Counterattack

by Scott H Washburn

  The early morning light was streaming in the windows of Roosevelt’s office in the White House. His son and aide, Archie, came in bearing a tray with a coffee pot and cups. The President filled one and walked over to one of the maps which hung on the walls. “Defense Plan M, that’s the one that calls for concentrating everything inside the defensive works around Memphis, is it not?”

  “Yes,” said Wood, once again amazed by Roosevelt’s memory. There were dozens and dozens of different plans for all the sections along the line; Wood, himself couldn’t keep them all straight. “In recent weeks, MacArthur was becoming highly critical of it and kept asking for more and more materiel so he could take a more aggressive posture. But now he’s fallen back on it.”

  “And the Martians are across the river, Leonard?” His finger touched a spot north of Memphis on the map. “I thought we had enough troops guarding that area.”

  “We had hoped that there would be, but we had to make our plans based on calculated risk. We couldn’t possibly have enough troops everywhere, so we put what we hoped would be enough to hold until reinforcements arrived. We had the 29th Division in that area, but apparently MacArthur stripped a brigade away to reinforce West Memphis when the Martians made an attack there. What was left couldn’t hold long enough.”

  “And he did that without clearing it with you?” Wood nodded. “Damnation! It’s like Funston all over again! This could be our worst nightmare!”

  “Well, the worst would be for them to get across and build a fortress on the eastern side. A raid, while bad, would not be a complete disaster so long as we can drive them back across the river.”

  “And can we?”

  “We are certainly going to try. I’ve ordered Dickman to send everything he can to the Memphis area. The 2nd Tank Division is in Jackson, they will be moving within the hour, although I doubt they’ll be able to de-train and get into action before tomorrow.” He came over beside Roosevelt and traced his finger along the railroad from Jackson to Memphis. “And Clopton’s land ironclads are coming up river. They’re somewhere around here, a hundred miles or so from Memphis. I’ve ordered them directly there.”

  “Good… good. If we can hit the rapscallions hard, maybe we can drive them back.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping.”

  Roosevelt frowned. “But what about MacArthur? Why isn’t he answering us? Do you think there’s something wrong - beyond the obvious, I mean?”

  Wood shook his head. “I don’t know. When he was head of my staff, he would draw up plans - good plans - but he would act as if they were immutable, like the results were set in stone and were bound to happen just as he’d intended. If anything happened to mess them up, sometimes he would go into a funk. Get all quiet and moody. I was never sure if it was just pique on being forced to change his plans or… or if it was something else. It didn’t happen often, but almost always for big things.”

  “We can hardly afford to have him in a funk right now. He was my military aide for a few months when I first became President and he seemed steady enough then, but that was ten years ago. Do you think he should be replaced?”

  “I’m going to order Dickman at 3rd Army to go have a look, but it will take him a while to get there. And I’m sure he’ll be reluctant to take any drastic steps in the middle of a battle. MacArthur’s got some good subordinates there. Let’s hope they can take up the load until… until he’s no longer ‘indisposed’.”

  “I suppose you’re right. We can’t try and fight the battle from here.”

  “No, battles are fought and won by the men who are there where it’s happening.”

  * * * * *

  July, 1912, West Memphis, Arkansas

  “Come on! Move it! Move it!” Captain Frank Dolfen stood in his stirrups and tried to see what was holding up the column. All he could see was a solid line of troops and trucks jamming the sole bridge across the Mississippi. It was mid-morning and the battle was still raging. Battles, he should say, for there were two fights going on now. The first one, which was in its second day, was the fight around West Memphis; but everyone realized it had just been a diversion, a feint to draw strength away from where the real attack would come.

  That was the attack he and the 5th had discovered last night. A huge force of tripods, pulling boats and swarms of the spider-machines all heading for a crossing point north of the city. They had sent the warning back by radio and that had drawn a dozen of the tripods down on them. Both regiments of cavalry had beat a hasty retreat back to the defenses of West Memphis. Dolfen didn’t think they’d gotten hurt too badly, and somehow he’d managed to get his own squadron to safety more or less intact. The rest of the regiment had been more badly scattered.

  They had barely been given time to catch their breath before the word reached them that the enemy had gotten across the river and was threatening Memphis from the north. The cavalry had been ordered to cross the bridge and get up there to do what it could. Unfortunately several brigades of infantry along with battalions of steam tanks and batteries of guns had been given the same order and there was only the one bridge.

  Somehow, Dolfen had gotten 1st Squadron reformed and up to the approaches to the bridge ahead of most of the other troops, but it had still been a colossal traffic jam; and now, three hours after dawn, they were just starting to cross.

  The column lurched into motion and they made it about halfway across before halting again. From the bridge, he could look to the north. There was a lot of smoke in that direction, but it still seemed pretty far off. Maybe the enemy wasn’t in the city yet. The noise of the guns was all around and he couldn’t tell if there was any noise coming from the north. In truth, ever since that explosion at Little Rock, his hearing wasn’t as good as it used to be. And where was Becca in all this? Was she with her sharpshooters or back at the hospital? The hospital was on the north side of the city. He couldn’t believe that in the midst of all that was happening, he was worrying about that girl - but he was.

  There were dozens of boats, big and small, in the river below him. Some were heading north, but others were going south. He noted one coming down river which had smoke drifting off it from a dozen wounds. A navy warship, and it had clearly gotten the worst of a fight. The river was filled with floating wreckage, bits of wood, boxes, life rings… bodies. Yes, there were a few floating bodies, too.

  “Navy couldn’t stop ‘em, I guess,” said Lieutenant Lynnebrook.

  “But it looks like they tried.”

  They started moving again, and to Dolfen’s amazement, they actually reached the other side where provost officers shouted at them to keep going. Dolfen had lost all contact with Colonel Schumacher so he just picked a street going north and urged his men along it. They were all tired, but there was no stopping now. The Martians were trying to break into the city.

  And they were going to stop them.

  * * * * *

  July, 1912, somewhere along the Mississippi

  Drew Harding’s feet touched something solid and he opened his eyes. Bright sunshine dazzled him, but he saw something large and dark stretching out before him. After a moment he realized it was the river bank. With the sun in his eyes, as it was, it had to be the east shore. Thank God. The last he remembered, he was trying to reach the east shore. That was after… after…

  After the USS Santa Fe blew up and sank.

  My ship. I lost my ship.

  The thought was numbing. Every captain’s nightmare.

  Those spider-machines. It had been them. Not even one of the tripods. They had collided with something, he remembered that. It must have been one of the rafts full of the spiders. They hadn’t seen it in all the smoke and confusion. And then the things were everywhere. With Santa Fe’s low freeboard, they could climb aboard easily. They’d killed poor Alby and knocked Drew into the river. Hurt his shoulder. It was so painful, he couldn’t use the arm at all; he’d have gone right to the bottom if he hadn’t been wearing a life jacket. He’d bumped into some piec
e of drifting wreckage and clung to it.

  When he looked back at his ship, he’d seen that the spiders had small heat rays and they were burning their way inside. The current took him farther and farther away, so he couldn’t see much more, but then the ship exploded. One of the things must have gotten into the magazine. She broke in half and went down.

  Then the river took him around the bend and out of sight of the fighting. He was nearly run down by the arrival of the rest of Commodore Rush’s command surging up the river at full speed. He’d shouted and tried to wave with his good arm, but no one had seen him. Or they hadn’t tried to help if they had.

  He had kicked his legs and paddled as best he could toward the eastern shore, but he never seemed to get any closer. He kept trying until he was exhausted. At last he saw what he thought was the entrance to the Wolf River, that little channel which cut off the swampy island he’d been curious about earlier. He’d used his last strength trying to get into that, and looking around now, it seemed like he’d succeeded.

  His feet touched the bottom again and he tried to stand. But there was no strength in his legs. All he could manage was to use his legs to push himself the rest of the way to shore. He abandoned the faithful bit of flotsam and dragged his sodden body up out of the water and collapsed on the muddy bank. The pain in his shoulder, which had subsided to a dull ache, returned full force and he groaned.

  After hours in the water, he was chilled to the bone, but the bright morning sunshine beat down on his dark uniform, warming him. He tried dragging himself farther up the bank but made little progress. Then he heard some shouts and strong hands grabbed him and turned him over.

  “Yeah, he’s alive! Navy guy - an officer, too! Get the stretcher!”

  * * * * *

  July, 1912, Memphis, Tennessee

  “Becca! What are you doing here?”

  Becca Harding turned at the sound of the familiar voice. There was Miss Chumley, the chief nurse of the hospital. In spite of the cloud they’d parted under when she’d told her she was choosing the sharpshooters over her nursing duties, she smiled when she saw the woman. Chumley had been very kind to her over the years and she still thought of her as a friend.

  “Hello, ma’am. We were pulled out of our position along the river and sent up to the northern defenses. They shifted us around two or three times and then an officer told us to come back here an’ guard the hospital. I’m sorta surprised you’re all still here.”

  “We’ve been told to be ready to evacuate twice now, but we’ve gotten no orders to do anything. I’ve been getting the ambulances ready, just in case.”

  “Well, you’ve got thirty armed sharpshooters to make sure no one troubles you, ma’am.” Her girls were marching up behind her; tired, but still enthusiastic, now that things were actually happening.

  “Good, good. I hope we don’t need you, but you remember the chaos when we pulled out of Gallup and again at Santa Fe. Pray God we won’t have to do that again, but if we do, I’ll be glad to have you around, Becca.”

  Yes, those had been real messes. At Gallup she’d been forced to draw her pistol to keep some men from stealing a wagon she needed to transport the wounded.

  Chumley gave her an odd look. “And if you do have a spare moment, I’m sure we can find some work at your old job, Becca. We’ve gotten quite a lot of wounded here from the fight across the river. They’re not sending us any more from there, but now we’re starting to get men coming down from the north.” She looked in that direction where the rumble of artillery was getting louder by the minute.

  “Uh, we’ll see, ma’am. I’m in charge of the sharpshooters now and I have responsibilities.” For a moment she thought Chumley was going to remind her of the responsibilities here that she’d abandoned, but the older woman refrained and just nodded.

  “I understand. Well, I’m glad you’re here, Becca. I have to get back to work.” Chumley turned and walked quickly back to one of the tents.

  Becca had been leading Ninny, and when Moses came up with the wagon, she turned the horse over to him. She had organized her girls into four squads and she put one on sentry while the other three set up a camp in an open area. While she was getting things organized, she saw Sam Jones come up. The strange, quirky man who had been rescued from the Martian fortress at Gallup was still hanging around the hospital as an orderly. He’d clearly been in the infantry before that, but he’d refused to go back to his unit and was technically a deserter. But no one at the hospital had wanted to make an issue of it and so here he was.

  “Hi, Sam,” she said.

  “Hi, Miss Becca. Looks like you might get that fight you’ve been lookin’ for so long.” He nodded his head in the direction of the gunfire. The man seemed nervous.

  “Yeah, it seems so. What are you gonna do, Sam?”

  He didn’t answer, but his eyes took on that same look as they had when she’s first seen him; a wild animal fear. As near as she could guess, he’d been captured and held with some of his comrades in a cage while the Martians ate them one by one. The attack on the fortress at Gallup, which had come oh, so close to victory, had managed to free him, but he was in mortal terror of ending up like that again. “I’ll… I’ll do what I have to,” he said, finally.

  “Well, take care of yourself, Sam.”

  “You, too.” He turned and left, looking back at her once as he walked away.

  “Was that Sam Jones?” asked Sarah Halberstam, coming up behind her.

  “Yup.”

  “Is he going to be joining up with us?”

  “Nope.”

  “Too bad, he worked so well with us, teaching us the drill.”

  Becca didn’t answer, but Sarah stood in front of her, face worried. “Becca, what are we going to do if the Martians break into the city?”

  She shrugged. “Fight.”

  “How? These rifles won’t hurt one of those tripods and you know it. And we don’t have any of the dynamite bombs or those stovepipe rocket-things like the real soldiers do. If a tripod comes walking up, what are we supposed to do?”

  “I’ve heard that the spider-machines aren’t as tough. That rifles can hurt them. Maybe we can deal with them while the other soldiers take care of the tripods.”

  “None of the other soldiers are even around!” It was true, they’d gotten separated from the militia company they’d been attached to.

  “Then we help evacuate the wounded!” said Becca, growing annoyed. “We do what we can, Sarah. If that’s not good enough for you, then maybe you should go home!” She immediately regretted her words. Sarah had been one of the most dedicated women in the group, making almost every meeting. “Sorry, sorry, I shouldn’t have said that to you.”

  “It’s all right, Becca,” said Sarah, nodding. “All of us, all of us who are still here anyway, want to do something to help. But you’re the one who made this all real, showed us how to do something that matters.” She reached out and squeezed her arm. “Don’t worry, we’ll make you proud.”

  Becca blinked, sniffed, and then nodded. “I know you will.”

  * * * * *

  Cycle 597, 845.2, East of River 3-1

  Finally, across the river! Qetjnegartis felt a distinct sensation of relief. The enormous body of water, which had posed such a strategic puzzle for so long, was behind them at last.

  The challenge now is to stay here.

  Yes, that was the next task. They were across the river and had done so with only moderate losses. Forty-seven fighting machines and two hundred and thirty drones had been destroyed or crippled or lost in the river while smashing through the defenses along the river bank or dealing with the group of water vessels which had attacked in the midst of the crossing. But it could have been far worse. A much more powerful water force had arrived, but only after the crossing was complete. Qetjnegartis had not tarried to fight those when there was no need. It had ordered its forces away from the river, southeast to strike the city, away from any interference from the river craf
t.

  A large area of very dense vegetation lay off to the west along the river, and many of the prey-creatures who had held the defenses had fled there, but it was so dense it seemed unlikely that the enemy’s armored gun vehicles could operate there. So the right flank was secure. To the east and south, the country was far more open, with crop lands and small habitation centers and roadways. They would have to be wary of possible attacks from those directions. The plan was to penetrate into the city as quickly as possible and use the enemy’s own defenses to guard the rear.

  The city was about ten telequel away and Qetjnegartis had dispatched a force of the fast fighting machines to scout ahead. They were reporting only a scattering of enemy forces, which they were destroying or driving off with ease. The main force with the slower-moving drones was following as quickly as possible. Qetjnegartis would have preferred to probe the enemy defense lines and then launch the main attack after nightfall, but there was no time for that. The attack must be made immediately.

  As they got closer to the city, the projectiles from the prey-creatures’ long range weapons started to fall more frequently. It appeared that the diversion and sudden crossing of the river had achieved the surprise that had been hoped for, but that surprise was now wearing off. The enemy was reorganizing and responding more forcefully. Some of the fire was coming from the vessels on the river, even though they had no direct line of sight. So far, most of the projectiles were doing no damage, but it expected that to change once they got closer to the defensive lines. Reports from the failed attack at City 3-4 indicated that the prey-creatures were becoming increasingly sophisticated and had devised a system where they could direct fire from widely separated weapons against a specific target many telequel away.