The Lilliput Legion (TimeWars 9)

She and Lucas Priest standing once again with General Blood and his staff up on the newly captured ridge, watching from the heights as the British troops below pressed home their advantage. Watching the infantry fix bayonets and advance into the Ghazi ranks. The Ghazis panicking and fleeing, breaking ranks and running, their snipers scrambling down from the rocks where, with the sun coming up, they were suddenly vulnerable to fire from the British troops up on captured ridge. Ghazis taking flight down the graded road, running ahead of the infantry, fighting with one another to escape being trapped by their own numbers in the narrow mountain pass.

“We’ve done it, General!” cried Surgeon-Lieutenant Hugo, standing beside Blood and watching the enemy in full flight. “We’ve broken through! We can post pickets in the pass and reinforce our position. Now we can—“

“No,” said General Blood, grimly. “I will not allow them to escape so they can join with the rebel tribesmen at Chakdarra and warn them. We’ll finish this here and now. They’ll be on the plain once they have retreated through the pass. Fully exposed and on foot. Order forth the lancers. No prisoners. No survivors.”

The signal was given and the four squadrons of Calvary charged. Finn Delaney, leading the second squadron of Bengal Lancers, couched his lance and leaned forward slightly, bearing down upon the fleeing Ghazis before him. It was going to be a slaughter.

The tribesmen still trapped in the pass were run down and trampled by the lancers as they thundered through. Then the cavalry formed a line upon the plain and charged the fleeing enemy. There was no escape. The Ghazis died in the rice fields, run through by the lances and struck down by the cavalry sabres. Bodies fell everywhere as the lancers descended on the running Ghazis and butchered them.

“Christ,” said Hugo, turning away from the carnage down below. “I’m sorry, General, but that’s more than I can stand to watch. I’ve seen enough of death.”

Churchill was riveted by the spectacle. “They shall not forget this,” he said. “It’s probably the first time any of them have seen what cavalry can do, given room to deploy their strength. Henceforth, the very words ‘Bengal Lancers’ shall strike terror into their hearts.”

As he spoke, a lone Ghazi sniper, who had remained undiscovered, hidden behind the rocks of his crumbled sangar, rose to a kneeling position and brought his jezail rifle to bear upon the surgeon, Hugo, whom he mistakenly took to be the commander of the British forces. As he raised his rifle, Lucas spotted him.

He yelled, “Hugo look out!”

Instinctively, after so much time spent under enemy fire, Hugo reacted by throwing himself down flat upon the ground. In an instant, Lucas saw that Hugo’s combat-quick response had placed Churchill directly in the line of fire. In an instant of white hot, adrenaline-charged clarity, he saw it all and made a running dive for Churchill, knocking him out of the way. And in that same moment, the Ghazi sniper fired. The .50 caliber ball slammed into Lucas’s chest, ploughing through the thorax and tearing everything in its path. Too late, Andre fired her revolver, shooting the Ghazi sniper right between the eyes.

Churchill stood there, stricken, staring at the limp body at their feet. Lucas Priest was face down on the ground, blood draining from the gaping hole in his chest.

“My God,” said Churchill.

He crouched over the body and gently turned it over. The others gathered round.

“Doctor, can’t you do something?” Churchill said in an agonized tone.

“I’m sorry, son,” said Hugo, looking down and shaking his head. “There’s nothing to be done.”

Andre knelt over Lucas, staring down at him with shocked disbelief. His sightless eyes stared up at the sky.

“Andre . . ?” someone said.

She reached out to close his eyes.

“Andre …”

Her hand came away wet with his blood.

“Andre!’

She awoke with a start. She took a deep breath and let it out in a weary sigh, running her fingers through her thick blond hair, brushing it back away from her face. Another nightmare. Would they never end?

“Andre?”

She

sat up quickly, grabbing for her plasma pistol and thumbing off the safety as she aimed it—

There was a dark figure standing silhouetted by the window of her bedroom.

“Andre, don’t shoot! It’s me.”

Her eyes went wide as she stared at the shadowy figure.

“Lucas?”

It was impossible. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly and then opened them again. There was no one there. The window was bright with the reflected glare from the lights of Pendleton Base. No one was silhouetted against it. And no one could have come in through that window. It was on the forty seventh floor and sealed so that it couldn’t open.