Men of War

Chapter Eleven

“Damn!”

Hans snapped his hand back from the shattered throttle controls. His fingers stung, blood seeping out from the wood splinters studding his palm.

“The throttles!” Jack shouted.

A forward windowpane exploded, showering them with glass.

“I knew this place would be hot!” Jack cried. “Under your seat. The master fuel valve, shut it down!”

Hans spared a quick glance up. The place they had chosen to land was an open field adjoining the factory where he had once labored as a slave. So much had changed though over the last year. A new factory, plumes of black smoke pouring out of half a dozen smokestacks occupied the adjoining ground to the west. From the open doors of the compound he could see dozens of Bantag pouring out. Shots were punching into the gasbags behind him, a loud twang announcing that a support wire for the starboard wing had separated.

Grimacing with pain, Hans reached under the seat, fumbling about, his hands coming to rest on a cold brass valve. Hoping it was the right one he turned it, and at the same instant all four engines throttled back.

“Don’t shut it completely.”

Hans looked up. The open field they had chosen for landing was directly ahead, just to the north of the rail yard where he and his escaping slaves had hijacked a train for their run back to the outskirts of Xi’an.

A thin skirmish line of Bantag ran out into the field, several of them already kneeling, firing, levering breeches open to slam in fresh cartridges.

An aerosteamer passed over Hans, momentarily casting a shadow. The machine was flying full out, banking over sharply, a stream of fire pouring down from the topside gunner, rounds stitching the field, breaking up the skirmish line, scattering them.

“Fire!”

The scream came from the lower cargo compartment’s speaking tube. Hans craned forward, looking out at the starboard wing. A flicker of orange-blue flame trailed from the outboard engine. The fabric around the engine was burning as well, fire tracing with red-hot fingers along the trailing edges of the upper and lower wings.

“Full off!” Jack shouted.

Hans turned the master valve the rest of the way, shutting down all four fuel lines. The machine simply dropped. Jack nosed it down, heading straight for a drainage ditch bordering the west end of the field, pulled up at the last second, bobbled up a dozen feet, then slammed down hard.

The upper wing on the starboard side ignited, fire leaping inward toward the volatile hydrogen gasbags.

“Out, everyone out!” Jack cried.

Hans fumbled with his harness, unbuckling, cursing from the pain as he snatched up his carbine, tossed it out the bottom hatch. Without waiting to unroll the ladder, he dropped his legs through the bottom opening, took a deep breath, then lifted his arms over his head, falling the dozen feet to the ground, knocking the wind out of his lungs.

Stunned, he couldn’t move. Jack crashed down beside him. He felt Jack grabbing him under the shoulders, dragging him clear even as he continued to clutch his carbine.

A long staccato burst of fire roared. As they cleared the side of the ship he saw that their top gunner was still firing. Pouring a continual stream of Gatling rounds into a column of Bantag storming out from the two compounds, he dropped dozens of them.

“Get out!” Jack screamed, as the flame from the starboard wing hit the side of the forward gasbag. Within seconds the fire bored a hole through, hitting the hydrogen that spilled out, combining with the surrounding oxygen and flaring into a dull ghostly blue light. The entire side of the airship peeled open.

The boy topside continued to fire, sweeping his Gatling around, pouring fire across the rail yard, tearing apart the small warehouse that had served as the exit for the escape tunnel Hans and his men had dug. As the rounds punched through the flimsy wooden structure Hans could hear the Bantag screaming inside.

The gun fell silent, the steam line hooked to the inboard starboard engine having burned through. The boy stood up to jump clear even as his cockpit collapsed into the burning bag.

A round exploded out the back of his chest. He tried to stagger clear, the cockpit disappearing, falling into the roaring inferno, and the boy disappeared. Cursing, Hans looked away.

He heard Ketswana shouting and caught a glimpse of the enraged Zulu, followed by his men, pouring out from under the burning airship, one of the men somehow dragging clear a precious crate loaded with revolvers and extra ammunition.

A second airship skidded to a stop behind Jack’s burning machine, disgorging its assault team, the top gunner emptying his Gatling in support fire as well. A third machine crashed into the left of Jack’s machine, pivoting about as its forward wheel collapsed from the hard landing. A fourth airship, coming in too low, crashed on the top of the third machine, crushing the topside gunner, nosed over the bow of the third ship, and slammed into the ground, forward cockpit disappearing, wings snapping off and pivoting into the gasbags, which exploded. Half a dozen men tumbled out of the cargo compartment.

Another airship, abandoning the approach, soared overhead, banking sharply, starboard wing almost clipping the warehouse, which had been shredded by Gatling fire. The topside and forward gunners let loose a stream of fire as they pivoted over the landing site. Another airship, clearing the pileup of the first four, touched down smoothly, followed seconds later by another and yet another.

Ketswana and his skirmish line were already past the warehouse, which was beginning to burn, screams of dying Bantag echoing from within. The building suddenly detonated with a thunderclap roar, bits of lumber, bodies, and kegs of powder soaring up, bursting like shells at a Fourth of July celebration, the explosion enveloping an airship overhead and knocking down several of Ketswana’s men.

Debris rained down; Hans crouched into a tight ball, and Jack threw himself over the old sergeant. Peeking out, Hans saw a burning barrel plunge down next to the airship that had landed behind Jack’s machine, blowing a few seconds later, destroying that ship as well, catching the pilot and copilot as they tried to scramble away.

“We’ve landed in a madhouse!” Jack roared. “I’ll handle the landings! Secure this area, otherwise, we’ll all be slaughtered.”

Letting go of Hans he came to his feet, ignoring the debris still tumbling from the heavens, and raced out into the field, waving his arms, trying to flag the other airships off from their landing approaches. Hans saw two machines banking hard to the north, turning away, but another one came straight in through the spreading plumes of smoke, clearing the confusion, touching down, men from the cargo hold tumbling out before the ship had even stopped.

Numbed, Hans slowly came to his feet, his mind a mad jumble of confusion. A squad of troops, Chin dressed in uniform, sprinted past, their lieutenant shouting for them to press into the first factory. He fell out, coming up to Hans.

“Sit down, sir.”

Hans looked at him, confused.

The Chin officer gently helped Hans down to the grass, undoing a red bandanna tied around his throat and started to wipe Hans’s face. Hans flinched. Shards of glass from the exploding window, he vaguely realized. The officer talked softly, as if soothing a child, falling into the dialect of the camps, the strange combination of Chin, Rus, Zulu, a polyglot language of the slaves.

“We’re back now, now we’re back with guns. Listen, listen.”

The blood cleared from his eyes, Hans looked up to the smoke-shrouded gate. Ketswana stood silhouetted in the gateway into the factory where they had once been slaves, carbine held overhead, his battle chant serving as a rally cry. There was something else as well, though, a loud roaring cry, the screams of thousands of men and women.

Legs shaky, Hans got to his feet, the Chin lieutenant, who was nearly his own age, helping him along.

“We free our brothers here, then we rest, old friend. We drink cha, and then we watch the Bantag slave.” He chuckled.

He stepped around the bodies of two of the men caught when the warehouse blew, both of them torn and horribly burned. On the main rail line the wreckage of the aero-steamer destroyed in the explosion was a piled-up ruin, burning fiercely. Miraculously, most of the men in the cargo compartment apparently had survived, though badly shaken, and were huddled to the side, staring blankly at the inferno.

“Get in, get in!” the lieutenant cried, pointing toward the gate. Several still had their carbines; the others drew pistols and woodenly shuffled off.

As Hans reached the gate he recoiled in horror. First there was the stench, the sickening cloying stench of the camps, the unwashed bodies, the steamy heat of the foundry, the musky smell of Bantag, and the deeper underlayer of rotting food, human waste, death, and a strange surreal sense that one could also smell terror.

The camp inside the compound was a scene of murderous chaos. Ketswana had wisely stopped his men just inside the barrier, drawing them up into a volley line. Occasionally one of the men raised a carbine to fire, but it was the thousands of slaves inside the compound who were doing the job. The prisoners were in full riot, swarming like a writhing host of maddened insects, tearing apart the remaining Bantag in the main courtyard. They had charged across the dead space that separated the perimeter wall from the barracks and were now up on the battlements. Frantic Bantag backed up along the upper walkway, furiously trying to keep the enraged host back. From down inside the camp, prisoners were pelting the trapped Bantag with lumps of coal and hunks of twisted rocks from the slag heaps until their comrades moving along the battlement walkways closed in. Four, six, sometimes a dozen died, until finally one overpowered a Bantag and knocked him off his perch to fall screaming into the waiting grasp of the mob below.

Hans spotted a knot of several dozen Bantag cutting their way through the compound, fighting to gain the doorway into the vast cavernous foundry building that dominated the center of the compound. Hans shouted for Ketswana to cut them off. Together Hans, Ketswana, and several squads of his troops pushed their way through the surging crowd.

The Bantag gained the door just ahead of them, his own men unable to fire owing to the press of Chin slaves between the two groups. The first couple of men to gain the entryway were dropped by fire from within the building. Hans pressed against the warm brick wall of the building, edged up to the huge open doors, which were wide enough that a railroad boxcar could be rolled in, and peeked around the corner. The Bantag were inside, deploying into a line not a dozen feet away. One raised a rifle, and Hans jerked his head back, a spray of brick fragment snapping out as the Bantag fired.

The Chin swarming around the door backed away as a concentrated volley tore into them. Hans looked over at Ketswana, who nodded without having to be told. A second volley slashed out; more Chin dropped. Ketswana seemed to be counting, he held his carbine up. Another volley flared.

“Charge!”

Ketswana leapt from the side of the building, carbine leveled, firing from the waist. Others charged after him, firing as they came around the side of the building. Hans tried to follow, but the Chin lieutenant pushed him back, stepped around the corner, fired, and was knocked backwards by a ball that caught him squarely in the face.

Hans stepped over the body, firing blindly, and caught a glimpse of a Bantag crumpling only feet away. The Chin mob, which had been recoiling from the hammerblows, now turned in a mad frenzy and charged into the warehouse, knocking Hans up against the wall, Ketswana and the men who had followed him disappearing in the crush.

The thin Bantag line collapsed, the warriors breaking, running in panic, some turning to go up the north wing of the foundry, others running to the south. Hundreds of Chin pushed in. Hans dodged around the side of the first furnace just inside the door. Looking up at the wall he saw that the damnable treadmills were still there, their human occupants still locked inside, bony hands clutching the side, all of them shrieking in rage.

A Bantag dodged past Hans, running blindly, stumbling straight into a stoking crew. Long iron stoking rods were now weapons. The Chin slaves fell upon the Bantag, the first one dying from the Bantag’s bayonet thrust. One of the Chin, grasping the rod like a club, caught the Bantag across the knee, breaking his leg. The Bantag went down like a felled tree, then tried to scramble back up on his one good leg. Another one caught him across the back, and he collapsed, rolling over. Screaming with insane rage, one of the Chin straddled the Bantag, held his iron rod up like a spear, and drove it down straight into the Bantag’s face. Then all of them started to beat the still-trembling corpse.

It was madness, and in that place, with all that he remembered, he felt the madness take hold of his own soul as well. Ignoring the pain of the splinters in his hand, he cocked open his carbine, chambered another round, and pushed forward, moving along the wall, dodging around the backs of the furnaces.

It was all so chillingly familiar, furnace number eleven. He wondered if it still drew poorly. He stepped wide of a fresh pour from number eight, several tons of molten iron still boiling hot, slowly congealing in the channels cut into the floor, a dead Chin lying half in the pour, clothes and hair smoldering. As always the windowless foundry was a stygian realm, illuminated only by the flare from the open hearths and the glow of hot iron, echoing with screams, gunshots, the hissing of hot metal, cloaked in a dark gloom so that all seemed ghostlike in the shadows.

He pushed down toward the end of the corridor, stepping out from behind a furnace, dropping a Bantag in the back as the warrior was backing up. Chin ran past, eyes wide with terror and rage, screaming incoherently.

He caught a glimpse of a ragged Chin, a skeletal form, naked except for a filthy rag tied around his waist, pointing. Hans spun around and catlike jumped backwards just as a heavy cauldron of molten iron upended, the glowing silvery cascade exploding into steam as it vomited out onto the pouring floor. Half a dozen Chin who had been next to Hans were caught in the boiling river, the men stumbling, falling, flames exploding as the liquid splashed onto their clothes, hair, and skin.

The two Bantag behind the upended cauldron ran out from behind the overturned vat. The charging mob skirted around the spreading pool and fell upon the two. The fight was horrifying. Hans watched, torn between rage at his old tormentors and pity for two living beings about to die agonizing deaths. The crowd simply beat the one half to death, then pushed him out onto the slowly congealing pool of molten iron. The second one was hoisted up by a dozen Chin, who carried him, kicking and flailing, to the open door of a glowing hearth.

Often enough Hans had seen a Bantag pick up a slave with a single hand and toss him into a furnace over some minor infraction, or simply for no reason at all other than to serve as a minor amusement. The half-conscious Bantag, realizing his fate, started to kick and scream as they tried to plunge him headfirst into the flames. His arms snapped out, trying to block the entry. Blows from stirring rods broke his limbs.

Screaming, he was thrown in, and, to Hans’s terrified amazement, the Bantag, wreathed in flames, stood up inside the inferno, bellowing in agony. A single shot from Hans’s carbine ended the agony, the explosive shot ending the horrific nightmare.

The shot reverberated through the cavernous room, and there was a strange silence for a moment. The mob, stunned by what it had done, seemed to collectively pause for breath.

“Hans."

Startled, he turned. It was the Bantag dying in the molten pool of iron still slowly spreading out on the floor of the foundry.

The Bantag, kicking weakly, was looking straight at him.

My God, was this one of my captors from so long ago? Hans wondered. What torments did he inflict upon me, upon my comrades?

“Hans.” It was a rattling gasp of agony, and he could sense the pleading supplication in the alien guttural voice.

Hands shaking, he ejected the spent round. He couldn’t stop the shaking as he fumbled to pull another round out of his cartridge box, dropped it, and, cursing, tried to retrieve it from the blood-soaked floor. The Chin surrounding the still slowly spreading puddle gazed in mute silence at the agony of the Bantag and the apparently vain attempt of Hans to end it.

At last he chambered the round, cocked the hammer, and raised his carbine, aiming straight at the head.

“No, no!” It was several of the Chin, gesturing angrily, motioning for him not to shoot.

“Hans …”

Tears filled his eyes. Snarling, he raised his carbine, aiming straight at the forehead. The Bantag, twitching spasmodically, appeared to dip his head in acknowledgment.

He squeezed the trigger.

Lowering his gun, he looked at the mob.

“We are men, damn it,” he cried. “Not like them. We are men.”

He felt an infinite exhaustion, a wish simply to crawl away to a dark corner, to collapse into oblivion. His gaze swept the mob, eyes lingering on the very spot where only a year ago he had cowered in fear as a Bantag, perhaps the very one he had just shot, had almost uncovered the secret tunnel that had led him back to freedom.

“We are not like them,” he cried, again his voice breaking. “Fight to be free, not for revenge, not to be like them!”

And yet he knew the rage, the horror of slavery, the secret wish, buried in one’s heart, to if nothing else kill one of them, to kill one of them in the most frightful and agonizing way possible, willing to trade one’s own life for that terrible instant of freedom, the freedom to kill before dying yourself.

“We’re here to win freedom for all the Chin,” Hans said, his voice now not much more than a whisper, speech beginning to slur from exhaustion, his heart feeling heavy and leaden, again the spasm of pain. He took a deep breath trying to will the pain away, still it lingered.

“We are from the Republic. I was a slave here as you are now.”

Several of the Chin nodded, and he heard them whispering his name in their lilting singsong voices.

He took another breath.

“Furnace captains and barracks leaders. Organize your people. Round up all weapons taken from the Bantag. Find the camp leader and his assistants, I want them out by the gate in ten minutes.”

The group seemed to freeze.

“Smash this whole damn place,” he cried, “smash it all, burn the barracks. We leave here, forever, within the hour.”

Vincent watched in glum silence as flames blowtorched out of the turret of the abandoned ironclad, its crew standing sadly to one side. A medical orderly was by the side of the boiler operator, smearing ointment on his scalded hands and face. It was the fifth ironclad to break down that day, a steam line splitting wide-open. Two or three hours’ work, and they could have torn out the line, replacing it with a spare, but there was no time for that. The rear of the vast marching column had already passed and was a quarter mile to the east. He could see that the cavalry pickets bringing up the rear were getting nervous, wanting to push on.

The injured driver was loaded into a two-wheel ambulance wagon, the driver snapping the reins, urging the horse into a slow trot. A second wagon, loaded with the salvaged ammunition and Gatling gun, fell in behind the ambulance. The crew stood silent, not sure what to do, and Vincent motioned for them to get moving. They would be walking, and he could sense their unhappiness over the demotion back to the infantry.

A rifle ball fluttered past his face, another one pinged against the rear of his turret. He looked back to the west. A heavy skirmish line of mounted Bantag, several of them armed with rifles, was less than four hundred yards away.

Throughout the day the pressure on all sides had been slowly building. Most of the Bantag were still older formations, armed with traditional bows, but apparently several regiments, perhaps a full umen, armed with rifles had shown up. They had brought up two batteries of rifled pieces and several batteries of mortars as well, which were becoming something of an annoyance.

A mortar round arced overhead, bursting near the ambulance, the startled driver urging his draft horse into a plodding gallop to regain the protection of the square formed by 3rd Corps. A captain from the trailing cavalry unit rode up beside Vincent’s ironclad and saluted.

“Ah sir, they’re starting to press a little close.”

Vincent nodded, and shouted down to his driver to get moving.

He spotted the puff of smoke as the mortar fired again, back and just behind the cover of the Bantag skirmish line sweeping in behind them. Though it was against orders to fire at long range, he pivoted his turret around, slipped back inside, raised the elevation on the gun, opened the steam cock, and fired several long bursts. Several mounted riders dropped.

Stanislaw engaged the engine and the ironclad lurched forward, wheels cutting into the dry turf. Standing up in the turret he watched as the cavalry skillfully pulled back, one troop reining about, covering, as a second troop a hundred yards farther back broke off, rode through their covering line, then came about in turn to cover. The men were good, skillful, always keeping the Bantag at bay. Twice during the long day of marching the Bantag had attempted to mount a serious charge. The cavalry then pulled in, letting the ironclads cut them apart.

They crested a low rise. Again the vast panorama ahead … 3rd Corps in a huge block formation, a thousand yards to a side, inside the hollow square the supply wagons, ambulances, a reserve brigade to plug any hole, and a dozen ironclads. Spread in a vast circle several hundred yards out around the square were mounted units and five ironclads per flank, the forward V formation of the previous day abandoned as the Bantag increased the pressure.

A Hornet came sweeping in, strafing the mortar crew that had been harassing them, the tracer rounds igniting the crew’s limber wagon. The mushrooming fireball triggered a ragged cheer from the men at the rear of the square. The Hornet pulled up sharply and continued west, heading back to Tyre to reload and refuel.

The farther east they traveled, the more difficult it was maintaining air cover since the airships now had to fly nearly a hundred-mile round-trip before getting into action. The continual flying and fighting of the, last three days was undoubtedly taking a toll on maintenance as well; there were long stretches of time now when no airships were overhead.

He thought about school, so many years ago, at the old Oak Grove in Vassalboro. Memory of Plutarch and the last campaign of Crassus against the Parthians. Much the same, the circling riders. Only two differences, though. The first, his force had gunpowder. But the disturbing second one, unlike Crassus, who actually outnumbered the Parthians, he was facing odds of maybe six to one, the only thing holding them back the ironclads and the Hornets circling overhead.

His driver below turned slightly, and Vincent looked forward again, where several men, dead infantry, lay twisted in the high grass. He hated leaving them to the bastards. A scattering of dead Bantag and horses were in the grass as well, having tried to dispute the possession of the ridge when the head of the column had swept it half an hour ago.

They pushed on, a gust of dry wind from the west blanketing him in a choking cloud of smoke from the ironclad’s exhaust stack. Coughing, he waited for it to clear. A courier came out of the smoke, reined in beside his machine, and rode at a slow canter, keeping pace.

Vincent returned the salute and took the note. Still perched atop the turret he unfolded the paper, ignoring the occasional hum of a bullet snapping past.

It was from Gregory, riding at the head of the column, announcing that water had been sighted. He shaded his eyes and looked back to the west. Still a couple of hours of sunlight. There was no need to look at the map, another watercourse was still five or six miles beyond. According to the map that was also the head of the Bantag rail line, which was being constructed from the Great Sea. A Hornet had flown all the way east earlier in the day and dropped a message that two Bantag transports were off-loading land ironclads and additional troops. Two Hornets had been lost trying to strafe the ships and locomotives, and the equipment was being loaded onto several trains, but had yet to move out.

Well, that is what we wanted, he realized. But still it was a chilling thought that somewhere up ahead a warm reception was being planned.

He knew the men were getting tired, they’d been on the march for nearly fourteen hours, a hard thirty miles that day, a little more than halfway to the coast. They’d still have to dig in once stopped for the night. The enemy would come to them. It was best to have the boys as rested as possible for the next day.

“Tell General Timokin to hold at the stream. Tell Stan to halt the corps as well and dig in. Whether we take the railhead today or not doesn’t really matter; they’ll just simply off-load farther back.”

He could sense the boy’s disappointment as he shifted uncomfortably in the saddle, then saluted and spurred his mount forward.

He looked out at the circling host. After months in the siege lines they had to be exhausted as well. No, they won’t press it yet, they’ll wait for ironclads to come up. Then there’ll be hell to pay.

The aerosteamer touched down lightly, bounced once, then settled back down, quickly rumbling to a halt.

Jurak pulled open the hatch and swung down, barely acknowledging the bows of the aerosteamer ground crew. It was an out-of-the-way position on the northeast shore of the Great Sea, near the realm of Nippon, a little more than halfway to his destination. The only purpose for the station was to act as a refueling depot for the occasional aerosteamer flying the great route from the realm of the Chin, northward to Nippon, then northwest, skirting the flank of the Sea, then finally to turn straight west to the front, now three hundred leagues away. He regretted not setting up stations on the western and eastern shore of the Sea, so one could simply fly across the water, but after too many of the precious ships had disappeared making the transit, Ha’ark had forbidden such overflights, and he had never bothered to rescind the ban.

As it was he had witnessed firsthand the wisdom of that choice. Thirty leagues back one of his two escorts had simply quit, an engine shutting down, the aerosteamer spiraling down to a semi-crash landing along the rail line that ran the length of the northern shore.

“Any messages?” he shouted, looking over at the station commander, who stared at him as if he was a god who had tumbled from the sky.

A sheaf of papers was pressed into his hand, and he scanned them, yet again cursing the fact that the script of his own world had not been introduced rather than the damnable writing of the Rus.

So it was Huan after all. He had at least guessed right on that; otherwise, this trip would be a foolish waste. He jotted down half a dozen messages on a pad of rice paper, tore them off, and handed them back to the station commander. Without a word, he looked back at his pilot.

“How are the engines?”

“My Qar Qarth, they need work.”

“Can they take us to the next stop?”

“Tonight?”

“Yes, damn all, tonight. We’ll have moonlight, just follow the damned rail line. We’re almost around the Sea. The rail line will turn southeast down toward Nippon. It’ll be open steppe soon.”

The pilot said nothing.

“Shouldn’t we wait for our escort?” He nodded toward the small dot that was now winging in from the west.

“He can catch up. Let’s be off.”

Grabbing a waterskin and satchel of dried meat offered by a trembling cattle slave, Jurak returned to the air machine and climbed in, impatiently waiting for the pilot, who checked as the last of the tins of kerosene was loaded into the fuel tank.

The pilot finally climbed back through the hatch and before it was even closed Jurak leaned over and pushed in the throttle lever, propellers stuttering up to a blur. Turning back out onto the grassy strip, they took off, clearing the towering trees at the far end of the field, heading back for a moment toward the setting sun. Banking hard over, they continued to climb, Jurak catching a glimpse of the Sea off the starboard side. Straight ahead he could see where a shallow arm of the ocean finally played out into a bay ringed with low hills, a place where a year ago the first actions of the campaign had been fought in a vain attempt to lure the Yankees eastward before the attack across the ocean came two hundred leagues to the west.

Huan. The war had leapt all the way back to there. Chaos all the way from Xi’an to Huan, half a dozen factories in enemy hands. A mob though. A disorganized mob led at best by two or three hundred trained troops. They still most likely thought that there was only one rail line. The one that ran from Huan to Xi’an. With luck they didn’t know that throughout the winter and into early summer he had pressed the completion of the second line, the one that ran northward out of Huan, up to Nippon, and then finally connected to the route the Yankees had been cutting along the northern shore of the Great Sea. And on that road, even now, he had reversed every train, over thirty of them carrying two entire umens of troops who had been sent back after the siege of Roum to refit and train with the newest weapons.

It had been his plan to keep them in reserve at Huan, an inner warning perhaps that the vast encampment areas for the old, the young, and the females, more than three hundred thousand yurts spread in a vast arc across hundreds of leagues between Huan and Nippon, were too vulnerable.

Pat O’Donald furiously shredded the paper, tearing it in half, then again, and yet again until it was nothing more than confetti. Rick Schneid, his second-in-command for the Capua Front, said nothing, having read the note over Pat’s shoulder.

Pat looked down at the telegrapher who had transcribed the note.

“That thing still operating?” Pat asked.

The boy nodded, wide-eyed and uncomprehending of the long stream of English and Gaelic imprecations that had poured out of Pat while reading the note.

Pat looked around the room; half a dozen men of the signal corps were at their telegraphs, which connected to the various commands along the river, and the main line back to Roum and Suzdal beyond.

Unholstering his revolver he grabbed the weapon by the barrel, and slammed the butt down on the receiver, smashing it to pieces.

“Well, now the son of a bitch is broken,” he snarled.

The room was silent.

Reversing the revolver he held it casually in his hand, not pointing it at the telegrapher but not quite turning it away from him either.

“If a word, if a single word of that message slips out of this room, I’m going to blame you personally,” he paused, his gaze sweeping the others, who stared at him nervously. “I’ll blame all of you. Do we understand each other?”

No one answered; there was simply nodding all around.

“I expect it’ll be at least a day before you can find a replacement for that machine.”

“Ah, yes sir, days more likely.”

“Fine.”

“Sir, I have to enter something into the official logbook.”

“Damn the logbook to hell,” he shouted, as he reached over, tore out several pages, and shredded them as well.

“A shell hit this place, damn lucky anyone got out alive, damn lucky. Do we understand each other?”

“Sir, you’re right.”

“What the hell do you mean I’m right?”

“Just that, sir.”

“Don’t ever say that, boy, or you’ll hang with me. The rest of you keep me posted. We can maybe expect action by dawn. I want to know.”

Tossing the pieces of paper on the packed-dirt floor he stalked out, tearing aside the blanket that acted as a curtain. Climbing out of the command bunker, he walked up onto the battlement and with a sigh leaned against the earthen embankment, gazing blankly at the rising moons. “You can’t keep it back forever.”

It was Schneid, coming up to join him, proffering a lit cigar, which Pat gladly accepted.

“I want good troops, old veterans we can trust,” Pat said. “Make it the First Suzdal. Be honest and tell them what’s going on. Get ’em on a train and head back up the line toward Roum. Turn command of your corps over to your second and go with them.”

“Me? Pat, we both know those bastards over there are fixing to attack, maybe as early as tomorrow. I’m needed here.”

“No, you’re needed more back there. Pick a good spot, say the bridge crossing that marshy creek about thirty miles back. That’s a good enough spot. Block the track, tear the bridge up a bit, then stop anyone who comes up that line. If the Chin ambassadors should happen to show up, arrest them or shoot them, I don’t care which it is at the moment.”

“You sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Look, Rick. The government might not send anybody up at first, other than a couple of mealymouthed senators. If they do, arrest them as well.”

“On what charge?”

“Damn all, Schneid, I don’t care. Littering, soliciting for immoral purposes, public drunkenness, I don’t give a damn.”

Leaning over, he rubbed his temples.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to blow on you.”

“It’s all right.”

“I just can’t believe that after everything we’ve been through it’s come down to this.”

“I know.”

“They might send troops, then.”

“I know that, too. I’ll leave it up to you at that point. I don’t want our people killing each other, I’m not ordering you to do that.”

“Pat, you can only keep this under wraps a day, two days at most. The army’s bound to find out. You can’t tie up every damn supply train coming this way. Word will finally get through.”

“Two days, make it three, that’s all.”

“For what?”

“If need be, I’m going to try one more time.”

“Try what?”

Pat nodded toward the east.

“To get across that damned river.”

“Don’t even think it, Pat. You have no orders.”

“Rick, everything’s breaking apart. The Republic, Andrew resigning, that last damned telegram telling us to inform the bastards on the other side of the river that we want a cease-fire. It’s all breaking apart. Well maybe it’s breaking apart over there, too. I’m willing to make one more try at it. I think they’ll hit first, then I plan to hit back with everything I have.”

“Pat, give it another day. We still don’t know what’s happening with Vincent or Hans. Maybe they’ve succeeded. If so, the bastards here will have to pull back, and that could reverse the whole political situation at home.”

Pat said nothing, staring at the rising moons.

“All right then, one more day, but then, by God, I plan to go down fighting.”

“With an army that’s no longer supposed to fight?”

Pat smiled.

“They don’t know that yet now, do they?”

“You’re talking rebellion.”

“Only you and I know that, my friend, and maybe a bit of rebellion is exactly what this country needs at this moment.”