Counterattack

by Scott H Washburn

  The huge influx of people from across the river had been a major crisis when it first happened. In that awful spring of 1910, the Martians had broken through the army’s defenses along the eastern edge of the Rockies and swept across the Great Plains. Utah, New Mexico, and Idaho had already been lost to the Martians, but now North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, most of Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma had been overrun, driving millions from their homes.

  They had flooded east to the hoped-for safety behind the Mississippi. At first camps had been set up for them, but it was quickly realized that the loss of the nation’s breadbasket, the vast wheat and corn fields, and grazing land from west of the river, was going to create a huge shortage of food unless steps were taken immediately. The obvious solution was to put these displaced farmers to work on new farms. There was still plenty of arable land east of the river, not so good perhaps as the lost lands further west, but good enough. Abandoned land was put back into cultivation and new farmland cut out of the forests. A million acres were planted in time for the 1910 growing season and three million more by 1911. Of course, these were not the modest single-family farms and ranches the refugees came from - and like Becca had grown up on - they were huge plantation-style farms with hundreds of people on each of them working for wages. From what she had heard, the conditions were still pretty grim.

  Not as grim as the camps had been at the start, though. She had arrived with the first wave; those who had been driven out of Albuquerque and Santa Fe and a hundred little towns between there and the Mississippi. More and more followed, and many needed medical help. The army nurses and doctors had been overwhelmed. Some of the refugees had been doctors and volunteers had arrived from further east to help, but that first six months had been very bad. A lot of people died. Children died. But bit by bit the refugees were moved out to their new homes.

  After the initial shock had worn off and the families settled, most of the young men had joined the army in hopes of taking back their land west of the river. Many of the initial refugee camps were now army camps, filled with those same young men. She had met some of them and they burned to strike back at the invader with a passion that matched her own.

  After securing the ambulances and taking care of the horses, Becca checked in with Miss Chumley and was told there were no immediate crises to deal with and she could go back to her normal schedule - which meant she was free until after dinner. She went back to her quarters, which were in a barracks-like structure where she had a bed and a footlocker and not a whole lot else. She lay down on her bunk, closed her eyes, and dreamed of riding with Frank Dolfen’s cavalry out on patrol against the Martians. She was sure Frank would allow – insist - that she have a rifle. And if the opportunity came along to use it, well…

  And being with Frank would be good, too. Of course, he would have his duties and she would have hers, but at least she’d see him from time to time. He was the best friend she had and she liked him a lot. And he wasn’t married and he’d lost his girl to the Martians in the first days of the war. And he wasn’t that much older than her…

  “Hey, Becca!”

  She opened her eyes and saw that it was Clarissa Forester who had called her name. Clarissa was one of the other nurses and they saw a lot of each other. Becca considered her a friend, although lately…

  “What?”

  “We’re having a revival meeting! Come on!”

  Becca forced herself not to frown. “No thanks. I’ll pass.”

  Clarissa did frown. “You really ought to come. There’ll be music and a good preacher and it’s important.”

  “Just got back with some refugees and I’m worn out. Leave me rest.”

  “Becca, I’m starting to worry about you. I haven’t seen you at church on Sundays, either. How are we going to win this war without God’s help?”

  “By killing Martians. And I haven’t noticed God killin’ any lately. Guess we gotta do it ourselves.”

  Clarissa’s frown became fierce. “Don’t talk like that! It’s blaspheming! God will help us, but we’ve got to be worthy! If we purge our sins, God will help us!”

  “Go ‘way, Clarissa.” Becca closed her eyes and rolled over. She heard Clarissa snort and stalk off.

  Revival meetings!

  They were becoming very common lately. A religious fervor was sweeping the country, including the army camps. More and more people were becoming convinced that the Martian invasion was some sort of punishment from God for the sins of the world. Becca didn’t believe a word of it. What sort of sins did Pepe - or me for that matter - commit to deserve what’s happened? And what sort of god would deal out so terrible a punishment? When she’d dared to voice such a question a few months earlier, she’d gotten such a rash of frowns and Tsk! Tsks! from the Bible thumpers, she’d resolved to stay out of such discussions in the future.

  But they were thumping more than Bibles these days. Some were getting downright nasty and blaming the woes of the world - meaning their own woes - on the ones who didn’t eagerly join them. Some of the really zealous ones were smashing liquor bottles, dumping beer barrels, busting up poker games, and a few weeks ago a notorious brothel in town had burned down under mysterious circumstances and several people had been badly injured. Naturally, a lot of the soldiers had gotten mad at such high-handed actions, robbing them of their few pleasures, and that there had been fistfights and worse. They’d had to treat some knife wounds in the hospital. Becca was afraid that there was even worse trouble brewing. There are a lot of angry people out there looking for someone to blame!

  What if they decided to blame her?

  She opened her eyes, all hope of sleep vanished. Some of the worst of the thumpers were spouting ‘if you’re not with God, you’re against Him’ nonsense, and others were starting to believe them. The last thing she needed was for people like Clarissa to turn against her. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to at least be seen at some of the meetings. And they usually did have pretty good music.

  She sat up with a groan and left the barracks.

  * * * * *

  November, 1911, Washington, D.C.

  Leonard Wood was working late - again. He and his new deputy, Colonel Hugh Drum, were seated at a table covered with maps and piles of papers working out the new table of organization for the US Army.

  “If we added the 39th Division to the 4th Army, we could push their boundary up to Memphis, sir,” said Drum.

  “No, no, I don’t want the inter-army boundary anywhere near a major fortress. Too much risk that both commanders will overlook a danger because they think the other commander is handling it. We’ll put the 39th in 3rd Army and leave the boundary where it is.”

  “That will make 3rd Army substantially bigger than average, sir.”

  “So be it. Dickman is doing a good job as an army commander, he can handle things.”

  “Yes, sir. But it will also leave 4th Army very much below average, just six divisions. And 7th Army is the same.”

  Wood looked at Drum for a moment. He was damn young for his post, early thirties, already a colonel, and he would probably be a general before his next birthday. The incredible expansion of the army was creating an enormous problem in finding experienced officers to command the new formations. Training schools could turn out captains and lieutenants by the wagon load, but finding capable staff officers - to say nothing of division, corps, and army commanders! - was a daunting challenge. He’d been forced to give up his previous deputy, Doug MacArthur, so he could take command of a new division. He’d probably be a corps commander before long. But at least Drum did have some experience. Fought in Cuba - where his father had been killed—and then later had worked with Fred Funston on his staff before the current war. Still, he’d never had to handle forces of this magnitude - as if anyone in the US Army had!

  “We’re taking calculated risks here, Hugh. Even with sixty divisions we don’t have nearly enough to cover the whole line adequately. More division
s are in the pipeline, but until they are ready, we have to protect the most dangerous areas and pray the other areas don’t get hit.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “And we’ve got eight more divisions which will be ready before spring. I’m keeping them in the east just in case the next wave of cylinders should land there. Probably won’t, I know, but we can’t ignore the possibility. Once we’re sure, we can send them west, and some will go to 4th and 7th Armies.”

  “What about the two new tank divisions, sir?”

  Wood scratched his nose and frowned. Yes, what about them? Major General Samuel Rockenbach was organizing two experimental divisions composed almost entirely of steam tanks at Fort Knox, Kentucky. It was a revolutionary idea originated by an English officer named Fuller which had caught the attention of Roosevelt and Secretary of War Henry Stimson. Instead of infantry regiments with a few battalions of supporting tanks as was the norm in most divisions, these would have tank regiments with just a few battalions of infantry in trucks. Even the artillery would be carried in armored tractors. Wood had his doubts about the utility of the divisions considering the mechanical unreliability of the tanks, but perhaps they could be effective.

  “I think we’ll keep those in our back pocket for now. Maybe we can use them when we start our offensives.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay, we’ve got a basic outline here. But we need to find a few corps commanders. Let’s start with the XV Corps, I think we’ll promote Frederick Foltz and give that to him…”

  They worked for another hour and made some good progress. Then, when they were both yawning, Wood sent Drum home to his wife, who was expecting, promising that he’d be going home himself soon. He organized their notes and left them on Semancik’s desk, who he’d sent home hours earlier, for him to put into a formal set of orders in the morning. He was about to do the same and surprise his wife by being there before midnight for a change, but his eye caught sight of a stack of letters in the in-basket and couldn’t resist paging through them - just to get a jump on tomorrow’s work, of course.

  He glanced at a few and then took them all back to his desk. These must have arrived from the mail room just before Semancik left because his aide was very good at sorting out the important items from the frivolous - and these clearly hadn’t been sorted. Wood had wondered, from time to time, just what he wasn’t seeing. A chance to find out. There were a half-dozen requests from rich or important people asking that sons or grandsons or nephews be given safe postings in the army’s rear area. There were easily twice that many from rich or important people from the occupied states demanding to know when they could go home - one insisting that the army be careful not to destroy any of his property in the process - and several suggesting that sons or grandsons or nephews deserved promotions or medals. He could see why none of these ever reached his desk. His respect for Semancik - always high - rose another notch.

  But then one letter, clearly written in a woman’s hand, caught his eye. It asked – begged - for news of her only son, who had been part of 1st Army’s V Corps during last year’s disaster. She’d heard nothing from him and the Personnel Bureau could only tell her that he was ‘missing’. Surely the Chief of Staff could tell her where he was? Wood had just spent part of the evening reorganizing the V Corps, but he knew full well this woman’s son wasn’t there anymore. He’d almost certainly died with the rest of the corps in North Dakota. He sat and stared at it for a long time. How many other letters like this had Semancik intercepted? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  Sighing deeply, he paged through the rest of the stack. Here was a letter from that Goddard fellow who had designed the new rocket launchers. He had ideas for larger rockets which could replace conventional heavy artillery. But he didn’t think he was getting sufficient support from the Ordnance Department, was there anything Wood could do? Here was another letter from that blasted William Mitchell! Demanding more bombers again, of course. Damn it, hadn’t that reprimand for going direct to Roosevelt taught him anything? What was he going to do with him? Maybe I will send him to the Aleutians!

  Near the bottom of the pile was the weekly plea from Funston for more troops. Or at least he assumed it was weekly. Perhaps they came every day and Semancik filed the rest. But they were all the same: Funston needed more tanks, more heavy artillery, more trained men - especially tank officers, and more supplies. Wood truly wished he could give Freddy what he needed, but he couldn’t. Not only was the material needed more urgently on the Mississippi Line, but the hard truth was that even if he sent two or three times as much to Texas, it wouldn’t make any difference. Texas was free only because the Martians hadn’t decided to conquer it yet. Once they did, it was doomed.

  There was an old military maxim: reinforce success, not defeat. Every tank and gun he sent there would probably end up wasted. How could he justify it? The war would be won by the deliberate offensives he was now planning - not by trying to hang on to… what did Funston’s aide call it? A forlorn hope?

  But enough of this. Time to get home. It was nearly midnight - again. He was putting the papers back in order, in hopes Semancik wouldn’t notice, when he heard someone in the outer office. Who could it be at this hour? The cleaning staff knew to wait until after he was gone to come in. “Yes?” he called. “Who’s there?”

  The door opened and a tall young man in a captain’s uniform walked in and saluted. “General, I’m George Patton.”

  Wood looked closer and saw that the right side of his face was scarred and a black eyepatch covered the eye on that side. He’d been a handsome fellow before whatever had caused that. Heat ray survivor probably… “What in the world are you doing here, son? It’s almost midnight!”

  “I’ve been trying to see you for weeks, sir, but I can’t get an appointment. I’d heard you sometimes work late and I thought I’d take a chance to see if I could catch you here without an army of damn clerks and secretaries blocking my path!”

  A man with initiative… “All right, so you’ve caught me. What can I do for you, Captain?”

  “I want an assignment, sir. I was wounded at Santa Fe and the goddamn surgeons won’t clear me for active duty. That was a year and a half ago, sir! I’m fine! I was in tanks, sir, and I when I heard about the new tank divisions I went to see General Rockenbach, but he wouldn’t take me without the surgeon’s okay. I mean it’s true I was down with pneumonia two or three times after I was wounded, but I’m all over that now. Please, sir! I need to get back into the fight against those goddamn…” Patton cut loose with a stream of profanity against the Martians that shocked even an old veteran like Wood.

  “Calm down, Captain.”

  Patton got hold of himself. “Sorry, sir. I just want to fight, sir.”

  “I can see that, son. I don’t suppose you’d accept a light duty assignment…”

  “I’ve been on light duty, sir! You don’t think I’ve just been sitting on my ass all this time, do you?” Despite Patton’s impressive size, his voice was surprisingly high-pitched. Right now it was getting very high-pitched.

  “No, no, of course not. But you want a combat posting, eh?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “And you know tanks…”

  “Inside and out!”

  Wood looked at the sheaf of papers in his hands and flipped through them until he found the ones he wanted. Goddard… Mitchell… Funston… maybe I can kill four birds with one stone here. He stood up from his desk and looked Patton in his eye.

  “Then I think I can help you out, Captain. Ever been to Texas?”

  Chapter Five

  December, 1911, Eddystone, Pennsylvania

  “I sure hope this goes better than yesterday, sir,” said Lieutenant Jeremiah Hornbaker.

  “Amen to that,” replied Colonel Andrew Comstock. He glanced over to where Generals Crozier and Hawthorne - his bosses - were talking with John Schmidt of the Baldwin Company. They were all perched atop the USLI-001, the first army land ir
onclad. No one had agreed on a name for them yet. A cold December wind was flapping the skirts of their greatcoats and a few flakes of snow drifted by. There were still no guns or upper works on the immense vehicle, but everything else had been completed, including a screw-propeller and rudder for when the thing took to the water.

  Which it was about to do.

  They were parked at the upper end of a concrete ramp which led down into the Delaware River. Waiting for them in the water was a large U-shaped hull, held in position by cables and a pair of small tug boats. If all went well, the USLI-001 would drive down the ramp and into the open end of the ‘U’ where it would be secured in place. If all the calculations of the engineers were correct, then the land ironclad would transform itself into a sea-going (or at least a river-going) ironclad. It would be able to float. It would then sail under its own power up the river to the William Cramp & Sons shipyard in Philadelphia where the guns and upper works would be installed. There were five more of the ironclads being finished up in the Baldwin works, and if all went well today, they would follow along. Crozier and Hawthorne had come from Washington to see it happen.

  But they had also been at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds to see the test firing of the Little David’s twelve-inch gun the day before, and as Hornbaker had just reminded him, that had not gone well. Oh, the gun had performed spectacularly, going off with a huge roar and a blast of flame and smoke, and the shell had blown the target to very small pieces. The recoil mechanism on the gun had transferred the force to the vehicle, just as it was designed to do, lifting the front wheels completely off the ground.

  That should have warned him.

  Several more shots were fired and the generals were very pleased. But then Crozier wanted to see the thing move around a bit and fire some more. All went well until it tried to fire with the turret pointing to the left. This time the recoil lifted the wheels on the left side off the ground—way off the ground. Up and up and three seconds later, the Little David was lying on its side with the gun pointing straight up in the air. Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt. Andrew checked his watch. If they’d gotten the crane out to the firing range as they’d promised, the damn contraption ought to be upright again by now.