"The Forlorn Hope" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

Chapter Ten

The five of them did not need to look at one another while they hashed things out. The command channel would have worked, would have permitted the non-coms and the two officers to lie with their separate units while they made the final dispositions.

Human nature beat technology in straight sets, as it usually does. The command group lay on its individual bellies, facing inward like a dry-land version of an Esther Williams routine. They were as tired as any of the troopers they commanded, and the sun that spiked down through the bush above them was just as hot as it was elsewhere on the ridge. When Gunner Jensen saw someone crawling toward them, making the shrub shiver, he snarled, "What thehell do you think you're doing, trooper? Get back where you belong, and if you disobey orders again Iguarantee you won't move a third time." Jensen's hand was tight on his gun-stock, but the real threat was in his hard blue eyes.

Sergeant Hummel looked back over her shoulder. The strain made her squint. "It's Dwyer," she said to the command group. More sharply, she called, "Spit it out, soldier, and get your ass back where it belongs." The section leader did not care for Trooper Dwyer. She knew a good deal about him, and she guessed more. But Dwyer was not the sort to need hand-holding or to call his superiors' attention to himself without reason.

"Look," Churchie said. He was speaking toward the soil rather than to the command group. If there had been a way to hand this to somebody else, he would have done so; butDel could never do it, and nobody but the pair of them knew. "There's another goddam route through the mines."

Hummel rolled on her side so that she could look at Dwyer more easily. Alone of the five listeners, she understood the veteran's self-directed anger. Dwyer was in the process of volunteering for a particularly nasty job. He must have figured his chances of survival were even worse if he remained silent. Perhaps Del Hoybrin's life also had a place in Churchie's calculations. Hummel was quite convinced that the survival of the rest of the Company had not been a major factor.

Lieutenant ben Mehdi craned his neck to see past a branch and say the wrong thing. "What do you mean 'another route', trooper?" he demanded in a voice that cracked for dryness.

Trooper Hoybrin carried four extra canteens. Churchie's response had all the sneering range that he would not, save for anger, have lavished on a superior. "Hey," he snapped, "we march in by the way we came out, that's the plan? Right over the fucking mines even a dickhead'd have sense enough to lay there after we did a bug-out? Or maybe you were figuring to waltz in along the pylons, where there's still a working laser and a half dozen bunkers with a clear field of fire?"

"Calm down, soldier," said Albrecht Waldstejn hoarsely. "Tell us about the better way."

The gangling veteran was right. Hummel and Mboko had insisted-with a parochial contempt for indig forces-that the Company's escape route would not have been sealed, not in three days. Waldstejn, with the mild agreement of Sergeant Jensen, thought that even Lichtenstein would have mined the corridor before the surrender. That way, the Major would have hadsomething to offer his new masters in place of inertia in the face of failure. The real problem was that there was no way to determine who was correct. The corridor would only be scouted in the dark, when whoever was making the reconnaissance was likely to detonate a mine if there were any.

The casualty was acceptable, under the circumstances. The warning the blast would give to the garrison was not.

"There's an old fuel tank on the slope," Churchie said. He was mumbling again, and the others had to strain to hear him. "It's still there, I checked before I broke in on you guys. There's a cleared path, narrow but they didn't know about it, so I figure it's still there. I can flag it. Other end's the OP."

"That observation post's still manned," said Sergeant Mboko. "They had a light on last night."

"Campbellsaid he smashed the monitors beforehe leap-frogged in," Jo Hummel responded. "Unless they switched gear from the south OP, then it's visual only. And I doubt any of the indigs could figure out how to connect Class 3 sensors even if they did try." Hummel was still looking at Dwyer. He would not meet her eyes.

"Well," said Sergeant Jensen, "I like it better than trying to enter along the truck route. And that was the best choiceI'd heard."

"Even if the sensors aren't working," said Sergeant Mboko patiently, "there are guards there. If anything happens, we've still got to get down the back slope and through the bunkers after they're alerted. That's just what you were afraid of if they'd mined the Colonel's corridor."

"No, it'll still work," said Waldstejn with sudden animation. His headache had dulled to a background level after they halted. The muscle cramps and bruises were almost a pleasure by comparison. "I'll be the first one through. If anything happens, a shot or somebody hits the alarm, I'll be right there at the radio. Nobody on night duty in Headquarters is going to worry if he's told in Czech it's all right."

"God dammit, you arenot going to do that," Sergeant Hummel insisted with real anger. "No goddam body but you has a prayer of making a deal with that spacer. Things are tight enough anyway without a bunch of us trying to introduce ourself while all hell breaks loose." She paused, breathing hard. "Nothing wrong with the plan, though," she muttered. "I'll go first instead."

The Cecach officer sighed and struck both his palms against the ground. A thorn jabbed the heel of his right hand. "Sergeant," he said, "we aren't talking about being understood. If the first thing the duty officer hears after a shot at the OP is somebody muttering pidgin on the radio, he's not even going towonder what happened. He's going to know, and he's going to hit the general alarm so fast his hand blurs. This isn't hero time, this is business."

"Well, hell, your kid can do it then," said Churchie Dwyer.

They had forgotten him. The command group turned in surprise to an unexpected voice. The muttered statement made sense only to Waldstejn anyway. In the brief pause, the Cecach captain said, "Private Hodicky? Ah, I don't think-"

"Well, why not then, dammit?" Jo Hummel ' interrupted. "He's a native speaker and he's damned well expendable!"

The Captain's mind flashed red, but no retort was called for. In the present circumstances, 'expendable' was a technical term, like 'dead'. A factor to take into account.

In any case, it was impossible to object to Sergeant Hummel's characterization when she had just volunteered to take the lead position herself. Waldstejn said, "I think we've got to class Private Hodicky with the walking wounded. His friend, you know, Quade-that was a bad shock to him."

"It's going to be a worse shock if they're waiting and kill us all!" Hussein ben Mehdi burst out. "The only way we got out alive was they were all looking the other way. And this is theRubes, not the bone-brains in the 522nd!"

"Hey," said Trooper Dwyer.

The others ignored him. "That's right, Captain," said Sergeant Mboko. "They need that big a garrison if they're going to keep the Complex going with all those civilians."

"Ten to one odds if we crash in," Hummel agreed harshly."And them in bunkers, likely with heavy weapons this time. Who the hell do you think weare, an armored division?"

"Captain!" said Churchie Dwyer. For the first time, the veteran trooper had lifted his head toward the command group and had spoken distinctly. They looked back at him. "Captain," Dwyer said, reverting to his normal whining tone toward superiors, "the kid'll be OK. He's coming around. And he'll be OK."

Waldstejn sighed. He began picking at the thorn in his palm. "We've got a lot of choice, don't we?" he said to his hands. Then he looked up. "All right, Hodicky will be with the leading element to cover in an emergency," he said crisply. "Thank you, Pri-Trooper."

Churchie Dwyer dipped his head in response. He slid backward, looking for a placemore clear of brush so that he could turn around. Albrecht Waldstejn called after him, "Trooper? We'll brief him later, of course, but-would you tell Pavel about this? Give him a little more warning."

Churchie nodded again. As Dwyer crawled away, the Cecach officer was saying, "All right, the observation post is nearer where we want to go; but da we have details of the bunkers along that section of the compound?"