"Captain Bascom, will you see that everyone starts at once to packing? I'll leave this end of the moving up to you."
He touched the button beside the port The ladder slowly descended.
VI
There was a vivid spring greenness about the grass and foliage that Matt couldn't recall having seen outside of England. To their left, the muddy Salt emptied into the muddy Ohio behind them. The turf underfoot was soft and springy.
Flanked by Nesbit and Isaac Trigg, Matt crossed to the disused drive. Dead leaves and twigs littered it all the way to the gate, where it disappeared through heavy steel doors into the fort. The doors themselves, large enough to admit a freight car, stood open, a drift of dead leaves piled against one massive panel.
"It's bristling with guns!" Isaac Trigg pointed at a row of slots that ran across the second story. The grim snouts of fifty-calibre machine guns poked wickedly through the embrasures.
Matt shifted his rifle into a handier position. He had seen the canvas covered barrel of a 5.35 dual-purpose anti-aircraft gun on the roof.
Above the third floor, rows of windows began, narrow slits closed with heavy bulletproof glass. Higher up, he made out banks of rocket guns.
"Seven months," he said half to himself.