Breakthrough

by Scott H Washburn

  Ninny carried her from the hospital to the quiet street where they lived. The place looked lonely and deserted. Handbills announcing the evacuation lay in the gutters or drifted along the sidewalk in the breeze. Some of the houses had actually had their doors and windows boarded up as if that would keep the Martians—or looters—out. But her aunt and uncle’s house wasn’t sealed up and a curl of smoke drifted out of the chimney. Becca took Ninny around to the back where he wouldn’t be too noticeable and then she went and knocked on the front door.

  She had to knock twice, but eventually her uncle opened the door. His eyebrows went up. “Oh, it’s you,” he said.

  “Hello, Uncle Albert. I… uh, I wasn’t sure if you’d still be here.”

  “Go away!” Her Aunt Rosilee screamed from somewhere in the house. “Leave us alone! We are not leaving!”

  Uncle Albert glanced behind him and then back at her. “Soldiers have come by a few times telling us to pack up and go. She probably thinks you’re another one.” He turned and called: “It’s Rebecca.”

  There was a long silence and then her aunt said, “What does she want?”

  “I want to talk to you, Aunt Rosilee.”

  “We are not leaving!”

  “Please, Aunt Rosilee, it’s important.”

  There was no answer, but her uncle ushered her in and closed the door. He led her down the hall to the kitchen. Her aunt was there, dressed in a dark, severe dress as if she was already in mourning. But there was no one else there; had their maid already fled? Her aunt looked up and her eyes were red like she’d been crying. When she saw Becca, her expression became one of fury. “How could you! How could you! How could you take our home from us?”

  “Rosie, stop it!” snapped her uncle. “Becca didn’t do anything!” Aunt Rosilee rocked back as if she’d been slapped. Becca was shocked, too. She had never heard her uncle raise his voice to his wife or contradict her in any way. “It’s not her fault!”

  The woman put her face in her hands and began to cry. It was impossible to get any sort of reply out of her and Uncle Albert took Becca into the parlor. “She’s been like that for a week.” He looked at Becca. “So you think we should go?”

  “It might be for the best. If the Martians cut the rail line to El Paso, things could get very rough here. And if the Martians attack the city…”

  “Could that happen?”

  “It could,” she said firmly. “The army will do everything it can to stop them, but they might still break into the city. If they do… anything could happen.”

  Her uncle turned away and looked out the window. He started talking and she wasn’t sure if it was to her or himself. “How can we go? So much of our money is in the house… the banks are closed and won’t give us anything… the army says we can only take what we can carry… we’d be like vagabonds… living on charity… How can we do that?”

  “You’d be alive. I came here with nothing but the clothes on my back. Things don’t matter, Uncle Albert, lives do.”

  He turned back and looked at her like she was a crazy person. “Thank you for coming, Rebecca. You better go.”

  “You’ll think about it?” she persisted. He nodded but didn’t say anything. “Don’t think too long.” He escorted her out and closed the door. She stared at the door for a minute, briefly considered hammering on it and then hammering on them to try and knock some sense into them, but finally decided it wouldn’t do any good. She went and got Ninny and rode back to the hospital. Her conscience wasn’t exactly clear, but she did feel better with herself.

  * * * * *

  March, 1910, Northeast of Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory

  “They can’t be too far away, sir! Ashes are still hot!”

  Lieutenant Frank Dolfen acknowledged the report of his scout and then sent a courier with the information back to the squadron headquarters: another burned-out farmstead. They’d encountered dozens of them, and a few small towns, since beginning the mission two weeks ago, but so far they hadn’t actually seen any Martians. The trail was getting hot—literally. If they could just catch up with the bastards!

  At least moving was a bit easier. There had been a thaw, which had melted most of the snow, and then a hard freeze which had solidified the mud. The horses had an easier time of it and even the artillery could almost keep up. The guns had moved by train until they were about thirty miles east of Glorietta Pass when they encountered the first overt sign of the enemy: wrecked railroad tracks, rails half-melted and twisted, and ties burned to cinders—for miles. Repair gangs had followed, but it would take weeks to put the tracks in order, and the artillery had been forced to dismount and follow the cavalry overland.

  They’d run into refugees, too. Men, women, and children; sometimes in wagons, sometimes on foot. They’d all told the same story: Martian machines striding across the plains like giants, burning anything in their path. The ones who’d escaped were the ones who took little or nothing. The ones who tried to take more, well, Doflen and his men had found their ashes piled near the ashes of their homes. They gave the survivors rations and directed them to link up with the railroad gangs and try to get to Santa Fe.

  “No good, us just following these guys,” said Dolfen in frustration. “Somehow we gotta get ahead of them!”

  “Yeah, that’s the Lord’s truth,” said Sergeant Urbaniak, riding next to him. “But they’re so damn fast! And they don’t seem to stop at night. Don’t they ever get tired?”

  “Their machines don’t. Maybe the Martians don’t, either.”

  “So all we can do is try to guess where they’ll go and then get there first.”

  “Or get lucky. I’ll take luck any day.”

  But they didn’t get lucky that day, or the next. On the evening of that second day, the colonel called a meeting of his officers. Frank still had to be reminded that meant him, too. The regimental HQ had been set up in a little grove of trees near another destroyed farm. The trees were all still bare and didn’t provide much shelter. Colonel Berg welcomed them, coffee and some whiskey was passed around, and then they got down to business. The colonel spread out a map of the area, but unfortunately it did not show a lot of detail.

  “Gentlemen,” said Berg, “so far this has been a fool’s errand, and I damn well don’t like playing the fool! The enemy is out there and we need to find a way to bring them to battle. So, it is time to take some risks. Instead of just following their trail of destruction, we are going to split up and send out forces to locations we think they might attack. Once contact is made, we will concentrate to destroy them.”

  “That will be risky, sir,” said Major Campos. “Our detachments might be destroyed individually before the rest of us can arrive to help them.”

  “I know that, Paul, but there isn’t any choice if we are going to hurt these scum. So, here is what we are going to do.” He pointed to the map. “The Martians we’re after were first sighted up north near Pueblo in Colorado. But then at least some of them followed the railroad south all the way down to where we first encountered the wrecked tracks at Tipton. From there they turned almost due east and we’ve been chasing them. We know they’ve hit the towns of Albert, Baca, and Garcia.” His finger traced a path on the map. “Now, I believe that when they moved south along the railroad to Tipton, they must have seen the Union Pacific line that branches off at Trinidad and goes to Texas. I think they are now heading that way to destroy that line as well. If that’s true, they will hit it somewhere around Clayton.” He pointed to a town northeast of where they were now.

  “If we just follow along behind them, all we’re going to find is more wrecked track and burned towns. But if we assume that they will follow the railroad, then they will turn either northwest or southeast.”

  “Or both, sir,” said Campos. “We don’t know how many of them there are.”

  “True,” said Berg, nodding. “So, I’ve conferred with Colonel Thaxton of the 10th and we’ve decided that I will take the 5th, and one battery, almost
due north and reach the railroad near Felacen. Thaxton will take the 10th and the other battery and go east toward Clapton. With any luck that will allow us to get ahead of them as they destroy the track and set an ambush. But as I said, we will split up to allow us to cover more area and hopefully find them. Questions?”

  There were a few, mostly involving certain logistical issues, which were quickly dealt with. Dolfen didn’t have any questions and he thought it a good plan. A damn sight better than just following and never catching up! So the next morning, they turned their path north.

  * * * * *

  March, 1910, Washington, D.C.

  Leonard Wood stared at what everyone called the ‘Big Map’ and tried to find some sort of inspiration. The situation which was developing had all the marks of a major disaster. Wood wasn’t a West Point graduate, he hadn’t taken courses in military history, but he had years of actual experience in military operations under a wide variety of conditions, and his instincts told him that there was real danger here.

  The Martian raiding parties were playing absolute Hob in the army’s rear areas. Railroad tracks, rolling stock, and supply dumps were being destroyed all across Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. Dodge City, Scott’s Bluff, Rapid City, and Bismarck had all been raided, if not destroyed, and nearly every line of supply to the front had been severed. Only Funston’s Second Army still had an open, if roundabout, rail connection with the east. A few of the telegraph lines were still in operation and they had intermittent wireless contact with the main headquarters. Thankfully, the reports indicated that so far there had been no major attacks against the troop concentrations.

  But that wasn’t going to last.

  The Martians wouldn’t be doing this except to disrupt and soften up the armies in preparation for a major attack. But the question was what to do? Attempts to destroy the raiding groups had been almost entirely unsuccessful. The enemy had lost a few tripods, but more to mishap than combat. They’d found one abandoned where it had broken through a frozen lake, and another near Cheyenne which had apparently fallen off a cliff. But for the most part the enemy went where they would, destroying everything they found. If they ran into a garrison powerful enough to give a good fight, the Martians bypassed it and went somewhere else. The steady trickle of refugees heading east had turned into a flood. Feeding and caring for them was becoming a major challenge, and Wood didn’t like to think about the hundreds—or thousands—who must have perished in the freezing weather before they could reach safety.

  “So what do you think, sir?” asked Colonel MacArthur. The man was now Wood’s new aide and was proving to be very able in that position. Wood had recommended his promotion to brigadier general, but that needed to be approved by Congress.

  “I think that we have a hell of a mess, Colonel. These monsters have a greater mobility than any human army in history. No supply lines! Nothing to tie them down. Even the famous cavalry raiders in the Civil War had to return to their bases frequently. Only the Indians or the Mongols could move like they do!”

  “There may have been a few others, sir, but yes, you are correct. So how do we respond?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that and I’m not coming up with any good answers. The keys are the railroads. Somehow we have to protect them.”

  “Not going to be easy, sir. Even if we abandon the branch lines, we are still talking about a couple of thousand miles of track to keep all of our troops supplied. To build forts which are strong enough to drive off a raiding party along all those miles would tie down three-quarters of the army.”

  “In the Civil War, the North used the rivers instead of railroads wherever they could,” said Wood. “You can’t burn a river. But out where our troops are, there aren’t any navigable rivers within five hundred miles.”

  “But just patrolling the rail lines won’t do any good,” said MacArthur. “Not unless the patrol is very powerful. Small patrols will just be killed like those cavalry we lost out near Minot.”

  “It’s just too great a distance,” muttered Wood. “We can’t support armies that are that far away. They have supplies stockpiled for a month or two, but we may have to pull them back.”

  “Would the President approve of such a move, sir?”

  “He’d fight like the devil to avoid it,” replied Wood nodding. “The notion of abandoning six or eight entire states would stick in his craw—hell, it sticks in my craw! The political consequences would be enormous, too. But losing those armies and losing the states anyway would be even worse.”

  “Have you even discussed the possibility with him?” asked MacArthur.

  “No, and I won’t be able to until he gets back.” Roosevelt was in New York, watching a parade. The British had finally sent their promised expeditionary force. Most of it had gone directly to Canada, but a division had disembarked in New York to make a symbolic show of support for their American cousins. It would encourage the people, and that was important, of course, but the British troops would march through the city and then boards trains which would take them on to Canada. The British arrival would do nothing to help the looming debacle in the American west.

  Wood looked at his aide. “Start making plans for a general withdrawal.”

  * * * * *

  March, 1910, Near Emery Gap, New Mexico Territory

  “There they are! There they are!”

  The cry caused Frank Dolfen to jerk his head around and look south. At first he didn’t see anything, but then he noticed what looked like smoke to the southwest. He pulled out his field glasses and focused in. Yes! Six or eight miles away there was definitely smoke, and tall objects moving in front of it. Three of them.

  “Is it them?” asked Sergeant Jason Urbaniak.

  “Sure is, and heading this way!”

  “Never thought I’d say this, but thank God!”

  “Yeah. But we gotta get ready. Looks like there’s a cut through some higher ground about a mile north. Let’s set things up there. And get a courier to the captain, he can’t be more than a couple miles over that way.”

  “Right!”

  Dolfen set the troop in motion and headed for the high ground. It was the fourth day since the colonel’s plan was put into motion and now it looked as though it might pay off. They’d ridden north and reached the railroad, but to their dismay the Martians had already been there. The little town of Felacen had been reduced to rubble, but there were a few survivors who said the Martians were following the tracks north and couldn’t be more than a few hours ahead of them. Chasing them didn’t seem like it would be any more productive than before, until the colonel noticed that the railroad on his map made a great loop to the west. If the regiment went straight north they might be able to get ahead of them—and so it had proved.

  But Dolfen’s troop had been in the lead and everyone else was straggling out behind them. He didn’t know how many more could join them before the Martians got here. And sixty men against three tripods was pretty poor odds. They reached the high ground and saw that it was just a low ridge, not more than fifteen feet high. But the southern side was steep and rocky and a cut had been made through it to allow the tracks to pass. Fifty yards south of the base of the ridge a small stream had cut a gully which the railroad crossed on a wooden bridge.

  “Best place for an ambush I’ve seen all week,” said Urbaniak. “Plenty of hiding places and if they want to destroy the bridge they’ll have to come to us.”

  Dolfen agreed and he sent the troop through the cut and had them dismount on the other side to stay out of sight. He used his glasses to check on the enemy. They didn’t seem much closer, although he knew that was deceptive. But there were definitely only three. Maybe, with help, they could handle three. Then he swung them to the east and was elated to see the rest of the squadron riding up. He went forward to meet with Captain Pendleton. “Looks like this is the spot,” said his commander.

  “I thought so, sir.”

  “Right! Okay, Frank, your men have the most train
ing on making a mounted attack on these critters, so I want you to keep your troop on the other side of the cut. I’ll deploy the rest in that gully. When they get close enough, we’ll give ‘em what-for and then you charge in and finish them off. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Dolfen, thinking that it wasn’t going to be nearly that easy.

  “The colonel will bring up the rest of the regiment and the guns and we can crush ‘em in between us!”

  “We’ll sure as hell try, sir.”

  The other troops sent their horses to the other side of the cut and then took cover in the gully. Their single fifty-caliber Browning was set up in a clump of rocks on top of the ridge. Frank called his men together. “All right, we win the prize,” he told them and then explained what they were expected to do. Some looked eager, some looked scared, most looked determined. The weeks of destroyed homes and burned bodies had grown a real hatred for the enemy in the hearts of most. “This isn’t going to be easy, but the others are going to be counting on us to finish the job they start. So, look for my signal. I know I can rely on each and every one of you.”

  “Yu kin count on uz, zir!” said one of the men in a thick accent.

  “I know I can. Now, check your weapons, check the fuses on your bombs—don’t blow yourselves up, please!—and get what rest you can. I’m guessing we have about an hour.” They did as he ordered and he had to force himself to sit down by his horse and munch down a piece of hardtack and accept a cup of coffee which someone had brewed, even though his stomach was in knots. Have to look calm… He pulled out his pocket watch and checked it a half dozen times, but the minutes passed very slowly. He checked his Colt revolver and he checked the one bomb he was carrying. When the fight started he had no intention of holding back. The only order he’d need give was charge. After that it would be each man trying to get his bomb delivered to its target.