"That's it, by Golly!" Blackie burst out. "The raids on the nerve gas centers must have started. It could be somebody has been captured and brainwashed."
"Could be," I said, "and if so, we'd better get home. If the Reds can suppress news of how successful the raids are, they may still bluff the democracies, with threats of nerve gas and CBR warfare, into giving them more food and a good settlement of the war, but if we get home with our story then they'll realize they are licked and maybe quit."
The following day we set out to do the last few miles to the farmhouse. The Reds didn't have enough men to search the hills and the wilder the area the safer we'd be. Our trouble would be to break through the barrier at the coast. With one wounded man and two sick ones on litters we were heavily loaded and could make only slow time. I had all I could do to carry my own weight and when we got to the house late that night I collapsed on a pile of straw and stayed there for the whole of the next day.
CHAPTER 16
We stayed in the village for three weeks. Each day Makstutis and Kang were a little better.
"We have to get out of here," I said to Anders one day in the last week, after we had examined our patients. "The A-bomb carrier is probably on its way right now."
"They can't march all the way to the coast," Anders said dubiously. "If we must go, we shall have to carry them."
Blackie and Kim had been watching us with interest. Now Kim spoke up.
"We've got some real husky boys in the unit, Doc. How about fixing up seats on a couple of A-frames. Then we could chogi them up the hills and they could maybe make it down the other side."