"Allen, Roger Macbride - Allies And Aliens 1 - Torch Of Honor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allen Roger Macbride)

A loud crump came from outside, and a moment later an ear-splitting series of explosions came from the south end of the camp. "There goes the ammo dump, I expect," Taylor said.
"They'll hit the armory next, then work over the barracks and the rest of the camp," I said.
Another series of blasts came from the east, a sharper, staccato series of reports. Taylor looked up sharply. "That's not the shells from our artillery."
One of the Kennedy troops came rushing in from the courtyard. "The camp's perimeter fence just got blown up, a long section right in front of us!"
We all rushed out into the rapidly filling courtyard. It was a disorganized mob. Taylor grabbed the first officer he saw and yelled, "Clear these men out of here! Blow the locks off the hangars and put 'em there. We need this road clear! Lieutenant Roberts is coming back any moment with the trucks we're riding out of here. Fast!"
He strode out into the courtyard, followed by a small crowd that included myself. The fence was down all right, across maybe 100 meters of the perimeter. Men carrying weapons were running toward us. One of them carried a flag-
New Finnish flag! "Hold your fire!" I yelled. "That's our side!" I found my gun in my hand, reholstered it, and rushed out to meet them. I came up to a thin, wiry man of about 50 dressed in a worn old uniform. He saluted as some of his troops gathered in a little knot around the two of us. "It is that we do have trucks and a train," he began in very laborious English.
"I speak some Finnish," I cut in.
He breathed a sigh of relief and switched languages. "Good. We have some trucks and there is a train waiting on its tracks about 12 kilometers from here. We can take some on the trucks and get the others on the train. We heard from the higher-ups that there would be a lot of soldiers here that would need to be evacuated."
"That's for sure. Come this way." I took him to Taylor and explained the situation to the Brigadier.
Taylor nodded and pulled a small communicator out of his belt. "Freiling. Get all the troops you can moving through the break in the fence. The locals are ready to move you." He shut off the communicator and turned to me. "Ask him how many troops he can move."
The Finn understood and answered in English before I could translate. "We can do about two million."
"Two million!"
"Thousand! I'm meaning two thousand. Sorry."
"If you had more lorries, could you handle more men?"
"Lorries? Oh, yes, trucks. Sure, all you want."
"Good." He talked into the comm unit again. "Major Kavanos! Yes, I can hear you, too. Now get some of your men together and follow Roberts to the motor pool. Steal as many lorries as you can. Load them up and head for the break in the fence. Take another detail to make sure we can hold the motor pool. If we lose it, the party's over."
Before he could put his comm unit away, it beeped for attention. "Yes. I see. Well, keep shooting back, try and figure out where they are, and see if our artillery can take them out." He spoke to me. "These Guardians have finally gotten organized enough to start shooting back. We'd better get back to the courtyard."
It was bedlam. The transmitter was still pouring out troops and there just wasn't room for the ones that were already there. Taylor shook his head. "If they have the sense to hit their own camp with artillery, we're sitting ducks."
The first of the trucks was struggling into the courtyard, inching past the masses of troops. Taylor shouldered his way through the throng and jumped up on the running board for a moment. "You! Stop this truck, load it up right here and back it out of here! You men in the brown berets!"
"Sir!" their officer said.
"Get your men into that truck and out of the way!"
"SIR!"
Taylor grabbed a U.S. Army sergeant by the collar. "You! You're in charge of crowd control as of now. Get this madhouse organized, smartly!" The sergeant got to it.
"You there! Get the road clear!" He pulled out his communicator. "Taylor here. Attention all officers in command. Get your troops into orderly columns and as close to the edge of the courtyard as possible. We need the roadway clear. Get dispersed. One good big shell could wipe us all out. Corporal Kaplan, if you would be so good as to relay those orders to the troops coming through."
There was a good-sized firefight to the northeast of the courtyard. The artillery, the 107th, was still pounding the hell out of the rest of the camp. The courtyard was covered in heavy smoke every now and then as the wind kept shifting. I made my way to the center of the courtyard, where the 107th had set its guns. George was still there, working the map with cool precision, his mouth thin and determined. The howitzers were kicking up the clay of the yard, and dust covered the men. George especially had been covered in a dirty white pallor.
"George!" The guns thundered again, preventing conversation for long seconds. "How are we doing?"
He shook a layer of dust off the map and indicated parts of the map covered with blood-red crosshatching, representing about two-thirds of the camp. "We've been bracketing the whole place, block by block, and this is what's, well-gone. Not much left but the mess tents and some of the barracks."
One of the artillery men tapped me on the shoulder. "Are we to expect Brigadier Taylor to send out" WHAM "patrols to secure the areas we've hit?" A shell was fired in the middle of his sentence, but he went on as if it wasn't there.
"No, I doubt it. We don't want to hold this ground, just get the hell out."
"Very good, sir."
"Sergeant-can you spare me Mr. Prigot here?"
"Oh, I expect" WHAM "so, sir. We've got the hang of the map now. One of my lads can fill in."
"C'mon, George. We've got to get you out of that uniform."
"Mmm? Oh, yeah."
The sergeant looked over George more closely. "That what the other side looks like, sir?"
"Yes," I said.
"I thought so. Bit of infiltration?"
"Something like that," George said, his voice devoid of any emotion, as if his insides were frozen. I pulled him to his feet and we shoved our way through the throng to the receiver's hangar.
"We'll get you changed in my room," I said.
The crowd inside had thinned out a bit, and Kaplan seemed to have things more or less under control. As we came in, he was giving yet another outfit a rundown on the situation.
I waited until he was done and asked, "How many more to go?"
He glanced down at a long list that was rapidly getting dogeared. "Let's see-that last group was from the Army of the Sixth Republic, the French. After them-just about halfway through, about 40 or so to go."
"Make sure this thing is blown to hell and rubble as soon as the last ones step through."
"Already seen to it, Commander. Oh, and there's several shipments of weapons to hand on to the locals toward the end."
"Good. They're right outside, ready to take 'em, I'm sure."
"Yessir." With a QUEEP and a flash another group popped into existence on the receiver stage. Kaplan got back to his work. "All right, who are you people? Europa Federals? Right. Now listen up, fellas, and those of you who speak English pass it on to your buddies. Okay. Things have gotten screwed over but good...."
We left him to it and arrived at the room a few of the boys had made soundproof so I could sleep nights. I shut the door on the war outside and we sat down on my bunk.
George let out a deep sigh. "My God. How did I get into this?"
"George. You can get out now. You've paid your dues: Go. Take off. A man can't be expected to calmly go on killing his own people."