Counterattack

by Scott H Washburn

  “Morning, gentlemen,” he said. “A very early good morning! So they’re here? Show me the situation.”

  Pershing opened his mouth to say something, but then thought better of it and turned to Foltz. Yes, this was his command and he knew it better than anyone. Pershing looked like he hadn’t been out of bed much longer than Wood, while Foltz looked like he hadn’t been to bed at all. He stepped forward. “We have reports of the scout tripods all along our lines from the town of Drew, here on the Missouri, down to Fenton, about halfway to the Mississippi.” Foltz used a pointer to trace along the defense lines from northwest to southeast. “The reports started first at Drew and then spread down the line, so it appears the bulk of them are following along the west bank of the Missouri. It’s just probes so far for the most part. When we send up flares and try to range in the artillery, they pull back out of the light for a while and then try again at another point. They are clearly scouting out our defenses, sir.” While the general was talking, a captain on his staff was sticking small red flags on pins into the map.

  Wood checked the time and saw that it was after three. It would start getting light in a few hours. “Well, good, if they don’t make a major push until daylight, it will be to our advantage. How are you responding?”

  “Until they commit themselves, I don’t intend to move our reserves beyond their forward staging areas, General. The navy is on alert and getting their ships on station. Naturally, all the men are up and anyone not on the front line is being fed. All the fliers are getting their aircraft ready, and as soon as it’s light, they’ll go up and get us a better idea of what we’re facing.”

  “Have there been any reports from anywhere else along the Mississippi?” Wood directed this question at Pershing.

  “No, sir, nothing.”

  “All right, then get your 42nd Division ready to cross the river. Drum, send word to II Corps to shift north to fill the gap.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Pershing. “What about the 1st Tank Division? Can I commit them?”

  “Where would you want them to go?”

  Pershing hesitated. “Until I have a better feel for where the enemy is going to strike, I can’t say. But I’d like their transport ships to get as close to here as they can so there will be as little delay as possible once I do know where.”

  “Makes sense. Drum, see to it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Wood looked over the map again, wondering if there was anything they’d forgotten. “So we wait.”

  So they waited.

  Reports continued to come in, but they were always the same: Martian tripods spotted but then disappearing again as soon as the artillery opened up on them. “They’re trying to spot the location of our guns, sir,” said Colonel Drum.

  “Yes, no doubt. They did the same thing at Albuquerque and apparently at Little Rock and Kansas City.”

  “We’ve kept that in mind, sir,” said Foltz, overhearing. “Every one of our forward field gun batteries has at least two alternate firing positions. Just before dawn I’m going to order those that have fired to shift to their secondary sites. If the Martians try to smother them with their black dust, they’ll hit a deserted location.”

  “Excellent, General,” said Wood. Foltz really had done a fine job here, but Wood wondered just how much of that was his work and how much it was his staff—or oversight by Pershing? He’d have to make some inquiries. As the war went on, the army was going to get even bigger. He was going to need new army commanders and he was toying with the idea of a command level even higher than the army - a group of armies. If Foltz was capable of greater responsibility than a corps, he wanted to know it.

  Orderlies circulated serving coffee, and the hotel’s kitchen was able to supply food for those who wanted it. Wood nibbled on a bacon sandwich; he wasn’t really hungry, but it helped him appear calm in the eyes of his subordinates. Every hour or so he’d check his watch to discover fifteen minutes had gone by. Dawn, he wanted the dawn.

  Around five, the enemy probes started to become more frequent and they spread farther south along the outer line. Assault tripods as well as the scouts were being reported. Soon, the real attack will come soon. Wood got up from his chair to stretch and went over to the east-facing windows. Shading his eyes against the glare from inside, he searched the horizon for a hint of the sun…

  “General!” Wood turned to see Foltz gesturing to him to come over to the map.

  “What’s happening?”

  “We’re getting reports from the 58th of the spider-machines. Here, here, here… and here.” He pointed to four locations along the outer perimeter.

  “Numbers?”

  “Nothing definite yet. A few of the forward outposts have been forced to fall back, but there’s no report of huge numbers.” Foltz hesitated and glanced at Pershing. “I was just about to order the artillery to reposition, sir. Do you think I should go ahead?”

  Wood raised his eyebrows. It was a good question, of course. The appearance of the spiders could presage the main attack, so repositioning the guns would be a smart move. But it would take time, and if the attack came while they were on the move, the 58th might not have its artillery at a critical time. But Foltz shouldn’t be asking Wood—or Pershing for that matter. It was his corps and he should be making the decision. “Do as you think best, General.”

  Foltz hesitated a moment longer and then nodded and turned to an aide. “Tell General Kuhn to go ahead and move his guns.”

  The order was sent off and activity slowed again. Wood went back to the window and was pleased to see a faint streak of pink in the eastern sky. Minute by minute the pink crawled up the sky, but it was turning a deeper shade of red instead of shifting to blue. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning? They didn’t want bad weather, even though rain would cut down the range of the Martian heat rays. They wanted good visibility to…

  “I always hated this part the most,” said a voice from beside him. He turned and saw Pershing standing there. “The waiting. When you knew there would be a fight today, but you had to wait. I just wanted to get on with it.”

  “Yes, like that day outside Santiago in ‘98. Lying there under the Spanish guns for hours! Waiting for someone to give the order to go.”

  Pershing made a sound which might have been a chuckle. “I was just a lieutenant in the 10th, but I remember you and Roosevelt prowling around like caged lions. And when the word finally came, Roosevelt and his Rough Riders were off like a shot.”

  “Theodore has always been a man of action.” Wood fell silent, thinking of those days.

  “And how could any of us have imagined that just fourteen years later we’d be in a war like this?” Pershing shook his head.

  “A simpler time. A different world… when the only enemy you had to worry about were other men.”

  “Yes, sir.” Pershing stood there a moment longer, seemingly lost in his own reminiscences, and then moved away, leaving Wood to stare at the growing dawn. I should send a report to Theodore. He’d surely know that Wood had slipped out of Washington by now and where he had gone. Hardly a day went by when he didn’t stop by Wood’s office, although that had dropped off in the last few weeks since the tragic death of his military aide, Major Archie Butt, who had drowned aboard the RMS Mauretania when it struck an iceberg and sank the previous month with a great loss of life. Butt had been on a diplomatic mission to England, and Roosevelt was in mourning; his usually dynamic energy damped down. He’d bounce back, of course, he always did. Wood remembered his friend in Cuba where he’d weep over the death of one of his beloved Rough Riders and then the next day be out there leading more of them to their deaths. A complex man…

  Wood’s time as an army surgeon had stripped war of every vestige of glory and romance. When he saw men dying of pneumonia or dysentery on a daily basis, in addition to those mangled in actual combat, it gave him a different perspective on life and death. Yes, he mourned those lost and respected those who soldiered on and risked a death
like that, but he’d put it all behind a glass wall to keep the stench of it from driving him mad. If he’d had to mourn each of the hundred thousand men he’d lost in 1910…

  Am I going to lose another hundred thousand this week?

  It could happen. There were no accurate figures on the losses at Kansas City and Little Rock yet, but they could total thirty or forty thousand. This fight for St. Louis could easily cost another sixty thousand - even if we win.

  And if we lose…? If they lost, if the Martians got across the river and began to rampage across the east, the deaths would be in the millions. Well, Leonard, you wanted this job. Now you’ve got to do it.

  He shook his head to clear out those disturbing thoughts and turned away from the window, back to the map. More messages had arrived and Foltz and his staff were pouring over them. Wood walked over to them. “Something new?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Foltz, “we’ve got reports of the spider-machines showing up in the 58th’s rear areas. Not a lot of reports, but some. It appears they are slipping through our lines in the dark.” Foltz frowned. “Our outpost line isn’t continuous, it can’t be with so few troops, but it was designed to spot the tripods, not these smaller machines.”

  “They might not be heavy enough to set off the pit traps we’ve dug, and they probably aren’t as vulnerable to getting stuck in the mud, either,” said Pershing. “Damn, some of my officers had suggested stringing barbed wire like the Russians and Japanese did in their war, but I said no because the tripods would just step right over it. Maybe I was wrong. It might stop these things. Or at least make them reveal themselves breaking through.”

  “The tactics keep evolving,” nodded Wood.

  More reports came in of the spider-machines. Several of the relocating artillery batteries had run into them and one had been routed and the others forced to flee further to the rear, some losing guns in the process. Some of the telegraph and telephone connections to the forward posts were being cut. The 58th was dispatching teams with the stovepipe rocket launchers to try and deal with the intruders. Wood tried to imagine the courage it would take to stalk such things in the dark.

  But it wasn’t all that dark anymore. The sun was not quite up yet, but there was more than enough light to see by. In addition to the rumble of artillery, he could now hear the drone of aircraft. A half-dozen airfields had been built in and around St. Louis, and with the dawn, the airmen were aloft. Some of the larger, multi-engined craft carried radios, and hopefully they would start sending back good information on the enemy’s whereabouts and numbers.

  Runners brought in more messages and one was handed to Foltz with special urgency. “Looks like they’ve stopped their dancing about, sir,” he said after reading it. “A force of at least thirty tripods is attacking the outpost at Drew. Our artillery is hitting them, but they are coming on.” New red flags were appearing on the sand table. After a few more minutes, another outpost farther south along the line reported the same thing. It looked like the main attack was beginning.

  After Wood’s brain surgery two years ago, his doctor had absolutely forbidden him to smoke again. He had obeyed, and for the most part he’d been able to resist the urge with no real problem. But nearly all the men around him were smoking like chimneys and suddenly he wanted a cigarette more than he could ever remember. Rather than give in - or stand there fidgeting - he turned and strode away, down the long penthouse ballroom, his hands clasped behind his back.

  At the far end of the space was another big table which was covered with a more conventional paper map. This was the artillery plotting area. Between the artillery batteries organic to the infantry divisions, the attached corps and army-level batteries, the heavy guns built into the fortifications, and the weapons on the navy ships, there were close to a thousand artillery pieces arrayed for the defense of St. Louis. They were all coordinated from here. The map showed the artillery positions and the whole area was set out with an overlaid grid. The officers here could direct the fire of any gun to any location within its range. The men were very busy, getting reports on potential targets, receiving specific requests for fire, calculating which guns to use, and issuing the firing instructions. As Wood watched them, he heard the rumbles from outside grow louder. More and more guns, which had stood idle during the early skirmishing, were being committed to the fight.

  As he studied their activity, Wood’s admiration for the skill of the men grew. He knew the basic principles of what they were doing, but the actual mechanics of making it work were beyond him. These men were experts and he thanked God they were here. The artillery was their best hope to stop these monsters. The sun was fully up now, and though partially obscured by clouds, light was streaming in the eastern windows.

  “General?” Wood turned and saw that Pershing was there.

  “Yes?”

  “Foltz is going to order the 58th to pull back. They’ve got as many as a hundred and fifty tripods hitting them at six different locations, and if they try to hold any longer, we won’t get any of them back.”

  “All right, carry on.” He followed Black Jack over to the sand table. There were a lot more red flags on it now. Foltz looked up as he approached.

  “Aircraft are reporting several hundred additional tripods massing in this area, near Manchester, sir.” He pointed to the table. “It looks like they are getting ready to do their flying wedge right through the line. My boys can’t hold against that.”

  “No, best get them out of there,” agreed Wood.

  “Yes, sir, I’ll have them fall back to the Donnelson Line northwest of the city. I’m hoping to draw the enemy in that direction. I just hope those damn spiders don’t slow up the withdrawal.” Wood looked at where Foltz was pointing and nodded. If they could get the Martians to hit the secondary line built between the city walls and the Missouri, perhaps they could get them to expend their strength there. Even if they broke through that - and he was sure they would - they would still have to attack the main defenses around St. Louis, itself. But if their line of attack went farther south, they’d hit the walls on the south side of the city and the defenses to the northwest would be wasted.

  “General,” said Pershing, “the 42nd is on the move, they’ll start crossing the river into the city within the hour, although it will take the better part of the day to get them all here. I’d like to start landing the 1st Tank Division at the city docks as well.”

  “That’s where you want to commit them, then? As a central reserve?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Pershing. He straightened up from the table, sighed, and rubbed his chin. “I had been thinking about using them in some grand outflanking movement by landing them down river, behind the enemy positions. Pull off a Cannae or an Austerlitz and get my name in the history books. Mighty alluring, but it just won’t work. Without the docks and the cranes it would take a full day to land just the tanks, and once they were ashore they’d have to drive for miles through all the flooded ground we’ve created just to get into action. We’d lose half of them before they got close enough to shoot. No, I’ve got to play it safe with this.”

  Wood could fully understand Pershing’s frustration. But he was right. To try something bold here might see the whole, very powerful force wasted. “I think you’re right, John. We know the Martians are coming here. Let’s give them a warm welcome.”

  Pershing and Foltz continued to issue orders and receive reports. The 58th Division was being hard pressed, but only in a few spots. Most of the troops and guns were falling back along their pre-planned routes, covered by artillery fire from more distant batteries. Air reconnaissance reported that things were very bad in those spots where the Martians were concentrating and losses were heavy there, the enemy advancing faster than the troops could retreat. But the aircraft were also reporting that significant numbers of tripods were blundering into swampy ground and getting stuck when they tried to pursue soldiers who fled off the roads. Artillery was zeroed in on the immobilized Martians, and a number of machin
es had been destroyed.

  The morning dragged by and the blue flags from the forward lines moved back toward the Donnelson Line while several thick concentrations of red flags headed in the same direction. Toward noon, Wood and the other generals were becoming concerned that one large mass of red was drifting eastward toward the southern section of the city walls; but then fire from gunboats on the Meramec River started hitting them from the rear, and more ships on the Mississippi joined in, causing the Martians to veer westward again toward the Donnelson Line where they wanted them to go. They all breathed easier.

  Noon came and Wood forced himself to eat something, although he had no appetite at all. As he chewed on a sandwich, he noticed a new officer arrive who almost immediately started arguing with Pershing. He recognized him as General Mason Patrick, the commander of the air forces in the St. Louis area. Wood got up and went over to the pair.

  “General, my men are champing at the bit!” said Patrick.

  “They’re just going to have to champ a bit longer, Mase,” replied Pershing. “They are doing a fantastic job with the reconnaissance and artillery spotting, but I’m not going to commit your bombers and attack aircraft until the right moment.”

  “But dammit, sir, there are hundreds of targets out there right now!”

  Wood came up and both men turned to face him. “So, General Patrick, your men want to fight?”

  “Yes, sir! We’ve been training for months, but except for dumping load after load of bombs on dirt mounds, we haven’t been allowed to do anything!”

  Wood bounced slightly on his heels and clasped his hands behind his back. “General, I can guarantee you that your men will be allowed to fight - and very soon. This battle has barely begun, and we are going to need every man to win it.”

  “But sir…”

  “However, General Pershing is correct: the moment is not quite here. We all know how brave your men are, and the terrible losses they endure when directly attacking the tripods. We can’t afford to waste them in random attacks. Use your bombers certainly - from a safe altitude - but the low-level attacks, they are the most effective and the most costly. We must save them for the proper moment: when the enemy is most concentrated and already heavily engaged with our ground forces. Patience, General, patience.”