Conrad's Last Campaign (35 page)

Then I sat down for lunch with my men. It made sense. There was nothing to do for the next hour but listen to whistling shells and watch explosions.

The medical corps used the time to set up aid stations just behind the lines, where they stabilized the wounded and tagged dead before they were sent back to our main camp. Business was good, too good.

After I refilled my ammo supplies, I joined the circle of men sitting behind a dirt mound and opened a can of “lunch”. It wasn’t too bad. It had a separate container on the top for a thick chunk of bread and the stew inside was edible, sort of, even cold. If I had a cigar, the world would be good.

I would have loved to have swapped war stories and lie about women with the men around me, but, as usual, being the boss was a conversation dampener. I settled for lying back with my hands behind my head, wondering what I would do after the battle. My future plans ended with a sword point in the khan’s neck.

The idyll ended when I remounted Silver, and signaled to the radioman to give the move command to the rigidibles. Green flares began to drop from the sky a minute later and we moved out.

We were about mile from the center of the Mongol camp and the ground in front of us was a mangled mess. My first impression was a lot of shell craters surrounded by pieces and parts of tents, bodies, and junk. There wasn’t a living soul in site. The previous inhabitants had fled, retreated or died.

We started out at a gentle trot. There was, after all, nothing to charge. Above us, White Dragon began a strafing run. Unfortunately, the Mongols learn war faster than most. When the Dragon bottomed out less than a thousand feet over the camp, dozens of cannons fired straight up. It was the medieval equivalent of flak, and they got the luckiest shot in the history of warfare. As the ship rose, I could see a huge hole in the left wing and she began to roll over on to that side. The roll stopped with the ship hanging in the air at almost ninety degree angle and drifting very slowly back toward the Earth. As the minutes passed, the drop slowed and she seemed to lift very slowly. We were on our own.

There was no more action until we were less than a thousand yards from the edge of the camp, then all Hell broke loose. The bastards were supposed to be dead, but they must have dug in really well because there were a lot of them shooting at us from behind barricades and berms.

We were ready. We pushed up machine gun carts and cannon ahead of us all along the line. We slowed our advance while the cannon fired grape shot and the machine guns swept barricades. The progress was slow but steady. We were taking loses, but hurting them more.

As I expected, the last hundred feet was strewn with more caltrops. The carts slowed down, but kept up a slow but steady suppression fire as I and the troopers dismounted and walked our Big People through the caltrops field. Then we were over the line and surrounded by Mongols. Armed Mongols, armored Mongols, hiding Mongols, prone Mongols, mounted Mongols and mainly very angry Mongols. I didn’t even need to aim. Behind us, the cart drivers were throwing down ground cover and trying get past the caltrops.

The artillery was still falling on the middle of the camp and the troopers were struggling to get the ones we brought with us past the barriers. About one Big Person in twenty carried a machine gun strapped to his side. They stopped at the highest places they could find where the riders unpacked the guns and set them up on tripods while the rest of us kept the Mongols away from them.

After a few minutes, I jumped down from Silver and gestured for the rest of my men to do the same. Now that the Mongols all had guns, it didn’t make sense to sit up in the saddle and make a good target. I told Silver to get away from me and find shelter. He just snorted and refused to leave. If I could have caught her, I would have thrown Terry off the battle line, but she also refused to leave.

The next half hour was trudge and smash. The Mongols came out of trenches, fired from behind mobile walls, poked up out of foxholes and occasionally rode down on us. They came in groups from our flanks and, on one occasion, a small group of them got behind us.

We struggled over their dead bodies and killed them with Sten guns, grape shot, and occasionally good old fashioned steel, and they kept coming. I didn’t know how we were doing, but every tine I looked around there were different troopers around me and sometimes fewer of them.

I think that I just caught sight of the general’s tent when the lights went out and the world slipped away.

When I woke up, there was a Chinaman in my tent. I was surrounded by corpsmen, two bodyguards, and a Chinaman dressed in glorious golden and purple silk robes. I seemed to have only one eye working, but I could see him sitting in a red and gilded chair near the foot of my bed. After awhile I managed to say, “I see we lost.”

He gestured to a corpsman near him and said in the worst pigeon I have ever heard, “Get General.” Then he listed to his translator and turned back to me. “No. No lose. I Su Song. Chinaman. We kill Mongols, you and me. No Mongols now.”

That seemed to exhaust his pigeon and my strength so I drifted back to sleep.

When I awoke again, the sun was going down and he was still there. I tried to lift my head but someone seemed to have put lead weights on it. I managed to croak, “How long.”

The Chinaman leaned toward me and said, “General come. Rest now. Four days here. Was bad. Better now.”

I couldn’t wait for whoever The General was, I asked the corpsman, “How is Terry? Is Silver alright?” I felt the chill in the room. No one wanted to tell me. The Chinaman’s translator spoke to the corpsman and then his boss. His boss thought for a moment and spoke through the translator. “Not all news is good. The girl with you died covering your body with her own. The horse was badly wounded trying to drag you back to the doctors. He is alive, but they do not know if he will live long.”

He could see my agitation. He spoke through the interpreter again. “You did well. Almost half your men survived. They will see home and family again. It was great battle. There will be murals painted and stories will be told for a thousand years.”

About that time Count Wladyclaw entered the tent followed by two of his aids. “It is good to see you awake, your grace. I see you have met Su Song.”

The name seemed so familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I had heard it. “I’ve met him but I don’t know why he’s here or who he is.”

Wladyclaw smiled and bowed slightly to the Chinaman, “This honorable Chink is the man who brought the army that saved our Christian butts. He says that we would have known that earlier if we hadn’t shot down both of the messenger planes he sent to us.

He knew your name and was particularly keen to meet you. His official post now is liaison with us barbarians, and his tent is pitched next to yours."

“How did the battle go? I seem to have missed it again.”

“You couldn’t have missed much. You went down on a pile of Mongol bodies that you created yourself. You were almost out of ammo and your sword, your armor and most of your skin was covered with blood that wasn’t yours. You didn’t miss much.

The blow to your skull finally brought you down, but you’ve got one broken arm, slashes on both arms and one leg, and your body is one mass of bruises.

When you went down, both your main force and the flanking expedition were holding their own, but we were unable to advance on either front. Apparently our reputation of not taking prisoners energized the Mongols to insane resistance. We were in severe danger of having a pyrrhic victory when Su Song hit the Mongols from behind with the Song Imperial army and a lot of Chinese who started the day fighting for the Mongols

He told me that his major fear was that we would attack him with our flying machines before he had a chance to fight. Fortunately, the planes and rigidibles were too busy defending us to bother with him. When Song hit the Mongols from behind they panicked and sent troops back to block the newcomers.

That relieved the pressure on Count Grzegorz and the wolves. He broke through and overran the Mongol command center in less than half an hour and they just keep going until all the Mongols stopped breathing."

There were a few tense moments when the wolves met the Chinese, but it didn’t take long to realize we were both in the same business. "

“How is Count Grzegorz?”

He shrugged. “The doctors say that there is still hope. We lost a lot of good men. By the way, when I took temporary command, I had a couple of the coded messages you have been refusing to read decoded. You need to read this one. It’s been around for several weeks.”

From: Count Piotr, Hetman of the Free Christian Army in Europe.

You might notice the name change. We have completed our negotiations with King Henryk.

In your absence, his transgressions became intolerable. He demanded full control of our finances. He demanded that all Jews be allowed to hold only low rank in the Army and forbade intermarriage. He insisted that all Muslims be expelled from the Army and issued orders that we attack peaceful Muslim countries and kill every Muslim who refused to convert to Christianity.

None of this was allowed by our creed.

When he arranged his own coronation as “Emperor Henryk, King of Poland and the Middle East, King of Egypt…” and so on, it was obviously time to dump our medieval monarch.

However, oath breaking is a serious matter and we opted to negotiate his removal rather than simply declare that we no longer recognized him as our Liege Lord.

We agreed to cede several forts to him and to give him a one time payment of twenty percent of all funds held in Europe. There is also an agreement for annual loyalty payments to be made for the remainder of his life. Even in Poland, we retained control of all of our factories, ships, bases and businesses.

We now hold dominion over most of the old Arab states of the
Middle East, the former Cuman Khanates, Sicily, Gibraltar and various small states that were without leadership and protection. The area formerly controlled by the Golden Horde is ours to occupy if we want it.

Most of northern
Africa is held by our vassal states, and our close friends, the Byzantines, have retaken all of the territory on the southern shores of the Black Sea. Our relation with the remaining Muslim lands is friendly and a few of the smaller states have asked to taken into Army dominion.

We have agreements to keep all of our forts in European countries in exchange for taxes and border security. In those countries, we retain control over only our own estates and castles and demand only the right to do business under the laws of their lands.

I have thus far retrained the title of Hetman. The army needs a supreme commander and I serve in your stead while you are on campaign. As our supply efforts have shown, you are still in command of as much of the Free Christian Army as you want. Any title from Hetman to Monarch is yours to take.

Let us know your desires. I hope all is well with my loyal friend and Liege Lord.

The news that I had won everything I wanted in
Poland without even being there made little impression. It was still a place where I had been betrayed and abandoned and I wanted nothing to do with anyone there. I admit that the thought of having my ex wife arrested for adultery and confined for life in a monastery was a delightful fantasy, but sticking King Henryk and her together for the rest of their lives seemed punishment enough.

I did not even retake full command of my army. Healing was taking all of my energy and Wladyclaw was doing a good job. I had faith that he could get the men home safely.

The men would be going home rich. We had done well in Sarai and added gold in Karakorum. They had stripped the bodies of the Mongols and discovered that the Mongols took considerable wealth with them on the road. Even the lowest ranks would have enough money to purchase a small estate when they returned home.

As there was no king to share with, I accepted my share as Hetman and split the king’s share between myself and the officers. I ended up with enough gold to found at least one kingdom.

Wladyclaw decided that they would take two months to allow the wounded to heal and equipment to be repaired before they headed home. Su Song made certain that provisions were supplied every week and when they left, a company of Chinese engineers would accompany them to map out the route for the new Trans-Tundra railway. Perhaps Su Song felt that negotiating rights of way would be easier when his men were accompanied by a battle hardened army.

The first rail line would be a joint effort of the Free Christian Army and the Song emperor. Within a year, the first section would be completed between
Mongolia and Constantinople. The Silk Road was about to get a lot shorter.

One bright spot was my friendship with Su Song. As soon as my head cleared, I remembered who he was. In my original timeline, he was never captured by the Mongols but he was remembered a thousand years in the future for designing the world’s first accurate clock and writing books on everything from pharmacology to engineering.

He had decided to learn Polish in order to read technical books from Europe and his amazing mind could pick up two or three hundred new words every day. Within weeks we were able to have simple conversations without an interpreter.

The story of how he fooled his Mongol bosses for years was fascinating. While he turned out invention after invention for the Mongols, he kept his old students in the Song Empire informed of his progress.

His final plan will go down in history beside the Trojan horse. When he realized that the Mongols were going to strip the country of troops to fight us, he had his allies in Hangzhou throw together hundreds of quick and dirty flat cars, and sent as many engines as he could to the southern border for “maintenance”. As the Mongols moved their troops north, the Song carried their cars over the border and jumped on the khan’s railroad. They captured Beijing and the emperor weeks before our battle happened.

As soon as the capitol was secure, Su Song’s generals moved north to finish off the Mongols with our help.

It has been a good life or three, but I have the feeling that this part of my life is over. I have instructed Novacheck to create a corporation to hold all my assets in Poland and have given instructions that he keep ten percent of the profit for his personal use. The rest is to be reinvested. Since there is no concept of joint property in Polish law, I have deeded my home and estates in Poland to the Army to be used as rest home for retirees, with specific instructions that my ex wife not be allowed on the grounds. The instructions have been radioed home, and the physical papers will follow with Wladyclaw.

I’m not certain what I and my wagons full of gold will do next, but Su Song has some interesting ideas.

For now, I’m going to take a nap.

This ends the journal of Conrad Stargard.