Bekiaa appeared out of the swirling gloom and stopped beside him, gasping, her hands on her knees. Flynn offered his canteen.
“You better save that, sir,” Bekiaa grated. “We lost all the Sularan water butts, and I don’t know if ours made it through this or not yet.” She waved around.
“Take a drink,” he ordered grimly. “We have only about half the Sularans to worry about.”
“We were lucky to get that many out,” Bekiaa reminded him, and relenting, took the canteen. “The Grik nearly got them all, and the caav, once they figured out they were retreating.” She took a small sip and handed the canteen back, blinking admiration. “The caavalry earned their pay today! I confess I never imagined such a… quickly moving fight on land! And the Marines who covered them at the end!” she added proudly. “Those new breechloaders are a wonder! The Grik pursuers melted before them like wax!”
“Yeah, the cav did swell,” Flynn agreed. “Everybody did. And those Allin-Silvas are great-but they use a lot of ammunition, fast.” He looked around. “Just swell,” he muttered. “So, now everybody’s here with us, in one place, being burned alive.” He paused, steeling himself. “What’s left?” he asked at last.
“It was bad,” Bekiaa admitted, “but the work you had us do paid off. We lost over a hundred dead in the bombing, and many more wounded.” She sighed, her tail swishing in the glow. “A lot of those will not live. I estimate twenty-eight hundred effectives remain.” She stood up straight at last. “We brought out some of the Sulaaran’s caissons, with many people clinging to them-but then lost several of our own to the fires. I am not sure exactly what our ammunition situation is, but we can still fight.”
Flynn pointed at the sky. “We can’t fight that! Where the HELL is the Air Corps?”
Bekiaa shook her head. “I do not know. The communications equipment survived, but the aerial is down-for now. Saachic has taken out a patrol, but the Grik stay back.”
“Makes sense,” said Flynn. “No point in them getting burned by their own zeps when they come back.”
“You think they will?”
“Why not?” Flynn said bitterly. “The fires are dying down, but we can’t put ’em all out. We make a fine target from the air.” He grunted.
“What?” Bekiaa asked.
“Oh, just a weird thought. There might be fifty thousand Grik out there-plenty to go over us like a steamroller-but they’re waiting for their high-tech weapons to finish us off!”
An hour passed, then two. Axes dropped most of the rest of the smoldering trees and they were shifted into a checkerboard of revetments, fighting positions, and overhead protection. The aerial was restrung, but now there was a problem with the batteries. Apparently, one of the trees they felled landed heavily against its cart and cracked their mobile power supply. A Ronson wind generator was rigged, but there was no wind. The handles for the hand generator couldn’t be found, and the comm ’Cats were trying to make some with the help of a battery forge. It was all infuriatingly frustrating and exhausting work-on top of a long, difficult march the day before and the events of the late afternoon.
Heavy, echoing thunderclaps of massed artillery fire and ripping sheets of musketry drifted toward them from the Rocky Gap, and flashes like lightning beyond the horizon lit the sky above it.
“Second Corps is in it now,” Flynn said to Bekiaa, still by his side. None of the 1st Sular’s senior officers had survived, and she remained his exec. An exhausted Captain Saachic returned and blearily reported that there very well might be fifty thousand Grik surrounding North Hill, but for now they were holding back, waiting, as Flynn had predicted. Flynn ordered him, and everyone who could, to get some sleep. The long night wore on and the flames faded almost entirely, giving them hope that the enemy airships might not return. Of course, they could just be waiting for daylight now. The fighting in the gap ebbed and flowed, but never ceased, and all that William Flynn, Bekiaa-Sab-At, and much of what remained of the 5th Division could do was stand, sleeplessly, and wait.
Eventually, just as the sky was beginning to turn gray in the east, the dreaded sound of the odd little Grik zeppelin engines reemerged. Inexorably, the airships drew closer, nearly invisible in the dark sky above.
“Sound ‘Stand To,’” Flynn sighed, and shortly after, the drums began to rumble.
Staring up, Bekiaa thought she could just make out the enemy craft, the sun beginning to reach the higher objects. She was startled when a stream of reddish, flaring dots suddenly arced through the air and impacted against one of the dingy cylinders. Almost immediately, it erupted into bright, hungry flames and began to fall out of the creeping formation!
“Col-nol!” she cried, grasping Flynn’s arm.
As was customary at that latitude, aided by the elevation, dawn came swiftly-particularly to the “furball” that suddenly erupted in the sky. A squadron of white-bellied Nancys swarmed the remaining eight zeppelins, hosing them with tracers from the single. 50-caliber machine gun mounted in their noses. The weapons were further gifts from the salvaged Santa Catalina; either spares or guns that had been removed from the P-40s. It had been deemed unnecessary for all the Warhawks to carry their full complement of six, particularly those deliberately lightened to increase their range or carry bombs. Now the slowly resolving sea of Grik around the hill emitted a rushing wail as the Nancys slashed their own machines apart.
Blazing, crumbling airships stumbled from the sky, some intact, but most in disintegrating, fire-breathing sections. Some even fell on the gathered Grik below. Firebombs vomited flaming fluid from the impacting machines, or drizzled fiery tendrils down on clots of Grik between the hills. Shrieks echoed and seethed. A flight of Nancys rumbled low over the horde and Allied bombs tumbled among it, detonating and spewing fire, weapons, and parts of Grik in long, roiling ovals.
“All batteries, commence firing with spherical case!” Flynn roared. “Fire at will!” The Grik were too far for canister to be effective. “Mortar crews, stand by! Action south!” Mortar ’Cats scrambled from their various positions around the perimeter, lugging their tubes and crates of ammunition.
Chest-thumping concussions ringed the hill and white smoke billowed outward as exploding case shot soared among the Grik, popping with gray-white puffs above or within their ranks, and scything them down with hot, jagged shards of iron. More bombs fell from another flight of the strange little seaplanes before it clawed its way back into the sky. A huge mushroom of smoke chased them this time, and one of the planes staggered. Its port wing fluttered away and it spiraled down amid a smear of fire.
“Damn!” Flynn growled. “Must’ve been those antiair mortar things of theirs again!” The cumbersome Grik weapons had made their first appearance on Ceylon.
Another Nancy was in trouble high above. A long stream of gray smoke chased it as it peeled away from a final, plummeting zeppelin. The plane steadied for a moment, but the smoke grew thicker and darker and it dove for the earth.
“Caap-i-taan Saachic!” Bekiaa shouted over the pounding guns. “That plane looks like it will try to set down there, near where the Marines had their works last night! You must rescue the crew if they survive the crash!” Nancys had no wheels-but wheels would be useless in the tall grass, at any rate. Maybe a hull designed for landing on water would fare better?
Saachic, already mounted, whirled. “First Squad!” he cried to the ready unit that had been around him throughout the night. “Follow me!”
With a clatter of equipment, swords, and carbines, 1st Squad’s me-naaks vaulted the breastworks and raced toward where the wounded plane was leveling off above the long grass that glowed golden green under the bright sunrise. The Nancy was burning now, its engine gasping and popping in agony. It nearly stalled, but the pilot dropped the nose and it swooped low, into the very top of the grass, and practically fluttered to the ground. Even with such an amazingly light impact, the high wing immediately sagged to either side of the engine and the fuel tank in front of it ruptured with
a searing whoosh!
A man leaped out of the forward cockpit, coveralls smoking, and did a somersault in the damp grass. Immediately, he jumped to his feet and tried to get around the collapsed port wing to the aft cockpit, where his observer/copilot sat. It was no use. The plane was fully involved by then. Ammunition for the. 50 cal started cooking off and finally forced the man back.
“Look!” someone shouted. “The Grik!” A mob of the enemy several thousand strong was sweeping forward despite the fires and the other pursuit ships that had followed their comrade down. The planes began making strafing runs to keep the Grik back, but it wasn’t working.
“Damn it, they’re going for him!” Flynn growled, eyes darting from the Grik to Saachic’s cavalry, now streaming toward the man. It was going to be close. He had a sinking feeling; not only because of the danger to the flyer, but about the Grik they faced. Once, the trauma of the last quarter hour would have rattled them badly. They’d stood against unusually determined Grik in another pass, on Ceylon, but even they had finally broken off. The Grik trying to take the flyer showed no hesitation at all, and Flynn suddenly noticed that the vast majority of the rest of the army surrounding them had remained steady as well.
“I think we may really be in for it,” he whispered.
“Mortars!” Bekiaa roared. “Commence firing in support of Captain Saachic and the flyer!”
Saachic’s cavalry won the race, and Saachic himself scooped the pilot onto the me-naak’s back. A flurry of crossbow bolts and even some musket shots chased the squad as it bolted for the safety of the breastworks. Flynn wondered if the shots came from the new Grik matchlocks or weapons captured on South Hill. There was a flurry of toomp sounds as mortar bombs arced into the sky and began snapping among those closest Grik, sending geysers of earth, screaming Grik, and shredded grass into the air. The enemy fusillade was interrupted and none of the galloping cav ’Cats were hit. A couple of me-naaks may have been, but they all flowed back up over the barbed wired entanglements, and the hasty berm.
“They’re not stopping!” Bekiaa shouted suddenly, still staring at the Grik. The whole mob that had gone for the flyer-and some other groups as well-kept right on coming, straight for the south slope of the hill. A couple of planes dropped two more bombs into the mass, and the gun-armed Nancys made another firing pass but then they flew off, into the rising sun, maybe low on fuel but certainly out of ordnance.
“Battery!” Bekiaa yelled. “Load canister! Mortars, increase elevation. First Marines and Company-A Rangers, make ready!”
Saachic’s meanie picked its way through the fallen trees to rejoin Flynn and Bekiaa, and a bloodied, scorched man slid down from the animal and stood before them. He saluted absently.
“Goddamn!” he gasped, taking an offered canteen. “Thanks!”
“Leedom?” Flynn asked, remembering the man’s name.
“Yes, sir,” the man replied, taking a gulp and wiping his mouth. “Lieutenant Commander Mark Leedom, acting COFO for Army and Naval air out of Madras! You’re Colonel Flynn?”
“I am.”
“Battery!” Bekiaa roared again. “Marines and Rangers! At my command… Fire!”
The yellowish white smoke that always seemed to accompany their canister gushed downhill in an opaque, rolling wall, and the deafening thunder of the guns overwhelmed the volley of muskets.
“Independent, fire at will!” Bekiaa ordered, her voice cracking, and with a glance at Flynn, she dashed toward the guns for a better view. With the stirring breeze, the smoke would clear there soonest.
“What happened, Commander?” Flynn asked.
“I got shot down!” Leedom replied defiantly. “They had some kind of gun mounted in the gondola; like a little cannon loaded with shot. It hammered us just like a damn duck!” He looked at the plane, burning amid the surging Grik. “Tacos-my OC-got hit…” He looked down. “He was a good ’Cat. God, I hope he was already dead before…” He looked back at Flynn. “Colonel, you’re in the shit.” Artillery and the firing of the fast-loading Allin-Silvas almost drowned his words, but Flynn heard.
“Don’t I know it,” he agreed grimly, watching the slope below the guns, willing the Grik to break. But they just kept coming, running or crawling over their own dead in places. “Shit! Just a minute!” He spun toward a ’Cat beside him wearing the painted bars of a captain on his leather armor. “Get your company up there right damn now! They ain’t stopping!” The ’Cat bolted, and the crackle of rifles increased amid the hissing roar of the Grik. Two guns bucked at once, spewing canister and scything down dozens, maybe a hundred of the enemy, they were so tightly packed. Mortar ’Cats, no longer able to bring their primary weapons to bear, were throwing grenades like baseballs, as fast as they could pull the pins. The wailing shrieks were terrible, and with the combination of concentrated fire, canister, and now the storm of grenade fragments, the swarm finally seemed to balk.
“Reserves already, Colonel?” Leedom muttered. “God, I hope not!”
“Flying reserves,” Flynn admitted, troubled. “We have more-but we’re surrounded, as you can see, and I can’t strip much around the perimeter.” He pointed at the south slope. “So far, this is the only attack, but if they see a hole somewhere else, they might go for it.” He hesitated. “Why? What did you see?”
Leedom stripped the goggles off his head and threw them on the ground. “Colonel, you have no idea how surrounded you are.” He snorted. “ We are.”
The reserve company formed, standing, behind the junction of the Marines and Rangers, where the two battalions had become intermingled, firing as quickly as they could. That’s where the most densely packed Grik thrust seemed to be headed, as if deliberately aimed there, like a wedge.
“What the hell?” Flynn murmured.
Four guns snarled with distinct, separate thunderclaps of fire, and the reserve company poured in a volley of buck and ball at less than thirty yards. Finally, finally, the Grik charge staggered, shrouded in smoke, lead, and a blizzard of downy fur and reddish vapor. Only then did something like Grik Rout grip what remained of the bloody stump of the enemy thrust. Maddened by wounds, pain, and panic, some Grik turned on each other, fighting to get back, aside, away from the hail of bullets and buzzing canister. These, as always, were hacked down by their comrades, but not before the charge stacked up behind them and the withering fire spread the effect. Hundreds fell in the next few moments while those behind pressed against others that retained no notion other than an instinctual imperative to escape.
All the veteran troops had seen Grik Rout before, and they cheered when they saw the symptoms now-but the cheer slowly died and the stunned Marines and Rangers resumed firing with a will when it didn’t really happen. The charge came apart, and many did flee mindlessly, but the great bulk of the surviving attackers backed away, still shooting crossbows or firing the weird matchlocks, if they had them. Only the Rangers had ever seen the enemy retire before, and they’d been beyond musket shot then. The rifled muskets still picked at them and so did the big guns, but it hadn’t really been a retreat under fire. Not like this.
Flynn gave the order to cease firing after the Grik moved beyond a hundred yards. Leedom’s words still echoed in his mind, even without a proper explanation, and he instinctively knew that explanation would mean they had to conserve ammunition. The smoke slowly drifted away and dissipated in time for them all to see the attacking force rejoin the multitudes that ringed them-and be welcomed back into those ranks.
“A hell of a thing,” Flynn muttered. His gaze turned to the field below the breastworks and the dark mounds bearing down on the tall grass. He couldn’t see them all, of course, but there were surely thousands; maybe half the force that broke ranks to go after the fallen plane to start with. He could see inside the breastworks as well, now that the smoke was gone, and stretcher bearers climbed out of the ditch with their grisly, moaning burdens. These were carried to the centrally located medical section that had set to work under lean-tos erecte
d around a tree-trunk stockade. After they deposited their burdens with the surgeons, the stretcher bearers returned to the ditch for more.
Bekiaa rejoined them. The white fur around her mouth was smudged black with powder from tearing open musket cartridges with her teeth, and her painted armor was dingy and streaked with blood. She’d slung her rifled musket, but seemed to sag under its weight.
“That was… closer than I expected,” she said softly, barely audible over a loud, eerie chant the Grik had begun. None of them had ever heard anything like it, but its newness didn’t compare to the other changes they’d seen in the short fight.
“Yeah,” Flynn agreed. He turned to Leedom. “What were you saying? What did you mean?”
Bekiaa looked at the flyer and blinked tired curiosity.
“I’m afraid we’re cooked,” Leedom said, almost matter-of-factly. “Have you got comm?”
“I hope so. The guys were trying to patch up the generator,” Flynn admitted.
“Listen, sir, I gotta report what shot me down so other guys don’t get it!”
“You need to tell me what you saw!” Flynn demanded.
“Okay. General Alden needs to hear it too. If comm’s up, I’ll tell you while we send it. Fair?” He suddenly looked around with an almost-desperate expression for the first time, and patted the holster under his arm. “Say, uh, I sure could use a weapon besides my pistol!” He looked dubiously at Bekiaa’s rifle musket. “You got any oh-threes around here?”
CHAPTER 15
March 14, 1944
USS Salissa (CV-1)
Lieutenant Sandy Newman banged on the bulkhead beside the door, or “hatch,” to Admiral Keje-Fris-Ar’s quarters, despite the Marine sentry standing there, who blinked astonishment at the breach of protocol. Keje opened the heavy door and stepped into the passageway.
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