march was a nightmare to the lieutenant. If anything,the heat and humidity were worse in the swamps than they had been inDust Bin and the going got tougher every mile. The mud was softer andthe undergrowth had to be cut away by bayonet-wielding Narakans beforethe main body could move through. Terrence had thrown off his battlearmor and lost his radiation helmet somewhere in the morass as hadother of the Earthmen. Hannigan had prepared a thick mess of mud andgrass which the Terrans applied to exposed parts of their bodies.
Late in the afternoon of the second day the Narakan Rifles came to atepid little stream that marked the end of the swamps, and for thefirst time Terrence ordered a rest of longer than two hours. BillFielding was lying flat on his back in the grass beside the streamwith his feet dangling in the water, shoes and all, when O'Maradragged himself wearily back from inspecting the pickets and floppeddown beside him.
"If I never to my dying day see another speck of mud," Fieldingmuttered as he ate a bar of tropical chocolate that was as mud coveredas he was, "I'll still have seen more than all the Fieldings for twohundred years back have seen on Earth and Mars."
"And now," said Terrence as he eased over on his back with a heavysigh, "that we have run out of mud, we can start looking for Rumi."
"At least it'll be a change! Here Kitty! Here kitty! Nice Rumi! Comeand get a bayonet in...."
Clack, clack, clack. The sound of spring guns broke the stillness ofthe afternoon and was followed by the sound of rifles and a cry ofpain.
"Oh, Lord!" moaned O'Mara, "now it starts!" He was on his feet,gripping his carbine and running bent over. Fielding was at his heels,dragging a machine gun off the ground.
"O'Shaughnessy! Hannigan! Take the first platoon. Move up to supportthe pickets. O'Toole! On the double! Take your squad and try to getaround the firing. Bill, you and Polasky stand by here with the restof the men and the Bannings."
Terrence had plunged into the stream and splashed across and wasclambering up the opposite bank when one of his pickets came crawlingand stumbling back clutching a wounded arm. "Mr. Lieutenant! Mr.Lieutenant! Rumi! Rumi! Many Rumi up ahead! Sullivan and O'Leary dead!Rumi get!"
"Medic! Medic!" O'Shaughnessy was yelling in his ear with thefull-throated croak of an adult Narakan, drowning out what the woundedpicket was trying to say.
"How many? How many Rumi, man?" Terrence demanded.
"Twenty ... thirty ... maybe thousand!" the Narakan gasped as theMedic led him off.
"'Twenty, thirty, maybe thousand.' That gives us a damn fine idea ofwhat we're up against!"
While his men dragged their big bodies up the bank of the stream,O'Mara stood scowling at the eight foot high grass. Usually about afoot high, the hardy and ubiquitous purple grass of Naraka grew farmore lushly around the edges of the swamps. He felt that it would be arisky business at best to plunge into it after an unknown number ofenemy. At the same time he had an illogical determination not to leavethe bodies of his men in the hands of the Rumi. He looked at thebroad, big-mouthed exaggerations of Irish faces around him, heaved asigh that came from deep in his chest and ordered, "All right, men.Spread out. Keep low and keep your eyes open. And try not to shooteach other."
"We fix bayonets now, Lieutenant, sir?" Hannigan asked.
"You keep your eyes open, Sergeant," Terrence snapped, "I'll tell youwhen to fix bayonets."
The noisy rustling of his men's heavy bodies as they pushed throughthe grass made him nervous and irritable. Then suddenly, just as theywere edging their way around a gully, a dozen Rumi were swarming downon them. Terrence cut down two with his carbine but his men werefiring and missing as the incredibly fast catmen hurtled at them. Hehad a brief glimpse of O'Shaughnessy spraying submachine gun slugswildly about and then there was a hail of spring bolts and two of hismen were down. The whole platoon was thrashing through the grass intheir direction and the Rumi were gone as quickly as they had come.
"Come on!" Terrence shouted, breaking into a run with twenty or thirtyRiflemen after him. A bolt grazed his cheek and another cut down a manto his right. He emptied his carbine in the general direction of theClack, Clack, Clack. Hannigan was roaring a primitive bull-throatedchant and firing at everything that moved. O'Shaughnessy managed tojam his gun and was beating frantically at it with one webbed fist.They burst into a clearing filled with Rumi and both sides blazed awayat point blank range. It was hard for even a Narakan to miss at thatclose range and the Rumi broke and ran just as Sergeant O'Toole andhis squad came out of the grass on the other side of the clearing.
The Rumi, trapped, turned and dashed at Terrence and his men. Thelieutenant drove his fist into one cat faced creature and smashed hisempty gun across the head of another. Hannigan grappled with one ofthe lithe gray-bodied things and slowly crushed it beneath his 350 oddpounds. O'Shaughnessy beat another insensible with his jammed Tommygun. Several Narakans were down but most of them had taken Rumi withthem.
Terrence was knocked off his feet by a gray ball of fury that leapedat him wielding a stiletto-thin knife. He caught at the Rumi's armwith both hands but the creature was not only fast but strong. Ittwisted out of his grasp and slashed at him and only a quick sidewardroll saved him. Desperately he brought his fist down on hisassailant's head.
The Rumi's grip relaxed slightly and Terrence drove his fist full intoits face and locked his legs about its waist. The catman couldn't haveweighed more than a hundred and fifty pounds but all of it was wirystrength. It clawed at him now, ripping his protective clothing andgashing his legs, meanwhile trying to get its knife into play. He wasvaguely conscious that his men had disposed of the rest of the Rumiand were dancing around him frantically trying to get a chance to aidhim. He was struck by the incongruity of a civilized being descendedfrom simian ancestors and a civilized being descended from felineancestors fighting fang and claw while a bunch of misplaced amphibiansdanced about them.
Making his weight count he suddenly twisted and hurled the Rumi underhim but something hit him a terrific blow on the back of the head andblackness closed in.
V
O'Mara awoke with a head that felt like all the hangovers of amisspent life.
"Have a nice rest?" Bill Fielding asked.
Terrence reached a weak hand to the back of his head and feltbandages. "Did I catch a spring bolt?" he asked.
Bill grinned, "Well, no. Not exactly. It was more on the order ofPrivate O'Hara's rifle butt. He was trying to hit the Rumi you werenecking with."
"I might have known," Terrence groaned.
"We lost six men but recovered all the bodies except for one. We'vegot four wounded ... litter cases. Thought you were going to make itfive for a while."
"Well, they won't slow us down too much. We still have about a hundredand fifty miles to go. We'll camp here for the night and move out atdawn."
Marching in the early morning and resting in the heat of the daybefore another afternoon march, the Narakan Rifles covered anotherfifty miles of the distance to Fort Craven without incident but notwithout signs of Rumi. Twice they came on recently occupied camps andonce they caught sight of a Rumi patrol moving parallel to their ownline of march.
The next morning, which was blistering and cloudless, they were onlyseventy miles from the Fort.
"Maybe we ought to give the radio another try." Terrence decided."We're close enough to have a chance of getting through now."
Polasky set up the field radio.
"Hello, Balliwick. Hello, Balliwick. This is Apple Three Three. Canyou read me? Come in, please."
O'Mara and Fielding sat and listened while he repeated the call adozen or more times. His only answer was the heavy static that Betaproduced in most electronic instruments. The same static that maderadar and space scanners all but useless, that limited aircraft to thebig dirigibles and weapons to old fashioned rifles and machine guns.
"I guess we'll know what's going on when we get there!" Terrence said.He wiped his forehead with his arm, noticing that the heavily cakedmud was beginning to crack off. He would be in for a bad cas
e of sunpoisoning probably.
A rare breeze had sprung up and drifting down it from the west camethe sound of gunfire. As one man, everyone in the camp stiffened.
"Did you hear that?" demanded Fielding.
"I think I hear a Banning," Polasky said, "sounds like it's comingfrom in back of us ... off to the west."
"From what our scouts have been able to pick up, that's the generaldirection that the Rumi have been moving," Terrence said.
"But there's nothing over that way. What in hell could they beattacking?" Fielding was on his feet, looking off in the directionfrom which the sounds were coming.
Terrence was aware of an increasingly