Their Guns

By BM

It was dusk; about time to come in from the fields and have dinner, if they'd been there. The South African farmhouse and its barn had been abandoned recently. Wood was neatly stacked by the shed, and the windows were unbroken. Even the animals were gone, leaving the barn empty for the five who now used it as impromptu shelter and cover.

Diedrick held his Mauser steady. They'd be coming at any moment, over the hill with the little dirk road, where the old man would come over the hill with his wagon, like he'd been doing since his father's youth. How someone got so old, he didn't know; he's always laughed when they'd asked him.

Not quite the homecoming I wanted, he thought.

Adolf was right beside him. There were three others, all friends from elsewhere in the countryside. None of them knew this as home, but that was fine. It was the home of a countryman, that was good enough.

“Whole bloody Transvaal, and they pick here.” Adolf muttered aloud. He shifted his rifle. “How many of them are out there, D?”

“At least twelve.” Diedrick responded. He looked out at the shapes, moving under the moon. “I can't see the commandos in the barn, but they're there. Should be four in there; Robrect signaled to me as we came in the back.”

The farmhouse was deserted when they found it; the kindly family Diedrick remembered was nowhere to be found. He hoped they survived. He, Adolf, and four other men with hunting rifles crouched by windows, keeping out of sight.

“Any plan, D?”

“Yeah. Don't shoot.”

“What?”

Adolf blinked. “Have you gone crazy?”

“No, hear me out. When we start shooting, they're going to rush for shelter. So if one of the houses seems deserted, they're going to head that way....” he smiled. “You see where I'm going?”

“I do.” Adolf smiled. “You are crazy, you know? If you didn't get homesick, we'd be halfway to Bloemfontein by now.”

“I know.” Diedrick leaned forward. “They're moving. You ready?”

“I am always ready.”

Diedrick took a sharp intake of breath. And he waited. But not for long.

The staccato thunder echoed over the hill – a red-shirted soldier bucked forward, pierced. The others raised their guns, firing back, as they briefly moved down the hill to take a better position.

Another Brit fell, and then another, under the precision fire. The English broke, moving down the hill towards the barn; the sound of broken glass could be heard under the gunfire.

“Now! Fire!”

Diedrick aimed and took a shot. A British soldier, coming out of the dark, fell backwards and rolled in the dirt as they came upon the house. A volley of gunfire rained on the approaching soldiers – return fire shattered the windowsill. Diedrick fired again, as two more went down.

It was almost too easy. When Diedrick peered out again, all but one lone soldier stood on the hill, desperately firing at multiple hostiles. He took the shot, blowing his brains out, then snapped back as a bullet struck the door. He blinked.

Where did the shot come from?

The bullets kept coming. He could see the glint of rifles in the moonlight, but not the shadows of the people firing them. Three guns, on the hill, firing at him.

“What the fuck?!” Adolf yelled. “How can they still be firing!”

“I can't hit any of them!” another commando screamed.

Diedrick kept watching, holding his fire. The moonlight caught on the rifle, and he spotted it – the shape of the man holding the rifle. It barely glistened in the silver glow, a transparent figure taking aim and shooting at his men.

Taking aim, he took a shot, aiming at the head. The figure moved, vanishing from sight – he caught the glimmer again, closer this time. He must have hit it with that shot; he didn't miss like that. He fired again, losing the barrel glint once again, only to see it again, nearly upon them.

One of the compatriots began firing wildly, taking shots at the targets that must be at point blank. He snapped back as a shot responded, right in his face. The silvery barrel thrust in through the broken window, discharging straight into his face.

Diedrick ducked as another shot whizzed by his head. There was a crash at the door – the sound of something hard slamming against the handle. They were at the door, and it looked like they were trying to break it down.

Adolf moved to the door, propping himself against it. “Impatient bastards didn't even try the handle!” he remarked, bracing the door further.

Diedrick laughed, popping up to the window. The shots rained by, forcing him down. “I'm going to flank. Cover fire. Come with me, Ferdi.”

The two of them slipped under the barn's frame, through a worn patch of dirt, as the gunshots continued to ring. They reached the corner, Ferdi remaing there while Diedrick took the riskier position by a pile of wood, in sight of the door. He looked out, to where the British were smashing down the door, ready to make the call.

He hesitated.

The sound of cracking wood could be heard. English shouts, incoherent to him, sounded out over the shots. But he couldn't see anyone, standing there in the moonlight.

“Di?” Ferdi said, quiet enough to hide himself. Diedrick did nothing at first; he squinted in the dark, where the growing moon lit it enough to see the glint of a rifle, smashing against the door. He heard the sound of wood splintering, as he squinted to make out the figure that should have been plain as day.

“Di!”

His eyes flew open. He saw it, in that second – the shining rifle, catching the light, like a silver line.

“Fire!”

Ferdi leaned around the corner, firing. The two of them fired, catching the soldiers along the side. The door continued to crack, as the wood splintering stopped; muzzle flashes sparked before their eyes, erupting inches from the windows, both from their comrades inside and from unseen points outside.

Diedrick bolted to the depression, crawling inside. He heard Ferdi behind him, covering his retreat. He was under in a second, looking inward at the scene of carnage.

One of the three left inside was dead, shot. The other had moved behind a troth, firing back out the window where the muzzle flashes had stopped. Adolf staggered back from the door, grasping his knife, blood spilling down his jacket. Diedrick leaped to his feet, bolting across the line of fire, gun raised to the assailant in the door. He fired, right at the chest.

A hole was opened in the rickety door, large enough for a man to fit his head and upper body through. Diedrick snapped back, as he saw the rifle take aim at him; the shot clipped his arm, leaving a red cut, but little else. He snapped back, getting a good look at his assailant.

He saw the hill, littered with corpses in the moonlight. Framed by the door, he could barely make it out, save for the metallic rifle; the barest sheen of moonlight, like on glass, gleaming in the vague shape of a man. He could just make out the hands snapping open the rifle that hung in the air, sliding a new round into it.

He reacted. He lunged out, grabbing at the weapon before he could reload. He could see the man shift, now that he had gotten a good look at the ethereal shape, bracing his body and drawing the rifle back out of his grip. He lunged all the way, no longer concerned with exposure, merely with disarming the enemy.

He grasped the cold metal, and shifted forward into the man's body. He expected something, like a cold breeze, or the feeling of hands brushing his heart, or the sense of someone stepping on his grave. But he felt nothing, just the rifle in his hands, and the emptiness where a man should be. He wretched, and felt resistance for the first time, pulling the rifle against his grip. He let himself barrel back, pulling with all his might against the grip.

He fell back as the grip dropped. The vague shape toppled backward, tumbling into the darkness outside. Diedrick rolled up into a kneeling position; his own gun lay at his side. He looked down at the weapon; it was like ice, entirely coated in cold steel.

He smiled, in triumph, looking back at his comrades. Adolf lay there, staring and clutching his wound, both at Diedrick and past him.

“Their guns!” Diedrick shouted. “Disarm their guns! They have no weight otherwi-”

He choked off, as the cold feeling he'd expected passed through his heart, and out his chest. He didn't even look down at the bayonet, silvery even in the darkness, as he slumped over. The vague, silver outline relaxed its arms, gently sliding the rifle free of his body, before firing on Adolf's dumbstruck face.

It took Robrect a few hours to exploit an opening in the ghostly patrols. The apparitions patrolled ceaselessly, covering the same stretch of ground without fail, rifles in their barely-seen hands. It wasn't until the first rays of the sun emerged that they moved on, as one by one they didn't return to pass by the tiny slit in the wall he watched from.

He and his men made it up to the hill. They found several rifles, lying in the grass, and snatched them up when they noticed the strange way they glinted in the rising sun. For a moment, he thought of trying to find Diedrick and the others – the sounds of English chatter coming from the barn, however, dashed his hopes completely. The corpses of the British lay where they'd fallen – a commando shifted one over to better see a peculiar unique dress, some kind of metal harness with wire running through it.

As his squad slipped off into the foliage, he looked down at the rifle in his hand, running a finger across the metal again. It felt strangely cold, even in the warm weather; he traced it down, across the barrel to the stock, painstakingly wrapped around the entire weapon. He remembered that they'd floated in the air, trained on them and the barn, with no man carrying them. He unbuckled a harness, as well, cringing at a sudden spark of white as he separated the chain that made him feel like someone had pressed two fingered on his heart.

He'd have to get to Bloemfontein. He had to tell everyone what the British had made.

As Robrect entered the brush, he heard a creaking coming from the hill. Thinking it might be the redcoats, he looked back. The dawn was empty, the hill silent as the waxing moon faded, and though the Brits were gone, their was still the march and soft laughter of red-coated men, walking unseen in the breeze.