Tilting the Balance

But you couldn’t charge here, not if you felt like living. The Russians and Germans who’d tried it were most of them down, some chewed to bits by a hail of bullets, others shredded like the first luckless fellow by stepping on a mine. The few still on their feet could not go forward. They fled for the shelter of the woods.

Bagnall turned to Embry, shouted, “I think we just stuck our tools in the meat grinder. ”

“Whatever gave you that idea, dearie? ” Even in the middle of battle, the pilot managed to come up with a high, shrill falsetto.

In the gathering gloom, one of the houses in the village began to move. At first Bagnall rubbed his eyes, wondering if they were playing tricks on him. Then, after Mussorgsky, he thought of the Baba Yaga, the witch’s hut that ran on chicken’s legs. But as the wooden walls fell away, he saw that this house moved on tracks. “Tank! ” he screamed. “It’s a bleeding tank! ”

The Russians were yelling the same thing, save with a broad a rather than his sharp one. The Germans screamed “Panzer! ” instead. Bagnall understood that, too. He also understood that a tank-no, two tanks now, he saw-meant big trouble.

Their turrets swiveled toward the heaviest firing. Machine guns opened up on them as they did so; streams of bullets struck sparks from their armor. But they’d been made to withstand heavier artillery than most merely Earthly tanks commanded-the machine guns might as well have been firing feathers.

Their own machine guns started shooting, muzzle flashes winking like fireflies. One of the raiders’ machine guns-a new German one, with such a high cyclic rate that it sounded like a giant ripping an enormous canvas sail when it opened up-abruptly fell silent. It started up again a few seconds later. Bagnall admired the spirit of the men who had taken over for its surely fallen crew.

Then the main armament of one of the tanks spoke, or rather bellowed. From less than half a mile away, it sounded to Bagnall like the end of the world, while the tongue of flame it spat put him in mind of hellmouth opening. The machine gun stopped firing once more, and this time did not open up again.

The other tank’s cannon fired, too, then slowed so it pointed more nearly in Bagnall’s direction. He scrambled deeper into the woods: anything to put more distance between himself and that hideous gun.

Ken Embry was right with him. “How the devil do you say, ‘Run like bloody hell! ’ in Russian? ” he asked.

“Not a phrase I’ve learned, I’m afraid, but I don’t believe the partisans need our advice in that regard, ” Bagnall answered. Russians and Germans alike were in full retreat, the tanks hastening on their way-and hastening too many of them into the world to come-with more cannon rounds. Shell splinters and real splinters blown off trees hissed through the air with deadly effect.

“Someone’s reconnaissance slipped up badly, ” Embry said. “This was supposed to be, an infantry outpost. No one said a word about going up against armor. ”

Bagnall only grunted. What Embry had said was self-evidently true. Men were dying because of it. His main hope at present was not being one who did. Through the crash of the cannon, he heard another noise, one he didn’t recognize: a quick, deep thutter that seemed to come out of the air.

“What’s that? ” he said. Beside him, Embry shrugged. The Russians were running faster than ever, crying “Vertolyet! ” and “Avtozhir. ” Neither word, unfortunately, meant anything to Bagnall.

Fire came out of the sky from just above treetop height: streaks of flame as if from a Katyusha launcher taken aloft and mounted on a flying machine instead of a truck. The woods exploded into flame as the rocket warheads detonated. Bagnall shrieked like a lost soul, but couldn’t even hear himself.

Whatever had fired the rockets, it wasn’t an ordinary airplane. It hung in the sky, hovering like a mosquito the size of a young whale, as it loosed another salvo of rockets on the humans who had presumed to attack a Lizard position. More deadly shrapnel flew. Buffeted, half stunned by the blast, Bagnall lay flat on the ground, as he might have during a great earthquake, and prayed the pounding would end.

But another helicopter came whickering up from the south and poured two more salvos of rockets into the raiders’ ranks. Both machines hovered overhead and raked the forest with machine-gun fire. The tanks came crashing closer, too, smashing down everything that stood in their way but the bigger trees.

Somebody booted Bagnall in the backside, hard. “Get up and run, you bloody twit! ” The words were in English. Bagnall turned his head. It was Ken Embry, his foot drawn back for another kick.

“I’m all right, ” Bagnall said, and proved it by getting up. As soon as he was on his pins again, adrenaline made him run like a deer. He fled north-or, at any rate, away from the tanks and the helicopters’ killing ground. Embry matched him stride for desperate stride. Somewhere in their mad dash, Bagnall gasped out, “Where’s Alf? ”

“He bought his plot back there, I’m afraid, ” Embry answered.

That hit Bagnall like-like a machine-gun round from one of the deathships up there, he thought. Watching Russians and Germans he didn’t know getting shot or blown to bits was one thing. Losing someone from his own crew was ten times worse-as if a flak burst had torn through the side of his Lancaster and slaughtered a bombardier. And since Whyte was-had been-one of the three other men in Pskov with whom he could speak freely, he felt the loss all the more.

Bullets still slashed the woods, most of them, though, behind the fleeing Englishmen now. The Lizards’ tanks did not press the pursuit as aggressively as they might have. “Maybe they’re afraid of taking a Molotov cocktail from someone up a tree whom they don’t spy till too late, ” Embry suggested when Bagnall said that out loud.