"I want to see."
"You want to see?"
"The bridge go."
Valentine looked at the medic, who shrugged. "Let me get this dressing finished. Then we'll see," he said. Valentine couldn't remember giving orders about having an aid station set up on the boat. One of Styachowski or Post's additions. He heard bullets plinking off the old scow. The side of the boat was an irresistible target for any Quisling with a rifle and a view.
They passed under the old pilings of the railroad span. Valentine heard the distinctive clatter of a Kalashnikov fired from the River Rats' town.
When the medic finished with Nail's dressing Valentine pulled a soldier and they carried his stretcher to the back of the tug. The screws were churning the muddy waters of the Arkansas. Behind them they could see the bridge framed against a pink sky. The warehouses were going up, a ground-level fireworks explosion.
"We fucked with them good," Nail said, his eyes bright and excited. "That sight's worth getting all tore up over." The sky was growing brighter by the second.
"C'mon, guys, don't wait and try and take a few with the bridge," Valentine said. "Just-"
Explosions ripped across the bridge, and wood and rails spun into the sky.
"What the hell?" Nail said.
The bridge still stood.
"Shit. Didn't they use enough C-big?" Nail said.
"It's not that," Valentine waited, hoping for the structural integrity to fail. The bridge still stood. "They used plenty. They just used it all at the bottom of the bridge, where it meets the pilings. Spread it out too much, too. They tore up the track good, that's all. On a truss bridge the load is all borne by the joints at the top. If they'd just blown out the tops of the span we passed under, it'd be in the river."
A mortar shell landed in the water astern of them.
"This boat trip's gonna get cut short," Nail predicted.
The barge edged toward Big Rock Mountain. Valentine felt it shudder. The soldiers went to the rail, concerned.
"We're aground!" someone shouted.
"Shit!" Nail said.
"Okay, just wade, swim, whatever," Valentine shouted. He ran forward, leaving Nail for the moment.
"Out of here. Over the side ... just go!" he yelled. "Manfred, help the women. We need stretcher-bearers. Who wants to carry?"
Part evacuation, part shipwreck, they got the soldiers and some of the supplies overboard. Valentine stayed with the wounded until the stretchers were ashore. The water helped deaden the effect of the mortars; they did little more than create brief fountains of water as they exploded.
"There's still a lot of cargo on the barge," Zhao said, dripping from the armpits down.
"Forget it. We need to get up the hill."
It was easier said than done. The hillside rose two hundred feet at a 3:1 grade, where it wasn't a cliff. There was an old switchback road going up the side. Valentine sent up the stretcher-bearers in groups so they could replace each other. He stood among the trees at the base of the hill, watching the mortars drop shells into the barge. The Quislings seemed to be taking strange pleasure in wasting shells on the wreck, rather than dropping them on the hillside where they might do some damage.
He heard a heavy tread, and looked up to see a mountain of muscle.
"Good morning, Ahn-Kha," he said.
"I'm glad to see you, my David. It's been a long night."
"For both of us."
"Post and Styachowski arrive?"
"Styachowski is at the Residence now. Post is still unloading the second run."