It would’ve been comical if it weren’t so tragic. Like a blind armadillo nosing along, the first tank tentatively felt its way to the trench while musket balls whanged off it and a roundshot boomed against its front slope and whistled away. Then, like a diving duck, the nose pitched down and slammed into the bottom of the trench. Grik swarmed it immediately, but another roundshot punched through the deck over the engine, just like where Pete was standing, and probably shattered the carburetor, spewing fuel everywhere. With a wind- and battle-muffled whump, the hot engine compartment caught fire. The fuel tanks quickly followed, throwing a red-orange mushroom in the air, and burning Grik fell away.
“Gimme your headset!” Pete roared at Taa-Leen. All the tanks were on the same frequency. The ’Cat fumbled with the unfamiliar device and handed it over. “This is General Alden,” Pete shouted into the microphone. “All Smushers, take the trenches at speed! No screwin’ around! You can’t just dip your toes in ’em. Charge over the trenches!” He handed the headset back. “Confirm everybody got that.”
Rain or not, the firing was constant now and I Corps troops fell in windrows. They were shooting back but they were in the open, catching absolute hell. These Grik were proper soldiers, no matter what Rolak said. Pete had no idea what they thought they were fighting for, but they damn sure knew how. And unlike the Grik on Zanzibar, the tanks didn’t panic them. They drew a lot of fire—they had to be frightening—and somebody over there surely knew what it would mean if they bashed through the line, but the infantry didn’t break and run as they’d all hoped.
“Oh, well,” Pete muttered to himself. “There’s a difference between ‘hoped’ and ‘expected,’ and I never figured they’d run.”
A Smusher charged through, as ordered, and slammed across the trench. It nearly stalled on the other side, most likely while the driver shook off the blow, but the engine roared and it climbed up and on. Its machine guns spewed tracers down the trench line.
“Yes!” Pete shouted. Another tank bashed its way across. Almost immediately however, a large cannon fired directly into its side from about fifty feet away, dense smoke washing over it. Tracers sparkled around the crew that turned the gun and they all went down, but the tank stopped dead. It didn’t explode—there was nothing in the crew compartment that would blow—but it started to burn.
A solid shot banged against the front of Pete’s tank and vroomed up, right over his head. Taa-Leen was still standing in the turret and he ducked instinctively. “Stay down there,” Pete commanded.
“Whaat about you?” Taa-Leen shouted back.
“I’m fine—right where I wanted to be,” Pete replied with rueful sarcasm. “Just tell your machine gunners to spray the flanks when you cross the ditch.”
Musket balls spattered against the armor, sharp fragments of lead cutting Pete’s face, but he was watching I Corps now. It had been battered and bloodied, particularly as it crossed the last hundred yards or so, entering effective smoothbore range. But nearby cannon were still preoccupied with the tanks, muskets were starting to get wet, and those still shooting fired ill-aimed and poorly coordinated volleys. Only a tithe had been taken from the wave of Lemurians sweeping out of the growing storm behind the mechanical beasts. And nothing could deter or blunt I Corps’ deadly purpose as it spilled into the Grik trench.
Pete held on, rocking to and fro as the charge went in. He was fully exposed and couldn’t have cared less. What he saw at that moment filled him with so many emotions, he couldn’t have described them all. His army was smashing a prepared position full of its most ancient enemy that had dispossessed, harried, and eaten them for longer than their history recalled. And they were doing it with the remorseless, relentless efficiency of a well-oiled machine. Volleys slashed down in the trenches from the front ranks of whole regiments that arrived as close to their preassigned sectors as made no difference. The following ranks threw hundreds of grenades, and Grik were blasted apart by a thundering wave of sleeting iron. Those ranks hurried forward to deliver their own rapid volleys right in the faces of stunned, wounded, shell-shocked Grik. Stabbing fire and sleeting lead mowed defenders down. Machine guns on wheeled carriages clattered and clawed at Grik beyond trying to flee or join their comrades. Then, with bayonets fixed and a roar full of grim resolve and primal expectation, I Corps waded into the slaughter.
Many were dying, Pete was sadly certain, but it was like the pent-up rage of countless generations had been unleashed and, proper soldiers or not, the Grik had finally goaded their age-old prey into a savagery even they couldn’t counter. Pete was overwhelmed with sadness that it had come to this, that his people—as he considered them—had found such brutality within themselves. Yet at the same time he felt a roaring torrent of love and pride, almost a reverence for the army he’d helped make and which was now vindicating all his expectations.
His tank was nearing the trench now, late to the fight, and his gunners had stopped firing because the Triple I was right in front, already shooting and stabbing in the trench. Pete fixed the long bayonet on his ’03 Springfield and pounded Taa-Leen to get his attention. “This is my stop,” he shouted over the rain and gunfire.
“You must not leave the taank!” Taa-Leen objected.
“You’ll bounce me off when you cross the trench,” Pete replied reasonably. “I’d be lucky to live through it.” He pounded on Taa-Leen’s shoulder again. “You got this. Keep up the scare and keep the Smushers moving. Don’t stop for anything, but don’t get too far out in front of your infantry either. You need ’em to keep the Grik off your backs.”
“But whaat about you?”
Pete grinned. “I’m borrowin’ the First Marines off you for a while. You’ll get’ em back.”
“Slow down,” Taa-Leen called down to Sergeant Kaalo.
“No! Keep goin’.” With that, Pete dropped to his butt, slid across the scalding deck over the engine compartment, and hopped to the ground. He meant to absorb the impact with his knees and roll, but landed on a dead ’Cat the left tread had pulped and he slipped, landing hard on his back. The impact smacked his helmet against the back of his neck, but he figured he was luckier than the dead Lemurian. Rising, he jogged toward the trench. His tank had just bashed its way across, almost flopping Taa-Leen out the commander’s hatch, but the Lemurian general quickly gathered himself and started plying his machine gun.
“My turn,” Pete muttered, and jumped into the nightmare.
The bottom of the trench was layered with torn and shredded bodies, two or three deep in places, tangled with their shattered weapons, implements, and other debris. Moving through it was like wading in brambles growing out of tapioca pudding. ’Cats and Grik were all around, bashing, shoving, stabbing with bayonets, and clubbing with their buttstocks. Teeth slashed and claws raked and rifles boomed and flashed. There was the occasional stutter of a Blitzer. Pete was a spectator for a fortunate instant while he found his footing, but then a cluster of Grik were in front of him, reaching for his torso with their bayonets. He shot one and deftly deflected another’s weapon before stabbing with his own. He was rewarded with a squeal, and he kicked the body off his blade. ’Cats to either side shot and stabbed more Grik away, and some started crawling up the back side of the trench, making for the rear at last. None Pete saw had dropped their weapon, however. On the other hand, these particular Grik wouldn’t be a problem again, because Taa-Leen’s tank had lingered—Pete hoped Kaalo hadn’t popped the clutch himself or bashed his brains out crossing the trench—and two machine guns chopped the Grik down. The tracers moved on, probing in short bursts. Roaring and spewing exhaust, the tank lurched on.
Suddenly, there were only a few Grik left, unwilling to flee and fighting like fiends. ’Cats pressed them from the left and they staggered through the mush toward Pete—and the other ’Cats who’d joined him. “Let’s get ’em,” Pete roared, and promptly slipped on a string of steaming guts, going down in front o
f the desperate Grik. He tried to bring his rifle up, but the sling snagged on a protruding bone. Something struck his helmet and drove him down, face-to-face with a dying Grik, blood bubbling and streaming from its feebly working jaws. Weapons crashed together right above him. ’Cats and Grik bellowed and screamed.
Finally getting his feet under him, Pete managed to stand—but there were no more Grik. Instead he saw a very large, heavily muscled ’Cat with a vaguely familiar face. Grinning teeth flashed in the dark fur surrounding them. “Is thaat how you ‘fight like a Maa-reen’?” the Lemurian asked in a joking, mocking way. “You once told me you were a ‘mud treader,’ but I find you now like a graawfish grubbing in swaamp slime!”
Pete grinned back, wiping goo from his beard. “I remember you from the parade ground at Baalkpan, back in ’forty-two. You were off Fristar Home with a bunch of toughs, shoving the city folk around. Had to kick some of your buddies’ asses. Now you’re a Marine.”
“I been a Maa-reen since then,” the ’Cat replied, grin fading. “An’ those buddies are all dead. All who left Fristar with me to fight for you,” he amended.
“I’m sorry,” Pete snapped, suddenly angry, “but if they were fighting for me, they were idiots.”
The big ’Cat’s tail whipped behind him, then paused. “Yes,” he finally agreed. “If thaat was why. There are better reasons.”
“No shit.” Pete pointed west. “And right now, they’re getting away. No sense letting ’em catch their breath. And if we keep after ’em, they’ll break the next trench for us!”
The trench was emptying fast, most of I Corps already pressing. Sixth Corps would be on its way. The big ’Cat grinned again. “Then let us fight like Maa-reens together, Gener-aal!”
“You bet, Sergeant . . . whatever your name is. That’s why I’m here.”
“He’s no saar-gent!” someone protested. “He stays in too much trouble!”
“He is one now,” Pete countered. “It’s a night for troublemakers, so let’s go raise some hell!”
Back where he truly belonged at last, surrounded by a cheering company of Marines in the Triple I, General Pete Alden climbed back into the growing musket fire from the next trench and rushed onward.
CHAPTER 33
////// USS Walker
Zambezi River
Jeez!” Commander Spanky McFarlane shouted over the pounding guns. He was standing in Walker’s pilothouse with Captain Reddy, staring at the hellacious battle to port. They’d gotten underway at last and were creeping past the Neckbone. Major obstructions were marked by MTBs and five more scouted ahead, following Nat Hardee’s Seven Boat. The rest of the ships proceeded upriver in a long battle line led by Walker.
Their fire support wasn’t as close as Matt would like; it couldn’t be. Their only spotters were fast-moving troops on the ground whose relayed requests might already be out of date by the time the rounds were on the way. And there was no aerial observation. The storm was building fast, especially on the coast where the carriers and Arracca Field were. The Sky Priests in the weather division on Big Sal couldn’t agree what the storm would do, and Matt couldn’t blame them. The Shee-ree had experience with strakkas on Madagascar, mostly flailing the island from the southeast, but nobody had a clue what the vicious storms did to the coast of Africa, running up the strait. Ben Mallory and Keje had reluctantly grounded their planes.
“Now we’ve got the commander of the whole damn AEF romping through mud and guts on the back of a tank, driven by a division commander!” Spanky continued, slapping the report they’d just received from Rolak against Matt’s empty chair.
“What the hell does Pete think he’s doing?” Matt fumed. “You’d think he’d know better than to lead attacks himself, at this stage.”
Minnie and some of the ’Cats on the bridge had trouble stifling ironic snorts, and Spanky just looked at Matt and shook his head. “You would, wouldn’t you? Like you’re one to talk!”
Matt dropped in his Captain’s chair, shifting uncomfortably despite the embroidered cushion that just appeared there one day. “This is different,” he deflected, and Spanky rolled his eyes.
“Contaact!” Minnie cried, mashing one of the headphones to her ear under her helmet. “Seven Boat reports, ‘Sur-faace taar-gets, dead ahead.’” She was listening through the TBS receiver, its frequency reserved for task-force chatter. Ed Palmer and his assistants were un-hashing all the radio and CW traffic in the comm shack below. “Three Grik BBs,” Minnie said. “They’s raisin’ aanchor an’ gettin’ underway! Lieuten-aant Haardee requests permission to make a torpedo attaack!”
“Very well,” Matt agreed, “as long as he remains undetected.” He might be able to, with this wind and rain, he thought. The river’s even starting to whitecap. It would be a while before the river rose, however, or its flow increased. And then only if the storm pressed inland. “But he’ll break off if he’s discovered or takes any fire,” Matt qualified. “We’ll deal with the BBs then. We can’t risk Nat’s boats. We’re running up an unfamiliar river, in the dark, in a storm. His MTBs are the only eyes we have!”
Minnie spoke into her microphone, then said, “Order’s received an’ understood.”
Walker steamed on at five knots, three guns still firing to port, one to starboard. Most of the ships had similarly dispersed their fire, starboard guns hammering shore batteries on the rugged north shore. Fitzhugh Gray’s 5.5″s and the Repub monitors’ 8″ guns remained focused in the vicinity of the third and fourth Grik trench lines, however. They held mostly reserve troops and supplies, but were probably filling with those retreating or rushing to reinforce. Hitting them now should increase the confusion, Matt hoped.
Something bumped the hull, bouncing along it as Walker passed. Matt assumed it was debris stirred loose from the wrecks in the Neckbone. He steeled himself for the pounding shudder of a screw striking whatever it was, but it didn’t happen. He smiled. Perhaps Isak’s weird propeller guards had saved them.
“We’re through!” came a cry from the lookout on the starboard bridgewing.
“Confirm,” Spanky barked.
’Cats had been scurrying back and forth between the bridgewings and the chart table, examining both, but now there came the flash of a Morse lamp on one of the MTBs.
“We’re through,” Matt breathed before the final word was passed. The river would veer northwest now, broadening and straightening for twenty-five or thirty miles before swinging sharply east, then north and west again. They had a stop to make, but then they’d steam on as fast as they could, for Sofesshk itself.
“Recommend course three four zero,” Paddy said. He knew the chart by heart.
“Very well. Make your course three four zero. Maintain speed for now.”
“Aye, aye,” Paddy replied, staring at the compass binnacle instead of through the rain-lashed windows. “Making my course three four zero.”
“Turns for fi’ knots,” stated the ’Cat at the repeater.
Matt turned to Minnie. “Inform Colonel Will that his division’ll land as planned after we get past a few little obstacles first.”
“Ay, ay, Cap-i-taan,” Minnie said.
Colonel Will commanded a consolidated division of Maroons and Shee-ree. Maroons were descended from human ancestors they had in common with the people of the Empire of the New Britain Isles, and the Shee-ree were a tribe of Lemurians that never fled the Grik. Both had been found in the incredibly hostile wilds of Madagascar where they’d suffered under the occupation of the Grik as semicaptive “sport” prey for bored Grik generals. They were highly motivated, and their job tonight might be the most dangerous of the entire operation: landing and guarding supplies behind the Grik front lines. That would make them all “Maroons,” in a sense, and they’d proudly adopted that name for their division after volunteering for the mission.
A flash lit the water off the port bow, then anothe
r. Both in turn illuminated rising waterspouts alongside huge, dark forms.
Score one for Nat, Matt thought.
“Three surface targets, designated Grik BBs, bearing three four five. Speed: two knots. Range: four thousand yards!” came Sonny Campeti’s voice, shouted down from the fire-control platform above the pilothouse.
Matt glanced briefly at the land battle raging to port and took an anxious breath. Pete—or Rolak—he snorted—is on his own now. He knows what to do. It was time for the bombardment element, except for the two Repub monitors, to become Task Force Pile Driver—with its own fight, its own objective.
“Very well,” Matt said. “Send this,” he told Minnie. “‘As soon as all elements are through the Neckbone, the guard MTBs will follow. Task Force Pile Driver will execute a turn to zero three zero in succession and engage the enemy.’” They’d planned very carefully how to fight in the river, maneuvering to get as many ships and guns on target as they could where the river widened. Things might get pricklier in the narrows.
“What’s the distance to the northeast shore?” Matt demanded, and the ’Cat at the chart table instantly replied. “Nine hundreds an’ increasing,” she barked.
“Helm, commence your turn,” Matt told Paddy. “Zero three zero.” He looked at Spanky. “Get aft, where you belong.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Spanky and Paddy chorused, and Paddy continued, “Making my course zero three zero.”
“Six more sur-faace taar-gets!” Minnie reported loudly. “Prob-aable Grik croosers!”
“Acknowledge,” Matt shouted back. The torpedoed Grik battlewagon was burning fiercely, listing hard to starboard, but another had bloomed massive fiery flowers as its huge forward guns sent a pair of four-hundred-pound roundshot shrieking toward Walker. There was no telling where they went, or if the Grik even saw the old destroyer after she turned and her guns ceased firing, but Matt was quickly reminded that just one of those big balls in the right place could shatter his ship. And TF–Pile Driver faced maybe fifteen more Grik BBs and an equal number of cruisers, according to recon, on the deadly, winding path to its destination.
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