"We saw them coming up the tongue of rock. The Piruts were behind them,
but not far. Not far enough. One of the three, it wasn't your father,
called to us to put the ladder down. We waited...."
A muscle began to twitch under Kirk's eye. That, too, was something
that had never happened before, like the stab of pain with no spear
behind it. He licked his lips and repeated hoarsely:
"I don't understand."
The Officer tightened suddenly and made one hand into a fist and beat
it slowly on the wall, up and down.
"I didn't want to give the order. God knows I didn't want to! But there
was nothing else to do."
A man came up over the top of the ladder. He was carrying a body over
his shoulder, and breathing hard.
"Here's Kirk," he said. "Where'll I put him?"
There was a clear space off to the right. Kirk pointed to it. "Over
there, Charley. I'll help."
It was hard to move. He'd never been tired like this before. He'd never
been afraid like this, either. He didn't know what he was afraid of.
Something in the Officer's voice.
He helped to lay his father down. He'd seen bodies before. He'd handled
them, fighting on the pillbox walls. But never one he'd known so long,
one he'd eaten and slept and wrestled with. The thick arm that hauled
him out of bed this morning, the big hands that warmed the baby against
the barrel chest. You saw it lying lax and cold, but you didn't believe
it.
You saw it. You saw the spear shaft sticking out clean from the
heart....
You saw it....
"That's one of our spears!" He screamed it, like a woman. "One of our
own--from the front!"
"I let them get as close as I dared," said the Officer tonelessly. "I
tried to find a way. But there wasn't any way but the ladder, and that
was what the Piruts wanted. That's why they made them come."
Kirk's voice wasn't a voice at all. "You killed them. You killed my
father."
"Three lives, against all those back on the plain. We held our fire
too long as it was, hoping. The Piruts nearly broke through. Try to
understand! I had to do it."
Kirk's spear made a flat clatter on the stone. He started forward. Men
moved in and held him, without rancor, looking at their own feet.
"Please try to understand," whispered the Officer. "I had to do it."
The Officer, the bloody wall, the stars and the cold grey gullies all
went away. There was nothing but darkness, and wind, a long way off.
Kirk thought of Pa coming up under the wall, close to safety, close
enough to touch it, and no way through. Pa and Frank and Russ, standing
under the wall, looking up, and no way through.
Looking up, calling to the men they knew, asking for help and getting a
spear through the heart.
After that, even the wind was gone, and the darkness had turned red.
* * * * *
There was a voice, a long way off. It said, "God, he's strong!" Over
and over. It got louder. There were weights on his arms and legs, and
he couldn't throw them off. He was pressed against something.
It was the wall. He saw that after a while. The wall where the Officer
had been standing. There were six men holding him, three on each side.
The Officer was gone.
Kirk relaxed. He was shivering and covered with rime from body sweat.
Somebody whistled.
"Six men! Didn't know the kid had it in him."