A Band of Brothers

by William R. Forstchen

  “Glad to see you here, sir,” Timokin shouted, his voice all but drowned out as their gunners continued to fire shells at the advancing enemy line of dismounted infantry.

  “We’re getting pressed from behind. Two regiments or mote of mounted.”

  “Kind of figured that.”

  “Don’t look good here either.”

  “Saw that as well.”

  Hans looked back at the road leading up to the pass. He could still order Timokin to take all the ironclads and make a run for the pass. It would be sound doctrine. They could link up with the infantry, hold the high ground, and smash up any attack. If the Bantag ironclads beat them here and the infantry division was still out in the open, it would be a massacre when the Bantag turned on them.

  He looked back at the thousands on the other side of the bridge who were now streaming across and moving down into the shelter of the riverbank.

  A mortar round hissed overhead, plunging down into the field, halfway back to the riverbank. Damn, if they started shelling the Chin down there, he thought grimly, there’ll be no way to protect them.

  More rounds soared overhead, aiming high. One detonated on the ice in the river, a second bracketed the bridge on the other side. Panic broke on the bridge, the Chin swarming ahead, the press of the mob forcing some over the side railings.

  “We’ve got to drive those damn mortars back,” Timokin shouted. “Otherwise it’ll be a slaughter.”

  “It’ll be a slaughter if we move,” Hans replied, pulling a plug out from his haversack and offering a bite. To his delight, Timokin nodded, bit a piece off the plug, and handed the plug back to Hans, who shoved the rest in his mouth. Timokin grimaced but gamely worked his jaw.

  The Bantag dismounted infantry, still fanning out, began to press in, with the range down to less than six hundred yards, the ironclads behind them now a thousand yards out.

  “Better button up,” Hans announced. “You know this fighting better than me—you decide what to do, son.”

  Timokin grinned as Hans saluted, and with a groan he climbed back up onto his turret and slipped inside, slamming the lid shut. He swung his gatling forward and waited.

  A rifle ball pinged against the turret, and then another. Hans waited, finger resting lightly on the trigger.

  The Bantag seemed to be taking their time now, moving deliberately, infantry advancing cautiously, ironclads coming on at a slow walk while the bombardment of mortar shells streaked overhead and down along the riverbank and bridge. The infantry moved to within two hundred yards, spread out in long open order, standing up, dashing forward, going back down. Timokin held fire, and discipline in the other ironclads held as well. Ammunition was low; every shot would have to count. Finally there was a short burst aimed at a rocket unit, which was cut apart and went down. Bursts erupted along the line of ironclads, the gunners aiming for the rocket units. Knots of Bantag rushed forward at the double, one large group disappearing behind a stone wall a hundred yards ahead. Dark heads would bob up, aim a shot, there’d be another ping on the ironclad, and they’d disappear.

  The enemy ironclads were now less than three hundred yards out and stopped. Fire erupted all along the line, shells and solid bolt screaming in. Hans was slammed forward as a shell detonated on the forward armor, sparks flying up past his view port. A blanket of smoke spread out, drifting across the field, and still the Bantag continued to fire, geysers of dirty snow and slush springing up, thunderclap bursts echoing outside.

  Visibility dropped, disappeared. A shadowy figure moved up ahead, a Bantag emerging out of the gloom, rushing straight at him. He fired a burst, cutting him down.

  Change of tactics, he realized. The weather played to it, kept the smoke low to the ground, making it impossible to see, and now they’d send the infantry up first.

  Another burst of fire, a flash of light streaking past his view port, startling him. A damn rocket now.

  He heard three long bursts of a stream whistle, followed by two more. Timokin signaling a retreat. Not what he’d do in the confusion, but the boy was in command.

  “Driver full steam astern! Gunner load bolt!”

  The ironclad lurched, wheels spinning on the slushy ground, then started backward. Dropping off the ridge, they retreated through clouds of smoke drifting down from the ridge, pulling back a hundred yards. There was a long single burst of a whistle, the signal to stop.

  Coming over the crest of the hill they had just vacated came a long charging line of Bantag, phantomlike, standing out starkly between the slushy gray of the ridge and the dark skies above.

  Hans held down the trigger, sweeping the crest, remembering to aim low, walk his shots up, and then sweep his fire across the crest of the hill. The charge broke, falling back.

  The whistle sounded again, and Hans grinned. The boy was playing the game right.

  “Driver, full steam ahead!”

  “I wish he’d make up his damn mind.”

  The ironclad, wheels spinning, labored back up the slope, and Hans held his breath.

  “Gunner, driver target right!” Hans roared.

  A Bantag ironclad loomed out of the smoke on the crest less than fifty yards away. The ironclad beneath him shifted, turning, his gunner shouting for his assistant to help traverse the piece.

  The Bantag fired first. A rasping thunder lashed against the side of Hans’s turret, a bolt head snapping off and tearing into his shoulder. The gunner below fired several seconds later. A snap of light erupted just above the enemy’s gunport, followed an instant later by a burst of steam and fire.

  “That’s a kill!” Hans screamed. Another round cracked into their forward shield, nearly slamming the ironclad to a halt. He saw a Bantag ironclad to his left, barely visible in the gloom, and while shouting to the gunner and driver pivoted his turret, aimed for the gunport, and fired. Tracers pinged and flashed on the forward armor and then slashed straight into the open port. He held fire on it for a couple of seconds until the driver, pivoting their own ironclad, threw his aim off.

  The gunner below fired again, at what Hans couldn’t see.

  A swarm of Bantag came racing past, one of, them pausing to aim his rifle straight at Hans’s view port. The Bantag fired, the bullet slipping inside the turret, banging into the hatch overhead, slamming a dent into Hans’s helmet.

  He dropped the Bantag infantry. The ironclad he had been shooting at was almost abreast of them, starting to turn for a broadside shot. Hans shouted a warning, and the two ironclads, chugging along not ten yards apart, slowly circled like two dinosaurs looking for an opening. Slush and mud spraying up behind them. Hans turned his own turret, firing long bursts, but there was no openings along the side armor for his rounds to pierce.

  He lost focus on everything else for a moment, mesmerized by the battle which had narrowed to his view port until two Bantag raced straight through the middle of the circle. He fired, killing both. The faster speed of his own ironclad finally paid off as they cut in behind their opponent. The gun below recoiled, driving a bolt clean through the rear armor of the Bantag ironclad, bursting the boiler.

  Disoriented, Hans wasn’t even sure which direction they were facing. A rocket bolt skidded across their front armor, ricocheting off and streaking straight up past the turret.

  The driver straightened the machine out and, apparently not sure where to go either, simply drove straight into the clouds of smoke.

  “He’s going down!” Julius shouted.

  Grinning, Jack slapped Feyodor on the back as his copilot looked up from the narrow confines of the gat- ling position below Jack’s feet.

  Jack looked out at his portside wing. It seemed to be holding on, though the fabric just inside the number three engine and wire struts flapped in the wind from the hole the Bantag machine had punched. The second machine now turned directly ahead, lining up for a straight-in run.

  There was no time to play around, and Jack aimed straight at it. The Bantag gunner fired. Jack held his breath … nothing
. Feyodor opened up again, tracers pouring into the nose of the enemy airship. Flames erupted, the bag split open, wings collapsing in, and the machine spiraled down, trailing smoke and fire until it crashed into the frozen river.

  “Two kills!” Feyodor shouted. “Damn good!”

  Too damn good, Jack thought. Advantage of the moment, and the secret of our new machine is gone. Next time, if there is a next time, then what?

  He circled around tightly, looking back south. The battle was chaos, smoke drifting in heavy clouds, ironclads exploding, burned-out hulks wrapped in flames. The only way he could tell the difference between the machines was that the Bantag coal boilers poured out thick black smoke while the Republic’s kerosene burned cleaner. But when a Republic machine was hit it burned fiercely from the kerosene, a terrible trade-off for increased speed and power.

  He tried to count what was left, and his heart sank. The Bantag still outnumbered the Republic, and the umen of warriors were now beginning to circle around the edge of the ironclad battle, moving down to the river.

  He looked back to the east, and his stomach knotted. The diversion to fight the enemy aerosteamers had given the advancing column time to regroup and forge ahead at the gallop. They were less than a mile from the bridge, and thousands were still struggling to get across.

  “We’re going back in,” Jack said.

  “With what?” Feyodor cried. “I’m damn near out.”

  “Then fake it. We’ve got to slow them down.”

  Ketswana struggled to maintain control of his mounted infantry. He could not blame them for being on the edge of panic. The Chin, screaming to get across the bridge, were terrified, with the battle ahead clearly in view through occasional gaps in the smoke, the advancing enemy behind lining the slope less than a mile away and coming on fast.

  He rode along the line of men ringing the back of the circle pressed around the bridge.

  “We’ve got to hold!” he kept shouting. “We’ve got to hold!”

  A forward line of Bantag skirmishers continued to press down the slope, closing to eight hundred yards, staying mounted.

  A stone wall snaking off at a right angle was the only protection for his line, and he shouted for the men to advance to it and dismount. There was a moment of reluctance until he rode forward, followed by his Zulu warriors of the headquarters company. At the sight of their discipline the rest followed, dismounting in groups of five, one man holding the traces of the horses while the other four went up the wall, knelt down, and cocked their Sharps rifles, resting them on the ice-covered stones.

  “Let ’em get close!” Ketswana shouted. “Make every shot count!”

  He looked back at the mob, the circle receding to the bridge, dozens of bodies of those who had collapsed in the crush littering the compacted snow.

  A rifle ball fluttered overhead. The mounted line was firing, plunging shot into the crowd, unable to miss. The shots redoubled the surge to get across.

  Bastards! The range was still four hundred yards.

  “All right, measured fire, make it count!”

  Men took careful aim, squeezed off a round, reloaded, and aimed again. Shots began to tell, mounted warriors dropping. They hesitated, then dismounted, starting forward. The line gathered in strength as more and yet more mounted Bantag came down the slope, pressing forward. On the road a heavy column started forward at a canter, then broke into a gallop.

  Good, let ’em come.

  “Break that charge!” But he didn’t need to give the order, as rifle barrels swung in a converging arc, aimed at the road. Rifle fire snapped, rippled, built in fury. Bantag dropped from the saddle, those coming up from behind jerking their mounts off the road, dodging around and through the trees, crashing down into the slush. The charge broke down at a hundred yards, the column of warriors reining in behind the confusion, dismounting, racing through the trees, stopping to fire, advancing.

  Rocky splinters kicked up near Ketswana made him duck down. Crouching, he looked back over the wall. The charge had diverted their attention long enough to enable the Bantag farther out in the field to race forward, a line of them stopping behind a stone wall less than two hundred yards out, where they opened fire. Off to his right he could see mounted warriors coming around, preparing to flank.

  It was getting hot. Men were starting to go down, and shots were hitting the line of horses, the animals plunging screaming in pain, the troopers holding the traces, struggling to hang on.

  He looked back at the bridge. The swarm was thinning. Maybe another two minutes, he thought, but if he was going to get out, it had to be now. The ring was closing in too tight.

  Out on the road some of the Bantag were less than fifty yards away, creeping through the trees. A knot of them suddenly stood up and with wild cries charged. The Chin at the back of the mob who were armed with Bantag rifles raised their cumbersome weapons, firing wildly. His own troops poured a volley in, dropping half the charge down, and then the Bantag were into the Chin, slashing and hacking.

  A few of the Chin, using the bayonets on their rifles, fought back, killing some of their tormentors. Ketswana looked back to his line, sensing the rising panic as the enemy closed in on the right flank and to the front.

  Ketswana detailed off a dozen troopers to go back, then focused his attention forward as yet another column of the enemy came up the road, riding hard, then dismounted just short of where the last charge had been broken and started forward in a heavy column. This one was going to break him.

  “Bugler, sound retreat!”

  Ketswana raced to his own mount and swung up into the saddle, his company forming around him.

  At the sound of the bugle, men raced from the wall, discipline still holding enough so that they stopped to push wounded comrades up to their saddles. NCOs and officers waited, firing as they withdrew to the line of horses. Ketswana swung his mount around, slapping his rifle back into its scabbard and drawing a revolver.

  The last of the Chin were across the bridge, the few survivors of the men he had sent back on foot, weapons raised, firing straight down the road.

  The first troop galloped past, racing for the bridge, thundering onto it, and the Bantag on the road came to their feet, standard raised, and started forward with a wild blood-curdling scream.

  Ketswana reined around, roaring for his company to stand, to buy time, to die.

  The Bantag came straight at them and then, miraculously, stopped, looking back over their shoulders, then scattering to either side of the road. A staccato roar erupted straight overhead.

  Petracci, flying at treetop level, came straight down the road from behind the attacking line. Bullets stitched up the road, tearing the attack apart, while fire from the top of the aerosteamer laced across the field, plunging into the mounted column maneuvering to roll into Ketswana from his flank and rear.

  “Move it! Move it!”

  He reined his mount back around, edging toward the bridge, waiting as the last of his mounted infantry galloped across, praying that some Bantag did not drop a horse at mid-bridge and tangle up their retreat. The aerosteamer soared overhead, turning straight over the bridge, as if to draw fire, top gun still firing.

  The last of the mounted infantry passed, and screaming for his men to move, he started onto the bridge, spurring his mount. Hooves struck sparks as they crossed the span.

  Reaching the opposite shore, he reined in sharply. Two men stood with sputtering torches.

  “All over now! Blow her to hell!”

  A torch brushed against the quick fuse. Flame raced along the side of the bridge, and an instant later a flash ignited under the center stone arch. Fire gushed out from either side, the bridge bucking. For a heart-stopping instant he thought it was going to hold, and then the keystone gave way, the central arch collapsing down to the river fifty feet below.

  The Bantag, recovering from the shock of Jack’s attack, surged to the other side, screaming in rage. But less than a hundred yards separated the two sides, an
d leveling their rifles, they fired.

  Ketswana’s horse bucked and plunged, a ball slamming into its neck. Cursing, he reined it back under control and pushed down the road.

  Directly ahead, Chin by the thousands huddled in the snow, gazing in awe at the battle raging along the crest. From out of the smoke, ragged bands of Bantag were emerging and now coming down the hill, heading straight toward them.

  Ketswana looked back across the river. On the opposite shore Bantag were starting to spread out, running along the riverbank, preparing to pour a slaughtering fire into the thousands of refugees less than a hundred yards away.

  They were caught.

  “Now what the hell do we do?” one of his men cried.

  “Nothing left to do except charge,” Ketswana roared.

  “With what?”

  He raised his hand and pointed.

  “With them. If they want freedom, they’d better learn to fight for it. Now get them up! We’ve stopped running.”

  Blinded, choking from the smoke, Hans lifted his goggles and wiped his tear-streaked eyes.

  He saw an ironclad pass in front, one of theirs, and it was flying Timokin’s shot-torn standard.

  “Follow Timokin!” Hans shouted. “Maybe he knows what he’s doing.”

  Swinging in to the flank of Timokin’s machine, they plunged through the gloom. He could hear the gurgling groans of the driver, shot by a Bantag who had poked a rifle through the view port. Fortunately none of the bastards had grenades or we’d all be dead, Hans thought, cursing silently as the assistant gunner, now in the driver’s seat, pushed his throttle forward again.

  Suddenly they were in the clear, but where the hell were they?

  He saw puffs of smoke up on the ridge ahead. The mortar teams, maybe four hundred yards away. Timokin ignored them, turning, and Hans’s new driver followed. Back on the opposite ridge everything was blanketed in smoke. Dozens of fires were burning. A massive explosion erupted atop the ridge, the shells inside an ironclad cooking off.

  He spotted five enemy ironclads moving in loose formation, emerging out of the cauldron. He could see other shadows, was not sure who they were.