Terrible Swift Sword (30 page)

The men working on the track struggled to pound the bayonets in, to anchor the rail in place so they could advance the last short distance. Musket butts shattered from the blow, barrels bent, but ever so slowly the bayonets inched their way into the rain-swollen wood.

And with every passing second more and yet more Merki filtered out alongside the trains, and dense columns moved to fill the few hundred yards that separated the division from safety. Pat swung his glasses to the south. Coming across the field, he saw battery after battery of guns advancing at the gallop, wheels bouncing and careening, the Merki gunners lashing their mounts on.

Tears of frustration clouded his eyes.

"There's the train!" lngrao shouted.

Hans spared a quick glance up the long gentle slope to where the lead engine was stalled, the dark tan line of Roum infantry fanning out to form a line before it.

"Something's stopped them!" Hans shouted. "They most likely cut the rail."

A volley crashed out, and then from all sides a continuous roar of musketry swelled.

A steady hail of arrows was winging in, but the arrows came down in a high arc rather than in a deadly flat trajectory. Hans watched their fall.

Wet weather affects their bows, he thought. Not as much punch, thank god.

Charge after charge came in. The fire to stop them was nearly continuous, and hundreds of bodies piled up, formations breaking apart.

Hans looked back up the hill to where a sharp volley had kicked out.

"Charlie, we'll have to fight our way the last half-mile!" Hans shouted.

Charlie looked over at him.

"Holding square's one thing, Hans. Marching and fighting that way is another."

"Ney did it."

"Who?"

"Dammit, didn't they teach you anything?" Hans shouted. "Now pass the order. North and south walls to sidestep, west to back up, east to move forward. Keep them tight. If we start to break in, those bastards will ride right through us."

A hissing whine kicked overhead.

Startled, Hans looked to the southeast. The smoke from a field piece was rolling out on the wind, the Merki gunners leaping forward to reload.

From across the field, screened by a column of horse warriors, a long line of guns was being driven across the field, moving between the division and the trains atop the low ridge.

"We've got to move!" Hans shouted, edging his horse to the east side of the square, raising his carbine and pointing toward the train.

Bugle calls sounded. The men looked about in confusion as officers shouted to hold the formation.

The square started to move. Another flurry of shot crashed into the line as two more guns opened up. Casualties went down, men breaking formation to help the wounded.

"Walk or die!" Hans screamed. "No helping the wounded!"

On the flanks the Merki charged in, regardless of loss, nargas braying their insistent call. A vast wedge formation turned and started in from the south, riding at full gallop, hundreds of Merki on foot racing to keep up.

The musketry rose to a crescendo. Horses dropped, pitching their riders to the ground, flailing hooves kicked their owners to death. The foot warriors charged on, leaping over the dead and dying, screaming their chants, scimitars raised high, flashing through the air. 

The charge crashed into the southwest corner of the square, the line collapsing, Merki pouring into the hole. Part of the reserve brigade, turning about, raced back in a solid line, bayonets at the level, desperate to seal the breach.

Like carrion drawn to death, the Merki charged toward the breach, struggling to crack the line clean apart. Forward, the line of guns moved to deploy, the first piece kicking into the air as the team drove it up over the grading, the iron-shod wheels striking sparks as it slammed over the rails.

A second line of guns was beyond the first. Crews swung the pieces out to face east, back up the hill toward the train.

"Keep moving!" Hans screamed.

He swung in beside the regimental colors of one of the two regiments on the east side.

"Men of the 7th Novrod, we've got to take those guns!" Hans roared, pointing his carbine forward.

He looked back over his shoulder. The breach was closing, but nearly an entire regiment was gone, the square curving in as if a surgeon had sliced off part of a body to save the rest. A knot of survivors outside the protection of the formation fought on and were finally swarmed under.

"Bugler, sound double time!"

Tamuka reined his mount in, grinning with satisfaction at the battery commander, who bowed a salute and then turned back to his guns.

"Load double canister!"

Merki gunners leaped to their work, racing to load, oblivious to the screaming wall of cattle rushing toward them.

Now they will see what we can give back, he thought with a smile.

The square lurched forward. All around him it was starting to come apart as they swept up the slope, racing to beat the guns before they were unlimbered—and loaded.

A hundred yards! Hans thought. Through the guns and we're home. Thirty seconds, and he saw the rammers stepping away from their pieces.

Fifty yards, and before him the batteries were silent, waiting, and in his heart he knew.

"Home, boys, home! Home's just on the other side of the hill!" Hans screamed.

Thirty guns fired at once. Six thousand iron balls snapped across the field into the line not thirty yards away.

Groaning with anguish, Pat could not look away. The entire east side of the square seemed to go down, the formation stopping as if striking into a stone wall.

The second line of guns facing in his direction fired, shot screaming up the slope. The volley line before him riddled, bodies disintegrating, tumbling into the air.

An explosion of steam shot out around him, the boiler of the train exploding as a solid shot tore through its guts.

Pat stood in numbed silence.

"Rally, goddammit, rally!"

He was on foot. How he had gotten there he couldn't tell. Someone was next to him. The flag-bearer, the staff broken, the boy sobbing as he waved the colors over his head.

"Once more!" Hans screamed.

From out of the confusion individuals rose up, staggering forward as if going into the teeth of a gale.

Flashes rippled in front. Iron hail smashed through, unable to miss. Hans felt as if he were walking in a nightmare. It was a nightmare.

He looked back into the center of the square. What had missed the line had smashed into the reserves, staggering them. Men were streaming back into the center of the formation. The east side of the square was gone. Like a dying animal the three brigades started to curl up into themselves.

"One more time!" Hans screamed. "We can't stop!"

He snatched up his guidon, holding it high, and started to run forward.

A storm swept past him, picking him up as if he were a dried leaf in a gale, tossing him down.

Hands were around him, dragging him back. His leg felt numb.

"Let me go!" He kicked and struggled, but they would not let go. Men closed around him. He struggled free at last, hands releasing him.

"You're hit, sir."

Ignoring the cry he gingerly stood up, grimacing with the pain.

Same damn place the reb sniper got me, he thought coldly.

A regimental commander came up, leading his mount. Without asking, Hans climbed into the saddle, stifling the groan of pain.

The square was going fast. The southwest corner was torn open again, with Merki pouring in. The eastern line was gone, the field a carpet of white-clad bodies, tunics stained red, hundreds of wounded screaming, crawling, staggering back. Up the slope the artillery continued its deadly fire, sweeping in. All that was left was the knot of men around him, the last of the reserve, the survivors running in from the disintegrating line. Officers struggled, pushing the men into lines, plugging the holes with bodies. The air was alive with shot.

And above the wild screams of battle, the nargas sounded.

As if guided by a single hand, the riders swarming through the broken lines turned and galloped out, slashing at all in their way.

The artillery facing the trains continued to pound the line cresting the hill, a high plume of steam venting up from a smashed engine, but over what was left of the three brigades an eerie silence prevailed.

As the smoke momentarily cleared a Merki rider came out of the columns surrounding them, waving a white flag.

"Hold fire!" Hans roared.

The rider came up, reining in his mount.

"My Qar Qarth offers surrender. You will be spared the feasting pits, but subjects of the Merki you will be for the rest of your lives."

Hans looked at the grim-faced men who surrounded the torn standards of what had once been fifteen proud regiments.

The men looked up at him expectantly, their eyes hard and dark, and he smiled.

He leaned forward, shooting a stream of tobacco juice toward the envoy.

"Shit," Hans snarled, and a defiant shout greeted his words.

The Merki snarled angrily, turned his mount around, and galloped back.

"You took that from the Imperial Guard at Waterloo."

Hans looked down to see lngrao, blood pouring from a slash to his face, standing by his side and smiling.

"Couldn't resist it," Hans said quietly.

"You have a touch of the romantic in you after all," lngrao replied.

"Don't insult me," Hans said.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out what little was left of the tobacco plug. He bit off half, then offered the rest to Charlie.

Charlie took the plug and nodded sadly.

"I'll see you in Hell," Charlie said defiantly, then went to stand by the one four-pounder still left in the square. He picked up the lanyard and waited.

"Mine eyes have seen the glory .. ."

It started off with a deep bass, the men picking up the words, their voices echoing across the plains. Ramrods clattered in fouled muskets, cartridges were run home, pieces were raised, bayonets poised.

He clicked open his carbine, which he had somehow managed to cling to. Sliding a last round in, he cocked the hammer and rested it across his knee, oblivious to the red stain running down his trousers.

The breeze was blowing fair and clear, the standards fluttering in the wind, the air washed clean by the rain.

There seemed to be a far-off place now. It wasn't here. No, it was Antietam again. The young, terrified officer standing there, looking at him like a lost boy.

He had watched him grow, grow to lead a regiment, an army, an entire world.

The son he'd never had, the son in fact that he now did have. That was enough to leave behind.

"He has loosed the fateful lightning . . ." "God keep you, son."

The nargas sounded.

"Get the men out of here!" Pat shouted, "back to the next train!"

Gregory looked at Pat, unable to move, his gaze shifting back to what was happening down in the valley.

"Goddammit, Gregory, move them!"

The young officer, unable to speak, turned away and fell in with the retreating infantry.

The Roum infantry, many openly weeping, raced past. Gunners from the armored car leaped out, joining the push to the next train back.

Shot screamed past them, the growing cordon of Merki on their flanks pressing in.

The singing reached up the hill and Pat stood as if struck, his vision blinded by tears.

The massed battery fired as one, the tattered remnants of the square dropping, a cry going up, and yet still the song wavered and held.

"Glory, glory . . ."

The thunder of the charging host stormed in, scimitars flashing. A final defiant volley snapped out, its voice weak. For a moment he saw him, sitting alone, carbine raised. And then the song died away, and there was nothing left but the flashing of the scimitars, rising and falling, rising and falling.

Bell tolling, the engine backed into the station.

Andrew felt alone, completely alone. The empty trains that had come back up the line had been enough to tell the tale, but he had had to hear.

The boxcars of the last train were filled with Roum infantry, gazing out at him hollow-eyed, wounded holding bloody limbs, ashen-faced soldiers with defeat on their faces.

The engine hissed to a stop, and he saw him climb down from the cab.

Andrew walked up to Pat, who came toward him as if carrying a burden impossible to hold.

"Hans is dead," Pat said woodenly, struggling to blink back the tears.

Andrew said nothing, turning away. God, he wanted to cry, to beat his fist upon the ground, to crawl away into a dark corner and hide away forever. But he couldn't. Not now.

Hans had stood by his side at Gettysburg, stood by him as he looked down on the body of his only brother.

"Not now," his old friend had whispered. "Mourn later, but not now."

Hans was dead. He stood by me for over six years, he taught me everything, he was the strength that helped to make me. And now he's gone.

Andrew turned to look back at Pat.

"So close, God forgive me, so close," Pat said, his voice flat, rambling in the dull, numbed tones of one in shock.

"The three brigades?"

"No one got out. Forced into square, then ripped apart by artillery."

"Ingrao, Anderson, Esterlid, Basil Alexandrovich?"

Pat shook his head.

Andrew stood in silence.

"Sweet Jesus, you should have seen them, though," Pat sighed. "Sing they did, the voices of angels bent on killing to the end. That damned Dutchman in the middle of them, surrounded by the flags. I bet chewing a plug, cursing the saints."

"Oh God, forgive me, Andrew. I stood there and couldn't save them," Pat gasped. He sagged forward and wrapped his arms around Andrew's narrow shoulders, his body racked with sobs.

Hans is dead, Andrew thought dully. Somehow, he'd thought the old man would live forever. Hundreds, he had heard hundreds of names spoken with the pause, and then the whispered words, "He's dead." But not Hans . . . No, he had never dreamed that nightmare.

Hans, gone forever.