and directly in the Rumi line of fire.
“O’Shaughnessy, you idiot!” he roared above the croaking from behind him and the rattle of firing outside.
O’Shaughnessy came to a skidding halt almost directly in front of the schoolhouse but his men kept on going, their faces set and determined. O’Shaughnessy came to attention and snapped a salute.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Lieutenant.”
“Halt! Damn it, HALT!” Terrence yelled at the column of greenbacks. Their formation crumbled as they ran into each other, stepped on each other’s feet and pushed and shoved. But they halted.
“O’Shaughnessy! Break ranks… take cover… line of skirmishers!” Terrence shouted and hit the dirt behind a sandbox in the schoolyard as the Rumi resumed firing. There was a mad scramble among the Narakans as they scattered behind walls and into buildings, moving with an incredibly rapid jumping motion which they used when in a hurry.
Terrence was so glad to see only one sprawled figure in the dust of the street that he just lay there for a few seconds spitting dust before he realized that he had forgotten to close the face visor of his radiation clothing.
There was a slight clucking sound from beside him and when he turned he found O’Shaughnessy lying almost beside him, squinting along his carbine. The Narakan’s face split into two replicas of the map of Ireland and he saluted flat handed, his webbed fingers at just the proper angle.
“O’Shaughnessy, you don’t have to salute when you’re lying down!” O’Mara tried to keep his voice as calm as possible.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Lieutenant. Pretty quick we fight now?”
His lieutenant ignored him and searched for signs of life in the houses across the square. There wasn’t a Rumi in sight except for one on the roof of a shed next to the burning warehouse. He tried a couple of shots with his automatic and missed. He grabbed O’Shaughnessy’s carbine and dropped the creature as it tried to scramble off the shed.
“Pretty soon we fight with bayonet?” O’Shaughnessy asked as Terrence handed back the carbine.
“O’Shaughnessy, why do you do things like this to me, me who took you out of your damn mud hole and made a soldier out of you?”
O’Shaughnessy’s mouth formed a huge round moon, “Not understand, Lieutenant….” he began but he was ignored again as Terrence stared across the street in pained disbelief to where the heavy weapons squad of the Narakan Rifles was gathered in a huddled group behind a native house, struggling to set up their Banning Automatic Blaster and two machine guns. One of the men was down on his hands and knees balancing the heavy barrel of the blaster on his back while two others were attempting to push the ponderous breech onto it by main strength. The two machine guns were half on and half off their tripods. The leg of one of them had been bent in the wrong direction and the other was so covered with grease that the parts wouldn’t fit together.
“Oh, Lord!” moaned Terrence and was bracing himself for a dash across the street when a figure in Terran battle armor came around the building on the run, dodging and crawling as spring bolts raised the dust in front of him. It was the short, stout Gunnery Sergeant, Polasky. Terrence breathed a sigh of relief.
He turned to O’Shaughnessy, “Now, Sergeant, this is our problem. Those buildings over there are filled with Rumi. They have automatic weapons… spring guns… firing a clip of twenty plastic bolts. They’re deadly at close to medium range. They can penetrate our battle armor.” He looked at the thick, knobby skin of the Narakan, “Yours too. Now, they are probably just a patrol about the size of one of our companies. They don’t seem to have any heavy weapons and ours will be in action in a few minutes. Then, O’Shaughnessy….” The Narakan was squinting along the barrel of his rifle.
“Are you paying attention, Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir! Attention, yes, sir.” O’Shaughnessy started to lift his bulky three hundred pounds up off the ground. Terrence heaved with all his might against those thick khaki clad legs to knock him down again.
“Man, what are you doing?” he yelled.
“Attention, sir. Sir said….”
“No, no, O’Shaughnessy. I meant, listen to me. O’Shaughnessy, how could you? Haven’t I been like a brother to you? Didn’t I share my whiskey and candy ration with you?”
“Yes, sir. That’s why….”
“Then for the sake of your two headed frog-faced gods, shut up and listen to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Look. In a minute our Banning will be in action,” his voice was drowned out by the scream of tortured air as the Banning cut loose. “Now there is a sweet sound. What do we do next, O’Shaughnessy?”
One of the row of buildings across the square glowed red briefly as the beam from the Blaster caught it; glowed red and then burst into a ball of fire. O’Shaughnessy’s mouth was open wide, his chinless face resting on the edge of the sandbox and his little black bead eyes were as large as they could get.
“What do we do now, O’Shaughnessy… come on….”
The Narakan made a thrusting gesture with his carbine, “Bayonet… we go in with bayonet now,” he said.
O’Mara slapped him on the seat of his khaki pants. “No, no. You got to get this stuff straight.”
The whine of the Banning interrupted him again and it was joined by the chatter of machine guns and rifle fire and answered by the rapid clacking of spring guns. Bolts dug into the wall of the schoolhouse and showered them with plaster. Others shattered the front window. Terrence wiped plaster off his visor and tried again. “You’ve got to get this straight, O’Shaughnessy, because… well, because you may be getting an independent command pretty soon and there won’t be anyone around to tell you what to do.”
The Narakan was listening to him but wide-mouthed and uncomprehending. “We’re going to burn them out of those huts; burn them out or burn the houses down over their heads. About the time Polasky gets to the third one, those guys are going to break and then they’ll either rush us or….”
Norton was yelling something from the Residency. There was a noise of clanking armor behind him and he could hear Fielding’s voice cracking out orders as he came up with twenty hastily armed and armored clerks, cooks and radiomen from the HQ unit.
“O’Mara! O’Mara, they’re breaking! They’re running! Let’s go!” Norton was on the porch of the Residency pouring Tommy gun slugs at the rear of the burning row of houses.
“Okay, let’s go,” Terrence said, lurching to his feet. The Narakan sergeant blew his whistle and the riflemen swarmed out from their shelters and started at a run across the square with Norton, Terrence and O’Shaughnessy at their head. The rest of the Terrans in full battle armor lumbered along after them.
One or two bolts whistled overhead and Corporal O’Brien dropped his rifle and fell forward clutching his leg. The smoke from the burning buildings obscured their vision but Terrence had a momentary sight of Rumi radiation clothing and emptied his clip at it.
Someone from behind threw a grenade which fell short of its target and rolled in front of them. Norton took two quick strides and kicked it into one of the flaming buildings.
III
There were about twenty Rumi, less than they had thought, fleeing across the open fields behind the burning huts. They were firing as they ran and giving out those queer yelping cries of theirs. Three or four of them fell and then Norton was shouting, calling back his men to organize fire fighting parties.
“Captain! Captain, let’s go after those guys. We can cut them off before they get to the grasslands,” Terrence yelled.
“Get your men after these fires, O’Mara. We can’t let them spread.”
There was nothing to do but obey but he delayed long enough to empty his automatic in the general direction of the fleeing Rumi. Then he turned and yelled, “Harrigan! Sergeant Harrigan! Where in the devil is that….” There was a crashing sound behind him and Harrigan stumbled through the smoke and came down on his foot, all three hundred pounds of him.
Later, as the last smoking embers of the fire were being smothered by industrious squads of Narakans with buckets and shovels, Terrence limped back across the square with Bill Fielding.
“We should have gone after those lousy scum,” Bill said, “They may cut back around the town again and give the battalion some trouble on the river road.”
