Hope Renewed

by S. M. Stirling

  He paused behind one of the ex-Brigadero units. A noncom was walking down the line, slapping men across the shoulders with the flat of his saber when they instinctively rose to fire standing. Problem, Raj though. They’d trained on muzzle-loading rifle muskets. You had to stand to reload those, tearing open the paper cartridge and pouring the powder down the barrel. They were excellent shots even by Descotter standards, but not used to getting under cover—and even at this range, some of the Colonial carbine-bullets would hit standing men. A few snapped by him.

  Ludwig Bellamy rode up. “It’s a slaughter, heneralissimo,” he said enthusiastically. “Teodore—Major Welf—asks permission to remount his battalion and charge—”

  “Denied,” Raj said sharply.

  Welf had been a very tricky opponent in the Western Territories, but he was still a Brigadero at heart and had a lingering fondness for cold steel. The Civil Government military style was economical of men where it could be, not having so many trained soldiers to expend.

  “I’m not going to waste men on this lot.” He raised the binoculars again. “Besides, about now—”

  There was boiling confusion all down the front of the Arab army. A knot of mounted officers around a huge green banner was galloping toward the threatened flank, with more courage than sense. At their head was a portly gray-bearded man waving his ceremonial lash and shouting furiously, probably trying to pull units out of line and get them to face front left. Small chance of that, since Osterville’s men were still firing from their front, besides which most of them probably hadn’t realized what was happening, and facing about would put the morning sun directly in their eyes.

  The enemy bannerman went down. Seconds later half a dozen of the officers around him did, and then the elderly man with the whip punched backward over the cantle of his saddle. His dog whipped about and sniffed him, then sank down on its haunches and howled.

  “—they’re going to bug out.”

  It started with the men in sight of the dead commander. They broke like a glass pitcher dropped on a stone floor, and fled back toward the city. Bullets kicked up dust around their feet like the first raindrops of a storm, and littered the ground with bodies. That unmasked the central part of the Colonial host, and for the first time they could see exactly what it was that had devoured the left wing of their army. And the steady, unhurried volleys punched out, from a Civil Government line marked by a growing tower of smoke that made their position clear even a kilometer away. The Arabs disintegrated like a rope unraveling from the left end, men throwing away their weapons to run screaming for the city gates. Droves piled up at ditches that a man could leap easily, as the first tripped and the men behind trampled on them.

  “Spirit, sir—if we charge now—”

  “Major Bellamy, all that charging now would do is give them an opportunity to hurt us.” He looked around. “Messenger to Major Gruder: advance from the left in line, by battalions, pivoting on . . .” —he considered— “on the 3/591st.” You had to start moving the outside of a line first, or the whiplash effect would leave the outermost man running.

  “Are we going to let them back into the city, mi heneral?” Ludwig Bellamy asked, crestfallen.

  Raj smiled unpleasantly. “By no means, Major. By no means.”

  “Range three thousand. Up three. And a bit. Contact fuse. Load.”

  Grammeck Dinnalsyn raised his eyes from the split-view rangefinder. Three batteries were deployed along the slight rise: twelve guns. Another three were a few hundred meters farther on, setting up amid the outer spray of the dead Colonials. Dismounted men were trotting by in waves as the left flank of the Civil Government force swung in to pin the retreating Colonials against the walls of Ain el-Hilwa, but that was no concern of the artillery today; they weren’t tasked with supporting the dogboys. The riflemen were firing as they advanced, independent fire in a continuous crackle all up and down the line. The sun sparkled on the bright brass of the spent cartridge cases.

  Breechblocks clattered as the big 75mm shells were passed from the limber and rammed home. The crew stood aside as the master gunner clipped his lanyard to the trigger and payed it out.

  “Ranging gun, shoot,” Dinnalsyn said.

  Battery commander’s work, really, but enjoyable, and he rarely got a chance to do it these days. The gunner jerked sharply.

  POUMPH. A long jet of smoke shot out from Number One of A Battery. The gun threw itself backward in recoil, the trail gouging a trough in the clay. The crew jumped forward as soon as it came to rest, grabbing the trail and the tall wheels and running it back to the original position.

  Dinnalsyn raised his binoculars. A tall plume of black dust sprouted from the roadway outside the northeast gate of the city, like an instant poplar that bent in the breeze and dispersed as the dirt scattered.

  “Excellent,” he said. “Batteries, range.”

  The thick tubes of the guns rose as the gunners spun the elevating screws under the breeches.

  Excellent shooting on the first try, and it was excellent to serve under a commander who understood what artillery could and could not do.

  The other two batteries were tasked with the northwestern gate, a bit farther—near maximum effective range. Their ranging gun fired seconds after his, and the gout of dirt flung skyward was a hundred meters short. Even that trial shot told, flinging parts of men and equipment skyward. Both roads into Ain el-Hilwa were black with running men, and more every second. They tried again, and the next round fell neatly before the open gates.

  “Airburst, three-second fuse, shrapnel, load.”

  Blue-banded shells from the limbers, passed forward hand to hand three times; gun crews had redundant members to replace casualties in action. Not that there looked to be much counterfire this time. The master gunners pulled the ring-shaped blockers out of the noses of the shells, arming the fuses. Into the narrow hole went a two-pronged tool they carried chained to their wrists, to adjust the timers. A brass ring on the fuse turned, listing the time in seconds; within, drilled beechwood turned in a perforated brass tube, exposing a precisely calculated length of powder-train.

  “Number one gun ready!”

  “Number two gun ready!”

  “Number three gun ready!”

  “Number four gun ready!”

  “Battery A ready!”

  “Batteries will shoot, for effect. On the word of command.”

  He raised his free hand, the other holding his binoculars. Use your judgment, the general had said. Men were running through, but that was the first spray of them. He waited, gauntleted hand in the air. The gates were narrow, and so were the arched bridges that carried the roadways over the city moat. You wanted city gates to be a chokepoint, for defensive reasons, and Ain el-Hilwa had excellent fortifications. Routed, the Arab troops were not going to wait while they were marshaled through with maximum efficiency. Every man for himself meant a tie-up.

  Sure enough, the roadways were black with men and great fans of them were spreading out along the edge of the moat. He chopped his hand downward.

  “Now!”

  POUMP. The first gun fired. A precise twenty seconds later the second followed. POUMP. POUMP. POUMP. By the time the last gun fired, the first had been pushed back into battery and was ready to fire again. A steady two rounds a minute, to conserve barrels and break armies. No problem, with the men fresh. Pushing the ton weights of metal around was hard work, but they were trained to a hair and the day was young.

  Four crack sounds downrange, as the shells burst. Ragged black smokeballs in the air over the crowd at the gates; below them panic, as the shells’ loads of musketballs scythed forward in an oval pattern of destruction.

  POUMP. POUMP. POUMP. POUMP. This time one of the rounds hammered into the dirt before exploding, a faulty time-fuse. No great problem this time; the crater made the pileup greater. He shifted his glasses to the other gate. The spread of shell was wider there, some far enough from the gate to kick up dust, but you expected t
hat at extreme range.

  The general cantered up with his staff and messengers. He paused for a moment, leaning on the pommel with both hands and studying the artillery. Strange man, Dinnalsyn thought. He saw too much, knew too much. Knew as much about guns as he did himself, and was better at judging distance and trajectories; a cannon-cocker’s skills, not a talent you expected in a hill-squireen out of Descott. And he never forgot anything, never missed a detail—as if angels were whispering in his ear. There were those strange little trances, too. Grammeck was city-born to a merchant family, and prided himself on his modernity, but there might be something in the tales of Messer Raj being touched by the Spirit.

  “I could do better execution with more tubes, mi heneral,” he said.

  They had fifty-five guns along, and they were all reconcentrated now that the raiding parties had joined forces.

  Raj shook his head, his stone-hard face still turned to the gates where men screamed and died and the corpses tossed under the hammer of the shells.

  “Not for this,” he said. “We don’t have the ammunition to expend.”

  True; they were limited to what they’d brought along. He made a mental note to shift things around to even out the reserve supplies between batteries before they broke camp. A glance at his watch told him it was still early, barely 0800.

  “And speaking of which,” the general went on, “give them another three rounds per gun and cease fire. Another few minutes and the guns on the walls will have you registered here.”

  As if to punctuate the thought, a heavy shell buried itself in the earth a hundred meters ahead of them and exploded, throwing clods of dirt as far as the second hillock.

  “And then limber up and get out of range,” Raj said.

  “Si, mi heneral.”

  seventy-six rounds per gun, Center said.

  Ah, Raj thought. About his own offhand estimate. Strange, that so much of Center’s advice was a refinement of what he’d have done anyway.

  of course. otherwise i would not have selected you.

  Which was reassuring. There were times he doubted he was the same man who’d blundered into the centrum beneath the Gubernatorial Palace.

  that youth would be gone forever by now in any case.

  Raj shrugged and looked down at the field of battle with a mixture of distaste and the sensation a farmer had looking back over an expanse of grain cut and stooked in good time. The Colonials had finally gotten their gates shut and the cannon on the wall active; but that left most of their garrison trapped outside the wall and exposed to fire.

  “Signal cease-fire. And get a truce flag ready.”

  “What terms?” Staenbridge said.

  “The usual. Parole not to participate further in this campaign, and one gold FedCred per head.”

  One advantage of fighting the wogs was that they and the Gubernio Civil had been locked in combat so long they’d developed an elaborate code of military etiquette and generally observed it for sound reasons of mutual long-term advantage. One provision often used was releasing prisoners on parole, when the alternative was killing them for want of time and facilities. It put them out of action for the remainder of the war in question, and was about as profitable as selling them for slaves, which was the other choice. Granted that they could be used on some other frontier, which freed up troops to be used against you; on the other hand, both powers had an interest in keeping the barbarians at bay.

  and the cause of civilization is served, as well.

  Kaltin Gruder came up. Raj nodded. “Nice turning movement, Kaltin.”

  “Work of the day, mi heneral. Are we going to take their parole?”

  Raj nodded. Kaltin’s mouth tightened, but he nodded unwillingly.

  “Ali might not keep it,” he pointed out. Reluctantly: “Of course, it wouldn’t matter, with these handless cows.”

  “There are no bad soldiers, Kaltin, only bad officers. But these have had their morale fairly thoroughly shattered, and they won’t be any use to anyone for a good long while. See to it.”

  Another party rode up; this one included a number of bandaged and bleeding men. The most senior seemed to be a captain; Raj didn’t recognize him, which probably meant he was from Osterville’s command.

  captain fillipo swarez, 51st mazatlan.

  Thank you, Raj thought. Aloud: “Captain Swarez.”

  The man blinked at Raj through red-rimmed, exhausted eyes, holding his bandaged arm against his chest to limit the jarring of his dog’s movement.

  “General Whitehall. I am reporting as senior officer in . . . as senior officer of the other field force battalions.”

  Raj raised an eyebrow. “Major Gonsalvez?”

  “Dead, sir.”

  “Colonel Osterville?”

  observe:

  A brief vision this time: Osterville’s muddy sweating face, bent low over the neck of his dog and slashing behind with his riding crop. A string of remounts followed, and several servants, and pack dogs with small heavy crates strapped to their carrying saddles.

  Swarez spat. “That for the hijo da puta! Nobody saw him after the shelling started, and his dogs and personal servants are missing.”

  One of the lieutenants behind him spoke. “Heneralissimo, let me send a patrol after him—let me take a patrol after him. I guarantee, he’ll never trouble you again.”

  Growls of assent rose from the survivors; their mounts snarled in sympathy, scenting their masters’ mood. No zealot like a convert, Raj thought.

  He shook his head. “Messer Osterville” —he omitted the military rank— “suits me well enough where he is.” He looked back at the captain.

  “Captain Swarez, how many survivors?”

  “Six hundred in all, sir. Two hundred wounded.”

  Half Osterville’s original force, but that included several hundred who’d defected to Raj during the night, and the Spirit alone knew how many who’d bugged out this morning.

  “How many of those in your 51st Mazatlan?”

  “Two hundred twenty-six. Fit for duty, that is, sir.”

  Which meant they’d kept together fairly well. “All right. Tell the remainder that those who wish may transfer to your unit, or to any of my other battalions that’ll take them—some of them are severely under strength. Have everyone ready to move shortly.”

  Swarez saluted, relief on his face. A soldier’s battalion was his home and family, and his had just been spared from disbandment. The other survivors could count themselves lucky to have open slots waiting for them.

  Raj watched the party with the white flag riding up to the gates of Ain el-Hilwa. He doubted the negotiations would take long; they’d be too hysterically thankful not to face a storm and sack, which they now lacked the men to stop. Say until noon to get the wounded sorted, police up and destroy the enemy weapons, collect the ransom . . .

  Demand some fast sprung wagons as part of it, he decided. There were good roads all the way from here to the bridgehead opposite Sandoral. Then . . .

  “Meeting of the command group at midday,” he said. “Now let’s get this wrapped, gentlemen.”

  He looked down at the field again before he reined about. A good workmanlike day’s effort. Unpleasantly final for several thousand Colonials.

  It wasn’t going to stay this easy. This was a sideshow so far. Ali’s main attention was focused on Sandoral.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Fwego!”

  Corporal Minatelli opened his mouth and put his hands over his ears. His firing slit was close enough that the fortress gun would hurt his hearing if he didn’t.

  BOOOOMM.

  “Reload, canister!”

  The big soda-bottle-shaped fortress gun surged backward on its pivot-mounted carriage, muzzle wreathed in smoke. The wooden friction blocks squealed against their screw tighteners as they slowed the multitonne weight of cast iron and steel. It slowed to a stop at the end of the low ramped carriage, and the militia crew sprang into action. Two men leaped in with a bundl
e of soaked sponges on a long pole and rammed it down the barrel. There was a long shhhhhhhhhhh as the water met hot metal and flashed into steam. They pulled the pole out and flipped it, presenting the wooden rammer head. Two more men were lifting the round in, a big dusty-looking linen bag of coarse gunpowder nailed to a wooden sabot, with a tin canister full of lead balls on the other end.

  Minatelli shuddered as he turned away. Canister from a light field gun was bad enough. Canister from a 150mm siege weapon . . .

  The gun rumbled like thunder as the gunners released the blocks and it ran down the carriage to lift the iron shutter and poke its muzzle out the casement wall. Bronze wheels squealed as the four men at the rear threw themselves at the handspikes in response to the master gunner’s hand signals. The gun carriage was mounted on a pivot in the center, with the front and rear running on wheels that rested on an iron ring set into the concrete floor.

  “Bring her up two—they’ll be trying again,” the master gunner said. He accompanied it with hand signals, for the ones who had lumps of cotton waste stuffed in their ears. His crew spun the big elevating wheel at the breech two turns, and the massive pebbled surface of the gun elevated smoothly at the muzzle.

  Keep to your trade, Minatelli told himself, stepping up to the firing parapet. He usually didn’t have much time for militia, but these gunnery boys knew their business. He peered through; the sunlight made him squint, after the shade of the wall platform with its overhead protection of timber and iron. The stone of the wall was cool against his cheek.

  Outside, six hundred meters from the wall, the wog trench was still swarming. Men were dragging away the dead and wounded, the smashed gabions, wickerwork baskets with earth inside them. He could see flashes of heads and shoulders as picks and shovels swung. The trench was big, a Z-shaped zigzag running back to the main wog bastion twelve hundred meters out; that was a continuous earthwork fort all the way around the city now. Cannon flashed from it, and he could feel the massive stone-fronted walls tremble rhythmically under him as the heavy solid shot pounded selected spots. Dust puffed up, making him sneeze. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and spat.