Battle Hymn (34 page)

"Gregory, keep moving!" Hans shouted.

With a wild cry Gregory started along the bastion wall. Hans grabbed several of the diggers, and motioned them to help him with the gun. Swinging it around, he aimed it into the back of a bastion on the southern wall where more than a dozen Bantag were pouring fire into Ketswana's people as they stormed past them into the other bastion flanking the gate.

Hans picked up the canister round from the fallen load and slammed it into the gun barrel. He ran back to the limber chest and pulled out one of the silken bags he saw sticking out of wood trays. He slammed the bag into the gun behind the round, closed the breech, and then tightened the elevation screw. Motioning for his newfound gunners to bring the gun to bear, he fumbled through a leather pouch on the body that he assumed was the gun captain and found a fresh friction primer. He hooked the lanyard into the primer, inserted it into a small hole on the top of the breech, and sighted down the barrel.

His intended targets, noticing him at last, turned their fire his way, and a rifle bullet dropped one of his men.

"Stand clear!"

The two surviving crew members jumped back, and Hans jerked the lanyard. The gun recoiled, and through the smoke he could see the canister round tearing through the Bantag. Ketswana's charge, which had already seized the southeast bastion, went forward down the length of the wall.

The rifle fire started to die down. Breathing heavily, Hans leaned against the bastion, trying to collect his thoughts.

He could hear screams still coming from the town. He grabbed his two gunners and headed across the parade ground. Bodies of the dead and wounded, Bantag and human, lay everywhere. He looked up at the walls where his two storming parties were wiping out the last of the defenders and saw that his numbers must have been cut by at least a third. Even with the additional hands taken in the fight at the depot, they were probably down to fewer than a hundred forty, maybe a hundred seventy at most. Again he felt a surge of relief at the sight of Tamira, who, along with half a dozen women and children, were helping to tend to the wounded. She forced a smile when she saw him.

He slowed as he approached the open gate into the city. A mob of Chin were coming toward him, shouting unintelligibly, gesticulating, screaming, waving picks, shovels, hoes. He started to back up as they spilled out into the parade ground, ready to run for Tamira and drag her back to the bastion.

The mob slowed down and half a dozen of them approached Hans, dragging something behind them. The ones up front parted, and to his amazement he saw that they were dragging a Bantag warrior, the clothes half tom from his body, blood pouring out of dozens of wounds. They flung him down, and Hans saw that he was still alive, kicking feebly.

The Bantag looked up at Hans. "Kill me," he groaned. In spite of his hatred Hans felt a surge of pity. No soldier should have to die this way, he thought, amazed that such a feeling could still be elicited after all that he had endured.

The howling mob danced around the warrior, some of them raining blows upon him, and then they fell upon him. Hans turned away, wishing the Bantag would stop screaming.

An old man came out of the crowd to Hans, his head bobbing, and spoke in a singsong voice.

Hans shook his head, not understanding a word. "Do you speak Bantag?" Hans finally asked.

"Curse speech," the old man replied, startled to hear the words coming from a human.

"We now the Republic?" the old man asked.

Hans saw the glimmer of hope in his eyes. So the legend had reached even here, in spite of all that the Bantag attempted to do to stop the spread of the word.

Hans looked back at his depleted ranks.

"How many live here?" he asked. "Men, women who can fight?"

"Near a thousand in the town. Those that can fight? All but the old ones and children. Seven hundred."

Hans nodded.

"Why? Your army is coming now. We are free, aren't we?"

Hans looked him straight in the eye. "You're going to free yourselves. You're the army now."

Handing his field glasses back to one of his staff, Ha'ark stood silent. He could see them lining the walls, waiting for him. Troops were piling out of the trains behind him, forming into ranks; the artillery crews were pulling their guns off the flatcars and pushing them slowly up the slope.

From out of X'ian he could see a large formation coming up at the double to reinforce the attack.

Half a umen would be available for the attack by later that day. The flyer that had hovered over the city for nearly an hour had reported that the town had risen and the garrison was dead. What would they have—five hundred, maybe seven hundred at most? And they were slaves, more likely to kill themselves trying to load a cannon than actually capable of inflicting harm.

"A Yankee flyer."

Raising his glasses, he saw the airship coming down out of the scattering of cumulus clouds, and the sight of the airship decided him.

"Let them see their comrades die," Ha'ark announced. "Start the attack."

"My Qarth."

It was Jamul. "My Qarth, we have no heavy artillery yet to breech the gate. Even five mortars well placed could make it a death trap in there, but we have none yet. Most of these warriors are little better than garrison troops and guards. Shouldn't we wait until the first regiment of the Chuktar Umen arrives?"

"Every minute we give them is a chance for Schuder to show those cattle how to work the guns and prepare. Let's finish this now so we can go home. And let the Yankee flyer see the slaughter and report it. Start the attack."

Hans nervously paced the wall. At last he had found a pair of field glasses in the yurt of the fortress commander, and now he trained them across the open ground.

"If we had five companies of the old First Suzdal, we'd hold this place till Doomsday," Gregory proclaimed.

Hans grunted a noncommittal reply. Five hours to train this rabble how to fight using modern weapons, he thought, shaking his head ruefully. The heavy muzzle-loading guns had each been prepared with double shots of canister; once they had been fired he wouldn't even bother to reload them. As for the lighter breechloaders, a crew had been detailed off in each of the bastions. Gregory and Ketswana would handle the guns in the bastions facing east. Alexi would take the one on the first bastion facing south. As for the other three bastions, he could only hope that the men from his digging crew had at least comprehended enough of the crash course to remember to swab the bore after each shot so they didn't blow themselves up.

As for the Chin, to his surprise many of them understood the rifles issued to them from the stockpile seized in the fort and taken from the train. Many had surreptitiously watched the Bantag drilling with the weapons, and some even claimed to be able to handle the artillery, so most of the artillery crews serving on the bastions were Chin.

He consulted the rough sketch he had made of the fort and the town, trying to mentally calculate what would unfold. The west wall was part of the old town, and from the commanding bluffs it looked straight down on the river below. The Bantag had banked earth up over the brick wall and mounted two heavy muzzle-loading guns, positioned to fire on any ship attempting to come up the river. For the moment he doubted that an attack would swing in from that direction, since the plunging fire from above would be murderous and the only way to gain the wall was by scaling it with ladders.

The bluff that the town rested on curved back to the east, running most of the length of the north wall.

Four more guns were pointed in that direction, trained on the river and the approaches to the city. An attack from that direction would either spill off the bluff or be funneled up against the eastern bastion. A protected bastion at the point where the new fort had been added on in front of the town jutted out, offering an infilading fire the length of the moat. It would be a killing ground if the enemy tried to gain access.

It was the south and east walls that he knew were the weak points. The ground on the south wall sloped gently for most of two hundred yards, except for the last fifty yards, which dropped steeply away to the river flats below. As on the west and north walls of the town, the brick wall had been banked over with earth, the sides covered with entanglements of sharpened stakes, but it was nevertheless an open front. Through his field glasses he could see Bantag gunners manhandling their pieces up along the next ridgeline, which was slightly higher than the position of his forces. The bastards would be able to rain fire down on them.

The eastern approach was much the same, though the ground was rougher, intersected by several gullies and streambeds that would slow an attack. The railroad embankment coming up toward the gate was a natural avenue of attack, but wide open to fire along its entire length. He had thought about smashing the drawbridge but decided instead to pull it up rather than create wreckage that could be used by the attacking force as cover.

He could see them deploying out along the ridge, forming into assault lines, their battle standards held aloft. The sight gave him a cold chill. The standards were blood-red and from a distance reminded him of Reb battle flags. He felt almost nostalgic. At least against the Rebs, the fight was an honorable one and if overwhelmed, surrender was still a possibility. He looked down the line at his "army." He could see the fear on their faces, especially the Chin, whom he suspected would never have joined in if they had known the truth. But they were committed now, knowing what would happen if the Bantag should ever break through.

But he also sensed that in spite of their fear they would die gamely.

A plume of smoke erupted from the ridge, followed within seconds by a dozen more. The first shots screamed overhead, one detonating in midair over the parade ground, another striking the northeast bastion, where a geyser of dirt spurted up. He could see more than one of his troops waver and look around fearfully, but none backed away.

The bombardment continued for several minutes. Hans silently counted the intervals, wondering what Pat would say about artillery that could fire three times a minute and hit targets over a mile away.

Several rounds detonated in the parade ground, and another exploded at the parapet on the number one bastion of the north wall. He paced back and forth deliberately, making a studied effort to ignore the bombardment, pausing to slap one man on the shoulder or share an off-color joke with another, knowing that his men were watching him, gauging his reaction, and, he hoped, drawing strength from it.

"Here they come!"

A line of skirmishers deployed out from the ridge facing the eastern wall. He raised his glasses to study them. This was no Merki attack of massed lines, as he had faced back on the Potomac. They were at good intervals, spaced six yards or so apart, moving deliberately. After fifty yards a second line started out, and after another fifty the third line moved forward.

They know what they're doing, he realized grimly. No massed targets, close to range, then start laying down fire. Against trained infantry, he would not have given it a second thought. His men would have hunkered down, laughed, and started picking off targets. The lines continued forward, well spaced, until finally they were ten deep, spread back for more than five hundred yards.

Hans strode to the southeast bastion. "Gregory."

"Sir?"

"I want deliberately aimed fire with that light gun. Go to it."

Grinning with delight, Gregory turned to his crew, shouting and pantomiming orders. Hans moved over to the northeast bastion, ducking a well-aimed round that skimmed overhead. At Ketswana's gun, he sighted down the barrel, stepped back, and handed the lanyard to his friend, who grabbed hold and, with a resounding battle cry, fired.

Ha'ark stood silent, watching as the first round detonated behind the first rank of attackers, dropping two of them. A second later a gun on the southeast bastion fired as well, but the round fell short.

Behind him the next line of attackers came up out of the ditch and started forward at a walk. His heart swelled at the sight of them. They seemed like something out of the legends of the Usurper Wars, when attackers marched into battle, flags held high.

Though he fervently wished for modern weapons, true aircraft with bombs that could shatter the entire fort in seconds, or even just a single machine gun to sweep the battlements, he still felt a certain contentment with it all. Five years ago the barbarians he ruled would have charged on horse against the walls, waving their swords and spears, shooting arrows. Now they were going forward like soldiers, rifles at the ready. Even though they were not of his elite umens, still they were of his creation.

"They're not counter battery firing," Jamul observed.

"Waste of effort for them," Ha'ark replied. "He doesn't have any trained cattle up there who can work the larger guns with accuracy. I wonder if he even has the heavy guns loaded at all. Best to concentrate what he can against the infantry."

A line of smoke erupted from the front of his line, and he raised his field glasses to study them. The front line had stopped a bit short. He would have preferred to see them a hundred yards closer—after all, it was terrified cattle they were facing—but the first volley, even at five hundred yards, should startle them. The smoke would help to obscure the advance as well. He was pleased to see that training was finally overcoming their damnable pride. Some of the warriors were lying down, or at least sitting, taking careful aim. The second line advanced through them and continued forward. Moving another fifty yards, they stopped and opened fire. The third line now passed through the second, advancing another fifty yards to engage, so that within a couple of minutes there were five lines of infantry, spaced out across two hundred fifty yards, pouring fire at the fort. The remaining lines had stopped at six hundred yards and waited now for the order to close once a weakness began to show.

"That's it, lay the gun on the wall." Hans reached around the trembling Chin woman, notching the rear sight up another level. Standing behind her, he pressed the gun in against her shoulder. Then he guided her finger up to the trigger and stepped back.