Ration Fire

A frozen zinc grease-tin rattled against the runners as Dorottya hauled the sledge into the Bratka Traverse. The sledge weighed two hundred pounds loaded, its twin steel cylinders riding low on greased ash runners that screeched whenever the runners crossed exposed gravel. Behind her, Gyurka shoved with both hands planted against the rear crossbar, his breathing a raspy bellow through three layers of wool scarf.

"Two inches of gray grease in a tin," Gyurka muttered, nodding toward the shallow lid balanced on the rear frame. "If we dump half a drachm of phosphorus starter paste under it, the beans will unfreeze before the fat separates. Real pork lard. A waste to let it freeze into horn."

"Leave the starter paste in the locker," Dorottya said without breaking stride. Her calves burned through her felt-lined leggings. "You drop a hot crumb of igniter on an open valve, and we go over the parapet in pieces."

"It's twenty paces to the depot cistern, Chief. Cold beans sit in the gut like river gravel. Besides, the bypass valve isn't weeping. I checked the collar at the last traverse."

Dorottya glanced over her shoulder. The sled's brass manometer bobbed with each lurch over the duckboards, the needle resting steady at twenty-eight atmospheres. The cold was settling harder as twilight turned the trench mud the color of bruised plum. Every breath tasted of raw copper and burnt coke from the distant battery flues. In her left sheepskin breast pocket, the stamped iron tag from the vaporized silhouette pressed cold against her ribs. Third Reserve Fusiliers. A garrison regiment, thirty leagues out of place.

The duckboards narrowed where a mortar crater had caved the left timber revetment two nights prior. Sacks of damp shale bulged through the splintered slats, weeping dirty icicles.

"Watch the starboard runner," she warned.

"Watching it," Gyurka grunted. He reached down with a soot-stained horn spoon, stirring the congealed lard and beans in the zinc tin as the sledge bumped across a patch of glazed rime. "Smell that? Sweet turnip mash. In Cserhát they sell bowls of this for three coppers outside the rolling mills, piping hot, with cracklings on top. Out here we eat it with a pocketknife while the mud tries to steal our boots."

A sharp snap split the dusk.

It was not the rolling roar of distant howitzers. It was the dry crack of a high-velocity rifle from the ridge across the wire.

Metal shrieked above Dorottya's ear. A copper-jacketed slug struck the sledge's upper manifold with the force of an iron sledgehammer, shearing the brass return-bypass fitting clean off its threaded shoulder.

White vapor erupted in a violent hiss. The sledge kicked sideways, nearly dumping Gyurka into the revetment slush.

"Down!" Dorottya barked.

She hit the freezing mud on her knees, already lunging across the sledge frame. The severed fitting was screaming, high and thin, spitting atomized fuel that reeked of bitter almonds. If the ricochet had struck two inches lower, the main cylinder's brass jacket would have cracked. At twenty-eight atmospheres, the resulting blast would scour the traverse down to the clay.

A second round chipped pine splinters from the parapet sandbags, dusting her neck with freezing grit. The shot came from two hundred yards out, high on the limestone spur, angled down at thirty degrees.

Dorottya shoved her bare left hand into her coat, whipped out her four-inch bronze spanner, and jammed the jaw over the secondary shutoff petcock below the severed nozzle. The brass was so cold the skin of her thumb stuck to the metal. She threw her weight clockwise, fighting the pressure collar.

The threads groaned against frozen grit. She bore down with both shoulders until the valve seated with a dull metallic click.

The hissing choked into silence. The gauge dropped two notches and locked at twenty-six atmospheres.

Gyurka lay flat against the duckboards, clutching the grease-tin in both hands. Not a single bean had spilled, though his wool mitten was coated in black ditch grease.

"Bypass is sheared," Dorottya breathed, her lungs hitching on the sharp sulfur tang of the vent gas. "Cylinders are tight. Help me shove."

They lunged forward together. Dorottya hauled on the braided hemp drag-rope while Gyurka shoved the tailboard with his shoulder. The sledge runners shrieked over crushed slag, rounded the angled revetment traverse, and slammed through the double oak blast-doors of Sub-surface Depot 9.

Inside, the sudden heat hit Dorottya's cracked lips like a slap.

A squat iron stove glowed cherry-red in the corner, radiating dry warmth fueled by real anthracite cobbles. Shelves of pine boxes lined the earth-packed walls, stacked with brass nozzles, coils of rubberized air-hose, and crates of ration pork. Behind a zinc-plated counter sat Quartermaster Tivadar Kövecses, a tin mug of chicory cradled between tobacco-stained fingers. His round, pasty face glistened with sweat, his woolen tunic unbuttoned at the neck.

"Wipe your runners before you drag that manure across my planks, Illyési," Kövecses grumbled without looking up from his tally book. "The provosts check my floor twice a week for sulfur burns."

Gyurka slid the sledge against the revetment post, dropping onto a wooden nail keg with an exhausted groan. "The snipers on the ridge don't care about your floorboards, Quartermaster. They took three inches off our bypass neck."

Dorottya stepped to the zinc counter. She pulled the expended voucher from her belt pouch, slapping the stiff oilcloth sheet onto the ledger between Kövecses's elbows.

"Sector 9 dogleg traverse is clear," Dorottya said. Her voice was flat, level, stripped of hurry. "Four canisters of forty-weight aluminothermic paste. One replacement brass bypass assembly, three-quarter inch thread. And a pound of tallow washer seals."

Kövecses picked up his steel dip-pen, tapped the nib against the lip of the inkpot, and drew a thick red diagonal through the center of her requisition slip.

"No paste," he said.

Dorottya kept her hands resting on the zinc edge. "The dogleg took two canisters. The Needle Zone has fifteen hulls coalescing in the salient. If we don't recharge by midnight, the ice will freeze the second battery's traverse solid before the morning relief."

"You can sing that to the infantry captains, Herald," Kövecses replied, his small eyes shifting toward the curtained entrance of the inner vault. "I don't make the allocations. I record them."

"Sector 9 holds six hundred pounds of chemical stores in the rear cisterns," Dorottya said. "The reserve manifest is signed by Regimental Ordnance."

Kövecses let out a wet, wheezing sigh. He reached under the counter, pulled out a second ledger bound in stiff black buckram, and flipped it open. A fresh requisition voucher lay pinned to the page with a nickel clip. Across the header, written in sharp violet ink, ran the seal of the Provost Inquisitorial Corps.

"Sixty percent of current stock," Kövecses muttered, keeping his voice low as though the walls might carry paper through the timbers. "Commandeered three hours ago. Special perimeter diversion. Signed by Provost Captain Vésztői."

Dorottya read the allocation line. Thirty pressurized thermite cylinders, four cases of electrical primers, and six hundred yards of vulcanized discharge hose, routed not to the gun positions, but to the northern ditch line behind friendly wire.

"The northern ditch has no active salient," Dorottya said. "There hasn't been a shell burst in Sector 4 since harvest."

Kövecses closed the black book with a sharp slap and slid it back into the drawer.

"Then go ask Captain Vésztői why he wants sixty gallons of fire in an empty ditch," Kövecses whispered, his gaze darting toward the trench entrance. "Take your two repair washers and get that leaking cart out of my depot before the captain comes back for the rest."