Never Sound Retreat

by William R. Forstchen

  "And you want me to figure out how to smash their land cruisers in how long?"

  "It'll take a week to move up all of Tenth Corps and the men from Sixth Corps that were stripping off the western front. Then I'll attack, and I damn well better break through."

  "Seven days?"

  "It has to be then or never."

  "Why?"

  "Ha'ark landed three days ago but hasn't pushed out," Vincent said, pausing to drain the rest of his tea and gratefully accepting another cup from the small samovar by Chuck's desk.

  "So far Ha'ark's army at Junction City is just a blocking force—there's not enough strength there yet for a hard-hitting offensive strike against dug-in positions. I saw the fleet. He had about a dozen steamships besides his ironclads. The rest were sailing ships and galleys. Four days to get back to Xi'an for the galleys, maybe five. This blasted weather's been god-sent for keeping their airships down, but it gave them a stern wind for back home. A day to load up, then five days back. If we haven't rolled him back and made a breakthrough, he'll have four more umens landing in seven or eight days, all with modern equipment. Maybe some more land cruisers, too, maybe even a locomotive engine and some rolling stock so they can start using our rail line as well."

  "And then he can turn and crush Andrew or Hans while holding you back," Chuck sighed.

  Vincent nodded.

  "I'm going back in three days, Chuck. Figure something out by then and give it to me."

  "You're asking the impossible."

  "And you've always come through before."

  Stifling a cough, Chuck looked down at the notes and scanned them again.

  "Come back tomorrow," he said wearily. "I've already had some ideas in the works. You sure the numbers you've got here are accurate? The reason I'm asking is that I can figure out the kinetic energy of a fifty-pound bolt hitting at the range you specified, but if the range is off, even by fifty yards, what I cook up might not work."

  "I sacrificed a hell of a lot of men to make sure I got it right."

  Chuck stared at the papers as if he could sense the blood that had been spilled to get them to him.

  "Tomorrow; come back tomorrow."

  Sighing, he leaned forward, struggling to cough, and Vincent could see he was too exhausted even to clear his lungs anymore.

  "Chuck, I wish I didn't have to do this to you,"

  Vincent whispered, putting his arm around his friend's shoulder, "but if you can't solve this one, we might lose it all."

  "Pat, how are you?"

  Pat turned about and saw Andrew approaching. He started to salute, then, ignoring all protocol, he went up to Andrew and slapped him on the shoulder, drawing back a bit when Andrew winced from the pain.

  "You know, Andrew Lawrence Keane, you look like you've been to hell and back." "Something like that."

  "Why half your face's pink as a baby's arse."

  Andrew tried to smile, but the pain of it stopped him.

  "The hand?"

  "Lost some skin. Emil's making me keep the bandage on, said I might lose it to infection if I don't, then where the hell would I be."

  "Retired on pension, me bucko, no hands to hold a glass with, frightening thought."

  Andrew had seen more than one veteran like that, and the thought had frightened him enough to obey Emil's orders to keep the sterilized bandage on, in spite of the difficulty and discomfort. "How's it going? I thought I'd come up to see." Pat pointed back to the bridge across the Shenandoah. On the far side, there was a continual roar of musketry, while batteries lining the riverbank to their left poured a stream of fire into the woods on the eastern shore a quarter mile away.

  A battery of ten-pounders came onto the far end of the bridge, moving slowly as it rattled along the narrow-planked siding that ran alongside the track.

  "Here comes the last train," Pat announced. From out of the forest a plume of smoke showed, the train edging onto the bridge, pulling a dozen flatcars piled high with rails that had been torn up during the retreat, with wounded and dead riding on top of the piles of iron.

  "Except for Eleventh Corps getting overrun, we haven't left any dead for the bastards," Pat announced coldly.

  Four shells arced in from the forest, dropping into the river on either side of the bridge, followed a moment later by four more. The battery nearest to Andrew shifted its fire, ranging into the woods, probing for where the enemy battery was most likely deployed on the road. A signal rocket rose up from the opposite bank, bursting high over the river.

  "Now pour it on!" Pat roared.

  A column of blue-clad troops appeared on the far end of the bridge, moving at the double, a final line of skirmishers closing in behind them, moving backwards, faces still turned toward the advancing Horde. When the back of the column was barely fifty yards out onto the bridge, the red banner of a Bantag umen appeared at the edge of the woods, a concentration of warriors filtering out of the trees along the riverbank. Showers of arrows and a scattering of rifle fire erupted from the eastern shore.

  A dozen batteries lining the side of the river to Andrew's left opened up in a thundering salvo, exploding shells blanketing the far bank, while men armed with Sharps rifles and the detachments of snipers carrying Whitworths added to the covering fire. Nevertheless, men in the retreating column

  dropped by the dozens, their comrades slowing down to pick up their casualties as they pulled back. "Come on, damn it, come on," Pat roared.

  The column reached the middle of the bridge, the smoke hanging thick along the riverbank so that it was all but impossible to see the far shore.

  "They're rushing the bridge!" an observer posted in a signal tower shouted.

  A break in the smoke allowed Andrew to catch a glimpse of the far shore. A column of Bantag were coming forward at the run. The retreating regiment was now three-quarters of the way across. Pat paced back and forth, cursing, shouting for the men to keep moving.

  A volley of shells screamed in from the opposite shore, one of them hitting the signal tower, knocking the log structure over, a second shell striking and dismounting a ten-pound Parrott muzzle-loading cannon sited beside the tower.

  Pat strode back to his command bunker, Andrew following. An engineering officer came to attention at their approach and saluted nervously. "You ready?"

  "Yes, sir."

  The retreating column still had a hundred yards to go, and Pat continued to swear as the unit, colors still held high, lurched forward. A knot of men rose up out of the battlements flanking the bridge and dashed out, crouched low, reaching the column and grabbing hold of the wounded, helping to drag them back.

  More fire started to come down as the Bantag maneuvered additional batteries into place on the far shore, the river valley echoing with the ever-increasing thunder of the cannonade.

  The head of the retreating column reached the safety of the west bank, the formation breaking up as men leapt into the protection of the trenches. The last of them finally got across, and the bridge was cleared, except for the advancing mass of Bantag.

  "Now watch this!" Pat announced with a grin, and he nodded to the engineering officer, who knelt, picked up a wire, and touched it to a galvanic battery.

  An instant later an explosion erupted in the middle of the bridge, just ahead of the advancing Bantag. Planks from the bridge soared up, plunging down into the river, but only part of the roadway was blown. Startled, Andrew looked over at Pat. "All right, sound the retreat!" Pat shouted. Bugles echoed along the line of entrenchments. Batteries fell silent, groups of men got up out of the trenches and started to run.

  "Pat?" Andrew asked, stunned that they were abandoning the position.

  "Just a moment, Andrew, in a moment." The westerly breeze blew the smoke clear of the bank and in a couple of minutes the far shore was visible. The advancing column of Bantag had stalled in the middle of the bridge and then came the spine-chilling braying of nargas signaling an attack. A roaring column of Bantag stormed onto the bridge, charging at the
double.

  "Keep falling back!" Pat shouted. More men poured out of the trenches, running for the rear. A battery was hooked up to caissons and began to pull out of the line.

  "Pat, what the hell are you doing?" Andrew cried. "We can still hold them here!"

  Pat grinned, shaking his head."A few more seconds, Andrew."

  The forward column of Bantag already out on the middle of the bridge stood and began to surge forward, squeezing around the destroyed section of bridging by leaping over to the side of the bridge carrying the train tracks. The bridge for nearly two hundred yards of its length was packed with the dark-uniformed Horde, who were screaming wildly.

  The head of the column was down to less than 150 yards from the western shore. A scattering of rifle fire from men still in the trenches was cutting into them, but as quickly as a warrior dropped another leapt forward, gaining five or ten more feet, while on the eastern end of the bridge the pressure continued to build as yet more warriors swarmed onto the bridge.

  "All right, give it to them!" Pat roared.

  The engineering officer picked up a second wire and touched it to the battery.

  An explosion started on the eastern bank, dropping a section, then raced down the entire length of the bridge. Pilings were sheared in half, crossbeams exploded into splinters, the deck of the bridge erupted into flames as barrels of kerosene and benzene strapped directly under the bridge flooring burst into fireballs that soared heavenward.

  To Andrew it seemed as if a thousand voices were joined together in a single cry of terror and unspeakable pain. Even though they were the enemy, he felt a surge of pity as the attacking column was consumed in fire as they plummeted into the river, burning, crushed by tree-sized timbers, or blown apart by the force of the explosions.

  Pat, roaring like a demon gone berserk, jumped up and down, slapping the engineer on the back, while from out of the woods where the "panic-stricken" men had run, there came a wild, gleeful cheering, the men coming out of the woods, whooping and hollering as if a great practical joke had been played.

  All firing from the Bantag side ceased for a moment as the roar of the explosion echoed across the river valley. Hundreds of bodies littered the river. The few who survived the explosion cried pitifully for help, and snipers along the bank opened up on them so that geysers of water snapped around their bobbing forms until the foaming water turned pink.

  On the road leading to the bridge a dark column ground to a halt, and stood, dumbstruck by the destruction. The guns along the western shore, which had fallen silent, fired as if triggered by a single hand, sweeping down scores of Bantag as the far shore disappeared again in a blanket of exploding shells.

  "Effective but rather perverse," Andrew announced.

  "Isn't it though. Figured the beggars would come on like that, so we cooked up a little surprise to egg them on. A thousand—I reckon we got us a thousand cooked sons of bitches out there."

  "Damn how we hate each other," Andrew whispered.

  "They'd have done the same to us, Andrew. Only worse."

  "I know, damn them."

  "They thought they had us on the run. This will make them move more cautiously."

  The shelling from the far shore resumed and Pat ducked low, motioning Andrew to follow him into his dugout.

  "I think it's safe to say that little show deserves a drink," Pat announced. Andrew looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

  "Andrew, me darlin', I've fought a withdrawal for ten days and nights, been flanked twice, and got out with me breeches still on. I think I deserve this, and so do you."

  Andrew smiled and motioned for him to pass a cup over.

  "To Vincent Hawthorne," Pat announced.

  "Why him?"

  " 'Cause if we're going to get our asses out of here, that laddie better do his job."

  Andrew could not help but laugh as he raised his glass of vodka and downed it.

  "So how long before they're across?" Andrew asked.

  "Already are, thirty miles north of here. No way we could stop them all along the river above the falls—too damn many fords. Was hoping the rain would just keep coming and bring the river up to a flood. What about the trains?"

  "Enough to move Eleventh Corps out by early afternoon and Third tomorrow morning. Two days later we'll get the rest of you out."

  Pat nodded, not bothering to ask for approval as he poured another drink for himself.

  "Any word from Hans? Is he moving north?"

  "Nothing." Andrew sighed. "We're all on our own."

  A scattering of dust sifted down as a shell impacted on top of the bunker.

  "In five days we need to counterattack," Andrew said, looking at the layer of dust that had collected on the top of his drink. Swirling the cup around, he gulped the rest down anyhow.

  "Three days, Pat, I want Third and Eleventh up in position for a breakout against Ha'ark, and First and Ninth corps coming in behind them. It's all or nothing; otherwise, we'll never get through."

  He could only hope that Hans realized the same thing and knew that such a thought was foolish. If anyone was going to get out, it would be Hans.

  Filled with a cold bitter rage, Jurak watched as the bodies in the river were slowly carried away by the current, some of them rolling end over end in the water, others sinking, disappearing into the muddy depths. Up until this time the war against the humans was, to him, like any other war. You had objectives you fought for, you advanced, and you killed rather than be killed. Unlike Ha'ark, he had never really hated them or even feared them, until this moment.

  It was a war of annihilation. Nothing less would satisfy him than the death and the devouring of the red-haired commander who had stood on the other side of the river, capering with joy as his warriors were burned alive, standing beside one-armed Keane, who had so obviously planned the murderous, dishonorable deaths.

  "I want the airships up now, not tomorrow, now!"

  Ha'ark, barely able to contain his rage, stared coldly at Bakkth, his airship commander.

  "Sire, you can rage all you want, but it is a question of the winds. The storm of the last three days smashed four of our ships on the ground. We have no hangars for them here." As he spoke he pointed to the shallow valley east of Junction City.

  The wreckage of four of his precious ships lay in twisted heaps. Two of the remaining six airships that came north had sustained lesser damage, one with a wing sheared off.

  "I have no news of what Schuder's army is doing in the south," Ha'ark snapped. "Only conflicting reports. The news I'm getting from Jurak on the eastern front must come by sea and is more than a day old by the time it arrives. I don't know if my reinforcements are coming up or how much strength the humans have deployed to the west. And you dare to tell me you don't want to risk flying?"

  "Ha'ark, we could lose all of them on takeoff. The wind is blowing across the valley, not down it. These are not all-weather jets from our home world, Ha'ark, they're lighter-than-air ships with wings slapped on them. It takes several minutes just to get them up to speed, and in that time they'll be slammed into the other side of the valley."

  "You selected it as the place for your aerodrome."

  "Because it was the most sheltered place I could find at the moment. The Yankees were not so considerate as to leave an airship base for us in all this wreckage."

  Ha'ark stared coldly at his old companion, sensing the slightest note of rebuke in his tone.

  "Fly now. First ship south to find out what Schuder is doing, the second and third west to see what they are deploying and then to push on and cut telegraph lines and destroy bridges, fourth to Jurak so I know if they have crossed the river yet or not."

  Bakkth could see that there was no hope of arguing. Nodding, he started back to where his pilots waited expectantly.

  "You don't go first, Bakkth," Ha'ark announced.

  "I'm the best pilot of the lot; if I don't make it, then do me a favor and keep the others on the ground."

  There
was a time when he felt Bakkth was almost a friend, back before the Tunnel of Light. He nodded in agreement, suddenly filled with a desire to have one of his companions from the other world simply disappear. For after all, Bakkth knew him from the before time, he knew the secrets, the weaknesses, and would never fully accept the remade Ha'ark who was now the "Redeemer."

  Ground crews, which had come up with the invasion fleet, had already heated the engines up with the hope that the wind would abate. Waving for his crew, Bakkth trotted over to his airship and climbed into the pilot's chair, followed by his observer. He motioned for the tail gunner to stand back.

  Ha'ark wanted to order him into the ship anyway, there was always the chance that Keane might very well have new airships moving up, but decided to defer to Bakkth's judgment. The saved weight might be the crucial difference.

  With both engines turning over and revving up, the ground crew untied the cables holding the airship, a dozen of them moving to the upwind side to hold on to the wing.

  Bakkth slammed the throttles forward, the low whir of the engines shifting upward into a steady high-pitched hum. The airship lumbered down the valley, the ground crew trotting alongside the upwind wing, holding on to it in order to prevent the airship from tipping up.

  Ha'ark watched, feeling as if he was witnessing something from ancient history rather than his own world as the ungainly craft slowly continued down the valley, laboriously gaining speed. The slowest of the ground crew started to fall behind, letting go on the wing. Bakkth waved from the cockpit and the rest of the crew released, the wing began to tilt up from the crosswind, but Bakkth had enough forward velocity so that the aileron provided sufficient counterthrust. The airship crept off the ground, Bakkth feeding in full rudder, but even as he turned the crosswind started to drive the ship across the narrow valley.

  Ha'ark held his breath as the ship barely cleared the downwind ridgeline, skimming over the top off the hills. The second ship started off, the same routine repeated, but as it cleared the ground the upwind wing soared up, the downwind wing tearing into the turf. The ship rolled over onto its side and plowed into the ground. The airbag tore open followed by a flash of blue fire. Seconds later the two bombs on board detonated with a thunderclap roar Ha'ark looked up and saw that Bakkth, crabbing into the wind, was heading south toward the mountains, which barely showed on the horizon in thej clear morning air. "My Qar Qarth."