The Texas Front: Salient

by Jonathan Cresswell

  “Of course, Captain.” Henri scrubbed at his eyes, braced himself erect, and saluted. “I’ll go ashore at once. Where do I need to go?”

  “The offices of the English Baron Cowdray, the Mexican Eagle Oil Company, in the building opposite the Imperial Hotel. That is–”

  “Beside the plaza, one block east.” Henri ghosted a smile. “I had my shore leave planned weeks ago, Captain.”

  “I am unsurprised.” Auphan waved him on his way.

  He took a moment to grab a fresh uniform jacket from his cabin and discard the scorched one of the night before; then a dockside scramble, a short walk, and a hailed cab brought him into the old city center. All looked bustling, peaceful, and prosperous here. Henri could not be angry about that. Velocite and others stood between this and the Martians, after all. But he missed Charest keenly.

  The Aguila Mexica staff were in a turmoil of their own, but they showed him up at once five stories to a large, well-appointed corner office. Baron Cowdray rose to a considerable height behind his desk and stepped to its side to extend a hand. “Thank you for coming, my dear fellow. I am sorry to hear your vessel suffered serious losses. Is there anything my company may do to help? We have our own medical staff in country, you see.”

  “Thank you, but no, Monsieur le Baron. The Royal Navy has so kindly taken on our wounded aboard Brilliant. We received your communique – how may I help you?”

  “Please, sit. I’ll have something to eat brought up – a tea.” They settled; the chair was so comfortable, Henri instantly feared he’d fall asleep. “Now. About our Navy. I have a considerable stake in this oil terminal – I came out to supervise it myself a month ago – and the Navy promised us protection in the form of these three cruisers. But they’re terribly out of date – Brilliant is twenty years old! Worn out. She can scarcely make fifteen knots now, they tell me. The others are little better. We all saw how rapidly those damned machines ran through the port! They must certainly be miles along the coast by now. Even if Brilliant could somehow catch up and find them, they could outrun her. And if they were to turn back, return here, while these ships were away looking for them...”

  Henri nodded. “You would be without defense.”

  “I appreciate the delicacy of relations among colonial powers in such matters. But if it were at all possible for the French Navy to assist us in the pursuit of these machines, I would be extremely grateful, and I may confide that His Majesty’s Government would be as well.”

  Henri smiled. “You do not need to ask Admiral Favereau more than once to strike at Martians, Monsieur le Baron. If he can, I am sure he will. If you could direct me to a telegraph office?”

  “We have one downstairs.”

  “Then I can send a priority signal.” Henri paused to consider which ships might be spared. Gueydon, perhaps, or Jeanne d’Arc, the pride of the squadron...

  “Splendid!” Cowdray’s voice jolted Henri from encroaching sleep. “Perhaps someone will have sighted those devils by the time your ships arrive. We’ll welcome them royally. Which reminds me – let’s bring your tea along, shall we?”

  Henri could not remember ever enjoying an English tea as much as that one.

  * * * * * * *

  The reply telegram ordered Henri to attend upon the vice-admiral aboard Jeanne d’Arc the following morning. This was no simple matter, as the three cruisers proceeding from Veracruz were not intending to put into port at Tampico; but after inquiring at several points around the harbor, Henri located a steam launch that was willing to take him outside the port in the morning. Any unsecured boat had long since been hired away or stolen by those trying to leave Mexico for safer ground.

  At sunup, they had cleared the river mouth, and the launch was pitching with the long steady swoop of the Atlantic swells. “There’ll be a storm in a day or so,” predicted the boatman. He pointed to the eastern sky blazing with golds and reds. “High cloud there. But you’ll be snug enough on one of those big ships.”

  The 4th Light Cruiser Division appeared in the south by ten o’clock. Henri watched their approach with admiration. Jeanne d’Arc led the way, the admiral’s flagship, with her inward-sloping sides and tall observation towers giving her the appearance of a gray steel castle put into motion. Magnificent! Then the armored cruisers Gueydon and Dupetit-Thouars, more contemporary in their design. All three were fast and powerful ships, built to raid British commerce and sink their protecting warships in some future war which strategists had planned for but which, mercifully, had never come about. Now they pursued a common enemy instead. The secondary guns bristling from their sides were as large as Velocite’s two main ones, and Henri doubted a Martian heat ray could pierce their thick armor.

  He read the flag signals from Jeanne d’Arc’s bridge wing and relayed the directions to the boatman, who swung them onto a parallel course as the big cruiser gradually slowed. The other two warships drew on ahead; the launch edged up cautiously to the looming steel hull, angling toward the boat platform. Crewmen hooked on, and Henri scrambled up the wet metal ladder to board the ship.

  Other crew members directed him on his way. By the time he’d climbed several ladders and stairwells to reach the forward tower, Jeanne d’Arc was building speed again. Henri reported to the officer of the deck on the lower bridge, asked for the admiral, and was escorted up one deck further to the flying deck.

  He found Vice-Admiral Charles Favereau at the forward rail and joined him. A light north breeze added to the ship’s own twenty-one knot speed, whistling across the deck, cool and refreshing. The horizon was far broader from this height; shoreline to port, open sea to starboard, twin wakes of the other cruisers ahead and slowly closing.

  “I fear we missed them in the night,” said Favereau. “The ones who went south, that is. But others are looking for them now. We have a good chance to catch the ones traveling north, if they are still on the shoreline and have not found good going at all times.” He smiled at Henri as to a private joke. “I was glad to get out of an office and onto the sea again. This is not the built-up puddle of the Mediterranean! Look at that jungle, those mountains beyond; we might be in the South Seas!”

  “Do you suppose the Martians are there too, sir?”

  Favereau scowled. “They are likely to be everywhere. Except Europe! Do you know, Gamelin, there are politicians at home who still feel there is no danger to France herself? ‘Let the lesser races perish,’ they say, ‘they are not worth French lives. When the Martians rule those lands, we can trade with them instead.’ The stupidity is mind-boggling, but any excuse will do for inaction, yes?

  “Like General Mangin, I was promoted quickly because I was willing to serve here, outside of France and her immediate empire. I do not like Mangin’s politics – monarchy is for the English! – but I am beginning to think there may come a time when he and I may agree on actions nonetheless. Perhaps now that you have seen action against the Martians, Mangin will be more disposed to hear you out?”

  “It is possible, Admiral.”

  “Well, let us talk a while...”

  By midday, Henri’s belly was growling, and the admiral dismissed him to scrounge a meal along with his staff. But within the hour, Henri found himself topside again, staring forward, willing a sighting to take place...

  When it did, it was not what he’d wanted. “Small craft, fine on the starboard bow!” called out a lookout from below. After a few moments, a crewman relayed his captain’s report to the admiral, who spoke to his staff for a few moments and then gestured Henri to join him.

  “It appears there are two refugee craft there. One has capsized and the other is standing by it, but this wind is pushing them south. I will not stop, of course. But we can drop off a steam launch to render assistance. Gamelin, I know you have reason to want to be in at the strike, but Captain LeBlanc has an opportunity here to weld his crew in action, and to detach one of them now, well...”

  Henri nodded despite the pang he felt. “I understand. It is their ship, not
mine. Who is the boat chief?”

  “Suzerann. He is a good man. The launch is being readied now.”

  “Then I’ll join them. Good hunting, sir.” Henri saluted the admiral and left the open deck, making his way back through the ship’s decks and ladders to the boat platform. By the time he reached it, the launch was already lowered into place a few feet above the water – a quick feat of seamanship, especially given the cruiser’s tumblehome – and the crew of eight had readied it. Salt spray kicked high from the ship’s bow wave. Henri boarded the launch, spoke briefly with the grizzled Suzerann, and Jeanne d’Arc slowed once again to a few knots to allow them to make the jolting descent into the water.

  As the cruiser drew away from them, Henri sighted the two boats to the south and seaward. The launch proceeded toward them, puffing smoke and rolling heavily. The upright boat was a fishing dory rigged with a single pole mast; the capsized one looked to be some sort of barge or punt, hopeless in any seaway.

  At close approach, there proved to be thirty people in total, most crammed onto the dory and some still clinging to the barge. Henri directed that those be recovered first; even here in the Gulf, the water was cool in October. He called out orders and reassurances in Spanish, but it was still a slow and clumsy affair to bring them inboard.

  He was lending a hand to pull in a man in soaked overalls when a distant rumble sounded from the north.

  “Is the storm closer?” panted the man. “We should hurry! They have been bailing in the dory like madmen.”

  “No,” said Henri. “That is gunfire.” The sound twisted in him like a knife; but he made himself not look outboard. He had his task.

  Cycle 597,844.9, Coastal Region, Mexico

  Taldarnilis had not anticipated how long the sampling process would take.

  Each watercourse they came to mean that the two detection-equipped machines must stop, prepare the equipment, and commence a tedious process of pacing from point to point, lowering almost to the water surface, taking in samples, and then analyzing them. The quantity required was large, and water was a shockingly heavy fluid, so each area must be studied, and approved or rejected, while they were in that place. It understood that the entire process had been improvised and that this planet often presented unexpected challenges to the simplest of tasks; but at times, it wished that Raqtinoctil had worked out a more polished way of doing things.

  It was also routine for one or more machines to become mired in poor footing despite the modified digit-plates they had fitted to spread the weight over a larger surface. Raqtinoctil had developed a method for another machine to pull out the stuck one, but it was awkward and had no guarantee of success. Still, they had lost no machines so far...

  “Negative report, Commander.” That was the nineteenth of the day. Raqtinoctil’s machine shifted, raised, and plodded toward the next point of analysis.

  “Commander! Prey machines approaching from the south!”

  Taldarnilis swiveled its machine. Three large floating craft had appeared, trailing dense black clouds of smoke.

  “Why did you not detect them earlier?”

  “I abase myself, Commander. I was assisting Valpurtis’ machine.”

  Taldarnilis computed ranges and times. “We have enough time to complete the survey. Armed machines, move closer to the shoreline and draw the prey’s attention. All will withdraw inland upon completion of the survey task.”

  Taldarnilis joined its fellows near the water’s edge and studied the floating machines as they drew closer. The profiles did not match those that had been stationed in their exit watercourse; these had been sent from elsewhere. There had been no time to disrupt the prey’s crude long-distance communication system, and clearly, they used it to dispatch these craft. Still, they had a good distance yet to cover before their projectile-throwers would be in range...

  Smoke erupted at both ends of the nearest craft. After a moment, the others also blossomed. Were they firing wildly? The projectiles would need to arc so high that no aim should be feasible...

  A rushing sound overhead ended in six shattering explosions along the shoreline that spouted dirt and debris taller than their own machines’ height. None were close enough to be any threat. Did the prey think to panic them? Taldarnilis did not give an order to return the fire; the prey craft were still well out of effective range. It was an uncomfortable sensation to be under fire and not to return it, but it would be a short time only...

  More explosions struck the shoreline. Three of them appeared to be closer. That seemed to be outside of random chance... “Raqtinoctil. Is it possible the prey can correct the flight of projectiles over time?”

  “It may be so, Commander. Provided that there is observation–” Six fresh explosions erupted nearby, one close enough to buffet Taldarnilis. A metal piece rang off the armor.

  “All machines, withdraw inland now!” Taldarnilis set its own machine in motion. A larger crash of concussions sounded over the water behind it; after a few steps, the explosions burst again – but now, more than twenty! The volume of fire was greater than anything Taldarnilis had known.

  “Commander! My machine is disabled!”

  Taldarnilis swiveled in its stride. Patingras’ machine had fallen on its side, one leg clearly wrecked. Even as it watched, more explosions burst out on both the near and far sides of the crippled machine. The prey’s fire had become continuous. The time required to retrieve Patingras from the machine–

  Is too long. “All machines continue inland at best speed.” Taldarnilis backed a few steps despite the greater risk of misfooting, unable to look away. While the explosions continued to pound at their general area, more converged toward Patingras. Inevitably, one struck close beside it. When the dirt particles cleared, the machine was a jumbled wreck and Patingras undoubtedly slain.

  Taldarnilis turned inland and sped its pace, chiding itself bitterly even as a flurry of more detonations pursued it and the others up the watercourse’s path. These larger floating craft were even more dangerous than it had known. And if they could appear so quickly...

  Raqtinoctil’s plan might be their only hope now.

  Chapter 7

  December 1911, Laredo, Texas

  Emmet Smith winced as the Ford Model T drifted toward the right verge of the road. The driver, Ranger Hicks, peered downward as he stamped at the pedals controlling the planetary gearing.

  “Hicks, look out!”

  Hicks’ head jerked up; he sawed at the wheel, veering left. Behind him, Ranger Tomlinson cursed from the back seat. Fortunately, there wasn’t much traffic on the road leading east out of Laredo; the military vehicles were all to the north where the 3rd Texas Volunteer Division was encamped.

  “You have to do one thing at a time, but always keep steering,” said Emmet patiently. “You’ll get it.”

  “I can thread a horse through a damn needle,” said Hicks. “I hate these machines.”

  Privately, Emmet considered that Hicks’ tension wasn’t helping his driving. The mayor of Laredo had telephoned the governor’s office with a panicky warning of a riot brewing at the Mexican refugee camps east of the city. There were plenty of soldiers within a day’s march, and a rail line ran right beside the camp... but the governor was not in favor of sending companies of troops into possible conflict.

  Instead, he preferred to send handfuls of Rangers. Emmet wasted no time on feeling flattered; he was thinking too hard.

  They’d spent an hour in Laredo closing down every saloon and bar in the city; it was always a good first step to shut off at least part of the liquor supply in the area. Hicks seemed pleased to be working with him again, but Tomlinson, a newbie, was an unknown; still, he’d handled the saloon owners briskly enough. “The vital thing,” Emmet had told him, “is to never let them see you rattled. Then you’re sunk.”

  The Model T might be shaking them all to pieces, but it beat arriving sweaty and footsore. Once they–

  “Hey, what’s this?” crowed Tomlinson. Emmet twist
ed around; the Ranger was holding a newspaper clipping he’d pulled from Hicks’ saddlebag. “The Gen-you-wine Martian Gold Electro-Wire Hair Net! Guaranteed–”

  “Gimme that!” Hicks lunged at him. Emmet grabbed the wheel and steered as Hicks snatched ineffectively at the clipping.

  “Guaranteed to reverse hair loss, in-vig-orate the scalp, excite the follicles – Why, Hicks, you need your follicles excited?”

  “Leave him be,” said Emmet. “Hicks, get back to the road, hey?” He turned over the wheel. “You’re not going bald. Not really. Besides, that thing’s probably brass wire anyway. There’s a mess of these snake-oil operators nowadays. If they really tried to grab some of that stuff off a Martian wreck, they’d likely get shot.”

  “Speaking of that...” said Tomlinson.

  “Like I said. Bring the Winchesters, but sling ’em. Keep your palms out, take up a lot of room. Numbers don’t mean anything, it’s all about staying calm.” He didn’t like the edge behind Tomlinson’s horsing, but the junior man usually followed what the rest did.

  Ahead, a sea of dingy white tents appeared. A lot of tents. The rail line angled in from the north, passing them by where two large wooden shacks had been thrown up. Emmet pointed. “Over there, Hicks, head for that siding.” Four rail cars were parked there; freighters, maybe? A food delivery?

  It was difficult to tell, because there were nearly a thousand people standing in front of them.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Tomlinson in a small voice.

  “Really? Well, that’d explain this here crowd.” Emmet scanned the group as the car drew up to them, looking for weapons, expressions, postures, and leaders. Nothing spoke to threat – so far. No guns in sight, but the loose Mexican shirts and shawls could hide those. A townsman in a dark suit stood at one edge, talking to others but turning to look as they drove up. Beside him, a woman in a white dress.