Never Sound Retreat Part 23

"A moment," Vincent whispered. "Marcus."

"Here, Vincent."

"How bad?"

Marcus hesitated.

"How bad, d.a.m.n it?"

"The division was cut to ribbons. They managed to get a foothold in the outer trench on the right and are still holding it. I've moved another brigade up to support."

"That's all I wanted," Vincent whispered. "And the Bantag? Are they biting?"

"Putting reinforcements in the line. Report just came in of a battery pulled from the edge of the woods where we plan to attack at dawn."

"You know what to do."

Marcus nodded.

"Out! Now!" Kathleen shouted, and two orderlies came up to Marcus.

"The only one that outranks her here is Death," Vincent whispered.

"Vincent?"

He wasn't sure if he had pa.s.sed out or not, but Marcus was gone, Kathleen standing over him, leaning, her face almost touching his.

"Ma'am?"

"You're going to sleep now."

"Tanya, the children."

"Don't worry."

"You know what to do if . . ."

He could feel her lips on his forehead, kissing him gently, as if she was his mother tucking him in. Tears blinded him as the memory formed, wondering where she was, wishing she was here to make the pain and the fear go away.

"I will, now go to sleep."

A strange smell engulfed him, strange, sickly-sweet. He could see her, so far away now . .. floating like an angel.

a.s.she cut inward, an a.s.sistant holding the flaps of flesh back, she tried not to think of who it was she was working on. How many hundreds, thousands she had cut into, she could no longer remember. But this one was different, still almost a boy in her eyes. If it had been anyone else, she would have whispered words of rea.s.surance, had an a.s.sistant administer a shot of morphine, then placed him quietly in the tent at the rear of the hospital, which even now was filled nearly to overflowing. She could save six, maybe ten others in the time she would spend here, and as she cut in deeper and saw all the damage, a moan of despair escaped her.

Chapter Eleven.

Streaks of fire burst on the western horizon, and even from twenty miles away Andrew heard the distant rumble of artillery carried on the westerly breeze.

"Pat, what the h.e.l.l is Vincent doing over there?" Andrew asked.

"Diversion I think ... I hope."

"One h.e.l.l of a fight going on there," Emil interjected. "G.o.d, I hope that boy isn't doing a frontal a.s.sault."

Andrew said nothing, Emil expressing his worst fear. Would Vincent, out of desperation, throw his force in like that. The battle, which had started just before sunset, had been raging for hours. The boy had most likely seen the slowly moving column of smoke moving up toward where Junction City was located, just before sunset. Ha'ark was being reinforced, could that have pushed Vincent into an attack?

Only twenty miles, twenty d.a.m.n miles, but it was as good as a thousand as far as knowing what was really going on. There was nothing to do about that now, Andrew realized. He had to stay focused on what was directly ahead.

Andrew stood silent, watching, sensing more than seeing the columns of men around him. All equipment had been m.u.f.fled, tin cups thrown away, canteens wrapped with strips of cloth, rifles double-checked by sergeants to make sure percussion caps were removed so that no gun could be fired accidentally.

A scattering of rifle fire was popping up and down the line, skirmishers ordered to fire every few minutes, whether they saw anything or not, an occasional flare going up as if the line was nervous, expecting an enemy attack. But they were under orders not to let the rate of fire build up as a signal that a major a.s.sault was about to be unleashed.

"It's time, Andrew," Pat announced, breaking the silence.

"Give the order."

Three flares rose in quick succession just behind Andrew, tracing fire into the sky, two bursting green, the third one red. Half a dozen more flares were launched out toward the enemy position to make it look like they were simply checking to make sure no attack was coming in.

Whispered commands echoed behind him, and the first column brushed past to his right. He felt as if they were making far too much noise, curses echoing as a man tripped and fell, a comrade treading on his hand. On the left a rifle fired, followed instantly by a cry of pain, in spite of all the precautions someone had managed to go in carrying a loaded weapon, then accidentally discharged it.

Andrew looked anxiously toward the Bantag line, expecting at any second that it would erupt in a curtain of fire . . . but there was nothing, except the popping of the skirmishers down in the valley.

The column continued to plod past, wave after wave of men. The old familiar smell of an army wafted around Andrew . . . leather, horse, filth, the cloying sweaty stench of men who had not bathed in weeks and were now perspiring with fear. It was a trigger which set his heart beating faster.

A brilliant explosion erupted on the horizon and, for an instant, Andrew feared that the distant light would somehow reveal the columns moving down into the valley.

The telegraph key in the command bunker started to tap, the sound of it startling Andrew. After a minute it stopped, the telegrapher poking his head out from behind the curtain of ponchos that had been erected to hide the position.

"Message from the rear guard, sir. They're pulling in now. Report the Bantag line quiet on their side."

"So far so good," Pat announced.

"Once the shooting starts, it's bound to stir them up, though."

"They won't push in till after dawn. They're scared to death of the mines, and the caltrops will slow them down even more."

"Cruel way to treat horses." Pat sighed. "Never did like them devilish things."

"We better get moving; nothing more we can do here. Emil, once you get the word, you're going to have to move fast, remember that."

"We're ready to go, Andrew."

"Pat, don't do anything stupid. Otherwise, I'll have to come back for you."

Pat laughed softly and patted Andrew on the arm.

"Last thing I want is to be a dinner guest for those filthy b.u.g.g.e.rs. I'll be along, right behind the good doctor here."

Andrew whispered a command to his horse, and, with a gentle tap of Andrew's heels, Mercury moved forward and to the left, down to the railroad track where the first engine in line waited. Andrew's heart began to race. If the Bantag had second-guessed him, it'd all be over in a matter of minutes, their artillery tearing his advancing columns to shreds. Everything was based on one d.a.m.n a.s.sumption, that they would not expect him to concentrate and throw everything he had into a single arrow point launched in the middle of the night.

Waiting next to the engine, he looked back to the east, where the first of the two moons was breaking the horizon. The light was most likely silhouetting the crest, and he wondered if the Bantag could see the movement of troops coming over the ridge.

A single cannon discharged on the opposite side of the valley, flashing silently. Long seconds later the boom rolled across the field. Another cannon fired, then half a dozen, the flashes of light revealing a dark swarming ma.s.s of men clawing up the side of the earthen fort which dominated the Bantag line.

"That's it, we're on the fort!" Andrew shouted. "Now go!"

The engineer standing in the cab above him pulled back on his throttle, the wheels of the train spinning, sparks flying. Mercury shied away even as Andrew urged him forward. Andrew started down into the valley, riding alongside the track. More flashes erupted ahead. At last there came the sound of cheering, thousands of men, screaming in rage, fear, the tension of the long hours of waiting broken at last.

The flash of the guns revealed the long, serpentine columns stretching all the way from the Bantag lines, down into the valley and back up toward the jump-ing-off place for the attack. Riding alongside the track, Andrew could see a red lantern flare to life, a signalman marking the midpoint in the valley where the ruined trestle spanning the narrow stream once stood. The engineer was already applying the brakes, sparks hissing out, and for a brief instant Andrew feared that he had put too much speed on the train and that it would plunge into the creek.

An artillery round thundered overhead, followed seconds later by half a dozen more rounds, the Ban-tag gunners drawn by the shower of sparks.

The train halted, and Andrew waited, holding his breath.

The first streak of fire rose from the flatcar behind the engine. Less than a second later the second rocket shrieked into the heavens, and in an instant the entire battery of eight hundred rockets, mounted on a dozen flatcars thundered to life, the gunners leaping from the cars and running in every direction.

Andrew watched in awe as night became day, the rockets soaring upward, the first six carloads pre-aimed to thunder down behind the enemy lines, the next three angled to strike beyond the left flank of the breakthrough, the other three to hit on the right flank. He could only pray that his engineers had accurately measured the distance from the middle of the valley to a point beyond where the breakthrough was occurring. He didn't really expect that the weapon would do all that much damage against an entrenched enemy. His only hope was that it would scare the h.e.l.l out of them, and perhaps even trigger a panic in the same way it had terrified the Merki at Hispania. If so, it'd buy precious moments of time to widen the breach and secure the flanks, so that the ambulances and three thousand men detailed to carry the wounded could get through, followed by Pat and the rear guard.

An explosion rocked the next-to-last car, and Andrew flinched as half a dozen rockets skidded out at a right angle to the train, bouncing and shrieking past him so that Mercury panicked, rearing and nearly unseating him. One of them plowed into the rear of an advancing column of men and detonated.

Other rockets soared off at wild angles, some going straight up, others streaking off to the rear, but the vast majority winged out toward their targets, hovering in the night sky, trailing plumes of white-hot sparks, then shrieking down.

Hundreds of explosions erupted behind the Bantag line and along the flanks. To his horror Andrew saw where his advancing column on the flank left of the attack had obviously veered off course, a score or more of rockets raining down into their lines, but the close bombardment smothered an earthen fort blocking their advance, and, in the glow of fire, he saw the charge surging forward.

"Sir, better get the h.e.l.l out of here!"

Andrew looked down and saw the engineer and his two firemen, looking up anxiously.

"Smashed the safety valve shut; she'll let go any second now!"

Andrew nodded his thanks and left the men in the darkness, urging Mercury across the stream, barely aware of his staff following in his wake. Going up the slope, he pa.s.sed a scattering of casualties and just as he reached the outer edge of the Bantag abatis and entanglements an explosion detonated behind him, the engine boiler tearing apart.

Reaching the first entrenchment he pa.s.sed a knot of dead and dying Bantag, human bodies piled up around them. Leaping the trench, he continued up the slope pa.s.sing men cut off from their commands in the confusion, his staff shouting for them to keep moving west and rejoin the first unit they found.

Rifle fire thundered straight ahead and to his right as he pa.s.sed through the second line. To his surprise the enemy position had been empty but as he approached the third line he had to zigzag back and forth to find a path where Mercury could get through the tangle of bodies.

As he crested the hill the valley beyond came into view. Fighting flared all around him. In the darkness it was hard to judge, but he sensed that his column was already a half mile in past the enemy lines.

"Signal rocket!" Andrew shouted.

Several of his staff dismounted and seconds later a green flare soared up, followed at thirty-second intervals by half a dozen more flares, informing Emil it was time to get the wagons loaded with the wounded moving.

"Colonel Keane?"

A mounted shadow came out of the dark, and drew up beside him.

"McMurtry, sir."

"Where's Schneid?"

"Don't know, sir. I think up forward; I saw the rocket and thought I should report in."

"How are we doing?"

"Clean through, sir," the division commander cried excitedly. "Caught the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds napping, d.a.m.n near into the first trench before they knew it. Second trench was empty."

"I saw that," Andrew replied, and the intelligence confirming the fact made him nervous. Ha'ark had somewhere around thirty thousand. Maybe five thousand diverted to the south, ten on either flank, a thousand warriors per mile of front, but dug in. Had he pulled back a reserve? If so, come dawn he'd have an organized force ready to strike back. That was the d.a.m.nable thing about a night battle, and all that he could count on now was that Ha'ark was as confused as he was. For if he wasn't, come dawn, the trap would collapse in around him.

"Detail some of your men off here," Andrew said. "Get them filling in the trenches so we can get the ambulances through. Build some fires to mark your position."

"Yes, sir."

Andrew watched for a moment, realizing that in this action, his ability of command now only extended as far as he could see, which wasn't more than a few dozen feet. He'd have to trust to the training of his men and their desperation to break through, and the confusion of the Bantag who, even now, had to be reorganizing to strike back.

Startled by the ferocity of the rocket bombardment erupting on the horizon, Ha'ark waited impatiently for the telegrapher to find out what was happening to the east.

"Line is still down, my lord," was the only information he received as the long minutes pa.s.sed.

The attack in front of his position had died out, but the humans still held sections of the first trench line. Bodies brought in revealed hat patches indicating there were elements of two different human umens attacking his line.

The reserves. What to do with the reserves that even now were marching up from the junction. They had been ordered to come straight here in antic.i.p.ation of yet more frontal a.s.saults. Now this new attack on the other front. Confused, Ha'ark stared at the eastern horizon, not sure what to do.

Refusing to dismount, Marcus followed the line of skirmishers as they moved, phantomlike, through the forest, flitting from tree to tree, the ghostlike quality of the advance enhanced by the ground fog rising in the early dawn. From half a dozen miles to the south came the dull thump of artillery, still firing along the central front.

He could sense more than see the solid wall of men moving behind him, two full corps advancing in columns through the marshy ground, the men reeling with exhaustion from the difficult night march into the forest, a regiment of cavalry before them, their riders bending low in their saddles as they ducked to clear low-hanging branches. A rifle cracked in front, shattering the silence, a flurry of shots erupting, the skirmishers before him darting into the fog. Deep-throated cries of alarm erupted from the woods-they were into the enemy lines.

Marcus nodded to the officer riding beside him.

"Go!"

A bugle sounded, and, with a wild shout the cavalry regiment spurred their mounts forward, officers drawing sabers, enlisted men holding revolvers high as they plunged through the woods, skidding around trees, leaping over fallen trunks.

Marcus followed, fire erupting ahead, bullets snapping through the branches around him. He rode down into a mist-shrouded hollow, skirting the edge of a bog where half a dozen riders were trapped, several of them dead, sprawled in the stagnant water. For a moment he feared that his plan was the height of tactical folly, that the whole thing was an exercise in madness, and doing, as Hans kept saying, the unexpected, was leading to ruin.

"The last thing they're expecting is a cavalry charge through the woods at dawn," he had argued, when laying out the details of his plan to Vincent. "It goes against all doctrine, and Ha'ark understands tactical doctrine. We smash in where they least expect us, in the way they least expect."

Marcus dodged his way around a tangled ma.s.s of half a dozen horses and troopers, all of them dead from a blast of canister. Then out of the fog and smoke he saw the Bantag line, a breastwork half a dozen feet high, made out of logs, tangled branches piled up as a barrier in front. Riderless horses by the dozens stood before the breastworks and for an instant Marcus feared that all his men had been shot down. But then he saw a cavalry guidon fluttering atop the breastworks. Dismounting, he pushed his way through the sharpened stakes and scrambled up over the side of the breastworks. Troopers were deployed along the line, firing into the smoke, some of them already climbing out and rushing forward. The trench was littered with dead Bantag, many of them obviously caught totally unprepared, cl.u.s.ters of them lying around still-smoking fires.

A cheer erupted behind him, and, looking back, he saw the forward edge of an infantry column coming out of the smoke, the front ranks wielding axes. Crashing into the abatis, they started to cut their way through, while lines of men snaked their way through the entanglements, scrambled over the breastworks, and pushed forward, linking up with the cavalrymen for the rush on the second line.