Fateful Lightning

by William R. Forstchen

  Startled, she looked up at him, and there was a sudden trickle of a tear, as if she had almost been thinking the same thoughts.

  “Find Maddie. I’ve already arranged for Ludmilla to take Maddie and Vincent’s children to a hiding place north of Brindusia if things go wrong. For her sake, please.”

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  A worse kind of war. God, it made the old one look pleasant in comparison. Still had rules. You would share your last drop of water with a wounded reb, bandage him up, and write a letter to his kin telling them that he was all right. Here we cut the throats of the wounded and shoot our own rather than leave them behind. The memory of the blurred photograph haunted him. he looked down at Kathleen. He’d do the same with her to spare her that type of end.

  And she calls this place home.

  Yet it was home, Maine starting to blur into fuzziness. Five years here, eight years since he’d last seen Brunswick. No, this was home.

  He looked around. The shadows of evening concealed the presence of war, the lines of entrenchments and breastworks, the mad bustle at Hispania, the city of lean-tos and tents housing over a hundred thousand soldiers, factory workers, families, refugees, even the prostitutes who’d come up from Roum to work the army camps.

  The campfires lit the hills, a glow that stretched on for miles, a distant rumbling of talking, laughing, singing, praying, the sad crying of those so far from home, or afraid of dying.

  A flight of ducks kicked up noisily from the river and headed north for the forest.

  The wind, still blowing hot, drifted in from the steppe, bringing with it the scent of dry grass, blowing the smells of the camp away. One of the reasons he liked this particular place—the air was fresh, clean.

  He sat down beside her, almost shyly putting his arm around her waist, she doing the same to him, leaning her head against his shoulder.

  “Peaceful now,” she whispered.

  He said nothing. Nothing needed to be said.

  “If I could steal you away from all this. Find a hidden place, just the two of us, far away…”

  Her words trailed off into silence.

  Would he go? He knew that’s what she was wishing for. And give this up? When he was a boy he had dreamed of great and heroic things, reading Scott and later Arrian and Shakespeare’s Henry V, imagining himself with the knights of Arthur, marching with Alexander, standing with the few at Agincourt. He still almost believed it now, despite the horror, the filth, the pain. Even after Gettysburg, his left arm gone, his brother dead, even then he almost still believed in it all. Here, right now, he had the chance to somehow change an entire world. He had never wanted it; fate had put it in front of him. He could hate what he had to do, but he could never turn away, trade it for something else. He had seen a people become free; he could see an entire world be free, and a fair part of it would be his dreams and idealisms of youth come to life in such an alien world.

  A bugle sounded in the distance. Tattoo, in fifteen minutes taps. A world where the day was an hour and a half shorter, going into summer, night not settling until nine, first light of dawn at four, what he felt should be five-thirty. Tomorrow another round of it. Still thousands of shoulder weapons short, millions of musket rounds short of what he wanted, the strange disappearance of gunpowder making it worse. Emil and his ranting about fresh water, shortage of nurses and doctors, the hospital area not yet finished for what might be fifteen thousand or more causalities just in the first day.

  What if they broke through? He tried to push that thought aside. The nurses were to shoot the men who couldn’t be evacuated in time. But then again, we’ll all die if they do break through here, there’s no retreating now, that’s settled, he thought.

  Tomorrow so much more to do.

  Bob Fletcher was coming in on the Roum train tomorrow with the latest food reports, improving with the early harvest of vegetables coming up from the south of Roum, enough to give the men a better ration to prevent scurvy. Then Kal and the senators, their problems, then back to John Mina and Emil at the end of the day to inspect the fortifications.

  He sighed.

  She raised her head and looked at him.

  “Your thoughts are a million miles away from me, aren’t they?”

  He smiled shyly.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Liar,” and she smiled and leaned her head back on his shoulder.

  “Signal the fleet, cast off towed ships once the harbor wall is cleared.”

  The multicolored pennants shot up the stubby mast behind him. He looked aft. The eight ironclad ships were strung out for several miles, moving slow, each of them towing two galleys crammed with troops.

  The race was almost over. Straight ahead the Cartha galley moved steadily forward, acting as pilot ship as they rounded the mole. The walls were crammed with tens of thousands, who stood in silence.

  “I daresay they’re still not sure whose side we’re on at the moment,” Bullfinch said, looking over at his ensign.

  “I think it’s the other way around,” the ensign replied. “Whose side are they on?”

  “Their own, for the moment, and I can’t blame the bastards.”

  “Well, they’d better give us one hell of a lot of wood, sir, or we’re stranded here. The bulkheads are empty.”

  Bullfinch said nothing, displaying an outward calm. Inside he was a nervous wreck. He had jumped without orders, taking eight out of his ten ships five hundred miles south on what might be a fool’s errand. Worse yet, the darker voice inside of him now started to wonder if the whole thing was an elaborate trap to take the fleet. A couple of minutes more would tell.

  As they rounded the harbor mole he felt the ship start to surge ahead, the two galleys astern casting off. Straight ahead he saw the Antietam and trained his field glasses on it. The ship was riding fairly high. Not much fuel aboard. A thin puff of steam came from its smokestack. A plume of exhaust came up and the ship started to leave its dock, slowly gaining speed.

  “If he wants to fight, just remember she’s got some cracked ribs to the port side of the forward gunport,” the ensign said.

  Bullfinch did not reply.

  Below deck he had his two guns loaded with double shot, gunports closed, but the crews standing ready. “Quarter speed.”

  His ship started to slow. Looking aft again, he saw the galleys crammed with men waiting outside the harbor, the second ironclad just starting to round the outer point.

  A pennant snapped out from atop Antietam, a white flag.

  He started to breathe a bit easier. The galley with Elazar swung up alongside the ship, lines snaking out, tying alongside.

  “Bring us to port side of her,” Bullfinch announced, the pilot turning the wheel over, calling below for all engines to stop.

  Bullfinch watched the performance with feigned disinterest. The men were learning their craft well after months of constant drill. His ship slowly dropped off speed, the simple equation of her mass and momentum sending her forward for another couple of hundred yards, the bow wake flattening out. They came to a stop amidships to Antietam, half a dozen feet separating the two.

  Bullfinch stood exposed upon the upper works.

  The gunport of Antietam opened, and Hamilcar, looking almost like a surprised tavern keeper sticking his head out from a shuttered window, gazed out at him. He withdrew his head and Elazar appeared, climbing through the gunport a moment later. Hamilcar followed.

  Bullfinch climbed down from atop the gunhouse.

  He was tempted to make a quip, “Fancy seeing you again,” or something about coming to take his ship back, but knew the joke might very well backfire.

  Hamilcar, his features uncertain, turned to Elazar, and the two started to talk excitedly in Carthan as if Bullfinch weren’t there.

  After a moment, Hamilcar looked back at Bullfinch.

  “I didn’t ask for your damned help,” he snapped in broken Rus.

  “Well, you’ve got it. Can I come over to tal
k?”

  Hamilcar, looking thoroughly confused, said nothing.

  Without waiting for a response, Bullfinch leaped the narrow distance between the two ships, almost losing his footing on the other side so that Elazar had to reach out to steady him.

  Without waiting for a comment from Hamilcar, he turned first to the flag of Cartha and saluted, and then saluted Hamilcar in turn.

  The Cartha’s features softened ever so slightly.

  “I didn’t ask for this,” Hamilcar said again, this time in his own tongue, Elazar quickly translating.

  “I know you didn’t, sir. But your friend here came and explained that maybe half a dozen umens of the Bantag might be moving against you to take this city. I’ve brought a full brigade of marine troops and eight ironclads to help. I think a few modern weapons might be enough to hold the bastards off until our own problems get settled and then we can bring down some more support.”

  “Your own problems settled?” Hamilcar sniffed. “You’re all dead and you know it.”

  “Maybe so,” Bullfinch replied coldly. “But the offer still stands.”

  “By whose orders, yours or Keane’s?”

  Bullfinch stiffened at the anger in Hamilcar’s voice when he spat out Keane’s name.

  “I acted as admiral of the Rus and Roum fleets. I’m sure Colonel Keane will back it up.”

  “I doubt it.”

  Angry, Bullfinch suddenly felt that it was simply best to leave now and the hell with them.

  Bullfinch looked at Elazar, who, caught in a crossfire of his own creating, stood pale with shock.

  “Translate this straight,” Bullfinch snapped. “I don’t want any niceties thrown in, I want it word for word.”

  Elazar nodded, now nervous.

  “Tell that fat bastard that I came five hundred miles to help, and get the word ‘bastard’ in the translation.”

  Elazar started to speak nervously, his voice low. Hamilcar’s features started to redden.

  “Tell him he’s a prideful ass. He’s lost hundreds of thousands of his people—well, goddammit, so have we. We didn’t want this war but now we’ve got it. I lost my eye and damn near got killed fighting against you people last year, but I’ve put that aside, because the real enemy is out there,” and he pointed west as if the open steppe were directly before them.

  “Now if he wants our help, fine. I’ve got twenty-five hundred men, four hundred thousand rounds of ammunition, and the guns on the ironclads. A sharp demonstration might bluff the Bantag into staying the hell out of here. And if he doesn’t agree to that, well, then…”

  He hesitated.

  “… then he can kiss my royal ass, because I’m going back to Rus to fight.”

  He turned around, preparing to jump back to his ship, which was slowly starting to drift farther away.

  The laugh came low, a deep full-bellied chuckle.

  “Fine, very good.”

  Bullfinch looked back, breathing hard. It had come from a sharp rage and had nothing at all to do with any kind of maneuvering.

  Hamilcar extended his hand.

  Behind Hamilcar he saw a crowd of shocked Cartha sailors, who were even more stunned by Hamilcar’s laughter.

  “I need your help,” Hamilcar said. “But more important, I know you to be a fair man and truthful, a good warrior who defeated me and yet greeted me later with honor.”

  He hesitated, his features growing serious.

  “I will not lie now in turn. I still blame Keane for what happened to my people, and that I cannot forgive. I think you came here on your own, to atone for that. From you I accept that offer, but from Keane, or the Rus, it is still the same in my heart.

  “Six umens of the Bantag approach. There is no hope of standing against them alone. The Merki stripped everything—most of the factories were burned when we took the city back. Except for the men I brought with me, my people are armed with sharpened sticks, clubs. A shower of fire arrows and they’ll burn us out. I hate to stand here now like this. I need your help.”

  “That’s why I came here to start with,” Bullfinch replied sharply.

  Hamilcar relaxed, a smile lighting his features.

  Elazar, his eyes clouded with tears, came up to Bullfinch and, grabbing hold of him, kissed him on both cheeks.

  “Thank you.”

  “Did you translate what I said?” Bullfinch asked.

  “Almost,” Elazar replied with a smile.

  Pulling away from the front of the column, Vincent turned his horse to the left and rode westward up the long gentle slope, leaving the road behind. The ground was hard, baked under the heat of the noonday sun. For nearly a quarter mile he rode, barely noticing that Dimitri trailed behind him.

  Cresting the low rise of the ridge, Vincent reined his mount in and stood up in his stirrups, his legs stiff after hours of riding. He turned and looked back.

  Far out across the open plain southward the column extended. Ten miles of road, filled with the two corps, muskets glinting in the sunlight. The butternut-colored uniforms, blanket rolls, and slouch caps made them look like Confederate infantry. Regimental flags were uncased; every two hundred yards another flag, sixty regiments of infantry. He felt his heart swell at the sight of them. His men, his corps, his army.

  Across the plain ahead to the north, dotted with the villas of now long-departed nobles, was the rest of the army, camped in the fields and vineyards. Straight ahead and to the northwest he could see Hispania sitting on a low rise of ground four miles off, plumes of smoke from the factories and works rising into the evening air. To his left, several miles away, were the low banks of the Sangros, the higher west bank already looking threatening. The river was low, sandbars jutting up from the sluggish water. The flat east side of the river plain was spread out before him, a broad open bow that would be hard to defend. Curving out from the low ridge upon which Hispania rested, the gentle sloping ridge curved southeast, then south. He surveyed the line, as it finally started to turn southwesterly, moving back toward where he now was. A small knoll, a villa atop it surrounded by trees, was a hundred yards ahead. He looked over his shoulder to the southwest, where the ridge continued on toward the river, meeting it where again the east bank stood far higher than the west, all the way down to the sea.

  Already he could see all so clearly how this would be the deciding place. South of here, the higher east bank dominated the crossing, making it a killing zone. But across this four-mile-wide plain, the Merki could get in. It was like half a bowl cut by the Sangros, and as he looked he realized that there must have been a time when the river had curved up along this low ridge, only to finally cut back farther to the west.

  The ground down below was rich farmland, vineyards dotting the plain all the way up to the slope upon which wealthy nobles had built their summer homes to catch the cooling breeze when it came down from the forest to the north. A half-dozen square miles of basin land. It must have produced a lot of wine, he realized. Most of the vineyards were in ruins. A heavy line of entrenchments cut straight across the valley all the way up to Hispania, set back several hundred yards from the river. The ground between the entrenchments and the Sangros was torn apart by trap holes and entanglements. The fortifications were well laid out, he could see that, but he could also see that if the Merki were willing to take the losses they could most likely storm the line.

  Interior lines for the bastards if they gain the valley, but we’ll have the higher ground, he thought, looking back again to the fallback position of the low hills. Four miles of front if we try to hold the low land, over six miles if we’re forced back to the hill. A corps per mile of front and one in reserve. Less, he suddenly realized. Third Corps was a skeleton, barely more than division strength. At least another corps would need to picket the river line northward far into the woods, even though the east bank up in that direction was a sharp ridge fifty feet or more higher than the west bank. Leave it unguarded and the bastards will flank us the way they did on the Potomac, he
thought. Another division would have to picket farther south down to where the river turned into a broad marshy flood plain cut by a deep channel in the middle. Four corps forward and one in reserve for six miles.

  And the Merki would have at least three hundred and fifty thousand. Six-to-one odds. Worse than Bobbie Lee faced at Petersburg, far worse. He surveyed the ground and the bow-shaped ridge, which was slashed along its crest by entrenchments. He imagined that from an aerosteamer it looked exactly like a bow and string, or a pie cut in half.

  Nudging his mount into a slow trot, he turned and started up the slope to his right, moving toward a knoll that projected up from the ridge, offering an extra thirty feet of height.

  Along the crest of the low ridge a long ugly slash marked the line of entrenchments, abatis and brush entanglements already in place, Rus soldiers still busy digging, coming to attention at his approach.

  He gained the entrenched line from the rear. Inside the trench, men were working with picks.

  “It’s not very deep.”

  The men, seeing him, came to attention and saluted, standing less than waist-deep in the line. He heard his name whispered, the soldiers looking at him with friendly respect.

  “Not like home,” a sergeant said, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Not the good earth of Rus, where you can dig all day and still be in topsoil, or even the earth down in the valley below us.”

  Dimitri, coming up behind Vincent, reined in and looked down at the men.

  “Vasiliy Borisovich, blessing upon you,” Dimitri said, getting off his mount to go up and shake the sergeant’s hand. “Hard work, is it?”

  “I was just telling the general here. Go down two feet and you’re into limestone.”

  “Well, keep digging,” Vincent said and continued on, heading for the knoll where a small villa stood, the crest surrounded on three sides by shallow gun pits for a grand battery of artillery.

  Reaching the building, he dismounted, leading his horse over to a trough set next to a well. Lowering the bucket, he pulled up some cold water and poured it into the trough. Unclipping a tin cup from his saddle pack, he poured himself a drink and downed it. The water was cold, mineral-hard. From behind the villa in a shaded veranda a group of soldiers looked over at him cautiously. He was tempted to chew them out for shirking as they came to attention and saluted. He saluted in turn and then walked around to the other side.