Triplanetary - E. E. Smith (phonics reader TXT) 📗

it. Didn’cha ever hear of ‘Hellandamnation’ Slayton? You will, buddy, you will. If Pershing doesn’t give him three stars after this, he’s crazier than hell. He ain’t supposed to be on combat at all⁠—he’s from G.H.Q. and can make or break anybody in the A.E.F. Out here on a look-see trip and couldn’t get back. But you got to hand it to him⁠—he’s getting things organized in great shape. I came in with him⁠—I’m about all that’s left of them that did⁠—just waiting for this breeze to die down, but its getting worse. We’d better duck⁠—over there!”

Bullets whistled and stormed, breaking more twigs and branches from the already shattered, practically denuded trees. The two slid precipitately into the indicated shell-hole, into stinking mud. Wells’ guns burst into action.

“Damn! I hated to do this,” the sergeant grumbled, “On accounta I just got half dry.”

“Wise me up,” Kinnison directed. “The more I know about things, the more apt I am to get through.”

“This is what is left of two battalions, and a lot of casuals. They made objective, but it turns out the outfits on their right and left couldn’t, leaving their flanks right out in the open air. Orders come in by blinker to rectify the line by falling back, but by then it couldn’t be done. Under observation.”

Kinnison nodded. He knew what a barrage would have done to a force trying to cross such open ground in daylight.

“One man could prob’ly make it, though, if he was careful and kept his eyes wide open,” the sergeant-major continued. “But you ain’t got no binoculars, have you?”

“No.”

“Get a pair easy enough. You saw them boots without any hobnails in ’em, sticking out from under some blankets?”

“Yes. I get you.” Kinnison knew that combat officers did not wear hobnails, and usually carried binoculars. “How come so many at once?”

“Just about all the officers that got this far. Conniving, my guess is, behind old Slayton’s back. Anyway, a kraut aviator spots ’em and dives. Our machine-guns got him, but not until after he heaved a bomb. Dead center. Christ, what a mess! But there’s six-seven good glasses in there. I’d grab one myself, but the general would see it⁠—he can see right through the lid of a mess-kit. Well, the boys have shut those krauts up, so I’ll hunt the old man up and tell him what I found out. Damn this mud!”

Kinnison emerged sinuously and snaked his way to a row of blanket covered forms. He lifted a blanket and gasped: then vomited up everything, it seemed, that he had eaten for days. But he had to have the binoculars.

He got them.

Then, still retching, white and shaken, he crept westward; availing himself of every possible item of cover.

For some time, from a point somewhere north of his route, a machine-gun had been intermittently at work. It was close; but the very loudness of its noise, confused as it was by resounding echoes, made it impossible to locate at all exactly the weapon’s position. Kinnison crept forward inchwise; scanning every foot of visible terrain through his powerful glass. He knew by the sound that it was German. More, since what he did not know about machine-guns could have been printed in bill-poster type upon the back of his hand, he knew that it was a Maxim, Model 1907⁠—a mean, mean gun. He deduced that it was doing plenty of damage to his fellows back on the hill, and that they had not been able to do much of anything about it. And it was beautifully hidden; even he, close as he must be, couldn’t see it. But damn it, there had to be a.⁠ ⁠…

Minute after minute, unmoving save for the traverse of his binoculars, he searched, and finally he found. A tiny plume⁠—the veriest wisp⁠—of vapor, rising from the surface of the brook. Steam! Steam from the cooling jacket of that Maxim 1907! And there was the tube!

Cautiously he moved around until he could trace that tube to its business end⁠—the carefully-hidden emplacement. There it was! He couldn’t maintain his westward course without them spotting him; nor could he go around far enough. And besides⁠ ⁠… and besides that, there would be at least a patrol, if it hadn’t gone up the hill already. And there were grenades available, right close.⁠ ⁠…

He crept up to one of the gruesome objects he had been avoiding, and when he crept away he half-carried, half-dragged three grenades in a canvas bag. He wormed his way to a certain boulder. He straightened up, pulled three pins, swung his arm three times.

Bang! Bam! Pow! The camouflage disappeared; so did the shrubbery for yards around. Kinnison had ducked behind the rock, but he ducked still deeper as a chunk of something, its force pretty well spent, clanged against his steel helmet. Another object thudded beside him⁠—a leg, gray-clad and wearing a heavy field boot!

Kinnison wanted to be sick again, but he had neither the time nor the contents.

And damn! What lousy throwing! He had never been any good at baseball, but he supposed that he could hit a thing as big as that gun-pit⁠—but not one of his grenades had gone in. The crew would probably be dead⁠—from concussion, if nothing else⁠—but the gun probably wasn’t even hurt. He would have to go over there and cripple it himself.

He went⁠—not exactly boldly⁠—forty-five in hand. The Germans looked dead. One of them sprawled on the parapet, right in his way. He gave the body a shove, watched it roll down the slope. As it rolled, however, it came to life and yelled; and at that yell there occurred a thing at which young Kinnison’s hair stood straight up inside his iron helmet. On the gray of the blasted hillside hitherto unseen gray forms moved; moved toward their howling comrade. And Kinnison, blessing for the first time in his life his inept throwing arm, hoped fervently that the Maxim was still in good working order.

A few seconds of inspection showed him