The Eternity Brigade (9 page)

Hawker had no friends within his outfit. The other men’s hostility never flared into open fights or insults, but Hawker could feel it tangibly nonetheless. He ate alone and was never included in the friendly byplay that made life at the front barely tolerable. As far as anyone was concerned, he was a man from outer space, hated and respected at the same time.

It was, naturally enough, his last convoy that hit the big trouble. The convoy was nearing its destination, a small base guarding a mountain pass, and everyone aboard was thinking how good it would be to reach the end of the line so they could dump their cargo and return home the next day. Return trips were, if no less dangerous, then certainly less burdensome. Home base also had bathing facilities lacking in the outlying areas, and that in itself was no mean consideration.

It had started to rain, and the trucks were having a hard time pulling their loads up the steep slopes along roads that were little more than dirt tracks. Suddenly, in the distance ahead of them, they could hear the repeated sound of gunfire. The trucks stopped instantly and the men reached for their rifles, but they realized almost at once that the shooting was not directed at them. It came from their destination, the small firebase ahead. The enemy was attacking it in strength, trying to capture it while it was low on supplies and perhaps get into position to take the supplies for themselves.

The convoy’s captain called ahead and received a harried description of the situation. A savage bout of dysentery had reduced the effective manpower to almost half the complement, even before the attack. The base had the advantage of position—it was well fortified on top of a hill—but that was about all. The Ruchinks were charging in waves, taking heavy casualties in a determined effort to capture the base. The bad weather impeded satellite assistance, and other attacks elsewhere along this line were keeping air retaliation busy. Unless additional ammunition from the convoy could be delivered quickly, the firebase was likely to be overrun, giving the enemy free access to the valley beyond.

The convoy captain looked at Hawker, then made a decision on his own: the convoy would move forward and try to reinforce the firebase at all costs. Hawker did not speak up or object to that plan; he wasn’t even sure that he should, since he had no better idea himself. But it did seem that driving straight into the face of danger was not the safest course open. He gripped his rifle tighter and prepared for action.

They’d almost made it to the base when they saw some forms approaching quickly through the gloom. The men in the front trucks raised their weapons and prepared to fire, but held up long enough to establish that the soldiers were government troops fleeing the base. The fortress had been overrun, and the enemy was approaching quickly. This entire valley would belong to the rebels by sunrise.

The captain had a tough decision. There was no room for his trucks to turn around on these narrow mountain roads, and he could scarcely order them to back downhill in the rain. At the same time, moving forward was suicide. Reluctantly, he decided to make a stand where he was. He radioed back to headquarters, informing them of his predicament and begging for help. Headquarters was noncommittal, saying they would do what they could, when they could. The convoy was on its own.

The captain gave orders for his men to leave the trucks and take up positions in front and to either side. At the same time, he gave orders to ready the convoy for demolition, should the Ruchinks overcome them. These supplies must not fall into enemy hands.

Hawker didn’t bother worrying about those considerations. While it was true he had the authority to order the trucks blown up, there were still a captain, a lieutenant and several sergeants ranking above him to make that decision. As long as any of them was alive, he could let them have the responsibility. He was particularly responsible for making sure the men behaved well under fire, and this was his first real opportunity to test himself and them.

The refugees from the captured fortress came in waves, now. Some of them were fleeing so fast they ran right past the convoy’s barricade, but most slowed their flight and ended up joining the lines of defense. The additional support made Hawker feel slightly more confident, but the situation would still be touchy. Everything depended on how badly the enemy had depleted its own troops in taking the base; if the Ruchinks were too badly hurt themselves, perhaps they wouldn’t follow up on their victory and keep their opponents on the run.

Perhaps. Hawker had learned by now not to live on such fragile hopes.

As he’d feared, the rebels did want to pursue the battle and keep the loyalists running. Even before Hawker could catch sight of the enemy, his comrades at the other side of the line had opened fire on the advancing soldiers. The rainy atmosphere was soon peppered with the sound of gunshots, and Hawker could hear stray bullets whizzing past his location. He told the men around him to hold their fire until they had a clearer target—but it wasn’t long before the enemy came into view, advancing slowly through the gloom of a drizzly dusk.

The fighting continued on and off for half an hour, but it was very clear to Hawker that it was little more than a holding action; the Ruchinks had superior manpower, and were just waiting for the proper moment to regroup and make their decisive charge. Unless the convoy could be reinforced by air strikes, there was little to prevent their position from being overrun—and home base was still diddling around about committing themselves to support this rearguard action. Hawker had been in the army long enough to know when he was considered expendable—and he didn’t much like it.

The battlefield suddenly grew ominously still as the Ruchinks ceased firing for several minutes and drew back slightly from their forward positions. The captain and lieutenant conferred, then sent the word out over the comms: the enemy was probably preparing for its big charge, and the convoy had only one major trick up its sleeve. When the rebels came rushing in, the convoy would blow up the trucks, hoping to cause enough confusion to allow the men to escape.

Nothing was said about the pattern of retreat. Hawker correctly surmised it would be every man for himself.

The charge came moments later, hundreds of Ruchinks—looking dirty and ill-clad, but very well-armed—running down the hill through the rain, screaming as they came. Hawker and his fellows fell back as ordered, drawing the enemy into range. Then, with blinding suddenness, half the hillside exploded into day.

***

The trucks had been rigged ahead of time to provide a dazzling display of pyrotechnics. They exploded in sequence rather than all at once, providing almost a full minute of blasts that shook the ground and lit the countryside as bright as the noonday sun. Hawker hit the ground and buried himself face down in the mud, counting the explosions—one for each truck. Rocks and debris tossed skyward by the blasts pelted down on him, and even after the last truck had blown he waited several seconds before getting to his feet again and looking around to get his bearings.

The scene was chaotic. Soldiers from both sides lay dead in the road, having been too near the trucks when they exploded. Still others lay dying or injured—and from what Hawker had seen of this war so far, there was little concern about tending the wounded. Most of them would probably die, slowly and painfully. Of the rest, many were still recovering from the shock of the blasts. If ever there was a time to escape, this was it.

Crouching low to hide himself in the tall grass and boulders alongside the road, Hawker began his awkward run from the scene of the battle. Home base was more than fifty kilometers away, but he didn’t think he’d have to travel that far on foot; there were advance patrols out constantly, and if he could hook in with one of them he could ride the rest of the way home. Everything depended, though, on his staying alive between here and there.

He tripped over something lying hidden in the grass, and nearly went sprawling; only quick reflexes and a good sense of balance kept him on his feet. He looked back to see what had upset him, and saw that it was a body dressed in a U.S. uniform. That in itself was no indication—rebel soldiers frequently dressed in captured uniforms to fool the loyalists—but the man was also black, which almost guaranteed his being on Hawker’s side. The enemy forces were mostly Chinese, aided sometimes by Russians who were white or Eurasian; any blacks were sure to be Americans.

The man at first appeared dead, and Hawker started to move on when the fellow moaned softly. Torn between the desire to run and the impulse at least to check the extent of the other’s injuries, Hawker stood still for a moment. Then his humanitarian instincts won out, and he moved to the black man’s side. “Take it easy,” he whispered. “Don’t make any noise, or they’ll spot us. Let me see how you’re doing.”

He rolled the man over on his back, and recognized him almost immediately. It was Thaddeus Connors.

Connors hadn’t been part of the convoy; he must have been assigned to the forward firebase and escaped when it was overrun. He was bleeding from a bullet hole in his abdomen. He’d lost a lot of blood already, and the wound showed no signs of closing. His face was contorted with pain and it was unlikely, in his condition and in the fading light of dusk, that he recognized Hawker. He tried to talk, but the pain was too great and he could only gasp a couple of syllables.

“I’ve seen men live with worse,” Hawker said, reaching for the first-aid kit at his belt. He remembered the all-too-brief lecture on the items in the kit, including bandages coated with coagulant to retard bleeding. “Just press the bandage against the wound,” the instructor had said, “and hold it there tightly until the bleeding stops. If it takes more than two minutes, move on—the patient’s beyond your help.”

There was little light left to see what he was doing—just the rapidly fading light of a rain-soaked day and the distant fires of the burning trucks. Hawker ripped off the paper covering and held the bandage tightly to Connors’s stomach. Whatever the chemical was, it seemed to work; the bleeding stopped in less than two minutes, and Hawker used some of his kit’s adhesive tape to secure the bandage in place. Connors had passed out in the meantime and Hawker, kneeling beside him, sat back on his heels to think what he should do next.

He owed nothing to Connors, beyond what any human being owed another. The man had always been hostile to him—and dangerously so in that men’s room incident. Hawker didn’t like him, and his mind could make a good case for abandoning the man right here beside the road. He’d already done more than his share by stopping the bleeding; he’d perhaps saved Connors’s life. He had his own welfare to consider. Why jeopardize himself to aid a man who’d been nothing but trouble?

There was not a single good reason—except that Hawker had been raised with the belief that one had to help one’s fellow man. For all his belligerence, Connors was still a colleague—and he was one of the few remaining people from Hawker’s own world of the past, one of the few who could understand the special problems of being dissociated from normal time. For that alone, Connors was valuable to him.

Hawker pondered the problem. They certainly couldn’t stay here. Even if they weren’t spotted during the night, they’d have almost no chance of avoiding detection tomorrow. Their main hope was to be far enough away from here by morning that the enemy would have to spread out more to conduct a search.

The night would be both blessing and hindrance. Its darkness would give Hawker and his patient cover to slip back toward home base secretly; the rebels’ nighttime detection equipment had never been very effective. If they could make reasonably good time during the night, they could find someplace to hide and sleep during the day.

On the other hand, traveling at night held its own hazards. There were plenty of rebel IEDs and loyalist mines along the road; it didn’t matter whose mine he stepped on, the end results would not be pretty. The road itself was safe; it was regularly swept clean. But staying directly on the road meant being more easily spotted by enemy snipers....

Looking down at his patient, he could see that Connors’s eyes were open again. The man was conscious and breathing a little more easily. “Ready to move?” Hawker asked him. They’d already tarried here far too long; the enemy troops would be advancing soon to snatch as much territory as they could under cover of darkness.

Connors gave a short, bitter laugh. “Ain’t no good, man,” he said. “I’m dead.”

“Naw, you’re just lazy, like all you niggers.”

That did it. Hawker could see the spark of fire returning to Connors’s eyes. “Motherfuckin’ honky bastard,” he said. “You just get me on my feet and I’ll show you who’s lazy.” He grabbed Hawker’s upper arm to use as a crutch, and pulled himself up so hard Hawker was almost yanked off balance. Connors made it to his feet, though, and stood for a moment swaying unsteadily. He was obviously weak from the loss of blood.

“I figured we could walk back to base,” Hawker whispered. “You can put your arm around my shoulders and lean on me—”

“Fuck that shit! Thaddeus Connors don’t lean on no white man.”

“Suit yourself. But we’ve got to get going now, or the Ruchinks’ll be crawling up both our asses.”

Hawker led the way, bending over and walking parallel to the road but about twenty meters from it. Connors followed much more slowly, but too proud to take any help. Hawker felt frustrated that, despite the ever-present peril, they couldn’t move any faster than a wounded man could stagger. Time after time, the thought occurred to him that he could travel better alone. He could find a safe hiding place for Connors and go on until he reached safety, then send a team back for the man. But no matter how tempting the idea, he never once mentioned it. Connors was his responsibility for the moment.