Never Sound Retreat Part 5

Hans watched in silent amazement as the regiments armed with the newer weapons tore holes in the enemy line at ranges he had once only dreamed of. The charge pressed forward nevertheless, and at four hundred yards the artillery gunners switched from case to canister. The nargas sounded yet again and the Bantag line surged forward into the charge, their deep piercing screams thundering above even the roar of artillery and the rattle of musketry. The regiments armed with Springfield muzzle loaders now opened up as well, and Pat started to curse with a wild delighted abandon as his battle front, wreathed in flame and smoke, poured a rain of death into the Horde. It was impossible to see, the field ahead so obscured by smoke that battery and regiment commanders were reduced to guessing the range and shouting out commands.

From out of the smoke a single arrow fluttered past, followed an instant later by a shower of feathered shafts. One of the men below Pat pitched over backwards, flinging his arms wide, dead before he even hit the ground. Another man staggered away, cursing, hands cupped over his left eye, the shaft protruding through his clenched hands.

"Sir, will you please get down!"

Pat looked down to see an old sergeant gazing up at him angrily.

"d.a.m.n it, sir, I don't want it said you got killed right in front of me!"

Pat grinned and jumped down behind the breastworks, and even as he did so the sergeant, cursing, staggered backwards, an arrow driven clear through his left arm. Pat started up to him, but the sergeant waved him off.

"Got worse at the Ford," he growled, and, after breaking the shaft off, continued to pace the line, swearing at his men.

The enemy fire was barely effective, some of the shafts arcing high overhead to plunge a hundred yards or more behind the lines. Trained officers knew that if the enemy was within shooting range, it meant they had to be down to 250 yards or less, and ordered their men to lever their sights down and go to independent fire.

The fusillade increased to a thundering roar, and Pat stood, hands on hips, glorying in the thrill of it all. A searing explosion detonated to his right, and turning he saw one of the twenty-pounders collapsing, its crew flung into the air like broken dolls. Someone had forgotten to sponge, he thought grimly, that or a breechblock on the newfangled things had let go.

Only a few arrows were still winging in, and he looked behind the line to the fifty-foot-high signal towers erected a hundred yards to the rear. The crew atop the tower was vigorously waving a white pennant back and forth. Able to see above the smoke, they were relaying the word that the charge was broken and falling back. Cries to cease fire echoed along the line, and the silence which descended on the field was startling after the wild volleys of but a moment before.

As the firing died away Pat could hear the one sound on a battlefield that had always torn into his heart, the screams of wounded and crippled horses. Their shrieks of agony echoed beyond the smoke, which was slowly lifting. Dark forms started to show, the nearest within thirty to forty yards of the breastworks. A lone Bantag stood in the field, obviously stunned, staggering about. Half a dozen shots rang out and he collapsed. More shots erupted as men dropped enemy riders who were trying to get away on foot. He watched the executions without pity . . . if the places were reversed, far worse would be done to them.

He paced down the line. There was only a handful of wounded and dead among the regiment he had been with. Some of the men were laughing, talking excitedly. "Hey, Sarge, you had me scared to death," he heard one of them announce. "I never thought it'd be this easy!"

Pat looked over at the young soldier. The boy was right, it had been too easy . . . something was wrong.

"Sir!"

Pat turned, it was one of his orderlies.

"I just came from the signal tower. I think you should go up for a look."

"What is it?"

"I think it's best that you see."

Pat turned to look back to the east, but the smoke still clung to the ground and it was impossible to see. Farther north he could hear a renewed volley; apparently they were coming on again up there.

He trotted back to the tower, and by the time he reached the top of the fifty-foot ladder he was panting for breath. Getting too old for this kind of running around, he thought. Maybe Emil's right, should knock off the drink.

Stepping out onto the narrow platform, he nervously grasped a rail and tried not to look down from the top of the rickety structure.

Raising his gla.s.ses, he swept the field in front. The charge was streaming back to the rear, ranks broken, thousands of horses and Bantag dead and wounded littered the ground. It reminded him of Cold Harbor, when Butcher Grant had sent them in against the Reb fortifications in front of Richmond and eight thousand men had fallen in less than twenty minutes. But it was what the Bantag were moving up under the cover of the attack which held his attention, and he whistled softly.

"It's going to be an interesting day," he announced grimly.

Jurak gazed angrily at Kagga, commander of the umen of the black horse. The charge had been a wasteful folly, Kagga had insisted upon the honor of trying a traditional attack, and reluctantly, he had agreed.

"How many dead out there?" Jurak snarled. "Three thousand, five thousand?"

"They are demons," Kagga replied, head hanging low, his tunic smeared with blood as he cradled his shattered right arm.

Confused, Kagga looked back at the stricken field.

"The Redeemer was right, the old days are gone. Half my umen was destroyed out there."

Kagga could not help but flinch as a sh.e.l.l fluttered overhead to detonate a hundred yards behind them.

"You'll most likely lose that arm," Jurak replied coolly. "Go to the healers to get it taken care of."

A battery of guns, which had wheeled into position to his right, opened up. Jurak looked across the smoke-covered field, hoping to see if the first salvo had any effect, but the ridge before them was all but invisible.

A gang of Nippon and Chin laborers ran past, heading into the battle, their human stench was.h.i.+ng over him so that he gagged. He had left the cattle city of Eto with nearly fifty thousand of them, a good third dying on the forced march, but those who survived would now dig gun emplacements, and, as they died, fill the roasting pots.

His signals unit was nearly finished a.s.sembling the collapsible tower, and one of them was already on top, even before the final las.h.i.+ngs were secure. Within seconds the red pennant was fluttering back and forth, Jurak looking up expectantly.

"The right wing is into the woods, sire."

Jurak nodded, turning to look down at the map, which was unrolled on the table before him.

The tower was already starting to draw enemy fire, three sh.e.l.ls detonating fifty paces away. It would not do for him to show fear, so he tried to ignore the explosions and hissing fragments of iron as he examined the map. Two umens armed with modern weapons had gained the woods, and there would abandon their horses, except for the pack animals loaded with supplies. By early afternoon they should be on the enemy flank and start to roll it up. But that was merely the tactical focus of this a.s.sault. Five more umens had ranged sixty miles farther to the north. The approach had been quietly reconnoitered for the last month, units sent forward to penetrate the vast forest, secure the lines of advance and prevent any human patrols from approaching.

Under the cover of Jurak's frontal a.s.sault the flanking forces would move into the forest, then strike due west in a vast encircling movement. That was the master stroke which would fall when the rest of Ha'ark's plan was unleashed. Yet again, though, Jurak thought of the maxim of Hugana-"At the moment of attack all things change, the more complex your plan, the greater the change and confusion."

Ha'ark was trying to coordinate attacks on two fronts, with the surprise blow he would personally lead adding a third. This was not a modern army fighting against the False Pretender, seasoned by a generation of combat, coordinated through wireless and aircraft that could leap the length of the Great Sea in an hour. His warriors, though brave to the point of foolhardy madness, barely understood the concepts of modern war Ha'ark was trying to impose.

And yet, though the humans had started their war less than half a generation ago, they were obviously becoming masters of such things. Perhaps it was the fact that for the humans there was no alternative, the war was either victory or annihilation. Though it was the same for the Hordes, Jurak sensed that such a grim certainty was still not clear to his warriors. Humans were cattle; they deserved slaughter but were not yet fully hated and indeed feared. The Merki had not learned that until it was too late. He could only hope that his own warriors would learn it in the days to come.

He turned to look back at the ridge. Seeing the carnage the humans had wrought was proof enough of their skill. The curtain of smoke was finally breaking up as the first breeze of morning came out of the forest to the north and west. Raising his telescope he focused on the tower set in the middle of their line. A towering red giant of a man stood there. It must be the one called O'Donald, Jurak realized. He had hoped it would have been Schuder, or even one-armed Keane.

So that is my foe here. He thought back on the report. Hard-drinking and hard-driving in battle to the point of recklessness, the most popular field commander with the soldiers, master of the rearguard action when the Merki broke through into Rus. A good opponent. The trick now was to draw him out.

Jurak saw Pat raise his field gla.s.ses and sensed that the human was looking straight at him. Jurak raised his hand in salute and was startled when seconds later the gesture was mockingly returned.

You've won the first round, Jurak thought. Let us see what comes next.

Returning Vincent Hawthorne's salute, Andrew stepped off the train and started for his headquarters, Hans falling in by his side.

"What's the latest, Vincent?"

"O'Donald reports heavy fighting since dawn, sir."

"What's the pattern of attack?" Hans asked.

"Curious, sir, according to Pat."

Reaching the door into the clapboard building which served as army headquarters, Andrew acknowledged the salute of the sentries and stepped inside. There was a sense of barely controlled excitement as all heads turned to watch him. Half a dozen telegraphers were hunched over in their booths, stacks of paper piled up around them from incoming and outgoing messages. Self-important staff officers scurried about or stood before the maps lining the wall, examining the red and blue pins denoting where troops were deployed, the men posing as if the weight of the campaign rested on their shoulders.

Andrew followed Vincent's lead to the map showing the eastern front.

"So far they've faced two charges, the first one right after dawn, the second one an hour ago."

Andrew looked at the clock on the wall; it was shortly after three in the afternoon.

"Describe the attacks," Hans interjected.

"First one was in the same old way. Two umens in line, followed by two in column to provide fire support."

"Weapons?"

"Bows and lances. Pat said they must have piled up at least five thousand casualties within twenty minutes. We lost less than a hundred. Reports of some of their units gaining the flank and fighting in the woods, but nothing serious yet."

"Then what?"

"They moved up at least ten thousand slaves to start digging gun positions a mile out."

"What did Pat do?" Andrew asked quietly.

"He claimed that to save on ammunition they held fire."

Andrew nodded and looked over at Hans. Orders were that if human slaves were used they had to be fired upon. It had always been a bitter choice, but there was no other way, for if they didn't, the Horde would finally wind up using them as s.h.i.+elds when they came in for the attack.

"I'd've done the same," Hans finally replied. "It's a devil moving artillery ammunition fifty miles up that road past the railhead, might as well save kill Bantag."

"Then what?" Andrew pressed, deciding to let pa.s.s the decision by Pat to disobey standing order.

"They moved their artillery up to sixteen hundred yards shortly after noon and opened up with close to a hundred guns. It's been generally an artillery battle since," Vincent said.

"I bet Pat's enjoying that," Hans added with a grim smile.

"The second charge?"

"Limited, half an umen on foot and another mounted umen struck the northern part of the line, This time they were armed with rifles and got up to within one hundred yards before breaking."

"Any problems?"

"Just got the latest report from Pat a few minutes ago, sir. He said that one, maybe two umens armed with rifles are in the woods to the north and moving to flank. He'll abandon the line just before dusk and pull back into the woods to the next position."

Vincent handed over copies of all the reports which had been filed since dawn, and Andrew browsed through them, then motioned for Vincent and Hans to follow him and retired into his private office and closed the door. Going over to his desk, he sat down and spent several minutes quietly reading the telegrams. It was strange to be running a battle over two hundred miles behind the front line. The whole scale of this fight was proving to be somewhat daunting to him, with more than sixty thousand troops deployed to the east, and a local reserve of a corps at Port Lincoln while several more corps were deployed nearly two hundred miles to the south.

He found himself longing for the days when it had simply been a regiment, the left and right flank of his entire responsibility within sight; where orders could be delivered in seconds, and in an ultimate sense there was someone above him who would make all the hard choices.

He pa.s.sed the reports over to Hans as he finished reading them, then fixed his gaze on the map hanging behind his desk.

"He went through a h.e.l.l of a lot of artillery ammunition," Hans finally said, breaking the silence.

"The breechloaders can fire twice as fast and have double the range, we expected that."

"Ten thousand rounds Andrew, that's over 150 caisson loads. We'll be digging into our reserve stockpiles within a week at that rate."

"Once we're into the forest it'll slack off," Andrew replied.

"No land cruisers though," Hans said. "Most of the units armed with older weapons; that's curious."

Andrew nodded. Ten umens clearly identified, and it looked like yet more coming in. Was this the main attack?

"Vincent, what's the latest from Bullfinch?"

"We didn't get a courier s.h.i.+p in today, sir. Last report was the one you saw from yesterday."

Andrew looked back at Hans. "What do you think?"

"Well at least it's started. There's one of two possibilities on the eastern front. Either it's an attack to draw our attention, or once they push us back from the edge of the steppe they'll bring up everything they have. Maybe two units armed with breech-loading rifles identified so far. My estimate is they have at least ten, maybe twelve or thirteen. Once they've pushed Pat back, if it's the main attack, they'll move them up."

"And?"

"It's a diversion."

"Why do you think that?"

"Logistics, Andrew. Before they cut off Nippon we knew that if they were working on a rail line at all in that direction, it was at least two hundred miles back from what would be the front. When I was a prisoner we were making rails in the factories and they had to be going someplace, since the line to Xi'an was completed, so I figured it was for a northern track. But even if they were up to laying a mile of track a day, they'd still be two hundred or more miles short of what has started as the front line. If they did attack that way, they'd face the same problem the Tugars and Merki faced when they hit us from the west, and that was funneling everything they had through one road in the forest while all the time we were falling back on our base of supplies."

"But it's the only way to get at us," Hawthorne interjected, "at least as long as we control the sea. The force coming up between the two oceans is even farther from supplies. As long as we blockade Xi'an and patrol farther south, there's no way they'll get supplies out to either front."

"But will we?" Hans asked. "We know they were building s.h.i.+ps, and we've been blind for two weeks now. So there's no telling what they've marshaled at Xi'an."

Andrew could sense the slightest tone of accusation in Hans's voice. Ever since Hans was rescued he had been pressing for a cutting-out raid back on Xi'an, volunteering to lead it himself in order to destroy the construction yards and s.h.i.+ps anch.o.r.ed there. Of course the idea was suicidal, throwing an ill-trained force eighty miles up a river into what was a fortified camp of the enemy. There simply weren't enough s.h.i.+ps or trained men to do the job. Bullfinch had successfully pressed for the creation of a marine division, but it'd be a year before such a unit was ready for action.

"So you think there'll be a second blow then?" Andrew replied.

Andrew half listened as Hans and Vincent launched into a debate and looked back again at the map, though after studying it for so many long months it was etched into his memory.

Andrew finally turned to look back at Hans.

"I want you down on the southern front by tomorrow," Andrew said.

"I thought Marcus would be in charge there?"

Andrew nodded. "I've changed my mind. The a.s.signment was made before we got you back. I want experience. Marcus is d.a.m.n good on a straight defense, but we might need some flexible thinking there if what you're worried about comes to pa.s.s."

"He might be upset with this, sir," Vincent announced. "Most of the units down there are Roum."

"He's a soldier," Andrew said, "and a d.a.m.n good one at that. He'll understand, and besides, Tenth Corps is in reserve in Roum. I'll want him to supervise bringing them up if things get hot."

Hans grinned.

"You seem happy about this, Hans."