The Hillock

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The sergeant was exhausted, the troop had been on the move for better than a day. While the men could nod off in the saddle, he had tried to stay alert. They were miles from what he considered the "known world." All he saw around him was a desolate waste, mile upon mile of scrub, wild  grass, and snow. At least as the sun was starting to set, for the second time on this march, the wind had died away to nothing. In the waning sunlight, he almost felt warm.

They were getting closer to the ridge, on the other side of which was the rest of the army, or what was left of it. The campaign had been long and hard, though they had punished the enemy, they had also been worn away by the friction of war. Rumor had it that the men in suits, the diplomats and bureaucrats, were on the verge of a peace treaty. But while they sat in warm buildings, wore clean clothes, slept on clean sheets, and dined off fine china, the men in the field struggled on. Dirty, tired, ill-fed, and rapidly losing their desire to fight on.

Which side would break first?

"Sergeant."

He came awake instantly, he felt a flush of shame when he realized that he had dozed off. He shook his head then turned to look into the eyes of his lieutenant. Though the officer was barely 22 years of age, he looked like an old man.

"Sir?"

"That hillock ahead, that little hill with all the trees, I don't like it."

The sergeant was still trying to wake up, he was desperately tired, but he knew that he couldn't let up, not now. He pulled one glove off and rubbed his eyes, hard. His vision began to clear and he looked in the direction the lieutenant had indicated.

It wasn't much of a hill, in the dying light, backed by the darkening clouds, it was almost pretty, or would have been if they weren't so deep in enemy territory. He nodded.

"You have good instincts, Sir. I don't like it either. How far ahead of the main column are we?"

"Couple of miles at best. The infantry is lagging badly, poor bastards are on their last legs."

"Want my advice, Sir?"

"I wouldn't be here otherwise, Sergeant."

"Send a man back to alert the column. I'll take a foot patrol on ahead. We can shelter the rest of the troop over in that dip in the ground."

As he said that, he pointed over to his left. The sergeant was very familiar with this land now, he would bet that there was a good sized gully where he had pointed. Though the land was fairly dry, in the spring the torrential rains would have to flow somewhere, the land was crisscrossed with gullies which carried away those rains.

The lieutenant nodded, "Pick your men, I'll get the troop to ground."

As the officer turned his horse, he had a quick conversation with his orderly. That man rode off back towards the column. The sergeant nodded, the lieutenant had come far since joining the troop. After the death of the captain, two weeks ago in a messy ambush, the young man was quickly earning his spurs as a leader.

They were closer to the wooded hillock. Night was approaching rapidly, he had two other men with him, both experienced men, both were good in the outdoors. One had been a hunter, the other a woodsman, before the war had made them soldiers.

The woodsman suddenly dropped to one knee and held his fist up. The sergeant froze in place, a glance to his left showed that the hunter was also on one knee, his carbine pointing towards the hillock.

The sergeant waited, he sniffed the air, one of the troopers had said he looked like an old bear when he did that, but he did have a good sense of smell. There, there it was, the smell of something out of place. Wood smoke!

In the deepening dusk, he could discern no sign of fire, but his instincts told him that there were people up on the small hill, back in the trees. They'd probably prepared a meal when the sun was up, when they could take the chance of building a cook fire. No doubt the fire had been doused some time ago, but the scent lingered on the evening air.

Within moments, the woodsman had fallen back to his position. He put his lips close to the sergeant's ear.

"There's someone up there."

Nodding slightly, he turned to see the hunter join them. Saying nothing, the sergeant simply gestured back the way they had come. Neither of the men needed to be told to move quietly.

The scout on the hillock saw it all. He waited for the small patrol to turn back, then he headed up to the top to report in.

"They're here."

The leader of the party nodded. He had been reluctant to let the troops make cook fires during the day. But he had relented, morale was bad, the men were famished as they had been on the run for over a week, fleeing from the invaders.

They had been cut off from the main army and had managed to flee into the plains in the south. They had been stunned to learn that they had been followed by a cavalry unit. Though they had managed to elude their pursuers up until now, it seemed that state had changed.

"How is our ammunition?" he asked one of his company officers.

"Sufficient to make a stand, provided we hurt them badly in their first attack. But these fellows seem pretty professional, I doubt they'll make a headlong rush. Best we can do is hold them off and try to get off into those mountains to the northeast."

The leader nodded. That's what he had figured, though he had hoped that perhaps one of his officers might have a better idea, it seemed there was only one thing they could do. Try and make their way to the mountains during the night. They'd have to leave their sick and wounded behind, and much of their equipment, but he saw no other choice.

"Form your men, carry nothing other than weapons, ammunition, and rations. We'll try and slip away in the dark."

"What of the wounded, and the sick?" It was the chaplain who had spoken up.

"I can't see any other way, we have to leave them to the mercies of the enemy."

"I shall stay with them."

"That is your choice, Father."

"What do you propose, Sir?"

The sergeant would just as soon have held position and let the main column come up. Though they had been pursuing this unit of the enemy since the invasion, the men were exhausted, supplies were low, enthusiasm for a further advance was even lower. What's more, the horses were almost done in. His own mount could barely walk at a pace a toddler could beat.

The lieutenant looked down at the ground, sighed, then looked back at his sergeant.

"If we stop now, I fear those people will slip away again. They have to be as tired as we are, we've given them no respite. I say we move. Put the troop on a line between the hillock and those mountains we saw earlier. You know they'll make for there. It's their only hope."

The sergeant saw the logic in it, as much as he wanted to sleep, rest his horse and his men, he nodded.

"All right, Sir. We better get moving. We'll have to push the horses to their last extremity, but if we bag this lot, it'll be worth it. But after that, we're walking home."

As two bands of tired, desperate men prepared to move out in the dark, the night deepened, the wind rose, and it began to snow.

To be continued ...