“I told you, Colonel,” Larsson caroled, “nothing to it!”
“They didn’t run, Sarge,” I reminded him. “We can’t bluff them. And that’s hardly the end of it.” As I was saying that, a mob of enemy troops debouched from an alley-mouth between two warehouses and came on at a full run. My troops, who had stopped firing, just stood there and watched. Finally Larsson yelled, “Fire at will!”
They laid down an enthusiastic barrage that brought down half the front rank and the mailbox. The rest scattered.
Larsson got busy supervising a redistribution of ammunition, taking rounds from a few fellows who had a pocketful to give to a few complaining shooters who’d used theirs up.
“Need about a hundred M-16’s here,” the sergeant muttered. “But against yellow-bellies like these, I guess our poppers’ll do.”
“For a while,” I agreed. “We need to take a tour around to the other points of entry and give our boys some tips.” Larsson saluted and got busy shaping up his crowd of civilians, with the few soldiers as squad leaders. He called the latter “Lieutenant-sir” and saluted them, to give them the needed feeling of authority.
One of them was a kid who looked about sixteen, whom I’d seen before. He was as tall and blond as Swedes are supposed to be, and was a real officer, a First Lieutenant Helm, I found out. He came over to me and tried out a salute. I gave it back to him and took him aside.
“We have to do more than pick them off in small groups, sir,” he told me before I could tell him.
“Swell,” I agreed. “Let’s get to it.”
The area immediately outside the restored town wall was given over to small, rustic cottages and their kitchen gardens and outbuildings. Spring in southern Sweden had never been more delightful. There were no rats in sight here; it was hard to realize that strange, alien rat-like invaders were swarming the countryside, killing some people, and making prisoners of others. We saw a few rats skulking in the lee of a barn or stable, but no organized activity. Maybe Richtofen had managed to get things under control back in the capitol, and cut off the enemy reinforcements. I was feeling almost euphoric when I saw the first tank.
It was huge; at first I thought it was a small barn, but then it moved, swaying around to bring a cluster of oversized disruptor cannon to bear on us. I told Helm to take cover, and an instant later a detonation shook the stone walls beside me, and dirt, pebbles, and grit slammed into my back, knocking me down. I rolled to my feet in time to see the clods still falling, along with some bricks from the wall behind me, through a ten-foot gap in which I could see citizens running and others standing in groups, staring toward the hole in the wall. I went through it, yelled to them to run for cover, and went back out to check on the enemy.
The tank, of squat design with a long “front porch” and a railed platform all around, was coming on slowly, rearing up and then dipping its ugly snout as it trampled over stone walls and small buildings. A man ran out to shake a fist at it, and was ignored. The tank approached the wall, ignoring us as it had the other fellow, and stopped.
I called my bunch in and told them to scatter into the woods and find the Major’s command post. The hills on the east side of town were heavily wooded. They took off, all but Helm; he stood fast and said, “I guess you might need a little help, Colonel, big as that thing is.”
I acknowledged the possibility and wondered what I was going to do next. Just then the lieutenant asked me, “What’s your plan, sir?”
“Oh, yes, my plan,” I murmured.
My eye fell on a solid-looking fieldstone outhouse a few yards away, behind a modest cottage. The weed crop around it had been mowed short and neat. The enemy tank had stopped near it.
“Lieutenant,” I said, “cover me. I’m going to take a look at that mother.”
“Now, Colonel,” Helm objected. “Why don’t I do the snooping while you cover me?”
“ ‘R,’ ” I said, “ ‘H.I.P.’ ”
He shut up, and held his rifle at the ready. I walked over to the shed, and from its shelter, peeked at the tank, if tank it was; it looked like a battered packing case, but I could just see the caterpillar treads almost buried in the soft turf. There was no sign of life.
I decided to get a closer look. I eased out from the flimsy cover of the privy, feeling like a novice stripper doing her first turn under the baby spots, but keeping both eyes on the tank for signs of activity.
There was nothing until I was within ten feet of it, and could smell the rotten-orange stink of alien coming from it. Then the hatch opened and the pointy snout and narrow shoulders of a Ylokk poked out. He used his stubby arms to hold the cover open while he eased the rest of his overlong torso through. He had a red stripe down the back of his drab overcoat. There were deposits of crusty white stuff around his beady eyes, and foam at the corner of his undershot mouth. He climbed down, moving like an old, old rat, looking for a quiet place to die. He didn’t seem to notice me at first, then he did, and turned toward me. His mouth opened, twice; the third time he croaked.
“I call on you to help a fellow-being, slave!” That didn’t give me much to go on. He slipped then and fell heavily to the close-cropped turf, and lay, moving aimlessly. I went over, with my automatic in my hand, but I knew I wouldn’t need it. I squatted beside him; I could feel the fever from there. The rotten-orange odor was strong on him. He flopped on his back and tried to focus his small red eyes on me.
“Grgsdn was wrong,” he croaked. “We have made a dreadful mistake! You are people, like ourselves!”
“Not like yourselves, Rat-face,” I said. “Take it easy; I’ll see what I can do for you,” I added.
He seemed to want to protest, but just gargled and passed out. Helm came over and seemed to want to shoot my prisoner. I told him the fellow was sick and harmless, but he was clearly still itching to shoot the enemy officer anyway. I looked inside the outhouse, just in case he had a friend, and got back out in time to stop Helm. The Ylokk was crawling away from him, repeating “Jag har inte gjort!” (I didn’t do it!). I called the lieutenant off, and reminded him that our side didn’t murder helpless POWs.
“Helpless, hell, sir! Begging your pardon!” Helm burst out. “I’ve seen the rats swarming into town, eating folks alive!”
“Nevertheless, there’s a hospital here,” I told him. “And we’re going to take this fellow―a general officer, by the way”―I was guessing, but that red stripe meant something―”over there and see what they can do.”
I went back for another look at the abandoned tank. The stink almost got me, but we needed the intelligence. The layout inside was familiar, just like an early-model regulation traveler. That seemed odd. Even the instrument panel looked familiar: the big M-C field-strength meter on the left, the entropic gradient scale to the right, and the temporal matrix gauge dead center. Interesting: it was clearly a rip-off of our own early machines. I climbed down and went back to report what I’d discovered to Helm.
He nodded. “It figures. You wouldn’t expect a bunch of rats to develop a technology like that on their own.”
“What about their disruptors?” I mentioned. He brushed that off. “Probably stole it from someone else.”
We rigged up a stretcher from a ladder and a tarp we found clamped to the side of the tank and got the unconscious Ylokk on it. In the street, we passed a few bold citizens venturing out to see what was happening. They gave our burden a wide berth. At the hospital, we caused quite a stir. The place was packed with citizens, a few with minor injuries from falls and so on, but mostly just seeking reassurance. They reluctantly made way for us, and finally a young internist with “Dr. Smovia” on his nameplate came over and sniffed.