Night March

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The soldiers were hurrying, the day had been long and when the clouds and the rain had moved in, the night promised to be longer still. The Sergeant noticed some of the soldiers occasionally looking back over their shoulders, a look of fear mixed with anger was on many of their faces. What should have been an easy affair had turned violent and bloody.

"Sergeant," he barely heard the Captain's voice, everyone was trying to be as quiet as possible.

"Sir?"

"Halt the column, the troops need a breather."

"But Sir ..."

"Now, Sergeant." The Captain's tone left no room for debate.

Gradually, reluctantly, the column of exhausted troops came to a stop. Whispered commands went up and down the length of the column - eat, check your gear, no fires - many of the troops were beyond caring about eating or their equipment, they sat heavily in the mud and stared into the distance.

The sergeant identified those few diehards, present in every army, who would do their duty until killed or invalided out. Those he sent off to either side of the ill-defined track, more an animal trail than a proper road. He himself went to the rear of the column with his three best troops, two men and a woman who had been with him since the early days.

"Move down the track about fifty meters, I want to know if we're being followed."

The woman nodded, her corporal stripes giving her the command of the little group. "If we are?"

"If there are a lot of them, send a man back to let me know their strength. Then kill as many as you can. I'll try and help you out, but ..."

"I know Sarge, slow the bastards down. If we can break free, we will, if we can't ..." she shrugged.

The Sergeant watched as the trio vanished into the darkness. The rain drowned out any sound their movement might have made. He stared into the darkness, hoping there was nothing back there, knowing there probably was.

"What was that about?" he nearly jumped out of his skin, this damned officer moved like a cat.

"Checking to see if we're being followed. I sent out flankers as well. Some of the troops are still game."

The officer slapped the man on the back. "Good job, now get some rest, I'll wait here for them."

He didn't have to specify who he was waiting for, but in reality he might have meant the party sent to the rear, he might have meant the enemy who was almost certainly following them. The Sergeant didn't really care as he moved towards the center of the column to find a place to put his head down, if even for a few minutes.

The Captain started, he had nodded off, something he would probably have a soldier shot for doing. Then he heard it again, a low whistle, like a night bird. He answered with a low grunt, try as he might, he had never learned to whistle.

"Coming in, hold your fire," it was a woman's voice low and soft, but surprisingly clear. She was surprised to see the Captain. But she covered it well.

"We're being followed, about twenty of them from what we could tell, Jensen knows these things, I trust his judgement. We left them some surprises, should slow them down until we can get clear of these woods. Sir."

"Surprises?"

"Traps, the kind that inflict pain but don't kill, we didn't have enough time to do anything fancy. Couple of pits with sharpened stakes, easy to see in the daylight but ..."

She was interrupted by a piercing scream from down the trail.

"I think they found one."

A mist had settled into the forest when the rain had stopped. The Sergeant wanted to get moving again, but the troops were reluctant to do so. More than one had let him know, in no uncertain terms, that they were done, they weren't moving another inch.

He couldn't blame them, they had left their dead and wounded behind. Down in the valley near the town which had been their objective, and along the creek which led up into the forest. The pursuit was desultory at first, their opponents weren't regular soldiers. But as the word spread of the day's affairs, more men, and women, came out to join the locals.

"What are they so f**king mad about, Sarge? They broke the law, they have to suffer the consequences, don't they?" One of the younger soldiers had asked as he made his rounds.

"It ain't that simple, trooper. Some of them have argued that the government had no such right to pass that law. That got the locals riled up, I suppose."

One of the other men sat up, "Isn't that for the courts to decide?"

The Sergeant nodded, "I agree, but the officers say march, we march. They say go do a thing, we go do it. Somebody up the chain of command decided to act before the courts. So here we are."

"Deep in the shit." the first man said.

"That's enough, now get off your asses, we need to move." the Sergeant noticed that the mist was getting lighter, it would be daybreak soon enough.

The men around him began getting to their feet, reluctantly, but they were moving.

"How bad is it?" the leader of the local militia looked down at his next door neighbor. Their medic had just finished binding the man's wound.

"Hurts," was all his neighbor said.

The medic stood up, shaking his head, "There are probably more of those traps around, stake went right though his calf. I stopped the bleeding but he needs to see a real doc, might be splinters in there. If he doesn't get them out, they'll fester. He could lose that leg."

The man who had stepped into the trap went pale when he heard that. "Come on, doc, really?"

The leader nodded at two of the other men, "Rig a litter, let's get back to town. I'm sure the regulars will be back. Not today or tomorrow, but they'll be back."

As the sun rose and the mist gradually burned off, the men who had survived the ambush and the running battle from the day before emerged from the forest. They had been promised reinforcements but when they got to the rally point, there were only three men waiting for them, their battalion commander, the battalion sergeant major, and the commander's orderly.

The Captain made his way along the column to where the major waited, he saluted and looked around. "Where ...?"

"Still in barracks Captain. Well, 3rd Company is, 2nd Company is in the mess hall, Support Company is, well, we don't know where Support Company is."

"How do you lose ..."

"It's a revolution, Captain. Rioting broke out in the capital late last night, troops were sent out to quell the riot, a third of 'em joined the rioters, another third went home, the troops that stayed loyal are holed up in the museum of natural history, I think ..." he looked at his Sergeant Major, who nodded.

"Yeah, museum of natural history, I don't know what the official name is, at any rate, those folks are under siege now."

"Sir, I lost seventeen casualties yesterday, we can't just let this go."

"Well, normally I'd agree with you Captain. But right now, I don't know what to think."

"We're at war, Sir." The Sergeant Major offered.

The Captain gave the senior noncom a hard look, "No shit, ya think?"