Someone from behind threw a grenade which fell short of its target and rolled in front of them. Norton took two quick strides and kicked it into one of the flaming buildings. III There were about twenty Rumi, less than they had thought, fleeing across the open fields behind the burning huts. They were firing as they ran and giving out those queer yelping cries of theirs. Three or four of them fell and then Norton was shouting, calling back his men to organize fire fighting parties. "Captain! Captain, let's go after those guys. We can cut them off before they get to the grasslands," Terrence yelled. "Get your men after these fires, O'Mara. We can't let them spread." There was nothing to do but obey but he delayed long enough to empty his automatic in the general direction of the fleeing Rumi. Then he turned and yelled, "Harrigan! Sergeant Harrigan! Where in the devil is that...." There was a crashing sound behind him and Harrigan stumbled through the smoke and came down on his foot, all three hundred pounds of him. Later, as the last smoking embers of the fire were being smothered by industrious squads of Narakans with buckets and shovels, Terrence limped back across the square with Bill Fielding. "We should have gone after those lousy scum," Bill said, "They may cut back around the town again and give the battalion some trouble on the river road." "Don't you think I know it! As fast as the Greenbacks can move when they want to, we could have caught the lot of them before they got into the grasslands. But Norton was worried about the fires! Of course, we're going to burn all these buildings tomorrow or the next day but Norton was afraid the Residency would catch fire." "Probably didn't want his sweetie's fancy clothes to burn." "They got Wilson, you know." "Good Lord! Dead?" "Right between the eyes. They almost got all four of us." Fielding took his heavy battle helmet off and pushed back the glass visor of his radiation helmet to wipe the perspiration and dirt off his face. "Well, maybe Norton didn't want us to catch those damn cats. Maybe he figured he owed them that much." O'Mara shielded his eyes as he said, "Beta's setting. It'll be night in a couple of hours and we can walk around without this blasted radiation armor for a while." "Yeah, and we can start looking for a full scale night attack as soon as good old Alpha hides his hoary head." "If you see O'Shaughnessy, tell him I want to see him, will you? I'm going to stop at the schoolhouse for a few minutes." Surprise spread across Bill's freckled face, "Not the school teacher? Not you! Buddy, you've been in Dust Bin too long. You've been on Naraka too long. You'll be attending services at the Chapel next." Terrence muttered a few old Anglo-Saxon words under his breath and limped off in the direction of the school building. * * * * *