vi
Now the first target was struck, but it wasn't any person.
It was only one end of a milk cow, and just about due for mating again. It shouldn't have gone up to the softball field, but it already had, and since it was facing straight into the direction in which the military division advanced to attack the small town, it made the highest-of-all high sacrifice. Of course it didn't know that it had made this sacrifice.
Major Kāng-Méi-Ēn spoke to his deputy officer with an angry voice: "Lái-Fèi-Cí!71 The artillerymen must tie up all the safety-insurance of our big cannon. The men can't give way to receiving this sort of situation." To see that old milk cow get turned into hamburger, to see it covered with meat-sauce, was something people shouldn't have to see. Best to tie up those big cannon, at any rate, until we could see whether Péng-shĭ Angle was really ready for the first battle.
So Major Kāng-Méi-Ēn made the army vehicles stop-stay, and told the personnel to dismount them. They were now already past the radioactive region that really had danger.
The battle regiment accomplished an extremely good-looking spread-apart; they moved very-extremely quickly, and were very-extremely good-looking. From the top of the old gather-cathedral pagoda in Péng-shĭ Angle, Jié-Kè Tài-Yī and Ān-Dí Gé-Lă-Mĭ-Sī gazed into the distance through a telescope, and I ought to tell you, Gé-Lă-Mĭ-Sī wanted to stop resting on the bottom of a big eruption. But Jié-Kè Tài-Yī only hum-hummed, and nodded his head.
Major Kāng-Méi-Ēn issued an order, and each man in the battle-line began digging trenches. These men had swamp, these men had mud; moreover the men had to dig into hard-hard rock-stone, and some of them—most-near-away-from where the first target was—only had to dig through a thin slice of hamburger and meat-sauce. This had no consequence, because they didn't use the Second World big-War type of dig-trench shovel; they used self-digging devices that could dig into anything no matter what; and not only that, but when they dug the trenches their insides were lined with a very attractive porcelain-type gloss. This was indeed supremely mighty.
And yet, in another respect—
Ah, you see, this was the situation. Twenty-six personnel transport vehicles had delivered them into this place. Each vehicle had its own driver, had a have-use-driver,72 had an urgent-situation have-use-driver, and had a place-repair-workman. It had its own radar and electrical-set-up-equipment repair-worker, its own radar and electrical-set-up-equipment repair-worker assistant. It had four large artillerymen, and had a place-contact-officer and a get-in-touch-with-commanding-officer-contact to get in touch with the government officials.
Yeah, right, of course, they had a need for that many personnel. Without having them, the military division wouldn't be able to deal with anything.
But these men added to the others already resulted in two hundred and eighty-two men.
There was also the fight-in-the-open-country kitchen, that had a kitchen staff of forty-seven altogether, and also had a go-political-supervise-getalong-and-food-study committee, the connect-parts-together-regiment with a soldiers'-pay-and-provisions group, and a military-police squad; as well as the meteorology group: you should see it as they set up the teletype machine and the fan-shaped-receive-device, and see the contact-go-up-to-sky-empty-release-air-balloon-shapes: you would feel very proud. The war hospital had eighty-one hygienicists and attendants, nine medical officers with independent medical administration mechanisms; the specific-type-of-service group, which placed a three-dimensional square73 above the fronts of the personnel vehicles, busily erected the movie screen, and formed the first handball match among the unequal-value personnel group. The four follow-army-clergymen had their own assistants, plus also they had the moral-culture-doctrine, not-know-opinion and get-ready-to-shake division of the brain trust; the government records official and eight dispatch trainees: they were boldly taking magnetic-tape recorders from one foxhole to another foxhole, wanting to take down notes and measure footprints as history took shape, as it was said, wanting to take down notes and firsthand impressions of something that hadn't occurred yet. Plus also Canada, Mexico, Uruguay, the Scandinavian74 Federation, and the Soviet Union had all sent military observers with their orderlies and aides-de-camp: and of course people came from ‹‹Star-and-Strip,››75 ‹‹New York Times,›› ‹‹Christian Scientific Knowledge Protect-Report,››76 ‹‹Sī-Kè-Lĭ-Pŭ-Sī—Huò-Huá-Dè77 Alliance-Report, ›› five image-wire corporations, eight television nets, one record-film-strip corporation, and one hundred twenty-seven news bureaus with hear-the-news war correspondents.
Of course this was organized as a refined-simple war group. So each reporter had only one hear-the-news officer.
And yet . . .
This sort of thing left just-enough-only forty-six men in the battle line.
Upstairs at the top of the old gather-cathedral, Ān-Dí Gé-Lă-Mĭ-Sī put on a long face and spoke: "Look-a-look at them, Jié-Kè! I don't know; perhaps allowing widespread-appraisal to return to Péng-shĭ Angle wouldn't be a bad matter. You look now, it was a carnival-grounds life before the war, but—"
"Wait-a-wait," Jié-Kè Tài-Yī spoke peacefully, and went hum-hum inside.
They weren't able to see it very well, yet the battle line was now in chaos. They had faced the knowledge that the safety-insurance of their fight-in-the-open cannon had been tied up, and that the complete fire-strength of the military division consisted of forty-six carbines. Yeah, right, this wasn't bad; but no matter what is said, ten days before the go-on-journey force was outfitted, then had all been equipped with E-Z fire-strength revolve-turn carbines. But some of those men in the regiment didn't have an intimate knowledge of the new-model weapons yet.
All up the firing line this sort of situation developed:
"[Shan'm],"78 one person shouted to the private in the foxhole alongside. "[Shan'm], hear me speak, I don't know how to make this what-is-it carbine work. When that what-is-it blue light goes high, is-it-right-isn't-it-right to say that the what-is-it safety-insurance is already disengaged?"
"That what-is-it is completely unknown to me," [Shan'm] replied back, his eyebrows cocked as he looked at the multicolored, bright paper-sealed instruction manual. That instruction manual had the extremely move-people title ‹‹Repeat New Gain Good-Fit and Tranquility Five-Step Supernatural Eye Technique.›› "Do you see what it says up front? This is what: 'When the Supernatural Eye has entered the not-move condition, it only takes the positive failsafe79 move-work, and thereby assures the Jiffi-Kleen80 carbine of strong ejection with release, notwithstanding when used with the shoulder-sit-stay-cushions."
"You say what, [Shan'm]?"
"I said that the what-is-it is something that I cannot understand," [Shan'm] said, and threw the instruction manual into the uninhabited strip of land in front of him.
But afterwards he regretted that, and crawled out to bring it back, because even though nobody was able to use it, and it had nothing to do with the mud and earth all around Péng-shĭ Angle, inside that instruction book were glossy photographs of female bright starshines with the pieces put together81—because when the underground factories produced military devices they also produced instruction books. Of course they felt they had to do this sort of thing, as they were very good at making instruction books; as the charts became complicated, they used more photographs. Those car-vehicle images would make people shout to look at them.
A few minutes afterwards: "They don't seem to be doing anything in there," Ān-Dí Gé-Lă-Mĭ-Sī vague-vaguely said, while he watched from above in the high pagoda.
"Right, they aren't doing anything, Ān-Dí. That-what, we cannot remain sitting in this place. Come, and we'll return to the situation to look-a-Iook."
Ān-Dí Gé-Lă-Mĭ-Sī didn't want to come, but Jié-Kè Tài-Yī couldn't very well be overruled, so they went down the twisting stairs, and met Péng-shĭ Angle's fourteen-member volunteer army, those were all that had come, and went over to that softball field.
Twenty-six personnel move-transport-vehicles made an electrical noise arise of its own accord, and the cannon-pagodas of their 105-mm cannon turned to aim at that stand-alone army.
Forty-six rifle hands, interspersing talk with curses, tried to make the new image of their À-Kè-Yī82A.C. blue-thread aim-band cross the blue-colored horizon true-view-sector appear-emerging in the screens sealed up into their off-model radar.
And that Major Kāng-Méi-Ēn, emitting shouts when he saw this, sway-looked a set of documents in the face of his deputy officer. "What sort of seventy-eight varieties of pickled mess is this?" he insisted, because a soldier remains a soldier no matter how much height83 he has. "When the enemy-people are coming straight towards us, I can't withdraw the men from the firing line!"
"The army so orders, sir." that deputy officer said while maintaining his composure. He had obtained a doctorate in military affairs, and he knew which person's orders had what sort of significance to whom. "The turn-forces strategy wasn't my idea, sir. Why don't you handle this with the Five-Angled Skyscraper?"
"But, Lài-Fèi-Cí, you fool you, I'm not in touch with the Five-Angled Skyscraper! Those what-are-they reporters have already squeezed the television channels! Now you insist that I withdraw every rifleman facing the line, and let them have a rest in holiday-camp for three weeks—"
"No, sir," that deputy officer set him straight, finger-showing the orders while speaking. "Only twenty days is right, sir, including round-trip travel time. But you would do best to act promptly, sir, I can only see it this way. This order is written 'Urgent Dispatch.'"
Ah, but Major Kāng-Méi-Ēn was not a blockhead. No matter what they said about him afterwards. He had studied the tragic downfall of von Paulus84 at Stalingrad,85 he had studied how Lee86 with the support of Heaven's good fortune had escaped from Gettysburg, and he knew what might befall a far-journey force within an enemy-people's area, if they happened to be afraid of the situation. Even a very big sort of far-journey force. And you must remember, this far-journey force of his was quite small.
He remembered that as you lose daylight, everything in that place becomes your enemy; many more of the Nazi Sixth Army died unnatural deaths of frost-cold combined with dysentery than slaughter-died from the Soviet people; when Lee withdrew the bumping of the carts sent more wounded-and-sick men to loss than did the great cannon of Meade.87 So he could only have no choice but to be in accordance with such means as were made.
"Now retreat!" he big-shout-spoke. "We must withdraw at once to back inside the warehouse."
Withdraw-return-repeat and reorganize troops; isn't this good? But the situation wasn't so simple.
The soldier-vehicles moved backwards, appearing like a flotilla going in a big roundabout. Those vehicle-machine-soldiers had learnt to drill in this fashion. But one move-soldier-vehicle got tangled up with the specific-type-of-service-group's movie screen, and as a result collided with another vehicle, and three other vehicles found themselves piled up among the advance-structural-components of the fight-in-the-open hospital with no way out. Five of the vehicles that had assumed the burden of extra assignments, using their rear axles to drive the table dynamos, were within fifteen minutes completely unable to get out, as a result of having become penned up among it all.
The final situation was that the twenty-six vehicles had only four among them able to move out. And it was very apparent of course that those weren't enough, so this wasn't simply a retreat; this was simply first-rate disaster. "Now there is only one resort," Major Kāng-Méi-Ēn ponder-looked from the center of the fragmented chaos, his face trickling the tears of a hero. "But how much I hope that I had not thought to try to make a reason to change myself from lieutenant to major!"88
This was such: Jié-Kè Tài-Yī accepted Kāng-Méi-Ēn's surrender. Jié-Kè Tài-Yī's countenance did not have an iota of amazement. But I can't say anything of the sort about the people among the stand-alone volunteer army.
"Don't want this, Major, you may keep your double-edged sword," Jié-Kè Tài-Yī said mildly, "and the officers your army has among it may retain their accurate-flat-trajectory nothing-jump power-tote weapons."
"Thank-thank you, sir," the major sob-spoke, and stagger-stagger-walked ahead and went inside the army officers' club that the link-section-assemble-division hadn't stopped building yet.
Jié-Kè Tài-Yī looked behind the image of his back, with a peculiar pondering sort of expression.
Lā-Fā-Jí, brandishing a walking-stick made from a thirty-inch root grown from a peach tree—this was the only weapon he could find at the time—mutter-mutter spoke: "This is a first-rate great victory! Now I guess they won't get the general idea to come provoke us again!"
Jié-Kè Tài-Yī had not a word to say.
"You don't deem such a thing as this, Jié-Kè? That they won't be bold enough to come in here again now?"
Jié-Kè Tài-Yī gazed at him lukewarmishly, as if getting ready to reply to his question, but suddenly turned to Chá-Lĭ Fú-Lín-Kè. " Chá-Lĭ, listen to me. Do-you-don't-you have a prop-up-pistol squared away?"
"Right, Mr. Tài-Yī. Also have a twenty-two millimeter rifle. Want me to get hold of them?"
"Ah, right, I think such as this." Jié-Kè Tài-Yī watched that young man run away. He used his hand to cover his own eyes. Afterwards he said: " Ān-Dí, do a bit of something for us. Have that major give our group a military prisoner to take charge of, who knows the road to the place of the Five-Angled Skyscraper."
A bit of time later, Chá-Lĭ returned with that prop-up-pistol and that twenty-two-millimeter rifle; as for later matters, they naturally joined the scope of history.