Never Sound Retreat Part 24

Rifle fire was intensifying, reports of artillery thundered through the woods, and in the rapidly rising light he could see the shadowy outlines of an earthen fort, men charging up the forward edge, dozens dropping from the enfilading fire of a well-placed artillery piece. Bantag gunners struggled to reload their piece but started to drop as riflemen around Marcus poured in a concentrated fire. The flow of infantry swarming around Marcus increased dramatically as engineering troops smashed lanes through the entanglements.

A regimental flag appeared atop the fort in the second line, went down, then went back up again. Wild cheering erupted, picked up by the men surging past Marcus.

A bugle sounded forward, the recall for the cavalry, and even as the infantry continued to surge forward, troopers began to return through the smoke.

Marcus grabbed a sergeant, bleeding from a scalp wound, as he came back over the breastworks.

"How is it up there?" Marcus asked, struggling to speak Rus.

The sergeant, realizing who was before him, snapped to attention, saluted, and broke into a grin.

"Caught them napping, we did. Some of us were into their second line before they even knew it. They're running, sir. d.a.m.n, they're running."

Grinning, Marcus dismissed the sergeant, who pushed his way through the swarm of infantry, bawling curses, shouting for his troop to re-form and mount up.

Marcus followed him and, sighting his staff, reclaimed his horse, reined his mount around, and edged through the flow of infantry. More reports filtered in from excited couriers, the breakthrough of Second Division, Sixth Corps was already angling down to the edge of the forest, the Bantag line rolling back.

"Stripped his reserves to the center, thank the G.o.ds," Marcus announced. The realization of that fact eased the guilt that had been torturing him through the night that Vincent's attack might have been worse than useless.

Pa.s.sing out of the advancing lines, he rode for several hundred yards, drawn at last by the sound of men cursing, shouting. Coming up over a low brush-covered ridge, he emerged onto a narrow road. A cavalry man on foot whirled about, nervously raising his carbine, aiming at Marcus then sheepishly lowered his gun.

"Sorry, sir, we just had a bunch of them hit us." The trooper nodded toward several dozen Bantag and human bodies piled by the side of the road.

"The bridge?"

The trooper pointed up the road and Marcus urged his mount into a trot, weaving his way around a company of engineering troops, who were moving at the double, carrying rough-cut planks. A wagon was in the middle of the road, piled high with lumber. He moved around it, then reined up short as the narrow forest path sloped down sharply into a boggy stream. Mud-splattered infantry were deployed on the far side of the stream, holding the Bantag breastworks that had covered the approach, having swept in from along the opposite sh.o.r.e.

A squat, bald-headed officer, cigar clamped firmly in his mouth, stood by the edge of the marsh, pouring out an unending stream of obscenities in English as his regiment of engineering troops struggled with a pontoon boat in midstream, the men up to their shoulders in the brown murky water, stringing out anchor lines back to the sh.o.r.e. Before the boat was even in place a crew of thirty men hoisted a heavy oak beam onto their shoulders and started into the stream. As the forward edge of the beam reached the edge of the boat it was laid down on the gunwale and dropped into place, a heavy iron bolt dropped through a precut hole, securing the beam to the boat. Back onsh.o.r.e, where the other end of the beam now rested, engineers hooked iron cables around the b.u.t.t and ran the cables back into the forest, wrapping them around the nearest tree.

Marcus dismounted and walked up to the officer, who paused in his nonstop swearing and saluted.

"Stream is wider than I was told," the officer announced in barely understandable Rus.

"How long will it take?"

"You d.a.m.n stupid sons of b.i.t.c.hes, cinch up that anchor line. Yes, you, d.a.m.n it!" the officer roared, then turned back to Marcus.

"Half hour, sir, be ready in half an hour. Be careful, sir, still some of them b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in the woods on the far sh.o.r.e."

Even as he spoke the warning a rifle shot cracked and the officer spun around, grabbing his arm, cursing even louder than before.

Infantry on the far sh.o.r.e opened fire, men sprinting along the riverbank, seconds later flushing out the Bantag sniper, his body sliding down the opposite bank and into the mud.

Holding his arm the officer went back to work, blood seeping out between his fingers.

Marcus turned away from the bridge and looked back up the narrow, muddy track which pa.s.sed for a road. The path was jammed with wagons carrying the bridging supplies, men unloading planks and heaving them onto the ground to corduroy the approach to the bridge. Infantry streamed past on either side of the path, jumping into the stream to ford across, rifles and cartridge boxes held high over their heads, emerging on the other side, an unending river of troops surging forward to widen the breach in the enemy line. Engineering troops on the far sh.o.r.e attacked the breastworks with axes, picks, and shovels, clearing away the barricade.

The second stringer was laid out to the boat, followed within minutes by two more stringers which barely reached to the opposite sh.o.r.e. An unending line of men now raced from the wagons, carrying oak planks, which were thrown down across the stringers, bolts dropped in on either side, locking the planks to the stringers.

A telegraph crew came along the side of the road, stringing out wire, hammering spikes into tree trunks, hooking a gla.s.s insulator onto the end of each spike, wrapping the copper strand around the insulator, then moving forward. Couriers snaked through the woods, coming in with reports to Marcus, each dispatch filling him with a sense of elation. The breakthrough was continuing to spread out, infantry already moving out of the hills and onto the edge of the open steppe, reporting only light resistance.

With the telegraph hooked in, the signal company went into operation, reestablishing the link to Tenth Corps and the rail line. Marcus hovered anxiously, watching as the signals from the center came in, the operator first writing them down in Rus, a liaison on his staff then translating them into Latin. So far it seemed to be working. The barrage at the center was continuing, but ammunition was beginning to run short. In twelve hours the ma.s.sed batteries had burned up nearly a quarter of all the artillery ammunition reserves of the entire Republic, and nearly all the ten- and twenty-pounder rounds which had been brought forward.

"Sir."

Marcus looked up to see the Yankee engineering officer standing before him, features pinched and pale.

"Bring 'em up, sir. It's ready."

With a sigh, the officer sat on the ground, looking around weakly, cigar still clamped in mouth.

Teamsters, cursing and shouting, with whips cracking, drove their wagons forward. Marcus watched as the first wagon went over the bridge, observing how the pontoon boat sank as it went over, engineers swarming around the wagon as it went up the opposite bank, leaning into the wheels to help it get up the steep slope. Wagon after wagon pa.s.sed, clearing the road.

Finally, he heard them coming, the hope of the entire offensive. Stepping to the side of the road he saw the black monster appear out of the last wisps of fog that was breaking up as the day grew warmer.

The heavy iron wheels of the land ironclad rumbled over the corduroy trail, smoke puffing out of its stack, its six heavy, iron wheels creaking and groaning.

Marcus looked at the machine in awe. It was smaller than the Bantag machines he had observed. Like the Bantag machine, its main gun projected out of a gun port which could be slammed shut between shots. A small rounded turret sat atop the boxlike machine, a tarp covering the gun port, the ironclad's commander sitting atop the turret, snapping a salute off to Marcus as they slowly rumbled past. Saint Malady Saint Malady was emblazoned in Cyrillic on the side of the machine. The portal where the ironclad driver sat was wide-open, the driver leaning out, looking at the bridge ahead with obvious anxiety. was emblazoned in Cyrillic on the side of the machine. The portal where the ironclad driver sat was wide-open, the driver leaning out, looking at the bridge ahead with obvious anxiety.

The machine started down the slope and everyone seemed to freeze in place, watching tensely as the ironclad started to skid until it slammed into the first plank of the bridge. The bridge surged from the impact, the entire structure groaning and shaking so that for an instant Marcus thought it had been snapped free of its moorings.

The ironclad stood motionless. Smoke puffed out, and Marcus looked up, wondering if the swirling column would be visible above the trees. The entire ironclad shook as the rear wheels began to spin, grinding against the corduroy roadbed, a log kicking up behind the machine. Suddenly it lurched free and started up on the bridge, which immediately sank under the weight.

The pontoon boat bobbed down as the forward two wheels of the ironclad crept onto the span, followed several seconds later by the middle wheels and then the rear drive wheels. As the ironclad crept toward the middle of the span the boat continued to sink until, finally, there were only a few inches of clearance between the gunwale and the water as the ironclad reached the middle of the bridge.

Pushing on it reached the far sh.o.r.e, the boat bobbing back up. With smoke belching from its stack, the machine crept up the opposite sh.o.r.e, crested the bank, and pushed on.

A cheer erupted from the engineers, Marcus joining in, finding it hard to believe that all of this had been planned by Ferguson and Vincent nearly a week ago and a thousand miles away.

Marcus went over to where he had left the commander of the engineering regiment, eager to offer his congratulations. The man was lying on the ground, as if asleep, a young lieutenant sitting by his side, tears in his eyes.

The lieutenant looked up at Marcus.

"He's dead, sir."

Stunned, Marcus looked down at the body.

"The wound; it wasn't that bad."

"His heart, sir. Dr. Weiss told him to be careful. I guess it was his heart."

Marcus looked up as a horse-drawn wagon, loaded with coal, went over the bridge, following the ironclad with a precious load of fuel.

Behind it came a battery of ten-pounders and then the next ironclad crept onto the bridge and crossed.

He turned back to the lieutenant.

"Send up the signal rockets; we have to let Keane know."

The boy drew away from his fallen commander and went to where some of his men had erected three vertical launch tubes, shouting for them to fire.

Seconds later the rockets rose, describing an arc through the narrow opening in the forest canopy cut by the stream, three red bursts igniting more than a thousand feet in the air.

"Every five minutes," Marcus shouted.

Getting on his horse and motioning for his staff to follow, he crossed the bridge, falling in behind the advancing column.

It was going easily, almost too easily. He was hanging nearly eight miles north of the rail line with only a thin screen of infantry occupying the line back toward where Tenth Corps was positioned. The question now was, what would Ha'ark do?

* * *Feyodor sprinted across the field to join Jack, who was anxiously hovering next to the gas generator. They had finally started filling the airship with hydrogen an hour before dawn. The stench of sulfuric acid, which was used to cook the zinc oxide in order to make hydrogen, hung heavy in the air.

The portable hydrogen generator sat in the middle of an open field. A cordon of unarmed infantry formed a circle a hundred yards wide around the airship and gas generator to keep any curious onlookers back, onlookers who might stupidly strike a match. At least the morning was damp. He hated filling a ship on a clear dry morning, when the chance for static electricity was higher.

The first two bags of the airship were filled. A ground-crew member was on top of the ship, carefully looking for any leaks, but the other two bags inside the gas cylinder were only half-filled. The crew was preparing to charge the second lead-lined tank with acid, the men moving cautiously as they unloaded the five-gallon bottles of acid from their packing cases. The acid was then poured into a hundred-gallon tank attached to the side of a lead-lined box a dozen feet long, and a half dozen feet wide by four feet high. The box was filled with zinc shavings. Once the tank was filled and the box sealed shut, a valve would be opened to allow the acid to pour into the zinc-filled box. Hoses attached to the top of the box snaked toward the airship, and Jack anxiously paced along the hoses, waiting, knowing he could not hurry his crew with the dangerous work.

The tank filled, the crew stepped back while the sergeant in command opened the valve. Seconds later Jack saw a flutter run through the hose as it gradually expanded, hydrogen coursing through it toward his ship.

Jack finally motioned for Feyodor to join him.

"Signal just came in from Marcus. They've crossed the stream; the offensive is on," Feyodor announced.

"Anything from Keane?"

"Just the report of the rocket barrage. Smoke plumes indicate Ha'ark's moving his land ironclads north, though. They might be moving to cut Keane off."

"d.a.m.n all," Jack snapped. "We should have been up hours ago. Getting those d.a.m.n wings attached held everything up." He motioned toward the wings jutting from either side of the airship. Nervously, he walked around the ship yet again, double-checking the anchor points where the bilevel wings were joined to the frame of the ship. The d.a.m.n things had worked, but that was back at the base in Suzdal and not after a transport of a thousand miles. The ship should have at least half a dozen more test flights before they even thought about going into action, but the rumble of artillery fire to the east was argument enough against that.

He looked at the three red-painted boxes stacked beside his ship and the canvas bundles attached to them. When Vincent had first briefed him on the mission, he had thought it madness, but now, with the report from Feyodor that the a.s.sault was on, he knew with a grim certainty that they would have to go in.

He wanted to swear at his crew, to urge them on, but the simple laws of chemical reactions dictated the pace of things now, and he stood silent, watching as his ship slowly filled with gas.

"Are you certain you saw land cruisers?" Ha'ark asked, not even bothering to look at the courier who had just galloped up to his headquarters.

"Yes, my Qarth. It was coming out of the woods."

Ha'ark motioned for the messenger to leave, and he was again alone in the bunker, staring at the map spread out on the table.

Both of the moves he was facing were audacious, surprising. Keane had broken through and had advanced half a dozen miles, and now this, more than an umen of their infantry, with land cruisers coming out of the forest from the northwest, driving down to link up with the breakthrough.

So the attack on the center was a feint, a trick to draw his attention.

Gazing at the map, he struggled with the calculations. His reinforcements were coming up fast but had been ordered to move toward his position facing the human armies which had closed from the west. It was increasingly obvious, though, that the action here had simply been a masterful diversion. They were trying to link up with Keane by attacking out of the forest to the northwest. Studying the map, he extended the lines of advance. If his reinforcements moved quickly enough, there was still time to engage and cut Keane off.

Stepping out of his bunker he mounted his horse. The commanders of his land cruisers and the reserve umens watched him attentively. Raising his rifle high, he pointed toward the northeast and urged his mount into a gallop.

Chapter Twelve.

"Andrew, I think you better come up here and look at this."

Following Pat's lead, Andrew urged Mercury across a narrow valley of waist-high gra.s.s and up a gentle slope to where a skirmish line of dismounted infantry were deployed in open order, every fourth man waiting just behind the ridge, each holding the mounts of his comrades who were on the firing line.

"Rather hot up there, so you better dismount," Pat announced. Weary after long hours in the saddle, Andrew was glad for the a.s.sistance of an orderly, who reached up to help him get down. To his surprise some of Pat's staff had started a fire of knotted-up hunks of dried gra.s.s and as he walked past them, one of the couriers offered up a cup of tea, which Andrew gladly took.

Crouching low, he went up to the edge of the crest and peered over.

A heavy line of Bantag skirmishers was in the valley below, concealed in the gra.s.s, popping up to fire a shot, ducking low, then reemerging again to fire another round after creeping several yards closer.

Once again he was amazed by the change in their tactics. There was no insane rush here. Rather, a steady, methodical pushing. Dark forms littered the valley and distant slope, the wreckage of their retreat, dozens of bodies of the men of the rear guard dotting the field, a broad swath of gra.s.s, several hundred yards across, trampled down from the pa.s.sage of the troops, artillery batteries, and more than two hundred wagons bearing the wounded.

Looking to the northwest he could see wagons spread out across the open steppe, swaying white dots moving in a sea of green, surrounded by a disorganized trail of the walking wounded. Flanking columns protected the wagons, fire rippling along the lines where knots of Bantag warriors on foot hara.s.sed the retreat. The entire column was pushing toward a village nestled against the flank of a high conical hill. Advanced elements of Eleventh and First Corps were already approaching the town, where a firefight was brewing. Farther back toward the northwest horizon, three red rockets flashed then dropped away, the signal that was being sent up from the relief column, guiding him toward safety. The signals had started shortly after dawn, causing him to shift his retreat away from the west to the northwest. But they were too far away yet, at least six or seven miles distant from the head of his column.

A trooper came staggering off the firing line behind Andrew, clutching his chest, a comrade helping him into the saddle, mounting behind him, and leading the man away.

"Off to our right," Pat said, drawing Andrew's attention back to the fight. "Over there!"

Andrew put his cup of tea down and accepted Pat's field gla.s.ses. Raising them to his eyes, he focused where Pat was pointing, then looked back at his own retreating lines.

A bullet nicked past in the gra.s.s by his side, tracing a line through the green stalks, which popped into the air around him. A Bantag wagon was on the far ridge, and seconds later a puff of smoke appeared behind it.

"d.a.m.n mortars," Pat snarled, as the high, piercing shriek of an incoming whistled over their heads, the round detonating a hundred yards behind them.

Andrew continued to study the dark ma.s.ses moving toward his flank. Land cruisers ... it was hard to see how many, and he patiently tried to count the puffs of smoke, losing track after thirty when a gust of wind swirled the dark column together.

The cruisers were advancing in line, Bantag infantry deployed behind them in columns.

"Three miles, I'd make it," Pat said. "They'll hit the village just about the time our wagons push through. We've got about an hour at most before they hit us.

"Their rear guard's coming up fast." Pat pointed to the south and southeast. Andrew could see the dark columns of mounted warriors cresting the distant hills.

"They've got an airship up as well," Pat announced, tapping Andrew on the shoulder and pointing out the small dark cylinder moving up behind the column.

Sighing, Andrew handed the gla.s.ses back to Pat and slid down from the edge of the slope, curling up when a mortar round crumped down less than a dozen feet away, spraying him with dirt.

Startled, he looked over at Pat, who was grinning weakly as he brushed a spray of mud and gra.s.s off his uniform.

"d.a.m.n mortars. They can drop a round into a barrel."

The next sh.e.l.l detonated on the crest, and, seconds later, a shower of rounds exploded along the ridge. The last of the wounded were staggering off the crest, and Pat motioned for the skirmish line to start pulling back.

"They're going to get between us and the relief column," Andrew said, pointing to the south, where the first of the land cruisers was coming over the crest line, several miles away.