Terrible Swift Sword (31 page)

"Do you have a chew?" Andrew whispered.

Pat nodded. He stood back and pulled out a handkerchief, blowing his nose noisily. He drew out a plug and proffered it. Andrew took a chew, and the biting sting brought with it a flash of memories.

"They're moving fast," Pat said, trying to force himself to regain his composure. "We damn near didn't get out. They'll be here by nightfall, maybe to the Neiper by tomorrow. What happened with the rest of the army?"

"Back across the Neiper by now."

Pat nodded absently.

"We've still got a war to fight," Andrew said, and putting an arm on Pat's shoulder he walked back to the train, while behind him the station was put to the torch.

Chapter 7

"Blow it."

Mina touched the torch to the fuse and watched in silence as the powder train snapped to light, racing down the side of the bank and then on to the trestle. Seconds later the first charge snapped off and timber, rails, a month of work rose upwards, charges further on the bridge flashing off with thunderclap detonations.

The Neiper bridge collapsed. Several hundred yards upstream a second flurry of charges went off, and moments later the first crest of the flood came around the bend of the river, the mill dam torn away, the water washing through the ford.

Mina tossed the torch aside and walked over to the train where Andrew stood.

"Had to do it myself," John said quietly.

Andrew nodded without comment and followed John up into the train car.

He spared a quick glance to the chair in the corner, brass spittoon resting beside it. Clearing his throat, he went to the head of the table and sat down.

"How bad are the losses?" Kal asked.

"Eight hundred casualties in first corps, three hundred in the second," Andrew said, looking down at the roster reports. He paused for a moment. "First division, 3rd corps, and half of the 2nd and 3rd divisions gone."

Kal leaned back in his chair, looking at the ceiling.

"Ten thousand boys."

Andrew nodded.

"Nearly all the corps equipment except what they carried out—sixty field pieces, half a million rounds of ammunition, tentage, two hundred thousand rations."

"And Hans," Pat stated softly. "And twenty-five more of the men from the 35th and 44th."

John shook his head.

"I know that," he whispered. "It's not my job to report the flesh and blood, only the rest."

Kal extended his hand in a consoling gesture.

"Now what?"

The room was silent.

"Now what?" Kal snapped, his voice sharp, jarring Andrew from his thoughts.

He looked over again at the empty chair, as if someone were still sitting there, quietly judging, ready to reproach him if he lost his nerve, especially now.

"We continue to fight," Andrew said coldly.

"Forgive me if I seem unduly pessimistic, Andrew," John said, "but we've lost nearly twenty percent of our best trained troops in the last three days. The plan was that we wouldn't be fighting on the Neiper till midsummer, and that at that point we'd have two, maybe three corps more, ready and equipped. The rail line up the river would be completed, and the entire river from the Inland Sea to a hundred miles upstream fortified."

"Well, the plan is finished," Andrew said quietly.

"And our alternative?"

"Fight to the death," Pat snapped angrily. "Hans piled them up in mounds around his square. By God, I'll take a dozen with me when they come."

"You're talking defeat," Father Casmar interjected.

"When you're staring forty umens armed with artillery in the face," John replied, "it's hard to think otherwise."

"We beat the Tugars, we beat the Merki fleet last year," Casmar reminded him reproachfully.

"Father, we won both by the skin of our teeth," John replied.

"And the grace of Kesus and Perm," Kal interjected.

"Well, the grace is gone," John said coldly. "In two days they'll be building batteries across from Suzdal and be on the other side of the river, not a half-mile from where we sit. Within the week they'll have patrols a hundred miles farther up the river. Within ten days they'll have tens of thousands of Cartha slaves working like moles at a dozen different places. We saw that on the Potomac."

"May their souls find peace," Casmar whispered.

"Work them till we kill them, and in the killing we fill their pots," John snapped.

"We knew three years ago when we faced the Tugars that we couldn't defend the upper Neiper, that sooner or later they'd get across and any troops above the cut would be annihilated.

"Once they cross the river, I'd say in under two weeks, their numbers will bear us down. They'll invest Suzdal, and they'll remember what we did to the Tugars. They'll blow the dam, the city gets washed out, and then they charge in for the kill."

"Start dropping the water in the reservoir right now," Casmar replied.

"I ordered it this morning," John replied. "It'll still take weeks. Even if we drain it down, there's no way we'll hold the city. Remember, this time they have artillery. They'll smash a way in, even if it takes all summer."

Andrew, who was staring dully at the empty chair, listened without comment. "Always play your advantages, do the unexpected. If you lose your nerve, everyone will lose their nerve," the now silent voice whispered.

Losing my nerve.
He felt an inner tremble. That was the core of it. He had gone to the bank once too often. Long years of going to the bank, knowing that a mistake might kill the men of his company, the regiment, the army, the nation.

Well, Hans, I just killed you and ten thousand others—a hell of a mistake. You saw it coming, and I didn't. You could have told me to go to hell, could have refused to obey, and god damn you I would have listened.

But no, you never would have done that. You didn't, even when you saw it coming.

"You'll make an officer some day, if you don't get kilt over first"—his favorite line.

Well, Hans, I've been "kilt over" inside, but did I ever make it to being an officer after all?

The bank's empty, and I finally made a mistake that cost you your life.

"My fault, all my fault"; a reb prisoner had told him that's what Lee said after Pickett went down. Ten thousand rebs lost in a half-hour, the turning point of the war.

Was this the turning point, Hans, the end of all of us, because I left you out on the limb, because I did not send up that one extra division?

"Are you saying the war's already lost?" Casmar asked, staring at John. "That tomorrow I go into my cathedral and tell my flock to prepare, to dig their graves, to cut the throats of their own children to spare them the horrors of the pit?"

John spread his hands and looked to Andrew.

"I'll smother Maddie and then hang myself!" she had shouted.

"Andrew?'

He looked back to the table. Kal was watching him.

"Let it rest," Kal whispered.

"What?"

"Let it rest. You can't go back, you can't change it."

"He put up a hell of a fight, he did," Pat said, looking to the chair and then back at Andrew.

Their gaze held for a moment, and Andrew felt as if the look in Pat's eyes were piercing right into his heart.

Do something! You're the one who thinks! I'm just the loudmouthed brawler!

Andrew got up from his chair and walked out of the car to stand alone on the rear platform.

Along the bank of the river troops stood in silence, watching the bridge burn.

He leaned back against the side of the car, pulling his kepi low over his eyes.

The door creaked open behind him, and Kal came out. He wanted to tell his old friend to leave, but he didn't have the heart to do so.

"Still shaken by it, aren't you?"

Andrew forced a weak smile.

"I lost. I killed ten thousand good men and lost my oldest friend. I most likely lost the war in the process. You heard John in there."

"You've lost something else," Kal said.

"Go on and tell me," Andrew replied coldly.

"Your nerve, of course."

"Thank you for enlightening me."

"I'm President of this country because of you," Kal said sharply, coming to stand in front of Andrew.

"If it hadn't been for you and your people I most likely would have survived the Tugars—they would be long gone by now. Ivor and Ragnar would still be squabbling for power, and I would still be a dirty peasant making up bad verse in order to stay alive."

"I didn't want all of this," Andrew replied.

"I did. I still do. And by Kesus, Andrew Lawrence Keane, I need you."

"Do you?"

"What's the alternative? Fire you? I can, you know, after all, I am the President."

Andrew looked down at Kal, who stood before him, a miniature Lincoln. A foot too short, but a Lincoln nevertheless, in black frock coat, chin whiskers, stovepipe hat, even the broad streak of earthy humor and touch to the common folk.

"Old Abe fired more than one."

"He kept your Grant."

"Grant. The Butcher,' we called him—he carpeted the fields with our bodies. I lost half my regiment in twenty minutes at Cold Harbor because of him."

"And yet you still followed him, because you were soldiers."

"We lost the best under him," Andrew said softly.

"That's war. Sometimes generals make mistakes and good men die for it."

"I lost too many good men. We couldn't afford a thousand dead, let alone ten thousand."

"So who the hell would I replace you with?" Kal asked ruefully. "Pat. A hell of an officer, as long as someone tells him where to go first. John? A desk commander, the best organizational mind we've got, even better than you in that area, but he doesn't have the spark. Maybe Vincent someday—needs a lot more seasoning, and there's a terrible fire in that boy's soul that needs to be doused first."

"He needs seasoning, but maybe someday," Andrew said quietly. "I'd already thought of that, even though he wants out the same way I now do."

"It's you or nothing. Just why the hell do you think Hans picked you to start with?"

Andrew looked at Kal, unable to answer.

"He's expecting you to win even now. You have to Andrew, because I'd sure as hell hate to face him if you didn't."

"Thanks for the guilt," Andrew said quietly.

"If it works, I'll use it."

"You son of a bitch. I was the one who made the mistake," Andrew snarled.

Kal chuckled, shaking his head.

"Most combative thing I've heard from you all day. It'll make great history some day, how my general called me a son of a bitch. A heroic painting perhaps,
a
wood carving on the side of a train car entitled 'Colonel Keane calls the President a son of a bitch.' "

A smile creased Andrew's features.

"Hans picked you. I need you because, by Kesus, you can think, and you can lead. Look at those men back in there. Pat talking about the pile of Merki dead around his corpse, John weeping doom, Casmar whispering that the end of the world has come. You alone can change that."

"I've never lost before," Andrew whispered, looking past Kal to some distant point. "No matter what, I've always won. I always got the boys out, even at Cold Harbor."

He shook his head sadly.

"I got to the point where it was impossible to think otherwise, yet there was a cold nagging inside me, whispering that this time I was reaching too far. I was asking more than we could possibly do. And it caught up with me. I hesitated at the key moment. I got rattled and didn't act when I should have."

"That's history now, Andrew. I'm not worried about history, I'm worried about next week."

Kal pointed to the ford.

"In a week, ten days, four hundred thousand Merki will be crossing through here, and farther up they'll be like a herd of locust consuming everything in their path: the grass, the crops, ourselves, our children.

"You alone can stop it. You're not the first general to lose a battle, a campaign, even a war. But by heavens, I dare say you'd be the first one to win a war while inside you we're already defeated," Kal whispered. He fell silent, and climbing down from the train he walked toward the riverbank, nodding as the soldiers saw him, waving for them to stand at ease, to come over and chat.

That damned peasant can outthink us all at times, Hans, Andrew whispered to himself.

All right, we certainly won't stop them on the Neiper, he thought, forcing his thoughts to clear, we knew that all along. Our only hope was to hold them back for so long that they'd start to starve, forced to eat their own horses, their families growing thin until they finally gave up and turned away.

Starve.

An amateur studies tactics, a professional logistics.

In the end we'll lose the Neiper line. We'll all die in Suzdal. At least Vincent will live a while longer in Roum.

We need time, precious time. There was the other idea, the one that had been forming since his talk with Yuri. It still bothered him in a way, so much so that he had spoken to no one about it. He needed time.

He felt as if the old eyes were looking up at him, waiting for the flash of understanding, like the first time at Antietam when the rebs had come crashing in from three sides.

"Son, you'd better lead these boys out of here," he had said.

"God damn it."

Kal turned to look back at the car. Andrew was already turning away, pushing the door open and going back inside.

"I better be going along, boys," Kal said, patting a drummer on the head and shaking hands with an old gray-bearded captain whom he remembered for a guard in Ivor's retinue.

"What's going to happen to us?" a young private asked, his face speckled with the first faint wisps of a beard.

"Why, we'll win of course," Kal said with a smile. "That's a promise. If I'm wrong, you can elect somebody else President in the next election."

The men chuckled ruefully as he turned away.

Gaining the car, he stepped back inside. He interrupted what was already turning into an argument between Andrew and John.

Andrew looked up at Kal.

"You damn well better be right," Andrew said.

"About what?"

"About not firing me."

Kal smiled, saying nothing.

"I'm sending you up to Roum right now," Andrew said. "We'll arrange an express train to take you through. I think Marcus needs to hear this one personally and agree before I announce it. If he does I want you back here at once, with him along if possible. You can do it round trip in two days if we clear the line and hook you in to our fastest engine."

"Just what am I being the messenger boy for?" Kal asked, the tone of his voice expressing an agreement before he had even heard what it was.

Andrew told him, even as John snapped about the impossibility of success.

Kal looked at John.

"Defeat is just as impossible an alternative. Let's get this train going. I have a message to deliver."

"You mean to say you funneled your entire Horde up this miserable track?"

Muzta nodded, looking to either side of the wide trail that was now bisected by the rail line that disappeared into the woods beyond.

"The first umen could move up it at fifty miles a day," Muzta said. "But after that things slowed, the track gets turned into mud. It took nearly seven days to move all my umens up to the ford of the Neiper."

The mud.

Jubadi leaned over and looked down. His mount was buried nearly up to mid-hock, the ground churned to a thick soup by the first umen.

"And the horde behind us?" Hulagar asked.

Muzta smiled, shaking his head.

"We were but a third your size, and still it took nearly a moon passage to move through the hundred miles of forest, cross the river, and get back onto the steppe beyond Suzdal. It's as bad as a mountain pass, worse in some ways."