Authors: John Koetsier
Later we compared notes. Kin had found appropriate shelter for tonight — a secluded glen. While high in the hills, it was a small, almost circular depression, with high overhanging trees and thick undergrowth. Here we could have a small fire at night without too much fear of being seen from far. And a lookout could easily stay on the rim, with good sightlines in most directions, to warn us of any approaching danger.
“I’ve found another couple of places north and east of here as well,” said Kin. “The last thing we want is to be tied down to only one shelter, if we are discovered.”
While we had been scouting and Kin had found shelter, Tonia and German had hunted. The deer-sign had not lied; they had simply waited by one of the game trails that we had crossed, near a small stream, and taken what had come walking down. The young stag was tough, but not too gamy. Food was food … and if we wanted to survive the next days, we’d need plenty.
“Tell us about the other shelters that you have found, Kin,” I invited, taking a bit of barbecued venison.
“North of us, farther up the hills, there’s another small hideout like this one, just farther and harder to get too. The interesting one is just east of us. The entrance is tiny and hidden by a bramble patch. I almost didn’t see it as I walked past, but a glint of sunlight off a small spring inside caught my eye.”
“Once I wormed my way in, leaving some skin and blood behind to feed the blackberries, I saw that it was a pocket valley, surrounded by tall hills, almost cliffs, on every side, with only the one entrance,” Kin said. “I haven’t fully explored it, but if you could keep the entrance hidden — no obvious path, worn trail, or cleared shrubbery … it’d be a great hideout.”
“Sounds like that’s worthy of a follow-up look,” German piped in.
I agreed, nodding, and taking another chomp of my portion. “Not quite up to the standards of the Hall, I’d have to say,” I said, grinning. “but very, very acceptable, given the conditions.”
We cooked the entire deer that night. Though we could not possibly finish it all in one meal, our cooking opportunities would be few and far between. And while there was no time to smoke it or otherwise prepare it, we figured that meat cooked bone dry would keep better — and taste better — than raw meat. At least for a day or two.
At the close of the meal I drew us all together. This would be the first night of our lives, as far as any of us could remember, that we would not spend in a varipod. It would be the first night outdoors, and it would be the first from which we would not awaken with all wounds healed, all aches eased, and everything in our bodies finely tuned for maximum performance.
“Think about the four hundred men down their on the other side of the plain below.”
“I’ve done little since this morning but think of them,” Kin joked.
“Think of their thoughts and feelings right now. They cannot have found shelter for so many quite as accommodating as this. They cannot have possibly hunted enough deer or other game to feed everyone, even if they had time before dark after their march. They will be tired, they will be footsore, they will be hungry, and they will be more confused than ever.”
“For us everything is better: we knew since early this morning that today was different than any other day. It’s still new to us, and we don’t really understand it, but we’ve had some time to come to grips with it. And we have a plan for dealing with it.”
“They’ve just had to start realizing that something different is happening here. They’ve been expecting battle all day … and their expectations were wrong. Now they’re trying to understand that. And while they are very quickly trying to assimilate that, they also need to find the shelter they never knew they needed, and the food they had no clue would not be there.”
After speaking, I thought on that some myself, and fingered the submachine gun in my hands speculatively. Modern projectile weapons were more efficient than swords and inflicting massive harm quickly.
They were going to be hungry and tired. The group would be in some level of chaos. Soldiers don’t fight well when they are confused, disorganized, and hungry. I gave my orders and five of us set out.
Five travel much swifter than four hundred …
Six hours later we had almost come upon the red camp. They had stopped marching almost at the end of the plain within sight of the valley wall rising to the east. We stopped on a small rise just a klick or so away from their camp. The moon, slightly more than half full, gave plenty of light.
Based on what we could see, their camp had nothing to really recommend it for defense or warning — it was pretty much a point on the plain. Not high for better visibility and defense, not hidden, and not fortified with any type of defensive perimeter. All of which was further evidence that they had little warning or inkling that today would be different than all the other days of our lives.
About four hundred men were just sleeping on the ground in a rough circle, having beaten down the tall plains grass. They probably thought they had little reason to fear, knowing that they outnumbered blue by a huge margin. They would learn otherwise tonight.
“If we just attack them,” I told my four companions, “we’ll kill a few, and maybe cause some confusion. But we won’t scare them — they’ve fought men all their lives. We need them to be afraid — we need them to not know who or what they are facing.”
This was the first night of all of our long lives. And they had almost certainly been confused and worried before turning in for the night. If we could create even more doubt about who (or what) they were fighting, that would help us not just tonight but over the days and possibly weeks to come.
The first step was freedom of action. We could see at least two sentries in the moonlight — Rast had not abandoned all wisdom in the confusion. I sent two of my companions to each with orders to kill them silently. German and Tonia crawled silently away through the grass, with knives.
Of course at that moment, none of us had any clue at that point what their deaths would mean. That these would be very different than the hundreds of past deaths.
A few minutes later I barely heard a very muted and muffled gasp as the nearest sentry died, his throat gaping in a ridiculous parody of the mouth above. Another few minutes and I saw what appeared to be a soldier who couldn’t sleep rising in the middle of the camp. He made his way to the far side, fumbling with his trousers as if needing to relieve himself. Passing near to the far sentry, he seemed to mumble a greeting, only to plunge his dagger into the body of the sentry while simultaneously while covering his mouth to stop any outcry. After a brief struggle both shapes sunk to the ground. Five minutes later, Tonia and German rejoined me.
Now we had freedom of movement — and I intended to use it. First, flames. Then more deadly fire.
Three us of quick-crawled upwind and started setting blazes every few paces. The dry grass caught quickly, and the wind started pushing the flames toward the sleeping, unguarded reds. As soon as the grassfire was well engaged, I sent half my small force to the north end of the camp, and stayed with the other two at the south end.
Then gunfire cut through the night as we opened up from both sides.
I had taken care to position all of my men almost within the enemy camp — not outside. And we were all aware of exactly where we were shooting: down to the ground, in the middle of the camp. This accomplished three things: it woke up the red forces in a panic, it made it appear as if the reds on the north were firing on the south (and vice versa), and it ensured there was little chance that any of us blues would be hit with friendly fire.
Each of us burned through a clip or two — taken from the red camp’s stores, of course, and then started to withdraw to the edges of the camp. As reds woke in a panic and grabbed their rifles, we shouted and yelled to confuse and to incite them to fire themselves.
After a second clip we began to withdraw. Others were already joining in the internecine firefight, and that was something I didn’t want to be a part of. Too much chance of intercepting an errant bullet. As we left the red camp, the skirmish escalated into a full-on firefight, with reds firing wilding at each other from both sides of the camp, and soldiers on all sides shouting that they were being attacked.
Survival in the center of their camp was going to be almost impossible, with fire from both sides. Frankly, if this continued more than a few moments, survival even on the edges was going to be problematic.
We rejoined at our original vantage point: all safe and accounted for. The bullets continued to fly as, with an incredible amount of noise, the red company enthusiastically continued to annihilate itself. The flames leapt higher, roaring and coming downwind on the camp. It was utter chaos … deadly chaos, if we could judge by the screams of the wounded and dying.
“Now that is a beautiful thing,” Kin said.
And we turned and began the long march back to camp, our path lit by the bright fires behind.
It was close to midday when we returned, exhausted. Between gulped water and chunks of dry cold venison, we told the others the story of the night, then dropped to the ground, more tired and sore than we could ever remember being, almost in a coma.
The light was low in the western sky when I awoke again. Waking from s.Leep was a slow and cold process, but it was always to a completely healed and perfectly tuned body. Waking from sleep on this mission was to feel all the pains and aches that our previous 24 hours had earned, plus extra from sleeping on hard ground and inconvenient roots. I wasn’t a big fan. But, after finding a tree to relieve myself and some dried venison to fill my aching gut, we talked.
In the early morning Sama had gone out to scout the reds. Now she reported that about a third of the reds seemed dead or out of commission. The camp had been moved to a new but near spot, and appeared in some disarray.
“It’s hard to say at a distance, but I’d assume they’re down some equipment as well,” said the scout. “It’s unlikely that in the dark, in an unexpected firefight moments after waking, every soldier would have found his gear … even if he had the sense to look for it.”
But Rast and others had been knocking some sense back into them: establishing order. They had moved camp, and doubled the sentries. They had also begun making the rudiments of a fortification.
“Do they have any clue that it was us? That it was blues who caused the firefight last night?” I wanted to know if they blamed us or just poor discipline in an unfamiliar situation. Or, if they had some sinister and potentially more frightening or even unhinging theories about the nature of what they’d be fighting here.
That would be ideal, I thought.
“I couldn’t really tell,” Sama said. “The closest I could get was maybe forty meters — too far to hear any details. They are fortifying their camp, however, and it looks like they’re getting ready to send out scouts. I think some of the leaders were bending over and making map-like scratchings in the ground.”
We established that their numbers were reduced, perhaps by a third. Over a hundred bodies had been dumped outside of their camp — another of the realities of battle and war that had not been part of our experience. We had never dealt with bodies before: people fell where they died and in the morning they woke up. What would happen to these bodies, left for perhaps days or weeks, I did not know.
But for the reds that were still breathing, the last thing I wanted was for them to re-balance themselves, reorient on this new world of fighting, and take the front foot. They had to be kept off kilter, unaware, unknowing, and panicky. That was the work for tomorrow.
If there was one thing that I knew about war, it was to keep your enemy off-balance. Fight where they didn’t expect it. Strike when they were not ready. Move when they thought they knew where you were. In all things and every time, keep them guessing. The longer the list of things they did not know, or thought they did not know, the slower their decision-making process.
And the fewer facts they knew, the worse the quality of those eventual decisions.