The Last Bridge

Chapter Forty-eight 1115 Hours

Tyreen’s ears rang angrily long after the last explosive racket died on the far side of the mountain. He had seen ragged bits of iron and steel careering through the sky above the peak. He spoke with bleak tonelessness:

“It’s done.”

His neck bled slowly. He was bruised from head to foot. He made his way downhill through the altitude-stunted jungle, moving roughly parallel to the railroad tracks.

J. D. Hooker stepped into sight with his gun muzzle dipped. He was filthy; he moved with the slow stiffness of a badly punished body. His hostile eyes reflected the smoky daylight. Tyreen walked forward painfully, tramping his flickering shadow into the ground.

A feeling of cold struck definitely through him. He saw Hooker walking forward, frowning. When Hooker came closer, his lips moved and he spoke with suppressed urgency, but Tyreen did not make out the words. Hooker broke into a run across the intervening five yards; Hooker’s voice jumped at him:

“Down!” And Hooker’s solid body smashed into him, carrying him down flat.

His vision was filled with the pale clenching of Hooker’s jaws, the lift of Hooker’s ugly gun. Tyreen swiveled his head. Sergeant Khang was plowing forward, coming the same way Hooker had come, and back the other way a flat-helmeted figure weaved through the trees. Hooker’s gun opened up just above Tyreen’s face, blasting his eardrums intolerably. Khang shouted something and went past on the run.

Tyreen rolled over. “Wait, you fool!” He climbed to his feet and went after Khang.

Khang swung through the trees, and a single rifle shot boomed. Khang wheeled and started shooting. His face leered furiously. Hooker commenced fire, and a body crashed down among the trees somewhere nearby. The soldier in Tyreen’s view weaved in and out of sight, never giving him a clear shot. Tyreen heard the man fire. He saw Khang’s running body spill and crash into a tree.

Tyreen ducked aside and let go a coolly aimed hurst at the soldier. The soldier ducked back into thicker trees. Hooker was shouting steadily. Khang got up, hurt, and began to retreat. Tyreen gave him covering fire. Khang limped along and dropped flat beside Tyreen.

“What the hell was that for, Sergeant?”

Figures ran through the shadows. Khang said, “I want to get my licks in, too, Colonel. It’s my Goddamn country.”

“Where’s that bullet?”

“Hipbone, I guess. It don’t hurt.”

Sunlight flashed on a gun barrel, and Tyreen fired at it. The gun blew powdersmoke back in his face. He latched the gun open to feed in a new magazine; he cut his palm on the sharp bolt-handle. His hand started to bleed. Hooker was no longer in sight; he had backed away. Someone spoke a warning, and Theodore Saville ran into the district, firing three brief bursts. Saville’s right cheek was bruised an angry red. “The place is crawling with them.”

“Come on.” Tyreen got to his knees and looked down at Khang.

Khang’s expression, loose and faded and blind, was plain enough evidence that he was dead.

Unable to believe it, Tyreen turned him over. Two wounds bled in Khang’s side: the hip and the left ribs, high up. “He didn’t even feel that one.” The bleeding stopped as he watched.

“Let’s go, David,” Saville said gently.

The closeness of death laid a frost on Tyreen’s nerves. He stooped to swing Khang’s arm over his shoulder and started to lift Khang when gunfire erupted in the woods and he heard wood splintering and the audible whip of slugs going by.

“Leave him,” Saville snapped.

Tyreen got up and searched the woods. Rage engulfed him. He found a hostile gunner and put a burst in that direction, pinning the man down.

Fifty yards away, J. D. Hooker stood, his squat frame blocking an opening between trees. His braced gun talked in harsh signals. Echoes slammed back and forth against the slopes. Tyreen started to make his run, with Saville on his heels. Hooker kept shooting, covering their run; hostile bullets buzzed through the forest. Everything was sharp and clear; the unfriendly glare of the half-clouded sky beat against his eyes. Hooker stood with his shoulders jammed between trees, his face lifted violently and his chopper chugging out ammunition. His feet were spread the width of the opening; his hands were like vises on the gun.

Something struck Tyreen a sharp blow in the shoulder blade. He felt his legs give way; he was halfway to the ground when a giant arm swept him up. His face turned an arc through the air; he felt himself being overturned. Saville’s big shoulder butted into the pit of his stomach and Saville ran on, carrying him that way over one shoulder.

They came past Hooker, and Hooker said crankily, “You people coming? Or do we wait and have tea?”

“You’re punchy,” Saville told him.

“What about the peckerhead?”

“He’s dead.”

“I didn’t figure you’d leave him, otherwise,” Hooker said grudgingly. He snapped his gun up past Saville’s thigh, but held his fire: “Lieutenant McKuen. That damn fool — what’s he think he’s doing?”

“Go after him.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll catch up. Go on.”

Tyreen heard the talk through a veil of red agony. The big shoulder rocked under him while they pushed downslope through the jungle; Tyreen could hear Hooker plunging ahead and Saville, carrying Tyreen’s weight, was keeping up. A blast of fire echoed behind them, and Saville made a ponderous turn to answer it. The gun ran empty, and Saville threw it aside. “Hang on, David,” he said, and broke into a run.

A gun hammered ahead of them, offering cover. Tyreen could see nothing but the ground lurching past underneath. Dizzy waves washed through him; red curtains opened and closed across his eyes. There was a distant rattle of automatic rifle fire, an answering volley from somewhere ahead, and then another gun opened up closer by, off to the left. Tyreen felt Saville jerk under him. The big man halted for a moment, and Tyreen heard the sawing sigh of his breath. Then Saville picked up the pace again. Tyreen tried to speak; finally he husked out the words: “Are you hurt?”

Saville made no answer. He ran at sprint-pace, dodging trees. McKuen was up there, shouting something. Saville started to slow down; his pace became uneven. Tyreen said, “For Christ’s sake, put me down.” Saville kept lumbering on. Tyreen heard Hooker calling to McKuen:

“The Captain’s hit.”

Boots pounded the earth, and there was a surge of gunfire. Saville moved on, staggering, and finally the splendid body faltered. Saville went to his knees and coughed. Tyreen broke the man’s hold on him and fell away. When he rolled upright, he saw Saville pitching slowly forward like a falling redwood. He had a stitching of wounds across his belly and chest. Tyreen spoke and reached out, but Saville was dead before he fell.

Hooker plunged forward. Tyreen heard him dimly: “Jesus — Jesus. He was dead a quarter-mile back. And he got this far!”

There was a ragged after-volley of fire. McKuen spoke somewhere in the thickening fog: “They’ve lost us. Running around with their bloody noses to the ground.”

Tyreen pried his eyes wide open and burned a path through dizzy mists. He stared at the mound of Theodore Saville’s body. Another life guttered out. By a terrible effort of will, he got on his feet and lifted his hand in a slow salute. He held the salute until McKuen grabbed him by the arm. He shook McKuen off savagely; he turned and tried to explain:

“He was a friend of mine.”

“Sure,” McKuen said. “Let’s find some cover and bandage you up before you irrigate the whole bloody mountainside.”

Tyreen opened his mouth to speak. A red blanket climbed up over the surfaces of his eyes. It turned black, and he lost his balance. He did not feel himself fall.