The tide of victory

Chapter 37

The Punjab

Autumn, 533 A.D.

Belisarius went across on the first ship, leaving Maurice to stabilize the Roman defensive lines at Uch. He had no intention of trying to hold Uch, beyond the two or three days necessary to transfer the entire army across the Chenab. But keeping an army steady while it is making a fighting withdrawal requires a very firm hand in control, a characterization which fit Maurice perfectly.

Belisarius wanted to get a sense of the land he would be holding as soon as possible, which was why he decided to take the risk of being part of the initial landing. His subordinates had protested that decision, rather vehemently, but Belisarius fit the description of "very firm" quite well himself.

Besides, he thought the risk was minimal. The small triangle of land formed by the confluence of the Chenab and the Indus was not well situated to defend against an invasion of the Punjab. For that purpose, it made far more sense to fortify the Indus south of the fork-which was exactly what the Malwa had done. So Belisarius expected to encounter no enemy troops beyond cavalry patrols. And against those, the cataphracts and Arab scouts crammed into the ship should suffice.

"Crammed" was the operative term, however, and Belisarius was thankful that the river crossing took not much more than an hour. By the time his own ship began offloading its soldiers, the second ship the Romans had captured when they took Uch was halfway across the river bearing its own load of troops.

Belisarius landed on the bank of the Chenab just north of Panjnad Head, which marked the confluence of the Chenab and the Sutlej. That position was much too far north for him to hold for long. The Indus was fifteen miles away, and the confluence of the Indus and the Chenab was twenty-five miles to the southwest, forming a triangle well over sixty miles in circumference-more likely eighty or ninety miles, considering all the loops and bends in the two rivers. With the twenty thousand men he still had left, he could not possibly hope to defend such a large territory for more than a few days.

But unless the Romans encountered a sizeable Malwa force in the triangle-which he didn't expect to happen-Belisarius could hold that position for those few days. Just enough time to begin throwing up his fortifications further south, in a much smaller triangle, while his men foraged as much food and fodder as possible. Their supplies were now running very low. They had captured a fair amount of gunpowder in Uch, but not much in the way of provisions.

Even more important, perhaps, than rounding up food would be rounding up the civilian population. The Punjab was the most fertile region of the Indus, and the population density was high. Here, the Malwa had not conducted the savage massacres of civilians which they had in the Sind-although word of those massacres had undoubtedly begun spreading. Which, from Belisarius' point of view, was all to the good. The peasants in the triangle would not have fled yet, but they would be on edge. And more likely to fear their Malwa overlords than the Roman invaders.

Once again, Belisarius intended to use mercy-defining that term very loosely-as a weapon against his enemy. His cavalry would cut across to the Indus and then, much like barbarian horsemen in a great hunt on the steppes, drive the game before them to the south, penning them into a narrower and narrower triangle. Except the "game" would be peasants, not animals. And the purpose of it would not be to eat the game, but to use them as a labor force. The kind of fortifications Belisarius intended to construct would require a lot of labor-far more than he had at his disposal from his own soldiers, even including the thousands of Malwa prisoners that they had captured.

How many, Aide, do you think?

Aide gave that shivering image which was his equivalent of a shrug. Impossible to say. There are no records of such things, at this point in history. In later times, the Punjab would hold a population numbering in the millions, with a density of five hundred people to a square mile. It won't be that high today, of course, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was half that. So you may well wind up with tens of thousands of people for a work force. Many of them will be oldsters and children, of course.

Belisarius paused to exchange a few last words with Abbu. The Arab scouts were offloading first. As always, Abbu and his men would provide Belisarius with reconnaissance. That done, he returned to his mental conversation with Aide.

So many? Better than I had hoped. With twenty thousand, I am confident I can erect the fortifications I need before the Malwa can organize a serious siege.

I cannot be positive. But-yes, I think so. With no more civilians than that, Gustavus Adolphus was able to erect the fortifications at Nurnberg in two weeks time. On the other hand. those civilians were enthusiastic partisans of the Protestant cause. These Punjabi peasants you will be rounding up could hardly be described as "partisans" of Rome.

Belisarius chuckled. True, true. But that quip of Dr. Johnson's will apply here as well, if I'm not mistaken. I think the Malwa savagery in the Sind will come back to haunt them. If you were a Punjabi peasant conscripted to build fortifications for Roman troops fending off a Malwa siege, would you be a reluctant laborer?

"The prospect of being hanged. " mused Aide. No, I think not, especially if you maintain discipline among your own soldiers and do not allow the civilians to be abused. Beyond being forced into hard labor, at least. They will know full well that if the Malwa overrun you, they will be butchered along with the Roman troops. The Malwa will consider them "rebels," and they showed at Ranapur the penalty for rebellion.

* * *

Three days later, Maurice came across with the last of the Roman forces. By then, Belisarius had an approximate count.

"Better than twenty thousand civilians, for sure," were the first words he spoke when Maurice entered the command tent Belisarius had erected near the village of Sitpur. "Probably at least twenty-five. Maybe even thirty thousand."

Maurice grunted satisfaction. He removed his helmet and hung it on a peg attached to a nearby pole supporting the small pavilion. The helmets of Gregory and Felix and Mark of Edessa were already hanging there.

That grunt of satisfaction was the last sign of approval issued by the chiliarch. Before he had even reached the table where a new map had been spread, showing the first sketched outlines of the terrain, he was already accentuating the negative.

"You're too far north, still. If you think you can hold this much land with so few troops, you're out of your mind. What is it to the Indus from here? It must be a good ten miles!"

Gregory and Felix and Mark of Edessa burst into outright laughter. Belisarius satisfied himself with a crooked smile.

"Oh, do be quiet. I have no intention of building my principal lines up here, Maurice. I intended to erect them-have started to already, in fact-ten miles southwest of here." He pointed to a place on the map where lines indicating heavy fortifications had been drawn. "That far down into the tip of the triangle, the distance from the Chenab to the Indus is no more than six miles. And I'm building the outer line of fortifications here, a few miles north of that."

"We're just setting up field camps here," added Gregory. "Nothing fancy. Enough for large cataphract units to sally out and keep the first Malwa contingents held off for another few days. We have got to keep Sitpur in our hands as long as possible."

"Why?" demanded Maurice.

Belisarius' three other top commanders grinned. "Would you believe-talk about luck! — that Sitpur is the bakery center for the whole area?"

Maurice exhaled so forcefully it was almost as if he were spitting air. His hard gray eyes fell on Belisarius, and grew harder still.

"You don't deserve it, you really don't. This is almost as bad as the silly Iliad, where every time that reckless Achilles gets himself into a jam Athena swoops in and saves him."

Belisarius winced, acknowledging the hit. Then, shrugged. "I'll admit I assumed the local bread would be made by village women. Like trying to collect pebbles on a beach, that would have been. But I was prepared to do it."

"Instead," interrupted Mark, "we've had the villagers rounding up everything else-mostly lentils, and lots of them-while we keep the bakers in Sitpur working night and day. The biggest problem we're having right now is finding enough carts to haul the bread off to the south."

By this time, even Maurice was beginning to share in the excitement. Although he did make a last rally, attempting to salvage some portion of sane pessimism. But the effort was. feeble.

"I suppose the so-called 'bread' is that flat round stuff. Tastes awful."

"It's called chowpatti," chuckled Felix, "and I think it tastes pretty good, myself."

Maurice did not argue the point. Culinary preference, after all, was a small issue in the scope of things. Food was food, especially in a siege. Before it was all over-assuming things went well-Maurice fully expected that at least half of the Roman horses would have been eaten.

"Lentils too, eh?" he murmured, stroking his beard and staring down at the map. "And we'll be able to get fish from the rivers."

That last thought seemed to relieve him. Not because it suggested that the Roman army would be able to stave off starvation, even in a long siege, but because it brought a new problem to the fore.

"We'll have enough fishing boats for that," he growled, "but don't think the Malwa don't have plenty of boats of their own. And no little fishing vessels, either. They have enough large river craft in the Punjab, from what I can see, to start ferrying their own troops across to the triangle before we'll have the fortifications finished."

He turned and pointed back in the direction of Uch. "The whole area is starting to crawl with Malwa troops. With a lot heavier artillery than anything we have. As we were pulling out of Uch, the Malwa were starting to set up twenty-four pounders around the town. Real siege guns, those, not like these little popguns we've got."

The chiliarch was comfortably back in his favorite groove. He began stroking his beard with great vigor and satisfaction. "They must have thirty thousand men within a week's march. Three times that, within a month. And once they start transferring troops from the Ganges valley, we'll be looking at two hundred thousand." A bit lamely: "Soon enough."

"Maurice," said Belisarius patiently, "nobody can move that many troops that far very quickly. It took us months to get our army from Mesopotamia to the Indus, and we could use the sea. The Malwa cannot possibly move any large number of soldiers through Rajputana. The area is too arid. That means they'll have to march any reinforcements from the Ganges to the headwaters of the Jamuna, and then cross over to the headwaters of the Sutlej. It'll take them until well into next year, and you know it as well as I do."

He jerked his head backward, pointing to the north. "Until then, the Malwa will have to rely on whatever forces they already have in the Punjab. Which is a massive army in its own right, of course, but I'll willing to bet-I am betting-that by now they're scattered all over the place. Half of them are probably in or around Sukkur, hammering themselves into a pulp against Khusrau and Ashot."

Maurice did not argue the point, but he was not mollified either. "Fine. But they can still bring three or four times as many men to bear as we've got. Sure, with good fortifications across the neck of the triangle, we can mangle them before they break through. But there are enough boats in these rivers to enable them to land troops downstream."

With his finger, he traced on the map the Indus and Chenab rivers as they converged south of their own location. "Almost anywhere along here. So we have to leave enough of a striking force, centrally positioned, to stop any landing before it gets established." Gloomily: "We can manage it for a while, sure. We've still got twelve thousand cataphracts, and we can use half of them for a quick reaction force against any amphibious attack. But. "

Gregory finished the thought for him. "But sooner or later, they'll establish a beachhead. And when they do, the whole thing will start unraveling."

"So let's make sure it happens later than sooner," said Belisarius firmly. "Because sooner or later, Menander and Eusebius are going to get here also. There's been no indication at all that the Malwa have any real warships on these rivers. Once the Justinian and the Victrix arrive, we should be able to control the banks of the triangle well enough."

* * *

At the moment, neither Menander nor Eusebius quite shared the general's confidence. First, because they still had to run the fortress which the Malwa had built on the Indus below the Chenab fork. Secondly, because they had found themselves laden with a far greater cargo than they had expected. Instead of towing one barge behind the Justinian, the gunship was towing three and the fireship yet another. One of the three extra barges was loaded with all six of the twenty-four pounders which Ashot had possessed; the second with the artillerymen and engineers needed to set them up and keep them in operation; and the third with the powder and shot to get them in operation through pitched battles.

Ashot had insisted. Rigorously.

"I don't need them anymore," he'd told them. "After Calopodius broke that Malwa assault on the island-the one they must have been sure would succeed-the Malwa stopped all their attacks on the Roman positions. They must be getting a little desperate now. Their food is running low, and now that you've arrived-don't think they didn't spot you-they'll know that they're most likely going to be losing their water supplies. They don't have any boats on the river which can stand up to either the Justinian or the Victrix, much less both combined."

"You'd think they would!" protested Eusebius.

Ashot shook his head. "You're thinking like an engineer instead of a military man, Eusebius. A year ago, the Malwa still thought they were conquering Mesopotamia. The last thing in their minds was building armed and armored gunships to defend the heartland of the Indus valley. And that's not the kind of thing you can do overnight, as you well know."

"You think they're going to lift the siege of Sukkur?" asked Menander.

"Who knows?" shrugged Ashot. "If they had any sense, they would. Unless they can break into Sukkur, which there's no sign they can after weeks of trying, they'll start starving before too long. But I'm pretty sure the general was right: Link is still way off in Kausambi, not close enough to the scene to make informed decisions. So the Malwa commanders are probably operating based on the kind of 'stand at all cost' orders which seem reasonable to a commander a thousand miles away. And the Malwa high command has made crystal clear what the penalty is for disobeying orders.

"So take the twenty-four pounders," he'd concluded. "That'll still leave me the really big guns, in case of another Malwa assault. And Belisarius can use them up north. Those monsters can break down walls, if the Malwa start building lines of countervallation, which they will if he's managed to take the triangle. His little three-pounder field artillery can't."

* * *

On their way up the Indus, Menander and Eusebius had picked up another load as well. A small one, however-just one man. When they came ashore on a boat to the island where Calopodius had made his stand, in order to pay him their regards, Calopodius pleaded with them to take him along.

Menander and Eusebius stared down at him. The young Greek officer was lying on a pallet in his tent. Nothing of his face above the mouth could be seen. The entire upper half of his head was swathed in bandages. Calopodius' trickery had delayed a Malwa assault, but it had not prevented it. He had still managed, by his heroism and that of his men, to beat off that attack. But not without suffering a great price. His force had suffered terrible casualties, and Calopodius himself had been blinded by the shrapnel from a mortar shell.

"Please," he whispered. "I'm useless here, now. Anthony of Thessalonica has taken charge of the forces since I was injured-doing a good job of it, too-and I've got nothing to do but lie here." He managed a weak chuckle. "Practicing my rhetoric and grammar. A pastime which pales very quickly, I assure you."

The two naval officers hesitated. Neither one of them wanted to come right out and make the obvious rejoinder: there'll be nothing for you to do up north, either, except die if Belisarius can't hold.

The rejoinder was so obvious that Calopodius already had an answer prepared. Clearly enough, his request was not a spur-of-the-moment impulse. The young nobleman-not much more than a boy, really-must have been lying there for days hoping for an opportunity to leave the place where he had lost his eyesight. And, in the fierce manner of youth, try to return to the fray despite the loss.

"The general will be able to use me in some fashion or other," he insisted. "He'll be fighting what amounts to a siege, on the defensive. Lots of quartermaster work, and a lot of that can be done without eyes. Most of it's arguing with soldiers over what they can and can't get, after all." Again, the weak chuckle. "And I really am quite good in rhetoric and grammar."

Menander looked at Eusebius, then shrugged. "Why not? If he really wants it."

* * *

Eusebius had his doubts. But, within a day after leaving the island, the doubts began to recede. Much to his surprise-astonishment, rather-the noble Greek youth proved to have an aptitude for machinery. Or, at least, didn't look upon it as utterly unfathomable.

Working down in the hold with the steam engine, of course, was far too dangerous for a blind man. But, after a bit of experimentation, Eusebius discovered that a blind man who was willing to learn could manage the work of pumping the chamber of the fire cannon readily enough.

"It's kind of dangerous," he said hesitantly.

"All the better," replied Calopodius. Then, after thinking about it: "Unless I'd be putting you and the crew at risk."

Eusebius began to shake his head, until he realized the gesture would be meaningless to Calopodius. "I didn't mean it that way. I meant it'll be risky being stationed up here when we run the fortress. There'll be picket boats, sure as anything. I'll have to torch them as we go past, or they might board the cargo ships. That will give the big Malwa guns on the fortress as good a target as anyone could ask for at night. You'd really be safer on the Justinian."

But he didn't press the issue. Safety, clearly enough, was not what Calopodius was seeking. There was something almost suicidal about the young officer's eagerness to return to combat. As if, by sneering at death itself, he could somehow restore his sight. That part of it, at least, with which a young man measures his own worth.