Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 9

Mippites' rifles could hit us easily from Fairview Mountain, while our rifles simply weren't accurate at that range. As for the Mippites' pom-poms, I longed to wring the necks of whichever penny-greedy bureaucrats had decided that the Landsteader armies didn't need the Vovimian-manufactured automatic cannons. The Mippites had promptly bought every pom-pom.
    Sighing, I looked through the spy-glass. For a moment I saw nothing. Then there was a flicker of motion, a discharge, a bullet whizzing past my ear.
    "Blast!" I handed the spy-glass back to Fairview. "They must be within a hundred yards of us." I looked around, but Canton wasn't in view; in any case, this called for a conference. "I'll tell the General," I informed Fairview and scrambled out of the trench before he should demand we flip a coin to decide who left.
    Not that the trenches made a bloody bit of difference, as far as I could tell. As Spearman had hinted to the General, shallow trenches are little better than no trenches at all. From the knoll to the north came the rattle of the Mippites' machine-rifles, and the result was like watching a lawn mowed; bullets landed in a strip down the trench to the north of me – not the one I had just left, thank goodness. I could hear Fairview shouting orders behind me.
    Closing my ears to the screams of the unfortunate men in Tice's left-flank trench, I scrambled forward on hands and knees, unwilling to rise high enough that I should become a handy target. I heard a scream above me – not from a man – and fell flat on my belly, hiding my face in my arms.
    There was an awful crash above me, and then, far more terrible, the sound of metal striking rocks, like a deadly rain. The screams were starting again. I waited tensely, but felt nothing more than a fiery line across the back of my hand.
    I raised my head finally. The first thing I saw was blood welling out of my hand, from where shrapnel had slashed it. Cursing, I rolled over and managed to pull out my handkerchief, then used my teeth and my good hand – my shooting hand – to wrap the handkerchief around the wounded hand.
    All around me was shrapnel, along with the shattered remains of the men who had experienced the explosion of a shell. Near me was the severed head of Canton. I turned my eyes away, struggled to regain control of my stomach, and then scrambled to my feet and ran. Trying to travel by hands and knees through a field filled with shell fragments is as good as suicide.
    As I'd predicted, I became the new, favorite target of the Mippites. By the time I reached the General, I'd lost my rations packet; it had been shot off my belt. I collapsed behind the rock where the General huddled, along with his soldier-servant and his wide-eyed messenger-lad, who was just finishing writing down a message for the signalmen. The lad looked at what lay between him and the signal station, gulped, and then scrambled out into the deathly field.
    The General took no notice of his messenger's departure. Sweat covered the General's face, which had gone pale. He was clutching his book of poetry and staring at the mangled remains of Tice, who lay nearby.
    "Sir," I said in a voice that trembled only slightly, "I have a report for you on the enemy positions." I rattled off the information that Fairview had given me.
    The General continued to stare at Tice's corpse.
    "Sir, if we ask the Commander-in-Chief to send word to our gunners, I believe they can put the machine-rifles on the knoll out of commission – our big guns are within range. . . . Sir?"
    The General raised his gaze finally. His eyes were wide, like that of a warhorse which smells blood for the first time. "Return to your men," he said.
    "But sir, about the knoll—"
    "I said, Return to your men! " He shrieked the words. His voice was nearly hidden by the booming of the Mippite guns.
    "Well?" said Fairview, pausing in the midst of giving half a dozen orders to his subordinate officers, who were gathered around him.
    I didn't bother to keep my voice low this time. "He wouldn't listen to a bloody word I said!"
    Fairview paused, not to consider what to say next, but because we both had to flatten ourselves at that moment as another rake of rifle-fire went by us. "Tice?"
    "Dead. Spearman is wounded; I saw him being carried off the hill by his men."
    "Well, then, it's just us left. —Stiles, inform Major Arundel of Colonel Tice's death and tell him that he's in charge now of the left flank. Branchwater, have your