In Green's Jungles (30 page)

I told him I already had-nearly all of the true cards I had worried so much about earlier-and asked why he said it.

"Because the dead need not be paid. This fellow" (by which he meant Rimando, who had carried Inclito's most recent letter) "won't admit I'm right, but I am. So are you, Incanto. There may have been two hundred mercenaries with Kupus once and a hundred or more hired separately, but there aren't nearly that many left alive by now. When Olmo falls-"

"Olmo has fallen," Rimando told us.

"Then it won't be long."

I held out Inclito's letter. "That's what the general says, too. Do you want to read it?"

"Later."

I dropped the letter on Volanta's table. "This is Captain Rimando. He was my chief subordinate when this wretched war began, and the general has sent him back to us to help us prepare the town to stand a siege."

Rimando nodded affirmation.

"He and I have been discussing tactics, and I've called you in, as our best tactician, to get your advice. You were in the hills for several days after you escaped from prison in Soldo?"

Sfido nodded, and seeing Rimando's curious glance said, "Nothing daring, Captain. I was a rich man once, and I bribed my jailer."

"Show him the map, sir," Rimando suggested.

I did, turning Inclito's letter over to reveal the crude diagram that Rimando and I had sketched on the back. "While you're looking at that, Colonel, I want to ask you about Eco again. Are you quite sure you didn't see him while they had you locked up?"

"I wasn't there very long, and I didn't see many of the other prisoners, as I told you that first night. He may have been there." Sfido stroked his little mustache thoughtfully. "I have no way of knowing."

"Tall and strong," Rimando said. "Quite dark. He smiled a lot, or at least he did when we rode out to the general's farm. Clean shaven, about my age."

I explained that Rimando had been the other messenger who was to ride with Eco, but that Inclito's daughter Mora had taken his horse, and asked Sfido about her as well.

He shook his head. "There weren't any girls or women in there at all, as far as I know. Or anyway the jailer said there weren't…"

Seeing the change in his expression, I said, "You've thought of something. What is it?"

"He said there had been one just before I came but she and her lover had escaped. He wanted more silver for my own escape because of it."

Rimando turned to me. "I don't understand."

Sfido said, "The Duko had been furious. Another escape would cause a lot of trouble, or at least he seemed to think it would."

"Had they bribed their jailer too?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I don't think so."

Rimando asked, "Did he describe the man?"

"No, he didn't tell me anything much about either one of them, except that the woman had gotten out of her cell somehow and let her lover out. She was a big, strong woman, he said, as big and strong as a man." Sfido turned the diagram so that I could read it more easily.

"Now about this map." He pointed to the series of thin rectangles that Rimando had drawn at my direction. "These are our troops?"

"The old men and the women," I told him. "The boys in reserve, back here."

"And this double line is the road south? Your town is somewhere down here?"

Rimando nodded.

"You want my opinion of this?"

"No," I told him. "Not yet. We want you to tell us how Duko Rigoglio and General Morello will attack it."

"Pah!" Sfido looked disgusted. "This's child's play. The left flank, here, is against the river. But there's no support for the right at all. This space is what? Fields? Farms?"

"Yes."

"Morello will engage the front with his infantry." He glanced at Rimando. "Do you know the term, Captain? It means troopers on foot."

Rimando colored, reminding me again of how very young he was. "Certainly."

"Incanto did not, until I told him. They will shoot at us and we will shoot at them. They will advance and retreat, if we let them. Meanwhile the cavalry will make a wide circle here," he traced it with his forefinger, "and attack from behind and the flank, then chase us back to this town of yours. If we take the best horses, we three may escape them." Sfido shrugged again. "Some of the boys may, too. The boys run very well."

He slapped our map down on the table. "You asked me how the Horde of Soldo would attack those positions, Incanto, and I've told you. Now you have to ask me what I think of them, before I explode."

I nodded and smiled. "You know how highly I value your opinion, Colonel."

"They're childish. I don't criticize you, Incanto, because you're not a trooper. But," Sfido leveled his finger at Rimando, "if you're a captain, it's no wonder-"

"I told him!" Rimando burst out. "I said it was insane. It's exactly what the general said we were not to do."

I explained what I planned then, and thanked Rimando for the pack mules and mule drivers he had brought us, which we needed so badly to carry our cloth and rope, and the fireworks, and explained that we would have to scour the nearby farms tomorrow for oxen to pull the guns, and women and children to drive the oxen.

I have no more time to write.

* * *

It has been a very long day, but I must write something. I sent Oreb out tonight to look for the enemy, and he has just come back: "Men come! Bad men!"

Which I knew, of course. I have been trying to find out whether he thinks they will be here before morning. He says, "Come slow," and "Sun come. Men come."

In Green's jungles we were surprised more than once by the inhumi and their human slaves. This time I have taken steps to prevent surprise, posting little groups to the north as far as the first hills. We have no horsemen worthy of the name, but our northernmost lookout-I do not remember what Adatta called herhas a little boat, with oars and a small sail, moored where the river leaves the hills. I don't know whether she can get back to us in it before the first Soldese troopers reach us; but Adatta says she will kill herself trying, and Adatta I find a good judge of other women.

Our ditches are dug, for the most part. The women have sewn thousands of sacks for the soil, and most of our walls were half built this evening, or so they appeared to me. If the Outsider will, as I have devoutly prayed, grant us just a few hours of daylight tomorrow before the enemy's advance guard comes into view, we may be, if not ready, nearly ready at least. The walls are scarcely shoulder high, but they are thick enough to stop a slug everywhere. I have tried to recall the one over which I clambered on Gold Street so long ago and tell our people how it looked; but that was a better wall than any of ours, I am afraid.

I am still far from certain about the pigs, but Atteno is enthusiastic. He has ten or twelve pairs, savage old boars for the most part.

* * *

Inclito's wounded are coming back, hundreds where we used to see a dozen or two. A few who cannot walk are in panniers, one carried on each side of a mule. The effect on our troopers is very bad-on the women, particularly. They look from face to face for their brothers and husbands, weeping, often, although they have seen neither.

One group of walking wounded was escorting eight Soldese prisoners. Their hands had been tied behind them so tightly that the skin looked like a dead man's flesh. I ordered them cut free and found a little boiled barley for them, and some wine, although we are nearly at the point of eating Atteno's boars. They told me how they had looted Olmo, and burned it afterward. The burning was on their Duko's orders, they say. They are confident of a victory that will free them within a day or two; I do not believe it will be the victory they expect, but wish I were as sure of it as they are.

The last of the big guns has arrived. We hid it in a haystack just now, and are roasting the oxen that brought it. Everyone says how good they are and urges me to eat; but I know that it is only hunger that lends those roast oxen their savor, and I am too tightly strung for that. How long has it been since I have slept more than an hour at a stretch? Three days, I believe? I am all right as long as I keep moving, but sitting like this and trying to write, I can do nothing but yawn.

* * *

Wonderful news! It has begun to snow!

I lay down-for only a minute or two, I told myself-and slept until late this morning. No one woke me. When I got up there was two fingers of snow on the ground. Now there must be four or five.

Sfido and Rimando have performed wonders while I slept. The walls are all complete, and our troopers are building themselves huts from the remaining sacks of soil and whatever else they can lay hands on.

But the snow is the best, except that it has slacked off our trip ropes. I have set a few reliable men to retightening them. The fireworks are stacked in the solaria of this farmhouse to keep them dry; the chief danger now is that we may not get them out and into position in time.

The old woman who lives here brought me an apple and a mug of sweet cider. Apples and cider are about all she has left, she says; our troopers have taken her chickens, ducks, and geese. Her hus band is dead, her sons in the hills with Inclito. She said she felt sorry for me, but I feel sorrier for her. I've told Uscita I want as good a supper as she can find me tonight, and I intend to share it with my hostess.

We are seeing unwounded troopers now. So many have thrown their slug guns away that I sent a party up the road to salvage what they can. I got a group of about twenty of these beaten men together this afternoon and talked with them for nearly an hour, then asked them to stay with us voluntarily and defend their town. Not a hand went up. Inclito would have had half of them swearing they would fight to the death, I'm sure; but I am a poor speaker.

It is interesting to walk up the rutted, snow-covered road a few chains and approach our defenses as the enemy will. Our walls do not appear very formidable, and the ditches in front of them (which are filling with snow) can easily be overlooked. I have been telling our troopers that the enemy will be here tomorrow afternoon, speaking as though I knew it. "In a day," I tell them, "it will be over." It is always a matter of hanging on for one more day, after all.

The old woman refused to share my dinner, swearing that she had just eaten. There is something familiar about that thin, wrinkled face. For a time I told myself that I must have seen her at Cugino's, but I spotted him among the new men Colbacco brought up from the south; and although I described her carefully, Cugino could not identify her. He had only his axe to fight with, but I have gotten him a slug gun. He was happy to see my staff, and surprised that I still have it.

* * *

A regular formation of unwounded men has passed through our line a little after dawn, still under discipline and making an orderly retreat. I had no opportunity to count them, but I would guess there were between fifty and a hundred. They would have been a valuable addition to our strength, but the officer in charge had been ordered to march to Blanko, and rejected my authority. (Which is scant enough, I must admit.) He said that Inclito is with the rear guard. I asked how many, and he told me three hundred; but he was lying-I knew it, and he knew that I did.

Inclito is here! He has been making a fighting retreat with his horsemen. I've seen his coachman and Perito, one of the other men who worked for him. I asked about Kupus's men; they should join us here within an hour.

* * *

It is over. Over!

Midnight, I suppose, but I cannot sleep. The woman in the boat arrived just after I wrote about Perito. I knew it could not be long then, and supposed that it would be under an hour.

That hour passed, and I sent Oreb, who returned so quickly that I knew the enemy was almost in sight.

Before continuing I should tell you who will read this, whoever you may be, that we had posted small parties along the road, in most cases three boys commanded by a man. Their orders were to fire as soon as the first Soldese troops came in sight, and retire to our lines. Most seem to have remained at their posts longer than we intended; there had been scattered shooting for some time before I sent Oreb to scout.

I should tell you, too, about something else-although it probably means nothing at all. The fireworks party came, and there was a young man there who reminded me poignantly of Hoof and Hide. I called their corporal to me and asked who he was.

"I don't know, Master Incanto sir. I saw him wandering around and asked whose squad he belonged to. He couldn't tell me, so I put him to work."

"You did the right thing, I'm sure. What is his name?"

The corporal, too young even to be a trooper in Inclito's horde, picked absently at a pimple on his chin. "I don't know, sir. He told me, but it's… I don't remember."

"Find out for me, please, and bring him to me whenever you have the time and can spare him. I'd like to talk to him."

The corporal said he would, saluted, and left, turning back after he had taken a step or two. "Cuoio, sir. I knew it'd come to me."

But Cuoio and his corporal have not come to me as I asked; and it may be that one or both are dead, although I dare to hope it is not so. Tomorrow, perhaps. No doubt they are exhausted, just asIam.

Tomorrow-tomorrow night, I suppose-I will write all about the battle, giving it an entire evening. By that time I will be rested and will have received the reports of others. I should be able to offer a rational account.

Attacked again, but we have beaten them back.

Seawrack is singing. I can hear her through the windows and the shutters and the crackling of the fire. I feel I must go to her, but I cannot.

THE BATTLE OF BLANKO

I
was so tired last night that I actually believed I would be back in my snug bedroom in the old farmhouse tonight, writing at the little deal table by lamplight while Sfido snored on his pallet. In reality I am (as I should have foreseen) in these barren, snowcovered hills again, hunting down stragglers from the Duko's horde, a defeated and broken horde that crashed like a wave upon the small, hard rock of Novella Citta after the battle, and appears to have shattered into spray. But more about that at the proper time.