“Time, that’s the factor. So, that antitank stuff first. With three thousand very willing pairs of hands though . . . Listen. This whole village, it’s underlain by arched-roof cellars. They don’t connect, but there’s damn-all between them but curtain walls. Break through, here, here, here put up timber pillars”—her hands drew a vertical shaft through the air—“pop-up positions; we blow the houses around them, perfect camouflage, let the Fritz get past you and hit them from behind.
“Then, we can’t let them flank us. Get that angle iron, and the wire; wire in like this”—she sketched a blunt V from the woods to the edge of town—“downslope of these two stone terraces and trenches just above them. Only two hundred meters to the woods on the east, three hundred to the west. Mine the ground in front, random pattern. State those fields are in, a thousand badgers could dig for a week and you couldn’t tell.
“If the Patriarch Abraham here is going to have hunters show us the forest tracks, we’ll mine the forest edge, then the paths—put a few machine gun nests in there, channel things into killing fields—cohortarch, I’m going to need more of the Broadsword directional mines, can you get them? Good. Also more radio detonators, and any Fritz mines you can scavenge.
“And I can rig impromptu from that Fritz ammunition,” she murmured, almost an aside to herself. That would be tricky; she’d better handle it herself.
“We’ll need a surprise for their armor. We’ve got that clutch of plastic antitank mines, lovely stuff. Very good, they can’t be swept. Those for the road. That blasting explosive, with the radio detonators, by the verge . . . and there, there, where the turnoff points are. And we—”
“All right,” Eric broke in with a grim smile. Marie was brilliant in anything to do with construction. He could see a glow of pure happiness spreading over her face—the joy of an artist allowed to practice her craft. The problem would be keeping her from trying to put up the Great Wall of China.
“We need immediate antitank while this is going up,” he continued briskly. “Tom, you take two of the 120s.” His hand indicated where the tips of the V met the woods. “Emplace ’em there. Spider pits for the crews, with overhead protection, close enough to jump to. Marie, push the third down the road, down past the bend—somewhere where it can get one flank shot off where it’ll do the most good, and the crew can run like hell. We don’t have enough 120 ammunition to use three barrels. Booby traps along the trail, if you’ve got time. Better ask for volunteers. Take half the rocket-gun teams, start familiarizing them with the woods up both sides of the valley, for if—when—the Fritz break through. And I want minefields behind us as well. Don’t get trapped thinking linearly.” He paused. “Booby traps, there, as well. Everywhere.”
He turned to the comtech. “Sofie, we’re going to need secure communications. If we ran the Fritz field telephone wire all over the place, underground too, stripped, would it carry radio?”
She frowned. “Ought . . . Ya, Centurion.”
“Coordinate with Sparks in Marie’s tetrarchy. And set up the stationary radio; I’m going to need a steady link to cohort and up. Run more lines out to the woods, tack it up. A cellar, somewhere as far from the square as possible. Those buildings are going to draw a lot of fire.” He paused. “Anything impossible?”
“All that demolition,” the sapper Legate said. “Chancy. Very. Especially if we use nonstandard explosives. I can estimate, some of my NCOs . . . ”
“ ‘It has to be done, it can be,’ ” Eric quoted with a shrug. “If we’re going to be sacrificial lambs, at least we can break a few teeth. There’ll be a lot of details; solve ’em if you can, ask me or Marie if you can’t.
“Now,” he said, turning to the cohortarch. “Dale?”
“It’s all a little, well, static, isn’t it?” The ex-cavalryman paused. “Besides your skulkers in the woods, I’d say you need a mobile reaction force to maneuver in the rear, once they’re fixed against your fieldworks.”
Eric nodded. “Good, but we don’t have any reserve left for that . . . ”
Dale examined his fingertips. “Well, old man, I could run a spot down the road, conceal my vehicles, then—”
Eric shook his head. “Nice of you to offer, Dale, but you’re needed back above. That’s going to be a deathride, and . . . I’ve got an idea.” He looked around the circle of faces. “Tell you later if it works out. No—let’s do it, people; let’s move.”
There was a moment of silence, of solemnity almost. Then the scene dissolved in action.
Eric turned to the old man. “Hadj, those prisoners the Germanski were holding behind the hall—they are not of your people?”
The Circassian came to himself, blew his nose in the sleeve of his kaftan and shook his head.
“They are Russki—partisans, godless youths of the komsomol from the great city of Pyatigorsk that the Tzars built, when they took the hot springs of the Seven Hills from my people. Even so, we would not have betrayed them to the Germanski with the lightning, if they had not demanded food of us that we did not have. There are more of them westward in the hills; many more. The garrison came here to hunt them.” He bowed. “Lord, may I go to tell my people what you require of them?”
Eric nodded absently, tugging at his lower lip, then smiled and turned for the alley leading past the town hall.
Sofie trotted at his side, a quizzical interest in her eyes; her tasks would not be needed immediately and a matter puzzled her. Eric was moving with a bounce in his stride; his eyes seemed to glow, his skin to crackle with renewed vitality. She remembered him at the loading zone, quiet, reserved; in the fighting that morning, moving with the bleakly impersonal efficiency of a well-designed machine. Now . . . he looked like a man in love. Not with her, her head told her. But it was interesting to see how that affected him; definitely interesting.
“Centurion,” she said. “Remember Palermo?”
“What part?”
“Afterward, when we stood down. That terrace? We were talking, and you told me you didn’t like soldiering. Seems to me you like it well enough now, or I’ve never seen a man happy.”
He rubbed the side of his nose. “I like . . . solving problems. Important ones, real ones; doing it quickly, getting people to do their best. And understanding what makes them tick, getting inside their heads. Knowing what they’ll do if I do this or that . . . I’ve even thought of writing novels, because of that. After the war, of course.” He stopped, with an uncharacteristic flush. Sofie was easy to talk to, but that was not an ambition he had told many. Hurriedly, he continued: “Marie’s a crackerjack sapper. I had some of the same ideas, but not in nearly so much detail. And I couldn’t organize so well to get them done.”
“But you could organize her, and the ragheads, and whatever these ‘Russki partisans’ are good for.” She smiled at his raised brow. “Hell, Centurion, I may not talk their jabber, but I know the word when I hear it. I can see all that’s part of war.” She frowned. “And the fighting?” Draka were supposed to like to fight; more theory than fact. She didn’t, much; if she wanted to have a fun risk, she’d surf. Yet there was a certain addiction to it. She could see how the combat junkies felt, and certainly the Draka produced more of them than most people, but on the whole, no thanks. This had been hairier than anything before, and she had an uneasy feeling it was going to get worse.
“We’re of the Race: we have our obligations.”
There was no answer to that, not unless she wished to give offense. For that matter, there were many who would have stood on rank already.