A scout came cantering back and pulled his dog up on its haunches. "As you thought, Lord," he said, leaning down. He was one of the old-fashioned ones, with his hair pulled up in a knot at the side of his head. "There is only a shallow ditch and berm on the landward side-my dog could jump it. And all the cannon point to the water."
Bellamy grunted with relief. Messer Raj had said that was the logical thing for Tewfik to do, but you couldn't count on an opponent having good sense.
He paced back along the column, personally giving the command to halt. The battalion came to a stop with a few lurches that ran one group of men onto another's heels, but nothing major. The company commanders gathered around him.
"Come," he said, leading them westward up a final line of ridge. Beyond was rolling open ground, sparsely bushed with thorny native scrub and some cacti. "There."
In the open, the moonlight was enough to make the Colonial works plain enough. He used his binoculars: not much of a ditch, and there were no obstacles-no timbers studded with old sword-blades, no thorn zariba. Doubtless those would have been added in time, but there had been no time. Across the water red specks crawled through the air and the endless flat thudding of the bombardment continued. There were enough fires in Sandoral now to cast a reddish glow across the great river, expanding and uniting into columns of flame without men to fight them.
"Spread your men out along this ridge, and order fixed bayonets," Bellamy said. "Every man may load his rifle, but no reloading once we're into the enemy camp."
Nods, enthusiastic from the Squadrones, less so from the Civil Government officers seconded to the battalion. Fighting at close quarters in the dark, friendly fire would be a greater threat than the enemy. Their repeaters gave them an advantage in a close-range firefight, anyway. Better to rely on impetus and cold steel.
"Nothing fancy," Bellamy said, repeating Messer Raj's words. "Just raise a shout and go in on my signal."
Across two hundred meters of open ground. But the Spirit was with them, and the initiative.
He lay on the ridgeline. "Uncase the colors," he said to his bannermen; they pulled the leather tubes off the standards and gently shook the heavy silk free, taking care to keep both flags-the unit and the Civil Government blazon-below the ridgeline. To either side came rustling, crunching sounds as the men filed up company by company. Starlight glittered as they fixed their bayonets and then lay prone at the word of command. He could see one or two praying, among those closer; others were waiting, stolid or eager as their temperament took them.
And I don't think of glory, he realized. A few years ago that would have been his main concern in a situation like this; that men see him add honor to his name. Now I'm just worried that nothing go wrong. Messer Raj was right: civilization was contagious. It was more efficient than the old ways, but it took much of the color out of life. He swallowed water and vinegar from his canteen and loosened his sword in its scabbard, flipped open the cylinder of his revolver and checked the loads.
Marie will enjoy hearing about this. His Brigadero wife still thought war was glorious, and envied warriors. She'd probably have made a good soldier if she'd been born male-her cousin Teodore certainly did-provided she survived the seasoning. I'd rather go through a battle than pregnancy, at that. Strange to think of having children-legitimate children; byblows by peon girls didn't count. Stranger still to think of them growing up in East Residence; nobody had said he couldn't move back to the family estates in the Southern Territories, but he could take the hint.
He grinned. That would be terminally dull, anyway. At least Marie could sit out the war in a city with plenty of balls and theater and opera, or bullfights and baseball stadiums.
If we win this war, will there be wars for my sons to ride to? Possibly not; and was that a good thing, or the end of all honor?
Thud. Thud. Thud. There were explosions across the river, along the docks of Sandoral. Plumes of red fire rose into the night, spreading with startling suddenness. In less than thirty seconds the whole waterfront went up in a wall of flame, as the time-fused incendiaries caught among kerosene-soaked wood and spilled cooking oil. There was enough underlight to see the pillars of smoke, roiling and black and red-tinged by the fires.
He took a deep breath. "Gittem!" he roared, the old Squadron war shout. The trumpeters were playing Charge, over and over again, a raw brazen scream.
The flags went forward. The 1st Mounted Cruisers rose to their feet and threw themselves forward at a pounding run, their bayonets leveled. Ludwig Bellamy ran at their head, sword held forward like a pointer.
"GITTEM! GITTEM!" they bellowed.
Wogs all looking at the show, he thought with hammering glee. The wall stayed empty for long seconds. Then a few carbines began to crack, muzzle flashes like fireflies in the night. Men fell, but not many. He jumped down into the ditch, felt the jar as his boots landed in the muck at the bottom, scrambled in the chunky raw adobe of the berm. It was less than man-height; a Colonial appeared on the top, aiming a long-barreled revolver downward. It snapped a spike of fire, and the bannerman with the battalion standard went down. Somebody else grabbed it up, used the butt as a climbing-prop. Ludwig braced one hand on the berm and chopped with his saber, felt the edge slam into ankle-bone. The Colonial toppled and rolled down toward him, shrieking and trying to draw a dagger. Ludwig slammed the guard of his sword into the man's face and climbed over his body onto the top of the berm.
Cookfires lit the interior of the fortlet, and the glare of burning Sandoral across the river. Men in crimson djellabas streamed back from the gun line that faced the water, firing as they came. Ludwig gave a quick glance to either side; the berm's broad top was solid with his men. Company commanders were planting their pennants, platoon officers taking three steps forward and turning to face their men with outstretched arm and sword as a bar to give their commands the dressing.
"Sound Kneel and Stand," he snapped.
The front rank dropped to one knee and leveled their rifles. The men behind them stood and aimed. Here and there a trooper dropped as the Colonial fire began to thicken a little, falling forward to tumble loose-limbed to the foot of the berm. He waited an instant, until the target had time to thicken.
"Fwego!" Ludwig shouted. Then: "Charge!"
BAM. One long sound, like a single impossibly long shot. A bright comb of fire reached out towards the dim shapes of the Colonials, five hundred threads of it. On the heels of the volley the troopers ran forward through the thick curls of smoke, their steel glinting red in the reflected light. The Colonials wavered, then ran back the way they'd come, screaming their panic. A few stood and fought, emptying their carbines and drawing their scimitars, but they died quickly-spitted on dozens of points, beaten down with the butt, simply trampled.
Ludwig slashed at a man crawling out of a pup tent, hurdled another. Up the slope to the gunline that was this fortlet's main purpose, set here to command the river and prevent the rebuilding of the pontoon bridge. The guns had been dug in, set in revetments with V-shaped notches forward for their barrels. One group of Colonials, braver or better-led than the rest, was trying frantically to manhandle a pom-pom around to face the menace from the rear. He stopped, braced his legs and began to fire. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Two men down in the confusion around the light gun, and then his troopers were past. Steel clashed on steel for a moment, replaced by the butcher's-cleaver sound of metal slamming into flesh.