David Drake - The Forlorn Hope

When the captive gunner threw the switch, all the instruments in the second tank flickered and the electrically-primed ammunition for the bow gun detonated. There were about a hundred and fifty rounds in the metal loading drum. When they all went off together, the driver's hatch blew open and the huge turret lifted its trunions from the track on which they rotated.

Inside the captured tank, the explosion was only a thump. Churchie Dwyer raised himself again to look at the results. Gray smoke was boiling out of the fore-hatch and around the turret base of the other vehicle. There were no screams from the crew; nor, of course, were there survivors. Del Hoybrin was watching as he waited for further directions. "Right," said Churchie to his prisoner."Up and out, baby. You just earned yourself the chance to be tied up and left at the pit head, what's left of it."

The Republican obeyed, using the hydraulic lift on his seat instead of clambering out as if it were part of an obstacle course. He had a sick expression on his face.

"Cheer up," said Dwyer as he swung his own legs clear. He gestured toward the other tank. The smoke from its hatch was now black and occasionally touched with the flames which were cremating the bodies within. "Think of the alternatives, hey?"

"That was Black One at the pit head," said Communicator Foyle. "They've secured all the prisoners and they're following on."

Albrecht Waldstejn had a radio helmet, now, but he had made no response to Sergeant Hummel's call. He did not respond to Foyle's prompting, either. The savior and by God commanding officer of the Company was trudging ahead in a daze. The Communicator touched him on the shoulder. "Sir?" she said.

"I'm all right!" the Cecach officer snarled. When he turned toward the contact, he stumbled. There was a curse from the line of troopers behind as they bunched. A stretcher bearer stumbled in turn.

"Oh, Maria," Waldstejn prayed as Sookie Foyle's arms helped him straighten and resume his place in the file. Most of the Company had their night visors locked down, though there was still enoughafterglow to see the back of the trooper marching in front of you. "Sorry, Sookie," the officer muttered. "I was… I'm not very alert."

"My fault to bother you, Captain," Foyle said. She took pleasure both in Waldstejn's use of her first name and in the opportunity for her to call him by the rank she herself had conferred. When they got back to Praha, it would be over; but they were days short of Praha at best. Days and nights. "Sergeant Hummel said the rest of Black Section is following along," the Communicator repeated. "And she said it worked just like you said it would with the tank."

"Damn, I should have stayed with them till they got clear," the young officer muttered. "I don't like-" he shrugged- "running out that way." Shrugging had been a bad idea. It pulled at the scabs over his shoulder blades and the torn fabric sticking to them. Waldstejn had skidded on his back very hard when the explosion hurled him down. Marco Bertinelli had looked at him, but he was not the sort of medic who would spend time on a scraped officer when there were real wounded around. And even from the first, before a trooper had handed the logy Waldstejn a canteen and amphetamines, the Cecach officer had been alert enough to preventthat misuse of the Corpsman's time.

"So you could slow them down while they try to catch up with the rest of us?" the Communicator asked bluntly. "Sir, a few people had to take care of the prisoners and the last tank. We've got stretchercases, we've got people like you who ought to be in stretchers. Right now, Jo Hummel needs you like a hole in the head. Tomorrow night we'llall need you. After all, it's your plan."

"My plan," Albrecht Waldstejn repeated in a dull voice. He hoped he had explained it in detail to somebody else. Because right at this moment, it was unbearably difficult to remember how to walk in lock step with the trooper in front of him.

Pavlovich's hands were on fire.

"Look, Guns," Sergeant Mboko was saying behind him, "I can tell off a couple of mypeople if you need a hand with the stretcher."

The trouble with the stretcher was not just the weight. Herzenberg's boots caught Pavlovich's thighs every time an irregularity in the ground threw him off stride. Also, a stretcher pole bit the hands differently from anything else. The calluses at the base of the trooper's fingers had already worked loose. One of the resulting blisters had burst stickily. The rest would follow before this night-much less this march-was over.

"No," said Sergeant Jensen. The poles trembled with the violent shake of his head. "We'll take care of our own for now, Stack. You'll need all you've got left unencumbered if the Rubes manage an ambush."

Sergeant Mboko snorted, but he did not state the obvious. The Company would need more than his leading fire team if they stumbled into the enemy yet tonight. "Well, don't forget the offer," the black sergeant remarked. He shouldered brush aside to pass Pavlovich and Cooper on his way forward.

Take care of our own! The gun crew was part of the Company, wasn't it?" Pavlovich's arms felt at each stride as if they were going to pull out of his shoulders. Cooper, ahead of him, was crumpled under the weight of two packs and weapons. At least he did not have the stretcher poles flaying his palms.

Of course, they alreadyhad flayed Cooper's palms. Cooper had taken the first half hour on the front of the stretcher, while the gun slings had cut against Pavlovich's collarbones and the two packs ground his vertebrae together. In a few minutes, they would switch off again. It would have been nice to have a couple of the under-loaded troopers of White Section lending a hand.

Grigor Pavlovich continued to stumble forward silently. It would not have done him any good to speak to the Gunner. Besides, Roland Jensen still carried his own pack and weapon as well as the back of the stretcher. And so far as either of his conscious crewmen could tell, Jensen intended to carry the stretcher without relief until the column halted at daybreak.

"Goddamn it," Pavel Hodicky burst out through his snuffling. "It isn't fair!"

Instead of agreeing with the younger man, Churchie Dwyer said, "Well, I don't know it's ever fair, baby. But it was going to happen, if that's what you mean. Hell, it was bound to."

Hodicky spun. The tall veteran, last man in the column as usual, waved him onward with the ration bar he was chewing. They had full rations again, courtesy of the stocks in the two APCs which had not burned. "March or die," Dwyer said, and his grin did not make the words a joke.

The deserter fell into line again. They had lost a pace or two on the next ahead, Trooper Hoybrin. Del carried two packs like the troops of the main unit with the four stretcher cases. The spare pack was Hodicky's, though the little private had not realized the fact yet. He had accepted the rifle and bandolier they had handed him, but in the shock of Quade's death he had not been able to think about the rations and field gear which should have been his responsibility also. Hodicky would have been up with the main body, except that Dwyer had tipped Sergeant Hummel the wink as she told off her rear guard.

"Look," Hodicky muttered as he trudged forward, "I know Q didn't talk much, but he wasn't dumb. He wasn't!"

"No argument," the veteran replied mildly around the last mouthful of ration. Ignoring orders, he pitched the foil wrapper into the brush. If the Rubes were sophisticated enough to track them by that, they were too sophisticated to need to do so. If Captain Waldstejn didn't like it, Captain Wald-stejn could police up all the crap himself.

"Well, I suppose you thought it, though," Hodicky replied. He was calmer but still defensive. "I've heard what he did, stood there to keep them away from me till the bomb blew him up. But it wasn't because he was stupid, it was forme\Because I got myself in a hole, didn't know what I was doing… andQ gets killed."