The tide of victory

Chapter 42

Calopodius' first words, almost stammered, were an apology if his presence proved to be nothing but a burden for the general. But he was sure there was something he could do-quartermaster work, maybe, or-

"I've got plenty of clerks to do that!" snapped Belisarius. "What I really need is an excellent officer who can take command of this mare's nest we've got of telegraph communications." A bit hurriedly: "Blindness is no handicap for that work, lad. You have to listen to the messages anyway, and we've got plenty of clerks to transcribe them and transmit orders."

Calopodius' shoulders seemed to straighten a bit. Belisarius continued. "What I really need is an officer who can bring the thing under control and make it work the way it needs to. The telegraph is the key to our entire defensive plan. With instant communications-if the system gets regularized and properly organized-we can react instantly to any threat. It multiplies our forces without requiring a single extra man or gun, simply by eliminating confusion and wasted effort."

He took Calopodius by the shoulders and began leading him the rest of the way off the pier himself. "I can't tell you how delighted I am to see you here. I don't think there's a better man for the job."

Calopodius' lips quirked in that wry smile which Belisarius remembered. The sight lifted at least some of the weight from his heart.

"Well, there's this much," said the young officer. "I got excellent marks in grammar and rhetoric, as I believe I mentioned once. So at the very least I'm sure I can improve the quality of the messages."

By the end of the following day, Belisarius had withdrawn his entire army behind the inner lines of fortification. The final shape of the Iron Triangle-the term was now in uniform use throughout the army, and even most of the Punjabis were picking it up-was in place.

The Iron Triangle measured approximately three miles in width, across the narrow neck between the Indus and the Chenab. The other two legs of the triangle, formed by the meandering rivers, were much longer. But those legs were guarded by the two Roman warships, which made them impervious to Malwa assault by water. The Justinian, a faster ship than the Victrix, guarded the wide Indus. The Victrix, whose paddles made the risk of sandbars less of a menace, patrolled the narrower Chenab.

In the week that followed, the Malwa launched two mass assaults on the fortifications across the neck of the Triangle. But the assaults were driven back with heavy casualties. Belisarius had not been boasting, when he told Calopodius about the strength of those fortifications. In the world which would have been, the Dutch earthworks which Belisarius and Agathius and Gregory had used for their model would hold off the mighty Spaniards for almost a century. So long as his supplies held out, and epidemic could be averted by the rigorous sanitation regimen which the Romans were maintaining, Belisarius was certain he could withstand the Malwa as long as he needed to.

And, every night, as he gazed down on the map in his command bunker and listened to Calopodius' calm and cultured voice passing on to him the finest military intelligence any general had possessed thus far in history, the shape of that Roman-controlled portion of the map filled Belisarius with fierce satisfaction.

It was only a small part of the Punjab, true enough. And so what? An arrowhead is small, too. But, lodged in an enemy's heart, it will prove fatal nonetheless.

After the second assault, the Roman gunpowder supplies were running very low. Belisarius ordered a change in tactics. The big twenty-four pounders which Menander had brought would no longer be used. The great guns went through powder as quickly as they slaughtered attackers with canister and grapeshot. The three-pounders would only be used in case of absolute necessity.

Henceforth, the defense would rely entirely on the mitrailleuse and the old-fashioned methods of sword and ax atop the ramparts. Roman casualties would mount quickly, of course, depending so much on hand-to-hand methods. But Belisarius was sure he could fight off at least three more assaults before the decline in his numbers posed a real threat. Calopodius was doing as good a job as Belisarius had hoped. With the clear and precise intelligence Belisarius was now getting, he was able to maximize the position of his troops, using just as many as he needed exactly where they were needed.

The third mass assault never came. The Malwa began to prepare it, sure enough, but one morning Belisarius looked across the no-man's-land which had been the deathground of untold thousands of Malwa soldiers and saw that the enemy was pulling back. As the morning wore on, it became clearer and clearer that the tens of thousands of troops were being put to building their own great lines of fortification. As if they were now the besieged, instead of being the besieger.

Which, indeed, was the truth. And Belisarius knew full well who had been able to see that truth.

"The monster is here," he announced to his subordinates at their staff meeting that evening in the bunker. "In person. Link has arrived and taken direct charge. Which means that it's ending."

Gregory frowned. "What's ending? I'd think-"

Belisarius shook his head. "Ending. Our campaign, I'm talking about. We won-and Link knows it. So it's not going to order any more mass assaults. Not even Malwa can afford to keep paying that butcher's bill. Finally-finally! — even that monster has to start thinking about the morale of its troops. Which is piss poor and getting worse, every time they spill an ocean of blood against our walls."

His subordinates were all frowning, now. Seeing that row of faces, Belisarius was reminded of schoolboys puzzling at a problem.

A very difficult problem in rhetoric and grammar, to boot, chimed in Aide. Awful stuff!

The quip caused Belisarius to chuckle softly. Then, as the reality finally began pouring through him, he raised triumphant fists over his head and began laughing aloud.

"We won, I tell you! It's finished!"

In the hours that followed, as Belisarius began sketching his plans for the next campaign-the one which would drive Malwa out of the Punjab altogether, the following year, and clear the road for the final Roman advance into their Ganges heartland-the frowns faded from his subordinates' faces. But not, entirely, from their inner thoughts.

Maybe.

True enough, their great general wasn't given to underestimating an enemy, so. maybe.

But.

Then, just before dawn three days later, the telegraph began chattering again and Calopodius relayed the message to Belisarius' tent. The general had already awakened, so he was able to get himself to the pier-what Menander and his sailors were now calling Justinian's Palace-within half an hour.

Maurice had gotten there ahead of him. Within no more than fifteen minutes, all of the other commanders of the Roman army were gathered alongside Belisarius atop the platform which the Roman engineers had thrown up to protect the Justinian and the Victrix. A great, heavy thing that platform was-massive timbers covered with stone and soil, which could shrug off even the most powerful Malwa mortars which the enemy occasionally sent out in riverboats in an attempt to destroy the warships which gave Rome its iron grip on the Indus.

By then, Maurice had made certain of his count. The Photius, steaming toward them out of the dawn, was towing no fewer than three barges. If even only one of those barges was loaded with gunpowder, it no longer mattered whether Belisarius was gauging his enemy correctly. Even Maurice-even gloomy, pessimistic Maurice-was serenely confident that with enough gunpowder the Iron Triangle could withstand years of mass assaults.

"It's over," he pronounced. "We won."

Those were the very same words pronounced by Ashot, as he came ashore.

"It's over. We won." The stubby Armenian pointed back downriver. "The Malwa lifted the siege of Sukkur five days ago. God help the poor bastards, trying to retreat back through the gorge, with Khusrau and his Persians pursuing them and no supplies worth talking about. They'll lose another twenty thousand men before they get to the Punjab, unless I miss my guess, most of them from starvation or desertion."

His enthusiasm rolled all the eager questions right under. "Bouzes and Coutzes are pressing them, too! They got to Sukkur a day after the Malwa started their retreat and just kept going, with the whole army. We've got over seventy thousand men coming through the gorge, not one of them so much as scratched by enemy action, and with nothing in their way except that single miserable damn fortress along the river."

His lip curled. "If the Malwa even try to hold that fortress, Coutzes swears his infantry will storm it in two hours. I wouldn't be surprised if he's right. Those men of his haven't done anything for weeks except march. By now, they're spoiling for a fight."

The pent-up enthusiasm burst like a dam. Within a minute, the officers atop Justinian's Palace were babbling a hundred new plans. Most of them, initially, involved the ins-and-outs of logistics. Keep one of the screw-powered warships on station at the Triangle at all times, using the other to tow more barges-no risk from that stinking miserable fortress once Coutzes gets his hands on it! — alternate them, of course, so all the sailors can share in the glory of hammering those wretched Malwa so-called riverboats-don't want anyone to get sulky because his mates are starting to call him a barge-handler-

From there, soon enough, the officers started babbling about maneuvers and campaigns. Race up the Sutlej-nonsense, that's exactly where Link will build their heaviest forts! — better to sweep around using the Indus-hook up with Kungas in the Hindu Kush, you know he's gotten to the Khyber by now!

Long before it was over, Belisarius was gone. There would be time enough for plans, now; more than enough time, before the next campaign. It's over. We won. But today, in this new dawn, he first had a debt which needed paying. As best he could.

Calopodius, as Belisarius had known he would be, was still at his post in the command bunker. The news of the Photius' arrival-and all that it signified-was already racing through the Roman forces in the Iron Triangle. The advance of the news was like a tidal bore, a surge of celebration growing as it went. When it reached the soldiers guarding the outer walls, Belisarius knew, they would react by taunting the Malwa mercilessly. To his deep satisfaction, he also knew that nowhere would the celebration be more riotous and unrestrained than among the Punjabi civilians living in the city which they had come to call, in their own tongue, a word which meant "the Anvil."

But Calopodius was taking no part in the celebration. He was sitting at the same desk where he sat every day, doing his duty, dictating orders and messages to the clerk who served as his principal secretary.

Hearing his arrival-Calopodius was already developing the uncanny ear of the blind-the Greek officer raised his head. Oddly enough, there seemed to be a trace of embarrassment in his face. He whispered something hurriedly to the secretary and the man put down the pen he had been scribbling with.

Belisarius studied the young man for a moment. It was hard to read Calopodius' expression. Partly because the youth had always possessed more than his years' worth of calm self-assurance, but mostly because of the horrible damage done to the face itself. Calopodius had removed the bandages several days earlier. With the quiet defiance which Belisarius knew was his nature, the young man would present those horribly scarred and empty eye sockets to the world, along with the mutilated brow which had not been enough to shield them.

The general, again, as he had so many times since Calopodius returned, felt a wave of grief and guilt wash over him.

It's not your fault, insisted Aide.

Of course it is, replied Belisarius. It was I-no other man-who sent that boy into harm's way. Told him to hold a position which was key to my campaign plans, knowing full well that for such a boy that order was as good as if a god had given it. I might as well have asked him to fall on his sword, knowing he would.

Other boys will live because of it. Thousands of them in this very place-Punjabi boys as well as Roman ones.

Belisarius sighed. That's not the point, Aide. I know that's true, which is why I gave the order in the first place. But that order-and its consequences-remain mine to bear. No one else. Nor can I trade it against other consequences, as if ruthlessness was a commodity which can be exchanged in a village market. A sin is a sin, and there's an end to it.

Calopodius interrupted the silent exchange. Rising to his feet, he asked: "Can I be of service, General?"

Some part of Belisarius' mind was fascinated to note that the blind youth was already able to distinguish one man's footsteps from another. But that part was pushed far down, while another part-much closer to the man's soul-came to the fore.

He strode forward and swept the boy into his embrace. Then, fighting to keep his voice even and hold back the tears, whispered: "I am sorry for your eyes, Calopodius. If I could give you back your sight with my own, I would do so. I swear I would."

Awkwardly, the boy returned the embrace. Patting the general's back as if, for all the world, he was the adult comforting the child.

"Oh, I wouldn't want you to do that, sir. Really, I wouldn't. We will need your eyes more than mine, in the time to come. This war isn't over yet. Besides-"

He hesitated, then cleared his throat. "Besides, I've been thinking a lot. And, if you'd be willing, there is a great favor you could do for me."

Belisarius pushed himself away and held the lad by both shoulders. "You need but ask. Anything."

Calopodius gestured toward the secretary sitting at the desk. "Well, it's this. I got to thinking that Homer was said to be blind, too. And who ever got as much fame and glory as he did? He'll be remembered as long as Achilles, after all. Maybe even longer."

Before Belisarius could respond, Calopodius was waving his hands in a little gesture of denial. "Not me, of course! I tried my hand at poetry once, but the results were awful. Still, I am good at rhetoric and grammar, and I think my prose is pretty good. So-"

Calopodius took a deep breath, as a boy does before announcing a grandiose ambition to a skeptical world. "So I decided to become an historian. Polybius is just as famous as the men he wrote about, really. Even if he's not as famous as Homer. And by the time it's over-even now! — your war against Malwa will be the stuff of legend."

Belisarius moved his eyes from the ruined face and looked at the sheet held limply in the secretary's hand. Now that he was closer, he could see that the writing covered the entire page-nothing like the terse messages which were transmitted to and fro on the telegraph.

"You've already started," he declared. "And you want to be able to question me about some details."

Calopodius nodded. The gesture was painfully shy.

Aide's voice came like a clear stream. And what could make a finer-and a cleaner-irony? In the world that would have been, your life and work would be recounted by a snake named Procopius.

Belisarius clapped Calopodius on the shoulder. "I can do much better than that, lad! You'll have to do it in your spare time, of course-I can't possibly spare you from the command bunker-but as of this moment you are my official historian."

He led Calopodius back to his chair and drew another up to the desk for himself. Then spoke in as cheerful a tone of voice as he had used in weeks. "The last historian I had-ah-proved quite unequal to the task."