Never Sound Retreat (13 page)

He fixed his attention on the land cruiser on which Ha'ark had been riding, hoping that the bastard was foolish enough still to be aboard. He was still there!

There was usually a sniper attached to each regiment and with luck they might be able to drop him now. He saw the distinctive green uniform of the regimental sniper and shouted for him to come over.

As the sniper came up and saluted Vincent looked back, but Ha'ark was gone.

Damn, did he know what I wanted to do? Vincent wondered. He saw a white horse, galloping along the line, just out of range.

"We hit it!"

Vincent turned his attention back to the land cruiser the battery had been shooting at as a spray of dust and fragments erupted from its forward armor. The machine kept moving . . . another round hit, there was an explosion of sparks, and he held his breath. The cruiser continued on, and a groan went up from the battery . . . the twenty-pound bolt had barely dented the shield.

The battery commander looked over at him.

"Pour it on; let it get closer and pour it on!"

"Sir, should we consider pulling back?"

Vincent looked over at one of his staff, who was nervously pointing to their left flank. The Bantag who had annihilated the regiment in the fort were working their way up the slope, edging around to the north. Down in the narrow bay one of the ironclads was moving in. Its forward gun erupted, and seconds later a heavy shot screamed overhead, the round exploding a half mile behind them.

"A
few more minutes. We have to find out if we can punch a hole in those damn machines down there."

The skirmishers of the Seventh Kev were opening up, their rear sights levered up so that their weapons were angled high. Puffs of dust were kicking up as the Bantag skirmishers found their range and the whip-crack sound of bullets echoed around Vincent. An orderly moved his horse in front of Vincent, the boy looking scared even as he tried to play the hero, shielding his commander with his own body.

Vincent was about to chide him when a look of startled surprise filled the boy's features. He pitched forward, the back of his head gone.

Vincent leaned forward to him, blood and brains splattering across his uniform. Staff gathered around Vincent, taking the body from him. Vincent tried to act unperturbed. The boy had taken the bullet for him . . . and he didn't even know his name.

Several more shots hit the land cruiser, ricocheting off. The machine disappeared behind a cloud of smoke as it finally fired back. A round screamed in, detonating twenty yards forward of the number one gun, shell fragments whistling over the crew.

A battery which had been moving up behind the land cruiser deployed—Bantag crews unhitching their weapons, swinging them into position. Vincent, field glasses raised, carefully studied them. They moved quickly, obviously well practiced, not like the Merki gunners who were unsure of their weapons and how to use them. In less than a minute the first gun opened fire, followed seconds later by the other three. Two of the shots were short by fifty yards or more, the third screamed overhead, but the fourth plowed into the ground directly under the number three gun, exploding, shattering a wheel and wiping out half the crew.

Alongside the battery a wagon drew up, and half a dozen Bantag jumped out, unloading what looked to be pipes. Curious he watched them as the pipes were pointed to the sky, a bipod stand placed just under the muzzle.

Were they rocket launchers? The crew disappeared from view for a moment as smoke from the battery obscured them. The rifle fire of the Seventh Kev was picking up in tempo, and his mount, nervous, was shying back and forth so that it was hard to keep his field glasses trained on the crew by the wagon.

"Sir!"

He tore his attention away to where several of his staff were now pointing. The flanking force on the left was nearly to the crest, while off to the right, a half mile down the line, several companies of Bantag were moving at the double. Vincent looked back and saw that the second regiment armed with Sharps was still coming up, a half mile away, while on the distant ridgeline, his remaining regiments and second battery were deploying out.

"All right, sound the retreat," Vincent announced. "It's time to get the hell out of here."

The battery commander was down by his number three gun, shouting for the spare wheel to be unlashed from the battery limber wagon.

"Forget the gun, Major!" Vincent shouted. "Get your wounded loaded up and get the hell out!"

The Bantag down in the valley, as if sensing the pullout, were up, racing forward, hoping to trigger a panic. The men of the Seventh Kev, however, knew their business. Odd-numbered men stood up and sprinted to the rear, deploying back a hundred yards, then turned about. The even-numbered men waited, their colonel watching, as the remaining three guns of the battery were hitched up, drivers lashing the teams into a gallop.

A final volley was fired and the even-numbered men stood up and started for the rear. A strange whistling sound hummed overhead. An explosion erupted twenty yards behind Vincent, followed seconds later by three more. In less than ten seconds another four more explosions detonated along the ridge, catching several men of the Seventh as they pulled back.

Vincent fixed his attention back on the Bantag with the pipes. Mortars . . . the damn things were some new kind of mortar, he realized. He watched as one of the crew held what looked to be a shell over the barrel, dropped it in, then snatched his hand away. A second later a jet of flame erupted from the barrel. Seconds later the loader repeated it again. How the hell did the damn thing work?

"Damn it, sir! Let's go!"

One of his staff, leaning over, was grabbing hold of his reins, pulling his horse around. Vincent wanted to explode at him, but realized he was doing his job. He had killed one of his staff already by foolishly exposing himself.

He spared one final glance at the land cruiser. Its forward shield was scored from half a dozen hits, but still it came on. Bursts of smoke boiled out of its low smokestack; Bantag infantry to either side were moving along at a walk. The damn thing was slow-moving, but it seemed invincible.

Mortar rounds bracketed Vincent, and he could not help but flinch as pieces of shrapnel shrieked past him. As he turned his mount away he sensed something, and, looking over his shoulder, he again saw the white horse, Ha'ark was standing tall in the stirrups, rifle held high in a sardonic salute. Vincent was tempted to reply with a rude gesture. No, not that, he realized. Act professional. Standing in his stirrups, he snapped off a salute, then spurred his mount down the slope, smarting with humiliation at the jeering cries of the Bantag warriors behind him.

Furious, Andrew turned on his staff.

"Damn all to hell! I want to know what the hell is going on!"

The completely unnerved major who was in charge of the headquarters signals company stood before Andrew, barely able to conceal his fear.

"Sir. Telegraph lines are down in both directions. Like I told you before, sir, we have repair crews out, but as quick as we fix one break, their damn airships swoop down and cut the line somewhere else."

Andrew wanted to tear into the officer with frustrated rage. Everything had descended into chaos; he could sense the mounting panic on the part of his staff. From the window which looked out on the rail yard he could see the madness setting in, men racing back and forth, officers shouting, cursing, rushing to load two batteries on board a train which had just backed into the siding while an infantry officer, gestating wildly, was obviously arguing that his unit should have the train instead.

The major stood before him, waiting for the explosion. From the corner of his eye he saw Emil leaning against the doorsill, and to Andrew's utter amazement, the old doctor had a cigar in his mouth. The mere sight of Emil acting in a way he had always preached against startled Andrew. Emil gave a subtle nod for Andrew to join him.

"Just get the damn thing fixed!" Andrew snapped, and he stormed out of the office, joining Emil on the front porch.

"You're losing control," Emil said calmly.

"I don't need to hear this now, doctor," Andrew snapped. "I've got three different armies out there, and I've lost touch with all of them!"

"And three damn good generals running them," Emil replied softly, putting his hand on Andrew's shoulder, leading him off the porch and out of earshot of the staff inside the building.

Taking the cigar from his mouth he offered it to Andrew, and struck a light for him. Andrew puffed it to life.

"And your glasses are dirty," Emil announced, shaking his head. Reaching up, he took the glasses off. It was one of those annoying little things Andrew found a one-armed man simply had a hard time doing, and at home he usually relied on Kathleen to clean his glasses for him.

Emil pulled out a handkerchief, rubbed the lenses clean and, in a fatherly fashion, helped Andrew put them back on.

"There, that's better."

Andrew took a deep drag on the cigar, inhaled the smoke, and blew it out noisily.

"Pat and Hans both got the message that something was up before the lines went dead."

"But it's not knowing what they're doing that's driving me insane," Andrew replied, taking another deep pull on the cigar so that for a moment he felt light-headed, his heart racing.

"They'll do the right thing."

"I've never commanded like this before," Andrew said. "Before I was almost always there; I could see what was happening; I could sense the battle, the feel of how the men were taking it, what the other side was doing and, more importantly, about to do. They only caught me off guard once, when I lost Hans and Third Corps on the Potomac. It's like that now, only worse."

"That was four years ago, Andrew. It's all different now. A different war, and you'll have to get used to it. Things will play out the same at this moment whether you're there or not. Right now, you're just going to have to wait."

Andrew muttered a curse under his breath.

"Something you were never really all that good at," Emil said with a smile.

He blocked Emil out for a moment, his attention fixed on the harbor.
Fredericksburg
had come limping in shortly before noon, listing heavily, with a report of having fought a duel with one of the Bantag ironclads covering the fleet. They had sunk the enemy ship but were forced to pull back when three more ironclads came about and started to close in. The ship's crews on
Petersburg
and
Fredericksburg
were hard at work, hoisting the guns out, and one of the fifty-pounders was already being dragged up the hill by a team of twenty horses, its firepower to be added to the earthen fortress guarding the harbor entrance. Out on the horizon a thin plume of smoke marked where one of the enemy ships had already taken up station.

Amazingly, everything was now reversed. Our port blockaded, what was going on just over the horizon a blank slate. He had never quite realized until now just how crucial sea power was in all of this. Bullfinch had talked incessantly about it, that it would be sea power that decided this war, but it had never fully registered until this moment. Ha'ark could strike anywhere, at will, with the additional advantage of controlling the air. He thought of the new monitor taking shape down in the shipyard. It might have matched the enemy but was now simply a hunk of worthless iron which they would most likely have to blow up.

"Feeling better?"

"Damn it, Emil, don't talk to me like I'm a child."

"I'm your doctor, Andrew. I have a license that allows me to get away with it."

Andrew looked over at his friend and sighed.

"I don't know what to do next, Emil. I'm blinded, cut off. I simply don't know what to do."

"First off, it's chaos back there." Emil nodded toward the rail yard.

"Take command right there for starters, Andrew. Ship up what you can and trust that Marcus will bring up Tenth Corps from Roum. One of two things will happen in the next day—either we hold at Hancock or we lose it and lose Junction City and the rail line is cut. If that happens, then what?"

Andrew nodded. The enormity of losing the main junction was frightening. Hans would have to pull back over the Green Mountains. If the Bantag gained the passes ahead of him, Hans would be trapped in the mountains with no hope of escape. Pat was a little better off—there were more than enough trains to move him back quickly. But to what? At best a fighting withdrawal to retake Junction City. Even if we retake it, they'll have jumped the front hundreds of miles closer to home. They'll have the logistical advantage of a port at their backs and wide-open terrain to maneuver in. We'll most likely have to fall back all the way to Roum, and if that happens, they'll eventually outproduce us and win.

One thing at a time, he realized. Get the support up to Vincent and trust that Hans and Pat know what to do.

The thought almost made him smile. Hell, it was Hans who had taught him the business, and it was Pat who pulled off the masterful retreat from the Neiper and then held the center at Hispania.

"All right, Emil, point made," Andrew conceded.

Emil nodded, and then, reaching up, he took the cigar and tossed it on the ground.