The March North Read Online Free Page A

blood and splashes up taller than the bluff. I nod, and slide over some approval through the standard. Wecan burn down the flats if we want but there are fields back of us up here.
    I can feel Three getting settled in a bit tighter. This is going well; no lasting damage but lots of bad smells and a real sense of risk.
    Dove takes “catch” literally: the focus reaches out, hard, and the shot gets about twice the force it had arriving smacking it back less than fifty metres from the muzzle. Halt doesn’tmove or speak, but the spear of burning iron coming back at tube three vanishes a hands-breadth from the berm. The crew were diving for cover or grabbing for the tube-shield, trying to put enough focus in it to do some good. Neither would have worked in time. Shaky swearing from the gunner comes back faint through the standard.
    I get the small notion of a question from Blossom, and pass permission.Blossom does the dispassionate voice well. “Two points to the company.” The clerk’s still working on composure, but gets that written down neatly.
    Not many living people have been in a war. You get to expecting things to happen in an orderly way, even with the Line, and it gets you killed.
    Don’t think orderly expectations will do for Part-Captain Blossom.
    Hector gets clever with four; it feelslike going for Dove’s trick, only the neat, quiet version with the shot caught hanging in the air. Which misses, three or four times, with increasing force; five or six pieces of shot spray out in a witch’s broom of flaming iron off the original shot track. Dove gets both chunks that would have sliced into Three, straight up, and Blossom does the slapping trick again, close sullen thunder. Hector’scuirass gets “Braver than you” hammered into it, something Hector may not notice in the midst of a larger grass fire than Toby got.
    There are a couple of snickers from the colour party behind me; no one is inclined to argue with Rust’s judgment of Hector.
    “Two for the artillery.” The Master Gunner and Twitch are both nodding, so Blossom subsides. Probably worried I don’t want anybody to win this,when in truth I’d be delighted if the company got its collective ass kicked. It will make them think. Hector didn’t think about a brave try that would have distributed company casualties out of Four Platoon.
    The Master Gunner and Twitch step closer to the edge of the bluff, into full view. The coin flip is ornate, and then Twitch points at the Company, and pushes a bit through the standard. Wherewe had the platoons One-Two-Three-Four out from the bluff, we get Four-Two-Three-One by some prompt and pretty marching. It’s an order arrived at with little slips of card and a hat last night, and Twitch has lots more.
    Eustace stops well back of the artillery line, lies down, and starts chewing away on an eel-tree. Halt’s back up in the howdah, knitting away with apparent total unconcern foreither the game of catch or the shrieking as Eustace toasts the fangy parts of the tree, which are trying to eat back. Various bits of notice of this slide through the standard while the platoons switch places, and there’s a thread of general approval coming back. Eustace’s kind will be welcome in the Creeks forever if they eat eel-tree.
    Four hours later, the score is one hundred twenty-three,artillery, seventy-eight, company, Dove’s cuirass is the only sergeant’s undented, and the flats are looking worse for wear. Three twisted ankles, a case of the shakes, and one fainting town-dweller who wouldn’t drink in case of having to piss. Can’t blame anyone for the shakes — tough to make your spine believe the wall of fire didn’t get you when it goes away close enough to feel the heat on youreyelids — but I’ll have Twitch give the Word about drinking water.
    The artillery crews are intact, but sagging. It’s been two files per tube doing the throwing, against nine files per platoon. The gunners were rotating the spares