1636- the China Venture

by Eric Flint

  As soon as they had laid these assault bridges, they scurried back, no doubt thankful to be alive. A trumpet was blown, and the bandits rode forward at a trot.

  Colonel von Siegroth stood next to Fang Kongzhao, watching. “What are they thinking? That we withheld fire to avoid harming the hostages? Or that we are running low on ammunition, and don’t want to waste it on noncombatants?”

  “Both, perhaps. I hope you are satisfied with the new volley-gun setup.”

  The colonel shrugged. “Time will tell.”

  Von Siegroth’s volley gun number one, commanded by Sven, was now positioned on the mamian east of and nearest to the south gate, thanks to the preparatory work carried out the day before.

  * * *

  Mike Song lit the fuse, grabbed the free ends, and swung the “bee swarm” napalm bomb around in circles over his head, like a bolo. And then he released it.

  As he intended, the bomb flew onto one of the enemy’s assault bridges. A moment later, the fuse ran out and exploded, igniting the napalm. The burning liquid spread out. The couple of pounds of napalm carried by a single bomb wasn’t, of course, going to cover an entire assault bridge, but the fire could spread wherever there was combustible material—and there were plenty of bombs.

  Mike reached into his sack and pulled out another one.

  * * *

  While Judith’s fiendish concoction could burn wet wood, it did so slowly, especially if the wood was plastered with mud as the assault bridges were. That gave the enemy time to have men bring up buckets of sand or earth to smother the napalm blazes. Assuming that those men weren’t picked off by the town’s archers, of whom Liu Rushi was one of the more effective.

  Of course, the enemy had archers, too.

  Mike was having trouble picking out new targets, what with all the smoke, and held the same position a little too long. He raised his arm to throw the grenade and took an arrow into the bicep. He dropped the grenade—fortunately it fell over the wall—and sat down in shock.

  “Mike, I got another one!” yelled Liu Rushi. “I think a squad leader of some kind.… Mike?” She turned her head and saw Mike sitting, his face pale, the arrow shaft sticking out of his throwing arm.

  “Mike!” She dropped her bow and rushed over to him. “Someone, help me!”

  A couple of militiamen heard her and came over to help. One reached for the arrow shaft, but Liu Rushi protested. “No, leave it in!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I am sure.”

  They shrugged. One grabbed Mike under his armpits. He groaned as the arm was moved, and the helper made a quick apology, but didn’t let go.

  The other grabbed Mike’s legs and they hurriedly moved Mike away from the parapet, and then to the nearest tower.

  “Should we take him down the stairs, or leave him here?”

  Mike raised his head. “Get Doctor Bartsch, please.”

  “Leave him here,” said Liu Rushi, “and one of you fetch the barbarian physician. He should be near the gatehouse.”

  They gave her another skeptical look, but complied.

  Some minutes later Doctor Jacob Bartsch came up the stairs. “Arrow wound, I hear?”

  “Yes, in the biceps. I had it left in the wound, as you said to do.”

  “Good! If you yank the arrow out, it is likely that you’ll leave the arrowhead behind, and it becomes harder to find and extract.”

  He reached into his bag and pulled out a wooden dowel. “Put this in your mouth, Mike. The arrowhead may be barbed, and if so I will need to enlarge the wound in order to extract it intact. Indeed, I may have to do some cutting just to determine where it is.”

  Doctor Bartsch took out a bottle of alcohol and poured some on the wound; Mike trembled. “Sorry if this stings, but the up-time doctors I met in Grantville were very insistent on the importance of disinfection.

  “Get a couple of men to hold him still, Liu Rushi.” She did so, and he said, “Well, then, let’s see what we have here.” He poured some alcohol over his fingers to disinfect them.

  He dilated the wound with the aid of a long, narrow knife, cutting perhaps an inch deep; Mike groaned. Bartsch took hold of the shaft and gently tried to twirl it; it didn’t respond.

  “I am afraid that it’s lodged in the bone.” He explored the wound with one of his fingers, trying to sense the position of the arrowhead. “I don’t think the penetration was as deep as it could have been, however. And the head hasn’t been bent. Sit him with his back to yonder wall,” Bartsch said.

  “It’s fortunate I read Ambroise Paré’s works when I was at Strasbourg,” he continued as he rummaged through his bag. “While Paré is known to the up-timers for his writings on the treatment of gunshot wounds and burns, he is quite informative on arrows, too.” He produced forceps. “With these I can grasp the arrowhead.”

  He turned to speak to the helpers. “One of you hold his wounded arm up and rock-steady against that wall, and one hold his other shoulder. So, Mike, give me your attention. My colleague Doctor Carvalhal passed on some useful information on arrow extraction. Not, curiously, from Grantville’s doctors—arrow wounds were rare—but from the up-timers who engaged in Civil War reenactment and researched the state of the medical arts in America at that time.”

  As Bartsch droned on, he worked the forceps into the wound and around the arrowhead. “…of course the Union wasn’t facing Confederate arrows, but there were still hostile natives on the American frontier, and they used bows as well as guns.…”

  Bartsch shifted the arrow from side to side, loosening its seat in the bone. “This is really very much like extracting a tooth, Mike.”

  Bartsch sat down on the floor, facing the injured arm. He put his feet against the same wall against which Mike’s injured arm was pinned, with his legs bent. He grasped the end of the forceps in both hands, and said, “Hold him still!” The helpers strengthened their grip on Mike, and Bartsch started pulling on the arrowhead, gently at first, and then with progressively greater force. The force came initially from his arms, but when this proved insufficient, then he also pressed with his feet to push himself away from the wall. At last, the arrow slid free.

  “Fetch some clean water, Liu Rushi.” As she did so, Bartsch quickly checked to confirm that the shaft and arrowhead were intact and then rinsed and disinfected the wound. He reached into his bag and sprinkled a powder over it. “This is sulfanilamide, one of your up-time wonder drugs. From a batch made in Essen in 1634, so it should still be quite potent. It will fight infection. I am most worried about tetanus, even though that’s a soil organism.” Then he applied a bandage. “Let’s get you down to someplace safer.”

  Bartsch and the militiamen helped Mike down the stairs, with Liu Rushi following. For his part, Mike found his reaction to the wound not what he would have expected. He was in pain, certainly, but an arrow wound in the bicep wasn’t life-threatening and mostly he was feeling the adrenalin “rush” from being in battle.

  “I should return to my post,” Bartsch said. “If you see signs of infection, let me know right away. And stay off the walls until I say you’re fully healed.”

  After the doctor left, Mike turned to Liu Rushi. “What should I do if I can’t fight?”

  “Oh, I can think of something, hero,” said Liu Rushi. “Would you like a reward for valor?”

  “Hmm, yes, but I may get weak from loss of blood, and—” Mike jerked his head toward the injured arm. “I lack the use of one arm.”

  “You just lie back and wait for the skies to bring clouds and rain,” she said.

  * * *

  Sven could see that the bandit army was bringing up a ram and crew protected by what he had been told was called a “rammers’ house cart.” It had vertical walls and a peaked roof. Walls and roof were of wood, and were covered with wet hide and mud to protect against incendiaries. In front, there was a removable screen, with peepholes, to give the rammers some protection from frontal fire. Inside, according to his Chinese informant,
there would be push bars coming off the walls for the men inside to push the cart forward, and a scaffolding to hold the ram in place. The idea was that once it was just outside the gate the men would let go of the push bars, remove the scaffolding, pick up the ram, and swing the ram again and again against the doors of the gate until they broke through.

  The rammers’ house cart made it across the moat, despite being targeted by fire arrows. As it did so, Sweet Melon, on Sven’s command, inserted a strip of cartridges into the breech block of the volley gun, and closed it.

  “Pivot full left!” Sven ordered.

  Sweet Melon, with the help of the third member of the crew, swiveled the carriage as much as the widened embrasure would permit.

  Then Sven adjusted the elevation screw, depressing the barrel somewhat. He had picked out the killing ground: the land just beyond the moat, when the ram crew would be tired from going up slope.

  “Almost,” said Sven, pulling back the hammer, setting the cap in place, and grabbing the lanyard. The others stepped back.

  The rammers’ house cart made it up the moat slope from the water surface and onto the level ground. The killing ground, Sven hoped.

  Sven stepped back, and pulled the lanyard. The hammer struck the cap, and it ignited the powder train. Volley gun number one gave the ram cart a twenty-five-bullet love tap. The range was close—a little more than eighty yards—and its fusillade stopped the ram in its tracks. At least for the moment.

  “Reload!”

  Sweet Melon opened the breech block, ran his fingers along the block to extract the cartridges from the barrels, and pulled the strip free. As soon as he had it free, the third crewman was setting a new strip in the block. In the meantime, Sweet Melon set the used strip down in a storage box. The cartridges would be reloaded with powder and loose balls from their stock. A proper volley-gun company would have a runner and a loader to take care of that while the guns were being fired, but here, it would be done when the volley gun was not in action.

  Sven saw that the ram cart still hadn’t moved. It appeared that the one volley had penetrated the wooden walls, killing all within. The defenders would have to make sure, but the precious volley-gun ammo didn’t need to be used for that purpose.

  With the ram cart reduced to a static and rather tattered target, it was repeatedly struck with thrown incendiaries, which eventually consumed it. After that, the enemy appeared to lose heart, and retreated.

  Sven sat back, exhausted.

  Chapter 49

  Ninth Month, Day 18

  Eric Garlow studied the enemy through his rifle scope, then sent word to Colonel von Siegroth. “Looks like they’re going to try to ram again.”

  Once again, the ram was cart-borne, but this version had sloped rather than vertical sides. The colonel permitted the ram to cross the new assault bridge over the moat so that it could be targeted by volley gun number one in its side embrasure.

  “Fire!”

  Eric studied the results through his scope. “I am not seeing any significant damage.” Volley gun number one fired again.

  “Send for the colonel!” he yelled at a runner.

  When von Siegroth came up, Eric explained, “The last volley ripped up the wet hides they use to protect against incendiary attack. And what I can see through the exposed patches is that they have sheet metal underneath.”

  “Are we getting any penetration?”

  “Not that I can see. Not only is the metal harder to penetrate than the wood they used previously, but there’s probably some deflection, given the slope of the sides.”

  Von Siegroth quickly considered his options. Moving volley gun number one to a position over the gate wouldn’t work; the embrasures there hadn’t been widened and even if he mounted the gun en barbette, that is, on a platform so that it was above the parapet, by the time he did so, the enemy would be so close that the gun couldn’t depress enough in any event.

  “Concentrate on picking off the enemy troops who aren’t protected by the cart, but would be following through if the ram succeeded. I will get help.”

  Von Siegroth spoke to the signaler that stood beside him. He signaled to the southeast corner tower, on whose bastion the short twelve-pounder was presently stationed, and directed it to fire on the ram cart. The range from the corner to the gate was only a little over two hundred yards, but the shooting would be tricky, because it could easily miss and hit the gate structure, making matters worse rather than better. And if the ram were at the gate itself, the intervening mamian would screen it from the tower.

  Shrapnel shells would not harm the gate, but he wasn’t sure that they would penetrate. Still…

  “Signal them to fire a shrapnel shell first.”

  Observing the result, von Siegroth considered it only slightly more effective than the volley gun had been.

  “Signal to fire solid shot.”

  The twelve-pounder missed.

  Von Siegroth grimaced. The window of opportunity had closed; the ram was too close to the gate for the twelve-pounder to bear upon it.

  Still, von Siegroth had an unpleasant surprise awaiting the bandits. Volley gun number two had been wheeled into position facing the inner door of the south gate. The plan was that if the outer door were forced, the inner door would be swung open and the portcullis would hold the assailants in place long enough for them to be slaughtered.

  Von Siegroth had realized that such an engagement would be at extremely close range, with no cover for the volley-gun crew, so this volley gun had been remounted on a Chinese shield cart. That was a four-wheeled cart with a stout vertical wood wall at the front end. One of the boards of the frontal armor of the shield cart was removed, creating a firing slit, and Colonel von Siegroth added a periscope to this, for safe viewing of the enemy. Two centuries ago, the great Johannes Gutenberg has sold periscopes to pilgrims, so they could see over the heads of a crowd.

  It had taken four men to lift the volley-gun mechanism off its two-wheel-and-trail field carriage. The city carpenters had constructed a sawhorse-like structure immediately behind the shield, to mount the volley gun on the shield cart, and the laborers groaned as they lifted the volley gun once more to engage it with the sawhorse axle. The elevator screw was left with the old field carriage, since there would be no elevation or depression if this volley gun were brought into action.

  And, unless Eric Garlow could stop the ram crew in their tracks, it seemed likely that volley gun number two would see action in the very near future.

  * * *

  Eric Garlow fired a rifle grenade. It had a smaller blast radius than the shrapnel shell, but Eric was closer and could place it more precisely. The blast did significant damage to the side armor of the rammers’ “ironclad.”

  Unfortunately, it was too little, too late.

  * * *

  A messenger breathlessly reported to Fang Kongzhao and Colonel von Siegroth that the outer doors of the south gate were badly damaged and couldn’t be expected to last much longer. The portcullis, of course, had already been dropped.

  “Open the inner doors!” commanded Fang Kongzhao.

  The guards paused, not sure they had heard him correctly.

  “Do it!”

  They lifted off the heavy crossbar, grunting, and set it down to one side, then grabbed hold of the door handles and pulled.

  “Enough!”

  The doors had been swung open only partway, just enough to provide a six-foot-wide gap to accommodate the width of the shield cart on which volley gun number two was mounted.

  “Pile sandbags and prop timbers against the doors so they can’t be pushed open further!” Kongzhao added. After the laborers finished doing this, they crouched behind the doors. It would be their job to quickly push the doors closed and rebar the inner gate if the volley-gun crew ran out of ammunition or was killed.

  In the double-storied tower that reared above the south gate, several soldiers had come onto the town-side balcony, carrying stones and other nastiness to
drop upon any attackers who made it into the trapezoidal area formed by the two doors and volley gun number two.

  Colonel von Siegroth could feel sweat beading on his brow, but deemed it poor for morale to publicly admit to its presence by wiping it away.

  The sweat would be quite evident when the outer door actually fell, as it would let in light from the outside. However, it was judged important that the colonel be able to estimate the enemy’s progress toward that end, so torches were lit in the sconces just inside of and flanking the outer doors. The sconces were shielded so they didn’t cast any light back toward the rear door. There was also a lit bull’s-eye lantern on the ground immediately in front of the volley gun, shining forward.

  Peering through the periscope, he could see the progress being made by the enemy. He could see extensive cracking on the wooden back of the outer doors, and he could imagine how the sheet metal on the front surface must be dented and buckled.

  “Any moment now,” he warned the crew.

  There was a crashing sound, and the door splintered.

  “Fire!”

  Twenty-five Minié bullets sped toward the enemy. Perhaps five of these struck the bars of the portcullis, and ricocheted off; the rest continued on. It was a target-rich environment and they couldn’t help but hit someone. Von Siegroth had calculated in advance how much to splay the barrels for targets that were just inside the outer door. A simple lever on the underside of the volley gun fanned out all the barrels at once.

  The enemy recoiled. It was no surprise that there were defenders, but in a ten-foot-wide gate, they could have expected fire from a half-dozen crossbowmen, not twenty-five .52 caliber barrels.

  And for that matter there was one crossbowman lying prone under the volley gun’s shield cart, whose platform was a foot or so off the ground. He lit up an incendiary bolt and fired it. He then pushed off his elbows and squirmed back and off to the side, like an inchworm moving in reverse, to safety.