"We'll be coming up on the cliffs soon," he said quietly. "Half-stroke. . half-stroke. ."
The oars shortened their pace, scarcely dipping into the water. He could hear the slow boom of surf now, thudding and hissing on rock. John held up his signal lantern and carefully pressed the shutter: two long, two short, one long.
A flicker answered him, two shorts, repeated-all that they dared use, with the light pointing out to the Gut.
"Yarely now," the lead Marine in the head of the boat said. There was a quiet plop as he swung the lead. "By the mark, six. Six. Five. Six. Four. Four."
Rock loomed up on either hand, just visible as the waves broke and snake-hissed over it. A river broke the cliff near here, cutting a pathway that men or goats could use.
"By the mark, seven. Ten. No bottom at ten."
The pitching of the boat changed, calmer as they moved into the sheltered waters. John felt sweat matting his hair under the black knit stocking cap. The guerillas would be waiting; the guerillas, or a Fourth Bureau reaction squad.
"Rest oars," he said.
The poles came in, noiseless. The boat coasted, slowing. . and the keel crunched on shingle. Four men leapt overboard into thigh-deep water, fanning out with their weapons ready. The rest followed them a second later, putting their shoulders to the whaleboat's sides and running it forward. John drew the revolver from his shoulder rig and ran forward to leap off the bow.
there, Center said, reading input from his ears too faint for his conscious mind to follow.
He walked forward, sliding his feet to avoid tripping on the uneven surface. A match glowed, cupped in a hand, just long enough for him to recognize the face. Arturo Bianci, the cotadini he'd shipped the arms to, back when the war began. Two years looked to have aged the man ten, which wasn't all that surprising.
A hand gripped his. "No lights," John warned.
Bianci made a sound that was half chuckle. "We have learned, signore. Those of us who live, have learned much."
They had; there were ropes strung from sticks to guide up the steep rocky path. Guerillas joined the Marines in unloading the crates and lashing them to their shoulders with rope slings. John swung crates down from the boat, pleased with the silence and speed. . and waiting for the moment when lights would spear down from the clifftop and voices sound in Landisch. At last the boat rode high and empty, rocking against the shingle.
"This way," John said.
Harry Smith nodded, and together they pushed it upstream, under an overhang of wild olive and trailing vines. Smith reached in, rocking it to one side with his weight, and pulled the stopper. Water gurgled into the whaleboat, and it sank rapidly in the chest-deep stream.
"I'll put a few rocks in her," Smith said. "She'll be here when y'all get back. So'll I be. Good luck, sir." He racked a shell into the breech of his pump shotgun.
"Thanks. To you, too-we're all going to need it."
* * *
Heinrich Hosten looked at the thing that twitched and mewled on the table. The Fourth Bureau specialist smiled and patted it on what was left of its scalp.
"Yes, I'd say they're definitely planning on something to do with the train," she said. "Can't tell you exactly where, though-the subject didn't know, that's for certain."
Heinrich nodded thanks as he left. Outside he stood thoughtfully beside his horse for a while, looking around at the buildings of the little town, then pulling a map from the case at his side and tilting it so that the lantern outside the Fourth Bureau regional HQ shone on the paper. When he mounted, he turned towards the barracks, his escort of riflemen clattering behind him through the chill night.
"No, don't wake Major van Pelt," he said to the sentry outside the main door. It had been a monastery before the conquest, perfect for its new use; a series of courtyards with small rooms leading off, and large common kitchens, refectories for mess halls. "Who's the officer of the day?"
That turned out to be a very young captain. Heinrich returned her salute, then smiled as he stuffed tobacco into his big curved pipe.
"Hauptman Neumann, what's a junior officer's worst nightmare?"
"Ah. ." Captain Neumann knotted her brow in thought. "Surprise attack by overwhelming numbers?" she said hopefully.
"Tsk, tsk. That would be an opportunity for an able young officer," Heinrich said genially. "No, a nightmare is what you are about to undergo; an operation conducted with a senior officer along to look over your shoulder and jog your elbow. What forces are stationed here in Campo Fiero?"
"One battalion of the Third Protege Infantry, currently at ninety-eight percent of full strength, and a squadron of armored cars-five currently ready, three undergoing serious maintenance. That is not counting," she added with an unconscious sniff, "police troops. Plus the usual support elements."
"Troops so-called," Heinrich said, nodding agreement. He turned to the map table that filled one corner of the ready room. "Ah, yes. Now, find me a train schedule. While you're at it-I presume your company is on reaction status? Good. While you're at it, get your troops ready to move, full field kit, but no noise. Nobody to enter or leave the barracks area."
He stared at the map, puffing with the pewter lid of the pipe turned back. Now, he thought happily, if I were a rebellious animal, where would I be?
* * *
"Good choice," John said.
Bianci grunted beside him. "The bridge would have been better, but there are blockhouses there now-a section of infantry and a couple of their accursed machine guns at each end. With signal rockets always at the ready."
John nodded. Oto was up; the smallest of Visager's three moons also moved the fastest, and although it was little more than a bright spark across the sky, it did give some light. Enough to see how the railway track curved around a steep rocky hill here, falling away to a stretch of marsh and then a small creek on the other side. The guerillas numbered about sixty; Bianci hadn't offered to introduce anyone else, which was exactly as it should be.
"We got quite a few trains at first," Bianci said. "But then the tedeschi began making villagers from along the lines ride in carriages at front."
"You can't allow that to stop you," John said.
Bianci glanced his way, a shadowed gleam of eyeball in the faint moonlight, the smell of garlic and sweat.
"We didn't," he said. "But the villagers began to patrol the rail line themselves. . to protect their families, you understand. So now we pick locations far from any habitation. Like this."
"Good ground, too," John said.
One of the Marines came up the hill, trailing a spool of thin wire. Another squatted next to John, placing a box next to him. It had a plunger with an handbar coming out of the top, and a crank on the side. Bianci leaned close to watch as the Marine cut the wire and split it into two strands, stripping the insulation with his belt knife. The raw copper of the wire matched the hairs on the backs of his huge freckled hands, incongruously delicate as they handled the difficult task in near-darkness.
"Ahh, bellissimo," the Imperial said. "We've been using black powder with friction primers-and since they started putting a car in front of the locomotive, that doesn't work so well."
"We can get detonator sets to you," John said. "But you'll have to come up with the wire-telegraph wire will do well enough."
Bianci nodded again. "That we can do." He looked down at the track hungrily. "Every slave in the rail yards tells us what goes on the cars. This one has military stores, arms and ammunition, medical supplies, and machine parts for a new repair depot north of Salini; the tedeschi have been talking of double-tracking the line from the Pada to the coast. . why, do you think?"