Chapter 16. _Black Victory_
The spearhead of the nomad infantry attack broke through between twolightly manned guard posts whose garrisons fled in retreat with a fewineffective shots. The column came through in a widening wedge. As itmet more defenders it fell back, but it appeared to the nomads that thewhole defense line had crumbled or had been diverted to the south, asanticipated.
They poured along Main Street in the faint dawnlight until they reached12th Avenue. There, they split and fanned along 12th, east and west. Itwas their strategy, obviously, to occupy and seal off this largenorthern sector of the town, which amounted to one-quarter of its totalarea and cut across a large portion of the business section. They wouldsolidify their position here, destroy all opposition, then move to stillanother sector until they were in command of the entire town.
It was a strategy that would work, unless everything Mayfield possessedwere thrown against it, Ken thought. He saw now why 12th Avenue had beenchosen as the line of attack: the defenders were intrenched there andwere offering forceful opposition.
He looked for a moment to the south again. The defenses there werelight, yet the charge of the mounted nomads had to be contained or theywould drive all the way to the center of town, burning and killing asthey went. If they succeeded in joining with the infantry they wouldhave split Mayfield's defenses in two.
Johnson had mounted his best men, using the captured nomad horses aswell as the town's own. Desperately, this small force was trying tocontain and exterminate the fierce-riding enemy. Picked sharpshootershad been carefully stationed with the best rifles available. Althoughthe gunfire was not heavy, Ken could see Johnson's men were taking aheavy toll of the invader.
In the north, the lines of fixed battle had now been established. Thenomads had drawn back to positions of cover in the empty houses facing12th. Their flanks were more mobile, fighting for advantage alongstreets parallel to Main but some blocks away on either side, andextending all the way back to the point of breakthrough. While hesurveyed the scene from the roof, Ken watched the stealthy movement ofdefenders moving behind the main line to try to surround the enemy. Thatwas the strategy of the defense, and the gamble on which their entirefate hung.
If they succeeded they would have the breach closed, leaving no retreatfor the surrounded invader.
The comet slowly appeared, illuminating the scene of battle as if it layupon some other planet. The day was clear so far, but a band of stratushung low over the western hills. It would probably be snowing bynightfall, Ken thought.
Through the glasses he recognized the leader of a small patrol that wasmoving east on 18th Avenue. It was Tom Wiley, the barber. His men weremostly students from the college. They were trying to gain a housefarther up the block to provide a covering point from which a generaladvance of the line on both sides of them could hinge. Tom could notsee that an opposing patrol had him under observation.
He led his men into the open to cross the street. Ken wanted to shoutfor him to go back, but it was impossible to be heard at such distance.The enemy patrol moved out slightly. They centered Tom and his men in amurderous burst of rifle fire. The barber fell. Two of the others werehit, but they managed to reach cover with the rest of their companions.
The body of Tom Wiley lay motionless where it fell in the snow-coveredstreet. Ken could see the sign, just a block away, that read, "Wiley'sBarber and Beauty Shop." From where Ken stood, the sign, which juttedout over the sidewalk, seemed to project just above the body of thefallen barber.
Ken hesitated in his resolve to go down there in the midst of thefighting. He thought of Johnson's words and Hilliard's orders. Would thedefense strategy succeed? The nomads were trained and toughened by theirweeks of fight for survival, but Mayfield's men were only weakened bytheir strained effort to keep the town alive.
On the eastern side of the encirclement a burst of smoke with a core oforange flame at its center spurted upward from a house. This wasfollowed by a second and a third and a fourth. Defending fighters ranfrom the rear of the burning houses to the row beyond. Behind the screenof billowing smoke the nomads crept forward to repeat their tactics andfire the houses where the defenders now had cover. It was obvious theyrecognized the danger of encirclement by forces stronger than any theyhad anticipated. They were making a desperate effort to straighten theirlines parallel to the barbed wire, with their flanks and rear clear ofthreat.
Ken watched the success of their second incendiary thrust. They could goon indefinitely unless the defenders succeeded in flanking them. Thatwas being attempted now. The defenders moved under the cover of thesmokescreen to fire on the advancing nomads. The latter recognized theirdanger and held to solid cover of houses adjacent to those they hadfired.
North of this bulge, however, another column was forming, and Ken saw insudden horror that it was headed directly toward the warehouse! A houseonly a half-block from the warehouse burst into flame.
There was a flurry of activity from the defenders as they, too,recognized the fresh danger and brought up reinforcements before thethreatened warehouse.
This added resistance seemed to inflame the determination of the nomads.They answered the increased fire sharply. Another incendiary ignited awooden building a step nearer the warehouse. The defenders tried toflank the threatening column but the latter ran between a row of burninghouses along an alleyway, firing additional incendiaries as they went.
Then sudden flame burst against the wooden walls of the old skating rinkand licked with red fury along its painted surface. In moments thewarehouse was bathed on all sides in seething flame, and the nomadcolumn spread beyond it, unaware of the mortal damage they had done.
* * * * *
Ken turned away. He walked slowly and decisively down the stairs. Hetold his father what had just happened. "I'm going out there, Dad," hesaid. "They're going to wipe us out, or destroy every chance we'll haveto survive even if we drive them off. Half of our food supply is gonenow. What chance have we got even if we kill every nomad in the valley?"
Ken's father turned to a closet and drew out a .30-06. From a hook hetook down a hunter's jacket. Its pockets were loaded with shells, andhe had an extra box he gave to Ken.
"Johnson left this here," he said. "He intended it for our use if thenomads reached this far. I think maybe it had better be used before themedical center needs defending."
Ken's eyes lighted with gratefulness. "Thanks, Dad," he said. "I'm gladyou're willing."
"I don't know if I'm willing or not. However, I think I agree with youthat there's nothing else to be done."
Ken ran from the building, clutching the solid, reassuring weight of therifle in his hand. His coat pockets and the hunting jacket were weightedheavily with the supply of ammunition. There was a feeling of securityin the weapon and the shells, but he knew it was a short-lived,deceptive security.
He went to Eighth Street and turned north, which would bring him closeto the burned warehouse. He could see the immense, rolling column ofblack smoke and hear the bursting crackle of its flames. The whole towncould go, he thought, if the fire became hot enough. It would spreadfrom building to building regardless of the snow cover. He glanced atthe sky and hoped the snow might soon resume.
From the rooftop, it had seemed to Ken that the small units of thedefenders were almost leaderless, and there was lack of co-ordinationbetween them. He came up in their rear ranks and confirmed thissuspicion. They seemed to be depending as best they could on unanimousand intuitive agreement about a course of action. What had happened totheir sergeants and lieutenants, Ken did not know. Perhaps in theirhaste of organization there never had been any.
There was top-level command, of course, as appointed by Sheriff Johnsonfor the entire sector, but it did not extend to the lower levels in anydegree Ken could see.
The men paid no attention as Ken joined them. He knew a few of the dozennearby, but they seemed to regard him as a total stranger. The shock ofbattle was in their eyes, a
nd they seemed wholly unaware of anything inthe world except the desperate necessity to find cover and to destroythe invader.
Ken followed them into the shelter of a house flanking thestill-advancing incendiaries. He crouched at a window with an older manwhom he did not know and leveled his rifle through an opening. A pair offigures appeared momentarily at the edge of the smoking cloud. The olderman jerked his gun and fired frantically and ineffectively.
"Slow!" Ken cried. "Aim before you shoot!"
The man glanced at him in a kind of daze. Ken sighted patiently andcarefully. The smoke cloud parted once again and he squeezed thetrigger. One of the figures dropped and the smoke cloud closed downagain.
Ken's calmness seemed to penetrate his companion who leaned back for amoment to wipe a shaking hand across his sweat-stained face.
"I've never done anything like this before," he murmured helplessly.
"None of us have," said Ken; "but we've got to do it now. Watch it!We're drawing their fire!"
Bullets shattered the window casing above and beside them. Across theroom a man crumpled. Ken risked a glance through the window. "We've gotto get out!" he exclaimed. "They're going to rush the house!"
It might have been possible to hold if he knew what cover andreinforcements they had in the adjacent houses, but as far as he couldtell the small, 12-man patrol might be entirely alone in the area.
Suddenly, it all seemed utterly hopeless without communication, withoutleadership--how could they hope to withstand?
"Let's go!" he cried. The others seemed willing to follow him. As theywent through the back he saw that the next house had indeed beenoccupied, but they, too, were retreating, not knowing what strength wasnear.
A new line of defenders was moving up from halfway down the block. Kenheld back to shout to the other patrol and to those coming, "Let's standin the next street!"
There were shouts of assent from down the line and they moved to theshelter of the empty houses.
They were close to the edge of town, near the barbed-wire barricade, andthe nomads would obviously make their biggest effort here to wipe outthe forces that threatened to close them off. His own group, Ken saw,would also have to make their stand here or risk being pocketed by theuncoiling line of nomads.
"Don't let them get close enough to fire the buildings!" he shouted downthe line. The word was passed along with agreement. They broke intosmall patrols and occupied the houses, Ken joining one that took overthe top floor of a 2-story house. This gave them the advantage of goodobservation, but the added danger of difficult escape in case the housewas set on fire. Its walls were brick, however, and offered a goodchance of being held.
Within minutes, the nomads had occupied the houses just abandoned. Kenfired rapidly and carefully as he saw them exposed momentarily in theirmove to new positions. His marksmanship had a telling effect on theenemy, and encouraged his companions. As soon as the nomads had obtainedcover however, it was a stalemate.
It was mid-morning already, and Ken wondered how it had grown so late.For an hour or two they exchanged shots with the enemy. Twice, attemptswere made to hurl firebombs. Both were driven back.
Beyond this, however, the nomads seemed in no mood to make furtherattack. They were waiting for darkness, Ken thought, and then theywould advance with their firebombs and grenades and have free choice ofbattle setting. If that happened, Mayfield might be a huge inferno bymidnight. They had to seize the initiative from the invaders.
He called his companions and told them how it looked. They agreed. "Whatcan we do?" a tired, middle-aged man asked.
"We've got to take the initiative before they come at us again." Kenglanced at the sky. "Within an hour it may be snowing hard. That willmake it more difficult to hit a target. When daylight is almost gonewe'll attack them instead of waiting for them to come after us. It canbe done if we hit hard and fast enough. We'll lose some men, but not asmany as if we wait and let them pick us off with their grenades andincendiaries as they feel like it."
The men considered it dubiously. "We've got a better chance to hit themas they break from cover," someone suggested.
"Not after dark, and that's what they're waiting for. They'll burn ourhouses and drive us back all night long if we give them the chance. Wemust not give it to them!"
Reluctant nods of agreement came from his group. "The way you put it, Iguess it's the only chance we've got," the former objector agreed.
"I'll talk with the other groups," Ken said.
He moved down the stairs and out the back door of the house. The spacebetween the two houses was entirely open. He flung himself down andcrawled. Twice, he heard the whine of bullets above his head.
After heated argument, the group in the next house agreed to the plan torush the invaders. He moved on down the block, regretting his own lackof authority that made it necessary for him to have to plead forco-operation. He wondered what was happening in the rest of the town.There had been gunfire all day, but it seemed incredible there had beenno communication from any other sector or any evidence of command. Noone he talked to had any idea what had happened to their command. Therehad been some in the beginning, but it had simply seemed to vanish.Ken's pleading for co-operation in an attack was the nearest thing toleadership they had seen for hours.
The snow was swirling hard and the sun was almost beyond the hills, whatlittle of it was visible in the clouds. It was getting as dark as hedared allow before giving the signal for attack, but there was one moregroup to contact. He debated and decided to go to them.
Then, as he entered the rear of the house, he heard the cries of alarmfrom those houses he had been to. The invaders were breaking out for anincendiary attack.
He seized his gun and fired the signal for their own advance. He raninto the street shouting for the others to follow. The nomads wereconcentrating their fire charge at the other end of the row of houses,and there the defenders fell back without an attempt to advance.
Like watching a wave turned back by a rocky shore, Ken saw hiscompanions fleeing in disorderly retreat through the rear of the housesto the block beyond. A bullet whizzed by his head. He dropped to theground and crawled on his stomach to the safety of cover behind a brickhouse.
For a long time he lay in the snow, unmoving. He could not hold back thesobbing despair that shook him. He had never before known what it waslike to be utterly alone. Mayfield was dying and taking away everythingthat was his own personal world. He had listened to news of thedestruction of Chicago and of Berkeley without knowing what it reallymeant. Now he knew.
For all he knew, the nomads might even now be in control of the majorpart of the town. He could not know what had happened to his father, toMaria, to anyone.
The crackling of flames in the next house aroused him. He crawledinside the brick house, which was still safe, for a moment of rest. Heknew he should be fleeing with the others, but he had to rest.
He heard sporadic shooting. A few nomads were straggling after theircompanions at the other end of the street. It was too far to shoot.However, one nomad stopped and swung cautiously under the very windowsof the burning house next door. Ken leveled his rifle and fired. Thebullet caught the man in the shoulder and flung him violently againstthe wall. Ken saw that he would be buried by the imminent, flamingcollapse of that wall.
The man saw it, too. He struggled frantically to move out of the way,but he seemed injured beyond the power to get away.
Ken regarded him in a kind of stupor for a moment. The man out there wasresponsible for all this, he thought, for the burning and for thekilling....
He swung his rifle over his shoulder and went out. Brands were fallingupon the wounded enemy. Ken hoisted the man under the arms and draggedhim to the opposite side of the adjacent house. The nomad looked at Kenwith a strange fury in his eyes.
"You're crazy!" he said painfully. "You're the one who shot me?"
Ken nodded.
"You'll be cut off. Well, it won't matter much anyway. By tomorrow yourtown wil
l be burned and dead. Soon, we'll all be dead."
Ken kneeled on the ground beside him, as if before some strange objectfrom a foreign land. "What were you?" he asked. "Before, I mean."
The man coughed heavily and blood covered his mouth and thick growth ofbeard. The bullet must be in his lungs, Ken thought. He helped wipe awaythe blood and brushed the man's mouth with a handful of snow.
"You're crazy," the nomad said again. "I guess we're all crazy. You'rejust a kid, aren't you? You want to know what I was a million years ago,before all this?"
"Yes," Ken said.
The man attempted a smile. "Gas station. Wasn't that a crazy thing? Noneed of gas when all the cars quit. I owned one on the best littlecorner in Marysvale."
"Why are you with them?" Ken nodded in the darkness toward the distantattackers.
The man glared, twisting with the pain. Then his glance softened. "You'dhave done it, too. What else was there? I had a wife, two kids. No foodwithin a hundred miles after we used what was in our own pantry androbbed what we could from the supermarket downtown.
"We all got together and went after some. We got bigger as we wentalong. We needed men who were good with rifles. We found some. We keptgoing. People who had food fought to keep it; we fought to take it.That's the way it had to be.
"We heard about your town with its big hoard of food. We decided to getit."
"Did you know you burned half of it this morning?"
"No. That's tough. That's tough all the way around. Don't look at methat way, kid. You would have done the same. We're all the same as you,only we didn't live where there was plenty of food on hand. We were alldecent guys before. Me, those guys out in the street that you knockedoff. I guess you're decent, too."
"Where's your family now?"
"Twenty miles down the valley, waiting with the rest of the women andchildren for us to bring them food."
Ken rose slowly to his feet. The man was bleeding heavily from themouth. His words were growing muffled. "What are you going to do?" heasked.
"Get on with what has to be done," said Ken wearily. He felt sure hemust be walking in a nightmare and in just a little while he wouldawaken. "If there's a chance, I'll try to send somebody after you."
"Never mind me!" the nomad said with sudden fierceness. "I'm done for.You've finished me. If our outfit should be unlucky enough to lose, seemy wife and try to do something for my kids. Get some food to them. TomDoyle's the name," the man said.
A fit of coughing seized him again and blood poured from his mouth. Hiseyes were closed when he lay back again. "Tom Doyle's the name," hisbloody lips murmured. "Don't forget that, kid. Tom Doyle's Service,corner of First and Green in Marysvale. We were all good guys once."
* * * * *
The snow was so heavy it seemed like a solid substance through which Kenwalked. In spite of it, row upon row of houses burned with a fury thatlit the whole scene with a glow that was like the comet's own. Abovethis, the blanket of black smoke lay as if ready to smother the valleyas soon as the light was gone.
Ken didn't know for sure where he was going. A kind of aimlessness creptover him and there no longer seemed any rational objective toward whichto move. He crept on from house to house in the direction his group hadgone, but he could not find any of them. Somewhere he touched the edgeof combat again. He had a nightmare of going into a thousand houses,smashing their windows out, thrusting his rifle through for a desperateshot at some fleeing enemy.
The night was held back by a hundred terrible fires. He shot at shadowsand ghosts that moved against the flames. He sought the companionship ofothers who fought, like himself, in a lonely vastness where only thesound of fire and gunshots prevailed.
Later, he moved through the streets stricken with cold that he could notlose even when he passed and stood close to a mass of burning rubble.He had stopped shooting quite a long time ago, and he guessed he was outof bullets. The next time he met someone, he thought, he would ask themto look in his pockets and see if any were left.
He kept walking. He passed streets where the black, charcoal arms of theskeletons of houses raised to the sky. He passed the hot columns ofsmoke and continued to shiver with cold as they steamed upward to theclouds. He passed others but no one spoke. After a while he threw hisgun away because it was too heavy to carry and he was too tired to walkany more.
The falling snow was covering the ruins with a blanket of kindobscurity. Ken kneeled down and was surprised to observe that he wasn'tcold any more. He lay full length in the whiteness, cradling his head onhis arms, and peace and stillness such as he had never known beforeclosed over him.
* * * * *
It seemed an eternity later that there was a voice capable of rousinghim, a familiar voice calling out in anguish, "Ken, Ken--this is yourdad."
He responded, although it was like answering in a dream. "Take care ofthem, Dad," he said. "Don't let anything happen to them. A woman and twochildren. Tom Doyle's the name--don't forget that, Tom Doyle."