Cletus paused, waiting for the junior officer to pick up on the unspoken suggestion. But Athyer was obviously one of those men who need their opportunities spelled out for them.
"The point is, Lieutenant," Cletus said, "why try to catch these guerrillas in the jungle up around the pass, where they've got all sorts of opportunities to slip past you, when you could simply be waiting for them at these crossings, and catch them between you and the river?"
Athyer frowned reluctantly, but then bent over the map to search out the five indicated crossing points that Cletus had mentioned.
"The two Whey River crossings," Cletus went on, "are closest to the pass. Also they're on the most direct route to the coast. Any guerrillas taking the passes on the Blue River are going to have to circle wide to get safely around the town below. The Neulanders know you know this. So I think it's a fairly safe bet that they'll count on your trying to stop them - if they count on anyone trying to stop them at all - at those two passes. So they'll probably merely feint in that direction and make their real crossing at these three other fords over on the Blue River."
Athyer stared at Cletus' finger as it moved around from point to point on the map in time with his words. The lieutenant's face tensed.
"No, no, Colonel," he said, when Cletus had finished. "You don't know these Neulanders the way I do. In the first place, why should they expect us to be waiting for them, anyway? In the second place, they're just not that smart. They'll come through the pass, break up into twos and threes going through the jungle and join up again at one, maybe two, of the Whey River crossings."
"I wouldn't think so - " Cletus was beginning. But this time, Athyer literally cut him short.
"Take my word for it, Colonel!" he said. "It's those two points on the Whey River they'll be crossing at."
He rubbed his hands together. "And that's where I'll snap them up!" he went on. "I'll take the lower crossing with half the men, and my top sergeant can take the upper crossing with most of the rest. Put a few men behind them to cut off their retreat, and I'll bag myself a nice catch of guerrillas."
"You're the field officer in command," said Cletus, "so I don't want to argue with you. Still, General Traynor did say that I was to offer you my advice, and I'd think you'd want to play safe, over on the Blue. If it was up to me... "
Cletus let his voice trail off. The lieutenant's hands, with the map already half-folded, slowed and ceased their movement. Cletus, looking at the other's lowered head, could almost see the gears turning over inside it. By this time Athyer had left all doubts behind about his own military judgment. Still, situations involving generals and colonels were always touchy for a lieutenant to be involved in, no matter who seemed to be holding all the high cards. "I couldn't spare more than a squad, under a corporal," muttered Athyer to the map, at last. He hesitated, plainly thinking. Then he lilted his head and there was a craftiness in his eyes. "It's your suggestion, Colonel. Maybe if you'd like to take the responsibility for diverting part of my force over to the Blue... ?"
"Why, I'd be perfectly willing to, of course," said Cletus. "But as you pointed out, I'm not a field officer, and I can't very well take command of troops under combat conditions... "
Athyer grinned. "Oh, that!" he said. "We don't stick right with every line in the book out here, Colonel. I'll simply give orders to the corporal in charge of the squad that he's to do what you say."
"What I say? You mean - exactly what I say?" asked Cletus.
"Exactly," said Athyer. "There's an authority for that sort of thing in emergencies, you know. As commanding officer of an isolated unit I can make emergency use of any and all military personnel in whatever manner I feel is necessary. I'll tell the corporal I've temporarily allowed you status as a field officer, and of course your rank applies."
"But if the guerrillas do come through the Blue River crossings," said Cletus, "I'll have only a squad."
"They won't, Colonel," said Athyer, finishing his folding of the map with a flourish. "They won't. But if a few stray Neulanders should show up - why, use your best judgment. An expert on tactics like yourself, sir, ought to be able to handle any little situation like that, that's liable to turn up."
Leaving the barely concealed sneer to linger in the air behind him, he rose and went back with the map into the rear passenger compartment where the soldiers of half his command were riding.
The support ship in which they were traveling set Cletus down with his squad at the uppermost of the three crossing points on the Blue River, and took off into the dawn shadows, which still obscured this western slope of the mountain range dividing Bakhalla from Neuland. Athyer had sorted out a weedy, nineteen-year-old corporal named Ed Jarnki and six men to be the force Cletus would command. The moment they were deshipped, the seven dropped automatically to earth, propping their backs comfortably against nearby tree trunks and rocks that protruded the unbroken, green ferny carpet of the jungle floor. They were in a little clearing surrounded by tall trees that verged on a four-foot bank over the near edge of the river; and they gazed with some curiosity at Cletus as he turned about to face them.
He said nothing. He only gazed back. After a second, Jarnki, the corporal, scrambled to his feet. One after the other the rest of the men rose also, until they all stood facing Cletus, in a ragged line, half at attention.
Cletus smiled. He seemed a different man entirely, now, from the officer the seven had glimpsed earlier as they were boarding and descending from the support ship. The good humor had not gone from his face. But in addition, now, there was something powerful, something steady and intense, about the way he looked at them, so that a sort of human electricity flowed from him to them and set all their nerves on edge, in spite of themselves.
"That's better," said Cletus. Even his voice had changed. "All right, you're the men who're going to win the day for everyone, up here at Etter's Pass. And if you follow orders properly, you'll do it without so much as skinning your knuckles or working up a sweat."
8
They stared at him.
"Sir?" said Jarnki, after a moment.
"Yes, Corporal?" said Cletus.
"Sir... I don't understand what you mean." Jarnki got it out, after a second's struggle.
"I mean you're going to capture a lot of Neulanders," said Cletus, "and without getting yourselves hurt in the process." He waited while Jarnki opened his mouth a second time, and then slowly closed it again. "Well? That answer your question, Corporal?"
"Yes sir."
Jarnki subsided. But his eyes, and the eyes of the rest of the men, rested on Cletus with a suspicion amounting to fear.
"Then we'll get busy," said Cletus.
He proceeded to post the men - one across the shallow ford of the river, which here swung in a lazy curve past the clearing, two men down below the bank on each side of the clearing, and the four remaining in treetop positions strung out away from the river and upslope of the direction from which any guerrillas crossing the ford would come.
The last man he posted was Jarnki.
"Don't worry, Corporal," he said, hovering on the electric horse in midair a few feet from where Jarnki swayed in the treetop, clutching his cone rifle. "You'll find the Neulanders won't keep you waiting long. When you see them, give them a few cones from here, and then get down on the ground where you won't get hit. You've been shot at before, haven't you?" Jarnki nodded. His face was a little pale, and his position in a crotch of the smooth-barked, variform Earth oak he perched in was somewhat too cramped to be comfortable.
"Yes, sir," he said. His tone left a great deal more unsaid.
"But it was under sensible conditions, with the rest of the men in your platoon or company all around you, wasn't it?" said Cletus.