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"Nineteen," Styachowski reported. "Two were wounded. None of them women; they all wanted to stay."
Valentine saw a bright bandanna in the back.
"Couldn't get anyone to carry you out, Narcisse?"
"Didn't want to run again," she called. "Haven't had much luck with that; only have one arm left, sir."
Dr. Brough appeared with the case of bourbon. "Company commanders, to me. We've got some bottles to distribute."
"Okay, you dummies," Post said. "Back to business. Let's disperse, no point in getting killed all at once."
Valentine pulled the youngest member of his command aside as they dispersed.
"Hank, you sure you're fit to rejoin your outfit?" Valentine asked.
"Yes, sir."
Valentine disagreed. Hank looked sick.
"How's the hand?" Valentine said through gritted teeth. His nose picked up a faint, sweet smell from Hank's bandaged hand.
"Not so bad."
"Report to the doctor. If she says you're okay, you can get back to Captain Styachowski. She needs quick feet at the battery."
Hank turned away, dejected. Valentine whistled, and the boy turned.
"Hank, of all the men who stayed up here tonight, I'm proudest to have you with me."
* * * *
The Crocodile opened up on them again as soon as the sun disappeared. The Grogs upped their rate of fire to three shells an hour, every hour. Their firing was wild at night, though the air-cutting shrieks and earth-churning impacts made sleep impossible. When dawn returned they began reducing Solon's Residence to rubble.
The men began to go as mad as Max the German shepherd.
One snuck out of his dugout at dawn and was spotted by an observer standing atop a heap of rubble, arms outstretched as though welcoming a lover's embrace as the sun came up in thunder.
Later they found a boot, Post reported, his incipient beard now going gray as well.
Sergeants had to put down furious brawls over nothing. The precise timing of the shells tightened everyone's nerves into violin strings as they waited for the next howl and explosion, leaving flung dirt floating like a cloud atop Big Rock Hill.
Valentine was coming up me stairs from the generator floor, where he'd been checking fuel feeds damaged by the shelling, and passed Styachowski in the stairwell when the 15:20 struck, burying its nose in the ground deep-and near-enough to cause a collapse at the floor above. Valentine threw himself at Styachowski, pushing them both into a notch under the stairs-unnecessarily as it turned out-and the lights flickered and died just as he smelled her hair and the feminine musk coming up from her collar.
They scooted up against an intact wall, Valentine covering his head as well as he could, and he felt a wave of dust hit him in the dark.
"You okay?" he asked, hearing rubble fall somewhere up the stairs. It sounded strangely far-off and muffled.
They sat there as the air settled. Valentine thought he heard a shout from above, but there wasn't a hint of light.
"I'll be dead soon, I think. It works on the mind. I'm smelling food, growing plants, coffee being warmed up. Listening to everyone."
"There's still hope," he said.
"You tell yourself that? Or just the rest of us?"
"They haven't whipped us. They aren't even close."
"That's not an answer."
