A Band of Brothers

by William R. Forstchen

  Standing among the staff officers were the representatives of the support services: engineering, supply, military railroad, and Colonel Timokin, commander of the ever-expanding regiment of ironclads, and Bullfinch of the navy, and Theodor Vasilovich, who was attempting to replace the irreplaceable Ferguson, and Jack Petracci of the Air Corps, and Metropolitan Casmar, and finally his own wife, Kathleen, who was in charge of the hospital corps.

  Andrew looked around the table as Kal circulated like an old-style ward politician, shaking hands, inquiring about wives and children, setting everyone at ease. Andrew settled into a chair at the head of the table, the action a signal for the meeting to begin.

  “Pat, why don’t you start us off.”

  Pat stood up, stretching, and walked over to the map spread out on the table.

  “We’re flanked. It’s that simple.”

  He stopped as if finished with his delivery. Andrew finally stirred and motioned for him to continue.

  “It’s the age-old balance getting played out again. We have to rely on the railroads for movement. We’re tied to two strips of iron, and that makes us vulnerable. Cut our rails behind us and in a week we’ll starve and run out of ammunition. In spite of their advances in weapons, the preponderance of Bantag mobility still relies on the horse. However, unlike our previous foes they’ve also mastered fighting dismounted as infantry, and they have those devilish land ironclads.”

  Pat leaned over the map and pointed east of Roum, tracing out the line all the way back to their old position at Junction City, which had fallen at the start of the campaign back in the fall.

  “After losing Junction City, we thought we could pull back along the rail line. There were six major bridges of more than a hundred yards and dozens of minor ones that we could blow to slow their pursuit.”

  He shook his head sadly. “Their pursuit was beyond anything we could have ever imagined. Twice, as you know, they cut off a sizable part of our army and we had to turn with everything we had to cut them out. Meanwhile, behind their lines they must have had a hundred thousand or more Chin slaves rebuilding the line. Now we know where the rail production that Hans talked about was going. They weren’t laying a line toward Nippon, they were stockpiling the rails so they could rapidly rebuild the line between Junction City and Roum. I estimate their railhead is only fifty miles behind the front and being repaired at three or more miles a day.”

  “But in the winter?” Emil asked. “We always had to wait till spring to build. I remember something about ballast and such, that the ground shifts with the spring thaw if you don’t have a solid foundation under the track.”

  “Remember, we did lay track and ballast. Most of that track we tore up and took with us or turned into Sherman hairpins. Ties were burned as well. But the roadbed and ballast, that you just can’t destroy. They’re cutting new ties, bringing them down out of the forests. Granted, though, they are laying track right on top of frozen ground, and remember, we did a rush job on that rail line as well. Come spring it will give in places, and the replacement bridges will most likely give way in the spring floods as well.”

  “So hold till spring and their supply line becomes a mess,” Stan Bamburg, the new commander of 9th Corps, interjected.

  “We can hope so. Last spring, you’ll remember, was hard on us; we lost the bridge over the Ebro and tied everything to hell for three weeks. I think their engineers don’t have much of a clue how to build a proper bridge the way we’ve learned. Six major rivers, a good spring thaw with plenty of rain, and they’ll grind to a halt.”

  “That’s three months in the future. I’m more concerned about now. How did they break through?” Kal asked. “When I was here a month ago, both you and Andrew said we’d hold them on the Capua Line right through till next spring.”

  There was the slightest tone of accusation in Kal’s voice, something unusual for the president, who was noted for his humor and mildness, even when confronted by his angriest critics. Andrew could see the stress, the worry. It must have been a hard session with the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War before Kal came up here, he realized.

  “Two factors,” Andrew said, coming to his feet and motioning for Pat to cede the floor. “First, none of us dreamed they’d repair the rail line so quickly. Every yard of track must be paved with the bones of a dead slave. I believed, at first, that they’d secure their hold at Junction City. Maybe push us back fifty or a hundred miles, at worst back to the Ebro a hundred and fifty miles east of here, then wait till spring for the big push.

  “Their reaching Capua last week before we had fully fortified that line was something I did not expect. No modern army can support a sustained major operation much more than a hundred miles from its supply head— the logistics, the sheer number of wagons needed to keep the army supplied, becomes prohibitive. When we established the line on Capua we had a major river in front of us and a fairly narrow front, somewhat the same as Hispania. I had hoped crossing the Ebro would stall them for weeks before they could marshal the resources to push on.”

  He sadly shook his head. “But we all saw the reports from the scouts we infiltrated to within sight of old Fort Hancock. Half a dozen galleys a day were coming in loaded with rails and precut bridging material. I think a hundred thousand is an underestimate for the number of slaves working on the rail line. It might be more on the order of two hundred thousand.”

  “Poor beggars,” Pat sighed.

  Andrew nodded and remained silent for a moment. The image of what would happen if they should lose had to be constantly put to the forefront of everyone’s thinking. “Never make an enemy desperate” was an age- old maxim, and for the Republic it was one of the key ingredients of survival. The only alternative to victory was death in the slaughter pits of the Horde.

  “And then the rivers froze. Winter, rather than playing to our advantage, has played to theirs. Where they’ve yet to repair the bridges, they’ve got slave gangs offloading supplies, carrying them across the frozen river and then transferring them to the next train.

  “We now know as well that they brought up their land ironclads, at least forty of them, moved them north, made a crossing through the forest under the cover of last week’s blizzard, and flanked the position. Their ironclads can’t make much more than forty to fifty miles before breaking down. That means they ran the rail line right up to Capua nearly as quickly as we pulled back from the Ebro.

  “The screen in front of us was a deception, a light curtain to make us believe they were only shadowing us, when in fact they most likely have twenty or more umens, all with modern arms, less than a day from Capua and fully supplied for a major engagement along with thirty or more batteries of guns and hundreds of those new mortars.

  “Mr. President, the position we thought we could hold till spring is untenable. Even if we hold the front at Capua, their mounted umens will swing far outward, maybe even to the suburbs of Roum, and slash in and cut the rail. We can’t cover seventy-five miles of track and hold Capua at the same time. The bottom line is that their ironclads have flanked us and are supported by at least an umen of mounted troops with rifles.”

  “Then throw a corps up against them,” Marcus replied heatedly. “We must hold at Capua. The thought of Roum becoming a battlefield is unacceptable. The outer fortifications around the city are barely completed, and the suburbs will be overrun.”

  “Sir, if I thought we could hold the flank, I would do so. But we need at least four corps to hold the Capua Line, especially with the river frozen over. They can assault us along nearly a thirty-mile front between the forest and the hills to the south. For that matter, they are already flanking around to the south as well. If they’ve secured a river crossing up in the forest it won’t be one umen on our flank, it could be five or six within a matter of days. We get sucked into a fight, the front will keep expanding westward, and finally they’ll curl around us, sweep down, and cut the rail. We must pull out now.”

  “Then you reall
y aren’t sure just how much he is putting into the flanks, are you?” Marcus asked.

  “Sir, it’s sound tactics, and Ha’ark is a damn fine tactician.”

  “Well, what about air reconnaissance to get a definite answer? We see his machines shadowing us—where are ours?”

  Several of the corps commanders nodded in agreement, and Andrew looked over at Jack Petracci, who had come all the way up from Suzdal for the purpose of addressing this one question.

  “I wish we were flying, sir,” Jack said. “I hate like hell staying back at Suzdal and working on testing the new machines.”

  “Then test one over the front where we need it,” Marcus said. “One flight could lay to rest if indeed we have been flanked or not.”

  “Well sir, first off it’d take a couple of days just to bring a machine up. But the moment we fly that machine, Ha’ark will know we have a new design, one far better than theirs, and all surprise is lost. Before Chuck Ferguson died he kept saying we had to build a lot of machines first, dozens of them, and only then employ them in mass, sweep the skies of Ha’ark’s machines and never let him get back up again. It’s the same with the new ironclads we’ve started to make. Get a lot of them first, then unleash them in one killing blow. I go flying out now in a new machine and that surprise is lost.”

  “Well, as it stands now, the war might be lost, and Roum might be destroyed.”

  Andrew held up his hand.

  “We are running a race, Marcus. Not just to win this winter campaign, but to win a war. I want fifty of those machines ready, all of them flying at once, before we unleash them on Ha’ark. One or two machines will do nothing but give him warning. I’m sorry, sir, but the Air Corps stays grounded. Besides, we don’t need a spy in the air to tell us what we already know. Capua is flanked, the position is untenable. We must evacuate now.”

  Marcus looked about the room as if seeking support, but Andrew’s pronouncement had closed the argument, and he finally nodded in reluctant agreement.

  “Even now they’re coming out of the woods on the west side of the river, cutting in behind us. We have a mounted division shadowing them, and our ironclads are being positioned to cover the rail line, but the forces in Capua must pull out starting this afternoon and fall back to here.”

  Andrew did not add that he had already started the movement back of supplies, reserve units, and two corps.

  “You are talking about the second-largest city of the State of Roum,” Marcus announced coldly. “It is a question of pride. Why can’t we flank them in turn and then retake Capua?”

  “Even though we’re both relying on rail, they still have the greater mobility of horse. We can field but one corps mounted, and they can put the equivalent of ten, twenty mounted corps against us. And as for pride, sir, in this case it would be the death of all of us. The city of Capua is evacuated of all civilians, as was everyone within twenty miles of the front line. The city is dead already.”

  “You said there were two factors, Andrew,” Kal interrupted as if wishing to divert Marcus from Andrew’s cold pronouncement condemning a city. “What was it?”

  “Winter. This damn winter, the worst in living memory according to what all of you have told me. All the rivers are frozen solid, and even the Great Sea and the Inland Sea are icing along their northern shores. Though the Bantag are a tribe from the far south, they seem to stand the cold better than we do. In the last thirty days I’ve lost more men to frostbite and lung ailments than to combat.”

  “What about fodder for their horses?”

  “They paw through the snow, and remember the Bantag aren’t as dependent on the horse as the Merki and Tugars were. As the horses are used up, they’re food, and the warrior still has the weapons and training to fight on foot.”

  “So where do we fall back to?” Marcus asked.

  “Here,” Andrew replied, his voice barely a whisper.

  His comment was met with stunned silence, all eyes shifting toward Marcus, who sat back in his chair, features pale.

  “Before coming out here I assured Congress we’d hold at Capua,” Kal announced.

  Andrew shook his head. “It won’t work.”

  “At least try, dammit!” Kal snapped.

  Startled, Andrew looked over at his commander in chief. Throughout three long wars, Kal had questioned his judgment only once, and even then it was more of a gentle chiding, when he had lost his nerve after the fall of the Potomac Line.

  “Though I know you soldiers hate the use of the term, there are political considerations here,” Kal announced.

  “You were once a soldier,” Pat replied sharply. Andrew looked over at Pat, ready to order him to silence if he ventured but one more word.

  “Mr. President,” Andrew said, emphasizing the use of the formal title, “please go ahead.”

  Kal stood up, his gaze fixed on Andrew. “You know this war does not have the same popular support as the last one.”

  “That’s because last time the bloody bastards were at the throats of every civilian, and those of us with guns were all that held them back,” Pat interjected.

  “General O’Donald, you are out of line,” Andrew snapped.

  Pat, shaking his head, sat down, features bright red.

  “They’re at our throats again, Pat,” Kal said. “We know that, but there are some who don’t see it that way. The war has been, at least for Rus, hundreds upon hundreds of miles away. Before you Yankees came, most peasants never traveled more than ten miles from the place of their birth. The war could almost be on another world for many of them. Since the start of the campaign we’ve taken nearly sixty thousand casualties, seventeen thousand of them dead. That’s nearly what we lost at Hispania, and this campaign has but started. Rus is exhausted.”

  “I know that, Mr. President, but what alternative is there?”

  Kal hesitated, and Andrew sensed he was holding something back.

  “Look at this map. If you abandon the defensive line at Capua, which thousands labored upon for months, what then? If the army falls back into Roum, they’ll have a straight path to Hispania and the open steppe beyond. They can bypass you here and ride all the way to Suzdal if they desire.”

  “I’ve considered that. I half hope they will.”

  “What?” Kal asked, incredulous.

  “We’ll be sitting on their flank and will cut them off. Remember, from Hispania all the way to Kev is open steppe. There is nothing there.”

  “You just said they can eat their horses if need be.”

  “And fight then with what? They might send mounted archers and lancers, but even the Home Guard militias, deployed at the old defensive lines along the White Mountains, could stop them. They’ll be six hundred miles from their railhead. No, if they do that they’ll be defeated. Sir, the entire nature of war has changed in the last ten years. The Hordes have been forced to match our weapons, and with the weapons come certain advantages, but also disadvantages. Now there is consideration of logistics. The Hordes can no longer just fight and live off the land—they need an industrial base and a means of drawing supplies from that industrial base, the same way we do.”

  “Are you suggesting abandoning Roum itself, Kal?” Marcus asked.

  Andrew looked at the two sitting across from each other at the table. Though one was president of the Republic and the other the vice president, he could sense both were now thinking not as leaders of a republic, but rather as leaders of individual states in alliance with each other. A cold chill ran through Andrew. Was this the beginning of the destruction of the dream?

  “I am not in favor of abandoning Capua either,” Marcus announced. “Nearly half the population of Roum lives between here and the eastern frontier. Granted, many have been evacuated, but to leave my land open for pillaging is intolerable.”

  “We did in the last war,” Kal replied. “All our land was occupied.”

  “There was no alternative then,” Marcus snapped. “I still believe there is now.”

&nbs
p; “I sense something else here,” Andrew said. “Could it be the Chin envoys that you allowed through the lines?”

  Both of the politicians stirred uncomfortably. Andrew said nothing. This was the main reason for the meeting, and he wanted it out in the open with both Kal and Marcus present.

  “They offered terms and you are considering them.”

  “No, we at least know the folly of surrender to the Bantag,” Kal said quickly.

  “But there was some consideration.”

  Kal shifted uncomfortably. “With some senators, yes.”

  “Who?” Pat snarled. “The old boyars and patricians?”

  “It’s more complex than that,” Kal replied.

  “Go on, sir.”

  “Ha’ark offered a cease-fire if we agree to the abandonment of driving a rail line eastward. That was the only term. Cede eastward to his control and the rest is ours. If we wish to build west, we may do so.”

  “He’s stalling, that’s all,” Pat replied sharply. “He’ll move up more ironclads, guns, ammunition till he is ready to overwhelm us.”

  “There are some who are willing to listen,” Kal replied.

  “And you, sir?” Andrew asked.

  Kal was silent for a moment, and Andrew felt a sickening knot in his stomach. What would he do if Kal announced that he would indeed agree to the cease-fire? Andrew had helped to write the Constitution—in fact, most of it had come from his hand and mind. Yet if the civilian government agreed to end this fight it would be national suicide. Would I then overthrow the very government I helped to create? The question was so frightful that he pushed it away.

  “Personally I am against it,” Kal finally announced, and there were audible sighs of relief from the soldiers assembled in the room.

  “There’s something more here, though,” Andrew interjected. “Ha’ark is far too skillful to make such a simple offer which men and women of wisdom could so easily see through. What is it?”