River of Bones

by Taylor Anderson

  He’d experienced a great deal of training—good training, he thought—but had never actually participated in battle. Nor had Seech, the rest of Slasher’s warriors, or any of the rest floating nearby. Having seen ordinary Uul warriors at battle play, he knew his were better, more capable, and much better armed. But the enemy was obviously better as well, or they wouldn’t be here, and his kind wouldn’t exist. More telling, all the new training was based on relatively old information, gathered and taught by the few veterans of the early India campaigns that had been sent home. The trainers, wizened warriors, elevated to Hij themselves, were confident Jash’s generation could match what they’d seen of the enemy.

  But surely if we have progressed, so have they, Jash reflected, again contemplating the strange feelings that stirred within him. If there was a word for those feelings in the Ghaarrichk’k tongue, which seemed to combine something akin to anticipation for a meal long deferred with what he’d imagined those in the collided galleys, tossed in the deadly water, must have felt, he’d never learned it. It bothered him.

  A little more than a hundred galleys, modified in a similar fashion to his, were clustered along the south bank of the river. There were others, apparently unmodified as well, crewed by ordinary Uul warriors, and he wondered what they were for. They’d be armed in the usual way, with crossbows, spears, and swords, and couldn’t be good for much, he thought. And it irked him that their more traditional commanders actually looked down on the New Army and the way they’d been taught to fight. They’ve proven how useless they are often enough, he thought with a touch of bitterness. Maybe they’re just . . . numbers, to draw fire from us. As mindless as they are, they’re liable to be more of a hindrance than a help. He put it out of his head.

  None of the galleys could ground themselves here—the shore was too rocky and steep—so all their crews were condemned to spend another night afloat in the increasingly foul little vessels. Most Ka’tans didn’t care if their troops relieved themselves in the bilge, or even on the benches where they sat, and the reeking miasma that resulted was overpowering. Jash had ordered his warriors to squat over the side, but that helped only a little. The sides, the oars, even the railing in many places, was streaked with dark, reeking excrement. And many of his warriors tended to keep bones and steadily riper portions of their rations for snacks, in any event. And those rations were no longer composed of foodbeasts, preserved for the stalled offensive. That was already gone. Rations now consisted of Uul inhabitants of New Sofesshk, injured or killed in the bombings, brought aboard from barges that came alongside. Some even staggered or crawled aboard under their own power, “supplying” themselves to the troops.

  Jash understood this was not unusual. The Race had always fed on itself when necessary. But he was too young to remember when such was more commonplace and, despite his opinion of the quality of Uul warriors, the notion conflicted with the training he was raised with: that all troops had value beyond mere absorbers of projectiles and rations for the survivors. If that was true, couldn’t the same value apply to Uul laborers and factory workers that kept the army equipped and supplied? That bothered him also in a vague, ill-defined way. And even more disquieting were the increasing numbers of Hij, already slaughtered, that were brought to the ships. Despite being skinned, they were easily discernible by the layer of sweet fat, soft flesh, and, yes, better taste. There weren’t that many, but more, proportionately, than should be expected—if they were all coming from New Sofesshk. That meant some had to be coming from the older city. Probably the enemy had finally begun bombing it more diligently—something he’d expected, but couldn’t possibly tell from where the galleys were gathered. But none of the Hij carcasses were torn or burned in ways they’d come to expect from those destroyed by bombs. It was strange.

  “There you are,” Seech said, approaching from aft. He tore a final morsel of flesh from what looked like a lower-leg bone, then tossed the bone in the water. He nodded back at Slasher’s complement, most already asleep on the benches. “You should rest. It will soon be dawn.”

  “I cannot,” Jash admitted. “I feel . . . anxious.”

  Seech jerked his head diagonally. “Indeed. There will be a fine feed tomorrow, after we force the bend.”

  “Yes,” Jash agreed neutrally, wondering if it would be they who were sated or the monsters in the river. The water here was choked with them now, gathering to the carrion of the sunken greatships. “All should be well,” he said, gesturing at the ten or more cruisers gathered in the gloom. The moon had fallen from the sky, but swirling sparks rising from their funnels lit them enough to mark their places. Invisible beyond the cruisers were more galleys, countless numbers of them, poised to exploit the expected breakthrough. More distant sparks rose from the menacing form of Giorsh, which, along with others of her stupendous kind, were moored in the midst of the galleys to protect them from the air.

  “Rest,” Seech urged again. “We are supposed to begin the attack as soon as color can be seen, but I doubt it will happen that early. The plan is complicated and much must be coordinated. That is difficult enough for us, but”—he hissed at a galley full of ordinary Uul nearby—“probably impossible with the likes of them among us.”

  “You are right,” Jash agreed, “but the attack may commence as scheduled, regardless of the confusion. Our Lord Regent Champion Esshk himself will be watching from Giorsh. No doubt any who hesitate will be destroyed.” He considered. “The pounce may come a bit late, perhaps even late enough to spoil the surprise, but we will finally see what our army is made of at some point tomorrow.” He glanced at Seech’s barely discernible form. “We will at last discover what we are made of.”

  CHAPTER 14

  ////// USS Santa Catalina

  Zambezi River

  Grik Africa

  December 7, 1944

  Dawn flared in two directions that morning. Just as the sun cast its red-orange glare over the horizon to the east, promising another hot, humid day, more light of a similar color flashed and rippled on the other side of the bend. The rays of that dawn were shrouded in fog and fat columns of smoke, however, as dozens, then hundreds, of rockets soared over the rocky hump.

  Russ Chappelle and Mikey Monk had been drinking “monkey joe” on the starboard bridgewing. Real coffee had been discovered on Madagascar—they’d even tasted it—but they didn’t have any, and were lamenting the fact that all they had was the ersatz green-foam substitute they’d been drinking for two years. Meanwhile, they watched and waited, staring at the hazy, slowly brightening wreckage-choked pass. The significance of the date and the fact their life of total war had begun three years earlier, to the day, had been edged out by more pressing concerns. The river seemed to generate a low-lying sunrise fog for an hour or so every day, and visibility would worsen before the fog burned off. That’s when the barrage suddenly began, and both were startled badly enough that, for a moment, they stood immobile.

  The rockets themselves were no surprise; they’d expected them, and Russ had edged Santy Cat and Felts slightly farther back from their blocking positions than usual. The boats from Arracca hadn’t come, and they’d steamed through the night, dead slow, screws turning just fast enough to maintain steerageway and hold their positions against the current. That used little fuel and had become routine. The extra distance was because, though the rockets could still reach them, targeting was spottier at longer ranges, particularly since their crews had to rely on instructions passed from observers. That the enemy had grasped that concept and could employ it fairly effectively was disconcerting enough, for various reasons, but what shocked them now was the sheer, utterly unexpected volume of fire that arced in from the invisible batteries and began exploding around where Santa Catalina usually lay.

  More flashes lit the morning, expelling clouds of shrapnel that flailed the river over a wide area. Except for a few bangs and rattles of spent shards striking the ship, the greater percent
age of the rockets were ineffective. Some continued on, however, reaching farther, and that snapped Chappelle’s and Monk’s reverie. Both slammed their cups on the rail and dashed into the pilothouse, Russ already shouting, “Ahead full. Left full rudder. Sound general quarters!” The EOT clattered, and the talker turned the switch on the comm circuit to Shipwide and whipped the striker in the alarm bell beside the mouthpiece, sending a frantic clanging through the ship.

  Already underway, Santy Cat almost immediately began to turn, but it would be several minutes before her speed picked up. Meanwhile, rocket warheads started pounding her or exploding nearby and lashing her with iron. Gun’s crews were cut down as they ran to their posts and grass-stuffed mattresses were blown away from stanchions. Gooseneck vents were toppled or filled with holes. A few fragments even whirred through the pilothouse, but no one was hit by anything large or fast. A few might’ve been struck by flying glass, shaken from the broken window frames. A quick-thinking ’Cat had slammed the battle shutters down, and that might’ve saved them. The shutters, intended only as splinter shields, would become large secondary projectiles if struck by a heavy gun, but were ideal for this sort of thing.

  The ship’s big screw bit deeper, and between that and the current, she quickly gathered speed as she headed downriver. A few more rockets hit the ship aft, one even penetrating to the dining salon, shredding the ornate tapestries and splintering the long table and many of the new chairs around it. A fire got started in the nearby officers’ galley, but was quickly extinguished. Finally, the hits grew less frequent as the range increased and the volume dropped off.

  “Son of a bitch!” Monk exclaimed, sucking a cut on the back of his hand. They heard the rumble of engines as some of Arracca’s planes passed overhead, commencing their morning recon—and attacks on targets of opportunity.

  Russ wondered what their pilots thought of what they’d just seen—and what they’d report when they could see around the bend. “They’re gonna pull something,” he said with utter certainty. “Why hammer us like that, except to push us away—which worked,” he added bitterly. “We should’ve just ridden it out. Bring us about,” he told the ’Cat at the wheel.

  “They’s lotsa guys down on deck,” the talker informed him. “Gun’s crews on the staar-board quarter was nearly wiped out! Corps-’Cats are on the way.”

  “Ask Major Gutfeld to send more Marines to the guns and then report to the bridge. I think it’s gonna be a busy day.”

  “Ay, ay,” the talker agreed, then narrowed her eyes at what she heard through the earpiece held against her head beneath her helmet. “Sur!” she added urgently. “Lookout says a Grik cruiser is barrelin’ through the gaap right now! An’ Pee-Oh Naara-Raan says Felts is signaalin’ that our planes see more where thaat one came from, all lined up. The planes’re gonna hit ’em, but it looks like the enemy’s maassin’ for a major at-taack.”

  Russ raised his binoculars, unable to really see. There was no wind, and the smoke from the rockets and their warheads still hung thick, joining the fog. The scout planes could see fine, however. “Very well. Have Naara signal Felts to send to Arracca: We’re moving as close to the choke point as we can, to hammer the enemy as they come through. Maybe that’ll make ’em lay off the rockets too, afraid they’ll hit their own.” He paused. “We’d appreciate as much air support as Arracca can give us. This might be the day for a maximum effort on her part.” Russ looked at Monk. “I guess this is it. With the auxiliary conn knocked out, I want you in the steering-engine room. Make sure you detail a relay to call down course corrections in case comm goes down too.”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper.” Monk hurried out, calling, “You be careful, sir,” behind him.

  Major Gutfeld arrived on the bridge just as Santa Catalina’s course steadied, aiming her back at the channel blockage. “I’d say ‘good morning,’ sir, but . . .” He shrugged.

  “Yeah. What a crappy way to start the day.”

  Two cruisers had made it through the channel and begun to spread out. A third was already picking its way through before Santy Cat passed her initial blocking position. Russ could see them now: Azuma-class ironclads. The first they’d encountered in Indiaa were about 300 feet long, around 3,800 tons, and armed with twenty forty-pounder guns. Even though Allied steam frigate DDs only protected their engineering spaces with armor, they carried better, heavier fifty-pounders, not to mention more reliable engines, and the two had been considered a fairly even match. These CAs incorporated many of the improvements seen on Kurokawa’s, however. Their auxiliary sail capacity was much reduced, implying better engines and possibly improved antiair capability as well. They also carried fourteen fifty-pounders, and a short hundred-pounder in the bows, on a pivoting truck. Russ expected the upgrades were based on designs Kurokawa left before his temporary break with the Grik, but it didn’t much matter. They were more than a match for Felts now, and even Santa Catalina if they got close enough. The problem was, with little sea room and a fixed position to defend, this fight was starting out at fewer than two thousand yards, far closer than Russ would’ve preferred. Santy Cat had to get some hard licks in, very quickly, and her powerful 5.5″ rifles commenced firing first.

  Two shells from the portside battery shrieked out and stabbed the cruiser veering right, and two more lashed out to starboard. The forward 4.7″s barked at the enemy still in the cluttered channel, and the 4″-50s just aft of the bridge boomed past the pilothouse, deafening those inside. Plates whirled away from the cruiser to the left, joined by a gush of steam, but the cruisers quickly replied with their own heavy guns, just as another salvo of rockets streaked in. Most of the big roundshot kicked up huge splashes short of the mark, but Santa Catalina staggered from several impacts, and her exposed gunners were flailed by rocket fragments. The 4″-50s and 4.7″s commenced rapid fire, sending salvo after salvo at their targets. The 5.5″s were “bag guns,” slower to load, but they fired again within twenty seconds, punishing the maneuvering cruisers. The one on the left wasn’t actually maneuvering anymore. Bleeding steam, it twisted with the current, wracked by secondary explosions. Felts had moved up alongside Santa Catalina and now turned to port, loosing a broadside of fifty-pounders into the drifting wreck, now less than 1,200 yards away. The cruiser in the channel finally slipped through the debris, however, firing one of her big forward guns. The round deeply creased Santa Catalina’s bow and ricocheted—almost hitting Felts in the stern.

  “Tell Felts to stay back, damn it!” Russ snapped at a signal-’Cat, suddenly furious with himself that he hadn’t just sent her—and the wounded she’d put aboard his ship—out to Arracca the night before. He’d thought he needed her for her shallow draft, but the way this fight was shaping up . . . “She’s too beat up for this and has two crews on board!” he added. Another salvo hammered the cruiser to starboard, blowing away its foremast and funnel. Sparks spewed and smoke gushed low over the gundeck. Bright red flashes followed the smoke across the deck, and the ship suddenly blew up. Shattered fragments spewed across the water. Felts had obeyed and was turning away, but not before the cruiser to port was a helpless, settling wreck. The third cruiser fired again, however, the shot crunching deep into Santy Cat’s bow, and behind it, a fourth Grik Cruiser was threading through the wreckage. “And signal Felts to tell Commodore Tassanna that now would be a fine time for some help from the air. We might even plug the last gap that big ships can pass if she can sink something in it.” Where is Arracca’s airstrike? he asked himself. We need it now!

  The third cruiser, already battered, turned right, exposing its fourteen fifty-pounders, just as the fourth ship fired its heavy bow gun and yet another deluge of rockets swamped the area. Most of the rockets went long this time, but a hundred-pounder and maybe half the fifty-pounders pummeled Santy Cat hard. Now at less than a thousand yards, many punched through. Probably only the armor bolted over her engineering spaces saved her from a fatal wound. Two hits right behind the
pilothouse almost knocked the bridge watch off their feet, and there were screams aft, from the radio shack, where EMs and signal-’Cats had been working on their own radio. Yet only a moment elapsed before Santy Cat’s guns opened up again, punishing both cruisers.

  “Left full rudder,” Russ called. “Ahead slow. We’re close enough, and let’s give our aft guns a chance.” And get more armor between them and the engine room, he told himself. Many more hits from those big suckers, and they’ll punch through from the front! “Damage report!” he added, when singed and bloody ’Cats staggered out of the radio shack into the pilothouse. All of them were drenched by near misses splashing water over the bridgewing.

  “No fixin’ the raa-dio now,” Naara said simply, supporting her left arm with her right hand. “A baall blew troo the bulkhead an’ tore out the back o’ the equipment. Is all gone. Lucky nobody’s killed.”

  “In there,” the talker agreed, “but we got caa-shul-tees all over the ship.” At least they still had internal communications.

  “Get on . . .” Russ looked at Naara’s arm. It was bleeding and looked broken. “Get somebody on the Morse lamp and signal Felts to stand by close enough to see our signals after all. We still need her radio. And tell her to ask Arracca for some goddamn air support!”

  As if Russ’s frustration had finally summoned them, the drone of engines filtered through to their damaged hearing between the hammering guns. Russ raced out on the blood-soaked bridgewing, stepping over the lookout crumpled in a ragged heap. Even as one of Naara’s signal-’Cats tried to get Felts’s attention, Russ looked at the sky. There were barely twenty planes, mostly P-1Cs, crossing in two formations, and Russ had to wonder if that was all Tassanna had left to send. The fighters were each armed with a pair of 150-pound bombs for the very first time. The older-model, underpowered Fleashooters could only bear 50-pound bombs, and then only if their guns and ammunition were removed. C models could keep their two .30-caliber machine guns and still—barely—carry the heavier load. These, like all Allied antiship bombs, were based on naval rifle projectiles already in production. The fifty-pounders were 4″-50 shells with respectable bursting charges attached to longer, finned casings filled with an incendiary mixture of gimpra sap and gasoline. The 150s were built around the new armor-piercing 5.5″ shells, just like those used by Santy Cat’s six casemate guns, originally salvaged from Amagi.