The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 219
It was when the fourth wagon was at the centre of the bridge, with Sloan sitting beside the driver, that it happened.
A bull battler, old, mean and large even for one of that physically massive species, erupted from the trees near the other end of the bridge. The cow pulling the wagon which had just crossed reared and plunged sideways as the tremendous head of the bull crashed into its flank just above the middle set of legs. Suddenly it was on its side, rolling off the edge of the road and dragging the wagon with it into the ravine. The driver leapt clear and landed on his hands and knees on the steep slope below the road, scrabbling desperately for a hold on the grass covering it. Before the cow and the wreckage of its wagon hit the bottom of the ravine, and before Sloan could see whether the driver had made it or not, the bull was charging on to the bridge.
The cow harnessed to Sloan's wagon reared and backed away, the lumps below her eyes twisting and throbbing. It was well known that the courtship of male and female battler was an incredibly violent business—they charged each other and slapped at each other with their twenty-foot trunks, rolling about and parrying each other's blows in such a way that their trunks appeared to be knotted together. But this was a domesticated battler whose horn and trunks had been excised a few days after birth, and who had never had experience of anything but human beings and other domesticated battlers like herself. So whether the advance of the bull was murderous or simply over-amorous she had no way of defending herself against the heavy tentacles battering at her head and back. There wasn't space enough on the bridge to turn so she reared ponderously and retreated until the wagon driven backwards and swinging off centre, snagged against the heavy guardrail.
The driver realised what was going to happen before Sloan did and he began sawing frantically at the harness with his knife. Sloan joined him, hacking at the broad straps which hung slack one instant and were pulled tight the next with every movement of the terrified animal. It seemed only a split second after the last strap had parted that the cow's evasive action became too much for the guardrail. With a tearing, splintering sound the battler and a section of rail whisked out of sight, the shock of its impact with the ground shaking the bridge.
JAMMED as it was at an angle across the bridge, and so heavily laden that they could not climb over it in time to escape the bull's flailing tentacles, the only possible means of escape was to go under the wagon. Sloan, on the heels of the driver was scrambling past the front axle when something smashed against the backs of his legs, tightened suddenly around them and began hauling him backwards. He was yanked upside down into the air, one of the bull's tentacles wrapped tightly around his knees while the other one curled around his neck, under one arm and across his chest and together began pulling him in. The gaping red pit of the battler's mouth and the deadly triangle of its horn seemed to rush at him, then slowed an instant before he was impaled as the battler altered its grip.
Both hands were still free. Sloan grabbed the end of the horn and fought to push it away from him.
Had it been a younger battler whose horn was still smooth and razor-edged instead of being roughened and blunted by the bodies of too many victims and the passage of too much time, Sloan's terrible grip around the point of the horn would simply have caused him to amputate his own fingers. If he had not been a man of unusual strength he would have been skewered within seconds, anyway, but he held his grip and even tightened it as, forearms rigidly extended and elbows pressed against his pelvic bones for support, the bull started shaking him from side to side.
HE COULDN'T take his eyes off the point of the horn as, pitted with decay and stained with earth, sap and the dried blood of previous victims, it twisted and jerked within a foot of his stomach. His hands were sweating and at any moment he felt they would slip, just as he felt that two steel bands were tightening around his legs and chest as the tentacles coiled tighter and tighter. He couldn't see for sweat and he had no breath to shout for help, although about three hours later, so it seemed to him, help arrived.
The recognised way of killing a battler quickly was a three-man operation aimed at placing a cross-bow bolt through the soft area inside the mouth which was close to the brain, after which the beast died with dramatic suddenness, but such fancy operations were impossible in the cramped space of the bridge, even if Sloan's body had not been in the way, and somebody had thought of using one of the new grenades.
It wobbled into his field of vision, a small, heavy bottle mounted on a throwing stick, burning its last quarter inch of fuse. Sloan did not look at who was holding it because he was suddenly in greater danger from the grenade than he was from the battler. As the grenade was pushed into the bull's mouth he threw every ounce of strength he possessed into an effort to twist to one side.
There was a muffled thump, a surprisingly quiet sound, and the battler's mouth jerked open. Blood, brains and fragments of broken glass erupted past him. The tentacles relaxed their hold and the beast rolled on to its side, toppled off the edge of the bridge and joined its last victim at the bottom of the ravine. Sloan would have gone with it if somebody hadn't had a strong grip on his kilt.
"... BUT HERE were no fatal casualties among the men," the Major concluded. "One load and two domesticated battlers were lost, but the damage to the bridge was repaired quickly and all traces of the mishap covered. We arrived at the escape site two hours and twenty minutes late, which time was not completely accounted for by the trouble at the bridge. In my opinion all future practice runs should be made on the route we intend to use on E-Day."
"Uh, yes ..." said Warren.
He had never liked Major Sloan as a person and he could not like him now, Warren told himself, but he found himself wishing suddenly that it was possible for one senior POW to promote a subordinate prisoner, or to award a decoration or to do something more meaningful than the bestowing of a few words of praise. He was still trying to frame words suitable to the occasion when Ruth Fielding spoke.
"My non-Committee sources of information tell me that there was another spot of trouble on this practice," Fielding said angrily. "Perhaps Major Sloan is too disturbed through re-living his harrowing experience to remember the second incident?"
Sloan and Kelso both glared at her while Hynds and Hutton merely looked uncomfortable, all of which told Warren that they all knew something he did not know and that the reason for him not knowing was because they had deliberately kept it from him. He also knew that it must be important because Fielding was not the sort to tell tales. Warren stared hard into Sloan's ravaged face and snapped, "Well, Major?"
Sullenly, the other said, "When we got to the escape site and officially ended the exercise, one of the farmers complained about losing his two battlers and wagons in the ravine."
Warren nodded. "I can sympathise with him over the battlers, at least—they have to be caught young and it takes six years of hard, patient work to tame them. What did you say?"
"Nothing," said Sloan. "I broke his jaw."
"You broke ..." began Warren, and stopped. The sudden reversal of his earlier feelings for the man was so great that he was too angry to speak.
"There was no need to do that," began Hutton worriedly, but Sloan shouted him down.
"He didn't have to pull his guts out dragging wagons through the mud! He didn't have any trouble at all! All he did was lend us two lousy battlers and then sit back on his fat—"
"I'd have done the same," Kelso put in hotly. "I'm getting sick of sweet-talking these Civilians into doing things for us, making them think they are doing us a favour! We do all the real work and take all the risks, and we're supposed to be obliged to them ...!"
"Major Sloan," Fielding broke in, sarcasm tinging the anger in her voice, "may be too emotionally disturbed to recall that the man whose jaw he broke was nearly sixty, lightly built rather than fat, and that another non-Committeeman who went to his assistance was roughed up by some of the Major's men—although in this case the injuries were not disabling. And that all this strong-arm stuff took place before the two men had any knowledge of the trouble the Major had just gone through ..."
"Tempers were short on both sides," said Hynds quickly, with a warning glance at Kelso. "A pity, but understandable in the circumstances—but we need the help of these people, Lieutenant, and flattering some of them into giving it—a lot of them give it willingly, remember—is one of the easiest chores facing us ..."
"No!" Kelso raged back. "I'm sick of licking the boots of lousy Civilians, deserters! So-called officers who think more of their deserter wives and brats than—"
WARREN'S fist crashed on to the table-top. In the silence which followed his voice sounded loud even though he was trying to keep it down, and trying to keep the anger and disappointment he felt from showing in it. He said, "When I allowed a measure of informality during Staff meetings I did not give you permission to wrangle among yourselves! I will think about this matter and decide what restitution and disciplinary action is needed. Meanwhile, and if you can refrain from sniping at your brother officers, Major Fielding, I'd like your report."
As the psychologist began speaking, Warren was giving her only a fraction of his attention. He had seen the smug, unrepentant expressions of the faces of Kelso and Sloan. They knew, and rightly, that he could take no strong action against an officer as important to the success of the Escape as the chief of Training. Hutton, and to a lesser extent, Hynds, had registered embarrassment and disapproval at what must look like weakness on his part.
IT WOULD have been so very different if they had all been like Hutton, the type of personality which a simple suggestion, a hint of a challenge, was enough to call forth maximum effort, and it would have been nice if the whole Escape operation, now that it was going so well, had been free of internal bickering and dissension. Such things introduced a sour note into what should have been, what was a bold, imaginative and truly great endeavour. But he had to work with the material at his disposal, Warren told himself, and while Fielding, Hutton and Hynds were easily controlled and directed, Kelso had to be driven with a very light rein. Sloan could not be driven at all. Like a missile with a faulty guidance system, he kept going in the direction he was originally pointed, regardless.
"... And to summarise," said Fielding, winding up her report, "there are enough non-Committee personnel behind you at the present time to give all the help necessary to the Escape. There is a small but growing opposition to the Escape, but I don't see it hampering us seriously provided we don't furnish it with material ..." She didn't mention names or even look at Sloan, she didn't have to. "... to turn people against us. At the same time the enthusiasm for the Escape which has already been built up can go stale if we don't bring it to a tighter focus. So it would help a great deal in maintaining interest and support if I knew where as well as when the Escape will take place."
A broken jaw, Warren thought as she sat down angrily, could cause a great deal of pain over a lengthy period of time, especially in a man pushing sixty whose age tended to make healing a slow process. Knowing Ruth he decided that it was the doctor in her rather than the psychologist which was angry, and he felt the sympathetic anger rising again in himself.
Curtly, he said, "It seems you all need that piece of information, and you can't go much further without it. Very well, I'll give it to you—ten days from now at Hutton's Mountain. There are some jobs I want done first, records and dossiers to be collected—you'll get the details in due course. Meanwhile you can go. All except Majors Fielding and Sloan—I want to see you two.
"Separately," he added.
Chapter Twelve
QUITE APART from her concern over the Sloan incident, Fielding was troubled by the attitude of the original Committee towards those who had joined after Warren's arrival, the men of the assault groups being the worst offenders. Every officer on full-time Escape work wore Committee uniform, but while the uniforms were supposed to be just that, those worn by the first group had certain markings and methods of fastening which set them apart from group two. They were all in this together, she said, but it was as if some officers had graduated from a top military academy while the others had merely come up through the ranks ...
"This is understandable," Warren broke in at that point, "when you consider the fact that these men are responsible for the most crucial part of the operation, and I'm afraid the closer E-Day approaches, the more superior they will feel. I'll do what I can, of course, but it would be better if you stressed the importance of support duties as much as you can so as to make the other party feel more important too. Frankly I'm disappointed in the behaviour of some of them myself, but I still think that the men who are going to take the guardship can be forgiven a few misdemeanors.
"At the same time," he went on seriously, "I don't want the opposition getting the idea that Committeemen are a pack of hoodlums and bullies, and the Sloan incident could easily give them that impression. That is why I'd like to push through an idea I've had for some time ..."
The idea had had to wait on Hutton's ruling on the feasibility of a glider taking off from water under rocket assist. The ordinary two-man gliders with their considerable pay load could be re-designed to rise from the water and stay up when their rockets were jettisoned, but to withstand the stress of such a take-off the wing structure would have to be strengthened, which would increase the all-up weight, the gliding angle and seriously restrict their range. Hutton, however, had come up with a workable compromise.
With a modified hull which would unstick more quickly from the water, a conventional, two-man glider with its entire payload consisting of rocket units could land at its destination and take off again provided the passenger was left behind. The passenger, after his work was done, would have to hike to the nearest launching post to await transportation home ...
"... The other continent is a glider-pilot's paradise," Warren continued. "Mountains, lakes, thermals and updraughts all over the place. The population is very widely scattered and, since that rash of weddings we had last year there is another problem. Being able to send a doctor by glider to the spot where he's most needed, within a matter of hours, will help to alleviate it.
"We'll have to build a lot more gliders," he concluded, "but they're useful to have, anyway. And providing fast medical aid when we are so busy with other aspects of the Escape should look good to the non-Committee people, and it should counter the unpleasantness caused by the Sloan incident, don't you think?"
In a strangely neutral voice, Fielding replied, "It will certainly look good to the expectant mothers, sir."
Warren stared hard at her for a moment, then he said quietly, "Believe it or not, I had been considering them, as well."
SHE RELAXED suddenly and smiled. Warren returned it and went on to give her instructions for picking up some material on Bug psychology he needed and taking it by glider to Hutton's Mountain. He expected to be at the mountain himself by that time and they could work on the material together. When she left he sent for Sloan.
But there wasn't much he could say to the Major apart from commending him for his behaviour during the exercise and deploring his conduct after it. While he talked Warren kept seeing the rain and mud, the wagons bogged down and a bull battler pulling him on to its horn. He fancied he could even see the old, dried bloodstains on it as he fought desperately to push it away, and somehow the commendation took much longer than the reprimand which followed it. When Sloan left Warren shook his head helplessly and tried to clear his mind for more important work.
ANDERSONSTOWN had grown tremendously over the past two years. The increased boat- and glider-building, the necessity for procuring and storing food and setting up repair facilities, all had added to the size as well as the population of the town. The Escape work went on practically around the clock, which was why Warren had ordered a steady increase in street-lighting at night—at least, that was the reason he had given up to now. But the town, although growing in size, was dwindling in population now as more and more people moved to the other continent. There were scores of storehouses, homes and adjacent farms lying empty, and it was high time that they were re-occupied.
Warren spent the rest of the day drafting the orders which would bring mining specialists from Hutton's Mountain to fill the waiting accommodation, the remainder to be filled by a less specialised labour force which would be placed under the direction of the miners. He announced that it was time they did some practice tunnelling in soft ground, and he suggested a spot for it—a thinly-wooded area half a mile inland from the town and a few hundred yards from the road which led northwards to the glass factory. The dirt from the tunnels could be hidden under the trees until after dark when it could be carried away and dumped or rather spread over, the marshy ground to the south.
The Sloan business still troubled him and he decided that in the circumstances it would be better if he apologised in person, and made restitution in the form of two domesticated battlers from the corral in Andersonstown to replace those which had been killed. The replacements would have to be commandeered again whenever necessary, but he would not stress that point.
An examination of the wall-map showed him that there was a hill-top Post with glider-launching facilities less than ten miles from the farm he intended to visit, and it was almost in line with his final destination at the mountain. A nice, long hike would probably do him a world of good, Warren decided, especially since he seemed to be developing a symbiotic relationship with his desk these days.
THE DAY of the all-important Staff meeting arrived. Decisions taken today would be irreversible, Warren knew, and subject only to the most minor of modifications. He felt an almost boyish excitement growing in him as he watched his Staff file in and take their seats. Their expressions were tense, puzzled and anticipatory. At the outer entrance they had had to pass two guards with cross-bows at the ready and a brace of grenades stuck in their belts who had requested them to halt and identify themselves—and since the fraternisation order had gone into effect two years ago anyone, whether they were Committee or otherwise, had been allowed to go anywhere in the mountain.
