Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 9

camp. Everywhere Fairview and I went these days, we encountered jokes – mainly good-natured, because our men knew of our honor, so most of them could not believe that Doyle's insinuations were true. But the insinuations made for a good jest.
    "Well," Fairview said again.
    "Well," I repeated.
    We looked at each other. I was wondering whether he had seen the same thing I had, and whether he had noticed that, in our past lives, we had been love-mates to each other.
    "Well, I should double-check on my men," said Fairview.
    "I too," I said quickly. I turned my back and began to walk away in as nonchalant a manner as I could.
    Already, I was regretting my hesitation at the tent flap. If I had entered the tent immediately, all would have been well. But I had given Fairview time enough to hear the jokes and to think about our cycle back, and in doing so, I had embarrassed him. That was cruel of me. Fairview was the finest friend a man could have, and the finest battle-companion.
    I dared not risk doing anything that might break our friendship.
    CHAPTER 4
    LET US NOT GIVE WAY
    Words spoken by the field-cornet of the Mippite forces at Spy Hill, to General Starke:
    "Let us struggle and die together. But, brother, let us not give way an inch more to the Landsteaders."
    ****
    "Fix bayonets."
    The words whispered by Tice rippled through the ranks like a ripple across the Bay, each soldier passing on the order to the man beside him. All around me, men pulled their bayonets from scabbards and attached the blades to the ends of their rifles.
    Fairview and I did the same. We had advised the General that, with his scouting experience, Tice should be in charge of the initial attack on the Mippite soldiers. As promised, Tice had visited Spy Hill that afternoon, and he had used the final hours of daylight to sketch a map of the prominent features of the western hillside. This he had used to accurately guide us to this point, at the western edge of the summit. Tice's scouts, who had crept up the hill while their officer was making the sketch, reported that there were only a few dozen Mippite soldiers at the summit.
    A small group of soldiers is just as capable of killing a man as a large one. I had my usual feeling in the moments before battle, of being on the point of whirling into the never-ending cycle of death, transformation, and rebirth. All around me in the darkness, I could hear whispered prayers, and I could guess that many of our soldiers were using their thumbs to trace circles of rebirth onto their own foreheads.
    I wondered whether the Mippite soldiers were doing this as well, as they kept their lonely watch. Many of them shared our faith.
    Imagination is a disadvantage to a soldier. I was still musing upon the Mippite soldiers' fear when a shout came from ahead, in the Mippite tongue: "Who's there?" As a result, I might well have been caught off-guard; but Fairview, having brought his line close to mine during this final stretch of the march, pulled me to the ground. Beside me and behind me, I heard the thump of several hundred soldiers dropping to their stomachs, in accordance with Tice's prior instructions.
    A split second later came the crackle of the Mippites' rifles and pistols, like fire spreading across sun-dried grass. Bullets whizzed over our heads. We waited until the clicking of the bolts told us that the Mippites had emptied their rifles and pistols. Then—
    "The Bay!" cried the General, and we surged forward.
    The taking of the summit was quick and relatively bloodless; the Mippites, faced with the sight of over a thousand enemy soldiers, wisely fled.
    "Three of my men are wounded," reported Tice afterwards as Doyle lit a shuttered lantern for us. "Also, one of theirs is dead. I think we chased all the rest away."
    I nodded. Nearby, at the instruction of the General, our men were giving three cheers – the easiest way to alert the Landsteader soldiers who had remained at the foot of Spy Hill that we had won the summit.
    "Sir," said Tice, saluting as the General approached, "would you like me to send my scouts forward to check the remaining lay of the summit?"
    The General shook his head. He was smiling broadly for once, waving his cap against his face as though to disperse the light drizzle that had soaked us to the skin. "Time enough for that, once the mist lifts. I think one of the Mippites escaped further along the summit; I don't want your scouts, blinded by the mist, to run into Mippite rifles."
    "Sir,