"Three up, one back?" O'Rourke asked.
Ken nodded; he wasn't going to second-guess the man on the spot unless he needed it. Patrick Joseph O'Rourke was possibly a little too ready to lean on higher authority-one reason he didn't have Hollard's job. Nothing wrong with his aggressiveness at the company level, though, and he had the saving grace of a wicked sense of humor.
The company commander turned and barked: "D Platoon in reserve, A through C in skirmish order. Prepare to advance on the word of command-and fix bayonets!"
The long blades came out and clattered home, their edges throwing painfully bright reflections in the hot Asian sun. Kenneth Hollard hid a slight grimace of distaste at the sight. He knew what it felt like to run edged metal into a man, the soft, heavy resistance. And the look in his eyes as he realized he was going to die, and the sounds he made, and the smell…
"Dirty job," O'Rourke said, catching his thought without the irrelevance of words.
"But somebody's got to do it."
Some of the Sun People rankers were grinning at the prospect of a fight. But then, they're all maniacs, anyway. Good soldiers but weird. Sometimes he worried a little about the impact they would have when they mustered out and got their citizenship. Up to now most of the immigrants had been Fiernan. Who were weird too, but less aggressive about it.
He raised his binoculars again. Plenty of the distinctive ruddy glitter of bronze along the edges of walls…
"Sir?"
That was Sergeant Winnifred Smith of the mortar team-Immigration Office name, she was obviously Alban by origin-Sun People, from the accent.
No questions asked, Hollard reminded himself. Your record started the day you took the oath, in the Guard or the Corps.
O'Rourke lowered his own glasses. "Let's start by knocking down the big gateway into the courtyards," he said. "With a little luck, they'll rush us."
"Yessir," the sergeant replied.
A broad grin showed as she worked the elevation and traverse screws; the muzzle of the mortar moved up a bit, and to the right.
"Nine hundred yards… one ring," she called over her shoulder.
"One ring, aye," the man with the mortar bomb in his hands said.
That was an elongated iron teardrop with fins at its base. A section above the fins was perforated, and around that his assistant clipped a linen donut of gunpowder. Then he slipped the friction primer into the base of the bomb, turned the wooden-ring safety and pulled it out.
Now when the round was dropped down the muzzle it would drive the primer in on itself, striking a light in exactly the same way as a matchbox and match. Seahaven swore that they'd have percussion caps available in quantity soon, but in the meantime this worked and they could make more in the field at need. Leaton swore he'd have a brass-cartridge rifle available next year too, but Hollard would believe that when it arrived.
"Fire in the hole!" the sergeant barked, and dropped the bomb into the waiting maw of the mortar. The team turned away, mouths open and ears plugged with their thumbs.
Thuddump!
A jet of dirty-gray smoke shot out of the muzzle. The bomb followed it, landing in the dirt about fifteen feet in front of the weathered wooden gates.
Whuddump! The bursting-charge exploded, throwing up a black shape of dirt that stood erect for a moment before drifting westward and falling in a patter of dust and clods. A small crater gaped in the packed earth of the trackway. Shouts and screams could be heard from the men within; the Assyrians had some experience of being under fire from the Islander artillery by now, and they didn't like it at all. A few stood up over the parapet, shaking fists or weapons.
Not enough experience, though, Hollard thought coldly, remembering the dead peasants and their children.
"Marksmen may fire on movement!" O'Rourke called out. "No need to let the insolence of them go unrequited."
Here and there along the line Marines with the sniper star began to fire, slow and deliberate. An Assyrian pitched forward off the parapet over the gates, landing with a limp thump on the ground. Several others toppled backward, some screaming. The others ducked down, and ducked further when a bullet clipped the top of a bronze helmet barely showing over the crenelations of the defense. The helmet went spinning, ringing like a cracked bell. Fragments of the skull and brain beneath probably followed it.
"Lost his head completely, poor fellow," O'Rourke said.
Sergeant Smith gave the elevating screw a three-quarter turn. "Fire in the hole!" she called again and dropped in the second bomb.
Thuddump!
Another malignant whistle overhead, dropping away… and this time it crashed precisely into the arch over the gateway. When the smoke cleared the arch had a bite taken out of its apex-more dropped away as Hollard watched-and the wood of the gates was splintered, torn and burning.
"Lord Kenneth-Hollard," Ibi-Addad said, a frown of worry on his sun-browned face. "What if some of them drop off the wall on the northern side and run?"
"I hope they do," Hollard said. At the Babylonian's inquiring look: "All I can do is kill them."
"Ah," Ibi-Addad chuckled. "But if the Aramaeans catch them…"
"Exactly."
"And the tribes will be hanging about like vultures on a tamarisk above a sick sheep," King Shuriash's man said happily. Then he frowned. "More and more of the sand-thieves roam in these lands every year, though, and they press into the settled country whenever they get a chance."
Hollard nodded; according to the Arnsteins' briefings the Aramaeans were slated to overrun most of the Middle East in the dark age that the pre-Event histories said was coming, and their tongue and ways would stamp themselves on the region for millennia. Aramaic would be the state language of the Persian Empire, and the native tongue of Jesus. Or would have been…
Thuddump! Thuddump! Thuddump!
Hollard blinked and coughed as the harsh sulfur-smelling black powder smoke blew past. The mortar was firing for effect now, and the thick, soft adobe walls of the manor house and courtyard wall went up in gouts of dust. Smoke began to trickle skyward as the timbers supporting the roof caught fire. One round landed with spectacular- if accidental-accuracy square on top of the tower, sending a shower of wood, mud brick, and bodies in every direction.
"Roast, run into the wilderness, or come out and get shot," Ibi-Addad laughed.
Hollard nodded. True enough, although he still didn't like to hear laughter as men died. None of the choices available to the Assyrians were good.
"Heads up!" one of the snipers called. "Here they come!"
The rest of the line thumbed back the hammers of their rifles, a long multiple-clicking sound, as the enemy swarmed forward over the rubble of courtyard wall and gate.
So, they decided to die fighting, Hollard thought. Or trying to fight, anyway.
"Independent fire!" O'Rourke called.
The platoon commanders echoed it; Hollard heard "make it count" and "Aim low." Spray-and-pray was bad enough with automatic weapons; with a single-shot like the Westley-Richards, you really needed to take some trouble.