Part 5 (1/2)

”This is terribly repet.i.tive,” one of the men said. ”Not to mention embarra.s.sing.”

”Just shut up and go 'Ugh!' ” Bob told him.

”Boy, that's playin' dirty,” John Masters said. ”I mean, that's dirty even for Ben Raines.””I don't feel good,” a SWAP member said. ”My stomach hurts. I think they done caused me to come down with some terrible disease.”

A doctor among the group looked at the men in disgust. ”Don't be stupid!” he admonished them. ”Just ignore all that ranting and raving.

It can't hurt you.”

Then the sound of tom-toms reached the defenders of SWAP. Wild Indian yells followed that.

68.”What the h.e.l.l is that?” Masters demanded.

”Injuns!” he was told. ”Look through these here field gla.s.ses and you can see 'em. All painted up and doin' a war dance.”

Cooler and more intelligent heads among the SWAP forces tried to prevail. But it was no use. Ignorant and misinformed to begin with, bitter and hate-filled long before the Great War, now isolated for years, with little emphasis placed on learning, many of the SWAP people began to unravel. Children began crying and that only added to the confusion.

”Shut them G.o.dd.a.m.n kids up!” Masters hollered. ”I cain't hear myself think with all that catterwallin' goin' on. I got to think, y'all. d.a.m.n!”

A sniper's bullet slammed through a concrete block and sent stone splinters into Masters' face and neck. He bellowed in fright and pain, hit the ground and flattened out. As much as his pus-gut would allow.

Hanks and his dancers were really getting into the rhythm of it, and getting very innovative. The tom-toms were banging and Blair's Indians were yelling.

Ben was sitting in a camp chair by his Hummer, drinking coffee and thinking this was a h.e.l.l of a way to fight a war.

Both Buddy and Ben had sent some of their Scouts in close and they were now flitting among the buildings on the edges of the town. In a hour's time, the Scouts had grabbed about sixty young kids and pa.s.sed them back to their lines, turning them over to the medics.

”The kids are in pretty good shape, physically,” a Rebel doctor reported to Ben. ”But they're filled with hatred toward anybody not of their color. It'll take a long time to bring them around.”

69.”I'm not going to try,” Ben said, surprising those gathered around him.

”Base Camp One is very nearly overwhelmed now. And we've only had limited success in working with the kids of outlaw and hate groups. When this is over, we'll reunite them with their mothers and let them go.

It's the best we can do under the circ.u.mstances.”

He stood up and again looked at the town through binoculars. He scanned the town for a few seconds, then lowered the field gla.s.ses and turned to face his team, a hard look in his eyes. ”Beth, tell Blair and Hanks to knock it off. They've had their fun, now it's time to get serious. Come,tell Masters to send out the women and kids. We don't want to hurt them.

Get the mortars set up.”

The tom-toms ceased their drumming and Hanks and his now nearly exhausted ”witch doctors” vanished from the long lenses of the SWAP members.

”What the h.e.l.l's Ben Raines up to now?” Masters questioned. The cuts on his face from the stone splinters had been dabbed with iodine and he looked like he was suffering from some horrible pox. ”Where'd all them n.i.g.g.e.rs and Injuns go to? What the h.e.l.l's goin' on out yonder? What's all them wimmin back yonder squallin' about?”

” 'Bout sixty-seventy kids is gone,” he was informed. ”The Rebels done been in the town and s.n.a.t.c.hed 'em. They cut a bunch of throats and they used silenced guns to kill more of our'n, too. n.o.body saw nothin'.

b.a.s.t.a.r.ds move like ghosts, they do.”

”Raines is tellin' us to send out the women and kids,” a radio operator said. ”Says he don't want to see them hurt.”

70.Masters felt something cold and slimy roll around in his guts. He'd spent years boasting about how he and his people would kick the c.r.a.p out of the Rebels should they ever show up. Now they were here and Masters had lost about fifty people to sniper bullets, the Rebels had arrogantly slipped into his town and kidnapped dozens of kids, cut throats, and killed his people without being seen, and his SWAP forces had not been able to fire an effective round against the Rebels.

”Send out the women and kids, John,” a doctor urged him. ”We can then make our stand, if that's what you want to do.”

”What do you mean, if?”

”You want to die for nothing?” the doctor questioned.

”What do you mean, nothin'? Our cause ain't nothin'. We got a free white society. We got what we always wanted. This is what we worked for, even before the Great War.”

”And when we die, we will have a cold lonely grave,” the doctor said. ”I don't take much comfort in that. General Raines let some of his troops have a little fun at our expense. That's how confident he is. I'm taking my wife and family and leaving under a white flag. The rest of you can stay here and die. For your cause.” He walked away.

Masters leaned against the wall of a building. He hated Ben Raines almost as much as he did n.i.g.g.e.rs. But the idea of dead kids and women didn't appeal to him. ”Send out the women and kids,” he ordered. ”And everybody else that's turned chicken-s.h.i.+t. Me ... I'm stayin'.”

”They're showing a white flag,” Ben said, looking 71.through long lenses. ”Corrie, ask Buddy if he's receiving the same signal.”

”That's ten-four, General. Women and children and a few men in the bunch.”There were six highways leading into the town. The Rebels had blocked them all. 60 mm mortars had been set up and the crews were standing by, ready to drop the rockets down the tubes.

”Tell those surrendering to get their vehicles and drive out of here,”

Ben said. 'Jesus, we can't handle all those people. Tell them to head down to Interstate 40 and then cut west. I don't ever want to see any of them again. There must be four or five thousand of them. My G.o.d, they could overwhelm us by sheer numbers.”

”h.e.l.l of a way to fight a war,” Jersey muttered.

72.Chapter Six.The old cars and trucks smoked and rattled and rolled on, the occupants staring silently through hate-filled eyes at the Rebels as they drove past.

”We'll probably have to fight those kids someday,” Buddy radioed to his father.

”I'm certain of that,” Ben replied, watching as a boy of about ten gave him the middle finger from the back seat of a car. Ben resisted an impulse to return the bird.

”The children sure have lovely manners, don't they?” Jersey remarked.

”Yes. Remarkably well-behaved,” Ben replied drily. ”They have certainly been steeped in the social graces.”

”What will happen to them, I wonder?” Beth asked.

”Oh, they'll drive until they find some deserted and isolated little town,” Ben replied. ”Then they'll set up there and once more start teaching and preaching hate against people not of their color or faith or personal opinion or whatever. Years back, those of us with any sense knew that laws and legislation alone could never erase hatred and prejudice and bigotry ... anymore than governments could effectively legislate morality. It 73.was going to take education and a hundred percent effort on all sides of the color line.”

”But none of us had to go to school to be able to get along with others,” Corrie said.

”True,” Ben said. ”So maybe there is hope for the human race after all.

But not for that bunch holed up in the town. Corrie, tell them to surrender. They'll have one chance and one chance only.”

Corrie did and listened for the reply. She smiled sadly. ”They said for you to go to h.e.l.l, sir.”

”Start dropping in mortars,” Ben ordered.

”Here we go,” Jersey said.Mortar teams had ringed the town from about 2,500 yards out, and their crews started dropping in M734 preset rounds of HE. Some exploded on contact with earth. Others detonated near the surface, and still others were used as proximity rounds, killing anything within a predetermined range.

Still other mortar crews dropped in willie peter, and the white phosphorus rounds soon had flames leaping into the dry air and thick smoke billowing up from the burning town.