Shadows, стр. 11
“Lieutenant Cutter,” the non-com said. “Come! We must hurry. Our village is being attacked!”
“By who?” Cutter asked, pushing to his feet. He’d slept fully clothed and needed only to pull on his boots and grab the Thompson before following Riidono across the hill at a run. They’d camped two miles from the western terminus of the ridge, close to the village but out of sight behind its crest. Nuther lay on a lower slope, closer to the river but far enough upland to avoid the occasional floods. Driven by fear for their friends and loved ones, his men sped over the ridge toward their homes, with Cutter stumbling after them as he shook off the effects of sleep. Normally he came instantly awake at the first sign of danger, but fatigue and the illusion of security had allowed him to slip into a deeper sleep than usual. Now, as they neared the top, Cutter knew the red glow ahead meant that his men’s homes were on fire. Despite the risk of tripping in the semidarkness, he ran faster.
From the ridge top, he saw flames licking out the windows and doorways of every home. Although built mostly of stone, the doors and roofs tended to be animal hides stretched over wood frames, both of which burned fast and hot. Cutter got there after his men had saved the ones they could. Smoking bodies lay strewn about, with people dousing them in water retrieved from the river.
Mothers wailed for their dead children, children for their dead mothers, and Cutter’s men went berserk at seeing their families cut down. Calls for the healers exceeded their numbers so he pitched in wherever he could. Within minutes, Cutter’s hands were bloody after applying pressure to a gut-shot girl, but the wound proved fatal. As death settled over her, Cutter watched her young face relax to something approaching peace.
Most of those still alive had been hiding in the huts when the raiders set them ablaze, and there was little Cutter could do for them. Battlefield first aid only went so far in treating burns, and with no medics, morphine, or first aid kits, he could only do what he’d learned back on Earth. Mainly that consisted of ripping cloth strips from robes and shirts, wetting them from a jug of water he found near a hut, and keeping their wounds moist. Tanavuna’s wife, the village’s most revered healer, was nowhere in sight.
Over the screams of the injured and crackling of flames, Cutter heard angry yells coming from the western end of the village where a cluster of his soldiers had surrounded a man lying on the ground. Cutter flashed back to a day in late June, 1944, when his platoon moved into an open field surrounded by bocage and a German MG 42 cut one of them nearly in half. The machine gun’s loader took a BAR round in the forehead, but his men captured the gunner and kicked him to death. They hated the MG 42—“Hitler’s Buzzsaw”—and, by extension, the men who operated it.
Cutter could have stopped them back then. The German’s terrified face still haunted his dreams; his soldbuch gave his age as sixteen. He’d been a scared boy, drafted and stuck in the front lines. Just a kid who’d fought for his country. Worse, once the immediate hatred wore off, guilt at what they’d done tormented some of his men.
Cutter wouldn’t let that happen again. He sprinted over to the group, pushed them away, and confronted his XO, Lieutenant Tanavuna, who was standing over the man pointing an M14 at his head. In the flickering firelight, he could see the white paint on his face.
“Stand down, Lieutenant!”
Tanavuna’s glare made clearer than words that Cutter was an outsider. “Do you not see what they have done?” he asked, the rifle shaking as his hand trembled with rage. Cutter feared he’d squeeze off a round without meaning to, and, with all of the stones littering the area, a ricochet was entirely possible. “They took my wife, Cutter; they stole her and slaughtered my people! They killed my father, and now I am hetman. I decide on justice against those who injure my people! Do you understand that? It has nothing to do with you or your mission; this is about the people of Nuthhurfipiko. Leave us be!”
“Listen to me—”
Tanavuna swung the gun to point at Cutter’s nose, the barrel less than two feet from his face. No sanity softened the indig’s face, and the trembling of his body increased. The other men stepped back, while the ones behind him moved to either side.
“Klooannii caught him assaulting Dristtaluppu with a knife at her throat. She was a young mother, and they killed her child! When Klooannii found them, this man thrust his blade into Dristtaluppu’s neck. And now you wish me to spare such filth?”
Even in the semidarkness of the new dawn, Cutter saw terror in the raider’s eyes, a silent plea for mercy and hope that the newcomer with the strange accent might save his life.
“Killing me won’t bring the mother back, Lieutenant Tanavuna, nor her child.”
“You would spare him?”
“I would question him. You say they took your wife?”
That refocused the distraught indig leader and began the process of restoring logical thought, even analysis. “Yes, Kesteluni is gone. We must go after her.” His men cheered and waved their rifles.
“We will—”
“Each moment takes them further away; we must go now! If we do not, they—”
“Do not interrupt me again, Lieutenant!” Cutter roared, intentionally yelling louder than necessary to stop the rising mob reaction. It could have caused Tanavuna to pull the trigger, but that didn’t bother him. He’d stopped fearing death the moment he’d