Waiting was hardest of all. The ranchers continually moved about, and she had to crawl along the gully whispering them to silence. Five hours went by, each an agony of waiting, glancing at her watch to see that no time had elapsed since the last time she'd looked, staring out into the night until she could see shapes that weren't there.
In the starlit gloom she could almost see the miniature figures again. Falkenherg's impassive orders rang in her ears. "Kill this one. Send this one to the mines." Now the miniatures were joined by larger figures in battle armor. With a sudden start she knew they were real. Two men stood motionless in the draw below her.
She touched Sergeant Hruska and pointed. The trooper looked carefully and nodded. As they watched, more figures joined the pair of scouts, until soon there were nearly fifty of them in the fold of the hill, two hundred meters away. They were too far for her squad's weapons to have much effect, and a whispered command sent Hruska crawling along the gully to order the men to stay down and be silent.
The group continued to grow. She couldn't see them all, and since she could count nearly a hundred she must be observing the assembly area of a full company. Were these the dreaded Highlanders? Memories of her father's defeat came unwanted and she brushed them away. They were only hired men-but they fought for glory, and somehow that was enough to make them terrible.
After a long time the enemy began moving toward her. They formed a V-shape with the point aimed almost directly at her position, and she searched for the ends of the formation. What she saw made her gasp.
Four hundred meters to her left was another company of soldiers in double file. They moved silently and swiftly up the hill, and the lead elements were already far beyond her position. Frantically she looked to the right, focusing the big electronic light amplifying glasses-and saw another company of men half a kilometer away. A full Highlander battalion was moving right up her hill in an inverted M, and the group in front of her was the connecting sweep to link the assault columns. In minutes they would be among the ranchers in the defense line.
Still she waited, until the dozen Highlanders of the point were ten meters from her. She shouted commands. "Up and at them! Fire!" From both ends of her ditch the mercenaries' automatic weapons chattered, then their fire was joined by her riflemen. The point was cut down to a man, and Sergeant Hruska directed fire on the main body, while Glenda Ruth shouted into her communicator.
"Fire Mission. Flash Uncle Four!"
There was a moment's delay which seemed like years. "Flash Uncle Four." Another long pause. "On the way," an unemotional voice answered. She thought it sounded like Falkenberg, but she was too busy to care.
"Reporting," she said. "At least one battalion of light infantry in assault columns is moving up hill 905 along ridges Uncle and Zebra."
"They're shifting left, Miss." She looked up to see Hruska. The noncom pointed to the company in front of her position. Small knots of men curled leftward. They hugged the ground and were visible only for seconds.
"Move some men to that end of the gully," she ordered. It was too late to shift artillery fire. Anyway, if the Highlanders ever got to the top of the ridge, the ranchers wouldn't hold them. She held her breath and waited.
There was the scream of incoming artillery, then the night was lit by bright flashes. VT shells fell among the distant enemy on the left flank. "Pour it on!" she shouted into the communicator. "On target!"
"Right. On the way."
She was sure it was Falkenberg himself at the other end. Catlike she grinned in the dark. What was a colonel doing as a telephone orderly? Was he worried about her? She almost laughed at the thought. Certainly he was, the ranchers would be hard to handle without her.
The ridge above erupted in fire. Mortars and grenades joined the artillery pounding the leftward assault column. Glenda Ruth paused to examine the critical situation to the right. The assault force five hundred meters away was untouched, and continued to advance toward the top of the ridge. It was going to be close.
She let the artillery hold its target another five minutes while her riflemen engaged the company in front of her, then took up the radio again. The right-hand column had nearly reached the ridges, and she wondered if she had waited too long.
"Fire mission. Flash Zebra Nine."
"Zebra Nine," the emotionless voice replied. There was a short delay, then, "On the way." The fire lifted from the left flank almost immediately, and two minutes later began to fall five hundred meters to the right.
"They're flanking us, Miss," Sergeant Hruska reported. She'd been so busy directing artillery at the assaults against the ridge line that she'd actually forgotten her twenty men were engaged in a fire fight with over a hundred enemies. "Shall we pull back?" Hruska asked.
She tried to think, but it was impossible in the noise and confusion. The assault columns were still moving ahead, and she had the only group that could observe the entire attack. Every precious shell had to count. "No. We'll hold on here."
"Right, Miss." The sergeant seemed to be enjoying himself. He moved away to direct the automatic weapons and rifle fire. How long can we hold? Glenda Ruth wondered.
She let the artillery continue to pound the right-hand assault force for twenty minutes. By then the Highlanders had nearly surrounded her and were ready to assault from the rear. Prayerfully she lifted the radio again.
"Fire Mission. Give me everything you can on Jack Fire-and for God's sake don't, go over. We're at Jack Six."
"Flash Jack Five," the voice acknowledged immediately. There was a pause. "On the way." They were the most beautiful words she'd ever heard.
Now they waited. The Highlanders rose to charge. A wild sound filled the night. My God, Pipes! she thought. But even as the infantry moved the pipes were drowned by the whistle of artillery. Glenda Ruth dove to the bottom of the gully, and saw that the rest of her command had done the same.
The world erupted in sound. Millions of tiny fragments at enormous velocity filled the night with death. Cautiously she lifted a small periscope to look behind her.
The Highlander company had dissolved. Shells were falling among dead men, lifting them to be torn apart again and again as the radar-fused shells fell among them. Glenda Ruth swallowed hard and swept the glass around. The left-hand assault company had reformed and were turning back to attack the ridge. "Fire Flash Uncle Four," she said softly.
"Interrogative."
"FLASH UNCLE FOUR!"
"Uncle Four. On the way." As soon as the fire lifted from behind them her men returned to the lip of the gully and resumed firing, but the sounds began to die away.
"We're down to the ammo in the guns now, Miss," Hruska reported. "May I have your spare magazines?"
She realized with a sudden start that she had yet to fire a single shot.
The night wore on. Whenever the enemy formed up to assault her position he was cut apart by the merciless artillery. Once she asked for a box barrage all around her gully-by that time the men were down to three shots in each rifle, and the automatic weapons had no ammo at all. The toneless voice simply answered, "On the way."
An hour before dawn nothing moved on the hill.
The thin notes of a military trumpet sounded across the barren hills of the Gap. The ridges east of Falkenberg's battle line lay dead, their foliage cut to shreds by shell fragments, the very earth thrown into crazyquilt craters partly burying the dead. A cool wind blew through the Gap, but it couldn't dispell the smells of nitro and death.