Conrad's Last Campaign

by Leo A. Frankowski

  And, remember they can’t all go home. Conrad can’t."

  “But he has to know it’s stupid. Why is he doing it?”

  “The slavery. Remember he spent a year as a slave. Not a well treated household tutor slave or well fed kitchen slave, a subhuman animal slave. A piece of machinery. He was in Hell for months and I still don’t understand why he never once asked me for help.

  Now he’s consumed with anger. The old Conrad would never have allowed the slaughter of women and children and there’s enough of old Conrad left in him so that he still lets his men talk him out of it. He tolerates the insubordination because deep down inside he doesn’t like his own orders.

  He can’t go home, but maybe if he kills enough bad guys he can rid himself of the anger and let the old Conrad out again.

  For now, I’m with Conrad. Thousands of people have invested countless man years of effort and busted their butts to get this army to this battle. It would be a shame to go home now."

  The Battle of Karakorum

  The cannon fire began about an hour later. The truce was over, and Ryszard was beginning his bombardment. At breakfast I learned that I had missed Stanislaw’s return to his ship. Apparently the airship dropped the sedan chair on the empty space in front of my tent and continued to drop until there was a lot of slack in the line. Then Stanislaw stepped in, fastened his safety belt and rose into the sky.

  He left a message that he was on his way to confer with the fighter pilots. When he was dropped there, Flying Cloud would continue to search for a place to make our stand.

  I breakfasted on bread slathered with soft white cheese and a tumbler of cold well water. I was still licking my fingers while my bodyguards dressed me in armor. Except for a few weeks in our winter camp, I had been wearing armor almost every day for year. My body was wearing calluses where the straps wore on my shoulders and the chafing on my calves was permanent. I dreamed of living in my favorite silk bathrobe or, better yet, in my favorite bare skin, but today I would ride forth in full golden glory – again.

  Ryszard was at the observation point with of his personal lance, watching shells landing on Karakorum. As we watched the bombardment, he explained what he had decided to do. “I’m going to burn all the residential and business areas with incendiaries. It doesn’t take very many of them to get a good fire going, and I want to save as many shells as possible for the main event. They’re supposed to be empty anyway. Then we’ll flatten that palace and the meeting hall with the five incher. The khan’s treasure warehouses are those buildings by the far wall. We’ll spare them until I see what’s inside.

  We’ll punch some exit holes in the north wall early in case there are Europeans stuck in the city. Count Wladyclaw is stationing several companies near that wall with instructions to kill anyone leaving the city with a weapon or wearing armor, or just looking like a Mongol, and let women and children pass. When the fires die down a little, Kowalski is going to punch some holes in the wall, and then he’ll clear a road for us from the front gate to the warehouses."

  He always pissed me off with his bleeding heart crap, but the plan was basically sound, “My Liege, you seem to have things well in hand, but I must remind you that we have no facilities for prisoners and it is much to dangerous to leave them behind us. Do not take prisoners.

  Keep me informed. I want to know when you launch the attack."

  By the time I got back to my tent, there was a lot of news waiting. The radio crew had run a microphone and speaker into the tent so that Sir Wladyclaw and I could conference with Stanislaw from my desk. He told us that the Chinese Mongol army was on the move. They began breaking camp at first light and were moving to the rail cars. They were also moving with air cover. Zephyr needed to stay at high altitude to avoid the two Chinese rocket planes that circled the camp. Unless we neutralized the planes, there was no chance of surprise on either side. I put it on my todo list. Well, Stanislaw’s todo list.

  The more important thing was choosing a place for our stand. I was anxious to finalize the decision, but the air corps needed time to finish their survey. Zephyr was flying a forty mile grid pattern that would take several more hours to finish while Flying cloud was following caravan trails and working the guides for suggestions. I set a meeting for nightfall to make the final decision.

  The rest of the day was a steady parade of conferences. When will we make the move? Answer after we take the city. We didn’t need the entire force to deal with Karakorum, but I didn’t want to spit our forces in such hostile territory. The last time we did that Captain Ivanov earned a promotion to Baron, so I decided that the column would pack up and prepare to move, but stand in place while Ryszard handled the city.

  Kowalski and I debated whether to take the naval gun with us or disable the monster. It was powerful, but we’d have to remake The Pride and the Passion to move it. We decided to drag it along. We had more ammo than any army in history and plenty of cannon, Sten guns, machine guns and rifles to shoot it with.

  I was surprised that we had over three months of food with us. We could probably outlast the Chinese in a siege. Just to make certain, we’d shop a little in Karakorum before we left.

  Late in the afternoon, Ryszard sent word that the fires were still burning in the city and that he would carry out his attack at first light.

  At dark, our move team showed up. All the barons, both counts, and, not surprisingly, Captain Stanislaw were there. This time the sedan chair had a rudder on the back and springy skids in place of the legs.

  I began the meeting with a good old fashioned pep talk. “All we need is a good place to fight in and a little time to get it ready. Komander Jazinski has already pointed out that there aren’t all that many true Mongols in Mongolia. There aren’t more than sixty or seventy thousand fighting men left here. We’ve already faced them a couple of times and kicked their asses.

  The Chinese army isn’t going to be much different. It’s bigger, but no better. They’ve been doin’ a lot of raping and they all have slave girls, but there still can’t be more than a hundred thousand or so more Mongols in the entire Chinese Empire. We learned this winter that the Turks have joined the Mongols so enthusiastically that you can’t tell one from another, so add another sixty, seventy thousand Turks. The rest of the men sitting around those campfires are Chinese or other subjects. We already know that they don’t want to fight us. The Mongols will push them forward as cannon fodder but they will fight only as hard they have too.

  It doesn’t matter if there are a thousand of them or a million. They are just targets, and we have lots of ammo. This won’t be a stroll in the park, but we can beat them.

  Now let’s choose their graveyard."

  The first suggestion was that we use the pass that we came through on the way in. True, it was now full of Mongols and trenches and boulders, but the Mongols were never a major problem, and after we cleared them out, we would have a ready made defensive wall left behind.

  I gave the idea five points for creativity and ten points for dumb. The Mongols there could refuse battle and vanish into the hills until we were under attack and then jump us from behind.

  Our second choice had a similar problem. The rigidibles had found a glacial canyon about thirty miles north. The mouth of the canyon was perhaps fifteen hundred feet wide and the steep hills protected the sides. Once we were dug in, we couldn’t be dislodged by anyone. Unfortunately, the Chinese could decide to simply blockade the entrance and keep us there until we came out to fight against their prepared positions.

  We settled on a canyon about twenty five miles east of us on the Silk Road segment that led to Korea. Both ends of the canyon were narrow and it had relatively high hills on both sides. The surrounding mountains would make the Chinese Mongols take days to ride around if they wanted to attack our back door, and the second opening gave us room to run if things went wrong.

  Before we broke up the meeting, I asked Sir Grzegorz for any news on the troops delaying the Mongols. “After
a little consideration, I sent an additional party with Wolves and Engineers south. The original party didn’t start destroying tracks until they were almost two hundred miles south, and they’re looking for big things to wreck. They’re searching for bridges and viaducts. They’ll keep going until they meet the Chinese. Then they’ll do some damage to the rolling stock and depend on the Big Peoples speed to get them out of there.

  The second party is pulling up rails and twisting them starting about one hundred miles out and they aren’t necessarily looking for big targets. Any bend in the road or any switch that can be twisted up quickly is a target. On the way back, they’ll pull up track all the way home.

  However, Captain Stanislaw has come up with a good delaying tactic. "

  Stanislaw tried to look surprised and then humble and failed at both, “Your grace, when the captain of Vagabond realized that it would be handy to put bullet holes in the steam engines - if the planes could reach trains, he remounted two of the fighters and flew them south. He’ll drop the planes over the trains and provide the Chinese with some holes to patch.”

  “The plan, Captain, is ingenious, but you said that the planes can’t re-hook to Vagabond, so how do you get them home? Those trains are way out of range.”

  “Vagabond can’t take the planes back on board, but she’s carrying extra barrels of fuel. They’ll attack at first light and after the attack they’ll all fly north. When the planes are low on fuel, they’ll all land and Vagabond will refuel the planes for the flight home.

  It’s slightly risky. We know that those wooden planes can be brought down by ground fire, but the Chinese have never seen a real fighter plane so we figure they can do two or three passes before anyone thinks to shoot at them."

  One of the interpreters bowed to Stanislaw, “Pilots not have trouble finding engines. Kublai so proud of new engines he have them painted bright red with yellow smoke stacks. Tell warriors easy to see.”

  I spent the rest of the evening hours touring the artillery emplacements, encouraging the men, congratulating them on their work and occasionally dismounting to share little food or a hear a few jokes. The men were polite, respectful, grateful, and, as usual, a little uncomfortable with having the boss around. Being the boss was not a path to popularity.

  The next morning I was up early. The day started badly.

  I decided to give a hand to Baron Ryszard. Actually, I decided that I was bored out of my mind from planning and paperwork and that I was not going to miss another battle. While they were dressing me, I told Terry and Shauna that they would not be riding with me today. They were the world’s best bodyguards but I had decided that modern warfare was not a place for nymphs. This was no longer medieval warfare. We now had bullets flying around, lots of them, and my bodyguards absolutely refused to wear armor.

  They wailed and whined and cried and clung to me and begged me to let them come. When I ordered them to Shut Up, they choked back their tears and sobbed silently. That was worse than the wailing and whining. Terry finally promised to wear greaves on her legs and arms and convinced me she could shelter between my body and my shield. I refused to relent on Shauna, but I finally promised she could ride in the future if she could find some way to protect herself on Silver’s back.

  I was already in a foul mood when Grzegorz rode by my tent. He gave a snappy salute from horseback, donned his most respectful face and said, “Your orders conspicuously failed to specify from where you will observe and direct the battle. I assume you will have a radio cart, but on the eave of a battle, we don’t know where to send messages?”

  “You know damned well that I’m not putting on this tin suit to be an observer. We’ve come a long way and now I’m going to lead a column into that city.”

  “Most odd, Sire, Baron Ryszard has also ridden far this last year and shown great courage in every battle. One might think he has earned the right the lead his men into battle.” Before I could skewer him, he shrugged and turned his horse to leave, “But, the Hetman knows best.”

  I do not like it when subordinates question my decisions, but I just gritted my teeth. He knew that the Wolves were as loyal to him as they were to me and I wasn’t going to punish him. It didn’t help that the bastard might be right. Maybe my proper place in this battle was on a high hill next to a radio cart and a bunch of runners.

  I always thought that one of the reasons that Alexander beat the Persians was that Alexander led the Greek side from horseback in the middle of the battle and Darius led the Persians from a sedan chair sitting on a hill surrounded by guards. Sooner or later, however, we were going to stop being a medieval army. Now that we had radios and observers flying over the battle, and a well trained force, it was probably time to stop being Alexander and become Eisenhower – but not today, damn it. Today, I’m going to kill something in Karakorum with my own hands

  Baron Ryszard was clearly not happy when I showed up with three companies of mounted infantry. As I drew up beside him, I gestured down to the city. “Baron, you are doing a good job. The plan is yours and the battle yours to lead. However, I am going to make one small addition. I will take a small force and lead a distraction. These laggards were lounging around with nothing to do, so I will take them through the railroad gate and perhaps draw off some fire from you and strengthen your flank.”

  Ryszard was a little happier when he realized that I was going to let him lead his own men. He would charge through the western wall, opposite the khan’s treasure houses. The artillery had cleared a path for him all the way through town.

  I had decided to make my assault through the railroad gates because if we went through the gate, we’d be right next to the khan’s palace. A good place to start killing Mongols. There was also a large empty area just beyond the gates that was usually filled with Yurts that would give us a lot of maneuvering room inside the walls. It was staked and ditched, but neither would slow up Big People.

  That maneuvering room also meant that we would be very exposed, but I had a shock tactic that should give us plenty of time to find cover. When Ryszard signaled the charge, I signaled to a lance of wolves who had loaded a boxcar with a hundred fifty pounds of black powder and parked it about a half mile down the tracks. A few minutes later a flaming boxcar appeared from the south, pushed by two Big People. Less than a quarter mile from the gate, the Big People pealed off and we began our charge, sweeping around behind the boxcar, but giving it lots of room. I lowered my shield around Terry as we approached the wall.

  That much black powder makes a spectacular explosion. The gate and a big section of wall around it disappeared and we were through before the dust settled. I doubt that anyone in this century had seen an explosion that big.

  There wasn’t much resistance inside, but there also wasn’t much cover. We were depending on surprise to get us across the quarter mile of empty land between us and the Palace before they could open up. The Mongols had trenched the area just inside the walls with trenches wide enough to stop any normal horses, but the Big People just stepped over them. The same would happen to the fence at the far side of the field. Any place that it hadn’t been smashed by our artillery, a Big Person could jump. Ahead of us and to the right was a small rail yard holding mostly burned out cars. There were perhaps twenty or thirty yurts still standing, but I doubt that anyone was riding out our artillery barrage in a yurt.

  Baron Gorski led one company on a wide sweep to the right, clearing the wall of defenders and sweeping any defenders from the rail yard to make certain we weren’t going to be hit from behind while I charged across the open space toward the Palace. Our first objective was the inner palace wall. The plan was to get there, dismount, establish a base, and then move forward under artillery cover. Before we could do that, we needed to get a radio into a safe position

  We made it almost to the palace wall before we hit any serious resistance, then the trooper beside me dropped out of his saddle. I glanced over long enough to see that another trooper was slumped over his saddle,
but still riding. More men began to drop.

  The bastards were using my swivel guns! Unlike their usual black powder guns, those swivel guns could go though chain mail like newspaper and even drop a knight from a hundred yards. We moved even faster to get over under the cover of the perimeter wall and I began to wish we had left more of it standing. We dismounted, found cover, and looked over the wall. The palace was a lot shorter than it had been three days before, but it was built on a large earth and masonry foundation that extended out in every direction. The Mongols had moved their guns to the foundation and shielded them behind mounds of rubble.

  We were still pinned down when a line of artillery fire suddenly marched across the base of the palace, taking out the gun emplacements, the guns, and considerable pieces of palace. That’s when I realized that I was in a modern war. The Flying Cloud was watching the battle from overhead. She must have seen we were pinned down and told the artillery where to drop shells.

  It seemed like a good time to leave. I raised my sword, yelled “For God. For Poland. For plunder!” and charged at the palace. Fortunately my men took the hint and followed me. It wasn’t until I ran into my first Mongol that I realized that I was still holding the useless sword in my right hand and switched to my Sten gun. Stens are fast, but it just isn’t as much fun killing a Mongol with a bullet as it is with a good sharp sword.

  The palace was pretty much flattened along with most of the defenders. We spent an hour scouring the base looking for a basement or underground bunkers, but we found nothing. I suppose it made sense. The khan was probably at his summer camp and with him gone, this was just a big flammable building barely worth defending.

  There were several mansions spread out between the palace and the rest of the town. Baron Gorski rode his men through each of them, but there didn’t seem to be anyone left alive in the wreckage. By the time I left the palace, he was already past the interior walls and into the commercial area of the city.