Conrad's Last Campaign (34 page)

The nine thousand wolves that would be the flanking movement were issued enough of our remaining stock of canned food to make the trip, and loaded up with ammunition.

They couldn’t take a radio with them because it would be pounded to death at their speed, so we’d have to coordinate through the rigidibles overhead. As the rigidibles would have to stay at a safe height, a code system was devised using colored flares and large mirrors. For detailed messages, the rigidibles would drop a canister trailing a long ribbon.

The details went on and on, but eventually we were down to picking the actual day for the attack. Good thing, since the day was chosen for us.

We were in our morning staff meeting and Baron Ryszard was making the case for telling the Chinese troops they could surrender. “Every time we have faced Mongols, we have been unable to take prisoners. That is not unusual, but our reputation is hurting us in this battle. The Chinese are half hearted at best in their support of the Mongol emperor, but everyone ‘knows’ that the Christian Army takes no prisoners, so they might fight on just from fear of being killed if they quit.

If we could convince them that they could throw down their weapons and leave the field of battle without us killing them, we would have a lot less people shooting at us."

His idea was not a bad one. Frankly, I was getting tired of people screaming in fear when they see us, but we didn’t have a chance to talk about it because Stanislaw’s aid entered the tent making the worst attempt in history to be unobtrusive and furtively handed his boss a sheaf of papers. Stanislaw scanned the first page and then cleared his throat “Gentlemen, I am sorry to interrupt the chain of thought here, but we have important news from Vagabond.” When he had everyone’s attention he continued, “Captain Orbitz is reporting troop movements up from the south. This morning, I sent him to check the rail line for signs of supply trains coming this way.

He reports that he sighted trains stretching over several miles of track and all headed this way. He thought that they were a large supply operation until the trains made water stops. When the trains stopped thousands of troops jumped out for ‘sanitary needs’.

Once he realized he was looking at a troop train, he scanned the area twenty miles on both sides of the track. He encountered additional thousands of mounted troops traveling parallel to the tracks and large herds of horses.

It looks as if we scared our enemies into sending for help."

Things weren’t adding up for me. I asked “Does the report describe the troops, Chinese, Mongol, uniformed, armored? What do they look like?”

He scanned the second page of the report. “He says that they are similar in appearance to the Imperial troops already here except that they are wearing green and black uniforms rather than the red uniforms we have seen. They appear to be mostly cavalry, lightly armed. He doesn’t mention armor or specific weapons and there is no mention of Mongols or Turks on the train.”

I decided we had to speak to Orbitz, so I sent an aid outside to the radio cart. “Get Captain Orbitz of Vagabond on the horn and then run a speaker and mike in here.”

It didn’t take long. “Captain Orbitz, do you recognize my voice?”

“Yes my liege. I can verify your identity.”

“Then know that you can speak freely. We need additional information about the troops you have spotted. Do you see any Mongol or Turkish troops with them?”

“I cannot say for certain. We dropped down several times for a close look, but looking down from two thousand feet through a glass is not the best way to judge troops. However, I can verify that everyone we have seen is in uniform. There are several types, but all in uniform of one kind or another. As the Mongols and Turks purchase their own clothing and armor, they stand out from the Imperial troops, and I have seen no one like that below.’”

“Thank you, please describe the any arms and armor that are wearing or carrying.”

“The men in the trains are not dressed for combat, but the mounted troops driving the herds mostly have leather armor and metal helmets. I got the impression that they also had chain mail. I did see a few guards on top of the trains who were wearing steel breastplates clearly showing mail underneath.

The train guards were carrying swords and rifles. The cavalry had crossbows slung on their saddles and rifles over their shoulders. They were very visible even from our height.

As to heavy weapons, all I can say is that they aren’t carrying anything too big to hide inside a rail car."

“Thank you again. Two last questions. What is your best approximation of the number of troops coming and when should we expect them?”

“Any count would be only a wild guess. At least a hundred thousand, maybe more and they are on your doorstep. Now that the tracks are repaired, the trains move fast and they could begin to arrive in
Karakorum before the end of the day. Depending upon how organized they are, you could see them as early forty eight to seventy two hours after that.”

I thanked Orbitz and resumed the meeting. “Since I doubt that an unfriendly force could travel though
China on Mongol rail cars, we have to conclude that they are simply Mongol reinforcements. A lot of them.

We need to conclude this battle before they get here. Count Grzegorz, sir. When can your troops leave?"

“We’re ready. Have been for days. We can get under way within the hour.”

“Make it so.”

The Count was as good as his word. In less than one of our double length hours, he had nine thousand wolves mounted and waiting by the eastern ramparts. By that time, artillery had been pounding the Mongols for over half an hour. The wolves could probably have ridden right through the Mongols with minimal losses, but I insisted we up the odds with well dropped explosives.

All of the Big People had been shown the route and had the mission explained to them. They would do the navigation, leaving the wolves to watch, rest in the saddle, and fight without sweating the small stuff.

Despite the artillery firing behind us and the shells landing a mile away, the formation was quiet compared to conventional cavalry formations. Big People don’t jostle around or snort and they knew their place in line. The wolves were all proud sons of nobility, too proud to be nervous and too nervous to chat.

I sat on Silver overlooking the formation, but Count Grzegorz was in the lead and in command. He raised his Sten gun over his head and bowed his head in my direction. I saluted him and as my arm fell, he charged over the ramparts.

The columns were almost two gross men wide, and they were over the ramparts in less than ten minutes. A few minutes later, another thousand men from the mobile infantry followed them. These men would be returning. There would be casualties when the column bashed their way through the Mongols and this last group of men was there to get our casualties back behind our lines. The Christian Army never leaves a man behind.

I waited an hour until the rescue column returned with the wounded and dead. There were too many of them.

We had forty eight hours to kill.

By the time Zephyr confirmed that our flanking column was in place, the second Chinese army was closing on the enemy camp. We needed to end this before we had to fight more men than we had bullets.

The main force that I led was much larger than the flanking force. I was going to lead almost thirty thousand troopers and artillery men into the battle, and the enemy knew we are coming.

I had Baron Kowalski start his bombardment just before midnight the night before. All three rigidibles were overhead, dropping illumination flares and calling in target corrections. The Baron gleefully started the bombardment by dropping shells from his five inch cannon into the center the camp. Our artillery could reach over half of the Mongol camp. They pounded the camp and the troops between us and the camp all night. It was impressive as Hell, but it takes a lot of ammo to kill a half a million men.

Our column was very different from the flanking column. We would be moving fast only by medieval standards. We would move slowly enough keep to ammo wagons, radio wagons, mobile artillery, and surgeries with us. We were an army on the move.

Behind us, we would leave about two thousand men as a rear guard. They would man the barriers behind us. They job was to protect the rest of our baggage train and wounded warriors. Two planes were in the air scanning for Chinese planes and four more were waiting to strafe the Mongols.

As dawn broke, twenty charges laid by Kowalski, noisily dumpe
d the embankments into the ditch ahead of them, and we moved out. This time I took the lead in my golden armor with Terry riding behind me protected by the new shield on her back. It felt good. Beside me two aids rode, flying my personal flag on staffs held high enough to be seen by all.

Holding my sword over my head, I gradually sped up, leaving the carts behind and preparing to hit the Chinese line with maximum power. The first Chinese defense line had been pounded so badly by the artillery that there was nothing left to fight. The Big People and the warriors had been told to ride down any armed opponents, but to avoid killing any Chinese who threw down their weapons or who were too wounded to be dangerous. We wanted them to know they could run and live. Mongols, we just killed.

We didn’t even slow down and very few shots were fired. Most fighting was done by the Big People.

As we approached the Mongol camp, I sheathed my useless sword and took up my Sten. Here we hit intact defenses and had to fight. The Chinese had dug trenches and put up wooden barricades and it looked as if the massive artillery bombardment had spurred the sudden development of modern foxhole. Here I slowed down to let the machine gun carts catch up. Then we hung back a little while the guns raked the Chinese troops.

The shock of machine gun fire scattered the defenders. We jumped the ditches and brushed through the wooden barriers. The wooden barricades made good bridges to get our carts over the ditches, and we delayed long enough to gather all of our equipment before advancing.

The ruins of the Mongol camp were in sight. Our next obstacle would the Mongol kill zone. Like us, they had left a large clear area between their main camp and their outer defenses and had built an embankment on their side. You could be certain that they had cannon zeroed in on it and sharpshooters watching it from foxholes. If we didn’t prepare well and move through it fast, we’d pay a heavy price. Unfortunately, our survival required we move soon.

While I waited for our artillery to soften up the defenders again, I got on the radio. We were fighting over a nine mile long front, and I had no idea how we were doing.

The news was not a good as I hoped. Most companies had done about as well as we did. They were at final barrier. A few companies were so far south that they were past the end of the Mongol defenses and they were already fighting their way into the camp. The flanking force had begun their swing around the Mongols when we breached the first line. At least a few companies had taken serious losses from dug in Chinese who didn’t run, but we were still in good shape for the final push. The best news was that a lot of the Chinese troops were running for
China. Once they realized that we wouldn’t pursue them, death from machine gun looked a lot more certain than death from angry Mongol masters.

On the other hand, the Mongols themselves outnumbered us four to one and they hadn’t taken any loses and weren’t retreating.

Our success depended upon keeping the blitzkrieg going. If we stayed in one place too long, we could be overwhelmed by sheer suicidal numbers, so I didn’t have time to chat. In the twenty minutes if took to get organized, the gunners manning the machine gun carts reloaded from the ammo carts and then the Big People who had been pulling the carts turned around and got re-hitched so they could push the gun carts forward. It was a clumsy way to travel, but allowed the guns to fire on the move without hitting us.

I gave the order to move forward, and miles of men surged out. We were almost across when Silver stopped so fast that Terry was tossed to the ground. Beside us, another Big Person screamed in pain and dropped to his knees. When I dismounted to help Terri, I saw the reason. The ground was thick with caltrops. Hidden in soft dirt, under straw or just laying on the ground, the evil things covered the ground as far as I could see in both directions.

The caltrop is a four pointed metal star designed to land with one point straight up no matter how they fall. These were large enough to penetrate a Big Person’s foot. They had been around since Greek times, but no one had ever been able to make enough to cover a battlefield. The Chinese had done it.

I turned Silver back, but as we headed for our own lines, I heard the creak of a trebuchet. In a few seconds, a bag opened in the air and showered the space in front of me with more caltrops. While we were picking out way through, I heard more launches up and down the line. While Silver handled the navigation, I stood in the saddle and looked back.

In addition to the trebuchets, the Chinese were using man powered launchers. The oldest form of catapult, they consisted of two A frames with an axle between them and a throwing arm mounted to the axle. The basket was loaded and then six or eight soldiers simply jumped up and pulled down on ropes tied to the shorter arm to launch.

Machine guns and rifles had longer ranges, so the simple throwers were going out of business fast. In a few minutes, the trebuchets began to disintegrate under artillery fire, but they had done their job. We were stuck in the open. At least I was. I could see that some units had retreated successfully to the last defensive line.

While we carefully picked our way out, thousands of Chinese and Mongol troops would be firing at us from foxholes and barricades, and doing a lot of damage.

The carts were just stuck. There was no way to maneuver a Big Person and two balloon tires past the caltrops field. The machine gunners kept firing from where they were, covering our retreat. I saw two troopers jump off their Big People and climb onto a cart to protect the gunners with their shields. Up and down the line people were coping.

It seemed like Silver had been tiptoeing forever, when I looked up to see troopers dragging parts of the Chinese wooden walls toward us.

Soon I was clear, but on the clock. If the flanking force hit the main Mongol camp with only nine thousand men and no main force, it would make the charge of the light brigade look like a cake walk. We had to get across fast.

I told my number two to grab whatever material he could and bridge the caltrops field. He was to get our men across as soon as possible and establish a base on the other side, but to wait until he saw the signal flares from the rigidibles before he advanced. We couldn’t create shock waves in small groups. I gave the same orders to the radiomen to transmit and then sent messengers north to make certain everyone got the message.

I headed south with a small force to spread the word and keep the action going. It turned out the caltrops fields were not complete, so a few companies had gotten across with little trouble. Maybe the Mongols had deliberately left small areas clear of mines for their own horses. Other troops were reforming to use the clear lanes, and some were building wooden roads. In all cases, the Chinese and Mongol troops were firing from protected positions on their embankment and we were taking loses. The longer our men were in the cleared area, the more we lost.

I was over a mile from the southern end of our line when I saw Baron Krol behind the lines on the Mongol side of the field. His force had been so far south that he was beyond the Mongol defenses. He had just ridden by the defenders and turned north to clear the opposition. It was one of the few times I was able to watch a cavalry charge and see the grandeur because I wasn’t being shot at. He and his men were running Hell bent over the bodies of the Chinese, firing and stabbing as they went, scattering or killing everyone in their path.

I decided to cross over and follow the baron north. Most of the fighting was happening ahead of me as the baron’s men cleared Chinese troops from their embankment, but we took and gave fire from Chinese on the camp side. As I rode hard to catch them, I could see men in red uniforms streaming south, away from the battle. In the distance, I saw them overwhelm a mounted officer who was trying to stop them. Maybe we would only have to fight the Mongols themselves. I started with most of a company, maybe two hundred men, but I was losing a few men to gunfire and dropping off men to aid the wounded who had fallen from Krol’s force

By the time I reached my own Komand with my last hundred men, they were across the ramparts and moping up the opposition. My first thought was that it was time to move on. We were short of machine guns and artillery, but some had gotten across and even the artillery left behind could give us support.

Fortunately my adrenalin dropped enough for rational thought. My radio cart was set up in a safe area and I took time to assess the situation before I leaped into battle.

My biggest worries were the green army reinforcements coming onto the field and what would happen to the flanking force if they moved ahead of us.

Zephyr was hanging over the green army, but the report was confusing. “The first red troops ran into the green formation about an hour ago, and they got a very unfriendly reception. The front line of the greens sprayed them with fire lances, and there was some fighting. Fifteen minutes later, the greens opened up clear lanes through their formation and began letting red troops retreat through them. Now I see that some red groups have stopped running and joined the greens. It looks as if they are letting the cowards run and leading the better troops back into battle.

I’m not even certain if they are friends or enemies or which side they’re on but they aren’t going to be a problem for another hour or so. They stopped moving toward your flank and they are now moving around to the back of the Mongol formation. Maybe they’re going to interleave with the Mongols and reinforce their front line."

Flying Cloud was over our flanking force, trying to help out with drops of improvised bombs and the Mongol arrows that we captured. Commodore Stanislaw was directing the air war from there. “We’re holding. We have four planes doing strafing runs on the Mongols and we’re dropping everything we’ve got. Its close, but we’re holding so ….. What the Hell is that?”

I was still looking down at the radio when the sun went out. Literally. I looked up to see the biggest damned airplane in this or any other world block the sun as it passed overhead. My first thought was “My God. I hope that’s ours”. Everyone else saw it too. The battlefield almost went quiet as necks strained to follow the behemoth as it rose into the northern sky and then suddenly nosed over and dove faster than anything the medieval world had ever seen.

I was still holding mike when the receiver came alive. “Hetman Conrad, Commodore Stanislaw, this is Captain Lawson on the White Dragon. I think we can be of assistance to your flankers.” I could hear the roar of machine guns before he closed his mike.

I could see the huge rigidible buck and shudder when its machine guns starting firing. It seemed to almost stop in the air and I could see the huge white wings flexing momentarily. Then it smoothed out and headed for the clouds.

It was enough for the Chinese. A sea of red uniforms ran, rode, stumbled and scrambled to leave the field. By the time White Dragon made its second pass, all we had left to fight were the Mongols – a lot of Mongols – well armed.

I listened into Captain Lawson talking to Commodore Stanislaw on the radio, “My apologies for the surprise Commodore. Twelve hours ago we were two thousand miles away on a shakedown cruise and I doubted we could make the party. We were ordered to make the attempt but keep a low radio presence.

Should we make a pass at the green force approaching from the north?"

“Not yet. We think they are hostile, but we have no idea who they actually are. It’s better to concentrate on more immediate threats. If we kill enough Mongols, there will be no battle for the greenies to join. Attack the Mongols wherever you see a target.”

We still had time to soften them up a little more. I got on the radio to the Commodore. “Commodore Stanislaw, for the next hour, the primary job for your ships will be working with the artillery. There is no point in letting a Mongol get close enough to shoot at us when we have thousands of artillery rounds left. In an hour we’ll evaluate the damage and decide whether to go.”

I sent several riders out in both directions with messages for any artillery units out of radio contact. They were ordered to kill anything they could find for the next hour if they couldn’t contact a rigidible for targeting.