A hand pulled Raj around. "Ser!" the standard bearer shrieked into his ear, pointing with his charge.
The slope behind the 5th was scattered with the remnants of the 2nd; some even looked as if they were rallying. . but another disorganized, blue-clad mass was pounding down the trail from El Djem, and by this time Raj felt expert enough to know panic flight when he saw it.
"Oh, shit," he said with infinite weariness. Suzette, Suzette. . Tewfik had stolen a march; Tewfik's maps had waterholes where the Civil Government's showed only impassable desert. And El Djem had been virtually undefended, garrisoned with wounded and noncombatants. A small knot of men in blue was well ahead of the rest, with another figure in their midst. Smaller, on a light boned brown-and-black dog with floppy ears.
BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM. Some of the rearmost Colonists had pulled around and were fleeing, actually running. A clip of pompom shells struck just short of First Company's line. Men fell, silent or screaming; their comrades ignored them, and a 75 shell landed just under the ammunition limber of the pompom a second later. The explosion was noticeable even through the other sounds of combat.
And Suzette was bounding up the slope toward him on her palfrey-hound Harbie.
"Where's Thiddo and the Third Company?" Raj shouted, burying relief. Hell, he was probably going to die within the next hundred seconds or so.
"Thiddo's dead, this is all," Suzette shouted back, wild-eyed and clutching her carbine. There were less than a platoon around her, and most looked barely fit to stay in the saddle, much less fight. One had a flap of cheek hanging down, exposing a red-and-white grin. "Tewfik's men were waiting for us, these cut their way out with me, they're about an hour behind us!"
BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM. One last full volley, and the Colonist charge shuddered almost to a halt; almost, and the first of the fugitives struck the 5th's rear, destroying the safety they so desperately sought. The firing line shattered like a glass jar dropped on concrete.
"Sound Fall back and Rally," Raj ordered, sweeping Suzette behind him with one arm. Tewfik's cavalry were pouring through the gaps, but the very mass of the fugitives from El Djem hindered them, as a runner would be who suddenly plunged into knee-deep water. The ones who had gotten this far were all mounted; their dogs fought, catching the madness of their riders, and each victim took a moment to saber down, if nothing else.
Seconds would determine whether anyone survived at all. "Rally around the guns," Raj was shouting. "Form square!" He saw men turn to run, men of the new drafts. One such made it only two paces before the soldier beside him drove his bayonet through his back. . and was himself cut down by a Colonist scimitar only a moment later, a great fan-shaped spray of blood bursting out of his mouth.
A group came back in a block, turned, knelt, fired a ragged volley.
"Rally! Rally to the guns!" Raj heard them take it up; more were struggling in from the two companies in the center, men with the ability to see their only chance of survival even now. The slopes around them were scattered with individuals and small groups from the outer two companies, riding for their lives in a spatter like mercury on glass. The whole position on the ridgeline was a mass of struggling men and dogs, jammed in by the pressure from both sides; a ragged circle was beginning to form about the four 75's and the banner of the 5th, men on the outside, a milling sea of dogs who refused to abandon their masters on the inner.
"Load, load cannister," the artillery lieutenant barked. "Out of the way there! Out of the way!" The gun squads manhandled their weapon until its muzzle poked through the thin line of 5th troopers, pointing at a mass of Colonists. . mostly Colonists. "Fire!"
PAMM. A different sound; a cannister load was a giant shotgun shell, no bursting charge, just hundreds of lead balls. They hummed through the air like a swarm of giant wasps, and a gap opened through the press as if a knife had sliced paper. Another PAMM from the opposite side of the circle; the formation was growing like a crystal in a saturated solution. Individuals were seed crystals, a leather-lunged noncom, an officer, simply someone who didn't want to take the sword in the back. Gerrin Staenbridge came in on a back; on Barton Foley's, although he outweighed the youth by half as much again, although the wound in his side would have made most decide they were carrying a corpse.
"You there," the Ensign shouted. "Get this Messer over a dog!" The troopers obeyed; Foley paused only long enough to shove a hank of rag under Staenbridge's tunic as a pressure bandage and tie his belt to the saddlehorn. "Follow me!" he called, pulling his shotgun from the over-shoulder scabbard. "Those men need help." He pointed to a smaller knot of troopers of the 5th, stalled in a circle of Colonists. The men looked at each other, at the youngster, leveled their rifles and charged.
"Back one step and volley," Raj said. Have to keep the guns or they'll cut us to pieces with the pompoms. Longer we hold out, more will get away. Keep as many dogs as we can. "Back one step and volley. Make it count, make it count, aim damn you." The crash of rifles was ragged, but there were more of them this time. Scimitars clashed on bayonets at the edge of the circle, and it lurched northward one long pace. The gun crews ran their cumbersome weapons forward again; their recoil made them almost as dangerous as the enemies outside, but they plowed furrows through the packed Colonists and left only sausage meat behind; meat that whimpered and twitched.
"Back one step and volley!"
Other voices around the circle took it up, and the formation was beginning to look something like a square as leaders took over, pushing men into line. Suzette and two walking wounded troopers were heaving others too damaged to fight over spare dogs and dodging through the snarling chaos at the center of the formation to snap bridles onto leading lines. A half-dozen figures in the dull-crimson jellabas went down all at once; Foley led his augmented group back into the circle after delivering a point-blank load into the backs of the Arabs between them and their comrades. Raj could see the Colonist officers calling their men back, literally flogging them out of range with their nine-thonged whips. They clumped and rode to the banners of their units, into the dead ground where the cannister could not reach. Comparative silence fell; everyone who could walk or crawl had joined the little group around the standard.
"Keep moving," Raj shouted; it sounded as much a hoarse croak. "Hold your fire!" Tewfik wasted no time; a young Colonist with a white flag rode up on a beautiful snow-white wolfhound. It had been snow-white; now it was speckled with red, and the herald's drawn sword was red to the elbow.
"You can do nothing," he said, in excellent court Sponglish. "My lord the amir, commander of the Forces of the South, Ghazi of the Faith, offers terms of surrender to brave men. You are outnumbered, surrounded, have no water, no supplies, no place to go-"
Raj waited for the men to answer; they did, without delay:
"Go fuck yerself, raghead!"
A flourished bayonet. "Come an' sit yer wog arse on this, pimp!"
"Up the 5th-Descott ferever!"
"Spirit of Man! Spirit of Man!"
From most, a wordless growl that was matched by the riderless dogs in the center. "Keep moving!" Raj said again; he risked a quick drink from the canteen, capped it again. None of the Colonist forces had dispersed, and the two remaining pompoms were out of the line of fire; the Civil Government fugitives in sight were noticeably fewer. A flurry of orders from Tewfik's command post, just out of effective rifle range, and a block of about four hundred formed up and trotted north, giving his group a wide berth.