Arthur Zagat - The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume IX

The next day’s march was a nightmare to the lieutenant. If anything, the heat and humidity were worse in the swamps than they had been in Dust Bin and the going got tougher every mile. The mud was softer and the undergrowth had to be cut away by bayonet-wielding Narakans before the main body could move through. Terrence had thrown off his battle armor and lost his radiation helmet somewhere in the morass as had other of the Earthmen. Hannigan had prepared a thick mess of mud and grass which the Terrans applied to exposed parts of their bodies.

Late in the afternoon of the second day the Narakan Rifles came to a tepid little stream that marked the end of the swamps, and for the first time Terrence ordered a rest of longer than two hours. Bill Fielding was lying flat on his back in the grass beside the stream with his feet dangling in the water, shoes and all, when O’Mara dragged himself wearily back from inspecting the pickets and flopped down beside him.

“If I never to my dying day see another speck of mud,” Fielding muttered as he ate a bar of tropical chocolate that was as mud covered as he was, “I’ll still have seen more than all the Fieldings for two hundred years back have seen on Earth and Mars.”

“And now,” said Terrence as he eased over on his back with a heavy sigh, “that we have run out of mud, we can start looking for Rumi.”

“At least it’ll be a change! Here Kitty! Here kitty! Nice Rumi! Come and get a bayonet in….”

Clack, clack, clack. The sound of spring guns broke the stillness of the afternoon and was followed by the sound of rifles and a cry of pain.

“Oh, Lord!” moaned O’Mara, “now it starts!” He was on his feet, gripping his carbine and running bent over. Fielding was at his heels, dragging a machine gun off the ground.

“O’Shaughnessy! Hannigan! Take the first platoon. Move up to support the pickets. O’Toole! On the double! Take your squad and try to get around the firing. Bill, you and Polasky stand by here with the rest of the men and the Bannings.”

Terrence had plunged into the stream and splashed across and was clambering up the opposite bank when one of his pickets came crawling and stumbling back clutching a wounded arm. “Mr. Lieutenant! Mr. Lieutenant! Rumi! Rumi! Many Rumi up ahead! Sullivan and O’Leary dead! Rumi get!”

“Medic! Medic!” O’Shaughnessy was yelling in his ear with the full-throated croak of an adult Narakan, drowning out what the wounded picket was trying to say.

“How many? How many Rumi, man?” Terrence demanded.

“Twenty… thirty… maybe thousand!” the Narakan gasped as the Medic led him off.

“’Twenty, thirty, maybe thousand.’ That gives us a damn fine idea of what we’re up against!”

While his men dragged their big bodies up the bank of the stream, O’Mara stood scowling at the eight foot high grass. Usually about a foot high, the hardy and ubiquitous purple grass of Naraka grew far more lushly around the edges of the swamps. He felt that it would be a risky business at best to plunge into it after an unknown number of enemy. At the same time he had an illogical determination not to leave the bodies of his men in the hands of the Rumi. He looked at the broad, big-mouthed exaggerations of Irish faces around him, heaved a sigh that came from deep in his chest and ordered, “All right, men. Spread out. Keep low and keep your eyes open. And try not to shoot each other.”

“We fix bayonets now, Lieutenant, sir?” Hannigan asked.

“You keep your eyes open, Sergeant,” Terrence snapped, “I’ll tell you when to fix bayonets.”

The noisy rustling of his men’s heavy bodies as they pushed through the grass made him nervous and irritable. Then suddenly, just as they were edging their way around a gully, a dozen Rumi were swarming down on them. Terrence cut down two with his carbine but his men were firing and missing as the incredibly fast catmen hurtled at them. He had a brief glimpse of O’Shaughnessy spraying submachine gun slugs wildly about and then there was a hail of spring bolts and two of his men were down. The whole platoon was thrashing through the grass in their direction and the Rumi were gone as quickly as they had come.

“Come on!” Terrence shouted, breaking into a run with twenty or thirty Riflemen after him. A bolt grazed his cheek and another cut down a man to his right. He emptied his carbine in the general direction of the Clack, Clack, Clack. Hannigan was roaring a primitive bull-throated chant and firing at everything that moved. O’Shaughnessy managed to jam his gun and was beating frantically at it with one webbed fist. They burst into a clearing filled with Rumi and both sides blazed away at point blank range. It was hard for even a Narakan to miss at that close range and the Rumi broke and ran just as Sergeant O’Toole and his squad came out of the grass on the other side of the clearing.

The Rumi, trapped, turned and dashed at Terrence and his men. The lieutenant drove his fist into one cat faced creature and smashed his empty gun across the head of another. Hannigan grappled with one of the lithe gray-bodied things and slowly crushed it beneath his 350 odd pounds. O’Shaughnessy beat another insensible with his jammed Tommy gun. Several Narakans were down but most of them had taken Rumi with them.

Terrence was knocked off his feet by a gray ball of fury that leaped at him wielding a stiletto-thin knife. He caught at the Rumi’s arm with both hands but the creature was not only fast but strong. It twisted out of his grasp and slashed at him and only a quick sideward roll saved him. Desperately he brought his fist down on his assailant’s head.

The Rumi’s grip relaxed slightly and Terrence drove his fist full into its face and locked his legs about its waist. The catman couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and fifty pounds but all of it was wiry strength. It clawed at him now, ripping his protective clothing and gashing his legs, meanwhile trying to get its knife into play. He was vaguely conscious that his men had disposed of the rest of the Rumi and were dancing around him frantically trying to get a chance to aid him. He was struck by the incongruity of a civilized being descended from simian ancestors and a civilized being descended from feline ancestors fighting fang and claw while a bunch of misplaced amphibians danced about them.

Making his weight count he suddenly twisted and hurled the Rumi under him but something hit him a terrific blow on the back of the head and blackness closed in.

V

O’Mara awoke with a head that felt like all the hangovers of a misspent life.

“Have a nice rest?” Bill Fielding asked.

Terrence reached a weak hand to the back of his head and felt bandages. “Did I catch a spring bolt?” he asked.

Bill grinned, “Well, no. Not exactly. It was more on the order of Private O’Hara’s rifle butt. He was trying to hit the Rumi you were necking with.”

“I might have known,” Terrence groaned.

“We lost six men but recovered all the bodies except for one. We’ve got four wounded… litter cases. Thought you were going to make it five for a while.”

“Well, they won’t slow us down too much. We still have about a hundred and fifty miles to go. We’ll camp here for the night and move out at dawn.”

Marching in the early morning and resting in the heat of the day before another afternoon march, the Narakan Rifles covered another fifty miles of the distance to Fort Craven without incident but not without signs of Rumi. Twice they came on recently occupied camps and once they caught sight of a Rumi patrol moving parallel to their own line of march.

The next morning, which was blistering and cloudless, they were only seventy miles from the Fort.