At the Narrow Passage Read Free

Lost

their way and stumbled into the Ninth's trenches."

"Any prisoners?"

"Not so far as I know. Didn't ask."

"Doesn't matter."

I scraped away at my chin and speculated about the news that Tracy had

awakened me with. So we were being replaced. Well, it was about bloody

time that the Kriths realized that we were wasting our time in these

filthy trenches. We had muddled along for four and a half months now,

Tracy and I, waiting for the weapons to arrive that we were supposed

to show our men how to use. Some new rifle, I understood. Something

that would give the British a little more firepower, a little more

accuracy. Nothing very startling, mind you. Nothing too much in advance

of the current local technology, just enough for everyone to believe that

it was a British development, a weapons breakthrough that would help,

maybe, to change things, to turn the tide of history against the Holy

Roman Empire, as Ferguson's breechloader had turned the tide of history

against the American insurrectionists nearly two hundred years before --

a pivotal point in this Timeline's history.

But the rifles had never arrived, for some reason that was never explained

to me. The Krithian weapons supervisor Kar-hinter seldom took the time

to explain anything that wasn't absolutely necessary. And we who were

supposed to test the rifles in combat, we two Timeliner officers leading

a company of American colonials, had sat in our dugout and waited and

killed time and told dirty stories and played cards and drank gin when

we could get it and shivered through the winter.

Now it seemed that the Kriths had given up playing this particular

game with us and were going to pull us out of here and give us another

assignment. I wondered whether it would be in this Timeline.

In a way I hoped it would be in another Line. I'd lost the little finger

and part of the ring finger of my left hand during a fracas the autumn

before, and I would have liked to have an opportunity to get new ones

grafted on. But you can't do things like that in a Timeline as backward

as this one was.

At last I finished with my face and splashed away the remaining soap,

inspected myself for cuts, found that I had been luckier than usual and

hadn't cut myself -- I never had got used to shaving with a razor. I dried

my face on a more or less clean towel Tracy had thrown on my bunk and

drank about half the steaming cup of tea, scalding my tongue.

"How soon's the colonel supposed to be here?" I asked.

"Don't know. Anytime, I suppose."

"No time for breakfast?"

"I doubt it."

I shrugged and then found my jacket, a tight-fitting woolen garment

of the same sickening green as the pants, distinguished only by the

captain's bars on its collar.

"Hand me my pistol, will you, Tracy?" I asked as I buttoned my jacket.

Taking the pistol belt from the peg where it hung, Tracy handed it to me.

It was an awkward belt to wear and the pistol in the holster was big and

ugly and efficient. The seven-shot, .62 caliber Harling revolver was

the standard sidearm for Brittish officers There and Then, and it was

a damned big pistol. I had grown to like the feel of it on my hip and

hoped that whatever our next assignment was, I would be allowed to carry

it. A .62 caliber slug is big and messy, especially when propelled by

the 200 grains of powder in the standard issue cartridge. It certainly

wasn't a sporting weapon. It had been designed to do just one thing --

kill men, and that it did very well.

"How do I look?" I asked Tracy.

"Halfway human."

"That's an improvement, I take it?"

Tracy nodded.

"Any more tea?" I asked.

"Yes, I think so. Want me to look?"

"No. I'll . . ."

"'Tention!"

The voice was Tracy's. He was sitting so that he could see the dugout's

"door" and could see the figure who was shoving the blanket aside and

stepping into the man-made cave.

As I snapped to my feet and turned, I saw him too. Colonel Woods.

"As you were," Woods said gruffly.

I