gunmen would cover the rear. Another good man; with pity in his heart, but not mercy, Johnny took this lad too.
'Are you getting them?' asked Owney, an idiot who wanted a report in the middle of a battle.
'In spades, bloody spades, boyo,' he said, and veered back to the center, where the fallen, wounded leader must be. Another boy was now attending to the leader, one he'd probably missed.
Ah, now you two and the night's work is done, thought Johnny.
But detonations suddenly erupted too near them, with the sprang of bullets on metal, and worse, the spray of spattered lead, which lashed out and made them wince.
'By Jesus!' said Johnny.
'Where the fuck did that come from?' Owney said. 'I think he hit me.'
'Nah, he's shootin' from far off, you just felt a whisper of tiny fragments. Stay cool, buster.'
The rounds had hit on the flatcar bed a good twenty feet from them, but enough to distract.
Johnny looked into the gloom and through the darkness could only see the flashes far off, in the lee of the switching shed. These seven rounds, however, hit a bit closer, kicking up their nasty commotion but ten feet away.
'He sees us!' said Owney.
'Not a bit of it! He's shootin' blind, the bastard,' said Johnny, returning to the scope. He put the reticle on the last flash and tripped a six-round burst. The bullets struck dead on, lifting dust from the ground, pulling puffs of debris from the wood of the house.
'I may have got him,' he crowed. 'Right in the gizzard.'
But he reasoned that the boy, if not hit, would move to the other side of the switching house, so he pivoted slightly, found that locality in his sight. The image was not so distinct as it was at the very limits of the infrared lamp, but he knew it was good enough to shoot. But the next seven shots came from the same side as the first fourteen, and he knew the fella had outguessed him. He pivoted back, saw nothing, but then a flash of motion. Something had slithered into the hollow behind the switching house and in a second, as if on cue, a boy rose, and Johnny potted him, three-round burst, head shots all.
'By Jesus, got another!'
'Is that all of 'em?'
'No, there's one, maybe two more at the shed. They don't even suspect that where they are now there's men all about them, ready to open up on command.'
'Let's finish it.'
'Give 'em a moment to think. They'll realize they're fooked, then they'll make a break and me boys will do them good and it'll be over. There's no place for them to go, except into the ground.'
'You can't hit them from here?'
'From this range I doubt these little carbine bullets can carry into that shed. Herman's Browning rifle will make Swiss cheese of it, though, and de Palmo's Thompson should write an exclamation point to the night's fun.'
The three men lay on the bottom of the switching shed, curled around the big levers that controlled the track linkages, breathing heavily.
'Oh, Christ,' said D. A. 'Oh, Jesus H. Christ, they had us nailed. They ambushed us perfectly, the bastards. Oh, Christ, all those boys, Earl, Earl, I lost all those boys, oh, Jesus forgive me, all those poor boys, such good boys, oh?'
'Shut up, Mr. Parker,' said Earl. 'Think about here and now!'
'He's hit bad,' said Carlo. 'He's losing blood fast. We've got to get him to a hospital or he'll bleed out.'
'There's always a lot of blood. Stanch the wound. Apply pressure. It'll coagulate. If he's still kicking and he ain't in shock, he's got some time yet.'
'Yes sir.'
'Earl, they had us.'
'Yes sir, I know they had you.'
'What're we going to do?' asked the boy.
'Hell if I know.'
'We could fall back on the low crawl.'
'Nah. This old man can't crawl none. And they got boys on each side of us, and probably behind us by now. He ain't no dummy, whoever done put this thing together. The bastard.'
'Earl, I am so sorry for getting all them boys killed.'
'It's a war. War ain't no fun at all, sir,' said Earl.
Carlo said, 'We low on firepower too.'
'Yes I know,' said Earl, and reached to see if the old man still had his.45 but he didn't. He did have two full magazines in his coat pocket, however.
Earl calculated quickly. He'd fired three magazines, meaning twenty-one rounds were gone. He had one left, the boy had two left, and the old man two. That's thirty-five rounds in five magazines, with two pistols.
Shit, he thought. We are cooked.
'What're we going to do, Earl?'
'I don't know! Goddammit, I am thinking on it.'
We could split up, go in two ways. One of us ought to make it. We get cops and?'
'They ain't no cops coming,' said Earl. 'Don't you get that? They'd be here by now. This is it. This is all there is. And don't you get it yet? He can see in the dark.'
'Earl, I am so sorry about them boys I?'
'Shut up, the two of you, and let me think.'
Above them, the wall on the left-hand side of the shed exploded, spewing fragments, high-velocity dust, and twenty.30 caliber bullets in a kick-ass blast, which went clean through and blew twenty neater holes in the right- hand side of the wall. The noise banged on their eardrums till they rang like firebells. The smell of pulverized wood filled the air, mingling with the kerosene and the oil.
'Browning,' said Earl. 'He's about twenty-five yards away over on the left. He can cut us to ribbons if he's got enough ammo.'
'Oh, Christ,' said Carlo. 'I think we bought it.'
'Not yet,' said Earl. 'Not?'
Another BAR magazine riddled the wall, this time six inches lower. A few of its shots spanged off the potbellied stove.
Then a voice called out.
'Say chums, we can finish you anytime.' It was Owney, not far away, with that little twist of fake English gent in his words. 'You throw your guns out, come on out hands high, and you can leave. Just get out of town and don't ever come back, eh? That's all I'm asking.'
'You step out,' said Earl to his companions, 'and a second later you're dead.'
'I'll give you a minute,' said Owney. 'Then I'll finish you. Make the choice, you bold fellows, or die where you stand.'
But Earl was rummaging around in the shed. To Carlo he seemed a man obsessed. He cursed and ranted, pushing aside lanterns and crowbars and gloves, standing even, because he knew the BAR man wouldn't fire as the minute ticked onward until at last?
'Ah!' he said, sinking back down to the ground with a handful of something indeterminate in the dark.
'Now you listen up and you listen up good. Henderson, load up them.45s and get 'em cocked and locked.'
Johnny dumped a magazine, even though it had a few rounds left, and snapped in a fresh one so he'd have plenty of ammo.
He went back to the scope.
In the green murk, he saw nothing except the outline of the switching shed sitting atop the little hollow. Some dust seemed to float in the air on the side where Herman had hammered two BAR magazines into it, but otherwise it was motionless.
'Maybe they're all dead,' Owney said.
