Iron Gray Sea: Destroyermen (25 page)

“Second Corps is in it now,” Flynn said to Bekiaa, still by his side. None of the 1st Sular’s senior officers had survived, and she remained his exec. An exhausted Captain Saachic returned and blearily reported that there very well
might
be fifty thousand Grik surrounding North Hill, but for now they were holding back, waiting, as Flynn had predicted. Flynn ordered him, and everyone who could, to get some sleep. The long night wore on and the flames faded almost entirely, giving them hope that the enemy airships might not return. Of course, they could just be waiting for daylight now. The fighting in the gap ebbed and flowed, but never ceased, and all that William Flynn, Bekiaa-Sab-At, and much of what remained of the 5th Division could do was stand, sleeplessly, and wait.

Eventually, just as the sky was beginning to turn gray in the east, the dreaded sound of the odd little Grik zeppelin engines reemerged. Inexorably, the airships drew closer, nearly invisible in the dark sky above.

“Sound ‘Stand To,’” Flynn sighed, and shortly after, the drums began to rumble.

Staring up, Bekiaa thought she could just make out the enemy craft, the sun beginning to reach the higher objects. She was startled when a stream of reddish, flaring dots suddenly arced through the air and impacted against one of the dingy cylinders. Almost immediately, it erupted into bright, hungry flames and began to fall out of the creeping formation!

“Col-nol!” she cried, grasping Flynn’s arm.

As was customary at that latitude, aided by the elevation, dawn came swiftly—particularly to the “furball” that suddenly erupted in the sky. A squadron of white-bellied Nancys swarmed the remaining eight zeppelins, hosing them with tracers from the single.50-caliber machine gun mounted in their noses. The weapons were further gifts from the salvaged
Santa Catalina
; either spares or guns that had been removed from the P-40s. It had been deemed unnecessary for all the Warhawks to carry their full complement of six, particularly those deliberately lightened to increase their range or carry bombs. Now the slowly resolving sea of Grik around the hill emitted a rushing wail as the Nancys slashed their own machines apart.

Blazing, crumbling airships stumbled from the sky, some intact, but most in disintegrating, fire-breathing sections. Some even fell on the gathered Grik below. Firebombs vomited flaming fluid from the impacting machines, or drizzled fiery tendrils down on clots of Grik between the hills. Shrieks echoed and seethed. A flight of Nancys rumbled low over the horde and
Allied
bombs tumbled among it, detonating and spewing fire, weapons, and parts of Grik in long, roiling ovals.

“All batteries, commence firing with spherical case!” Flynn roared. “Fire at will!” The Grik were too far for canister to be effective. “Mortar crews, stand by! Action south!” Mortar ’Cats scrambled from their various positions around the perimeter, lugging their tubes and crates of ammunition.

Chest-thumping concussions ringed the hill and white smoke billowed outward as exploding case shot soared among the Grik, popping with gray-white puffs above or within their ranks, and scything them down with hot, jagged shards of iron. More bombs fell from another flight of the strange little seaplanes before it clawed its way back into the sky. A huge mushroom of smoke chased them this time, and one of the planes staggered. Its port wing fluttered away and it spiraled down amid a smear of fire.

“Damn!” Flynn growled. “Must’ve been those antiair mortar things of theirs again!” The cumbersome Grik weapons had made their first appearance on Ceylon.

Another Nancy was in trouble high above. A long stream of gray smoke chased it as it peeled away from a final, plummeting zeppelin. The plane steadied for a moment, but the smoke grew thicker and darker and it dove for the earth.

“Caap-i-taan Saachic!” Bekiaa shouted over the pounding guns. “That plane looks like it will try to set down there, near where the Marines had their works last night! You must rescue the crew if they survive the crash!” Nancys had no wheels—but wheels would be useless in the tall grass, at any rate. Maybe a hull designed for landing on water would fare better?

Saachic, already mounted, whirled. “First Squad!” he cried to the ready unit that had been around him throughout the night. “Follow me!”

With a clatter of equipment, swords, and carbines, 1st Squad’s me-naaks vaulted the breastworks and raced toward where the wounded plane was leveling off above the long grass that glowed golden green under the bright sunrise. The Nancy was burning now, its engine gasping and popping in agony. It nearly stalled, but the pilot dropped the nose and it swooped low, into the very top of the grass, and practically fluttered to the ground. Even with such an amazingly light impact, the high wing immediately sagged to either side of the engine and the fuel tank in front of it ruptured with a searing
whoosh
!

A man leaped out of the forward cockpit, coveralls smoking, and did a somersault in the damp grass. Immediately, he jumped to his feet and tried to get around the collapsed port wing to the aft cockpit, where his observer/copilot sat. It was no use. The plane was fully involved by then. Ammunition for the.50 cal started cooking off and finally forced the man back.

“Look!” someone shouted. “The Grik!” A mob of the enemy several thousand strong was sweeping forward despite the fires and the other pursuit ships that had followed their comrade down. The planes began making strafing runs to keep the Grik back, but it wasn’t working.

“Damn it, they’re going for him!” Flynn growled, eyes darting from the Grik to Saachic’s cavalry, now streaming toward the man. It was going to be close. He had a sinking feeling; not only because of the danger to the flyer, but about the Grik they faced. Once, the trauma of the last quarter hour would have rattled them badly. They’d stood against unusually determined Grik in another pass, on Ceylon, but even they had finally broken off. The Grik trying to take the flyer showed no hesitation at all, and Flynn suddenly noticed that the vast majority of the rest of the army surrounding them had remained steady as well.

“I think we may really be in for it,” he whispered.

“Mortars!” Bekiaa roared. “Commence firing in support of Captain Saachic and the flyer!”

Saachic’s cavalry won the race, and Saachic himself scooped the pilot onto the me-naak’s back. A flurry of crossbow bolts and even some musket shots chased the squad as it bolted for the safety of the breastworks. Flynn wondered if the shots came from the new Grik matchlocks or weapons captured on South Hill. There was a flurry of
toomp
sounds as mortar bombs arced into the sky and began snapping among those closest Grik, sending geysers of earth, screaming Grik, and shredded grass into the air. The enemy fusillade was interrupted and none of the galloping cav ’Cats were hit. A couple of me-naaks may have been, but they all flowed back up over the barbed wired entanglements, and the hasty berm.

“They’re not stopping!” Bekiaa shouted suddenly, still staring at the Grik. The whole mob that had gone for the flyer—and some other groups as well—kept right on coming, straight for the south slope of the hill. A couple of planes dropped two more bombs into the mass, and the gun-armed Nancys made another firing pass but then they flew off, into the rising sun, maybe low on fuel but certainly out of ordnance.

“Battery!” Bekiaa yelled. “Load canister! Mortars, increase elevation. First Marines and Company-A Rangers, make ready!”

Saachic’s meanie picked its way through the fallen trees to rejoin Flynn and Bekiaa, and a bloodied, scorched man slid down from the animal and stood before them. He saluted absently.

“Goddamn!” he gasped, taking an offered canteen. “Thanks!”

“Leedom?” Flynn asked, remembering the man’s name.

“Yes, sir,” the man replied, taking a gulp and wiping his mouth. “Lieutenant Commander Mark Leedom, acting COFO for Army and Naval air out of Madras! You’re Colonel Flynn?”

“I am.”

“Battery!” Bekiaa roared again. “Marines and Rangers! At my command . . . Fire!”

The yellowish white smoke that always seemed to accompany their canister gushed downhill in an opaque, rolling wall, and the deafening thunder of the guns overwhelmed the volley of muskets.

“Independent, fire at will!” Bekiaa ordered, her voice cracking, and with a glance at Flynn, she dashed toward the guns for a better view. With the stirring breeze, the smoke would clear there soonest.

“What happened, Commander?” Flynn asked.

“I got shot down!” Leedom replied defiantly. “They had some kind of gun mounted in the gondola; like a little cannon loaded with shot. It hammered us just like a damn duck!” He looked at the plane, burning amid the surging Grik. “Tacos—my OC—got hit . . .” He looked down. “He was a good ’Cat. God, I hope he was already dead before . . .” He looked back at Flynn. “Colonel, you’re in the shit.” Artillery and the firing of the fast-loading Allin-Silvas almost drowned his words, but Flynn heard.

“Don’t I know it,” he agreed grimly, watching the slope below the guns, willing the Grik to break. But they just kept coming, running or crawling over their own dead in places. “Shit! Just a minute!” He spun toward a ’Cat beside him wearing the painted bars of a captain on his leather armor. “Get your company up there right damn now! They ain’t stopping!” The ’Cat bolted, and the crackle of rifles increased amid the hissing roar of the Grik. Two guns bucked at once, spewing canister and scything down dozens, maybe a hundred of the enemy, they were so tightly packed. Mortar ’Cats, no longer able to bring their primary weapons to bear, were throwing grenades like baseballs, as fast as they could pull the pins. The wailing shrieks were terrible, and with the combination of concentrated fire, canister, and now the storm of grenade fragments, the swarm finally seemed to balk.

“Reserves already, Colonel?” Leedom muttered. “God, I hope not!”

“Flying reserves,” Flynn admitted, troubled. “We have more—but we’re surrounded, as you can see, and I can’t strip much around the perimeter.” He pointed at the south slope. “So far, this is the only attack, but if they see a hole somewhere else, they might go for it.” He hesitated. “Why? What did you see?”

Leedom stripped the goggles off his head and threw them on the ground. “Colonel, you have
no idea
how surrounded you are.” He snorted. “
We
are.”

The reserve company formed, standing, behind the junction of the Marines and Rangers, where the two battalions had become intermingled, firing as quickly as they could. That’s where the most densely packed Grik thrust seemed to be headed, as if deliberately
aimed
there, like a wedge.

“What the hell?” Flynn murmured.

Four guns snarled with distinct, separate thunderclaps of fire, and the reserve company poured in a volley of buck and ball at less than thirty yards. Finally,
finally
, the Grik charge staggered, shrouded in smoke, lead, and a blizzard of downy fur and reddish vapor. Only then did something like Grik Rout grip what remained of the bloody stump of the enemy thrust. Maddened by wounds, pain, and panic, some Grik turned on each other, fighting to get back, aside, away from the hail of bullets and buzzing canister. These, as always, were hacked down by their comrades, but not before the charge stacked up behind them and the withering fire spread the effect. Hundreds fell in the next few moments while those behind pressed against others that retained no notion other than an instinctual imperative to escape.

All the veteran troops had seen Grik Rout before, and they cheered when they saw the symptoms now—but the cheer slowly died and the stunned Marines and Rangers resumed firing with a will when it didn’t really
happen
. The charge came apart, and many did flee mindlessly, but the great bulk of the surviving attackers
backed
away, still shooting crossbows or firing the weird matchlocks, if they had them. Only the Rangers had ever seen the enemy retire before, and they’d been beyond musket shot then. The rifled muskets still picked at them and so did the big guns, but it hadn’t really been a retreat under fire. Not like this.

Flynn gave the order to cease firing after the Grik moved beyond a hundred yards. Leedom’s words still echoed in his mind, even without a proper explanation, and he instinctively knew that explanation would mean they had to conserve ammunition. The smoke slowly drifted away and dissipated in time for them all to see the attacking force rejoin the multitudes that ringed them—and be welcomed back into those ranks.

“A hell of a thing,” Flynn muttered. His gaze turned to the field below the breastworks and the dark mounds bearing down on the tall grass. He couldn’t see them all, of course, but there were surely thousands; maybe half the force that broke ranks to go after the fallen plane to start with. He could see inside the breastworks as well, now that the smoke was gone, and stretcher bearers climbed out of the ditch with their grisly, moaning burdens. These were carried to the centrally located medical section that had set to work under lean-tos erected around a tree-trunk stockade. After they deposited their burdens with the surgeons, the stretcher bearers returned to the ditch for more.

Bekiaa rejoined them. The white fur around her mouth was smudged black with powder from tearing open musket cartridges with her teeth, and her painted armor was dingy and streaked with blood. She’d slung her rifled musket, but seemed to sag under its weight.