[GZG] On Leave In Hell

On Leave in Hell

New Guardian Times, Margaritifer Sector, May 17th 2195

When you get time off the line, you're eager to get out. You pile into
the truck and head out, hopefully for Vologansk or Nirgal, but almost
inevitably its Connacht, Loughros or Pikalevo. You still don't waste any
time getting off the truck, as you're itching for some leisure after
feeling pretty much like a clay pigeon in a shooting gallery for months
on end beforehand. But after a few hours in Pikalevo you wish you were
back on the line, as you could hardly describe the place as any haven of
tranquillity or earthly paradise! 

As we came in along the western LK line, Krak shells skipped the dunes
within a hundred yards of us. Nice welcome. Makes you feel real safe!
The grunts I was with headed for the bars and bordellos, but I was after
a coffee. A good strong coffee. I found a little café tucked in between
the ruins of some flop house and the library (Martian cities still make
no sense to me!). I'd been there barely 10 minutes, in the city less
than an hour, and a shell explodes so close by that it almost knocked me
down flat, let alone what the fright did. My coffee cup went flying from
my hand and smacked into this ornamental lemon tree in the cobbled
courtyard. Great start to my nerve's relief. 

On the third day there, a big RG slug ploughed into the ground 100m from
where I was having a pint with the boys from the 113th, who I hadn't
seen since the first days of the invasion. I was so pleased to see them
alive and then we nearly get picked off drinking a beer. I wished I was
at home in London like its nobodies business. 

This is not to say that my occasional association with live rounds and
artillery are particularly outstanding. Pretty much all the other
serious correspondents are in the same boat, the younger and braver (or
more foolhardy) often much worse. A young man who reports for the Age,
has had dozens of close shaves, to his credit, none of which I've seen a
peep of in his wires. I know for a fact he was knocked down four times
by near misses on his first day on the line! He and his two main pals,
Michael Hurst (United Interstellar Press) and Nic Whitney (Albion
Herald-Tribune) opted not to come to Pikalevo (even when we thought it
would be Nirgal). They have been on the line since November last year
without a moment's respite. They're so veteran they don't even mention
slugs striking within 20m of them anymore. 

On the line it feels (and may well be true) that every metre of our side
is under Krak artillery fire. Unlike every other demarcated zone I've
been in, there is no pause, no safe zones, no rear area that's immune.
They can reach us with their RG mortars and use everything from that on
up, even hit was orbital stuff now and then, though they must be running
low with that as its tailed off and is only patchy nowadays. 

That's not to say they keep every foot of the place drenched with shells
night and day, they most certainly don't. For one, I think they're
either tiring of shooting at the fish in the barrel or they are running
short of ammunition. But they pepper us enough and just the knowledge
they can reach us keeps you on edge, as you never know where they'll
shoot next. Some days the shells rain down all day, other days long
hours (even a whole day-night) will go by without a single shell
screaming over. Nobody is wholly safe however, and anyone who claims
otherwise, and especially anyone who says they've been on the line for
more than two days without a shell hitting within a hundred metres of
them is a liar or a braggart or both. Even back here in Pikalevo there
is only a little let-up. You're just as liable to get hit standing in
the doorway of whatever hotel you've coughed up to sleep at, as you are
in a command post 5k from the main line. 

Most annoying of all is that anyone who has gotten their ear in through
the last solar war and who should, by rights, know the sounds of warfare
intimately are messed up here. Puzzled and irritated their brows furrow
at the sounds you get along the line. You can't hardly tell anything
about anything. The Krak shoot shells of a bunch of sizes (half a dozen
or more), each of which makes a different looney sound when it explodes.
The atmosphere is also in trouble, can't cope with the dust load
apparently. Means you can't gauge distance at all. One slug may land
within your block and sound not much louder than a shotgun. Another
landing 10k away sounds like an earthquake, earth trembling and all, and
starts your heart pounding like its at an end. Even direction is hard to
pick. Take the slug that hit while I was having a beer with the 113th
for instance, if it didn't make so much noise, I would have sworn it was
a k away in the opposite direction. 

Depending on the slug type sometimes you hear them coming, sometimes you
don't. Sometimes it's a whine, other times a whistle and the worst sound
like one of those archaic diesel engines they still use out on AlphaC.
Screaming over head like some banshee. The useless ones, from a target
perspective, is when you hear the whine after you've heard the
explosion. Worse still is when you hear it whine and it never explodes!
Not quite so bad is when the ground or shelter shakes and you never hear
the explosion. That means it was big, but a long way away. 

One thing that's constant though, is that just like with human shells,
the closer they get the weaker my old joints feel. I've been weak on
Fliescher II and Rheinhold and now here too. When the Krak open up at
night, and the flares make the sky light up bright as day, and then you
hear and feel the terrible power of exploding slugs - well, you get
flabby in the elbows and knees and your breathe is in little short
jerks, your chest almost aching with the feeling of being empty. Most of
all you're too excited to do anything but look about and hope. 

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