There were nods of agreement, finally Petronius’s gaze settled on Adam.
“The air corps has transferred nearly everything they have down to Constantine. They won’t pull out without a fight, sir. They will launch a strike,” Adam said. “We need to support it.”
“In this wind?” the first officer replied. “It must be gusting to thirty knots.”
“It will flatten by the end of the day.”
“If that battle was fought last evening they will be off the coast of Constantine by three this afternoon at the latest,” and as he spoke, he pointed forward, for the city was now less than five hours sailing time away at full speed.
Petronius looked from the first officer back to Adam and all fell silent.
“I’m with young Mr. Rosovich here,” Petronius replied softly. “I’ve never turned my back on a fight, and I’ll be damned if we do it now.”
Adam looked over at him, obviously surprised by the response.
“But, sir,” the first officer replied heatedly, “if Admiral Bullfinch and our entire fleet couldn’t stop them and got annihilated trying, then what the hell can we do. We don’t have a gun on this ship, just a bunch of crates that can barely fly.”
“We can die trying,” Petronius said, then paused, looking around at the group. “But we’ll do it with some intelligence, gentlemen, some intelligence.”
For a wonderful, blessed moment, the high scattered clouds cast a shadow over the butte. Abe crawled out from under his shelter half, Togo calling to him.
He tried to walk erect, but his head was swimming. Feet like lead, he shuffled slowly, kicking up dust, a broken arrow, spent cartridges. He squatted down by the sergeant’s side.
Togo was pointing toward the ravine to the north and offered his glasses. Several Bantag were out of the ravine, one of them holding a bucket, pouring water over the others. They paused, as if knowing they were being watched, and waved.
“Should I try a shot, Lieutenant? Arrogant bastards.”
Abe shook his head.
“Save what we got,” he croaked.
It had been a ghastly night, followed by an even worse dawn. Three times the Bantag had tried to scale the butte, the last fight hand-to-hand along the eastern rim. The dead from both sides lay where they fell; it was beyond asking the men to scratch holes in the hard ground, or to expend what energy they had left dragging the Bantag bodies off to push over the side. The one benefit of the charge was that nine of the Bantag dead had water sacks on them, enough so that a small cupful could be doled out to each man with enough left over for two cups for the surviving wounded.
Just before dawn the suicides started. Three men shot themselves in quick succession, while two simply stood up and charged over the rim. Abe had managed to stop two more, one by sitting and talking with the trooper until the boy broke down into sobs until he fell asleep, the second one with a fistfight that had sapped what little energy he had left.
Abe looked around at his perimeter. Maybe fifty men left who could fight, another forty or so wounded, dying, or beyond caring, lying comatose.
“Lieutenant,” Togo whispered. “Your speech was all mighty fine, but if we don’t get water and food, well, it’ll be over with by the end of the day.”
Abe wearily nodded.
“We wait till dark. You and the sergeant major,” and he nodded to the old man who was dozing in the shade of a blanket propped up with several Bantag spears, “break out down the west slope. Maybe some of you can get into those ravines and find a way out.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll stay here with the wounded.”
“A lot of good that will do, Lieutenant. This isn’t the time to get sentimental or play some heroic game. You stay here, you die, and it won’t be pleasant. Those buggers take you alive and figure out who you are, it’ll be a slow death.” Abe shook his head.
“I don’t think so, and they won’t take me alive.”
“Then I stay, too.”
“No. If anyone can lead these men out, it’s you.”
Togo sighed and finally nodded in agreement.
“You know none of us will make it. They’ll expect this.”
“I know.”
Togo laughed.
“Rice wine. A gallon of it, that’s what I’ll have when I get to where I’m going.”
“Lieutenant!”
He got up and half crawled to where a trooper on the west side was calling, pointing.
Abe could see it, mounted Bantag in the ravine. “Sergeant major! Round up ten men, get them over here.”
A hundred riders swept up out of the ravine and came forward at the charge.
“Wait for it,” Abe said. “Sergeant major, pass out the reserve ammunition one round at a time!”
The riders crossed the first four hundred yards without a shot being fired.
The last two hundred yards they swept in as before, low in the saddles. The Bantag dug in at the fallen redoubt resumed their harassing fire of launching arrows nearly straight up, shafts clattering down, striking ground. A trooper cursed as one caught him in the calf.
Measured shots snapped off, dropping several of the riders. Most of them dismounted, scurrying up to the wall and dodging in amongst the boulders and rocks. A few raced forward, coming up the slope, but were dropped by carefully placed shots.
The fight slacked off.
Several of the men looked at Abe, not sure of what was to come next.
“Just to see if we still had some fight in us,” he announced. He didn’t add that the reinforcements meant that any hope of breaking out had been sealed shut. The Bantag wanted to make sure that no one escaped.
“Sir?”
It was Togo, kneeling up and pointing.
He saw it too, and within seconds so did the others. There was a feeble shout, then men stood up, waving.
High up, half a dozen miles off, a dot was moving across the sky, slowly floating along…a flyer.
Men started shouting, taking off hats, waving, ignoring the flurry of sniper shots fired from the ravines. But the flyer continued on its way, never swerving from its course, tracking off to the northwest, growing smaller and yet smaller until it disappeared.
Abe knew that whatever faint hope still lingered with his men had finally broken at that moment. If a flyer had patrolled out this way and not seen them, it would not search there again. There were ten thousand square miles or more of ground where they might be lost, and that was assuming that the courier he had sent off had even made it back to the regiment.
Wearily he stood up and headed to the hospital tent, to take the medical orderly aside and ask him what was the most humane thing to do for those men who were unconscious when night came. He knew what the answer would be, and dreaded the thought. As he walked past the major, the madman simply sat there and glared, then broke into a taunting laugh.
Commander Cromwell walked down the flight line, thrilling to the sound of a hundred engines turning over, warming up; air crews and ground crews running past. He recognized several of them, classmates from the academy who had gone on to the air corps while he had joined the naval wing.
Every plane possible had been pressed into service, fifty at this field, nearly seventy more at the other two fields hastily laid out in the narrow plains behind Constantine.
There had been over a hundred and fifty, but without hangars for the larger ships or sheltered tie downs, nearly a quarter of the entire air corps had been destroyed by the storm before a single shot was fired.
Cromwell reached his aerosteamer, the Ilya Murometz he had flown two days before. Igor was already up in the cockpit, running the final checks, and Octavian was in his gatling position astern. Xing, however, had been replaced after complaining of a sudden stomach ache. It was just as well, Richard thought, since the forward gunner was also the bombardier. Approaching the massive airship, he spotted the new aimer. Surprisingly, a Cartha like himself named Drasulbul. They shook hands, then he crouched down
to look under the plane.
The four bombs were in their racks. At five hundred pounds each, it was the heaviest load any of the attackers would carry this day. He would have given anything to have the weapons on the aerosteamer carriers.
He walked around his plane, pausing for a second to watch as a Falcon took off. It barely rolled a hundred feet before it was up, nearly losing control in the gusty wind then leveling out. Another Falcon was airborne, and then a third.
He went up the ladder into the cockpit, slipping into the seat opposite Igor. His copilot and top gunner said nothing, just pointed to the gauge for the outboard starboard engine.
“Running a hundred revolutions a minute off, we’re not getting the heat on the engine. It’ll cut our speed a good five miles an hour. If it acts up, we’ll lose it.”
Cromwell stared straight at Igor.
“You suggesting we stand down?”
Igor gave him a tight lipped smile and shook his head.
“Just thought you should know.”
“What the hell,” Richard replied, “we’ll make it there, that’s the main thing.”
“How far out are they?”
“Thirty miles, last report.”
Two enemy scout planes had crossed over Constantine just before noon, flying high at well over five thousand feet. Neither of them had been caught by the four Falcons sent up in pursuit. Two of the Falcons had made it back with the latest fix. The watch tower on Diocletian Hill above the town had telegraphed a report just before he’d left the briefing, declaring that smoke was visible on the horizon.
Two more Falcons took off. A gust of wind upended one of them, wing clipping the ground and tearing off, the ship cartwheeling, then bursting into flames.
“Well there’s one that didn’t need his parachute,” Igor growled.
Richard said nothing. Petracci had announced that except for the Falcon pilots flying cover, no parachutes would be issued. It saved nearly a hundred pounds per man, a crucial factor where every pound saved was eight additional rounds for the gatlings. As for the attack aerosteamers, they would be flying too low to ever use them. Besides, there simply were not enough to go around.
A crew chief came running down the flight line, stopping in front of Cromwell’s plane and signaling for him to rev up.
Two more Falcons lifted, then two more. The ten Goliaths were next, lumbering off one at a time, straining to lift the ton of weight strapped under their fuselages.
The crew chief pointed to the right, signaling for Richard to begin taxiing out, a dozen men on the wings pushed, helping him to turn.
A Goliath floated past, propellers a blur. Three more Goliaths were ahead of him, the lead one turning, lining up to lift off…and then it burst into flames.
For several long seconds Richard sat, transfixed, not sure exactly what had gone wrong. He saw the aft gunner of the burning Goliath staggering out of the fire, wreathed in flames. No one was helping, men running in every direction. Richard’s crew chief pointed up, then turned and started to run as well.
Richard slid open his side window and stuck his head out to look at an aerosteamer diving straight at him, a light sparkling from above its upper wing. A shot cracked through the starboard wings of his plane, striking the ground.
Then the realization hit.
“Igor, we’re under attack. Get topside, do something. I’m taking this crate off!”
“You need both of us for that.”
“Do it!”
Richard started to rev up his starboard engines. The Goliath pilot who was next in line looked over at him, and he pointed to the takeoff strip, then up.
The pilot nodded, and seconds later the two-engine ship swung out onto the runway, starboard wing swinging within a few feet of the burning wreckage. He started to take off, top gunner up in position, gatling firing, tracers snaking up.
The burning tail dragged past Richard, who brought his starboard throttles up to full. The machine simply hung in place. Cursing, he leaned over, grabbed the port throttles, and brought them up to half speed. The Ilya Murometz finally lurched as if breaking free from the ground, rolled a few yards, and then started to pivot. Richard scrambled to slam back the port throttles. Lining up on the field, he saw the Goliath preceding him flying low, flame trailing from its starboard wing.
“One coming in directly astern!” Igor shouted, and a second later his gatling opened up.
Richard pushed all four throttles to the wall, braced his feet on the rudder pedals, and started the takeoff, praying that the Goliath ahead would clear the field.
Speed slowly picked up, he caught a glimpse of a Falcon swooping low, cutting across the field at a right angle, gatling firing. Another Falcon was coming down, wing sheared off, spinning out of control. And a strange looking airship, propeller mounted forward, with a large, single wing, bulky fuselage trailing blue flame; it and the damaged Falcon impacted near the control tower.
He felt the controls biting and looked quickly at the airspeed gauge. The wind was the only luck factor at the moment, strong enough that after less than a thousand feet he leaned back on the stick. Igor continued to fire, cursing wildly in Rus.
“Damn—to our left!” he cried.
Richard looked off to port but saw nothing, then realized that Igor, in his excitement and facing backwards, had his directions crossed. He looked off to starboard and was startled to see one of the single wing planes flying directly alongside, pilot clearly visible. To his amazement the pilot actually raised a clenched fist, then the plane disappeared, nosing up, and winging over.
The Goliath ahead was still lumbering forward, unable to gain height, fire all along its wing. Richard realized that the pilot knew he was doomed and was trying to get clear of the aerodrome.
The Goliath nosed over and went in, its bomb load exploding a split second later. The blast soared up in front of Cromwell, rocking the Ilya Murometz, putting it up on one wing so that Richard felt as if he was about to lose control and add his explosives to the conflagration.
He fought the controls, wishing that Igor was beside him instead of in the gunner’s slot. The great plane finally started to level out, and, looking over his shoulder, he could see the mad confusion of the fight. Half a dozen aerosteamers were on the ground, burning, and the hydrogen gas generator was on fire. Tracers snaked across the sky; two Falcons were diving, following a Kazan plane, which appeared to be slower. Seconds later the plane began to burn, nosed over, and went straight in.
He saw smoke rising from the second airfield, but the third still looked clear. The sky around him was aswarm with aerosteamers, weaving and banking, a fight unlike anything he had ever imagined. He realized that the last thing he needed was to be in the middle of the mad swirl and banked over to starboard, heading inland to get out of the fight and let the Falcons settle it.
He could see that the surviving Goliaths had the same idea and were turning out as well, a half dozen of the Falcons weaving in behind and above them.
After several miles he was forced to turn, not yet having enough altitude to clear the crest of the Diocletian Hills Along the crest he could see thousands of soldiers standing in the open, watching the fight. The ground all along the crest was torn up with hastily dug entrenchments snaking out from either flank of the main fort that dominated the hill. The fact that they were watching, like spectators, told him that they were in the clear. Turning, he looked back. The battle was all but over. Airships were heading out to sea, flying low, several of them trailing smoke. Fires dotted the landscape between the hills and the city down on the plain, marking where two dozen or more aerosteamers had died.
We should have thought of it, I should have thought of it, and he cursed himself. It wasn’t just the losses, although he feared that they were significant—maybe a third or more of the precious Goliaths. What was worse was the mass confusion. Falcons had flown off in every direction, their top cover was off chasing the surviving attackers. What was supposed to be a coordinated att
ack, everyone going in at once, was spread out across twenty miles of airspace. As for the aerosteamer carriers, which were to have arrived by now, they were nowhere to be seen.
“How many did they get?” Igor shouted, squatting down out of his gunnery position to look over Richard’s shoulder.
“Too many.”
“Now what?”
“We go in,” and he pointed out to sea where a cloud of dark smoke blotted the horizon.
Adam Rosovich stormed back and forth across the flight deck, shouting orders, watching as each of the Falcons was slowly lifted up from below, turned around, wings unfolded and engines started.
“Adam.”
It was Theodor, with a board tucked under his arm, a final check sheet for each of the planes.
“A word, son.”
“I don’t have time.”
“Yes, you do. Now come over here.”
Theodor led him over to the side railing. The sea below was still running high, waves rolling at ten to twelve feet, the crosswind breaking their tops, salty foam billowing off.
Adam looked up at the bridge beside him. The flag of the Republic was snapping, bent out; the ship’s fifteen knot speed added to the crosswind coming in abeam from the northwest.
“Could you make it short,” Adam asked testily, and Theodor put a hand on his shoulder.
“Relax, son.”
“What?”
“Just that. You’re making everyone nervous.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“Look, son. You’re a good pilot, and you’ve got one hell of a sharp engineering mind. Varinnia saw that in you back at the academy, she had you picked out a year before you graduated, but, son, you are not the best of leaders at the moment.”
Adam bristled.
“Friendly criticism, and please take it that way. I know what it’s like to fly into a battle. In fact I’m the only man in this entire fleet who’s done it before, and I will tell you, I used to puke from fear before I went in. You, on the other hand, are running around waving your arms and shouting orders.”
Down to the Sea Page 36