Breakthrough

by Scott H Washburn

  “It seems to me that he made that same claim just before the recent debacle,” grumbled Roosevelt.

  “True, but this is the only place where we can get at the enemy in strength. We still don’t even know the exact position of their landing site in Idaho and they’ve torn up the railroads for a hundred miles or more in every direction. Without the railroad it’s impossible to supply a significant force in that territory. Hell, when I was chasing Geronimo in Mexico we could barely keep a couple of companies supplied with wagons and pack mules.”

  “I know, I know. I’ve been through that area myself, you know. Up near Yellowstone. Beautiful, and amazingly rugged. But the governors of Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado are screaming for help. Salt Lake City has been overrun and there have been reports of sightings near Denver. There’s even word of Martians moving down into Montana from Canada!”

  “I’ve seen the reports, Theodore. You get them from my people, after all.”

  “Yes, yes, but that doesn’t change the fact that several million people are under direct threat. Thousands - tens of thousands - are fleeing their homes. And from their point of view, we aren’t doing a blessed thing to help them!”

  “Mr. President, we have a division in Denver, another in Cheyenne, two divisions in Bismarck, and several more headed west. But you know as well as I that simply sending troops isn’t enough. Men with rifles and bayonets have no chance against the Martians! They need artillery and the steam tanks to have a real hope of beating them. Those things are in short supply. And even when we have them, trying to keep them supplied is a nightmare. The tanks burn coal and use up water at a frightful rate. Funston’s siege at Gallup is using artillery ammunition in unprecedented amounts and in that semi-desert region we are having to ship in water—all along a single rail line.”

  “You’re talking logistics, Leonard,” replied Roosevelt. “Your average man, Great Thunder, your average senator, doesn’t know logistics from Adam! They see the enormous training camps, men flocking to the colors by the millions, factories working round the clock, and they want to know why none of that huge strength is being put to use.”

  “Because all that strength is stuck here in the east. Moving it west is the problem.”

  “We have to do better, Leonard.”

  “We will, we will.”

  “But speaking of moving troops, how are the shipments to Panama going?”

  Wood restrained a sigh. Roosevelt’s obsession with Panama and the canal could be trying at times. “The 27th Division will be leaving this week. The 4th is already there.”

  “But what about the heavy guns? And the emplacements for them?”

  “Six more of the twelve-inch disappearing guns and eight of the ten-inch mortars will be going on the same ships with the 27th. With no immediate threat to the east coast, we are diverting a lot of the heavy ordnance from the forts here to Panama. They are pouring as much concrete for the fortifications there as they are for the locks, Theodore. And there hasn’t been a Martian sighted within a hundred miles of the canal. Stop worrying.”

  “It’s only a matter of time before the Martians realize how important the canal will be to us once it’s open. With every major rail line between east and west cut except for the Southern Pacific, it might well become the only way to keep the country united. We have to be ready for when the inevitable attack comes!”

  “We will. But what about the French and the Germans? Are they really coming?”

  “Yes, at last,” said Roosevelt, frowning. “The French plan to land a corps in Veracruz by early August. The Germans say they will have forces in Venezuela about the same time—although they don’t say how much. I can’t say I’m all that happy about having them here in this hemisphere, but since there’s no hope of us sending more significant expeditions south, it’s better than nothing. Anything to get them involved!”

  Wood nodded. With no direct threat to their homelands at the present, the French and Germans had been terribly laggard in supplying help to anyone else. The British were fighting desperate battles to protect their far-flung colonies, the Russians had lost control of Siberia, the Ottomans, most of Arabia, and the word out of China was confused to say the least.

  The French were fortifying their colonies in North Africa, so at least they were doing something. But Germany, with the most powerful land army in the world, had so far done nothing. They had seemingly written off their colony in East Africa, and unsurprisingly they had ignored Russian pleas for help. But now they were sending troops to Venezuela. In 1902, the United States had come within days of going to war with Germany over a similar plan during a debt crisis, but now they were coming again with America’s, if not blessing, acquiescence.

  “Oh, and that reminds me,” said the President, “We may need to send some troops to Cuba. Maybe Haiti, too.”

  Wood frowned, his eyebrows scrunching together. “You just said we wouldn’t be sending more expeditions south.”

  “I meant expeditions to fight the Martians. This would be different.”

  “Ah, the refugee crisis?”

  “Yes, people are fleeing from Mexico, Central America, and South America in fleets of small boats. Some are coming here, of course, but Cuba and the Caribbean islands are being overwhelmed. Cuba’s government is on the verge of collapse—again. They’re asking for help. Can we send anything?”

  Wood thought for a moment. “Yes, maybe. Fortunately, unlike the Martians, this is a problem that can be dealt with using just rifles and bayonets. I have some units which are pretty well trained, but lacking heavy weapons. I’ll draw up a proposal. Anything else, sir?”

  “No, I think that’s all for now. Thank you, General.” Roosevelt got to his feet and without thinking, Wood automatically tried to do the same. His left leg buckled and he collapsed back into his chair with a groan. Damn!

  Roosevelt was at his side in an instant. “Leonard! What’s wrong? Do you need a doctor?” He turned to call for his adjutant.

  “Wait!” cried Wood. “Wait, Theodore.”

  “What is it? Are you ill?”

  “Theodore… Theodore, we need to talk.”

  Chapter Two

  July 1909, Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory

  “No! No! Your other left, you stupid sods!”

  First Sergeant Frank Dolfen looked on in exasperation as the troop disintegrated into a milling throng of men and horses. It had been a simple maneuver, By Fours Left, but some of the new recruits had tried to turn right instead and the march column had turned into a mob. Well, at least none of them had fallen off their… No, wait, there was a man on the ground over there, so even that silver lining was snatched away.

  “The horses are smarter than they are,” observed Corporal Urbaniak. “You could see they knew which way to turn and would have without those idiots sawing on the reins.”

  “Yeah, maybe we should just tie them to the saddles and let the horses be in charge.” He threw up his hands and snorted in disgust. “Well, get them sorted out and we’ll try it again.”

  An hour later, Dolfen grudgingly admitted that they had made some progress and decided to call it day - for the sake of the horses if not the men. Of course, then there was another hour of horse and equipment care before the men could be dismissed and Dolfen could relax.

  Except that he couldn’t really relax. Being the First Sergeant of the squadron involved vastly more work than he’d had when he was just a section leader. Paperwork! Good God, the paperwork! There was a clerk who did most of the actual writing and filing and such, but Dolfen still had to oversee it all; especially since Captain DeBrosse was almost as green as those recruits he was trying to train. The enormous expansion of the army was calling for huge numbers of new officers. West Point couldn’t begin to supply them all so there were dozens of new training schools to turn bright young sprouts into officers. DeBrosse had some experience in the Illinois National Guard and at least he knew how to ride, but he had a long way to go in learning how to run a cava
lry squadron! The fact that he was barely half Dolfen’s age didn’t help.

  He walked into the large tent that was being used for the squadron headquarters. He had planned to check with the clerk and take care of any new paperwork that might have arrived, but DeBrosse was there at a desk and he couldn’t just ignore him. “Afternoon, sir,” he said.

  “Oh, Sergeant,” said the Captain, looking a little startled. “How did things go? Are the new recruits shaping up?”

  “Yes, sir. Slowly. A bit at a time. No casualties today, anyway. Another month and we’ll be in tolerable shape.”

  “A month? That long, you think?” DeBrosse looked nervous, but then he always looked nervous.

  “Yes, sir, at least. It’s going to take another coupla weeks before the new ones can even control their horses and do the basic squad maneuvers. And a good third of ‘em don’t even speak English. Italians and Poles for the most part. The recruiters are scooping ‘em up as soon they fall off the boat, I’m guessing. And once they do learn the basics, there’s still section and troop drill, dismounted drill… lots more things before they’ll be ready. Oh, and that reminds me, sir, any word on when we’ll be getting those new dynamite bombs they’re giving the infantry? We’ll all need some training with those.”

  “Uh, I hadn’t heard anything about those, Sergeant. I’ll ask the major next I see him.”

  “We really need those, sir! Our rifles ain’t gonna be worth spit if we come up against the Martians!”

  “They have given each troop two machine guns…”

  “Only those cast-off thirty-calibers from the infantry!” said Dolfen forcefully. “They fire the same ammo as our rifles and won’t do much more! Now if we could get some of those new fifty-caliber Brownings they’re giving the infantry…!”

  “I haven’t heard anything about that, either,” replied DeBrosse. “Those are very heavy, I understand and…”

  “We need something, sir! I’ve seen what happens when men try to go up against one of their machines with nothing but rifles! It’s a massacre!”

  “Our job will be to scout, not to fight, Sergeant. Find the enemy and report back.”

  “That was our job the last time! And half the 5th was wiped out anyway!” Dolfen could feel himself losing his temper. DeBrosse was cringing back away from him and he forced himself to calm down. “Sorry, sir,” he muttered.

  “That’s… that’s all right, Sergeant. I know you survi-… uh, veterans had a hard time of it and we newcomers should learn from your experience. But tell me, is it really true you destroyed one of the tripods? I’ve heard some of the stories in camp and…”

  “I… was involved, sir. It was really those ordnance guys. They had the bombs. I just… helped out a little. But sir, that’s why we need to get some bombs of our own!”

  “I’ll… I’ll see what I can do. But Sergeant…” DeBrosse rummaged around on his desk and pulled out a piece of paper. “I’m afraid we aren’t going to have that month that you want. We’ve got orders to move out in just five days.”

  * * * * *

  July 1909, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  “This all looks very impressive, Mr. Schmidt - on paper. But are you actually going to be able to build any of these things? Build them and get them to work? I recall how much trouble you had with the Mark I steam tanks,” said Andrew Comstock, giving the Baldwin Locomotives man the best scowl he had learned from his boss, Colonel Hawthorne.

  “We have learned a great deal from the Mark I, Major,” said Schmidt. “The Mark II, which is in production now, was another step forward. We are confident that we can accomplish what we are proposing.”

  Andrew grunted noncommittally and returned his attention to the drawings spread out on a large table in a Baldwin conference room. They showed a number of proposed designs for new war machines. They ranged from sensible to… ridiculous. He pointed to one of the more sensible ones. “This ‘Mark III’ tank, would you really be able to mount three cannons on it?”

  “As you can see, it is just a modification of the Mark II,” said Schmidt. “We add these two side sponsons with a gun in each. Not much different from how the secondary guns on a warship are mounted. The sponsons are detachable for rail transport. We hope to have a prototype ready for testing before the end of the year.”

  “But what about the extra weight? You already upped the gun from a 3-inch to a 4-inch on the Mark IIs. Can the engine and drive train handle it? And what about ammunition storage? Will there be room for a loader for each gun? That would push the crew up to what? Nine? Where will they all fit?”

  “We are calculating eight with two loaders for the three guns. Not ideal, but the best we can do. The extra weight should be manageable; as I said we’ve learned a lot from the earlier models. As for ammunition storage, yes, the three guns will reduce it to about twenty rounds per gun, but…” Schmidt paused and looked sheepishly at Andrew. “From reading your own report of the action in New Mexico it seems likely that most battles will be decided one way or the other before ammunition supply will become a critical factor.”

  Meaning if they haven’t killed the Martians by then, they’ll probably be dead themselves! Schmidt’s evaluation angered him, but he couldn’t deny the probable truth of it. At the Battle of Prewitt, the tanks and the Martian machines had squared off and blazed away like gunfighters in a western dime novel. It had all been over in just a few minutes. Still, the cold-blooded calculations of the engineer bothered him. Instead of giving rein to his feelings, he picked up another sheet of drawings. “And what about this? This ‘Mark IV’ tank? If I’m reading the scale properly, it’s about twice the size of a Mark III - in every dimension! How in the world would we even transport it? It’s over twice the width of a railway car!”

  “The design takes that into consideration, Major,” said Schmidt proudly. “The side sponsons, the caterpillar tracks, and the main turret are all separate assemblies. The Mark IV can be shipped in manageable pieces and quickly assembled once it reaches its destination. The gun in the turret would be a 5-inch, possibly even a 7-inch. It’s clear that the smaller caliber weapons can only harm the enemy machines with massed fire. We think it likely that larger weapons will be called for in the future.”

  Andrew shook his head in doubt. The tank was a monster, with guns bristling in every direction. He’d be tempted to call it a ‘land battleship’, except the next set of drawings had already laid claim to that title. Looking at them he recalled a conversation he’d had with Colonel Hawthorne almost two years earlier where he’d jokingly suggested putting wheels on navy warships so they could fight the Martians on land. But this was – apparently - no joke. It looked like a small cruiser, or perhaps a coast defense monitor, which had been mounted on two enormous sets of caterpillar tracks. A massive turret was situated near the front mounting, according to the notes, a 12-inch naval rifle. A half-dozen other turrets mounted smaller guns and even smaller ones along with machine guns poked out of ports here and there. A large smoke stack and what Andrew could only call a conning tower added to the impression of a land-going warship.

  “You’re really serious about this?”

  “Why wouldn’t we be?” replied Schmidt, looking puzzled. “You folks were the ones who asked for it.”

  “We did?”

  “Yes indeed.” Schmidt rummaged through a folder and eventually pulled out several sheets of paper and handed them to him. The top sheet was a letter from the Ordnance Department dated November of 1907 and signed by Major Anthony Waski, an ordnance officer Andrew bumped into from time to time - although he was a colonel now. The letter called for Baldwin to investigate the possibility of constructing a machine based on the attached drawing. The second sheet proved to be a crudely hand-drawn sketch of a battleship on wheels. Andrew had to restrain himself from laughing. Now he remembered a frantic conversation between General Crozier, the head of the Ordnance Department, and Colonel Hawthorne and Major Waski with himself a silent witness. They’d just left a c
onference with their counterparts in the navy ordnance bureau where they’d proposed just such a thing. Crozier was adamant that the army have a comparable proposal. Andrew had completely forgotten about it - but here it was!

  “Could such a thing be built?”

  “Well, we believe we can make the tracks work. We don’t have the facilities to build the upper portions, so we contacted William Cramp & Sons down at the shipyard and what would you know? They were getting ready to contact us! It seems the navy wants something just like this! Cramp can build the upper portions - they build battleships, after all - but they had no clue how to build the tracks! So we’ve been working together to develop this.”

  “How… how would it be transported to the front? Even disassembled, the pieces would be too large for rail cars.”

  “Yes, that would be the real trick, wouldn’t it? But the navy proposal calls for a screw propeller which would run off the same drive as the tracks. The design as proposed here doesn’t displace enough water to float, so there would be detachable flotation modules which would allow it to sail - or be towed - by water to as close to the action as possible. Then it could move out of the water on the tracks into battle.”

  Andrew continued to study the drawings and despite his skepticism had to admit that the idea was enticing. The thing was far larger than the Martian tripods and the notion of the enemy suddenly being the David facing a towering Goliath instead of the other way round as it had been so far was very satisfying - as long as you didn’t take the analogy all the way to its conclusion. “This… this could be very useful attacking the Martian strongholds. It’s tall enough to look right over the rampart walls and it might even be able to move over them on its tracks.”

  “That was our thought, too,” said Schmidt.