“You’ll get the nerve back,” Pat said softly, “I was the same way after I took that ball in the stomach.”
Andrew nodded, saying nothing. Straight ahead, the bridge was rapidly taking shape. The last boat had already been anchored, and stringers between the boats were nearly halfway across the river, the crews working feverishly to anchor the heavy timbers to the reinforced gunwales of the pontoon boats. Dozens of men, most of them stripped to the waist, were hauling up the four-by-ten planks, which were laid across the stringers and serve as the roadbed. Once completed, the heavy artillery, a second regiment of ironclads, and hundreds of tons of supplies could be rushed forward.
Turning his mount, Andrew splashed into the river, the water surprisingly cool as it spilled into his boots. The mare surged forward, stepping nervously for footing as they reached the middle of the river, Pat at his side.
Fifty yards downstream an artillery shell slapped into the water, raising a geyser. He studiously ignored it, keeping his eyes on the far shore. His mount shied nervously, nearly throwing him as it quickly sidestepped. A body, which the horse had trod on, tumbled up out of the murky water, then sank, dragged back down by the weight of the pack harness that had three close-support rockets strapped to it.
He said nothing, wondering about the human packhorse who had drowned thus. He tried to make a mental note, to balm his soul, that if there was another river assault, the first waves were to go in with rifles and personal ammunition only. But then how many die because of no close-in rocket support … again the equations of death.
They finally gained the shore. The litter there was far worse than the west bank. Dozens of waterlogged assault craft, which had barely made it across, lay abandoned, many of them bloodstained, bodies still inside. Scores of dead littered the embankment, dead twisted into every impossible angle the living could never assume, bodies torn by rifle shot, shells, fire, tangled in with the Bantag who had defended this position. Casualty-clearing stations, marked with green banners, were packed, the seriously injured men being sorted out for the trip back across the river by boat, the less seriously injured and those who were doomed being detailed off to wait until the pontoon bridge was finished.
As he rode up over the embankment the roar of battle seemed to double. Straight ahead was obscured in yellow-gray clouds of powder smoke and dust, the front line dully illuminated by flashes of gunfire and the sudden flare of another load of benzene dropped by an Eagle.
Ghastly weapon, he thought as he rode up over the forward line of Bantag trenches and saw where such a strike had incinerated dozens, their giant bodies curled into fetal balls, a few outstretched, blackened clawed hands raised to the heavens in a final gesture of agony. The stench was horrific, and he struggled not to gag.
“Bloody bastards, good to see ’em like this,” Pat snapped. Andrew looked over at his old friend and said nothing. No, the hatred was far too deep to express pity, to wonder if there was any sense of humanity in these creatures. Interesting that he had chosen that word in his thoughts … humanity. Does it mean I consider them to be human? Strange, old Muzta of the Tugars, I had shown him pity, spared his son, and he in turn spared Hawthorne and Kathleen, even went over to our side in the Battle of Hispania and turned the tide of battle. He’s most likely a thousand miles east of here by now, but if I saw him, I would offer him a drink from my canteen. Yet still I hate his kind in general.
Don’t think about this now, he thought. There’s a war to be fought.
He turned away from the trench, dropped the reins of his mount, and awkwardly scanned the action with his field glasses. The ground was too bloody flat, hard to get above the fight and get a feel for it. It seemed to be spread out in a vast arc sweeping a mile or more to the north, then several miles in from the river, and then arcing back around into the ruins of Capua.
Spent rounds slapped past him, kicking up plumes of dirt like the first heavy drops of rain from a summer storm. From out of the smoke ahead two aerosteamers appeared, both of them Eagles, one with two engines shut down, broken fabric and spars trailing from its starboard wing. The second Eagle was above and behind it, protecting it; as they reached the river the second steamer turned, started back to the front, then turned yet again and began to circle above Andrew, a blue-and-gold streamer fluttering from its tail marking it as Petracci’s command ship.
A message fluttered down, marked by a long red strip of cloth. An errant breeze had picked up, and the streamer fluttered down into the edge of the river behind them. One of Andrew’s staff who had been trailing behind him urged his mount back to retrieve it from a soldier who had already picked it up.
The orderly who had retrieved the message reined in, holding the leather cylinder, the muddy ribbon dragging on the ground. Andrew motioned for him to unstrap it and open it up, a task impossible for him to do with but one hand.
The orderly popped the lid, unfolded the sheet of paper, and handed it over. Andrew’s glasses were splattered with water and mud, and it was difficult to focus as he carefully read the note, written in English in Jack’s clumsy printed hand.
Count twenty plus ironclads coming up from Capua. Three to four divisions, half mounted, deploying out from reserve depot on rail line. Watch your left, numerous plumes of smoke at point F=7. Going back for closer look…. J.P.
Andrew handed the message over to Pat while calling for another orderly to unroll a map. The young Rus lieutenant pulled the map out and held it open for Andrew.
He cross-referenced the coordinates. F-7, a ruined plantation, a square-shaped forest at the north end, a woodlot of maybe forty to fifty acres. The heavy belt of forest marking the edge of the open steppes several miles beyond. Could they? His aerosteamers had carefully swept the front line for weeks, looking for buildups, concealed positions, wheel marks.
Well there were bound to be surprises, but Jack had a good nose for spotting trouble. Is the plan too obvious, he wondered. Too obvious that we break through here, then pivot in a right hook, sweeping down behind Capua and their rail line. Might the counterpunch be concealed to the north of us?
Even as he wondered, the sound of battle started to pick up from the north, and, reining his mount around, Andrew rode toward the roar of the guns.
Bent over the map table Jurak watched as one of the Chin scribes leaned forward, having taken the message from a telegrapher who was also a Chin and traced a blue line onto the map, marking where the Yankees had broken through his third line and were now driving straight toward this position.
Stepping out of the camouflaged bunker, which was concealed in a grove of peach trees and covered with netting, he turned and looked to the northwest. Mounted riders were coming back, many of them wounded. Straight ahead he could hear the staccato bursts of Gatling-gun fire and the whistle of a steam engine. The enemy column of steam ironclads was approaching.
How damn primitive, he thought. Most likely can’t make three leagues in an hour. Hell, on the old world there’d be hundreds of them, thousands, breaking through at ten, twenty leagues to the hour, jets by the hundreds blasting the way clear.
Yet this is my war now. Ha’ark never understood the nuances of tactics, how to adapt to what was here, how to lay the trap, and then have the patience to let it spring shut. It was always the attack, the offensive. He was right in that these primitives have no concept of defensive warfare but let them see victory today and it will all change.