Men of War (22 page)

“Well past ten,” Hans announced. “We’re up at three, so let’s get some sleep.”

Vincent nodded. He was never one to be able to hold his liquor, and the three shots of vodka had made him noddy. Within minutes he was snoring peacefully. Hans stepped outside. By the light of the twin moons he could see the shadowy forms of the airships lined up, men laboring about them in the dark. A wagon clattered past him, trailing a heavy scent of kerosene. He heard muttered snatches of conversation in Rus, Latin, Chin, even a few choice expletives in English. Overhead the Great Wheel filled the sky. It was a comforting sight.
A good world this. Maybe we can go beyond the mistakes of the old one, build something better. But first we have to survive, he thought.

He went back into the hut and quietly lay down on the other cot. Strange memories floated for a moment, not of the war, even of the prairie, but long before, Prussia, the scent of the forest wafting through the open window at night when he was a boy. The shadow of his mother coming in to check on him, then drifting away.

Why that?
he wondered. His hand rested on his chest, feeling the quiet beat. Steady now, not the hollow drifting sense that came too often. Emil kept talking about the need to take it easy. Old Emil, God just how old was he? Must be well over seventy. Hard to keep track of the years, real years as counted back home.

The clock quietly ticked, his thoughts drifted, and he knew there would be no sleep tonight. Far too much to think of, not of what would come … but rather of what had once been.

* * *

Jurak sifted through the reports, carefully reading the roughly printed Rus letters taken down by the Chinese telegraphers. All lines south of the Green Mountains had been cut by airship attacks.

That was not the concern of the moment, though. It was the airships that were troubling him. Along the entire Capua Front there was only one airship.

It was supposed to represent ten ships, and it was the clumsy deception that gave it away. The humans had taken to the use of symbols which were known to be numbers in their English language. Observers along the front were given the strictest of orders to note down such symbols when they reported sightings. The same ten numbers kept appearing for the last seven days but it was only this afternoon that one of his warriors, a lowly commander of ten, had been allowed into his presence, claiming that he was convinced there were not ten ships but only one. When questioned he said he remembered the one particular ship since it had almost killed him during the river battle and that it had a slight stain along the underside of its left wing and a triangle-shaped patch not much more than a hand-span across on the right wing. All of the supposed ten ships now had the identical stain and patch.

With that Jurak had made it a point to observe the ship as it flew over twice during the day and the commander of ten (who was now commander of a hundred) was right. They were pasting different numbers on the ship. It was an old trick, and the fact that the humans resorted to it must mean that their airships were all somewhere else.

He had already sent faster riders southwest from the nearest garrison to the breaks in the line, demanding a full report. News, though, would be a day old.

In the morning he thought he had a clear grasp of the plan. Now he wasn’t sure. Such an operation would not require every airship of the Yankee fleet. There were several scenarios possible, a couple within the capability of what the humans knew of war. There were several beyond them, or had they realized that airships could be used for more than just reconnaissance and bombing?

He felt a cold shiver at that thought and called for a guard to summon Zartak.

“H
ans, time we got moving.”

It was Ketswana, his towering bulk filling the doorframe. First light was tracing the horizon, dawn still more than an hour off. Engines were already warming up on the airstrip, distant voices echoing.

“Come on, Vincent, let’s roll.”

The boy was fast asleep, curled up on the coat, his oversize riding boots still on, making him look even more like a child who had insisted upon falling asleep in his play uniform. Vincent stirred, and then was bolt upright, a brief instant of panic until he realized where he was. Hans said nothing, understanding. Old instincts from the field. “Everything all right?” Vincent asked a bit too loudly.

“Just that it’s time.”

“Right.”

Ketswana came back into the room carrying a wooden plank. Two steaming tins of tea were on it, along with pieces of hardtack topped off with slabs of cold salt pork. Hans blew on the rim of the cup between gulps of the scalding brew, then quickly consumed the cold breakfast.

Vincent was up, eating a bit more slowly. Gregory Timokin came in.

“Everything’s ready, sir,” he announced to Vincent. “We better get up to the front.”

Vincent nodded and started for the door, taking his cup of tea with him. He stopped by Hans’s side.

“Not much at sentimental good-byes, Hans.”

“Nor I.”

Vincent chuckled. “Sure, Hans. See you in a week.”

“You too, son. Gregory, don’t let him bang his head.” Gregory smiled and offered Hans his hand. Hans took it gently, and even then Gregory grimaced from the pain.

“Wish you were coming along, too. It’d be like the Ebro all over again,” he said, forcing a smile.

“Once was enough,” Hans lied. “Besides, I like flying."

Vincent started out the door, then stopped.

“Save a little glory for me, will you?” he asked light-heartedly.

Hans laughed softly.

“And for God’s sake please come back.” And now there was a note of concern in his voice. Before Hans could reply, he was gone.

“Everyone seems to think we’re going to get killed, my friend,” Hans said to Ketswana.

“Not us, we’re immortal. As long as I’m with you, you’re safe.”

Finishing his tea, Hans left the cup in the hut, stepped outside to relieve himself, then started for the flight line. More and yet more engines were turning over, warming up. Crews were loading into the cargo compartments, and Ketswana mentioned that nine men, after the flight over from Suzdal, absolutely refused to get back in. Volunteers from the ground crews had replaced them.

All around them was a bustle of activity. They passed several Hornets revving up their engines, a crew chief shouting obscenities in Rus. A wagon clattered past, again the smell of kerosene. With a thousand men working as ground crews, most of them pressed into service and only given a couple of days training, it was a near miracle, Hans realized, that the entire place hadn’t exploded with some darn fool having smuggled in a box of matches for a smoke, or from the accidental discharge of a gun.

They passed an Eagle, the ten Chin gathered in front of it, squatting around a bucket of steaming grits and a smaller bucket of tea. They didn’t even notice their commander passing, and continued to chatter in their singsong voices. A ground crew trotted past, carrying coils of ropes, and then several boys darted around Hans, lugging skins filled with water to be loaded on board a ship.

“The training pays off here,” Hans said. “There was part of me thought Varinna mad to think it could be pulled off, but here it is. Men, equipment, fuel, food, ammunition, all of it coming together in this place.”

“They know it’s this or defeat,” Ketswana replied. “We know as well that this is something special, a new thing, something we will always remember.”

It was hard to sort out which flier was which in the darkness, and finally they had to grab one of the ground crews to guide them to Jack’s ship. As they approached the aero-steamer, Hans was glad to see that Gates’s Illustrated had finally been put to a good use, enough copies had indeed been found to paper over the front and sides of the cargo compartments to block out the wind.

Ketswana started for the crew compartment under Jack’s ship.

“I thought you were on number thirty-nine,” Jack observed.

“Didn’t like the pilot.”

“Suppose something happens to me,” Hans interjected. “You’re to take over, remember?”

Ketswana laughed.

“And suppose something happened to me on the other ship. Where would you be? No, I stay with you, my friend.”

Hans wanted to argue but he could see Jack standing by the ladder to the forward compartment, arms folded, grinning.

“Kinda logical actually,” Jack announced. “I’ll get you in. Besides, the boys know what to do; the company commanders are all briefed.”

“All right, go on, get in,” Hans said, and Ketswana gave a final wave before ducking under the airship and climbing aboard.

“How is everything?” Hans asked.

“One more machine down. Engine caught fire about an hour ago when they started it up, and part of the wing burned. This takeoff in the dark, a bit tricky.”

“I know. It’s a balance. Would have preferred to come in at dawn, but that meant night flying, and most of these boys would have gotten lost or wound up in Cartha or back in Suzdal. We’ve got to get down with enough daylight to get the job done.”

“Then we better get moving.”

Jack climbed the ladder first and a moment later one of the ground crew, who had been sitting in the forward cab watching while the engines ran on idle, scrambled down the ladder. Hans ascended into the cab and climbed into the copilot’s seat, suddenly aware again of the lingering stench from the previous day’s bout with airsickness. He wondered if there was something perverse about pilots, and they took a secret delight in the smell. For a moment he was worried that his stomach would rebel, leaving him without a breakfast. Opening the side window he stuck his head out and took a gulp of air.

“Let’s hope everyone’s on his toes,” Jack shouted. “I taxi out first, then each airship down the line follows. We circle out to sea and form up, then head out from there.” Opening up both speaking tubes, he blew into them. “Topside. Bottom side, hang on, we’re heading out.” Hans caught some moans and a burst of laughter from below. Ketswana actually was enjoying himself. Any chance to get into battle, in a land ironclad, aerosteamer, if need be crawling through a cesspool, it didn’t matter to him, as long as he could kill Bantag.

Jack took hold of the throttles, edging them up until all four engines were howling. Finally, the ship lurched forward.

“We’re heavy, damn heavy, and no wind to help us lift off.”

He spun the wheel, closing the hot-air-bag vent atop the center air bag. They reached the center of the landing strip, following a ground crewman holding a white flag aloft, which stood out like a pale shimmer in the early-morning light. Hans felt as if somehow the machine was beginning to feel lighter, and he mentioned it to Jack.

“The center bag, depending on outside temperature, provides several hundred pounds of lift. Hell, I’ll make an airman of you yet. You seem to have the feel for it. Starboard throttles idle, keep port side at full.”

Hans put his hands on the throttles, Jack quickly guiding him, then letting go as he turned the wheel for the rudder. With ground crew helping, the airship slowly pivoted and lined up on a faint glimmer of light, three lanterns at the end of the field marking the takeoff path. The crew chief held his flag aloft, twirled it overhead, and let it drop while running to the port side to get out of the way.

“Here goes, full throttles, not too fast now … that’s it.” Hans fed the fuel in, the caloric engines slowly speeding up. They held still for what seemed an eternity, then started forward again. The takeoff seemed longer than the day before, the ship slowly lurching and bouncing, bobbing up once, settling, then finally clawing into the air. The three lanterns whisked by underneath, Jack holding the ship low to gain speed, the hot exhaust going into the center air bag, heating it up even more, lift increasing. He banked gently to starboard, and in the darkness Hans sensed more than felt the ocean open out beneath them. Jack continued his slow climbing turn, the top gunner reporting a second, third, and fourth ship lining up behind them. As they spiraled upward Hans wondered how anyone could see where the other ships were, but as they completed one full circle and the eastern horizon came back around he saw several airships clearly silhouetted against the red-purple horizon.

The air was gloriously still, reminding Hans of the sensation of sliding with skates on the first black ice of winter when he was a boy. They went through another circle and another, the ships spiraling up like hawks, slowly climbing on a summer thermal, soaring into the dark heavens.

The vast world spread out below them, faint wisps of ground fog now showing dark gray, the second of the two moons slipping below the western horizon, to the east the sky getting brighter. Each turn took them farther out to sea, the coast receding, part of the plan in case watchful eyes on the ground had somehow reestablished communications during the night.

“Losing another one,” Jack announced, breaking the silence, and he pointed to where a ship, streaming smoke from one of its engines, was breaking away, heading straight back to the airfield.

Two Hornets came up, climbing far more steeply than the Eagles, soaring upward, their escort but also a signal that the last of the Eagles was off the ground.

“Any count?” Jack asked, calling up to the top gunner, whom Hans truly pitied, stuck atop a flammable bag of hydrogen in an exposed Gatling mount. It was also his job to crawl around atop the bag and plug any holes shot through it in a fight. No silk umbrellas had been issued to the crews for this flight—the weight considerations had ruled it out—but even with such a device for jumping the top gunner rarely made it, since as soon as a ship caught on fire the heavy weight of the gun plunged the man straight down into the burning bag.

“Hard to count. I figure at least thirty ships are up, sir.”

“Well try and get me the right number,” Jack snapped. “Damn. If we only got thirty up, we’ll be slaughtered.” Jack sighed, looking over at Hans.

“We go with what we got even if it’s only one at this point,” Hans replied absently, straining to catch a glimpse of the ground east of Tyre. Dawn was just breaking down there; Vincent would most likely be kicking off his move. Hans thought he could catch glimpses of smoke, a flash of light.