Terrible Swift Sword (37 page)

A battery had opened up the evening before, dropping shells across the river. The guns were light compared to the fifty- and seventy-five-pound shot that the ironclads and the south bastion had hurled back at the position. But it was evidence enough that the Merki were there, watching, undoubtedly able to see the sparks as the trains crossed the trestle over the flooding Vina, which was swollen with the runoff from the reservoir.

The vast foundry was a nightmare of confusion. Hundreds of workers, who but days before had been laboring on twelve-hour shifts to turn out artillery pieces, muskets, and rifles, were tearing their machines down, packing the precious equipment into rough-made crates, pushing and shoving the crates out the doors and onto the rail sidings. A train waited by the brick building, with gangs of men struggling to heave the larger pieces of equipment up on to flatcars, where they were covered with tarps and roped down.

"Every day we lose like this is another three hundred rifles and muskets, another two field pieces not turned out," Pat said ruefully, turning sideways to let a team of men manhandle a press forge through the door.

Andrew looked around and forced a smile of encouragement as he stepped into the cavernous building.

This place had been the core, the heart pulse of all their efforts. Only days before it had been a place of smoke and showering sparks. Sweating gangs of men had pulled the raw iron out from the blast furnace next door, moved it in here, cooked it down into steel and cast. They'd poured it into molds, turned the barrels on lathes, and bored the tubes out, all to build the coiled spring sinews of a modern war machine bent on the salvation of a people.

It was here that any dream of survival had rested. How it had grown! He remembered the first foundry in comparison, but half the size of this, the building swept away with the flood from the blown dam. The fires were still going, a ruse for the watchers beyond the river, smokestacks still coiling out black plumes.

Next door at the rail foundry the chaos was the same. After the naval war it had reached a peak of nearly a hundred and fifty tons of rail a day, forty lengths of track an hour, twenty-four hours a day. The shiny iron had been loaded straight from the molds and forges onto waiting flatcars, which were rolled straight into the building. For months the trains had rolled eastward, one every eight hours, moving eastward to repair the Roum track torn up to make the ironclads. With the coming of late fall the trains had started to move north, up the river road line, across the Neiper and then west onto the military railroad for the Potomac. Ten thousand men had labored to build that line, which was completed only days before the Merki attack. And all of that effort had been for naught.

Beyond the rail foundry, where crews were tearing down the presses and molds, was the latest addition to their factories, the turning out of sheets of one-inch-thick armor for the ironclad fleet. The plates were moved down to the naval yard on the Neiper, now under bombardment, or by rail all the way up to Roum, where the second yard on the Tiber was turning out two more ships of the latest six-gun design.

On the west side of the naval armor forges was the shot factory, where one-inch ball was molded and packed into tin cans as canister, and next to that the molding rooms for four-, twelve-, fifty-, and seventy-five-pound solid shot. Another brick building alongside was built more like a bunker. There the exploding case shot for the Napoleons, and the percussion shells for the three-inch rounds were packed with powder, fused, and crated up in ammunition chests.

Down the slope were the rail yards, where the locomotive factory was located. Within it some of the most valuable and best-trained men in all of the Republic raced to finish the two engines on the assembly line, while others packed up the tools and forges and stripped down the other three engines, only partially built, to be shipped east for completion later.

The rolling stockyard had already been stripped. The molds for wheels and frames for the rolling stock had been shipped out that morning, to be moved back to Hispania. Hispania had become the second major rail yard before the war had even started, and now would be the center of the rail industry.

Andrew passed through the last of the factories, this one dedicated to producing a wide variety of miscellaneous items: reapers and plows, tire irons lor the guns, bolts, nails, bayonets, wood stoves, and even the bells for the churches.

Everywhere it was the same, the chaotic, insane look of a vast moving operation, arrived at that terrible point where one looks around one's home, cursing the fact that one has acquired too many possessions, believing that it will be impossible to have everything ready when the moving day actually arrives.

"God, do you think we'll ever get it done?" Pat whispered.

Andrew looked over at his friend. Something had weathered in the burly Irishman. It had started when he had gone through the long, slow recovery from the gut-shot wound. It must have tempered out when he had stood on the hill, watching Hans and the brigades go down to defeat. The boisterous swagger was gone and the feigned act of being a slightly dumb, belligerent drunkard had fallen aside. It was as if Pat sensed that Andrew now needed a rock-stable companion rather than a humorous foil and gadfly.

"We have to get it done, Pat. We can evacuate out all our people, all the food, but if we lose this"—he gestured back toward the factories—"we might as well crawl into the woods or become like the wanderers, forever fleeing in front of the Hordes. It's taken us damn near four long years to build all of this, and I refuse to see it be lost. The buildings we can replace, but these men and their tools can't be replaced."

His voice rose with passion as he spoke, and in anger he turned away to look to the west.

"I'll be goddamned if they'll get it from us."

Pat smiled as Andrew walked away. There was something of the old fire coming back in the man. He looked like hell to be sure—burned-out, face pale, eyes hollow—but at least the eternal spark, the spark of a professional killer, was flaring.

An engine puffed into life from alongside the gun foundry, the flagman racing down the track and waving for the switchman to clear the way.

The engine's wheels spun for several seconds, and then with a lurch the train started forward. Its long line of fourteen flatcars was piled high with crates, half a drop-forge resting so heavy that the car beneath it had been reinforced with six-by-six beams. The cars were packed with men who rode with their equipment, their families packed into three boxcars tagged to the end of the train.

At the sight of Andrew standing alone, the men came to their feet, defiant fists raised in the air, hoarse shouts echoing. Andrew raised his hand and saluted as the train rolled through the switch, picking up steam for the run up along the bank of the Vina, where it would be switched through to the trestle and then eastward to Hispania.

Pat raised a meaty hand, held a clenched fist aloft as the cars rumbled past.

"Get that damn thing working!" he shouted. "I need the bloody guns!"

The men, who were part of his corps, recognizing their commander, gave him a cheer. Then the boxcars rumbled past, silent and frightened families looking out, and the train was gone.

"Five thousand of our best men tied up here—an entire division," Pat said.

"We need them more in the factories," Andrew replied. "Let's just hope we don't have to put guns in their hands as well, before this is done."

From the town the cathedral bell started to ring, the soft, melodious peals sending a shiver through Andrew.

"Aerosteamers . . ." He looked around at the laboring crews, which had stopped to look to the southwest.

A messenger came running up and breathlessly handed Andrew a telegram.

"From our watch station above the mine. Four aerosteamers coming up along the coast of the Inland Sea," Andrew said quietly.

"Well, we might be seeing our first air battle," Pat replied, and there was a glimmer in his eye.

"At four-to-one, it should be interesting," Andrew said coldly.

"Get her up!" Jack shouted, racing out of the telegraph shed. The crews were already scrambling, alerted by the clanging bell.

Feyodor came running out of the hanger shed, waving the ground crew to their tasks.

Cables were grabbed hold of and the vast doors to the shed were rolled back. The ground chief looked to the watch tower and the banner fluttering atop it.

"Wind northerly. Haul it out slowly, now."

"Where are they?" Feyodor shouted, coming up to Jack's side.

"Coming up the coast of the sea." He paused. "Four of them."

"Kesus damn it!" Feyodor snapped.

"Boiler on?"

Feyodor nodded. "Full load of fuel on board."

"At least we'll have the wind at our backs going down."

Assistants came running up to help Jack and his assistant engineer into heavy coveralls and wool caps. The nose of the aerosteamer cleared the hanger door, bearing against the wind. More than two hundred men, most of them the original Roum crew, struggled to keep her centered.

Jack paced back and forth anxiously, trying not to think too much about what was coming. Flying it was bad enough, but the rest... He pushed the thought away.

The wicker cabin, engine section, and propeller appeared, and Jack and Feyodor raced over to the craft, which was now riding with wheels floating above the ground.

They climbed up into the cab, the aerosteamer coming back down to the ground, wheels beneath the cab hitting the ground.

The tail cleared the hanger and the balloon weath-ervaned around into the wind, crews struggling to keep her steady.

"Boiler on full power?" Jack spoke into the speaking tube, an addition put in only yesterday at his suggestion, the tube hooked up to Feyodor's ears. Only three feet separated them, but in the long and exhausting ride being towed by the train he had found it difficult at times for them to hear each other.

"Boiler on full power."

We must look like two elephants in a passionate embrace, he thought, with these tubes running back and forth between us.

He sat shaking with excitement and fear, waiting for the hot-air bag to provide the necessary lift. The crew chief stood beside him, looking down at the wheels on the ground.

The chief raised his hand. Jack nodded, and the man reached under the cab to pull the release lever that dropped the dolly wheels off. The aerosteamer started up.

"Slow forward!"

"Slow forward it is."

The propeller started to flick over, the warship rising straight up. Ground crews cast off lines, and

a priest stood in the middle of the clearing waving

branch laden with holy water as a blessing.

Jack made the sign of the Catholic cross in response and the priest nodded, even though it was backwards to the Rus rite.

The aerosteamer field started to drop down from beneath him. The four hangers formed a rough square, and fake chimneys on the side spewed smoke to make the buildings look like factories. It had fooled several inquisitive runs by the Merki ships, which had merely passed over and continued on. But after today he knew they'd be coming back, surmising that this balloon had to come from somewhere beyond Suzdal.

The valley floor was now a hundred feet down, the trees lining the hills wavering slightly in the breeze.

"Bring her up to quarter speed."

The engine surged louder and he gave a bit of up-rudder to the machine. The nose tilted up, the cheers of the crew echoing from below.

With a light touch he turned the aerosteamer to the left, the nose swinging around, the valley dropping away.

"Three-quarters speed!"

The propeller humming, the
Flying Cloud
now climbed upward at nearly two hundred feet a minute. The valley cleared, the steamer's shadow raced across the open fields, growing ever smaller. The town of Vyzima passed by to the east, the streets packed with refugees pointing and shouting.

Jack could only hope that the huge flag of Rus painted on the underbelly, with the name
Flying Cloud
in Cyrllic and English painted on the bow, would prevent the soldiers from opening fire.

Feyodor leaned far out of the cab, waving, and the realization sunk in on those looking up gape-

mouthed that the aerosteamer was on their side, the crowds screaming with delight, leaping up and down excitedly, children racing through the streets of the town, waving. The church bells started to peal, the air trembling with their harmonic rolls.

"Almost makes you feel like a hero," Jack said.

"Well damn it, we are!" Feyodor cried excitedly.

All of Rus is going to know the secret now, Jack realized, their efforts of the last nine months revealed at last. Damn it, if he survived this day he might very well be a bloody hero, and the fear dropped away for a moment as he imagined his triumphant return. He imagined Svetlana, the young Rus girl he had noticed at the Vyzima station, whose father was the telegrapher, coming out to greet him with shining eyes. Leaping into his arms, her heavy rounded breasts pressing into him.

It just might be worth this, he thought.

The ship continued to climb, the fair rolling fields of Rus undulating below him. Small farmsteads, villages, tiny chapels to Perm, streams lined with trees, all rolled by beneath him. He felt like an eagle.

The main rail line back to Suzdal rolled into view—the track cutting through the side of a hill, a train laboring eastward, puffing down the grade, the boxcars crammed with people, hundreds more riding on the roofs, pointing up fearfully at first and then waving with delight.

Hills rose to the west, clad with the heavy forest that marched on in scattered clumps across the rich black land. Far away to the northwest he saw a tracing of smoke on the horizon which climbed lazily into the sky. Barely visible beyond, a high ridgeline, green-blue.

Battle, somewhere along the Neiper.

There was a flicker of light on the horizon, reflecting off water. The reservoir above Suzdal. He kept a close eye on the ground, picking out distinguishing landmarks, quickly marking them down on a sheet of paper pegged to a board resting on his knees. It was a crystal-clear day, the horizon limitless, but as he might have to negotiate this in far different weather it was best to build the charts up now. He continued to sketch in details. A high-spired church, a small village with an old boyar manor house, its roof a gaudy red, the peak surmounted with carved bears marching in procession. Another village, burned huts replaced with Tugar yurts salvaged from the war. Wagons burdened down with supplies were moving across the countryside, heading to the nearest section of track where trains would come through, picking up the precious supplies. In an outlying village, near the great forest, several barns were on fire, bulk fodder being put to the torch. A procession of antlike creatures was moving out of the town, heading south to the rail line, a drove of pigs, cattle, barking dogs, and several horse-drawn wagons following behind the group.