River of Bones

by Taylor Anderson

  Reassembling them and getting them back in the water had been a nightmare, however, particularly since the yards at Songze were already stretched to capacity by other projects. It had remained uncertain if they’d arrive in time. They had—or at least one had. Perhaps the other was still supporting the downriver crossing? Roundshot immediately started whacking the monitor, most careening off in the dark. A couple hit the pilothouse, and even it seemed proof against Grik field guns, but Bekiaa doubted the people inside would shake the impacts off as easily. Jagged holes appeared in the two smoke-streaming funnels, stanchions were knocked away, and boats were turned to kindling, but the ship kept firing as if it barely noticed these little insults.

  Recovering from her happy surprise, Bekiaa refocused on matters at hand. “Commence firing!” she ordered. Stationed in the bow of about half the barges were pairs of Maxim guns and their crews. At less than a hundred yards, they sent tracers over their own people on the beach and brought them down to smother the tops of the obstacles they faced. They went through belts very quickly, and all the troops detailed to stay with them, provide security, and replace gunners if they were killed had more belts draped across them.

  “Here we go,” Bele said, gritting his teeth as the beach approached. “Get down!” There wasn’t room for everyone to hit the deck, but most crouched or took a knee. Bekiaa wished they could’ve built up the sides of the barges to provide protection from small arms, at least. This quickly became a more pressing concern when, with the nearest defensive structures demolished, the monitor raised its guns and started dropping hell beyond them. Unfortunately, no bombardment could wipe out every obstacle, and Grik cannon and musket fire resumed against the barges as they started grinding ashore. Men and ’Cats fell around Bekiaa amid the crack and thump of heavy lead balls hitting wood and flesh. Splinters flew and troops screamed. Others just dropped. Both Gentaa at the forward steering oars cried out and tumbled into the water. Peering over the low rail, Bekiaa shouted, “Haang on!” and with a crunching, scraping sound, the barge ran aground.

  “Go, go, go!” Bele roared, standing aside while troops streamed past. “Machine-gun squad, stand by!” They would set the weapons onshore and help push them forward on their low wheeled carriages. More of the 23rd’s barges landed beside them, smashing over abandoned longboats, and clouds of grapeshot and musket balls tore into them as well. Machine guns continued to reply, however, giving cover as troops raced to join their comrades at the base of the breastworks that were still intact. Bekiaa eyed the gaping holes the monitor made off to her right as she ran, breath coming in great gasps, but she pushed on. The gaps weren’t for her.

  Most of the light infantry she finally joined huddling at the base of the breastworks were also from the 23rd, but quite a few men and ’Cats from other legions were mixed in now. It didn’t matter. They’d used all their grenades and were probably getting short on rifle ammo. Her wave had plenty of both, and more grenades showered over the top while relieved troopers pillaged ammo crates.

  “Fill your cartridge boxes! Quickly, quickly!” Bele roared. “Get those machine guns up here!” he added, watching the weapons’ clumsy advance over bodies and broken ground. “Carry them!” he shouted, frustrated. Then he pointed ahead. “Straight to the top!”

  “Let’s go!” Bekiaa yelled, her voice carrying farther than Bele’s, despite their difference in size. A thunderous roar accompanied the 23rd to the top of the breastworks, and it spread along the length of the assault as more legions joined the charge. Machine guns, dozens of them, slammed down on the peak of the barricade and immediately put fire on the second barrier their aerial recon had warned them to expect.

  Bekiaa took an instant to survey the hellish scene. Grik corpses and parts of them were scattered all over the reverse slope. Some still moved, dragging their torn bodies along the ground. Cannon had been upended, partially buried, even bent and broken by direct hits, and a reeking miasma of blood, ripped bowels, and feces lingered with the low-lying smoke. Republic artillery still pounded more distant positions, and the flashing explosions and geysering earth and timbers almost as far as she could see riveted her attention for an instant. But there were also a lot of Grik musket flashes directed back at them, and the vroop! of balls passing close shook her out of her reverie. That’s when she saw hundreds, maybe thousands, of Grik hurrying in between the barriers to fill the gap the monitor made. “Prefect Bele!” She pointed.

  “Pass the word,” Bele shouted. “Even-number guns will keep firing across. Keep their heads down. Odd-number guns and riflemen, engage the enemy reinforcements! Grenades!”

  The 23rd wasn’t the only legion to use those tactics, and the Grik, rushing in from the flanks at the bottom of what amounted to a ravine, began dying under a merciless fusillade. Even these different, more disciplined Grik couldn’t take that kind of punishment forever, and some started running up the fallback berm to join their comrades holding there. Others swarmed up to attack their tormenters, bayonets fixed.

  Sword to sword, spear to spear, one on one, only the most skilled man or ’Cat could cope with almost any Grik. They were bigger than ’Cats and just as fast, and brought other weapons, like vicious teeth and claws, to the fight. Only a disciplined shield wall and superior weapons opposing rampaging hordes had allowed the Allies to prevail in battles of that kind in the past. Abandoning swords, spears, and crossbows for muskets as their primary weapon gave the Grik greater standoff firepower and lethality, but made them possibly less effective at close-quarters combat—particularly when facing breech-loading rifles, also equipped with bayonets and wielded by soldiers taught to use them well. The screaming, shooting, clashing collision at the top of the breastworks was louder than the artillery fire—and Bekiaa was right in the middle of it.

  “Protect the machine gunners!” she yelled. They didn’t carry rifles and couldn’t shoot in the middle of the press. She fired her Springfield, shot after shot, as fast as she could work the bolt, and Grik tumbled back. She didn’t have time to reload when the rifle ran dry, and slammed its bayonet in the side of a Grik trying to skewer Optio Meek. It shrieked and rolled away.

  “Thankee, Legate!” Meek cried, quickly emptying his revolver at another pair of Grik. Besides the copies of MG08 Maxim machine guns, 11-mm revolvers carried by officers and NCOs were the only multishot firearms in the Republic Army. Current-issue rifles had strong bolt actions but no magazine. Bekiaa suspected that would change.

  Bekiaa parried a bayonet aimed at her middle and drove her own into her attacker’s throat. “Don’t thaank me,” she gasped. “Get a daamn rifle! How maany times I gotta tell you?” She hissed when a sharp, triangular point barely pierced her rhino-pig armor and pricked the back of her right shoulder. She spun, but Prefect Bele had already smashed the Grik’s skull with the butt of his rifle. He reversed the weapon and stabbed another. Bekiaa took the few seconds she had to strip another clip into her rifle before starting to shoot again.

  A machine gun clattered nearby and she realized its front must’ve been cleared of friendlies. In seconds, another joined it—and another. Only then did she feel the pressure on her legion beginning to fade. “They’re pulling baack!” she shouted. “Pour it in ’em!” Troops started shooting again as they finally found time to reload. Bright flashes and white smoke chased the remaining Grik, starting to stream directly away toward the fallback berm. A roar erupted to Bekiaa’s right and she realized the Grik weren’t just running from them; they were fleeing the arrival of troops from the second wave of barges who’d charged straight through the gap the monitor made and continued running right up to the top of the second barricade. Once there, they started shooting, throwing grenades, and finally hosing Grik with enfilading machine-gun fire, tracers sparkling right and left.

  Bekiaa looked around as the incoming musketry quickly tapered off. “How baad?” she asked Bele, wondering what his estimate of their casualties might be. He was covered
with blood but didn’t seem hurt. On the other hand, the back of her shoulder was starting to burn, and she winced, blinking at the sky. That’s when she realized she could begin to see a brightening beyond the smoke blanketing the battlefield. The long dark night was almost past. This assumption was confirmed when ten Cantets roared low overhead, three small antipersonnel bombs slung under each wing. The army now had thirty of the swift little planes, though they’d never revealed more than four to the enemy.

  Bele glanced around as well and blinked. “I don’t know. I really don’t think we lost too many, considering. We’re still effective if that’s what you’re asking. My God, the Twenty-third can fight!” he added proudly.

  “Yes, it caan,” Bekiaa agreed. “An’ we already knew thaat.” She blinked ruefully. “Gener-aal Kim’s straa-ti-gee seems to have worked after all; these Grik haad grown complacent. They haad no clue about the chik-aash we were gonna dump on ’em.” Her tail flicked, betraying an anxious unease. “Gaugh-aala was haard. This was easy. But I bet it’ll never be this easy again.”

  “The Grik learn, but so do we,” Bele comforted her. “And we learn faster, I think.”

  “I hope so.” Bekiaa pointed across where the Grik had gone. “This fight’s not over yet. Let’s move while our new best friends . . .” She squinted and blinked surprise. “That’s Kim’s own First Legion.” Day was spreading fast and she could see the pennant of the 1st waving atop the next obstacle. She raised her voice and pointed across the abattoir below at the next enemy position. “Follow me! Let’s get over there while the First keeps their daamn heads down!”

  The gruesome view from the top of the second Grik position was much like the first, and Bekiaa supposed she had the new howitzers and mortars to thank for that, as well as the fact the Grik were still wedded to breastworks instead of trenches. She hoped they hadn’t learned their lesson. The artillery fire now fell on North Soala itself, blasting much of the city to rubble beneath a monstrous plume of reddish dust. They’d lose the heavy mortars as they edged past their extreme range, but the howitzers were doing fine work. Even the 75 mms were more help now that they were firing at longer range, at a higher trajectory. Bekiaa was slightly lower here than she’d been on the first breastworks but had a better view of the vast panorama of battle beyond.

  Ten legions were fighting hard on the distant left and things looked pretty rough for them. The city was almost intact there, and the enemy had plenty of obstacles to defend. There was fierce fighting in the rubble, for that matter, and Bekiaa wasn’t sure which would be harder to overcome. The Grik left (on her right) was starting to come unwrapped. About five miles away, where the river shifted slightly north, she could barely see the twin smears of rising coal smoke from the other monitor and wondered if its presence made the crossing easier there as well. In the middle . . .

  “They’re running,” Prefect Bele said, amazed.

  “Cap-i-taan—I mean, Centurion!” Bekiaa called past him to one of her Lemurian officers. She still thought of centuries as companies. “How’s the aammo?”

  “More comes!”

  “Very well.”

  “There aren’t many civvy Grik takin’ off,” Optio Meek observed, staring though Repub binoculars.

  “Prob’ly not maany left,” Bekiaa stated flatly. “Maybe the biggest difference between us an’ the Grik. We’re tryin’ to defend our people. Grik move in to defend a place—an’ eat everybody there.” She pointed at another dust cloud rising to the north. “Gener-aal Taal’s caav-alry came across with the downriver force. Looks like he’s finally gettin’ to play. He’ll hit those runnin’ Grik like a scythe,” she added with satisfaction. The Cantets weren’t waiting, and seemed to focus all their attention on the fleeing enemy mob as they dove and swooped above it. Little bombs fell and flames roiled up.

  “What’ll we do?” Meek asked.

  Bekiaa nodded to the left. “Still haard fighting there. Send a runner to First Legion. They prob’ly got one of the wireless sets. Make sure they’ve told Gener-aal Kim the same things we’ve seen, an’ inform him we’re headin’ thaat way, to hit those holdout Grik in the aass! Make sure our aar-tillery knows too,” she quickly reminded.

  “What should the runner pass to the First Legion commander?” Bele asked with a growing, expectant grin. With the appointed rank of Legate, Bekiaa could technically order other legions to support what she wanted to do in battle, as long as it didn’t conflict with specific orders from a general—particularly General Kim.

  Bekiaa considered. “He’s secured his objective, just like us. Easier thaan expected too.” She paused and blinked regret. “For some of us.” She nodded to the left again. “Not easy over there, though.” She shrugged. “Tell him he can come too, if he waants.”

  CHAPTER 25

  ////// USS Santa Catalina

  Zambezi River

  Grik Africa

  December 31, 1944

  0120

  “Damn, it’s smoky. I can’t hardly catch a breath,” Silva grumbled, glaring at the glowing cherry on the end of the PIG-cig dangling from Gunny Horn’s lips. Silva, Horn, Lawrence, Risa, and Simy Gutfeld were trying to relax behind battered armor plates wired to the remaining stanchions as far forward on Santa Catalina’s portside upper deck as they could get. Beyond that point was nothing but twisted wreckage. The bright side was, the total destruction of the sunken bow had reduced the low-deck acreage they had to defend from Grik boarding attempts, and the wreckage presented a barrier to the upper decks as well. Fifteen or twenty of Gutfeld’s Marines and Chack’s Raiders were close by, lounging against the armor or sleeping on deck. A .30-caliber machine gun stood sentinel over them, wrapped in an oilcloth against the falling damp.

  Horn sucked a final lungful from the vile paper tube, then tossed it with a grimace. “Me either, but that wasn’t to blame.” He nodded at the south shore, lost in haze and the darkness of night. “Air strikes on Grik rocket batteries must’ve started some pretty big grass fires this time, on both sides of the river.”

  “It’s not that ’ad,” Lawrence said, even though he and their Khonashi troops seemed more susceptible to the ill effects of smoke inhalation than humans and ’Cats. “You are all just lose your . . . air in lungs, standing around. No exercise,” he added with a self-satisfied snort. He’d been working out with Chack’s Raiders on the aft well deck and fantail every day. Petey stirred from Silva’s shoulders and looked at Lawrence with big, glowing eyes. With a dismissive “Kack,” he settled back, and Lawrence quickly looked away, probably to hide his desire to snatch the useless pest and twist his head off.

  “Well, I for one am haappy our lonely staand may be near its end.” Risa sighed. Word had quickly spread that First Fleet had finally arrived off the river mouth and would begin moving to their relief at dawn. That meant they should start getting appreciable assistance by the end of the following day. The news had inspired a celebratory air among the defenders of the shattered, sunken fort, and Risa seemed infected by the mood herself. That worried Silva. Risa had always been one of the finest, most enthusiastic Grik killers he’d ever fought with, and their personalities meshed so well that they’d become—some said—more than just best friends, with the same almost-perverse talent for remaining oddly cheerful under the worst circumstances. But Dennis had noticed a striking change in Risa. It began after her brilliant but bitter stand at the Wall of Trees during Second Grik City, and became especially evident after their assault on Zanzibar. She’d lost some of her habitual liveliness and no longer reveled in the fight. He wasn’t sure how she’d take it if they discovered their “lonely stand” wasn’t quite over after all. Something about all the smoke was nagging at him, and he thought it was too early to relax. Particularly since the Grik hadn’t much pestered them for an entire week. They damn sure hadn’t forgotten they were there, and that could only mean they were cooking up something ugly—and probably big.

&nb
sp; “I don’t know,” Simy said thoughtfully, scratching his temple up under his helmet. It had been so long since any of them bathed, he was sure he had lice—or the local equivalent. “There couldn’t be much grass or brush left around here to burn.” Apparently, he was also still thinking about the smoke. “Maybe they’re burning their latrines.” He wrinkled his nose. “Stinks bad enough.”

  “Since when’ve the Grik ever gave a crap—where they crapped?” Silva asked. “I never seen ’em use no latrines.” He moistened a finger and raised it. “Wind seems mostly outa the south right now,” he declared. “Fires from bombing around the bend shouldn’t spread that far upwind.”

  “Maybe a zep or plane crashed. Or maybe they’re trying to choke us out,” Horn speculated.

  Silva grimaced. “Could be. Or . . . maybe they’re hidin’ something.” He raised his voice to the other ’Cats nearby. “Any o’ you monkeys hear anything?” A couple of Raiders looked at him, blinking curiosity, but shook their heads. A Shee-Ree blinked thoughtfully but didn’t reply. “Weird,” Silva muttered. “’Cause I think I do.” He glanced around at his friends. “I can’t hear high-pitched stuff worth a shit anymore.” He tossed in a grin. “’Specially women’s voices. All I get’s this squealy whine, see? Like a dry bearing. But maybe I’ve got to where I can hear low-pitched stuff better. Does that make sense?”

  “Maybe,” Horn agreed. “But what do you hear? What do you think you hear?”