AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"This isn't Colonel Kessey, sir," the voice at the other end said. "It's Sergeant Hanson, sir. She was wounded by the mortar fire. Permission to redirect and counterbattery."
The mortars on Pulaski Heights were scattered and in defilade; the number of shells required to silence even one or two was prohibitive. "Negative, Sergeant. Get your men to their shelters. I'm promoting you to lieutenant; you'll take over the battery. What's the situation with Colonel Kessey?"
"Blown out of her shoes, sir, but she landed intact. I'm hoping it's just concussion and shock. She's already on her way to the hospital, sir."
Valentine kept his voice neutral. "Thank you, Lieutenant. Over and out."
* * * *
Later that night Valentine went through the solemn, and rather infuriating, ritual of composing his daily report to General Martinez. He labored over the wording at the end of the report.
At approximately 18:20 we sighted a barge moving up the Arkansas River. Our howitzer battery took it under fire. After ten minutes sustained shelling the tug cast off from the sinking cargo. The battery shifted targets to the tug, which ran aground and was subsequently destroyed by howitzer fire.
Counterbattery fire from the Pulaski Heights mortars caused two casualties. A loader was wounded in the foot and the battery Fire Direction Officer, Lt. Col. Kessey, suffered head trauma resulting in a concussion when a shell exploded near her. I hope to report that she will return to duty shortly, as she was still training and organizing her crews. The battery is now under the command of a first sergeant I promoted to lieutenant. Lt. Hanson completed the battery action.
Enemy troops continue to concentrate in front of us. Eventually larger weapons will be moved to Pulaski Heights, making our current position untenable and offensive action impossible. The mortar tubes are dispersed and guarded from the river side, but I believe the New Columbia area to be open to attack from the hills in the west. I respectfully suggest that a movement by your command in our direction will allow us to control central Arkansas and pressure Hot Springs from the north as other commands push up to join us.
My staff has a detailed plan worked out. Establishing closer contact would go far toward coordinating the actions of our commands to the benefit of Southern Command in general and the detriment of Consul Solon and the TMCC in particular.
Writing Martinez was an exercise in futility, but it had to be done, no matter what taste the task left in his mouth.
Valentine put a code card in the envelope and sent it to the radio room. He looked around the basement room that served as his office and sleeping area. If a man's life could be measured by his possessions, his life didn't amount to much. A little leather pouch of Quickwood seeds. A toothbrush that looked like an oversized pipe cleaner. Field gear and weapons. A report from Styachowski on her progress in organizing the POWs from the camp into battle-ready infantry. Pages of notes. A terrain sketch on the wall. He was a man of lists. Lists of officer rotations. Lists of Quisling brigades and regiments identified in the area-it had doubled in length in the past week. A list of needs for the hospital-God knew where he'd find an X-ray machine, why did they even ask? Xray-Tango. A man who wanted and needed to switch sides thanks to intelligence and conscience, but who couldn't bring himself to do it.
He collapsed into his bunk, palms behind his head. His scalp was getting past the prickly stage, and the returning black hairs on his head made him look rather like someone on a long walk home from prison; the visible skin of his scalp made even more odd-looking thanks to their presence. He let his hearing play around the headquarters building. Fresh construction made the most noise: hammers and electric saws turning Solon's future meeting rooms and art galleries into living space, with fainter splats from the ground floor above as windows were bricked up into firing slits. Typewriters clattered as clerks catalogued and allocated the stores from the warehouse raid. He could hear Post and Styachowski talking with the top sergeants and a smattering of lieutenants as they worked out the organization of the hilltop's men; many of the prisoners were getting their strength back after a few days of balanced rations and could now be blended into other units. From the communications center he heard field phones buzzing or jangling-they'd come away with two kinds, the ones that buzzed doubled as short-range radios, the jangling ones had been used by Solon's construction staff-now shakily melded together in a single network rather like Valentine's ad hoc command.
The Consul hadn't reacted to his seizure of the Residence as quickly, or as violently, as he'd expected. The Quislings under Xray-Tango had just concentrated on keeping him where he was rather than prying him off the hill. The forces they'd assembled could overrun him, at no small cost, but so far they hadn't moved beyond the engagement of dueling sniper rifles. Perhaps they couldn't afford a Pyrrhic victory with Southern Command still on the move in the south.
Did they want to starve him out? He had just under sixteen hundred soldiers and captured Quislings-the latter were digging and hammering together log-and-soil fortifications under Beck's direction-that he could feed for months, if necessary, at full, balanced rations. After the canned meat and vegetables ran out he could still manage beans and rice for another ten or twelve weeks. They must have known the contents of the divisional supply train he'd made off with. Of course, the food would run out eventually, but not before Solon had to send most of his boys back to where he'd borrowed them, or Archangel had been decided one way or the other. A few shady Quislings had made contact with the forward posts, offering to trade guns and small valuables for food. Valentine's hilltop forces were, temporarily at least, better off than the besiegers. He could just wait for Southern Command to move up after taking Hot Springs, or the less likely relief from Martinez. If he were Solon, he'd destroy the the forces in his rear as quickly as possible, before turning his attention to the new threat from the south.
But you're not Solon. You don't know the cards he's holding; he knows exactly how many aces you've got. Except for the Quickwood . Valentine hoped a few dozen Reapers had already been turned to wooden mummies by the beams he'd passed to Mantilla.
A whistle sounded from outside. Barrage?
Valentine took up his tunic and ran through the officers' conference room, with Beck's proposed layout still on the blackboard. He entered the radio lounge, where off-duty men gathered to hear news and music piped in by Jimenez and the other operator.
"What's the whistle?" he asked Styachowski, who was sitting below one of the speakers, fiddling with Solon's old bow and quiver. She'd had an idea to use Quickwood chips for arrowheads. The cane she relied upon was conspicuous by its absence.
"Thought I heard someone yell 'star shell." I haven't heard it followed up with anything. Maybe it's a psych job."
"Get to the field phones, please. I want you in the corns center in case it isn't."
Valentine hurried out to the front of the headquarters building. Sure enough, a star shell was falling to earth. A second burst far above the hill as the first descended. Valentine saw the men atop the building pointing and chatting. A few figures hurried to shelters, assuming real shellfire was on the way.
"Sir, you don't want to be standing there if a beehive bursts," a private behind the sandbag wall filling one of the arched windows called to him, referring to the flechette-filled antipersonnel rounds fired by larger guns.
The Cat stood, anxious and upset, listening to the night. There was a droning in the sky, faint but growing. Suddenly he knew why he was anxious. The chills...
"Reapers!" Valentine shouted to the men on the rooftop. "Reaper alarm!"
The sentry froze for a moment, as if Valentine were shouting up to him in a foreign tongue, then went to the cylinder of steel hanging from a hook on the loudspeaker pole atop the building. He inserted a metal rod and rang the gong for all it was worth. Valentine picked up the field phone just inside the headquarters entrance and pushed the button to buzz the com center.
"Operator," the center answered. Another star shell lit up the hilltop, creating crossing shadows with the still-burning earlier one.
"This is Major Valentine. Reaper alarm." He heard the woman gasp, then she repeated the message with her hand over the mouthpiece.
"Captain Styachowski acknowledges, thank you," came the flat response.
Ahn-Kha appeared in the doorway behind him, a golden-haired djinn summoned by the clanging alarm. He had a Grog gun in his arm and a Quickwood stabbing spear between his teeth. A second spear was tucked under his arm.
