Casca 20: Soldier of Gideon by Barry Sadler Page A

himself in the butt.
    "Let's go," was easy enough to say. If you happened to be a major leading a company of combat experienced, disciplined troops, it was just as sure that they would follow. But where the hell were they going? And what were they going to do when they got there?
    Casca shrugged off the thought. From the first he had never really understood too well what he was doing as he went into battle, and two thousand years of experience had not enlightened him.
    "Let's go. Let's go. Let's go." His repeated shout was taken up by everybody in the jeep, and then by all of the others.
    There was a tremendous explosion behind them as one of Casca's drivers strayed a few yards from Billy's lead and encountered a mine.
    "Keep going," Casca shouted, looking back.
    The disaster was already under control. The following truck had stopped and its troops were already pulling wounded from the wreckage. Two ambulances were racing for the position. The other trucks had deviated gingerly in single file to avoid the wreck, and were now back on the tail of Casca's jeep and catching up fast.
    Farther back Casca saw tanks, APCs, and trucks full of infantry rushing to follow his lead. Colonel Weintraub's red helmet was in the lead armored car.
    Glennon twisted for a moment in his seat as he heard a tank find another mine.
    "One thing," he gritted between clenched teeth, "every one we find is one less to look for."
    "Yeah." Casca tried to laugh but it didn't quite work. He had lost quite a few men. He wasn't going to think about who they might have been or how close they were to him. Whoever they were they were now lying in assorted bleeding pieces behind him, and, who knew, maybe this was a half assed maneuver anyway.
    A junior field officer with a few infantry in open trucks and jeeps leading an armored attack on an extremely well protected fortress was not just unconventional, it might well prove suicidal. But they were well and truly committed now.
    What the maneuver had achieved was an astonishing turn of speed. They were now passing the last of the sappers and they left the minefield for the home ground of the defenders. Casca signaled and his trucks fanned out to either side of the jeep as Billy Glennon increased speed. Some way behind Casca's company came Colonel Weintraub's armored car, and he too was signaling to his infantry trucks to move up ahead of the armor.
    Casca offered a little prayer to Mars. He knew well that the very worst ideas could be just as contagious as the best ones. History was littered with graveyards to prove it with names like Balaclava, Gallipoli, Stalingrad, Arnhem, and he had personally experienced several of them.
    They were now close to some Egyptian artillery and machine gun emplacements. The Vautours' bombs and the Mysteres' cannon had turned these bunkers to ruins in a few brief seconds. But the destruction had not been total. Casca could see men running about trying to haul guns back into firing positions.
    He looked over his shoulder. They had far outdistanced the rest of the Israeli attack. Casca's company was out on its own.
    Farther back the other trucks full of infantry were fanning out across the desert, and, way back were the slow moving armored vehicles. The Red colonel's armored car, its engine no doubt close to disintegration, was keeping pace with the second wave of infantry trucks.
    As he watched, Casca saw the blond head as Weintraub snatched off his red helmet and waved it in an unmistakable signal. "Let's go," Casca yelled, and again his troops took up the shout.
    They raced forward, two hundred throats shouting: "Let's go. Let's go. Let's go."
    They were still shouting as the Egyptian guns opened up and Casca brought the vehicles to a halt. Leaping from the jeep before it stopped, he ran forward, shouting into the guns, two hundred screaming devils with him, all yelling in a frenzy: "Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!"
    The sun was now a blazing disc on the edge of the desert. The Arabs