Redemption - Leon Uris [249]
Malone was beside me. He had that Quinn’s Post perfume aura about him. Look at these sons of bitches…they still haven’t gotten their uniforms dirty.
I focused my binoculars as did the others. Shit! The Chessboard had grown by over a dozen squares…an entire new trench area had been added on. The gullies off Bloody Angle were filled with troops…lots and lots of them.
The four of us were packed tightly together. Our window to the Turks was only a few feet wide, the only possible place to have our look without exposing ourselves. I wanted to get back, even to Quinn’s, but Brodhead seemed to be enamored with what he saw. It seemed like a year before he signaled me to take us back.
None too soon. I didn’t see them, but after a time you sense a Turkish patrol and we’d been hanging out there for quite a time.
Okay, Rory, go back at exactly the same pace…don’t rush it…breathe deep…Maori farewell song…now we go…now we go…through those fucking land mines.
I looked behind me. Got to say, the Brits were beautiful in the way they followed my line…each pebble of recognition gave me an urge to stand up and run for it…a hundred minutes out…a hundred minutes back.
Oh God, it felt good when the hands in the trenches grabbed me and hauled me in.
“Come on, guys. You know, I always send extra rum up to this post. How about some now?”
“Here you go, chief,” Dan Elgin said. “We owe them two bottles up here.”
“In tomorrow morning’s mail,” I promised.
Damn the protocol. Malone, Markham, and the General saw the bottle and partook without ceremony or invitation.
“Nice work, Landers,” Brodhead said. “Find Major Hubble and come with him to Colonel Malone’s headquarters.”
“Yes, sir.”
I went through the tarp into the Colonel’s quarters. All of them were on the bad side of grim.
“Malone?” Brodhead asked.
“Well, it’s what my patrols suspected but never got to see. The Chessboard has increased in size by twenty percent.”
“It feels like a full brigade in the gullies off Bloody Angle,” Markham said.
“I’d say more,” Malone suggested.
Brodhead posed with his teeth lurking through his lips. “Two brigades and we can identify them,” Brodhead said. “One brigade is going to slide along the line between Quinn’s on down to Lone Pine. Their attack will be to pin the line down. Their main assault will be directly on Quinn’s Post with another brigade. They’ll come over the gullies in waves right into your face, Malone. There’s really no room to maneuver around with flanking tactics. They’ll try to overrun us right down Monash Valley.”
“Who’s resting in Heavently Spa Valley?” Malone asked of the place with the queer name where troops were rotated off the lines.
“Canterbury’s,” Colonel Markham said.
“Better get them up here,” Brodhead ordered. “Colonel Chapman’s dead. They’ll need a new commander.”
“Who’s the exec?”
“Lieutenant Colonel Hinshaw.”
Malone held his tongue but showed visible uneasiness.
“I think not,” Brodhead said.
I’ll take the Canterbury’s,” Colonel Markham said.
“Let me think about it,” Brodhead said. “Well, we do have some decent news. Chris told me just as we pushed off this morning. A hundred Maxim guns were unloaded yesterday. How soon can you have them up here, Chris?”
“Depends how they’re packed. Right away if they’re not in grease.”
“Just in light oil,” I said. “I checked.”
“Good. Landers, Chris…fifty of the Maxims go right here to Quinn’s. I want another twenty-five down the line to Lone Pine. Twenty-five in reserve. We’re going to need an ammunition dump up here.”
“I don’t like ammo on top of the trenches,” Malone said strongly. “We almost had a catastrophe with that.”
“It has to be within a few minutes’ reach,” Markham said. “Landers?” Chris asked.
“I can set up a series of small dumps right behind the post, sir. If I stay up here with my squad, we’ll create the space.”
“AM right with you, Hubble?” the General asked.
“Subaltern Yurlob has the transport completely under control. I think Landers up