“They might have Greek fire,” Warner said. “Water doesn’t put it out.”
“What does?”
“Sand, maybe. And dirt. But it may have its own oxidant—”
“All right, Mr. Warner. Work with Sergeant Clavell to appoint a fire squad and have them gather equipment to fight that kind of fire. Anyone else? Can we hold the Doge’s Palace?”
Harrison shrugged.
“I’d sure try,” he said. “It’s built like a fortress anyway. Put the containers out in front of it like a wall, rifleman between them, musketeers in a block—Colonel, none of these pirates have ever been in a firefight before. I doubt they’ll stand more’n one or two volleys.”
“I don’t know about muskets, but I shouldn’t think they would stand up to massed rifle fire any better than Ganton’s army did when we first encountered it,” Baker said. “Which is to say not at all. At the same time, Colonel, whatever we do, understand that we have no more than two hundred rounds per man. And not every round will kill an enemy.”
“Plus, our Gurkhas can’t be in two places at one time,” Rick noted. “Let’s move on. What’s next on your checklist, Lieutenant?”
“Time and—” Martins began, then paused as Cal Haskins raised a hand.
“Yes, Mr. Haskins?” Rick said.
“Colonel, I understand about getting the containers outside buildings that could burn,” Haskins replied, “and I understand the pirates don’t have guns. But these containers’ walls ain’t all that thick.”
“Oh. How thick are they?”
“Sides are twelve or fourteen-gauge,” Haskins replied. “Call it a tenth of an inch, max.” He shrugged. “Plenty to take care of occasional bangs and dings, but I dunno how well it’d hold up to heavy damage.”
“Crap, Skipper.” Mason grimaced. “That’s only about half as thick as a Drantos breastplate!”
“And a heavy crossbow bolt can penetrate one of those if it hits just right—or just wrong, depending on your viewpoint,” Rick acknowledged.
“Yes, Sir. So can a pile-headed arrow from a longbow, but at least any of them should be on our side.”
“One or two hits like that probably wouldn’t do catastrophic damage,” Saxon said. “They’d have to hit hard enough to punch all the way through and then hit something critical inside. But I can’t guarantee that wouldn’t happen. And even if it didn’t damage anything, it would break the weather seal and let a lot of moisture in. I don’t think exposure to saltwater would do the contents any good.”
“And if we place them in the open in the Palazzo San Marco, they’ll be in standing water at high tide,” Baker said thoughtfully. “Punch a few holes, flood them—”
He shrugged, and Rick nodded. Damn, they’re right. Of course, those containers are what the pirates are here to grab. They probably wouldn’t want to wreck them any more than we would. But accidents happen.
“All right,” he said after a moment. “I still don’t want them anywhere something could burn down on top of them, but we obviously don’t want them anywhere else where they’re likely to be damaged. What about this? We haul them into the Palazzo San Marco and put them directly in front of the Doge’s Palace. That gets them out of the open and away from fire hazards. Then we throw up breastworks in front of them for our actual fighting positions. God knows there are plenty of paving stones here in the city and I’ll bet they’ve got a whole stack of timbers in the Arsenale, and we’ve got a lot of hands that can pile them where we need them.”
“If the pirates figure out where they are, they’ll act like a magnet,” Warner pointed out.
“Might not be a bad thing,” Mason replied. Rick looked at him, and he shrugged. “Anything that channels them into predictable approaches has to help us, Sir.”
“So long as it doesn’t attract overwhelming strength,” Baker said, nodding in approval.
“All right,” Rick nodded back, and returned his gaze to Martins. “You were saying the next item was?”
“Time and Space,” Martins replied.
“Like I said, we expect them to arrive around noon tomorrow.”
Mason stood.
“Colonel, you’re not concerned about a night attack?” he asked, and Rick grinned.
“Major Mason, that’s the same thing I asked the Nikeisian admiral, that Senator del Verme. He said he hoped they’d be stupid enough to try a night attack, but the difficulties of getting around the lagoon are pretty well known among mariners. No pirate’s going to try that at night. They’ll attack in daylight, probably at high tide, which is just after the noon of the True Sun. Yes, I know, overconfidence is the key to defeat. Del Verme knows that, too. He has picket ships out searching, just in case. We’ll have warning if the pirate fleet gets close enough to be a danger.”
Mason sat, but Baker frowned, and Rick looked at him.
“Major?”
“How far out are his pickets, Colonel?”
“He doesn’t have an unlimited supply of ships,” Rick replied. “He knows the pirates’ probable approach bearing, and he’s put an advanced screen about thirty miles out on that bearing. The ships in it are spread pretty thin, but he has an inner picket line fifteen miles out that’s a lot thicker.”
“Then I suggest we reinforce the inner picket with some of the Roman triremes and equip them with some of your signal rockets. A lookout on that tower Sergeant Clavell mentioned should be able to see rockets at least eighteen or nineteen miles out to sea once they’ve gained some altitude.”
Martins flipped a few pages in his book, looked at a conversion chart, did some quick math, and spoke up.
“If the pirates are making five knots, which is generous, and the outer picket spots them and relays through the inner picket, we should have at least six or seven hours of warning,” he said.
“You and Mason work that out with Junius. If he balks, let me know and I’ll talk to Publius. What’s next?”
“Surprise.” Martins looked up and realized that hadn’t come out right. “Gaining and employing the element of surprise,” he clarified.
“Okay, let’s go with the obvious question.” Rick looked around the room. “Do they know we’re here?”
“There were survivors from our engagement with the pirates near the swamps,” Baker replied.
“And if the reason they’re coming here was lights in the sky, it stands to reason the local star men are going to show up,” Warner added. “But they won’t know exactly where we are.”
“Actually, they’ll know we have the same problems as they do, and galleys don’t normally sail beyond sight of land,” Martins replied.
“You’ve mentioned that before,” Rick said. “Your point?”
“My point is that they’re unlikely to expect us to do that, either, Sir,” Martins said. “But we can see a much greater distance from the towers here in the city than they can from a masthead lookout, and we have radios. We could position the Romans where the enemy doesn’t expect them to be and still maintain command and control.”
“Maybe,” Warner said. Rick—and Martins—looked at him, and he shrugged. “I’m sure we can, within limits, Colonel. But Lieutenant Martins just pointed out that five knots is a generous speed estimate for one of these ships. If we put the Romans too far out, will they be able to intercept the pirates short of the city?”
Martins looked a bit chagrined, but Rick nodded.
“Valid points for us to keep in mind,” he acknowledged. “Let’s move on.”
“Logistics,” Martins said.
“We’re good for food and water, so long as we don’t lose the island,” Mason said. “What we don’t have is any extra ammunition for the star weapons or gunpowder for the muskets, unless we want to use Nikeis powder.”
“Our opposition has a much more difficult situation,” Martins said. “Colonel, your report is that they’re coming from a port two days away. Unless they try and take Pavino or another harbor, and according to Captain Pilinius, their galleys don’t
have as much endurance as Roman ships do. They’ll need water, probably even food, and Nikeis is the only place to get them. So they’re in a make-or-break scenario.”
“And if the wind doesn’t work for them and they have to row all night, their rowers are probably going to be tired when they get here, too.” Rick nodded. “Hell of a roll of the dice.”
“If they do take another port to stage through, we’d gain more time,” Martins pointed out. “Probably at least a week. We could do a lot with a week.”
“That’s quite a dilemma,” Baker mused. “Take the ports and gain a base of operations or charge straight in. The smart play would be to acquire the forward base first, but only if they were confident they could hold their alliance together.”
“We’ll assume the Signory intel is accurate and post the pickets,” Rick said.
“Well, that rather brings up another point, Colonel,” Martins said. “Weather.”
“Go,” Rick replied.
“The winds were picking up as we approached the city,” the lieutenant said, “and they’re out of the northeast, not the west, which is the prevailing wind direction at this latitude. There were a few whitecaps, as well, and I saw red skies when the secondary star rose this forenoon.”
“‘Red sky at morning, sailor take warning,’” Warner quoted. “Yeah, that seems to hold true here, as well.”
“So I expect heavy weather is headed our way,” Martins continued. “The current winds are from the northeast. If the enemy fleet comes from the north, they’ll be at least partly upwind of the islands and being blown down on the city. Again, another make-or-break condition for them.”
“And for us,” Rick said. “We can’t move until that storm passes if you’re right, but at least we have a safe harbor.” He grimaced. “All right, file that as a consideration. What about the pirates’ possible courses of action?”
“Without the Romans or the Nikeisians’ input, we’re mostly guessing,” Baker said.
“Corporal Harrison seems to have a pretty good idea of how ships fight around here,” Rick replied. “And as Lieutenant Martins just pointed out, we know their ships don’t have a lot of endurance, so it’s pretty obvious they can’t blockade us unless they capture a nearby port. So they have to make an assault or withdraw.”
“Their limits of command -and -control give them only two viable options, really,” Martins offered.
“Which are?”
“Their most likely course of action is a multi-echelon deep assault directly into the main channel on the north side of the islands. Just as Corporal Harrison said. The other approach would be to deploy a very broad line, with fewer echelons, to envelop the islands and find another way—or ways—in.”
“Okay, what are ours?”
“Fight them at sea,” Warner said. “Turn Ferox into a battlecruiser. Put a platoon of Gurkhas aboard. Add the LMG and Frick with the Carl Gustav. Keep it light—no cargo, minimum food and water, and strip out most of the Roman marines. She can outrun just about anything she sees and outfight anything fast enough to catch her. We send that out and see what the pirates do. We put Major Baker’s Brens aboard the navibus onerārius and they become ships-of-the-line. Assume three Gurkha ships, including Ferox, twenty troopers and an officer in each. That’s three battleships. Nothing they have can touch them. Add Tamaerthan archers to two other ships, makes two cruisers. Six ships-of-the-line.”
“So long as they have ammunition,” Baker observed. “Damn thin battle line, Colonel.”
“Thin, but powerful,” Warner argued.
“If nothing goes wrong,” Bisso muttered. “Damn thin, if you ask me, Sir.”
“You don’t like this, Master Sergeant,” Rick said.
“No, Sir, and that’s a fact. If you ask me, we forget the damn naval battle. Get those containers and all our people into one place and defend that with all we’ve got.”
“Bisso, that’s going to be hard on Nikeis,” Clavell protested.
“No harder than if we go out there to fight at sea and they get past us. I don’t think Mr. Warner’s plan can guarantee they won’t.”
Warner frowned, then shrugged.
“No guarantees,” he admitted. “In fact, some of them are sure to get past us.”
And not your decision, Rick thought. Hell’s bells, I wasn’t even the captain of the track team, and now my decisions could get everyone here killed. Maybe the whole flipping planet. I can’t even run. I’m on an island!
“One thing about Master Sergeant Bisso’s plan,” Harrison said. “We get all those containers together in front of the Doge’s Palace, we’re holding Palazzo San Marco. That’s the center of town. Gives us the most defensive depth we’re going to find.”
“What else?” Rick asked, and looked directly at Baker. You and Martins have something in mind, he thought, and it’s about damn time you came out with it.
“Envelopment.” Baker stood and gestured at the map. “We send the Roman squadron out the sea, to the east, just as soon as we see the pirate fleet. Then they tack due north to get upwind of the enemy. You guide them from the tower, to keep them out of the pirates’ sight the whole way. When the pirates are engaged with the lagoon’s outer defenses, the Romans hit them in the flank. Shortly after that, a Nikeisian squadron comes in from the west, snakes its way around the mud flats, and engages them on that side.”
“Cannae?” Rick mused.
“Precisely.”
“Colonel, what’s Cannae?” Bisso asked.
“Cannae was a battle on Earth,” Rick replied. “Ancient Rome and Carthage were at war, and Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, knew the Romans intended to smash through his army. So he placed a force in front of them to draw them in and had those troops give ground during the fighting. With the Roman attention focused on advancing, he was able to surround them on both sides. When he hit them in the flanks, the Roman legionnaires were compressed together so badly that men died standing up. The whole Roman force was massacred.” He turned back to Baker. “We’d have to put a force in front of them to draw them in.”
“I rather think the containers will draw them in nicely, in a strategic sense,” Baker pointed out with a thin smile. “Tactically, we put the second Nikeisian squadron in a line defending the main channel. The fustas ambush those that make it inside the perimeter. Meanwhile, our troops fight off those that make it as far as the square.”
Who have you been talking to? Rick wondered.
“The key,” Baker continued, “is to let sailors be sailors and soldiers be soldiers. At the same time, reinforcing the Romans with the Carl Gustav, the machine guns, and a few volunteer riflemen would make the squadron very effective when the force flanks the enemy.”
Junius or Publius, Rick decided. Probably both.
“Mr. Saxon’s petrol bombs and firebombs would be most effective in the hands of a force upwind of the enemy,” Martins offered, and Rick swallowed an ignoble urge to glare at both of them.
This was a setup all along. A game of “manage the amateur.” But damn it, they’re probably right.
“Okay, I’m not going to spend a lot of time arguing the advantages and disadvantages of each approach.” He nodded to Warner. “It’s too soon to try experimenting with building a battle line.” He nodded to Bisso. “And there are too many of them to fight them all on land. We’ll go with the Cannae approach. It has the advantage that if we lose the fleet, we can still fight a land battle with most of our forces intact. The Romans get a detachment of riflemen and the Gustav, but the machine guns—and the mortars—stay ashore. Just one question: what happens if the pirate fleet goes with a broad battle line? It’ll be hard to keep the Roman squadron out of sight but still close enough to arrive in time.”
“In that case,” Martins responded, “the enemy fleet’s left wing will be equal in number to the Roman squadron and, at a minimum, the enemy commander will be on the horns of a dilemma.”
Now I’m certain they’ve been talking with the Romans.
“Radios and command structure,” Rick said. “We have nine radios, five shoulder mics, the HF units, one hand charger, and Mr. Saxon’s generator. We’ll need a radio talker, signal corpsmen, and a team of mercs with Admiral del Verme and the same with Fleetmaster Junius—both of them get shoulder mics. Major Baker will have his own radio, as will Major Mason, and the Sergeant Major. Give one to Sergeant Walbrook with the mortars, and the repeater and the charger will go in the tower with me. Lieutenant Cargill, make setting that up and rigging the antenna your first priority; I don’t want any of us losing comms. That leaves three handhelds. Once we’ve had time to coordinate with the militia about the best defensive positions outside the Palazzo itself, we’ll see about distributing them were they’ll do the best for overall coordination. Lieutenant Martins, please work out some simple signals for the rockets with Master Sergeant Bisso.”
“We have half a dozen radios of our own,” Saxon put in. Rick looked at him, and he shrugged. “They’re in the container at the Arsenale right now. I think they’re pretty similar to the ones you have.”
“Then we dig those out as soon as possible and find out if they’ll mesh with yours, Major,” Rick told Baker. “The farther we can extend our radio net, the better.”
“Of course, Sir. Another job for Leftenant Cargill.”
“Art, please dismiss the troops, but I want to have a word with the officers, Mr. Saxon, and Mr. Haskins. Oh, Sergeant Clavell and Corporal Harrison, would you please remain behind, as well?”
Major Mason nodded to Master Sergeant Bisso.
“Ten-Hut!”
Everyone rose.
Mamelukes Page 52