Conrad's Last Campaign (32 page)

However, rotating seven thousand men on two or three firing lines without stumbling, loosing focus or shooting ourselves in the foot takes practice. We need to get that practice in sometime before the Mongols get here.

I know you’ve already set up drills for moving men from one end of the valley to the other and now you’re going to have to squeeze these in too.

I expect to hear from Commodore Stanislaw within the hour. That’ll tell us how long we have. I’ll send messengers to you when we know.

Early the next morning, Stanislaw sent in his first report on operation “slow the Mongol”. Vagabond had loitered over the Mongol train long enough to see them get hundreds of soldiers together to push and pull the most damaged engines off the tracks and onto their sides. Mechanics were already swarming over the other engines when she left to follow her fighters home. The Mongols were stopped for the day, but would be back on the road by tomorrow morning.

On the way home, the rigidible was able to verify that the wolves had made at least twenty gaps in the rails and destroyed two small bridges.

There was other, less promising news. The local Mongol armies were on the move. They had broken camp within hours of our assault on
Karakorum and started moving in our direction. Stanislaw reported that they were moving in three columns. Two cavalry columns were moving at high speed and they were followed by a slower group escorting cannon and what appeared to be siege equipment.

In fact, Zephyr warned that we would probably have visitors by the end of the day.

Apparently, they had decided that there was no point in letting us build defenses in peace.

I spent the day riding around the camp watching, encouraging, ordering, and definitely not looking worried. Eikmann’s men and every grunt in camp were working on a series of defensive walls and ditches that he laid out. We had no ready source of lumber, so the defenses were built with shovel and pick and boulders rolled down from the hills. Ivanov’s kitchens were working constantly baking bread, filling it with vegetables and beef or cheese and running the cooked food and baskets of fruit out to work parties. Men ate and drank where they worked.

When I found Eikmann, he was riding the riverbank searching for a place to put a landing strip for the planes.

The men on the first line of defense at each end of the valley continued to improve their foxholes with guns at hand. Half worked while half watched the horizon. A quarter of the artillerymen were stationed at their cannon while the rest worked on improving the paths that would be used to move the artillery if needed.

It was two of our long army hours after noon when the Mongols made camp about five miles upriver from where we were. I decided to keep the fact that we had a gun that could reach them from here a secret for now. Maybe the khan would be nice enough to put his headquarters in the middle of such a nice place.

An hour before dusk, they made a probing attack on our front door. It was just their polite way of saying “Hi. We’re here. Don’t sleep too well tonight, and, by the way, be a little nervous while you’re working.” Our troops held their fire to hide the real range of our guns, and only dropped a few Mongols for target practice.

The work went on, but the next morning we had a Mongol infestation worse than mosquitoes on a summer lake. I had decided not to put out a picket of Big People in front of out lines that night, so we missed the small groups of Mongols who sneaked over the tundra and climbed up the outer walls.

By midmorning, arrows were dropping into the camp. From their spots on the canyon wall, the archers could reach clear across the camp with armor piercing arrows. Of course they used arrows because they didn’t have a muzzle flash and they were damned hard to spot. Thirty or forty archers couldn’t do serious damage if I lined the men for them to shoot at, but they were disrupting work. More men were wearing armor even when they were moving dirt and boulders and they spent time looking over their shoulders

I set up a couple of squads to scan the walls with field glasses and sent a note to Kowalski telling him that if the machine guns didn’t get a sniper, that it was worth using an artillery shell or two to get them. The squad played hide and seek with the snipers all day without any visible results.

Eventually my bodyguards took care of them. When night fell, the girls climbed the hills, found the Mongols by smell or sound and quietly cut their throats.

The real action was happening over a hundred miles away where the Wolves were still delaying the Mongol army. Reports from the Vagabond showed that the Wolves and the Air Force were doing a good job. The air attack had halted the trains for over twenty four hours and they were now moving at reduced speed. The Chinese engineers had used their enormous manpower to muscle the unrepairable engines and some cars off the tracks. While they did that other soldiers carried new rails forward from somewhere in the train and stacked them on cars near the front of the train. The trains were creeping forward with rail repair crews and rails in the first section.

Mongol cavalry was now sweeping out ahead of the trains looking for the Wolves and protecting repair crews who were dragging rails on carts and fixing tracks. The Wolves were moving too fast to carry radio carts, but by the third day there was evidence from the air that they were doing their jobs. Dead rail crews were lying next to their burned carts and Mongol horses roamed the rails without their riders.

Despite all of the Wolves work, the Mongol army was moving forward as inexorably as army ants.

For me the bad news was that it was going to take a week for the Mongol army to get to us. If I had known that we could delay them that long, I could have led this army past the Mongol blockades and been well on the way home by now. Eventually I decided this fight had to be done someday and it was best done when we were flush from success and well stocked with ammo.

I sit here wrapped in the comfort of a warm cloak and sipping my favorite wine thanks to my eldest wife. When I decided that I would accompany my trains north, I intended to travel with a single trunk holding a few changes of clothes, a few books, and my writing materials. When I arrived at the station I learned that my eldest wife had ordered a private rail car filled with clothes, my favorite food and wine, writing desks, plush rugs, a soft bed, and my two newest concubines to share it. “My husband, you cannot concentrate on your job if you are tense or lonely. The girls will massage your painful muscles, make certain you are well fed, and relax you at night.” My wife is a very intelligent woman, but she cannot understand that I would prefer that it were her grey hairs lying on my shoulder.

I am now convinced more than ever that the “Conrad Guardian of the Heavens” character is a fictitious front for a huge school of engineering. This morning, my train was attacked by aircraft mounting guns capable of firing multiple rounds at very high speed. I estimate their rate of fire to be at least 150 rounds per minute. Twenty years ago, the best weapons they had were breach loading single shot rifles.

There is no conceivable way that much progress could be made in only twenty years by one team led by one man. My laboratory has the best minds to be found among forty million people and we could not reproduce those guns in my lifetime.

The khan’s fears may be well founded. Given a few more years the Polish army will be invincible, and while I disapprove of my masters occasional cruelties, we all know that the Poles take no prisoners – ever.

General Obedai is in charge of the army, but the train is my responsibility, and the aircraft did considerable damage in only a few minutes. I sit here wrapped in a heavy cloak because they even put several holes in the roof of my private car, letting in the draft and scaring my concubines nearly to death.

Thirteen engines were disabled due to the guns or subsequent collisions and random cars were attacked. My engineers have repaired six of the engines and removed another seven from the tracks, and we are moving again, but the loss of engines has us moving at a crawl.

It probably doesn’t matter. The Polish have railroads of their own and certainly know the importance of removing rails, bridges, and culverts. At my suggestion, Obedai has sent mixed teams of soldiers and laborers ahead with rails and repair tools. We have heard gunfire in the distance, and I do not expect all of the teams to return.

I feel a constant pressure to impress on the General the need for speed. He is a competent and fierce leader, but the fact he has an overwhelming force is taking the edge off of his leadership.

His force is overwhelming, but the cost is high. We have brought almost ninety percent of all the Mongol warriors in
China with us, a total of over one hundred thousand warriors, including all of the Turkish soldiers. The khan also demanded twenty thousand warriors from Korea and has gotten most of what he demanded.

When we arrive in
Mongolia, the General will also assume command of all the Mongolian armies, perhaps sixty thousand mounted men. Even without the Chinese crossbowmen, engineers and foot soldiers, this is by far the largest army ever assembled, and we have more Chinese cannon fodder than we have Mongol warriors.

Speed is of the essence.

No khan has ever assembled a force a third of the size of this one, and I can’t feed them. During the last year, I stockpiled supplies for a large but normal army, perhaps one hundred thousand men for a siege of three or four months. This horde will be hungry in about six weeks.

The other reason for hurry is that the khan has stripped the county of troops. He has the largest army the world has ever seen and he is sitting in a county left defenseless. If the population realizes how few troops are left in the county, we may return to a burned and dead city.

General Obedai would have abandoned that train this morning and continued on horseback, but we only brought a few hundred horses with us. When the Great Khan replenished the Mongolians stock of horses after the great die off, they sent enough to give every warrior the traditional three or four horses. As this would not be a long campaign, the Mongolians had enough spare horses to provide for all of our cavalrymen.

This morning, I had a rocket plane assembled and sent to the Khan of Mongolia, with a letter from General Obedai ordering him to drive the herd south to meet us nearer our current location. It will still be at least three days before they arrive.

I will still need to get the tracks repaired and then move the train through to Karakorum. Most of our supplies are in the two storage yards ahead and we still have thousands of infantry troops to move.

It took them five more days to get to Karakorum. Eventually they abandoned the train and came on horseback and foot. They camped where they believed they were safe from our artillery and their campfires, as expected, really did reach from horizon to horizon.

The first serious attacks came on the seventh day. They began by moving artillery into range of our embankments and preparing to knock on our door. They actually got off one ranging volley before our artillery opened up on their positions. It was an uneven contest. It was cavalry observer against aerial observer and smooth bore against rifled barrel. They didn’t even get off a second volley.

We listened to the customary hour of hooting, hollering, drum banging and bell ringing before the first ground attack began. It gave me plenty of time to join the men on top of the first embankment. They didn’t need me for anything, but moral insisted the boss had to make a show in his fancy armor, and I was too curious to miss it anyway.

Eventually the hollerin’ and hooting died down and was replaced by a slow rhythmic drum beat. In time to the unseen drums, small groups of Chinese crossbowmen formed up behind the type of mobile barrier we had seen on the tundra. It was as well rehearsed as the changing of the guard in
London. Boom. Seven men stepped forward. Boom. Three of them lifted a wooden slab about as tall as they were up from the ground. Boom. Four of them unfolded the skids that held it upright. Boom. Three men stepped forward to grasp handles on the back of the slab. Boom. Four crossbowmen stepped up behind them and waited.

This was definitely not a Mongol way to fight. Screaming, yelling, and charging were Mongol tactics. They must have picked this one up from the Chinese.

When they were about twenty rows deep, the horns and bells and yelling started up again and they began a slow march toward us, pushing the wooden barriers ahead of them. In the rear, we could see Mongol horsemen making certain that no one went the wrong way.

We still didn’t want them to know how good our guns were, so we waited until the first row launched crossbow bolts on a high trajectory, then the machine guns opened up. The Chinese started to double time, pushing the barriers ahead and shooting from behind them. I was surprised that the barriers stopped some of the fifty caliber rounds. Somebody had improved them. The Chinese got off two more volleys before our artillery opened up with grapeshot. Even the Mongols couldn’t stop the retreat, but the soldiers left their barriers standing in the field, ready for the next fight.

Several of our troops, who had failed to raise their shields, learned the hard way that the crossbow bolts were poisoned.

Things were quiet the rest of the day. I noticed that the Mongols made no attempt to help the wounded Chinese stranded on the field. After dark, a company of Wolves snuck out onto the battlefield and burned most of the barriers.

The next day started the same, but this time, the Chinese rolled up four story siege towers to a line about a quarter of a mile from us. They were carried into sight lying down and were pulled upright. It must have taken a Hell of a pull. The towers were sheathed in bronze and had real cannon sticking out of the ports.

They filled in the gaps between the towers with more poor suckers pushing barriers in front of them. This time most of the poor suckers had guns instead of crossbows.

This time the Mongol artillery opened up when the towers started creaking forward. That meant that our artillery had to handle both the towers and the Mongol artillery at the same time. We soon learned that the siege towers also held men with competent copies of our swivel guns.

I had a swivel gun set up in front of me and, with Terry feeding me clips, gleefully shot at red uniforms until I heard the command “rotate!” coming from behind me. That was the command to change front line troops, so I must have been there almost an army hour. Time flies when you’re having a good time.

When I stood up to move back, a horse kicked me in the chest and I got to see a nice light show before the world went black.

I woke up in an aid station surrounded by corpsmen and four of my bodyguards. I could see my breastplate standing on a table nearby. It had a nice big dent about six inches below the collar line, about where the pain in my chest was centered. The corpsman placed a hand on my shoulder, “Sire, you’ve got a couple of broken ribs. If you move abound before we get you taped up, you could puncture a lung and bleed to death. I’m going to have the aides slowly lift you to a sitting position so we can get tape around you. It’s going to hurt like Hell, but if you move on your own, the results could be very bad.”

He kept talking to distract while the pain lanced through me, “It looks like you were hit with a fifty caliber ball from a muzzle loader. It must have been spent because you’re still breathing.”

When they had me taped up, they transferred me to a litter that held me in a sitting position. “The baron said to carry you sitting up so that the men can see you’re alive, but don’t wave at anyone for the next couple of days. I suggest that it is safest to stay sitting up until the bones start to heal.”

There was a great cheer as I was carried out of the tent. Men yelled, waved, and stomped in celebration of my continued breathing. I guess that nothing makes a grunt as happy as seeing the boss take a bullet. As gently as they carried me, every step was source of pain.

Sir Grzegorz was at my tent before I was. He was so angry that I was afraid one of my bodyguards would cut his throat. The pain killers were making my eyes a little glassy, but I could see every vein in his forehead and count his pulse without leaving my bed.

He sent everybody out of the tent before my befuddled mind could even recognize them, though I thought I saw a scowling Baron Krol exiting the door.

“Your grace, it is now my most unpleasant duty to remind you of your oath. Each man here has sworn to you as liege, but you should remember that the oath binds you as well as the men. You swore oath to lead them well and care for them. You can do neither if you are dead.”

He picked up my breastplate and shook it in the air. “If this bullet had been six inches higher, you would have been decapitated and would have needlessly abandoned your army three thousand miles from home.

This army, and myself, have followed you faithfully for years. We have followed your orders without question and have marched thousands of miles into unknown lands for you. We have left our families and friends. We followed you when you were relieved of command, excommunicated, recalled, and fired. I personally have fought at your side in a dozen battles.

I know that you consider yourself a warrior king like Alexander, leading your men by shear force of arms from a position in the very front of the army, but remember what happened to Alexander. He died young and his empire died the next day.

I doubt that the Christian Army will dissolve upon your death, but the heart will go out of this army if you die before this battle is over."

My anger was almost strong enough to reach through my pain and the drugs. If were not for the possibility that I would puncture a lung, I would have stood in spite of my pain and run the bastard through but I settled for clenching my teeth.

“Get the Hell out of here!”

“In a moment. I have met with other senior officers and we have agreed that your oath requires you to act a bit more responsibly. Fortunately, your current injuries will force you to avoid combat for at least three weeks, so our decision may never have any effect, but it stands for the length of the battle.”

“I will see you hung for mutiny!”

“Mutiny? There is no mutiny. There is only a formal demand by a liegeman for the rights you guaranteed him under the oath of fealty. Despite this disagreement, I am a loyal servant who would give his life for yours, and I want no man to think differently.

By the way, the Mongol building next door has a rather high tower with a balcony on the top. The engineers have been enlarging and roofing the balcony for use as an observation post. As you are currently limited in your mobility, you may want to oversee the battle from there. In addition to the excellent visibility for yourself, the men can see you up there and take heart from your continued health and attention to their welfare."

And then the bastard was gone and despite my anger and pain, the laudanum kicked in and I was soon sleeping.

The next three days were almost a blur. I tried to resist the pain killers, but I spent most of the time in a daze. The Mongols launched two more attacks, improving their tactics each time. During one of my waking periods, I ordered that sharpshooters be stationed on the hillsides, to target only the Mongol horsemen driving the Chinese troops forward. Perhaps without the incentive of armed Mongols, the Chinese troops would not try so hard to move forward.

By the morning of the third day, I was able to stand with little pain and even to walk carefully. I held my normal morning staff meeting. Sir Grzegorz was pointedly not invited and he pointedly showed up anyway, knowing that there was no way I wanted our disagreement to be made public. The traitorous bastard was even cheerful.

I learned that the Mongols had made progress. When the wolves snuck out at night to burn the toppled siege towers, they found that the towers were booby trapped with black powder bombs. They learned the hard way and it was the last thing some of them learned. It cost us a squad.

The Mongols were using cheap Chinese lives to litter the battlefield with cover. Behind some of the barriers the Chinese dug foxholes. On some attacks they rolled boulders ahead of themselves and left the boulders when we chased them back. Slowly, they were moving shrinking the unprotected area.

I still held back on our air power and our biggest artillery. The troops being sent forward now were just cannon fodder. I wanted to use our big guns on the Mongols.

As angry as I was at my own army trying to keep me away from combat, I was in no shape to ride Silver anywhere and unable to walk more than a few feet, so I finally relented and went to the new observation post. I tried to put on my repaired breastplate, but the pain was teeth gritting, so I settled for my golden helmet, greaves, and a bright gold cape. I walked proudly from my tent to the Mongol mansion behind it and then collapsed into the arms of four strong corpsmen who carried me up six long flights of stairs.

The balcony had been extended around all four sides of the tower. The engineers had done an excellent job. It was roofed over to avoid glare and there were telescope stands on all four sides. One of my desks was there with a comfortable chair, a box of cigars, and a phone connected to the radiomen on the first floor. There were other chairs and small desks for observers and a machine gun mounted on each side, “just in case.” If it had an elevator it would have been heaven.

A cheer went up from the men below when I appeared at the railing, forcing me to spend a painful minute waving my arm and smiling.

Our soldiers below were working like Roman Legionnaires. I read where a Roman soldier might go his entire life without a battle in some periods, but he rarely went more than a few months without building something. Since we couldn’t get more that twenty percent of our men on the front lines, at one time, the rest were working off their tension by improving the compound,

There was too much going on to take it all in. I saw men digging foxholes and latrines, putting dirt walls around cooking tents, and building dirt embankments around artillery pieces.

Kolomel Eikmann had been as busy and competent as usual. To the east I could see a single runway cut alongside the riverbed. He had tested the riverbed and found it to be mostly gravel for its entire length, making it a good road for Big People and passable for our carts. Along one side he marked out a wagon trail and posted orders to keep it clear.

That gave us a rapid road between the two ends of the valley or a rapid egress if we had to leave in a hurry. It fit the plans I had made while drifting between sleep and wakefulness. I now knew how the battle would end.

It was time to fill in the senior staff. I sent runners out for Count Sir Grzegorz, Count Sir Wladyclaw, Kolomel Eikman , Baron Kowalski, Commodore Stanislaw and Baron Ivanov. As it was still early, I set the meeting for
noon. I decided to hold the meeting right where I was, overlooking the valley, and taking some glee in the fact the Grzegorz would have to climb all those damned stairs.

Then I sat at my desk for the next few hours, basking in the early sunlight, and went over my plans.

My aides had set up a simple sideboard by the time the last of them huffed and puffed his way up the stairs. The balcony was only about 8 feet wide, so it was close quarters.

When they had their drinks and were balancing their sandwiches on their knees I opened the meeting. “Gentlemen, I now know how this battle is going to end, but I’m going to need a lot of help to pull it off, so you’re all going to be busy for next few days.

Most of you expected that we would sit here behind our defenses while the Mongols threw themselves on our swords until there were only a few Mongols left, and then we would ride out and kill the leftovers. The odds of this diminish every day. The Mongols have been cautious so far and they’ve only used their Chinese troops to attack us. They’re moving slow, looking for a weakness, and trying to compromise our fortifications.

There is a time limit here. If the Mongols don’t get through our defenses in a few months, they’ll run out of food and cannon fodder, and retreat south. They can afford to wait for another day or another year to fight us.