Chapter 430 — The Counterstroke I

Chapter 430: Chapter 430 — The Counterstroke I

Castlebellingham’s forward headquarters was a GAA clubhouse with the trophies taken down.

Trucks came in from the north every few minutes and let down soldiers who had not slept in two days. Against the clubhouse wall, five men sat in a row with their rifles across their knees, too tired to talk.

Inside, the bar had become a map room. James saw Marcus at once, beside a grey-haired colonel, his new hand flat on the paper. Saoirse Doyle was at the end of the table with a stack of reports. Other officers stood round it, some with bandages.

Marcus looked up and saw Finn.

"You came out of it all right?"

"Fine. We had to leave the junction. They got behind us on the southern roads."

"I heard." Marcus nodded. "You kept the unit. That was the right call."

Saoirse came round the table to James.

"You fought Harcourt," she said. "At the bridge."

"Once. She was there again last night. She didn’t come forward."

"She’s on every report from this sector. One of the people running their Challengers up here, I think." Saoirse folded her arms. "What’s she like?"

"Very good with a sword. Doesn’t waste a step." James thought about it. "And she leaves. When the fight’s not worth it any more, she goes. She didn’t stay to win."

"That’s worse," said Saoirse. "Somebody who has to win, you can kill. Somebody who knows when to walk away keeps coming back."

The colonel called the room to order.

---

He did not take long.

The British had reinforced the junction and every position they had taken in the night. But they had done it by spreading themselves along the whole front, from the junction to the river line. They were holding more than they could easily hold.

"So we hit them before they dig in," he said. "Not with one unit. With all of it at once."

The objective was the roads. They would take back the connector and the southern routes, retake the junction, and push the British off it and north, so the Irish sectors could reach each other again and the gap south of Dundalk was closed.

Marcus’s Emerald Spire contingent would take the eastern side. Saoirse would take the western side with the independents assigned to her. Farrell’s unit would come up the middle from Rathduff, with James and Finn. Two infantry formations from the river line and a battalion up from Drogheda would go in alongside them.

"Last time, one unit went up the road on its own and the British went round it," said the colonel. "This time every formation keeps contact with the ones either side. If you’re stopped, you say so, and the others adjust."

"Do we expect more of their Challengers?" said James.

"Yes. Several confirmed around the junction. Harcourt among them. More troops have come down since last night. We don’t know everything they’ve got."

"And don’t assume we’ve seen their best," said Marcus. "We haven’t. We’ve seen what they sent first."

James looked at the map. Three groups had to come up three roads at once and stay in touch the whole way. If one was stopped, the other two would have open flanks. He did not argue with it.

"If they put their Challengers on Farrell’s lot," he said, "what do you want from me?"

"Stop them breaking the advance," said Farrell. "You and Hale. That’s it. The objective is the junction. Nobody chases anyone past it."

"Understood."

---

Eamon was in the medical tent at the back of the pitch, sitting on a folding bed with his shirt off and Ruth’s hands on his side.

"I can go," he was saying. "I can fight. I’m grand. I’ll stay at the back—"

"You’ll stay here." Ruth did not look up. "You’ve torn that open twice. If you tear it a third time, it won’t close, and then you’ll be in Beaumont for a month with a drain in you. I’m not clearing you for another day of it. I’ll look at you again tomorrow."

"He’s been ignoring that since the bridge," said Finn.

Eamon looked at him. "You used to be fun. You know that? Then you started agreeing with her."

"He’s right, for once," said Ruth.

Eamon looked at the roof of the tent for a while.

"Fine," he said.

He did not sound fine. But he lay back on the bed.

"Where are you going in?" he said. "The middle?"

"The middle," said James. "Up from Rathduff."

"Watch the back road." Eamon pushed himself up on his good elbow. "There’s a lane. West of the chapel, runs up behind the houses to the north road. Every time we pushed them last night, they brought more down it. That’s how they got round us. I don’t know what’s on it now. But they like it."

James found a map on the trolley by the bed, and Eamon put his finger on the lane.

Owen had come in behind them with a box of dressings. He looked over James’s shoulder.

"That’s the Cappagh lane," he said. "Runs up past the old creamery. It comes out on the north road about two hundred metres above the junction. There’s a gate at the bottom, and it’s narrow. A truck can just get up it." He hesitated. "There’s another track off it, across the fields to the east. I don’t know if that’s still open. They were shelling round there."

James took both of them to Farrell. She marked the lane on her map, and asked Owen which end he would want to block first.

When he went back to the tent, Eamon called after him.

"Ganner. Do me a favour. Make sure Hale doesn’t do anything stupid."

"I’m standing right here," said Finn.

"That’s why I said it out loud."

---

They went in at first light.

The sky was low and grey and the mud stuck to everybody’s boots. Engines were running all along the road.

Owen was in a group by the gate with three of the soldiers James knew from the chapel yard.

"Did you hear about Carey?" one of them asked him.

"He’s alive," said Owen. "They moved him to Drogheda. They don’t know about the leg yet."

An officer started calling sections. The group broke up.

James checked Durendal’s edge with his thumb, and went with Finn to their place in the column.

He had one undead left, the three-legged cattle skeleton from the junction, half its ribs gone. It had limped out with the column two nights ago. It was not much.

---

The British were waiting on the southern approach.

They held a farmhouse and a row of sheds four hundred metres below the junction, and they opened up as the first Irish sections came over the rise. The Irish went down into the ditches and returned fire.

Then a British Challenger came out of the sheds toward the left-hand section. He was a big man with a heavy short-hafted axe, moving fast. He hit the hedge where the Irish were lying, and a soldier went over backward.

James got there before the axe came round again.

The man was strong. Their weapons met over the hedge and James felt it in his shoulders. But he was not Eleanor. He was quick and heavy and he did the obvious thing every time. James turned his second swing, took the third on Durendal’s flat and drove him back three steps into the field.

The man broke off toward the sheds and the British rifles.

James put his hand out.

`[NECRO BLAST — 60 MANA]`

`[MANA: 2,360 / 3,100]`

It caught him across the back and he stumbled. James was on him before he got his feet back.

`[CALL OF SOULS — MANA RESTORED: +30]`

`[MANA: 2,390 / 3,100]`

With him gone, the Irish went at the sheds, and ten minutes later the British were falling back from the farmhouse.

"*Hold the farm,*" said Farrell. "*Don’t chase.*"