That volley broke the charge. To Holk and his men, it seemed as if a dragon had suddenly belched. Licking down the bridge with a tongue of fire that just seemed to engulf men whole. Swallow entire ranks of them.
The katyusha was firing the second generation of rockets that Grantville had been able to manufacture in quantity. It was a variation on the old nineteenth-century Hale 24-pounder rotary rocket-2.4 inches in diameter, slightly less than two feet long, with a maximum range of 4000 yards. The propellant as well as the warhead were black powder. The rockets were fired from a single-level rack, twelve tubes mounted side by side on an adjustable framework fixed into the bed of the Dodge Ram.
Red had foreseen the impact of the rockets fired at such close range on such a narrow target. The maximum flight time for a Hale rocket was about twenty seconds, most of it ballistic. At that point-blank range, the Hale rockets struck the advancing troops in split-seconds. But what he hadn't foreseen-was almost aghast when he witnessed it-was the effect of the stone retaining walls on either side of the bridge.
The rockets struck the paving of the bridge, just as Red had foreseen, between fifty and a hundred yards ahead. Some of them exploded instantly, but not most of them. Red had chosen to use contact fuses for this battle instead of the self-lit fuse that had been the standard for the old Hale rockets. But since the somewhat jury-rigged contact fuses available in this day and age made him nervous, he'd adjusted them to fire only in the event they made a direct hit.
Which most of them didn't. They struck the stones at a low glancing angle and kept on, sailing and skidding down the bridge-caroming off the low walls-until they finally ran out of fuel and momentum or hit something solid enough to explode. The narrowness of the bridge concentrated the impact, but it was the walls that channeled it into sheer havoc.
Without uptime propellant the black powder rockets were occasionally prone to explosion-CATO, as the rocket club kids called it ("Catastrophe At Take Off")-caused by an unforeseen bounce or bump that cracked the grain. Then the rockets were little more than large bombs, more black powder burning than could be safely ejected as the pressure rose. Red preferred not to have twenty pounds of black powder exploding near his head, so he'd inspected them carefully. One of them did burst, nonetheless. But that fact didn't make the charging enemy infantry any happier. The rocket exploded some fifty feet in front of the truck and became a huge ball of fire and flying debris hurtling towards Holk's troops at hundreds of miles per hour. A shot of grape from a six-pounder couldn't have been more effective. Grape didn't set the recipient on fire.
Two of the rockets, on the other hand, never exploded at all. Red later found one of them lying on the stones not more than fifty yards from the other end of the bridge. But that didn't matter, either. All twelve of the rockets in that volley did their damage, even those two-and far more damage than Red had foreseen. It was as if the dragon had a dozen serpent tongues, licking down the great Stone Bridge for hundred of yards, racing the length of the span up to the dogleg in less than two seconds. Hissing with fury, belching smoke, upending dozens of terrified men for every one they killed or wounded-which meant dozens of pikes flailing about, gashing and bashing and wounding still more.
The sheer weight of the charge would probably have kept it going, struck only by bullets. Men at the front being shoved forward willy-nilly by those at the rear. But the dragon-tongues ravaged the men in the first hundred yards, paralyzed and confused those behind them-and gave those at the very rear the time to do what soldiers rarely have in a frontal assault.
Time to think things over.
Even the best mercenary soldiers are not given to mindless obedience to orders. And Holk's men were far from the best. The charge staggered to a halt, and the men at the rear began coming back off the bridge. That relieved the pressure on those ahead of them; and, inchoate rank after rank, Holk's charge started disintegrating.
It took time, of course. Perhaps fifteen minutes, in all. But the critical furious momentum of the initial charge had been lost, and Holk's officers were neither good enough nor respected enough to rally the army. They did manage, four times, to paste together small charges from those men toward the front who could be convinced or cajoled or bullied into it. But the first three of those charges were driven off, easily enough, by the flintlocks and the arquebuses.
By then, Dunash's rocketeers had been able to reload the katyusha, and the dragon belched again. The fourth charge was shredded, and Holk's men had had enough. This was even worse that the Hradcany. They hadn't signed on to fight a damn dragon.
So, back they came, in a hurry, leaving hundreds of dead and dying and wounded behind them on the bridge. Two of the corpses were those of sub-officers, too stupid or inexperienced to understand when it was time to stop trying to force mercenary soldiers to do something they really, really, really didn't want to do any more. One of them bled to death from no fewer than five stab wounds.
4
"For Chrissake, Red, it's obvious even from here. Tell Morris to quit screwing around with his stupid modesty act and start waving his hat. And while he's at it, do the Roy Rogers bit with the fucking horse. Y'know, rearing up on the hind legs. Whatever they call that silly stunt, I don't know. I can't stand big fucking animals. Damn things are dangerous. Even cats make me nervous, with their fangs and shit."
5
After Red whispered in his ear-well, shouted in his ear-Morris did take off his big, wide-brimmed plumed hat and wave it around, acknowledging the enthusiastic roars of approval from the crowd. He drew the line, though, at rearing the horse.
It didn't matter, really. Ellie was too nervous about a lot of things. After that sunny day in Prague, in July of the year 1633-as Christians counted it; for the Jews who made up most of the crowd it was the month of Av and the year was 5393-it wouldn't have mattered if Don Morris had fallen off the horse entirely-or lost his hat in the river.
Don Morris, he was; and Don Morris he would always remain. For them as well as their descendants who heard the tale. It had been a long time, after all-a very long time-since the Ashkenazim of central and eastern Europe had had a martial hero of their own. The ancient Hebrews had had a multitude, of course; and the Sephardim, in their Iberian heyday, more than a few. But for the Ashkenazim of Europe, for many centuries, heroism had been something that could only be measured by martyrs.
Martyrs were to be cherished, certainly. But it was nice-delightful, in fact-not to have to do it again.
And who was to say? Perhaps never again. There were those other men, after all, who would outlive Don Morris. The much younger Jews who looked very bold and handsome, perched up there on that strange thing that was so much bigger and more deadly than a mere horse. And didn't seem to be afraid of it at all.
Perhaps the golem was not simply a silly legend. The Maharal had been a very wise man. One of the wisest, even in a city of wise men like Prague.
6
As usually happens in history, the famous Battle of the Bridge didn't have a neat ending. Holk and his men never tried to charge across the bridge again. But they did remain in Prague for days thereafter, burning and plundering what they could in the Mala Strana.
One part of the plan had not worked. Billek and his Brethren had tried-quite valiantly-to trap Holk's army on the bridge and slaughter them wholesale. But Holk had twice as many men in his army as he could get onto the bridge in one charge, and if he was a drunk and a brute he was not actually incompetent. So, he'd stationed half his army to protect the western entrance to the bridge, and the Brethren were unable to drive them off. Indeed, they suffered fairly heavy casualties in the attempt.