Dawud paused briefly, his eyes glancing over to look down at the boy. He began moving forward again almost instantly as a burst of automatic fire coming from behind impacted the slacker, causing blood to spurt from the body as it caused little geysers of dust to spurt from the ground.
From the speakers the muezzin decreed that death was to be the lot of slackers and cowards.
* * *
"This feels dirty as shit, sir," the centurion told Jimenez as the mob flowed closer.
I'm trying to remember the last clean war there was, Jimenez thought to himself. To the centurion he said, "Nothing for it but to get it over with then. But give them a couple more minutes. Until we can be sure none are going to be able to escape."
Jimenez slid down the berm's embankment and gestured for his radio telephone operator to hand over the microphone. With the radio, he called the command post to ask if there were a gunship overhead. Informed that there was not but that one would be overhead within ten minutes, he cursed and began the crawl back up to the berm's edge. His RTO followed.
"Do you have a forward observer attached?" he asked the centurion.
"Yes, sir. Shall I get him?"
"Please. Immediately."
* * *
Dawud's young heart pounded in his chest as the men following began to shout, "Allahu akbar, CHARRRGE!" while firing their weapons from behind the boys and forward, over their heads. The shouting grew more distant the further Dawud's legs carried him.
In his brief course of instruction the orphan had been taught to fire the rifle once each time his left leg hit the ground. He began to do so, keeping the rifle generally pointed to the north. Each burst took him a little by surprise. He found the sensation of recoil both unpleasant and frightening. He found the thought of being shot in the back by the men he assumed were still following to be more so.
There was an explosion ahead, somewhere to Dawud's right front. When he looked at the flash it was just in time to see three bodies flying through the air before hitting the ground. At the same time, two sets of bright shining lines were drawn across the front, one coming from the east and one from the west. Not only didn't Dawud know these were tracers, he was far too ignorant of matters military to realize that one tracer also meant another four bullets. He also didn't know enough to identify the explosion as having come from a land mine.
* * *
"This is just fucking murder," the centurion said to Jimenez over the continuous rattle of machine guns assaulting both men's ear and from both sides. He repeated, "Just fucking murder."
Jimenez ignored it, concentrating on the bodies being harvested in long lines at the edge of the minefield and where the machine guns were laid along their final protective lines.
The centurion's right. This is just murder. These poor bastards are clueless. It isn't even worth calling in some artillery or mortars on them. Why waste the shells when they just offer themselves up for butchery?
* * *
Dawud never saw the bullets that cut his legs out from under him. One minute he was running forward, the next he felt both legs struck out from underneath and found himself spinning, literally head over heels, to fall to the dirt.
It didn't hurt at first, nor even for several minutes. Then the burning began, followed by pain such as the boy had never even imagined. He began to cry and then, as the pain grew greater, infinitely great, to scream.
His screams were no more than a few notes in the hellish symphony.
* * *
The centurion's eyes glowed even in the darkness. He shrugged, "So court-martial me, sir, but I'll be damned if I'll let that shit go on. Just listen to them, won't you? Those were just fucking kids. Just kids! So I'm going out – we've got clear lanes through the wire and mines – and I'm bringing them back with me, as many as I can and as many as any of my men who'll volunteer to go with me can."
Jimenez sighed. He'd not have the centurion court-martialed, not when he wanted to go out himself. Poor little bastards. They are just kids, too. Maybe one man might sound like that. But not every one of hundreds.
"Wait a few minutes until I can get a smoke screen laid then, centurion. Then you can go."
Field Hospital Number Two, Legio Del Cid, 2/8/462 AC
When Dawud came out of surgery he was unconscious and legless. The surgeons had tried but . . . well, the damage had been too great. Keeping the legs would only have condemned the boy to a harder death from gangrene.
He remembered nothing of how he had come to be captured and treated, though after the centurion who had ventured out into no-man's-land had come by the field hospital to check on him, Dawud had been told the story by a Sumeri auxiliary nurse.
He'd miss the legs, he knew. Then again, what use were legs to a beggar boy? Perhaps it had been a fair trade. After all, at least he was eating well.
The boy bore no grudges. He didn't even know who to blame, the men who had shot him or the men who had driven him forth to be shot. In his world, bad things happened – usually to him – and it wasn't really anyone's fault. Il hamdu l'illah.
In any case, he had no hard feelings. The Sumeris working the field hospital had even suggested that it might be possible to go to school again on the legion's ticket. "Stranger things have happened," they'd all agreed. So, when the intelligence warrant officer had come to question Dawud, he had held nothing back. Not that he had much to tell. Yet from little bits of color are mighty works of art created. Dawud had a few such little bits to offer.
Given the ready cooperation, it was unsurprising that the boy was identified to the PSYOP maniple as a possible source for a telling interview.
Pumbadeta, Sumer, 3/8/462 AC
It was Dawud's voice carried on the dusty air from the loudspeakers of the legion to the ears of the men, and they were virtually all men, remaining inside the city.
Listening to it, Ehmed al Hanawi sat in a circle of other Pumbadetites. Like them his face was darke
ned with fury. Like them, too, his empty stomach rumbled. Like them his teeth ground against each other.
"So much for my boy's having volunteered for martyrdom," he cursed. "Taken without warning and forced into a meat grinder by our "liberators." The bastards."
The others nodded. Ehmed was the only one of the group who had lost a son in this way. But they were all fathers, and many of them still had boys trapped inside the town.
One of them men lifted up his Samsonov rifle and shook it. "I say we clean these bastards out. Who the fuck do they think they are, bringing this trouble upon us? Clean 'em out, I say."
Though almost all of the men assembled were at least functionally literate, only one among them could have been called really well educated. Mullah Thaqib had even attended school in far off Yithrab. He, too, had borne arms to the meeting. Those who insisted on calling Islam the "religion of peace" had obviously missed something important.
"It is easy to say "Clean them out," my friend,'" Thaqib answered. "But before we revolt," Thaqib said, 'we must know if it is to any purpose. Will those who surround us let us live if we kill their enemies here for them?"
"Most of those surrounding us do not speak Arabic," Ehmed pointed out, "nor even English. Are there any here who can speak with them?"
Not even the mullah could speak Spanish.
"Most," he agreed. "Not all. There are some sections of the wall around us manned by Sumeri soldiers."
Ehmed answered, dejectedly, "What difference, really? They let no one approach, preferring we all starve here."
"Where are the Sumeris stationed?" the mullah asked.
"One battalion – I think it's a battalion – is on the other side of the river."
"'Whosoever saveth the life of one . . . '" quoted Thaqib. "I will go to them."
Battle Position Sargon, 2nd Battalion, Sada's Brigade, 4/8/462 AC
If a Catholic priest had appeared alone in front of one of the portions of the front held by Balboan troops the effect would have been much the same. With a mullah, a bit wet and dripping perhaps but still recognizably a man of the cloth, the Sumeri troops likewise didn't fire.
The mullah climbed up the bank of the river and posted himself near the far end of the ruined, green-painted-steel girder bridge and leaned against it to catch his breath. He had a torch with him, and a lighter, but these were both soaked. He had to wait a time for them to dry. Fortunately, even this close to the river the air was dry enough to suck away life, let alone a bit of muddy water from the stream.
Although around four-fifths of the city the distance between buildings and circumvallating walls was nearly half a mile, here at the river the lines were close. Moreover, given a shortage of mines, the far bank was bare of them. Nor was there any wire, Sada having deemed, with Carrera's agreement, that the river itself was obstacle enough.
Thaqib didn't know that, of course. It was an act of desperate faith and belief in his God that caused him to light the torch, stand erect and walk forward.
He did have one thing going for him that he knew about. The insurgent fighters under Fadeel were an undisciplined lot. They rarely stayed awake to guard at night.
At least I don't have to worry about being shot in the back, he thought. That's some small comfort anyway.
* * *
"Naquib! Naquib! Wake up. There is a holy man who has crossed to our lines and wishes to speak with General Sada."
"Send him back," the captain commanding the company answered, firmly. "You know the rules on line crossers."
The sergeant normally wouldn't have bucked his commander. He liked the boy for one thing. For another, they were cousins. It was precisely that fact that made the sergeant stand up. "Sada will want to talk to this one, cousin. Trust me on this."
* * *
When Sada arrived and had spoken to the mullah he congratulated the captain on his wisdom and made a mental mark to look the man over closely for possible promotion. Breaking rules and violating orders – let alone disturbing their commanders at frightful hours! – was not something that came easily to Sumeri officers.
Hearing the Mullah out took hours. By the time it was done the sun was beginning to rise, its glorious light casting the shadows of buildings across the ground.
"Carrera will want to hear this, Thaqib," Sada advised. "But he may have you shot."
"That will be as it will be."
* * *
By noontime two things had happened. For one, the desert had returned to its normal state of open oven. For another, Carrera had decided that there might be a way to end this without destroying the town and killing all the men inside.
"Are you willing to go back? To organize a rebellion?" Carrera asked in Arabic. "I would spare the men, but they must earn it." Unsurprisingly, his Arabic had started to become quite good rather than just adequate, though it still lagged well behind Lourdes' under Rukaya's instruction, or Sada's English for that matter. This was annoying to him, in a distant way, as he had already spoken some Arabic long before Lourdes had ever come to Sumer.
"I am willing," Thaqib answered. "As to whether I am able? The men inside will likely not let me return."
"Do you have some people who are jump qualified?" he asked Sada.
"You're shitting me, right, Patricio?" Seeing that Carrera was serious, Sada thought about it and said, "Myself. Qabaash. Oh, he'll be hot for this. Possibly half a dozen troops. But the mullah is not trained. How do we get him out the airplane and down on the ground?"
Carrera just smiled and turned to Thaqib. Conversationally, he asked, "How's your faith in God?"
Fifteen-hundred feet over Pumbadeta, Sumer, 6/8/462 AC
A half a day of ground school and twelve jumps were hardly enough to make Thaqib an expert parachutist. On the other hand, he took it philosophically.
I am sure to hit the ground, no matter what happens, he thought. The ways of Allah are inscrutable but are as certain as His Grace. And best of all, after this one it will be the last time I'll ever have to do anything like this again. For this, Beneficent One, I thank You.
They waited until the moon, Eris, which was nearly full, had set. Sada jump-mastered the operation for one bird. Qabaash had the other. They both thought the idea was insane – a definite point of appeal to Qabaash – but were willing to take the chance to prevent the otherwise inevitable bloodbath in what was, after all, one of their cities and filled with their people.
Sada looked Thaqib straight in the face, searching for signs of hesitation. Seeing none, he laughed aloud. "Mullah, when this is done, if we live, how would you like a job as a chaplain in my brigade?"
Given the warm, thin air right at the surface, the Crickets had had to strain to lift even two men with parachutes. Any idea of using the next smallest airplane available, however, the NA-23, was simply out of the question. Crickets were designed to be quiet, their single engines muffled. NA-23s could be heard from far away.
Lanza – hell, he flew everything and every chance he had, too! – looked back over his right shoulder and told Sada, in English, "Crossing the river now." Sada knew that meant less than two minutes to jump at this speed.
The engine suddenly went dead. This was by design rather than a flaw. The Cricket was perfectly capable of gliding quite some distance without engine power, once it was up among the cooler, thicker air.
Sada helped Thaqib to ease himself to the Cricket's door. As with every prior jump, the cleric stiffened once he was in position, but then forced himself to a more relaxed calm. Reciting some of his favorite hadiths helped. At the proper time, Sada pushed the mullah out the door, then quickly threw himself behind him.
Above, the Cricket sailed on until near the edge of the city, at which point Lanza re-engaged the engines.
Sada, Qabaash and the young soldier accompanying them, Sergeant Ali, landed easily enough in the broad park near the center of town. Mullah Thaqib nearly screamed at his landing as he came down with one leg on a concrete pad and the other just off it. This cause
d the ankle that hit first to twist, dislocating it with an audible sound that was almost as bad as the pain shooting up Thaqib's leg.
"Oh . . . God!" Thaqib gasped when Sada reached him. One look at the odd angle of the foot was enough to tell the general that there was no chance of the man walking on his own power any time soon.
"Qabaash, you and Ali hide the chutes." He hesitated. They had not been sure, even after planning and aerial recon, just where they could hide the parachutes. "Mmm...over there. I'll meet you." Sada's finger pointed to an apparently abandoned apartment building.
While that was being done, Sada half-stripped and put on a long flowing robe and keffiyah. His weapon was indistinguishable from those carried by the insurgents so that would be no problem. Slinging the rifle across the left side of his neck, Sada helped the mullah to his good leg and assisted him to hobble, one-legged, to where Qabaash and Ali waited. They'd also donned local, civilian costume and already had their boots off and replaced with sandals.