Conqueror (112 page)

"Colonel Staenbridge," he went on, "you take the three companies of the 5th and lead the way. Spread out but move fast. Captain M'lewis, you'll be the scout screen for the scout screen. Gerrin, if you run into anything you think you can handle, punch through. If not, go around if
that's
possible, screening our retreat. Major Zahpata, you and your 18th Komar will follow in column of march right behind. Exercise normal caution, but rely on Colonel Staenbridge for your intelligence. Gerrin, if you run into anything you
can't
handle, Major Zahpata is to move up immediately and support the 5th at your direction. Understood?"

Both men nodded.
At least I don't have to wonder who'll take orders from whom,
Raj thought thankfully. That sort of thing had nearly gotten him killed in the Southern Territories campaign, at the hands of the late unlamented Major Dalhousie. The problem was that the Civil Government didn't have permanent field armies or a structure above the battalion level—large concentrated field forces were too tempting to ambitious generals. By now, all these men had been on campaign with him long enough to work smoothly together, and he'd disposed of the purblind idiots, one way or another.

"The rest of you will be following in double column up these roads," he said, tracing the route northwest with two strokes of his finger. "They're never more than a kilometer apart, so you'll be close enough for mutual support. If Colonel Staenbridge runs into a major block-force, you'll flank and go round—taking a lick at them from the rear in passing. Boot their arse, don't pee on them; we
cannot
afford to get tangled up in a meeting engagement."

"My oath no," Staenbridge said mildly, still studying the map. "Not with Tewfik and sixteen thousand wogs after our buttocks."

"Exactly."

"What's the source of our intelligence on these pathways through the badlands?" Zahpata asked.

Raj had drawn those in himself. "Personal sources, Major. You may rely on them."
Center can do more with my eyes than I can,
he added silently.

"Major Gruder, I have a special tasking for your command. Otherwise, the order of march will be as follows—"

When the other officers dispersed to their units, Raj lead Kaltin Gruder out into the mouth of the notch.

"Kaltin, I want you to execute a battalion ambush on Tewfik's lead elements here," he said.

Gruder squinted up at the eroded clay hills, comparing them with his memory of the same scene by daylight. "Good ground," he said. "And we've given them a couple of bloody noses—he'll be more cautious this time."

"Probably. Time is exactly what I want you to gain; but
not
at the price of your battalion. Understood?"

Gruder nodded. Raj went on: "Tewfik knows he has two ways to win this campaign. The quick way is to catch us and smash us up before we get back to Sandoral. He's got numerical superiority, but it'd still be expensive. On the other hand, a quick victory is always preferable; the sooner you win, the less time the other side has to come up with something tricky. The slow way is to chase us back into Sandoral and starve us out. So he'll probably be willing to take a swipe at you to save time, but it won't be a reckless one."

Raj reached a space of flat sand, coarse outwash detritus from the bluffs above. He smoothed it further with his boot and drew his sword to sketch in it.

"This is your position. More or less of a very broad V, with the open end facing south. Have your men dig rifle pits at the foot of these hills; I'll detail the City of Delrio to help before they pull out. Scatter the dirt, and it'll be difficult for them to estimate your numbers before they get close. I suggest you place them by companies like this." He traced lines. "With your dogs reasonably close to hand, here and along here. I'll also have the Delrio leave you their splatguns—that'll give you eight total. Put them down here—here—here—here, in pairs."

His sword marked spots along the face of the V. Gruder frowned.

"Down on the flat?"

"They're not artillery, Kaltin—those are bullets they're shooting, not shells."

Gruder nodded thoughtfully; a bullet was dangerous all along its trajectory if it was fired at a formation with any depth. Fired from above, it either hit the target it was aimed at or plunked harmlessly into the dirt; fired on the level, it went much farther.

"That'll give you crossfire from both infantry and splatguns, like this." The tip of Raj's saber traced X marks across the sand.

"Now," he went on, moving the sword to left and right on either side of the notch, "this terrain is pretty well impassable to formed bodies of troops. Certainly to artillery. Put observers
here
and
here
. Tewfik may try to work dismounted troopers around your flanks in those areas. If he does, block them with your reserve company—it ought to be easy, in that ground.

"Over here, about twenty klicks, is the only other path suitable for artillery and large formations of troops. That's where he'll go when he decides he can't just rush you out. Put a relay of men between here and there; when his flanking force gets there, pull out."

He raised his head and met the other man's eyes, his own flat and hard. "I give you
no discretion
concerning that. When his men reach there, you bug out. Understood?"

"
Si, mi heneral,
" Gruder said. He grinned. "I have learned something over the past five years."

"I certainly hope so, because I can't spare you
or
your battalion," Raj said.

"Hmmm. Artillery here?" Kaltin's saber pointed to the apex of the V.

"Yes, and start the guns out first. Also, walk all that ground tonight, and have your company commanders do it too. Ranging marks, all the bells and whistles."

"Si."
Kaltin studied the improvised sand-table. "I'll have them come and look at this, too. You have a good memory for terrain,
mi heneral.
"

Which was true, and even more so with Center's assistance.
"Waya con Ispirito del Homme,"
Raj said. They gripped forearms. "Get me an extra half-day."

"The Spirit with you also, General. Consider it done."

Tewfik ibn'Jamal,
Amir
of the Host of Peace, lowered his binoculars and cursed. Arabic was the finest of all languages for that, as for all else—as would be expected for the language God chose to dictate His word in—but the rolling, guttural obscenities did not relieve his feelings.

"And may the fleas of a thousand mangy feral dogs infest the scrotum of the
kaphar
general Whitehall," he concluded.

Ahead was a broad slope five thousand meters across at its mouth, narrowing down to barely a hundred where the roadway snaked into the badlands. The hills behind and to either side were not high, but they were steep as the sides of houses, crumbly adobe scored and riven by the rare cloudbursts of the Drangosh Valley winter. The roadway was graded dirt—a secondary road. The main highway—Allah torment in the flames of Eblis the souls of the engineers who laid it out—ran parallel to the Ghor Canal, through the populated districts farther east and towards Ain el-Hilwa.
That town of fools and dotards
.

Taking that would mean two days' delay, more than enough time for the invaders to scuttle back to the walls of Sandoral—and take any hope of concluding this accursed war quickly with them.

Another
tabor
of dismounted troopers trotted up into the V, angling for the enemy's foremost position on that side—if they could dislodge the outer rim, they could unravel it up the foot of the hills. A steady
braaaap . . . braaaap
sounded, and men fell. Figures in crimson djellabas dropped into the hot white dust of the valley floor, to lie still or twitching and moaning. He could see puffs of dust where the bullets struck, smoke pouring from the positions of the new rapid-fire weapons, a steady crackle and bang from the rifle-pits where the infidel troopers kept up a continuous hail of well-aimed fire. A pom-pom galloped up to support the soldiers.

The rapid-fire weapons from both sides of the V shifted to it. The dogs of its team went down in a tangle, and the gun's long slender barrel slewed around in futility. He watched a survivor drag a wounded comrade into its shelter. Bullets fell on it like a rain of hail to ricochet off in sparks and whining fragments.

In the gun-line directly before him crews heaved at the trails of 70mm field guns and pom-poms. More smoke billowed out as they fired, a ripple of red tongues of fire from left to right. Dirt fountained skyward along the enemy lines, and a spare team was galloped out to retrieve the pom-pom and the wounded.

"Can you not suppress those Shaitan-inspired weapons?" he asked.

His artillery chief shrugged unwillingly. "Insh'allah," he said. "
Amir
, whatever they are, they do not recoil as artillery pieces do—so they can be deeply dug in. All we see is the muzzle and the top of an iron shield. To make good practice we must draw close—and you saw the result of
that
. Also they have a battery of field guns above, with a two-hundred-meter advantage in height. If I push our gun line forward, they will come under artillery fire from the heights as they try to deploy, as well as from small arms."

"Move guns to the left, concentrate on the outer arm of the enemy defenses."

"As the
Amir
commands," the gunner said.

Tewfik turned back to the map table. Sweat dripped from the points of his beard onto the thick paper, reminding him of how thirsty he was. The goatskin
chaggal
at his side was half-empty; his men's would be worse, and there was no source of good water sufficient for fifteen thousand men within a half-day's ride.

"Muhammed," he said, and one of his officers bowed. "Sound the recall."

"Another push and we will be through,
Amir
," the man said stubbornly.

"Another push and we will lose another hundred men dead," Tewfik said. Just then a pair of stretcher bearers trotted by. Their burden moaned and tried to brush at the flies crawling on the ruin of his face. "Or like
that
. I do not continue with a plan that has failed."

"I obey."

"And start men moving here." He traced a line to the eastward on the map. "The going's passable for men on foot. Put some of those Bedouin hunters to use; the sand-thieves do nothing but sit on their arses and eat better men's food. They should know the footpaths. Work around toward the rear of the enemy position.

"Anwar," he went on. "You will take the reserve brigade and go" —he moved the finger in a looping circle far to the west— "twenty kilometers. A tertiary road—passable for wheels, according to the reports. Push all the way through to open country on the other side of these badlands, secure the route, and I will follow. Mutasim, you will put a blocking force across the mouth of this deathtrap; I'll leave you thirty guns. When the
kaphar
pull out, pursue, slow them if you can; we'll see if whoever Whitehall left in charge has sense enough to flee quickly as we flank him."

Mutasim scowled. "So far we have accomplished little," he said, tugging at his beard.

"There is no God but God; all things are accomplished according to the will of God," Tewfik said. He fought the urge to grind his teeth. "We were sent to stop the enemy's ravaging of our land; this we have done. We will pursue him. If we catch him, we will destroy him; if not, we will besiege him in Sandoral, which has not the supplies to support his men for long. In a week, they must begin to eat their dogs—which destroys all hope of mobility. After that, it is merely a matter of time. This was a damaging raid, no more. Insh'allah."

"As God wills," the others echoed.

"Go. Move swiftly."

The officers departed, and trumpets began to sound. Only the aides, messengers, and the
Amir
's personal mamluks were left, silently awaiting his will. Tewfik stood and stared up the valley again, unconsciously fingering his eyepatch. It had never stopped him seeing into the heart and mind of an enemy commander before.
Whitehall, Whitehall, what is your plan? What dream of victory do you cherish in your secret heart?
 

That was what bothered him. He remembered the El Djem campaign; he'd caught Whitehall there, beaten him—although the fighting retreat had been stubbornly effective, preventing him from finishing the young
kaphar
commander off without paying a price that seemed excessive. He'd bitterly regretted that decision a year later, when the Colony's forces met Whitehall's army.