Time Commander (The First Admiral Series)

by Benning, William J.

  “Yes, sir.” Pulleine dashed off with the Captain to carry out Billy’s orders.

  Picking up the discarded map, Billy stood up and walked slowly down the slope of the mountain to meet whatever fate destiny had in store for him.

  Chapter 31: General Kallet’s Flagship; “Fadthrathur”

  “Sir!” The voice of the nervous Navigation Assistant from the third tier of consoles in the Conference Room, aboard Frontier General Avavid Kallet’s flagship, interrupted the normal dark, brooding silence.

  “Yes?” Avavid Kallet responded.

  “We’re approaching the Rubicos Line, sir, and still no indication of activity from the Imperial Guard,” the nervous Assistant said.

  “Excellent…excellent.”

  Just like he promised, Kallet thought to himself. He had been suspicious of the promises made by the dark, shadowy figure that hid behind a mask, a voice synthesiser and the Imperial Cipher. Just as he had promised, the Imperial Guard had been distracted or removed from the boundary of the de-militarised zone that was called the Rubicos Line. No military forces other than the Imperial Guard were allowed to cross the imaginary line sketched out by the orbit of the most distant of the moons of Ganthus, called Rubicos.

  “Sir, we have an automated challenge from the Imperial Guard station on Rubicos.” The trembling voice of the Communications Officer from the front tier echoed around the Conference Room.

  “Very good, respond with identification number niner, six, four, four, niner, two, zero, zero, one, four,” Kallet said.

  “Yes, sir…permission to enter…is granted, sir...”

  “Excellent…excellent…excellent!” Kallet banged the palms of his hands onto the top of the Conference Table. “Now, Gentlemen, our plans to liberate Ganthus City are set, and within the hour we will have freed the Ganthoran people from the alien threat of this Universal Alliance…it is indeed a good day to be a Ganthoran!”

  “Yes, Sir!” their voices chorused, as they had been expected to do.

  The senior officers standing around the Conference Table glanced at each other conspiratorially, and were filled with the deepest anxiety. They were now in whatever Kallet had planned right up to their necks. As they glanced at each other furtively, they grew to realise in that moment that they could either hang together, or hang separately.

  Smiling triumphantly, Frontier General Avavid Kallet sat down at the one chair that stood next to the Conference Table, and began to laugh.

  It was the laugh that everyone in that room had heard before. The same controlled, confident laugh that told everyone that Frontier General Avavid Kallet had gotten his way once again. As he laughed, he lifted his booted feet onto the edge of the table and crossed his ankles. Lacing his fingers behind his neck, he leaned back in the chair and pictured himself in the Imperial Palace, sitting on the Crystal Throne of Ganthus.

  Chapter 32: The Time Warrior Ritual, Chronos

  The British troops stood ready.

  In the baking heat of the computer-generated southern African sun, the sweating, red-coated soldiers were in their ranks and files, weapons loaded, ready and waiting. In front of them were the makeshift barricade of wagons, mealie bags, empty ammunition boxes, packs, haversacks, tents, and anything that the soldiers could carry. The barricade stood about a metre and a half high, with the wagons forming the backbone of the structure. Everything else was crammed around or beneath the wagons to prevent the marauding Zulus getting into the position.

  Sitting in the open ground between the two Dongas, behind what was called the Conical Kop, Billy had made the best of whatever ground he had. To the north of the position was the great sweep of the Nqutu plateau; that was where Billy expected the Zulus to launch their attack. To the west, the great, looming form of the mountain glowered down at them. This would be where the Zulu right “Horn” or pincer would sweep down to try to envelop the British position, but also where many would split off to attack Rorke’s Drift. To the east, there was more of the rolling pasture broken up by more dongas, whilst to the south, another river ran about three kilometres beyond his position. It wasn’t ideal, but the two dongas on his flanks were the best protection that he could scour from this meagre territory.

  It was eleven forty-five A.M., and a young lieutenant by the name of Raw at the head of his cavalry patrol, had ridden his sweat-lathered horse right into the square to inform Billy that there were thousands of Zulus heading towards the camp from the east. Billy had thanked him and ordered any of his men who could fire ten rounds a minute into the firing lines at the barricade. The rest were to form into what Billy was calling his “Spear Companies”, whilst a handful of the best horsemen were sent out to contact Lord Chelmsford to provide further confirmation of his previous messengers that he had sent throughout the morning.

  Now, Billy was warning them that they would have a fight on their hands; an incredibly hard one at that. Confidently, the British soldiers handled their loaded rifles, each of them having been issued with one hundred rounds of ammunition; this was a increase from the usual seventy rounds that each soldier was issued during campaigns. This gave them enough firepower for a ten full minutes, which many considered would be more than ample to drive away the expected the spear and club wielding savages that the young colonel expected to run down the ridgeline.

  The water and ammunition wagons formed the centre of the defensive position; these were the two commodities that were vital for their survival. Each face of the square barricade was built to a length of thirty metres. That gave Billy, and the British soldiers, a defensive front of one hundred and twenty metres. With some rough and ready calculations, Billy estimated that he would have between seventeen and eighteen hundred soldiers to defend that area of front. In terms of defenders, Billy knew that he could rely on the five companies of the First battalion of the 24th regiment, along with the single company of the Second battalion. That was about six hundred effective men to form the backbone of the defence.

  There were an additional seventy men from the Royal Artillery; to serve the two field guns and the Congreve Rocket Launchers. There were various Natal Police and volunteer mounted units, who would probably contribute another one hundred and fifty effectively trained men.

  Then, there was the vexing problem of the Natal Native Infantry. Billy estimated that he would have three companies; each one consisting of three hundred men, from the Natal Native Infantry.

  Being composed predominantly of native troops; with white NCOs and officers, the British army was inherently suspicious of the Natal Native Infantry units. Although given the same standard of training as British army regulars, the Natal Native Infantry were still issued with insufficient firearms to make them an effective fighting force. The firearms that they carried were old and outdated, and they were issued one weapon for every ten men. The majority of the Natal Native Infantry were expected to fight with their traditional shields and spears. With no issued uniform, they were virtually indistinguishable from their Zulu enemies, except for the red bandana that they wore on their foreheads, or red rags on their upper arm.

  For Billy Caudwell, it was a problem of capability versus the prejudice of the white officers and troops. The Natal Native Infantry were trained to the same level as the “squadies” in the 24th. This meant that a good few of them would be able to fire the required ten rounds per minute that would qualify them for the firing line. There were spare Martini-Henry rifles lying in their boxes in the Quartermaster’s Stores, and Billy Caudwell was going to make sure that anyone who could use a rifle effectively was going to get one. Calling the Natal Native Infantry officers and NCOs together, he instructed them to draw up a list of those that could accurately fire ten shots in a minute, and draw weapons and ammunition for those men from the Quartermaster. Those that couldn’t fire the ten in a minute were being formed into companies to stand behind the riflemen.

  The protests had begun almost immediately with the Natal Native officers, who complained about how their troops woul
d most likely take the weapons and ammunition and join the Zulus. For a moment, Billy was struck by the sheer absurdity of it. Here were the men who were supposed to lead the Native troops into battle, and, they didn’t even trust their subordinates with firearms. For a moment, Billy wondered just exactly what the Native troops thought of their officers. Maybe issuing them with weapons was a bad idea after all; they would most likely use them to shoot these men in the back.

  Because Billy Caudwell was coming very close to shooting a few of those officers himself.

  Having had experience of commanding a fleet that included a whole host of separate species; and a whole host of races within some of these species, Billy Caudwell had no time for their prejudice. In no uncertain terms, he told these officers and NCOs exactly what he expected of them. Red-faced with anger and resentment, the Natal Native officers and NCO’s were dismissed.

  Next to complain was the Quartermaster; a tall, thick-set, powerfully-built fair-haired man with over twenty years of soldiering experience, by the name of Pullen. It came as something of a surprise to Billy to find that he actually had a reasonable objection: he had less than one hundred spare rifles to issue. Billy attempted to reassure the Quartermaster with his own belief that there would most likely be fewer than one hundred men to issue them to. However, he did order the Quartermaster to break them out of their cases and clean them all up to have them ready for issue. In the event, less than sixty Natal Native Infantry troops were considered sufficiently competent to be issued with a Martini-Henry rifle. But, as Billy Caudwell well knew, every additional rifle was going to count, and every Natal Infantryman that could carry a spear was going to be useful if the Zulus managed to reach the barricade.

  There was so much still to do, and so little time in which to get it done.

  Billy had hastily assigned the carpenters to driving nails through any pieces of wood they could find, and ordered a squad of ten men to round up every drinking glass, glass jar or bottle in the command. He then sent them out to the one hundred yard marker posts; that had been staked out to allow the soldiers to mark the range of their targets, where they were to smash the glass and set it onto the ground.

  Billy had hoped to create a horse-shoe, several feet deep, of smashed glass, across the north face of the barricade; where he expected the main body of Zulus to attack. But, to his dismay, glasses, bottles and glass jars were in short supply. So, what Billy ended up getting was a rough and patchy string of broken glass sprinkled across most of the front of the square.

  The carpenters took planks, tables, and any flat piece of wood they could find, broke them up with axes and saws, and proceeded to smash their four and six inch nails through them. These were then scattered across the same area as the broken glass, with the sharp nail points protruding upwards. This at least gave Billy coverage across the whole front of the north face of the barricade. It would be a nasty surprise for the bare-footed Zulu warriors, but the question still remained: how long would it stop them for?

  At around ten o’clock, with the barricade almost half-built, lieutenant-colonel Anthony Durnford arrived at the camp. In a short and brief exchange, Billy took command of his troops. The lieutenant colonel, with the paralysed left hand, had wanted to ride out and “attack the Zulus wherever they appeared”, but was immediately silenced by Billy, who ordered every man who could fire ten rounds per minute onto the firing lines behind the barricade. With Durnford came more Natal Infantry, a Major Russell with three Congreve Rocket troughs and five squadrons of Natal Cavalry. Each of Durnford’s mounted Troopers, although black, was carrying an antiquated but, still very effective rifled carbine.

  Anthony Durnford, it appeared, did not have the same reservations as many of his comrades in the British Army about arming black troops. Each of his troopers wore a tan coloured European uniform and hat. They each carried a rifled carbine, along with their tribal spears in a strange quiver-like device that they slung on their backs. Not that any of that mattered to Billy Caudwell. Durnford had brought almost two hundred and fifty trained and armed troopers with him, and more Native Infantry. Colonel Durnford, relieved of his troops, had been dispatched to Chelmsford, with a small escort, and a request for reinforcements and assistance. As a senior officer, he was far more useful in trying to convince Lord Chelmsford of the danger of the situation at Isandlwana.

  By eleven fifteen, the barricade had been completed. The wagon drivers, with their oxen teams, had been sent back to Rorke’s Drift, as had the wounded, sick, and other non-combatants. With them, Billy Caudwell had sent a message for Commissary Officer Dalton to expect a Zulu attack. Billy Caudwell knew that part of the right wing of the Zulu attack would completely by-pass the Isandlwana position and head for the Buffalo River, and then into the British controlled Natal province. Rorke’s Drift would be the first military position these Zulus encountered, and he wanted to give the soldiers there as much warning as possible.

  At ten minutes after mid-day, Billy and the rest of the British troops suddenly heard the great horde of Zulu warriors before they saw them. Having been discovered by British scouts on the far side of the ridge, the Zulu commanders had decided that an immediate attack was in order. Thinking that they would have the element of surprise, the Zulu commanders had pressed their warriors to quickly cover the ground towards the British camp. The Zulu had quickly organised and advanced to their attack positions. Not surprisingly, the noise of a large number of men moving forward was difficult to conceal, and unknown to the Zulu commanders, the British soldiers were already waiting for them.

  “There they are!” A man yelled the alarm that caused Billy and the other soldiers to focus their attention on the ridgeline.

  On the ridgeline, the first of the black figures appeared. Through the heavy field glasses, Billy focussed on the figure that stood on the ridge and challenged the British soldiers below him. With a short, stabbing spear in his right hand and a large, white, oval ox-hide shield and war club in the other, he raised his weapons into the air and called his war cry to the sky. Billy, expecting the plumage and finery of the Zulu warrior, was rather disappointed to see that he wore little more than a dark brown loincloth. He did, however, look well-fed, muscular, and determined to inflict some damage on Billy’s soldiers. In the early afternoon sun, his oiled body shone and glistened, accentuating his powerful physique.

  “Dangerous looking rogue.” Major Pulleine, standing next to Billy Caudwell, looked on with admiration.

  “Yes, Major, but he’s not bullet-proof, is he?” Billy never took his eyes away from the ridgeline, where more and more black figures started to appear.

  Within a few moments the entire ridgeline was thick with thousands upon thousands of Zulu warriors.

  “Well, there certainly are plenty of them!” Pulleine remarked.

  “Are there more than twenty thousand on that ridge, would you say Major?” Billy tried to sound calm, but all the while a horrible realisation was beginning to dawn in his mind.

  The part of his mind that was Teg Portan knew that you did not show anxiety, fear, or lack of confidence to your subordinates on the verge of battle. Fear could spread through the ranks of an army like an infectious virus, gnawing at their fighting spirit and confidence like woodworm.

  Yet, at the back of his mind was the nagging doubt that something was not quite right here. The part of his mind that was Teg Portan had told him to expect the unexpected.

  It had been an article of faith that the Ganthoran Time Warrior computers would recreate the battle situation accurately. All told, the entire Zulu army should be no more than twenty-five thousand warriors, maximum. However, to the trained eye of Teg Portan, there seemed to be slightly more than that number on the ridge alone. The further two wings of the Zulu army, which would try to envelope his flanks, could add between another fifteen to twenty thousand more to this particular formation on the ridge.

  “Between fifteen and twenty thousand, I’d say, sir,” Pulleine said.

  “Stand
to!” A gruff military voice barked loudly from behind Caudwell and Pulleine.

  A moment later, the air was split with the sharp, strident tones of a bugle calling the soldiers to their battle positions. To get a better view, Billy and Major Pulleine climbed onto the water supply wagon at the centre of the position, whilst all around them, the remaining soldiers abandoned their duties and dashed to join their comrades in their own companies. Rifles were quickly unslung, helmets crammed onto heads, and uniform tunics were buttoned up to present a regimentally correct and precise face to the enemy. As the Zulu warriors began to crowd the ridgeline, over to his right Billy heard a lone resonating Zulu voice begin a war chant. Sweeping his field glasses in the direction of the chant-leader, he saw a group of five older, grey-haired men carrying white ox-hide shields on an outcrop of the ridge.

  These were the Zulu commanders; the izinDuna. These would be the men who would direct and motivate the younger warriors on the battlefield. Backed up by a huge organisation of medicine men and Impi, or regiment commanders, the izinDuna were the ones who would put the mettle into the warriors’ courage. If he could get rid of them, then the Zulu army would be badly disadvantaged.

  Any change in tactics would have to come from the Impi commanders on the ground, and Billy Caudwell doubted that the Zulu attacks could be so co-ordinated without their izinDuna if things started to go wrong for them.

  Up on the ridge, Billy saw thousands of Zulu warriors begin some kind of war dance. The warriors stamped their bare feet against the hardened ground and chanted in response to the leader. The chanting was rhythmic, as was the war dance, which indicated a highly disciplined and ordered formation. They looked confident and bold as they made stabbing motions with their short spears in the direction of the British formation, and held their shields above their heads.