Never Sound Retreat (14 page)

"Bad for your health, Andrew."

Andrew smiled.

"Emil, I'm going up to Junction City. Perhaps the line is still open from there to Hans and back to Roum. Stay here, get the wounded ready to ship out. If we get contact back with Pat, order him to abandon the front, get his men across the Shenandoah, and be ready to pull all the way back to here."

"Yes, sir."

Without another word Andrew turned and walked back into his headquarters, quietly calling for his staff to get ready to move.

Emil watched him go. When he knew that Andrew was no longer in view he fished another cigar out of his pocket, lit it, and strolled way.

A volley of rifle fire slashed through the trees, a hail of small branches and leaves dropping around Pat as he reined in his horse and leaned over to shout at the sergeant who was leading a knot of men off the firing line.

"Sergeant, where the hell are you going!" Pat roared.

"Sir, I'm taking my regiment back for a rest, sir!"

Pat looked at the weary, powder-blackened face.

"Sean McDougal?"

"That it is, Pat."

Pat studied him warily, getting set to roar into a good chewing out. He looked at the weary men, less than a score, standing around their sergeant, who had a shot-torn standard over his shoulder.

"Regiment you say?"

"Damn Thirty-third Roum, Pattie."

"You've been drinking again, McDougal."

"You're damn right, you son of a bitch. Do ya have a problem with it?" McDougal announced defiantly.

"Where's the rest of your men?"

McDougal shook his head. "Them's it, Pattie, them's it."

Another volley crashed through the forest and Pat could not help but flinch as a rifle bullet slapped into a tree less than a foot away, spraying him with sap and splinters of bark.

McDougal grinned.

Pat looked over at one of his staff.

"Thirty-third Roum was supposed to be on the extreme left of the line, sir."

The deep, booming roar of a Bantag charge erupted from the forest. The volley line forward, less than fifty yards away, redoubled its fire. Part of the line sagged back, a knot of Bantag breaking clean through. A reserve company sprinted forward, bayonets lowered, and a vicious hand-to-hand struggle ensued.

McDougal watched the fight with the exhausted disinterest of someone who was completely fought out.

"McDougal, what the hell happened back there?" Pat nodded to the north.

"We was caught with our pants down, we was. They came roaring in on the flank. I sez to the colonel, I sez, it was just like Chancellorsville, and then he bought it. None of the lads who were dressed up like officers knew what to do, so I figured Sean, me boy, it's a good day to take command of a regiment."

Without even bothering to look for approval he slipped a bottle out of his haversack, uncorked it, drained the last drop, then threw the bottle against a tree.

"We held the fort for an hour, ran out of ammunition for the four guns. Them hairy bastards had these queer weapons they did, pipes that fired shells, like a cohorn mortar it was. They brought up several of them and started tearing the inside of the fort apart. A charge finally broke over the west wall of the fort—the west wall mind you—behind us. So I gathered what boys that were left and fought me way through."

Behind them the last of the breakthrough was sealed off while at the same time the line began to fall back. To the west Pat could sense that the attack was lapping over the line yet again. It was time to retreat. The problem was there wasn't much room left to go, another mile and they'd be back on the rail line, with First and Ninth Corps still strung out on the road behind them with at least twenty umens of the Horde pressing in from the east.

"A tight spot we're in, Pattie! A tight spot it is!"

Pat could not help but grin as the realization came to him of what McDougal had just pulled off. He had already heard that the fort on the northern edge of Eleventh Corps line had taken the full brunt of the flanking attack and stopped it cold for nearly an hour, allowing the rest of Eleventh Corps to shift its deployment in time to avoid getting rolled up. Some of the regiments farther down the line had broken, but the Thirty-third held its post damn near to the last man. Maybe it was because they had no other place to go, or maybe it was McDougal. He sensed it was a bit of both, and he could only wonder how the old drunk had managed to get his men through three miles of forest teeming with battle-crazed Bantag.

"Get to the rear, Sean. You've done enough for today."

"Right I have, damn it," McDougal growled. Turning to his men, he bellowed out a command, and the young Roum soldiers shouldered their rifles and, forming up, marched to the rear, Pat falling behind them as the last of the skirmishers pulling back from the Bantag onslaught fell in around him.

"Bastard should get the Medal of Honor," Pat announced to his staff. "Problem is he'd pawn it for a bottle later on."

A bullet zipped past so close that Pat felt the air stir near his cheek. Turning in his saddle, he saw a Bantag skirmisher coming out of the smoke-choked forest, loading his rifle on the run. Pat drew his revolver, fired three rounds, and finally dropped him. More shadows came out of the forest, and, spurring his mount, while ducking to avoid the low-hanging branches, he dodged around the trees and passed through the line where the retreating ranks had reformed. It was good ground, sloping down to the north, the trees thick enough that two men could hide behind them. Seconds after he passed through the line a volley erupted, the explosive roar sending a shiver down his spine.

From out of the forest he could hear the Bantag charge coming in. Turning his mount about he started riding slowly down the line, shouting encouragement as the boys poured it on. A battery of ten-pounders, which had been worked up through a narrow forest path, deployed out, the infantry in front of the guns scattering to either side as the commander shouted for them to clear a lane. Pat reined in behind the gun and roared with delight as the four pieces slammed a load of double canister into the woods, tearing the bark from trees, knocking down branches, and breaking the enemy charge.

"General!"

Pat saw Schneid, whom he had left in command of the withdrawal, coming through the forest.

"How is it going?" Pat shouted.

"They smell victory and are closing in fast. Lost a couple of batteries in the tangle on the road. I ordered my men to stop short of the station and hold. We've started loading the wounded on the trains, but a lot of the boys are going to have to walk out."

Another charge was beginning to build, and Pat's horse kicked up when a rifle ball clipped its left ear.

"Sir, it's rather hot here!" Rick shouted. "Shouldn't you get back where you belong?"

Pat ignored him as a renewed charge surged out of the woods. Kicking his horse into a canter, he trotted down the line, waving his hat and shouting for his men to hold.

"Keep moving, keep moving!" Vincent roared. "If you drop behind, you're dinner for those bastards!"

Edging his horse up against a knot of soldiers who were staggering across the open steppe, he used the flat of his sword, slapping several of them across the back. They looked up at him angrily.

"Damn it, they're closing in! Keep moving!"

In the gathering twilight he looked to the south, where a column of Bantag infantry was moving at the double, racing to outflank them yet again. The men around him staggered on, barely increasing their pace.

An artillery round thundered past, detonating on the slope ahead, dropping several men. Less than a half mile behind, Bantag land cruisers crept forward at a slow yet relentless pace, the infantry moving with them, dashing forward a few paces, kneeling to fire, then pausing to reload as the next wave of skirmishers swept past them.

On the slope ahead he knew that fresh troops were waiting, Second Division, Fifth Corps, which had come up in the late afternoon and deployed just in front of Junction City. One of the men he had been urging on silently collapsed to his hands and knees, gasping, blood pouring out of his mouth. His comrades paused to try and pick him up.

"He's finished," Vincent shouted. "You'll have to leave him."

A sergeant looked up angrily at Vincent.

"Damn it, sir, the Seventh doesn't leave its dead or wounded behind."

"Give him to me," Vincent snapped, and they passed the dying soldier up. Holding him tight, Vincent spurred his horse up the slope, and felt the body he was carrying go limp. Reaching the crest he passed through the line and let the body slip to the ground.

The men of Second Division had been digging in since arriving at the position so that a shallow trench, a foot or so deep, was cut into the steppe, sod and dirt piled up forward. The exhausted survivors of First Division, which had fought a running ten-mile retreat throughout the afternoon, were lying on the reverse slope, draining canteens of water which theircomrades from Second Division had passed over to them.

Sensing what was coming, Vincent passed orders for the division to continue its retreat toward the fortifications surrounding the town. Watching the men stand up to continue their retreat, he saw a train coming into town from the northeast, its whistle echoing in the distance, flatcars loaded with infantry and a battery of guns.

Vincent dismounted, handed his trembling horse off to an orderly, and walked up to the crest of the ridge. All along the forward slope exhausted stragglers of First Division were staggering up the slope. The Bantag farther down broke into a charge, their long-legged stride taking them up the hill at a frightening speed. The men of Second Division were screaming at their comrades to clear the way.

The charge pushed some of the men from First Division forward in a final desperate run to safety, others simply collapsed, or turned about, ready to trade their lives. "At two hundred yards volley fire present!" The cry, issued by the division commander, raced down the line.

Vincent said nothing, bracing himself. "Take aim!"

Those men still forward started to fling themselves to ground. "Fire!"

The brilliant glare of rifle fire slashed down the half mile of front. More than one member of First Division, too slow to get down, was swept away by the fire. The forward line of Bantag skirmishers disappeared in the smoke.

"At one hundred yards volley fire present!"

Survivors forward got up and continued to race toward the line. Vincent knew the division commander was deliberately holding to volley fire to try to give them a chance to get in between rounds. The Bantag seemed to know it as well; the charging wave raced forward, and, as the rifles lining the ridge were raised, then pointed downhill, they hit the ground, hugging the earth.
Vincent cursed. The bastards were trained, in fact trained too well in modern tactics. The Merki and Tugars, screaming like maniacs, would have simply continued to swarm in. The volley exploded and the Bantag were up again running full out.

"Independent fire at will!"

The battery deployed to Vincent's right, which had been deliberately aiming high, engaging a Bantag battery which was deploying on the next ridge a mile away, was now cranking down its barrels, the commander screaming for double canister.

The first scattering of shots erupted when the charge was less than fifty yards away. The fastest of the Bantag crashed into the lines, slashing left and right with their bayonet-tipped rifles.

An explosive roar erupted along the line, those few survivors forward crushed under by the rifle fire or the charge closing in behind them. The four guns of the battery fired with some of the Bantag almost to the very muzzles of the guns, fragments of bodies sweeping back twenty yards or more. Riflemen from a supporting company stood up, charging in around the guns, driving back the last of the attackers.

The Bantag charge disintegrated, falling back. Vincent watched the withdrawal, saying nothing. It had been an impetuous attack, pushed in with the hope that they could break through on the coattails of the

retreating survivors of First Division. Second Division held its fire as the Bantag pulled back down the hill, and the few men who had escaped them stood up and staggered the last few yards to safety.

The division commander came up to Vincent's side.

"That wasn't too rough, sir."

"It's only started." He motioned toward the next ridgeline. Several batteries were already deploying, and the dark silhouettes of the first of the land cruisers came into view.

Fortunately the damned things only move at little better than two miles an hour, Vincent thought. Any faster and they would have bagged us all. But they were monstrous, relentless, coming forward with a blind mechanical will that mere flesh and courage could not resist.

The battery commander was ordering his guns laid to engage the first of the cruisers, but Vincent shouted for him to aim at their batteries instead.

The men of Second Division, seeing the cruisers for the first time, looked nervously back and forth at each other, while survivors of First Division, who had formed up on the line to continue the fight, cursed, telling their comrades that nothing would stop them.