by Glenn Cooper
Completing the tour, Pedro peered down within the city, curious at the noise of hammering.
“What is that?” he asked.
Garibaldi replied, “One of the living men is an architect. He has designed a tower with a series of winches to raise our very heavy and very special cannon to the top of the wall where it will be invaluable to our efforts.”
“Very well,” Pedro said. “I will leave you to your preparations, Giuseppe. I must return to the palace for my mid-day meal.”
Garibaldi smiled. “I’ll be sure to send word if the situation changes.”
Queen Mécia summoned her man Guomez and asked to be informed of the military preparations. When Guomez seemed excessively vague on the details she asked to see Brian. Guomez returned to tell her that Brian had left the palace and had gone to work in the royal forge and she astonished her attendants by demanding to be taken there.
The furnace had been roaring for many hours and the air inside was beyond stifling. All the men, including Brian and John were shirtless, laboring side-by-side with the Hellers pouring molten lead and iron into newly minted molds.
The presence of royalty in their midst was a great rarity, and the presence of the queen was unprecedented. Forge workers were even more incredulous at the sight of Queen Mécia than they had been when John and Brian entered that morning. Most fell to the ground to take a knee. She gasped at the toxic atmosphere and called for a fan but her attendants had not thought to bring one. Guomez hastened to Brian and informed him that her majesty had come to see him. He rolled his eyes, grabbed his shirt and accompanied her into the fresh air.
“I cannot get reliable news about our preparations,” she told him, while one of her ladies mopped her brow and her décolletage. “You are a military man, Senhor Brian. Please inform me.”
“Well let me tell you this, Your Majesty,” he said with an unfocused grin. “First we’re going to razzle them, then we’re going to dazzle them, and finally we’re going to kick their Moorish asses out of your fine country.”
Guomez looked perplexed and asked for help with his translation. Brian apologized and admitted he was a little woozy from the heat and in a minute he emerged from the forge with a tray of manufactured items.
When he completed his show-and-tell, the queen called for one of her servants to approach and bring her a small wooden box. She opened it and removed a chunky gold ring set with a carnelian gemstone. “You are indeed a remarkable gentleman, Senhor Brian. Please accept this ring as a token of my great affection.”
Perhaps it was because he was still loopy from dehydration but after he admired the ring and slipped it onto one of his fingers he stepped forward and brazenly planted a kiss on her lips. Her entourage gasped in horror and Guomez looked like he was going to be ill, but the queen seemed delighted and she departed with a youthful spring to her step.
At the first light of the next day Jugurtha ordered the bombardment of Burgos to commence. Tariq the Libyan, under the cover of darkness, had personally ridden to the city walls and inspected them for areas of weakness and had reported back that they were of solid construction and would be unlikely to yield to cannon fire. Still, Jugurtha knew that there was much to be gained by subjecting the Iberians to a campaign of terror and if he could manage to get some pieces close enough he might be able to lob the odd ball over the wall and inflict some real damage.
John and Brian heard the shots at the forge where they had been working through the night. Garibaldi, his Italian commanders, and Trevor had slept at the palace but arrived on the ramparts with Aragon and his senior officers before dawn. They ducked at the sight of artillery flashes but the first rounds landed well short of the walls.
“Their nearest cannon are five hundred yards and yet they miss,” Aragon told Garibaldi. “They will begin to creep closer but I do not wish to return cannon fire yet. They will know we are not in range ourselves.”
“I concur,” Garibaldi said.
“When will your living men deliver the new weapons?” Aragon asked.
“I had a report last night that they were making excellent progress. Hopefully we’ll see the initial batches soon. I think we’ll have to wait longer for the singing cannon. The lifting tower is only half-erected.”
The two men walked a ways and looked down at the construction below and Garibaldi shouted a greeting.
“Good morning, gentlemen!”
Tony, Charlie, and Caravaggio craned their necks. The large singing cannon was on its carriage, hoisting ropes attached and at the ready. They assured Garibaldi that by the afternoon they would be in a position to begin the lift.
At the palace the women awoke to the sound of cannon fire. Emily and Arabel were squeezed together on the same bed out of choice. Alice and Tracy slept in separate beds in the same chamber.
“It’s starting,” Emily said.
Alice was already on her feet. “We’d better get to it then. I hope the men are safe.”
“You mean you hope that Simon’s safe,” Tracy said.
Alice splashed some water on her face from the communal basin. “Oh stop it!” she laughed.
“We’ve all seen the way the two of you look at each other,” Emily said, putting her boots on.
“For Christ’s sake,” Alice said. “Have you noticed he’s dead?”
“Good men are hard to come by, alive or dead,” Tracy said. “I hope my man is holding up.”
Arabel was out of bed now too. “Then let’s get cracking. We need to get to Germany then get home.”
There was another volley of cannon fire.
“Let’s see how our penicillin tea is getting on,” Emily said. “I think we’re going to need it.”
Trevor arrived at the forge to check on the progress. He found Brian and John, dirty, sweaty and exhausted, breaking apart molds and inspecting their handiwork.
“How’s it going?” Trevor asked.
“We’ve got quite the production line going,” Brian said.
“I think it’s going fine,” John said, “but we’re going to need another full day at least to make the quantity we need. We heard the cannon fire. How close are they?”
“About five hundred yards and falling short. They’re already repositioning.”
“They’ll be wanting to draw fire from the Iberian cannon on the walls to test their effective range,” Brian said. “Bit of cat and mouse. We shouldn’t respond yet.”
“We’re not,” Trevor said. “We’re standing pat.”
“Good,” John said. He held up a heavy iron cylinder, still warm from the mold. “Want to help us test this?”
“How do you mean test it?”
Brian said, “He means, want to help us blow something up?”
“Always up for a good explosion.”
“We’ll need a target inside the city,” John said. “Something solid and expendable to see if the percussion system works.”
“I’ll go check with the duke,” Trevor said.
“No, he’ll just have us blow up some poor sucker’s house.” John said. “I know how these guys think. See if you can find something yourself.”
Trevor left and returned an hour later. There was an abandoned and partially wrecked stone building located at the end of a long alleyway, not far from the forge. The nearest houses were far enough away that shrapnel wouldn’t be a problem. That’s where they went with Eduardo and a gaggle of other forge workers.
As Brian was setting up the test John showed Trevor how the system was supposed to work.
“It’s called a Hale rocket,” he said. “It was designed by William Hale in 1844 as an improvement over the Congreve rocket which was a primitive contraption with a long wooden guide stick, kind of like a fireworks rocket. This iron cylinder is a foot long and weighs about twelve pounds. There’s about a pound of gunpowder in the business end, here in the head, and about half a pound in the butt end for propulsion. A fuse sets it off, which is this bit of rope stuffed through the fuse hole. The thing that give
s it accuracy and distance are these three exhaust ports that should give the rocket spin. If we’ve built it right, it should have a range of two thousand yards or more.”
“This was used?” Trevor asked.
“Absolutely, in the Civil War, the Mexican War, in Crimea, Africa, you name it. It was good for softening up enemy positions. It got obsoleted pretty fast by modern artillery design which is probably why we haven’t seen it here but if it works, they’ve got it now.”
“We’re teaching these tossers how to blow themselves up,” Trevor said.
John gave him a quick shrug. “I guess we’ll be out of the running for a Nobel peace prize.”
Brian said he was ready. The other component of the Hale rocket was the launcher, a long, hollow iron tube, closed on one side, resting on a bipod with a fuse hole for ignition. Rather than using a typical forty-five degree firing angle, for the test, Brian removed the tripod and set up the tube horizontally, lashed to a wooden box.
John took the rocket, gently pushed it down the launching tube and ran the fuse out the firing port of the launcher. The target was about a hundred yards down the alleyway. After adjusting the aim and making sure no hapless Iberians wandered into harm’s way, John got Eduardo to touch his torch to the fuse.
The rope burned for several seconds and the rocket ignited, sparking and flaming through the air with a high-pitched scream and an instant later it impacted the stone structure with a huge explosion.
Rocks, mortar, and iron shrapnel scattered everywhere.
“Fuck, yeah!” Brian shouted.
John pumped Trevor’s hand and said, “Now we’ve got to make a whole lot more. Come back to the forge and I’ll show you how the bullets came out.”
Iberians from the surrounding neighborhood came running to the scene.
“Is it the Moors?” they cried.
“No, no,” Eduardo said. “It is our industry. We have a wonderful new weapon to defeat them.”
At the forge John took Trevor to a barrel filled with conical forms of lead.
“Ever see something like this before?” John asked, plucking one out and tossing it to Trevor.
“Nope.”
“It’s called a Minié ball. A Frenchman, Minié, invented it mid-nineteenth century but the Americans in the Civil War called them Minnies as in Minnie Mouse. The idea was to improve accuracy and range of the old lead musket balls, the kind these guys here mostly use. They know how to rifle a gun barrel that helps but the lead ball doesn’t get a good purchase on the grooves. These hollow bullets expand from the gunpowder gasses and these grooves grip the rifling. We made them just a bit smaller than the bore of their muskets.”
“You tested them?”
“Last night. They’re good. I didn’t do any long distance firing but they’ll do the trick.”
“What’s the range?”
“Effective range, three hundred yards, maximal range, about a half a mile. About a five-fold improvement over lead balls.”
“How many have you made?”
“Not enough. Tell Giuseppe we’ll be ready tomorrow morning.”
By nightfall Jugurtha had finally inched his cannon close enough to strike the city walls but the Iberians held their return fire to encourage the Moors to come even closer. But the walls held up. Over an evening glass of tea, Jugurtha and Tariq decided to use the cover of darkness to move within three hundred yards. At dawn they would unleash a furious barrage to see if the walls could be holed from that distance. If they did enough damage they would pour their infantry into the city. If not, they would employ siege tactics. They were in no hurry. The prize was too large for haste.
That night, Trevor escorted Emily and Arabel to the forge to bring food to Brian and John. They sat outside in the cooler air and ate bread, hard-boiled eggs, and cheese. Emily reported on palace activities. The penicillin tea was coming along nicely, bandages had been cut and rolled, surgical instruments boiled. Trevor told them about Tony and Charlie’s progress on the cannon lift. The tower was now just over wall height and the horse-powered winching would begin soon. After they ate, John showed them the barrels of Minié balls, the stacks of rocket launchers, and the crates of Hale rockets. By morning, they’d be ready.
When it was time to return to the palace Emily begged John to get a little rest. Through the forge entrance the furnace cast a wide, orange glow but they found a shadow where they could hold each other.
“Stay inside the palace tomorrow,” John said. “Don’t leave under any circumstances unless I come and get you. Let the wounded come to you.”
“Where will you be?”
“On the wall with the others.”
“Oh God, John, I’m so scared.”
“We’ll be fine. Superior technology always prevails.”
“Not always,” she said. “My superior technology got us into this mess.”
“Stop beating yourself up. Keep Arabel’s spirits up. She’s got to believe we’ll get Sam and Belle back.”
Trevor and Arabel were visible in the arc of orange light. They were holding hands.
“Can you believe it?” Emily asked.
“Of course I do. We’re not the only ones bitten by the love bug. Now go. I’ll see you when I see you.”
She kissed him and said, “Take a nap, all right?”
When they left John took her advice, telling Brian to wake him in an hour. He found a dark, grassy spot on the side of the forge, sat with his back to the warm brick wall and closed his eyes.
The Black Hawk lifted up taking Stankiewicz and Knebel out of harm’s way.
John breathed a sigh of relief when it didn’t pick up any RPG or small arms fire from inside the farmhouse. With the wounded sorted out he turned his attention to the primary mission. He scanned the compound through night-vision goggles. The mud perimeter walls had been largely obliterated by cannon fire and there were no thermal images. The Taliban firing from the wall were either dead or back inside the house. The goats were incinerated.
“All right, listen up,” he said into his helmet mike, “Stank and Doc’ll be fine. Mike’s squad’s going to approach from the north, my squad from the south. Masks on. When we’re close enough, on my order, we hit the house with flash-bangs and gas and make entry. If they’re hostile they get smoked. They put their hands where we can see them, they get cuffed, hands and ankles, and stripped for haji vests. T-baum identifies the HVT. We take him and evac. The others we leave. Alive. We’ll let the rats have them. Understood?”
He got a bunch of affirmatives.
“T-baum, did I hear you?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m good.”
“Okay, take the left flank. I’ll take the right. Everyone else on my squad, straight down the pike. Okay, guys, stay low and move.”
They crawled on their bellies pushing off the rocky soil with their kneepads. When John was about fifty feet from the front door of the farmhouse, Entwistle radioed that he was within range of deploying the flash-bang grenades through the rear windows.
“T-baum, you good to put gas through the window to the left of the door?” John radioed.
“Yeah, got it,” he radioed back.
“All right,” John radioed. “On my mark, Mike, do the flash-bangs and T-Baum, do the gas. Everyone else, on detonation, see you inside.”
John prepared to give his command. On his flank he saw Tannenbaum, green and glowing, rise to one knee and take aim, a gas canister loaded in his grenade launcher.
There was a flash from the front window. For a fraction of a second, John thought that someone had jumped the gun on the flash-bangs but then he saw a green mist erupting from Tannenbaum’s head.
“203s! 203s!” John yelled, calling for 40mm grenade fire. “Smoke them all to Hell!”
Well before dawn, the ramparts of Burgos were fully manned with Iberians and their Italian allies. Jugurtha’s main force was concentrated at the south side of the city where he had also concentrated his cannon batteries, having made an assessment that
the city walls were most vulnerable there.
John and Garibaldi passed the spyglass between them trying to see what troop movements had occurred during the night, and as the inky blackness of the night sky faded they had their answer.
“What do you suppose is the distance of their cannon?” Garibaldi asked him.
“No more than three hundred yards,” John said.
“And their infantry?”
“Another hundred yards further.”
They made a circuit of the ramparts checking on the encircling forces. There were a few cannon at all compass points and a thin band of troops ringing the city.
“They want to respond to an exodus from the other gates but they’ve put most of their fire power to the south,” John said.
Back at the south ramparts they found Aragon who informed them his troops were assembled and ready in the south-gate square and the streets that led to it.
“Where is Pedro?” Garibaldi asked.
“He is at the palace. He is not fond of the early morning.”
Garibaldi smirked, “Well I hope he’ll be able to stay asleep. It’s going to get noisy.”
John found Brian, Trevor, and Charlie beside the singing cannon. Brian was inspecting the rope work on the carriage.
“What do you think?” John asked.
“The aiming point looks good but I’m a little concerned about the recoil,” Brian said.
“You should be. Unchecked it’ll snap back twenty feet. It was an issue on the gun decks.”
“We need to cinch the stays tighter,” Charlie said. “I think it could punch out the back wall and it’s a long way down.”
“Go for it,” John said.
Just then Jugurtha’s cannon opened up and the wall rumbled with each impact. Showers of stones were thrown into the air.
“Did I say hurry?” John added.
The Moors’ cannon were trained mostly on the south gates, heavy oak doors fashioned with multiple layers of wood, their grains running at ninety degrees to one another for strength. The panels were held together with huge iron studs and the doors were mounted deeply within a protective stone barbican connected to the ramparts with necked walkways. The target was relatively small and the initial volleys were wide of the mark.