Conrad's Last Campaign

by Leo A. Frankowski

  “I will see you hung for mutiny!”

  “Mutiny? There is no mutiny. There is only a formal demand by a liegeman for the rights you guaranteed him under the oath of fealty. Despite this disagreement, I am a loyal servant who would give his life for yours, and I want no man to think differently.

  By the way, the Mongol building next door has a rather high tower with a balcony on the top. The engineers have been enlarging and roofing the balcony for use as an observation post. As you are currently limited in your mobility, you may want to oversee the battle from there. In addition to the excellent visibility for yourself, the men can see you up there and take heart from your continued health and attention to their welfare."

  And then the bastard was gone and despite my anger and pain, the laudanum kicked in and I was soon sleeping.

  The next three days were almost a blur. I tried to resist the pain killers, but I spent most of the time in a daze. The Mongols launched two more attacks, improving their tactics each time. During one of my waking periods, I ordered that sharpshooters be stationed on the hillsides, to target only the Mongol horsemen driving the Chinese troops forward. Perhaps without the incentive of armed Mongols, the Chinese troops would not try so hard to move forward.

  By the morning of the third day, I was able to stand with little pain and even to walk carefully. I held my normal morning staff meeting. Sir Grzegorz was pointedly not invited and he pointedly showed up anyway, knowing that there was no way I wanted our disagreement to be made public. The traitorous bastard was even cheerful.

  I learned that the Mongols had made progress. When the wolves snuck out at night to burn the toppled siege towers, they found that the towers were booby trapped with black powder bombs. They learned the hard way and it was the last thing some of them learned. It cost us a squad.

  The Mongols were using cheap Chinese lives to litter the battlefield with cover. Behind some of the barriers the Chinese dug foxholes. On some attacks they rolled boulders ahead of themselves and left the boulders when we chased them back. Slowly, they were moving shrinking the unprotected area.

  I still held back on our air power and our biggest artillery. The troops being sent forward now were just cannon fodder. I wanted to use our big guns on the Mongols.

  As angry as I was at my own army trying to keep me away from combat, I was in no shape to ride Silver anywhere and unable to walk more than a few feet, so I finally relented and went to the new observation post. I tried to put on my repaired breastplate, but the pain was teeth gritting, so I settled for my golden helmet, greaves, and a bright gold cape. I walked proudly from my tent to the Mongol mansion behind it and then collapsed into the arms of four strong corpsmen who carried me up six long flights of stairs.

  The balcony had been extended around all four sides of the tower. The engineers had done an excellent job. It was roofed over to avoid glare and there were telescope stands on all four sides. One of my desks was there with a comfortable chair, a box of cigars, and a phone connected to the radiomen on the first floor. There were other chairs and small desks for observers and a machine gun mounted on each side, “just in case.” If it had an elevator it would have been heaven.

  A cheer went up from the men below when I appeared at the railing, forcing me to spend a painful minute waving my arm and smiling.

  Our soldiers below were working like Roman Legionnaires. I read where a Roman soldier might go his entire life without a battle in some periods, but he rarely went more than a few months without building something. Since we couldn’t get more that twenty percent of our men on the front lines, at one time, the rest were working off their tension by improving the compound,

  There was too much going on to take it all in. I saw men digging foxholes and latrines, putting dirt walls around cooking tents, and building dirt embankments around artillery pieces.

  Kolomel Eikmann had been as busy and competent as usual. To the east I could see a single runway cut alongside the riverbed. He had tested the riverbed and found it to be mostly gravel for its entire length, making it a good road for Big People and passable for our carts. Along one side he marked out a wagon trail and posted orders to keep it clear.

  That gave us a rapid road between the two ends of the valley or a rapid egress if we had to leave in a hurry. It fit the plans I had made while drifting between sleep and wakefulness. I now knew how the battle would end.

  It was time to fill in the senior staff. I sent runners out for Count Sir Grzegorz, Count Sir Wladyclaw, Kolomel Eikman , Baron Kowalski, Commodore Stanislaw and Baron Ivanov. As it was still early, I set the meeting for noon. I decided to hold the meeting right where I was, overlooking the valley, and taking some glee in the fact the Grzegorz would have to climb all those damned stairs.

  Then I sat at my desk for the next few hours, basking in the early sunlight, and went over my plans.

  My aides had set up a simple sideboard by the time the last of them huffed and puffed his way up the stairs. The balcony was only about 8 feet wide, so it was close quarters.

  When they had their drinks and were balancing their sandwiches on their knees I opened the meeting. “Gentlemen, I now know how this battle is going to end, but I’m going to need a lot of help to pull it off, so you’re all going to be busy for next few days.

  Most of you expected that we would sit here behind our defenses while the Mongols threw themselves on our swords until there were only a few Mongols left, and then we would ride out and kill the leftovers. The odds of this diminish every day. The Mongols have been cautious so far and they’ve only used their Chinese troops to attack us. They’re moving slow, looking for a weakness, and trying to compromise our fortifications.

  There is a time limit here. If the Mongols don’t get through our defenses in a few months, they’ll run out of food and cannon fodder, and retreat south. They can afford to wait for another day or another year to fight us.

  If they scatter and move out, we will never have a decisive battle. We won’t be able to do anything but harass them as they leave, and, frankly, our men would be very unhappy if we decided to take more months of their lives following Mongols around.

  So, we’ll take a page out of the Mongol battle plan. We’ll make them think they are doing well. We’ll encourage them to keep letting us kill their men the easy way, by shooting them while they run at us. If they lose heart, we may even need to let them have a little success, like taking the outer defense ditches. The more of their men we can kill from home, the less we will have to handle on the tundra.

  To encourage them, we’re going to hide our assets and minimize what we can do. I know that our artillery could take out the center of the Mongol camp without moving an inch from where they are and our planes could wipe any attack without breathing hard.

  As long as they keep trying, we keep it low key.

  Before they get too discouraged and stop sending us targets. We’re gonna kill them where they stand.

  We’ll send out half our force through the back door, ride like Hell and get ready to flank the main Mongol force. The other half of the force will boil out the front door and head for the main camp. We’ll have a pincer on the Mongols.

  At about the time they’re in position, we’ll open up with everything we have. We’ll throw in enough artillery to clear our front door, and then open up with the big gun on the center of the main camp. The rigidibles will drop the arrows we liberated from Karakorum and whatever bombs we can jerry rig. The airplanes will block the way south by blasting anything that moves that way. We will unleash Hell.

  I know that each of you sees problems and complications that you have to handle, and I’ll give you time to consider the plan before we discuss it further, but a few things come to mind. Sir Eikmann, you’ll have to prepare our egress. We need a way to get past out own defenses with fifteen thousand or so men without slowing down."

  “We considered that when we prepared the defenses, Sire. From the top of an embankment, a Big Person can jump the ditches
without slowing down. If we add some charges in the right places, we can probably improve that by blowing some of the embankments down into the ditches. I’ll get back to you on that,”

  “That’s a good start, but be certain we can do it. Sir Stanislaw, your job is one of the most important. There will be Mongol force of some sort at both ends of the valley. I’m hoping the back gate will be more lightly defended so we can go out that way. However, the entire plan will fail if the Mongols at the east entrance can tell their friends in the main camp that we’re on the way. So, you have to cut then off. Kill the rocket planes, find any messenger stations between the two forces and take them out. We’ll also need a good map of the best path for an army from the east end to take around to the main Mongol camp.

  It took the Mongols almost a week to move that distance, Big People can do it in less than two days if you can find us a path.

  Sir Kowalski, you are going to have to plan and execute a ballet. We need artillery at the east barrier until the force gets through, then most of the pieces need to be repositioned to support the main break out.

  When the main force breaks out, they will need artillery support and you may need to move the smaller pieces closer to the Mongol camp.

  Unfortunately, my injuries keep me from being involved in most of the planning. In a few minutes, I will need to go back to my tent and continue to heal. Tomorrow noon we will convene again and go over our preliminary plans.

  Please enjoy the wine before you leave."

  Then I carefully and slowly walked to the stairwell and, as soon as I was out of sight, collapsed into the arms of the waiting corpsmen,

  The Waiting Game.

  Doodles done by Su Song – and immediately burned.

  The end is near. Now all I have to do is wonder whether my notebooks have reached my friend and whether the true Emperor has taken action. I have informed the general that I must leave tomorrow to coordinate supply shipments from the south. He was unable to hide his glee at losing me.

  Thanks to Uncle Tom’s modifications, my body heals amazingly fast. I was mobile again in a week. I wasn’t completely healed, but the ribs were mending quickly, and I would be completely healed in another week.

  The Mongols didn’t need encouragement yet to keep attacking us. They literally stacked up the bodies in front of us. They made no attempt to recover their wounded or dying and when the wind was from the west, the smell was nauseating.

  They managed to reach the outer ditch just once. The sent in Chinese soldiers rolling boulders, intending to start filling in the ditch with boulders and bodies. We were still holding back on our full firepower in an attempt to get the herding Mongols in range, but the game was getting dicey. Our losses were small compared to the Chinese, but not negligible. The med tents were getting a lot of business and the graveyard was growing.

  Baron Ryszard pitched a tent close to the outer embankment and assumed twenty four hour command of the western walls. Baron Krol did the same at the eastern defensive wall.

  About two weeks after the first attack, I was taking a careful ride around the camp when several medical wagons charged by. I couldn’t keep up yet, but I followed them to the eastern defenses. A mounted Mongol force had reached our eastern side charged right in. No bells, no whistles, no chants, no hesitation, just charge!

  A less experienced commander or a cowardly one might have been unnerved by the speed of the attack, but Krol already had cannon loaded with grape shot aiming outward and camouflaged machine gun wagons on elevated platforms. His men held fire until they could almost smell the leading Mongols and then unloaded with everything.

  Half of the Mongols died in the first few minutes, but the other half kept coming. They were still coming when I reached the embankment, but it didn’t last long and nobody saved one for me.

  Krol and one of his aides were looking over the battlefield from the top of a embankment as I drew up. I just opened my mouth to warn Krol about “dead” Mongols when a shot rang out and his aid dropped where he stood. Machine guns raked the area the shot had come from.

  Krol grabbed his aid under the arms and pulled him down to where the corpsmen could get him on a stretcher. There was a lot of blood and I doubted that he would reach the med tent alive.

  He stood there for a moment with his aides blood spattered on his left arm and chest. He was breathing heavily and his mustache dripped sweat. When he saw me he grunted in my direction, gave a minimal salute and said, “My mistake, Sire, but I’m afraid that Albin has paid the price.”

  “It was a mistake, Baron, but Squire Albin could have warned you about dead Mongols, or discouraged you from standing where you were. The error was also his. You had better send out a mercy crew to make certain that none of the other ‘dead’ Mongols are still suffering.

  Is there anything you need? Do you need more men or anything that I can send you from stores?"

  His voice was higher than usual and he seemed distracted, “No, they’re going to rotate in about half an hour. I’ll have plenty of men and we barely touched our ammo supply. We’re good.”

  “Sire Krol, you have done a good job here. I will not worry about this barricade while you command it. Perhaps you should have a little rest now and let one of your captains organize the mercy squads.”

  I stopped by the med tent on the way back and learned than Albin had, indeed, paid the ultimate price for his mistake. As Christians, we were required to inter our dead. Since there was little space in our crowded camp, the Chaplains had dug a cave into the valley wall. Albin would be placed there and his name added to a plaque. The last act of the Chaplain when we left this valley would be to collapse the cave and place the plaque over the entrance. May God have mercy on their souls.

  I figured that the Mongols would stay for three more months. The medieval world was governed by seasons. There was a hunting season, a fishing season, a harvest season, and a war season between the planting and harvest seasons. In my old timeline, the Mongols had shocked their opponents by fighting in the winter season by using the frozen rivers as roads into Russia and the Middle East, but generally, there was a war season.

  I’m certain that my own men thought that the plan was to sit out the war season in the valley and then head for home when the game was called on account of weather. I guess I should have told the Mongols what they were supposed to do.

  About four weeks into the siege things had been quiet for several days, when we got a message from Zerphr. Apparently the Mongols were moving more troops east for another attempt at that entrance. They had moved about half way and were camped at a site where the trail came close to the mountains that ringed our valley. The next day, the observation post at the ridge reported that the Mongols had brought up artillery and fired several volleys at them. However, all the shells fell short, very short, so the post wasn’t particularly worried.

  When the ridge post failed to check in the next morning, we sent squad scrambling up the hillside to check on them. They didn’t get very far.

  In was barely dawn when I was awakened by battle sounds. I felt no need to move fast or soon. This attack wouldn’t be any more exiting than the last. Terry was spooned next to my stomach and Shauna cuddled up behind me. It was a warm, soft, drifting sleep that stole away quietly – until the explosion happened in front of my tent.

  The three of us were out of bed, covered enough for decency and astride Silver in less than a minute. We sped toward the front and arrived in the middle of the biggest battle yet. I stopped at the headquarters bunker for the inner barricade to get my bearings.

  Beyond the outer barrier, the Chinese and Mongols were moving forward, but this was no probing attack, no march of the cannon fodder. The siege towers were back, shortened, better armored, and mounting swivel guns. The foot soldiers pushed barriers ahead of them again, but moved from cover to cover, using the flotsam from prior battles for shielding.

  The Mongols were all on foot, no longer willing to give us easy targets by standing tal
l in the saddle.

  As I watched, machine gun fire raked our own men – from behind. It wasn’t very accurate, but it didn’t need to be. Half a dozen men took fifty caliber shells in the first thirty seconds. I looked up to see firing from the ridge top and thirty or forty Chinese troops manning a captured machine gun, swivel guns, and a couple of small mortars. One of those mortars had been my wake up call.

  The bastards had flanked us.

  We were in serious danger of being overrun, but the army was already fighting back. From somewhere, ten men dislodged a wooden footbridge and carried it up onto the embankment to cover the defender’s backs. Big People were pulling wagons up the hill and leaving them behind soldiers for cover. Reserve warriors were grabbing shields and throwing themselves on the ground next to the defenders, holding the shields up to defend from the guns on the ridge.

  The machine guns on the front line were busy stopping the attack, but on the inner defensive line and in the camp, several level headed officers had turned their guns around and started firing at the ridge line. It was a long shot, over 1200 yards straight up, but doable.

  It wasn’t enough. We were being pushed back. Despite the spirit shown by the men, confusion was crippling our front line. It’s hard to concentrate on killing the man in front of you when the unseen man behind you is shooting at you.

  Fortunately, my runners and my aids had dressed almost as fast as I did, and there was a radio cart in the bunker. I grabbed one of the radio men and told him to get a message out to the Eagles. “Time to fly. Kill the bastards on the ridge. Now!”

  Kowalski had already swiveled some of his artillery in that direction, but dropping a shell on a crest that far up was damned near impossible. Still, it might keep their heads down. Didn’t seem to help much. The Mongol mortar men kept dropping shells onto random areas of the camp as often as they could reload.