“They not left because they know you kill everyone. Traders have friends in Sarai and Africa and they know when Christian Army march, everyone die. They afraid leave unless you swear they not be killed on the road.”
There it was again. I was so angry my vision went red, my fists clenched, and I had to hold myself back from killing the damned translator. We were facing Mongols who made mountains of skulls at some cities, massacred other cities just because they didn’t want to leave anyone in their rear, and killed so many people that some areas were depopulated for hundreds of years – and they were accusing me of war crimes, making us out to be killers.
I was already haunted by a little girl’s eyes and now I have to listen to charges of wanton murder. It was too much.
“Fuck ’em. They chose their friends. Let ’em die with them. Negotiations are over!”
No one moved. No one spoke or moved for a long time. I concentrated on calming down and tried to stop pacing around the observation post. Finally, Sir Wladyclaw motioned to everyone to leave, “Wait outside until we call you.”
When we were alone, he turned to me and said, “Your grace, when you calm down, I think you will change that order. Your reputation has already suffered grievous harm from the battles in Sarai and in Africa. How would you explain knowingly slaughtering thousands of innocents?”
I still couldn’t stand or sit still “I am the Hetman! I explain to no one, and I don’t care what anyone thinks. These people are Mongol sympathizers and they deserve what they get.”
The bastard just wouldn’t shut up. “Your grace, you are so angry at merely being accused of such a murder that you almost cannot speak. Do you want to meet your maker someday and tell him you were so angry about being accused that you made the accusation truth?
I’ll be outside waiting for your final decision."
It must have been an hour. I paced. I cursed. I drank hot chocolate and pounded my fists on a table. I wanted booze, but I was too stubborn angry to tell someone to fetch it for me. I sat on a bench and fumed. The bastards had me. The Mongols didn’t give a crap about the people in Karakorum. This was just a delaying tactic, but it would work. Sir Wladyclaw was aggravatingly right. Murder wasn’t Christian Army tactics. I dreamed of someday thanking Sir Wladyclaw by putting a knife in his ribs, but I gave in.
When I left the outpost, the Chinaman was still sitting patiently waiting. I gestured toward him and told no one in general. “One day. Tell the bastard we will give the civilians one day, from now until this time tomorrow, to leave the city. They can leave by the southern road. We’ll have a checkpoint set up to verify that they take no modern weapons with them. They have my word that they will not be harmed.
Someone make it happen. I’m going back to bed.
Someone tell Ivanov to get his cannons ready. He’ll need them tomorrow."
And I did go back to bed until noon.
By noon my anger had cooled and my mind was working clearly. By the time I did my morning rituals and finished grooming Silver my head was crystal clear.
First, I needed more information then I needed a staff meeting. I trust my own decisions more than anyone else’s, but I wanted people to bounce ideas off.
I called terry over to take message to my radio cart. “To Captain Stanislaw: You are promoted immediately to commodore and given command of the Easter Flotilla. Your choice of officers is to be promoted to captain of Flying Cloud immediately. Your command will consist of all airships and aircraft in this theater of war. Your first order as Commodore: Determine the status of both detached Mongol armies, with particular attention to any defensive measures currently under construction. Acquire all possible intelligence on Mongol activity as far as two hundred fifty miles south with emphasis on the rail line.
If your schedule permits, you are invited to a staff meeting at nine hundred hours. Will understand if you are unable to make it. "
Then I gave her a list of people to invite to the staff meeting. Some people were entitled to come because of their status, but there were others who’s thinking I trusted, so it was not the usual top officers only meeting. “This will not be the usual staff meeting. We will need a few tables to sit around during the first part of the meeting, but I want a big buffet waiting when they get here and I want cushions and pillows set up for after dinner along with some cigars and some of my private stock of whiskey.”
Everyone except Captain Stanislaw was waiting respectfully when it was time for the meeting. However, as my adjutant was escorting the men in, there was a whooshing sound outside. We all ran out to be greeted by the sight of a man swinging down the road in a sedan chair. He seemed to be having some trouble stabilizing himself because the chair was on the end of a thousand foot cable running up to a rigidible overhead. On his second swing past us, he released the bar holding him in and stepped out at our feet. Well. Close to our feet when he was able to stop hopping, stand upright, and do a snappy salute.
“Captain Stanislaw reporting, your grace. I hope I’m not late. It’s actually easier to be picked up than to be dropped off.”
I couldn’t help it. My engineer side took over as we walked back into the tent. I looked back the rapidly rising gondola and commented “Maybe you should add some control surfaces to the basket. A simple rudder would make it more controllable.”
“An excellent idea, your grace. I’ll pass it on to the crew.”
It wasn’t until later that I realized I had been so impressed with Stanislaw that I gave him a suggestion instead of simply ordering a rudder. Either I was slipping or he was one Hell of a soldier.
I deliberately waited until everyone filled their plates with mutton and beef and roasted vegetables and their cups with cold water or beer. “You probably all know that we are not bombarding Karakorum today because of an unusual treaty request by the Mongols. For those of you who are not on the grapevine, the Mongol administration of the city told us that there are several thousand Europeans in the city who are craftsman, traders, priests, ambassadors and their families and even a Jewish rabbi. They requested two days truce so that the bystanders could leave the city. We gave them one.”
I looked at the Chinese translator who had met with the Chinaman, “You served in the Mongol army at Sarai. Do you see anything unusual about what they wanted?”
“I never in battle with Mongols, but my father say when they attacked our city, they put Chinese people in front of their army to protect themselves. Men, women, even children pushed out in front to die and then bodies ridden over by Mongols. I hear they do that every time. No way they care a turd about Europeans. Sorry, no know how to say it polite.”
Gentlemen, Ahmed is here because he has traveled these lands for years and has seen what the Mongols do. “Ahmed, from what you have seen and heard about the Mongols, what would you expect them to do with the Europeans in the city?”
“My lord, the history is clear. They would either chain them to the walls to die as padding or they would put them behind the gates to take the first arrows from invaders. In no case would they let them live. I heard that when they were besieging one city, they took living captives, covered them in oil, lit them on fire, and catapulted their burning bodies into the city.”
“OK, we know that the Mongols don’t give a rat’s ass about the Europeans, so we now know what they wanted. They wanted the two days. They wanted us to sit here in front of this city for two more days. What’s going to happen two days from now? We’ve been working on the assumption that they wanted us to attack a worthless city so that their reserves could flank us while we were bogged down in the city. Unfortunately that doesn’t make sense now. They’re maintaining a huge army in the field waiting for us to do something and the best thing for them would be for us to move as soon as possible.
Commodore Stanislaw, are the reserve Mongols moving our way yet?"
“No sign of movement this way, your grace. Zephyr overflew the easternmost camp this morning and she was able to reach the khan’s camp about
an hour after sunrise. The Mongols aren’t moving this way, but both armies are bee hives of activity.
The khan’s contingent has been on the move down one of the silk roads, but he isn’t coming this way. He’s headed south and slightly west with his entire force. They’re moving fast as they can go with a caravan full of yurt wagons. It looks more like his annual vacation trip than a move toward war.
The western group of Mongols is still digging in, but Zephyr says that the work has intensified. They’ve are trenched clear across the pass that we took to get in here, and they’re rolling big boulders down from the hills to line up in front of the trenches.
It doesn’t look like they are moving on us anytime soon."
I had my aide attach a large map of Mongolia to the blackboard. “I think that I do know where they’re going. This is a map that Ahmed drew up showing the Silk Road routes around Karakorum. Of course we all know that there is no one Silk Road. It’s like a patchwork of roads, but you’ll notice that there are only two easy routes going west. The Western Mongol force has just blocked off the route that we took to get here. If the khan’s army keeps moving in its current direction, it will be at the junction of the other pass leading west by the end of today.
All of the other useable routes out lead either south or southeast into China. They’re big roads all going the wrong way.
They haven’t been waiting for us to attack Karakorum. They’ve been buying time to block the passes. They want to keep up here.
We should all have realized what was happening as soon as we saw the railroad. The rules of war change when you can move men two or three hundred miles a day. Big brother Kublai is coming. Karakorum is the hard place and Kublai’s army is the rock.
If I’m right, we should be hearing something from Vagabond by morning."
Stanislaw leaned forward in his seat, “Your grace, Gentlemen, we are getting hourly reports from Vagabond. She’s penetrated almost two hundred miles south and she hasn’t seen a large army yet, but, at the hundred and hundred fifty mile marks she did find large storage yards flanking the rails. The Captain says they are each about twenty acres in size and surrounded by palisades. In his first fly over about four days ago, he thought they were rail yards or commercial warehouses but this time he looked closer. The workers seem to be a mix of slaves and men in military uniform. He can’t tell what is in the warehouses and wagons, but he thinks the places may be military storage yards.
He hasn’t seen an army yet, but he’s still traveling south."
I looked around the table, “I’m convinced that Uncle Kublai is on his way. We’ll know for certain soon enough, but in case I’m right, we can’t wait until the last minute to plan how we’ll introduce ourselves to him. We have a lot of plans to make.”
In the lull, Baron Ryszard spoke up, “Your grace, everyone here knows that I am no coward and I enjoy a good fight as much as any man, but Kublai’s army could easily be twenty or thirty times our size. Perhaps this would be a good time to retire from the field.”
I tried to keep my voice as respectful as possible, “Baron Ryszard . You have the respect of every man here and your advice is valuable, but we may not have an option. We have forty thousand men and thousands of carts going the wrong way.”
In fact, I was happy he had brought up the idea of retreat. Discussing the possibility was the only way to get the men to see we only had one choice. “We have the expert here. Baron Ivanov is there any reason that we can’t go back to Poland tomorrow.”
The Baron took time looking into the distance, rubbing his hands together and sighing. Finally, he said, “As I see it, our biggest problems would be starvation, pain, and death. We’re sitting in the middle of the toughest, fastest, meanest best trained army in the world. They could move out in good order by midnight, kick the crap out of any Mongols in our way, and most of them would be dead in a month.
If Lord Conrad is correct, and he is not often wrong, the Mongols here are not going to attack us. They’re going to fortify the passes and try to keep us from leaving. I have no doubt that either Count Grzegorz or Count Wladyclaw can smash through any Mongol line, particularly with the help of Baron Kowalski’s excellent artillery, but it won’t matter if we can’t get our carts through before Kublai gets here. We need to reach the steppes with at least five thousand carts if we’re going to fight our way home and that’s what the blockades are for. Trenches, boulders, stakes, and harassment to stop our supply train, not our soldiers. There are a few thousand miles of starvation between here and civilization."
I took over the floor again. “That’s also the way I see it. They’ll try to hold us for a few days. If we attack one pass, the other army will hit our rear. If we get through one pass, they’ll concentrate on the baggage train and try to delay us. We know about the trenching, but they probably have the passes mined too. Nothing we can’t handle, but if were still clearing a pass when Brother Kublai gets here, the game is over.
Until we know different, we’re going to assume Kublai is coming. That means we have very little time to get organized. We can’t fight him here and we can’t fight him tomorrow. We need to find a place to stand where we limit his access to us. We need a canyon, a peninsula, something constricted and we need time to find it and move.
This meeting is to figure out what we are going to do. We have the toughest army in the world and enough ammo to kill all of Asia. We just need to avoid getting overrun by sheer numbers.
A few things are obvious. At first light, Count Wladyclaw will send out a company of wolves with a company of engineers to sabotage that rail line. A Chinese army can’t walk more than twenty miles a day, so we need to put them on foot.
Count Grzegorz will be in charge of finding a place to make a stand. I’ll be working with him as will Commodore Stanislaw.
Baron Ryszard , you get charge of Karakorum. We know it has to be lightly defended, but we can’t afford to leave it behind us, and there may be supplies that we can use. Forget any plans I made. Find a way to kill it quick and simple. Tell Wladyclaw and Kowalski what you need to get the job done.
The rest of you figure out what I’ve missed. We haven’t heard from the pilots. Can we defend their base where they are, or they need to move? There are a thousand things to discuss.
You’ve got food, cigars, and soft places to sit. There are runners outside who can summon anyone else you need.
Get to work."
One long army hour later, a half hour after darkness fell, we got a message from the Vagabond “Campfires sighted. From horizon to horizon. Three hundred fifty miles south.”
We had found Kublai.
About the same time, a full company of engineers left camp with their escort of Wolves. The men would sleep in the saddle and be ready for railroad demolition in the morning.
An hour before midnight I broke up the meeting. Everyone would need some rest before sunrise. My last order of the night was for the radio corps to set up a camp wide broadcast to take place after morning rituals. As tired as I was, I had a hard time sleeping. Even with Terry and Shauna massaging my sore muscles my mind was full of images of Chinese catapults and Mongol horsemen.
Rumors of the size of the Mongol army were certainly circulating through the camp, and some warriors were going to be fearful. I had to replace those fears with a sense of pride and determination. In the dim light of early morning, I climbed to the highest point in the camp and took the microphone the communications corpsman handed me. Most men would just be finishing their morning rituals. At my first word, the camp went silent, “You may have heard that we have company coming. In fact we have learned that we are surrounded by three Mongol armies. The armies of Mongolia have fortified and blocked both roads back to Poland, and a large Chinese army, led by Mongols, is approaching from the south.
They think they have us trapped, but we are the meanest, toughest, fastest army in creation, and we go anywhere we want. Moreover, six months ago, standing on the plains of Mongolia, each a
nd every one us made the decision to kill Mongols and end forever the threat to the civilized world.
So we will fight. That is what the Christian Army does. We kill the enemies of Poland. We annihilate those who would threaten our families and our friends. Today that means we kill the heathen Mongols.
The Mongols will help us in this. They are bringing a lot of Chinese friends. They will line them up in close order from horizon to horizon, to make certain that we can’t miss hitting one, no matter where we aim.
Months ago, I promised you the wealth of Karakorum. Tomorrow, we will take it, and then leave to prepare our welcome for the Mongols. In a few days, we will see our enemy’s campfires stretching to the horizon. Before we leave, their funeral pyres will be even larger.
We fight for Poland, for God, for our families. God Bless us all."
Second Interlude in Uncle Toms Control Room
I pushed the pause button again. “He actually did it! He convinced them they have to stay and fight a useless battle. That’s either suicidal or just plain stupid.”
“I know”
Uncle Tom look unconcerned but I went on, “They can leave anytime they want. They could walk through either Mongol blocking army and have plenty of time to get the carts that they really need across any Mongol blockade, or they could just load the bare essentials and the booty onto panniers and high tail if for home. Without dragging the baggage train they could be back in Poland in a few weeks, and the Mongols could never catch them. They could even take time to loot Karakorum and still get away clean.
If they run short of food or want to ship booty home, they have a fleet of airships to help them."
Uncle Tom looked amused. “Don’t sell the warrior’s intelligence short. They aren’t used to aerial resupply and even Ivanov didn’t think about it. They’re also blinded with gold fever and adrenalin, and they’re warriors who think in terms of glory and booty not retreats and running. Most of them don’t really want to go home that way.
Conrad's Last Campaign Page 28