"No surprise there," one of his aides said sourly. "Here we are, outnumbered twenty to one and our allies are running like hell."
"It's a typical Marine Corps situation, to be sure. Sally," he answered, replacing the helmet and dusting off his uniform instead. "Don't be too hard on the locals, though; it's a bit alarming, the first time under fire." Probably they wouldn't stop this side of Hattusas.
O'Rourke unsnapped the case at his waist and leveled the binoculars westward; clouds piled high in the sky there, hiding a sun just past noon. There had been rain a few days ago, and might be more soon.
He heard a sergeant's familiar rasp: "Nobody said stop working^
The khaki-clad Marines went back to building the wall the company commander had laid out, using mud brick and stones from a livestock enclosure nearby, and sacks of grain and boxes of supplies. More manned the parapet, but the enemy were just beyond effective rifle range.
The mortar stayed silent; probably the crew had just noticed that it could only reach the Islanders at extreme range, which was wasteful. He watched the men who crewed it lifting it bodily, baseplate and all, into a chariot fitted with floor-clamps to receive it. These weren't Walker's uniformed troops; instead they wore plaid-check trousers and wraparound upper garments, their hair and mustaches long, and some of them were blond or red-thatched. Auxiliaries, then, that migrant horde from the Hungarian plains Walker had enlisted, the Ringapi they were called. He scanned back and forth. Five or six hundred of them. A few firearms, amid more spears and bows, axes and swords and gaudily painted shields. Flintlock shotguns, and some rifles. Impossible to be sure at this distance, but he thought that the rifles were muzzle-loaders, probably kept in store after the Achaeans learned to make better and then handed out to allies…
"We'll risk it," he said.
"Sir?" Cecilie Barnes said.
"Can't let them set that mortar up just as they please, Captain," he said. Because never a piece of artillery have we here, yet. "Let them get into range, position it in a nice piece of dead ground, and they'd hammer us to flinders with it. Sergeant! Saddle up the Gatling. And someone get my horse from the pen."
"Ah, sir, I should-
"Stay here and hold the fort, Captain."
He swung easily into the saddle; Fancy sidled restlessly under him and tossed its head, still nervous from the explosions. The Gatling-gun crew were mounted as well, on the horses that drew it or the ammunition limber. As machine guns went the six-barreled weapon was big and heavy, but it had the supreme virtues of simplicity and ruggedness.
O'Rourke drew his revolver, and checked that the katana over his shoulder was loose in the scabbard. He was playing platoon commander, but he was young yet, not thirty years, and willfulness was a perogative of command.
Besides, it's my fault they're in this trouble here. Or my responsibility, or whatever.
He'd sent them here. He had to plug the exits from the coast inland toward the Hittite heartlands, and he didn't have enough troops to do it-too many valleys led down to the coastal plain.
What would happen if Troy fell and freed up most of Walker's army, God only knew; they couldn't plug every hole. He who defends everything, defends nothing, as old Fred said. It had been his decision to strip this valley nearly bare, and to visit at this precise hour, and now…
"Let's go!" he shouted, and gave the horse some leg. "Come on, Fancy."
Bouncing and rattling on its field-gun carriage, the machine gun and its crew followed. The boiling knot of Ringapi tribesmen grew closer with frightening speed. A couple of them fired their shotguns at him; he could hear the flat thump, see the double spurt of smoke from firing pan and barrel, but they might as well have been firing at the moon that hung pale over the peaks to the east. A few knelt and took careful aim with long weapons… yes, the distinctive crack of rifled arms, and the nasty whickering ptwissssk! of bullets overhead. Firing high-not estimating the range right or adjusting their sights, the idle bastards. There they went, biting open cartridges, priming the pans, pouring the rest down the barrel and ramming the bullet on top; muzzle-loaders for sure. Minie rifles, much like those of the American Civil War, except that they were flintlocks. That would make the extreme range about a thousand yards, which meant they were just getting into dangerous territory. There was a clump of olives at just the right distance.
"There!" he cried, pointing. Then: "Halt!"
His mount reared and thrashed the air with its forehooves. The Gatling crew reined to a stop as well, wheeling as they did to bring the business end of their weapon around to face the enemy, leaping down and unfastening the hitch that connected trail to draught-pole, catching hold and running the weapon forward to the edge of the olive grove. One private held the team; the sergeant stepped into the bicycle-style seat on the trail, bending to look through the sights.
More of the tribesmen were firing, and more of the big lead slugs kicked up spurts of dirt around O'Rourke's horse. His stomach tightened, breath coming a little quicker as cut twigs from the twisted olive trees fell on his helmet and the shoulders of his uniform. The odd drab-green olives joined the twigs, brought down a little unripe.
"Got it," the sergeant in charge of the Gatling said. His hand worked the crank on its right side, back half a turn and then forward…
Braaaaaapp.
Smoke poured from the muzzles as each rotated up to the six o'clock position and fired, a dirty gray-white cloud pouring backward with the light afternoon breeze. Glittering brass dropped out of the slot at the bottom as each passed the extractor, like the metallic excrement of death. O'Rourke raised his binoculars again. Men were down, scythed off their feet by the heavy.40 caliber bullets, some screaming and writhing like broken-backed snakes.
Brave enough, he thought: the Ringapi were clustering, coming together for the comfort of a comrade's shoulder, clashing weapons on their shields and shouting defiance. Doing exactly the wrong thing, poor fools. Perfectly sensible with the muscle-powered weapons they'd grown up with, sure death now.
"Whatever modern training they've had is pretty sketchy, then," he murmured to himself. One of their bullets went ptank-whirrrr off the gun-shield of the Gatling and wickered past him, a lethal Frisbee of flattened lead.
"On the mortar and the other chariot, the one with the ammunition," he said aloud.
"Yessir," the sergeant on the Gatling said tightly, his hands adjusting the elevating screw. "Here goes-
Braaaaaappp. This time horses went down, kicking and screaming, louder and more piteously than the wounded men. O'Rourke winced slightly; The beasts had no idea of the point of politics they'd been killed over. Braaaaaaap. Hits on the other chariot, the one with the ammunition. Sparks flew as rounds slammed off metal, the barrel and baseplate of the mortar, the iron bands around a box of finned bombs.
Some of the Ringapi knew enough to run, because any second now…
BADDAMP. A globe of red fire for an instant, dirt gouting up, with bits of men and horses and chariot mixed in, raining down for scores of yards around. O'Rourke whooped with glee as he controlled his mount's plunging alarm.