The Fires of Coventry

by Rick Shelley

There were only six men present besides Noel and Captain Stanley. Noel looked around, as if he hoped to spot more of the company lurking at a distance.

  “We’re it, so far,” Stanley said. Then, as if he were afraid that he sounded too negative, he added, “But it’s early days yet. Some of the men might need another thirty minutes to get here.” He didn’t want to scare off the few men who had rallied to his call.

  “What about the Federation?” Noel asked. “Where are they?”

  Captain Stanley shook his head. “No idea yet, except that there are some in the vicinity of South York. I couldn’t find anyone who saw where they landed.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t waste the whole night ringing people up, except for our lads.”

  “My kit’s in the floater. Should I bring it out?”

  “What you can carry. As soon as we collect everyone who’s coming, we’re going to move away from here. The vehicles are too easy to spot from the air.”

  “What are we going to do?” Noel asked.

  This time Stanley hesitated for thirty seconds before he shook his head. “I really don’t know. There hasn’t been time to give it proper thought. Whatever we can do. Maybe we’ll get enough turnout to make some difference.” He did not really believe that, but Hubert Stanley would try, just as long as he was able.

  Forty-five minutes later, Captain Stanley had twenty-seven men dispersed around the rendezvous area—twenty-seven including himself, of the fifty-two carried on the company’s muster sheet. It had been eight minutes since the last arrivals, and there was no sign of any other vehicles approaching.

  There should be more than this, he told himself. Barely half? It was depressing. Some of the men might have been captured, or been unable to get past Federation troops to therendezvous. Stanley tried to tell himself that more would have come if they could … but he was having difficulty believing that. He knew his people. Those who had come were mostly the oldest and the youngest, those whose children had grown up and moved out on their own, and those who were not yet married, or at least had no children yet.

  The last two men to arrive told of seeing fires being started near the center of South York, near the river, not far from where Noel lived. But they had heard no gunfire, seen no enemy soldiers.

  Captain Stanley looked at the time line on the head-up display of his helmet visor. He had promised himself when he arrived that he would wait no more than an hour before taking whatever men had shown up away from the rendezvous. But it had already been an hour and a quarter, and he was still reluctant to give up on more of his people coming. He watched the seconds tick off to the next minute. Conversation around him had stopped again. His men were waiting for their leader to lead them. Stanley squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.

  “We can’t lollygag around here any longer,” he said softly. “Gather your gear. The more distance we put between ourselves and our vehicles, the better our chances. I want each of you to carry an extra helmet, just in case some of the others manage to catch up with us later.” He would leave a sign, a particular assortment of rocks that would look random to casual passersby but which would tell anyone who knew what to look for where they were going—if they recalled the codes.

  “Let’s cache the rest of the gear away from the vehicles,” Stanley said, making that decision as the others were walking toward the truck that had the helmets and much of the other gear. “Any of the others show up, they’ll know where to look, and maybe the Feddies won’t.”

  They had made this hike before, but always in daylight. In training, it had been an undemanding walk—three miles through fairly open forest, on land that was level to gently rolling, nothing to tax strength or endurance. At the endthere had always been beer to replenish liquids sweat out by their efforts, and the company trucks to carry them back to their cars. Discipline on those training hikes had never been especially rigorous. Volunteer part-time soldiers could not be treated too harshly, not when it was impossible to get enough warm bodies to train in the first place. The men had talked more than they should have on those training hikes, joking around. Sometimes the beer started to flow early on. Sometimes a few of the volunteers would be more than half drunk before they started.

  Captain Stanley had been in the Coventry HDF for fifteen years, as long as he had been teaching—he lectured in Governmental and Political Studies at South York University—working up to captain from the ranks, as much because of his perseverance as any special talent for soldiering. He had marched this route at least a dozen times a year, once a month. Not one of those hikes could be compared to this one, made at night in almost perfect silence by men who had to be feeling some fear. Their homeworld had been invaded. They might be the only armed force available to fight for Coventry, for their families and neighbors.

  And there aren’t enough of us to begin to matter, Stanley thought, a sour feeling growing in his stomach.

  “We can’t stay here very long,” Captain Stanley told his men when they arrived at their destination. “We’ll take thirty minutes to rest. Get something to eat if you’re hungry. If any of the other lads gets caught and questioned, this will be the second place the Feddies come looking. We’re going to head off away from any of the locations we’ve used during training, and we’ve got to be well away from here before first light. We’ll find someplace farther out to hole up for the day. That’ll give us time to try to figure out what we’re going to do.”

  “Just what the hell do you think we can do?” somebody asked.

  “I won’t lie to you. I don’t know. I’m still hoping that some of the other companies got men out, that there’ll be somebody from battalion or higher to tell us what to do. If not, we’ll just have to fend for ourselves. We can’t let the Feddies just slide in and take over our world, now, can we?”

  None of the men suggested that they should do just that, but Stanley had few illusions. He guessed that some of his men might vote that way if they were given a chance. He would not put the matter to a vote.

  Daylight. Captain Stanley wanted to be somewhere they had never gone before as a unit, but he was determined to stay close enough to the city to confront the invaders. He hoped that there was still a chance of linking up with other units. On the march, he had attempted to contact the other companies of the South York Rifles, and battalion headquarters, by radio, but he had not dared spend much time at that for fear that the Federation troops might have direction finders working. And once his company came to rest for the day, he dared do nothing but listen on the command channels, waiting for someone to come on to find out what forces were available, to give orders—any orders.

  But there was only silence.

  Make camp. Stand watches. Set up listening devices far enough out to give warning if anyone approached. No one had much confidence in the latter devices. They had only seemed to work about half of the time in training exercises.

  Noel went through the motions with the others. The normally garrulous part-time soldiers had turned unnaturally silent. Captain Stanley had not needed to mention sound discipline. Silence came on its own. The men looked at each other, searched faces for clues, for some echo of what they themselves were feeling.

  What are we going to do? Noel had asked himself that question at least thirty times since reaching the rendezvous area. He had hoped that Captain Stanley would have a quick, and easy, answer. But the captain obviously had no more idea than he did.

  Just stay out here and hide? That made no sense. Go back in and try to fight? That thought was beginning to terrify Noel. Twenty-seven men with little training and no real experienceto take on who-knew-how-many professional soldiers.

  What the devil am I doing here? Why are any of us here? All we can do is get ourselves killed to no good end. We might as well cut our own throats and have done with it. He had joined the HDF because of a talk Captain—Professor—Stanley had given during Noel’s first week at the university. Because of the talk and the small training stipend; earning a little extra money had been important
to Noel.

  Noel finished one of his turns as sentry, then returned to where he had spread his bedroll. He sat under an evergreen tree—a native variety with thick, glossy leaves that hung in such a way that the area around its base remained dry in almost any weather—and looked at the few of his comrades he could see.

  The smart thing would be to forget all this and just go home. If we’re going to be saved, it’s going to take help from outside. Noel stared at the ground and thought about going home. He could dump anything that might call attention to his membership in the HDF, go home and wait for whatever happened, wait with the overwhelming majority of Coventrians.

  All but the few misguided fools like us, sitting out here, trying to convince ourselves that we’re doing something right and noble, that we can do anything at all. He suspected that if one man among the twenty-seven decided to head for home, many—perhaps most—of the others would follow the example.

  But that first man would not be Noel Wittington.

  Shortly after midday, Captain Stanley signaled to one of the men who was awake and led him away from camp, south, toward higher ground. Stanley had slept no more than thirty minutes. He was tired, but the demands of command kept him awake.

  I’ve either got to find an intelligent way to use the lads I’ve got, or take them home, he had decided. One or the other. Indecision was dangerous in a military leader, and Stanley knew enough about his responsibilities to recognize that.

  “I’m going to climb this tree and see if I can spot anything back toward the city,” Stanley explained to his companion, Michael Polyard. “Maybe I can get some idea what’s going on.”

  It had been a lot of years since Stanley had done any tree climbing, but he worked his way up this one as quickly as he could. He was twenty-five feet off of the ground before he found an opening in the branches that let him see back toward South York. What he saw was smoke. The fires were scattered about in several areas, and he saw two new ones start. After fifteen minutes of watching, he came down the tree more slowly than he had gone up.

  “Well?” Michael asked.

  “It looks as if a quarter of the city is on fire. Smoke in every section.”

  “Fires?”

  “The Feddies must be setting them intentionally, burning for the hell of it. There couldn’t have been fighting in that many places for the fires to start accidentally.”

  “We’ve got to go back, see to our families,” Polyard said.

  “We’re going back. We’ve got to give the Feddies something to think about besides arson.”

  “You mean fight?”

  “That is what we’re supposed to be about, in case you’ve forgotten. Let’s get back to the others. We’ve got a lot of walking ahead of us.”

  There had been some discussion of Captain Stanley’s decision, but no one had refused, no one had deserted the rest. Company A hiked back toward the city, taking an almost direct route. The march did not start until sunset, and the men stayed near cover at all times.

  Stanley still had no solid plan. His only intent was to find some of the troops who were doing the burning and start shooting at them. “If they’re scattered all over the city, the way it looks,” he told the others, “then they must havebroken up into small units. If we can find a small group, maybe one with fewer men than we have, we can hit them hard, show people that it is possible to fight the invaders and win.”

  He used their last rest stop for a pep talk. “Remember,” he said after he had given them what vague plans he could make without knowing what they would find, “we’ll be attacking, coming out of the night while they’re at their business. We should have surprise on our side, and the first shots. It gives us a real chance. We’ll hit, take any weapons or other gear we can from the Feddies we put down, then get out fast.” He had almost convinced himself that they could do it.

  They headed toward the nearest area of fires. There was no sign of any new blazes being set, had not been in some time. The Federation troops had apparently finished their work for the night. Somewhere, probably near the last fires, there would be enemy soldiers camped, sleeping, with only a few sentries.

  “That’s even better,” Stanley said. “We hit them while they’re asleep. They won’t be fully awake until it’s too late.”

  Finding a Federation camp proved to be more difficult than he had anticipated. The Feddies had moved back into an area that had already been burned out.

  Seeing the fires, and the ashes from fires that had already burned themselves out, affected every man in Company A. So had seeing Coventrians walking away from the ashes of their homes, heading into the night with only what they could carry.

  “I need a couple of scouts,” Stanley said when they got close to the burned out area. “Noel, Michael. Go out there.” He pointed directions to both of them. “See what you can find, then get back here at the double. Don’t use your radios. There’s too much chance they’ll pick up on it. And be careful not to be seen. The Feddies will have night-vision gear too, probably better than what we have.”

  • • •

  Noel blinked when the captain chose him. He never would have volunteered for the duty, but neither would he refuse it. I guess I can sneak about as well as the next bloke. He got to his feet and glanced at Polyard. They nodded at each other, then started out on their separate courses.

  It was almost like being a boy again, playing games with his friends. Noel moved with exaggerated caution, always looking where he placed his feet, staying in the shadows as much as possible, trying to become a shadow himself. Darkness gave him a sense of security. Looking through his visor, using the helmet’s night-vision capability, made Noel feel as if he had an advantage, as if he might be the only one who could see in a world of the blind. That the Federation troops would also have night-vision gear did not intrude on his thoughts. He had yet to see an enemy, and they possessed only a limited reality for him. There were no lights in any of the buildings that had not yet been burned. None of the public lights were on either.

  Noel stopped frequently, searching as far as he could reliably see to either side, checking around corners and down lanes. Nothing appeared to be moving. There were certainly no soldiers marching sentry tours.

  He hesitated for more than a minute before entering an area that had been burned more thoroughly. Even the grass here had been charred black. Three nearby buildings were blackened rubble, still warm, with a few tendrils of residual smoke rising from nothing. Before he moved on, Noel used his radio to tell Captain Stanley how far he had come without seeing anything, completely forgetting the instructions not to use it.

  “Keep going,” Stanley said. “And stay off the air, damn it.”

  Noel kept his rifle at the ready, and moved more slowly than ever. He passed the three burned out buildings, treading over grass that had been turned into soft ash that crumbled silently under foot. Beyond those buildings there was an area where the fire had not spread, where the grass was still green. Ahead, he could see the wreckage of several moreburned buildings, but those fires had not disturbed the greenery around them.

  He headed toward a grove of trees, angling close to the corner of a building. Noel was as careful as he knew how to be, looking, listening, pausing before every pace, desperate to hear or see any enemy before they could spot him.

  It was not enough. Noel had no warning of the Federation soldier who came up behind him. He did not recognize the sensation of being clubbed by the butt end of a rifle. Something hit his head, knocking the helmet off, but all Noel felt was an instant of blinding pain and a sensation of bright lights exploding inside his eyes. He was unconscious before he fell.

  Captain Stanley had been biting his lips, so hard that they were both bleeding. After a time, he disregarded his own orders and used the radio to call Wittington and Polyard, but he did not raise either of them. He waited, his nervousness growing almost exponentially, until he couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “They’ve found something,” he w
hispered to the others. Or someone found them, he thought. “Let’s go.” There had been a noise on Wittington’s channel, just an awkward bleep. Stanley guessed that something had happened. Noel couldn’t tell him what, but at least he had an idea of where.

  “Two skirmish lines, thirty yards apart,” Stanley said. If the first line walked into something, the second would be there to bail them out. Wittington and Polyard had not enjoyed that safety measure.

  Stanley positioned himself in the center of the second line to make sure that he had the best possible view of whatever developed. As the lines moved forward, his mouth and throat felt so dry that he was uncertain if he would be able to talk; he wanted, needed, a drink. At the same time, his bladder was signaling an urgent need to empty itself. He did not address either need. Later, he told himself.

  The skirmish lines moved slowly. The men in the first line looked at the men on either side of them, almost as much as they looked out front, wanting to keep the linefairly straight, not wanting to get much ahead of or behind their neighbors.

  Someone saw something and whistled a warning over the company’s radio channel. The men went to the ground. Several men in the first line started shooting at the figure they had seen. By the time that Captain Stanley got that shooting stopped—afraid that the target might be one of the scouts—it was too late for stealth. It was too late for anything except a brief, desperate fight.

  Enemy rifles returned the fire. Some of the men from the South York Rifles thought that there were a couple of hundred Feddies shooting at them. The actual number was under thirty. In two minutes, a third of Captain Stanley’s men were casualties, dead or wounded. New gunfire started off to their right, directed into both lines.

  Then the Federation rifles went silent. In response, Stanley ordered his men to cease fire. A voice shouted for them to surrender, or else. Stanley hesitated no more than five seconds. It was obvious that the “or else” could be implemented all too easily.