The tide of victory

Chapter 40

The Punjab

Autumn, 533 A.D.

Despite the protests of his officers and bodyguards, Belisarius insisted on remaining in one of the bastions when the Malwa launched their mass assault on his fortifications. His plans for the coming siege were based very heavily on his assessment of the effectiveness of the mitrailleuse, and this would be the first time the weapons had ever been tested under combat conditions. He wanted to see them in action himself.

Blocking out of his mind the noise of mortar and artillery fire, as well as the sharper sounds of Felix's sharpshooters picking off Malwa grenadiers, Belisarius concentrated all his attention on watching the mitrailleuse crew working the weapon in the retired flank he was crouched within.

The mitrailleuse-the "Montigny mitrailleuse," to give the device its proper name-was the simplest possible form of machine gun except for the "organ gun" originally designed by Leonardo da Vinci. Like the organ gun, the mitrailleuse used fixed instead of rotating barrels. But, unlike its more primitive ancestor, the breech-loading mitrailleuse could be fired in sequence instead of in a single volley, and fire many more rounds in any given period of time.

Belisarius watched as the gun crew inserted another plate into the breech and slammed it into place with a locking lever. The plate held thirty-seven papier-mache cartridges, which slid into the corresponding thirty-seven barrels of the weapon. A moment later, turning a crank, one of the men began triggering off the rounds while another-using the crude device of a wooden block to protect his hands from the hot jacket-tapped the barrel to traverse the Malwa soldiery piled up in the ditch below the curtain wall.

Belisarius had wanted a more advanced type of machine gun, preferably something based on the Gatling gun design which Aide had shown him and which he had detailed for John of Rhodes. But all the experiments of John's artificers with rotating barrels-much less belt-designed weapons like the Maxim gun-had foundered on a single problem.

Roman technology was good enough to make the weapons. Not many, perhaps, but enough. The problem was the ammunition. Rotating barrel and belt-fed designs all depended on uniform and sturdy brass cartridges. John's artificers could make such cartridges, but not in sufficient quantity. As had proven so often the case, designs which could be transformed into material reality in small numbers simply couldn't be done on a mass production scale.

The sixth-century Roman technical base was just too narrow. They lacked the tools to make the tools to make the tools, just as they lacked the artisans who could have used them properly even if they existed. That was a reality which could not be overcome in a few years, regardless of Aide's encyclopedic knowledge.

Since there was no point in having a "machine gun" which ran out of ammunition within minutes on a battlefield, Belisarius had opted for the Montigny design. The small number of brass cartridges which could be produced would be reserved for the special use of the Puckle guns mounted on river boats. The mitrailleuse, because it used a plate where all thirty-seven cartridges were fixed in position, did not require drawn brass for the cartridges. Rome did have plenty of cheap labor, especially in teeming Alexandria. The simple plate-and-papier-mache units could be mass produced easily enough, providing the mitrailleuse with the large quantities of ammunition which were necessary for major field battles.

It was a somewhat cumbersome weapon, but, as he watched it in operation, Belisarius was satisfied that it would serve the purpose. The two mitrailleuse which were raking the Malwa along the curtain wall-one firing from each opposed retired flank of two adjacent bastions-were wreaking havoc in the closely packed and unprotected troops. Combined with the grenades being lobbed by soldiers on the curtain wall, and the grapeshot being fired by field guns positioned in the sharply raked angle of the bastions themselves, the water in the ditch where hundreds of Malwa soldiers were already lying dead or wounded had become a moat of blood.

Satisfied by that aspect of the battle, Belisarius began studying the sharpshooters at work. There were a dozen such men positioned in each bastion, whose principal responsibility was to target those Malwa soldiers carrying grenades or satchel charges. Or, possibly-although Belisarius had so far seen no indication of such a weapon in use-attempting to use a Malwa version of the flamethrower which John of Rhodes had designed for the Victrix.

He didn't envy the sharpshooters their task. The crude design of the breech-loading rifles-again, a result of the severe shortage of brass cartridges, which required a rifle which could fire a linen cartridge-produced a certain amount of leakage blowing upward around the breech block. Every sharpshooter soon acquired a blackened face and a few powderburns on his forehead.

The other drawback to being a sharpshooter, naturally, was that the man was singled out by the enemy for special attention. As Belisarius watched, one of the sharpshooters on the bastion wall was suddenly slammed backward, sprawling dead on the bastion's fighting surface. His face was a pulped mass of flesh and blood, with brains leaking from a shattered skull. The horrible wounds looked to have been inflicted by several musket balls striking at once.

Felix cursed bitterly. "Those damned organ guns! I hadn't counted on those. Not so many of them, at any rate."

Ignoring the murmured protests of his bodyguards Isaac and Priscus, Belisarius crawled over to the inner side of the bastion and propped his periscope over the wall. Within seconds, he was able to spot what he was looking for.

The Malwa, sensibly enough given their numerical advantage over the Romans, had opted for organ guns rather than mitrailleuse. The organ guns were even cruder in design-about the most primitive conceivable quick-firing gunpowder weapon-but they had the great advantage of being easy to produce in quantity, using the skills and material available. The Malwa had an even narrower technical base than the Romans.

An organ gun looked like a wheelbarrow more than anything else, with a dozen barrels laid side by side in a row across the equivalent of the bucket. Except that it used two wheels instead of one, like a rickshaw Aide had shown him. They were muzzle-loaders, and so required some time to reload. But they could be easily moved into position manually, with only a two-man crew, and were surprisingly easy to aim. The recoil was small enough that an experienced organ gun handler could aim simply by using the two wooden handles-even adjust the elevation of the weapon by the simple expedient of rolling it up or down on the big wheels which held up the barrels.

And the Malwa had a lot of them. Just in the area Belisarius could sweep easily with his periscope, he counted no fewer than seventeen. The organ guns were positioned about a hundred yards away from the bastions, providing covering fire for the troops trying to storm the walls.

He glanced again through the gun ports in the retired flanks of the bastion. Then, satisfied that the mitrailleuse and grenades were enough to hold off the Malwa soldiers trying to scale the curtain walls, he turned to Gregory and ordered:

"Tell all the three-pounder crews to start firing on the organ guns instead of providing extra coverage for the curtain wall. With grape shot, at this close range, they ought to pulverize them soon enough. The one big disadvantage of those weapons is that they pretty much have to be aimed and fired by men standing in the open."

Gregory nodded. A moment later, he was clambering down the ladder which provided access to the bastion's fighting platform. Below, in a shielded bunker, a telegraph operator was waiting to transmit orders to every part of the outlying fortifications. And to the inner fortifications, for that matter, since one of the first things Belisarius had had his combat engineers do was lay telegraph wire to every key location in the triangle.

One of those locations was not more than half a mile away: the nearest of the fortified camps where Sittas and his thousands of cataphracts lay waiting for the order to sally. Belisarius had seen enough of the battle from the vantage point of the bastion. It was time he returned to his communication center. The sun was beginning to set in any event.

As he made his way to the ladder, he ignored the sighs of relief loudly-even histrionically-issued by his bodyguards. He also ignored the crystalline equivalent which Aide was rattling around in his brain. He even managed to ignore Maurice's first few words when he entered the telegraph bunker.

"Finally decided to stop playing junior scout, did we?" To Isaac and Priscus, shouldering their way behind him through the narrow entrance to the bunker: "You did manage to keep the damn fool from actually dancing on the wall, didn't you?"

The essentials having been taken care of, Maurice moved immediately to the necessities. "It's just about time to order Sittas out," he growled. "At daybreak, tomorrow. Every fortress is now reporting the same thing: the Malwa have been beaten off the walls, and are starting to trickle through the gaps. You could call it a 'flanking maneuver,' if you wanted. Except that I doubt any high-ranked officer ordered it."

Belisarius shook his head. "I saw the butcher's bill they've been paying at the walls, Maurice. Those soldiers have had enough. They're just trying to get out of the line of fire without actually retreating."

He stared down at the map spread across a table. The map showed the location of every one of the outlying forts, as well as the camps where Sittas and his armored cavalry were lying in wait. Like tigers, ready to spring from ambush. The outer lines had been designed for that purpose. In effect, they channeled the Malwa troops away from the fortresses into four areas which were tailor-made for cataphract tactics. The most solid ground in the area, cleared of obstructions, with nowhere to take cover.

"Give the order," he said. "Tomorrow morning, let's finish this."

The biggest problem Menander faced as they neared the fork of the Chenab was restraining himself from engaging enemy forces on shore in a series of pointless gun duels. During the daytime, Malwa dragoons were constantly peppering the Roman flotilla as it made its way upriver. Menander was keeping the Justinian and its barges as far from the west bank as possible, while still avoiding the danger of hidden sandbars. But even at that range, a number of the Malwa shots struck his ship. The Roman vessel, with its heavy load of barges, was moving very slowly. It was for all practical purposes a stationary target.

Granted, the shots were more in the way of a nuisance than an actual danger. Especially since, so far as Menander could determine, the Malwa were firing simple muskets instead of the equivalent of the Sharps breech-loading rifle with which Belisarius had equipped his own dragoons.

Justinian had designed his namesake to fight pitched battles at sea, with little concern for speed. Something which John of Rhodes, in times past, had criticized sourly-though not within earshot of the former emperor. Like most naval men, John had prized speed and maneuverability over all else. But, as things had turned out, Justinian's decision was working to Roman advantage. Speed and maneuverability were not as important as sheer strength of armor and firepower in the close and cramped quarters of river battles. And while the only iron armor on Menander's warship was the plating which protected the pilot house and the Puckle guns, the Justinian was what later ages would call a "wood-clad"-a ship whose hull was so thick that most round shot could not penetrate, much less musket fire. Moreover, it was heavy and sturdy enough to carry heavy guns which could overpower any kind of easily maneuvered land-based field artillery. So the Malwa dragoons posed no real threat at all.

Still. it was annoying!

But, he restrained himself. The dragoons made poor targets anyway, and gunpowder was too precious to waste on volleys fired out of temper rather than necessity, the more so now that the barge which carried most of the powder had been sunk.

Still. it was so annoying!

Only once did he fire a broadside. That was on an occasion where the Justinian's engine had to be shut down for repairs. Eusebius and the Victrix-whose own engine, for whatever reason, was proving a lot more reliable than the Justinian's-attached themselves to Menander's warship with a cable. The paddle wheeler was not powerful enough to tow the entire flotilla on its own, but it could keep the Roman ships from drifting downstream out of control.

The delay gave the Malwa enough time to bring up a small battery of three-pounders, five in all, which they began positioning on a small promontory within range of the Roman flotilla. Alas, the promontory was also within range of the Justinian's much heavier guns. Eusebius had to tow the bow of Menander's warship around in order to bring the guns to bear. But, thereafter, two broadsides with Menander's thirty-two-pounder carronades were enough to destroy the little field guns and send the surviving Malwa artillerymen scampering for cover.

There had been one night engagement, when a Malwa river boat packed with marines approached from behind and tried to seize the last barge in the train. But the Romans had been alert for such a maneuver, and the men on the barge sent up a signal flare. Eusebius turned the paddle wheeler around-the Victrix was steaming at the head of the flotilla, as usual-and charged back downriver.

Fortunately, the Malwa boat was a sailing craft hastily refitted with oars, not an actual war galley. So its own progress upriver was slow. Not as slow as the heavy barges being towed by the Justinian, of course, but slow enough that Eusebius had time to come to the rescue before the enemy ship had gotten so close to the barge that the fire cannon couldn't be used.

One gout of flame from that fearsome weapon was all it took to end the engagement. Those Malwa who survived the initial holocaust dove overboard and swam for shore. The others died the peculiarly horrible death which that weapon produced.

By now, Eusebius was a hardened veteran. So he blithely ignored the screams rippling across the dark water and steamed back to his assigned position at the head of the flotilla. As he passed the Justinian, he spotted Menander standing on the deck and gave him a jaunty wave.

And why not? Eusebius, the former artisan, had learned enough of military strategy and tactics by now to understand a simple truth. "Simple," at least, to him-though he would have been amazed to discover how many prestigious military leaders understood it very poorly. But perhaps that was because, as an artisan, Eusebius had an instinctive grasp of the reality of momentum and its effects.

Mass, multiplied by speed. The second factor, if large enough, could offset a small mass. A bullet, after all, is not very heavy. But it can create even more damage to soft tissue than a ponderous sword.

Belisarius, by taking a relatively small force of men and striking so swiftly into the Punjab, had shattered the Malwa plans for grinding the Roman advance to a bloody stalemate in the Sind. Like a bullet piercing the soft vitals, tumbling through flesh leaving a trail of wreck and ruin, Belisarius had effectively disemboweled the enemy.

The Malwa who faced him had larger forces-and would, even after Bouzes and Coutzes arrived at Sukkur-but those forces were like so many vital organs spilled on the ground. One army here, another there, yet another stranded over there. none of them able to coordinate properly, and none of them with what they needed to put up an effective resistance.

As he gazed serenely over the landscape-which was perhaps a useless exercise, since on a moonless night he could see almost nothing-Eusebius basked in his invincibility. One of the many Malwa vital organs which Belisarius had spilled on the floor of the arena was their control of the Indus.

The Malwa had not expected to be contesting the Indus at all, until Belisarius destroyed their army at Charax. Then, realizing that they were now on the defensive, they had begun a belated program of shipbuilding.

But-too late, after Belisarius struck at the Punjab. Too late, in any event, to provide them this year with armored and steam-powered warships which could contest the Indus with such craft as the Justinian and the Victrix.

Next year might be different. Eusebius knew that the Malwa were creating a major shipbuilding complex near Multan, the city which the enemy had turned into their military headquarters for the Punjab. According to spies, the Malwa were starting to build their own steam-powered riverboats-and these would apparently be ironclads. Once those warships came into action, Menander's two screw-driven warships and the Victrix would be hard-pressed.

But-that was still many months away. And by then, Eusebius was certain, Belisarius would have figured out a way to stymie the Malwa again.

How? He had no idea. But he was serene in his confidence in his great commander. And so, as the Victrix paddled its slow way up the Indus, still more was added to its momentum. For that, too, the former artisan Eusebius had come to understand about warfare. The tide of victory was flowing with the Romans, as much because of their own confidence as the weight of men and material they brought with them.

The next morning, just after daybreak, Eusebius spotted a Malwa warship under construction tied up to a small pier along the river bank. The effort had all the earmarks of a last-minute, jury-rigged project. From what he could see of the half-completed ship, the Malwa had taken a small oar-powered river barge and were attempting to armor it with iron plate and place a handful of field guns aboard.

A pitiful thing, really, even had it been completed.

But, pitiful or not, no lion allows a jackal to contest its domain. So, after a quick exchange of signals with Menander-the flags were working quite well-Eusebius paddled over to put paid to that upstart nonsense.

Before he got there, the Malwa managed to wrestle around one of the field guns and fire two shots at the Victrix. One shot missed entirely. The second struck the heavy bow shield a glancing blow which did no worse than loosen a few bolts and scatter some chips of wood into the river.

Thereafter, the enemy gunners ceased their efforts and scampered hurriedly off the half-finished little warship. Which, within a few minutes, made a splendid bonfire to warm Roman souls as they continued chugging up the river toward Belisarius.

They were not far away now, if Menander was reading the skimpy charts correctly. (Charts which had become very far from skimpy as they made their way upriver. Future expeditions would not have to guess and grope their way through hidden sandbars.) And Eusebius had no doubt at all that the great uncertainty in the equation-had Belisarius reached the fork of the Chenab and seized it? — was no longer uncertain at all. Everything about the Malwa behavior that he could see practically shrieked panic and confusion.

Which, of course, is what you expect from a pack of jackals after a lion enters their lair.