Battle Hymn

by William R. Forstchen

  "I bet old Grant and Lincoln back home made sure the army was treated just fine," Pat interjected.

  Emil laughed and shook his head.

  "I bet they don't have twenty thousand men in the army now. Unless something good got stirred up in Mexico or the Rebs decided to kick up another fuss. No, my friends, you're anachronisms once the fighting's stopped. You're dealing now with politicians and peasants, neither of which have much use for an army except when the wolf is at the door."

  "Well, something is brewing," Andrew replied coldly.

  "The Bantag," Pat announced, and there was an edge of hopefulness in his voice. "I tell you, I believe what that old Muzta told us, even if he is a bloody Tugar."

  Andrew nodded, saying nothing. The understanding that had developed between the Tugar leader, Muzta, and Andrew was something he would never have dreamed possible. Such a strange irony, he reflected. Seven years ago they damn near destroyed us. In the war with the Merki, they actually wound up on our side. And now, because of some strange quirk of their code of honor, they actually admire me. They were drifting off on the edge of the frontier to the east, settling into a half-million-square-mile range of empty land, living by herding and, though he hated to turn a blind eye to it, by the occasional exacting of tribute from human neighbors. But there were no more slaughter pits, and Muzta was sending warnings as well that something was astir with the Bantag.

  Andrew went out the back door of the train onto the platform. Overhead, the stars were obscured by the sooty plume of smoke trailing behind the locomotive as it thundered eastward.

  The open steppe was gradually giving way to a scattering of trees as the rail line edged northward to skirt the fever-laden marshlands and tributaries that bordered the Great Sea to the south. Like the Inland Sea, now five hundred miles to the west, the Great Sea formed a defensive barrier to anchor a right flank on. If something should turn and come out of the east, this could be the outer defensive line this time.

  In the shadows he saw villages drift past, marked by the distinctive wooden huts and feasting halls of the Asgard. They could prove tough fighters in a pinch but were totally lacking in the discipline that had been instilled in the regiments of Rus and Roum. Hans would have liked them, given their Teutonic origin from what he guessed was Roman Germania.

  The door opened behind him, and Emil joined him in the chilled night air. “Come on in here, damn it, or you'll catch your death of cold."

  "You really believe that?" Andrew asked.

  “No, but it sounds good."

  “In a minute."

  "Still thinking of Hans."

  "Wish he were here."

  "If it's any comfort, I think he always will be."

  "That's something Father Casmar would say."

  “No, I don't mean it that way. I mean in you. Hans trained you, he trained most of the boys with the old Thirty-fifth. You and the regiment shaped this world. If ever there was a soldier who represented the grand old Army of the Potomac, it's Sergeant Major Hans Schuder. That army created the Republic here on this world. It had to create the Republic to mirror what it was and always will be. Draw on that, Colonel Keane, whenever you feel like you now do."

  Andrew smiled at Emil. "Again the philosopher."

  "What old Jew like me isn't a philosopher?" Emil said with an answering smile.

  Andrew nodded. "I know something's coming." He hesitated. "There's been the other dreams. Somewhat the same as with Jamuka."

  Emil looked closely at Andrew.

  "It was a look inside of me, the same way I told you Tamuka tried to do during the war. Some of the Horde seem to have that, and this one is strong, far stronger. His mind is different," Andrew paused, as if looking for the right word. "Modern. That's it, modern. He thinks differently and that, my friend, frightens me."

  Emil looked at him, his features drawn. "If you are frightened, Andrew, then maybe we all should be."

  "Battalion… attenshun!"

  Major General Vincent Hawthorne scanned the line as the troops arrayed before him snapped to shoulders. He felt a cool shiver of delight at the sound. The Fifth Suzdal, "Hawthorne's Guards," stood arrayed before him. With access to blue dye gained by trading with the Asgard, the Army of the Republic was gradually adopting the traditional uniform of their mentors—sky-blue trousers, navy-blue four-button jacket, and black felt slouch caps. The sight of his regiment dressed in the cherished blue made his heart beat faster. He looked up at the colors snapping in the breeze, his gaze lingering on the shot-torn standard of the regiment emblazoned with the names of half a dozen hard-fought battles.

  Deployed next to them was a company of sailors wearing the blue trousers, blue-and-white-checkered shirts, and white neckerchiefs of the navy, with Admiral Bullfinch proudly standing in front of them in his finest double-breasted blue frock coat, his handsome features made exotic and slightly dangerous-looking by the black eye patch.

  As the train drifted to a stop, venting steam, the band gave a single ruffle and flourish as befitted the commander of the armies, and then broke into "Battle Cry of Freedom."

  Vincent, joined by Bullfinch, turned and walked to the last car and, coming to attention, saluted as Andrew stepped out onto the platform. Andrew, smiling, snapped off a salute to the colors and then to Vincent and Bullfinch. He climbed off the train, and walked down the line of troops, followed by Pat and Emil, who peered curiously at the men, as if looking for a telltale cough or a sign of fever.

  "The men look good," Andrew stated, loud enough so his words could be heard, "but then again, I wouldn't expect anything less from the old Fifth."

  Behind the line of troops Andrew saw the crowd of curious onlookers, the hundreds of railroad men, dockhands, shipbuilders, and factory workers who were laboring at what was now the railhead of the eastward expansion of the Republic. As they left the platform Andrew smiled at Vincent.

  "It's been how long?"

  "Four months since I was last in Suzdal."

  "Good to see you, Vincent."

  "And you too, sir. My family?"

  "That poor girl," Pat laughed. "Good heavens, is she pregnant!"

  "She's all right, isn't she?" He looked at Emil.

  "Don't worry. Another two months. She's doing fine."

  "Maybe you should stay out here another year and give her some rest," Pat interjected.

  Vincent fixed his old friend with a cool stare, and Pat held up his hands in surrender.

  "Ah, those Quaker sensibilities of yours. All right, but good heavens, the way you make babes I'd think you were an Irishman."

  "How's my father-in-law?"

  Andrew shook his head.

  "Our president is proving to be a president."

  "He's a pain, he is," Pat interjected. "Wants to cut the budget again, divert rail development back into Rus, and Marcus agrees—as long as it means extra lines inside Roum. And he wants to cut the training and field assignment of new troops down to one year from two."

  "Damn! We need it out here," Vincent replied sharply. "We're nearly a thousand miles past Roum now, in the middle of nowhere. I've only got five thousand mounted patrolling a frontier more than five hundred miles across to the east and another five thousand on the defensive line to the south. They could slip ten umens through that cordon and be halfway here before we'd even notice."

  He nodded toward the two hundred fifty men lined up to receive Andrew. "And look at those boys. I've got exactly twenty-two vets with this battalion. The rest of them are recruits who were underage kids when the Merki came. We need two years to get them in shape before sending them into the reserve. What the hell is Kal thinking?"

  "Ah, politics, my lad," Emil interrupted. "Remember now, they're voters back home, not a bunch of terrified peasants with the bogeyman at the gate. The danger's past, at least according to some in Congress. The Merki are scattered, the Tugars have gone east, and the Bantag are a thousand miles away and supposedly moving east as well. The wars are over, and they don't need us
old soldiers now."

  "And it's another four hundred miles to the capital of the Nippon," Andrew replied. "Four hundred miles of rail and bridges, to Kal's thinking, can help link a lot of towns together before the next election. The votes are back there, not out here. Kal's party is facing opposition, and that's their complaint. And getting across that next river thirty miles ahead. That's a mile of bridging, and Ferguson's talking about a thousand-foot span in the middle. That same material could build a dozen rail bridges back home."

  "We need that bridge," Vincent snapped. "Forward projection. That was the whole idea, which we agreed upon if the Bantag should turn north. We fortify the narrows south of Roum between the Inland Sea and the Great Sea, use that as a barrier. But even that's more than a hundred fifty miles across, and the rail to that position still has eighty miles to go. By God, sir, if they should come at us from that direction, how in hell are we to hold a front, with the railhead so far in the rear? We'll lose it all, and if the army deploys out, we'll lose that as well."

  Andrew nodded in agreement. "I think we'll get the appropriation to finish running the rail line south, but that's it."

  Hawthorne threw up his hands in exasperation. "Sir. It's not just that. We need a rail line running parallel to where we want to fortify. We need stockpiles of equipment there. And I've been screaming for half a year to build a new airship base down there. If we base our air fleet out of there, build that airship resupply vessel that Bullfinch here has been talking about, we might even be able to push an airship into their territory."

  "Provocative act, there," Pat said dryly.

  "Provocative or not, it needs to be done," Bullfinch interjected. "I'd like to see an airship in there right now, especially up that river. You saw the report I forwarded about that escaped slave the sloop picked up. They're building ships up there, sir, and here we've barely got a proper naval base and nothing much more than an anchoring spot down on the defensive line."

  "I'm still arguing for it, Admiral, but we have to face facts. The money, the resources are stretched beyond the breaking point. If we had not been blessed with a damn good harvest last year, which gave us some surplus to trade with Cartha, we'd be in the barrel now. Everyone in Congress is screaming internal improvements first. They need more harvesting machines, every congressman is crying for a rail line to his town and the hell with wasting track in the wilderness, and the pensions for disabled soldiers are staggering."

  "Then push on to Nippon and get them allied with us," Vincent shot back. "That could be another ten corps worth of troops, and damn good ones at that. I've been there. I know."

  "And it was your report, I think, that scared some people in Congress," Emil replied. "Remember, Rus lost half its population in the wars. There's barely seven hundred thousand still alive. Roum outnumbers them nearly two to one. But Nippon has more people than Roum and Rus put together."

  "Precisely why we need them," Vincent replied heatedly. "We could double the army. At best we'll get a corps out of the Asgard and it will take years to get them adapted. Right now they're next to useless except as raiding troops and scouts."

  "Vincent! And here you're married to the president's daughter," Emil said with a shake of his head. "Don't you get the political ramifications? If we bring Nippon in as a state of the Republic it'll control half the seats in Congress. Come next election it might even be able to put a president in."

  Vincent shook his head angrily. "To base a cutback decision on that is obscene. The ideal of the Republic is that all men are created equal regardless of race. Didn't we join the Army of the Potomac for that? Lord knows, I did, even though I was a Quaker. We fought and a hell of a lot of our comrades died for an ideal. Now let's live up to it."

  "Idealism," Pat interjected with a smile. Vincent flinched and then saw the admiration in Pat's eyes.

  "Me bucko, you're a wonder. Too bad not everyone is as high-minded and book-learned as you."

  Andrew smiled at Pat's words. Shortly after he had joined the army in '62, Colonel Estes, the first commander of the Thirty-fifth, had snapped, "Just what the hell am I supposed to do with a book-learned professor?"

  And now look at me, he thought with a twinge of irony. General of the Armies. The life and death of human civilization on this insane world resting on my shoulders for nearly eight years. He fully agreed with Vincent.

  "There'd still be the balance in the Senate, though," Vincent finally replied. "Nippon will get only five seats, the same as Asgard, once it becomes a state of the Republic, and Rus and Roum will each hold their fifteen and ten seats."

  "Well, now," Emil replied, as if lecturing a student, "so what? Right now the balance is there between Roum and Rus even though Roum controls the House by virtue of population. But the alliance between us, so far, is one of blood spilled on the battlefield, and we still trust each other. Nippon is an unknown. Maybe after the next presidential election, when Kal is secure for six more years, maybe then we'll push the railhead, but not before."

  Vincent looked at Andrew appealingly. “You wrote the bloody Constitution. Didn't you see this?"

  "I figured it might be a possibility," Andrew replied. "That's why we put in that the two founding states of the Republic, Rus and Roum, each had more senators than the five granted to new states as they join. We'll maintain control in the Senate for a long time to come, but it's the House that will be up for grabs if Nippon joins us, and that has them spooked."

  "Can't you convince Kal?"

  "Oh, eventually."

  "The damn thing's nuts," Vincent stormed, his voice growing louder. "During the war we got what we needed and the hell with politics. This damn Constitution will get our asses in the wringer."

  Andrew, in a fatherly fashion, put his hand on Vincent's shoulder and led him off the platform, beyond the hearing of their three comrades and the troops deployed along the depot siding.

  "If I ever hear you say that in public again I'll strip you of command," Andrew said quietly. "Do I make myself clear, General?"

  Vincent looked straight up into Andrew's eyes. "But, sir, you see the problem it's created."

  "Do I make myself clear, General?" Andrew repeated, his voice growing hard.

  Vincent stared at him, wanting to raise a protest, but the growing anger evident in Andrew's eyes stilled his voice. He snapped to attention. "Yes, sir."

  Andrew knew that several of Vincent's men had overheard the comment and were now watching the dressing-down. He had to maintain discipline but at the same time not cause Vincent to lose too much face.

  "You are not in McClellan's army, Mr. Hawthorne. That talk might have been tolerated back in sixty-two, but it will never be tolerated here. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Yes, sir."

  He now raised his voice slightly so the men, who were undoubtedly straining to catch every word, would hear. "I don't care if you are the best fighting general in the army. When it comes to this issue, in this country, the military must take its orders from the civilian government, like it or not. That is the oath we swore to uphold."

  Vincent nodded, his face turning red.

  "Fine. We understand each other, then."

  "Yes, sir. I apologize, sir."

  Andrew nodded. Handling Hawthorne was always something of a tricky job. There was, of course, the political connection. Though Kal would never interfere in the way Vincent was disciplined, he knew that the boy—after all, he was only twenty-seven—could not help but feel that the presence of his father-in-law gave him certain leverage.

  Beyond that, Vincent simply was the best he had. His defense of the center at the second and third day of Hispania was now the stuff of legend. One of the most popular paintings to emerge from the war was that of Vincent standing like an immovable rock on a flatbed car, the Merki host storming around him. The painting rivaled Showalter's Last Stand as the most popular illustration hanging in bars throughout the Republic.

  Andrew hoped that there would come a day when Vincent became general
of the armies. He mused on that for a moment and found the thought troubling. But it was an option that might become necessary before much longer. Though Pat could possibly fill the post, he did not have the charismatic appeal of Vincent, especially with the Roum, who viewed Vincent as their hero as well for his defense of the palace during the Cartha War. If it came to that choice, Pat could serve publicly as direct commander of all Rus troops but in private he would be the brake and steady hand, a Hans for a new general.

  Hans. Again the troubling memory. Wish you were here, old friend, Andrew thought sadly, and then he focused again on Vincent. The boy would need more grooming, especially when it came to his temper and his often impetuous actions.

  "Fine. We understand each other, then," Andrew said again, letting his voice go softer.

  "Yes, sir, we do."

  Andrew could sense the embarrassment in Vincent's tone. Good, let it stay there for a while.

  He looked back at Bullfinch, who had respectfully withdrawn while his friend was being chewed out. "Mr. Bullfinch, shall we start this inspection tour?"

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  Pat chuckled at the nautical terminology, feeling, as most soldiers did, that the vocabulary of sailors was nothing but an affectation.

  "How much time do we have before the meeting with the Nippon military liaison?"

  Vincent pulled out his pocket watch. "We have a couple of hours, sir. Last report from the telegraph station said he crossed the river shortly after dawn. We should have plenty of time."

  Though Andrew still wore the pocket watch given to him by the men of the Thirty-fifth after he was wounded at Gettysburg, he didn't even bother to wind it anymore. The days on this planet were fifty minutes shorter, and trying to reset the timing had caused endless confusion. A team under Chuck Ferguson, the scientific wizard who, perhaps more than anyone else, had helped to save them all, had worked out a new twenty-four-hour standard after endless debate about going to a ten-hour rather than twenty-four-hour day, just how long was a second, and should there be sixty or a hundred minutes in an hour. In the end, no matter how illogical it really was, the Republic had adopted the twenty-four-hour day, with the seconds just slightly shorter than back home to make up the difference. One of the new watchmakers, a former Rus artillery major, had offered to regear Andrew's watch, but he had yet to get around to having it done. Besides, he realized, one of the prerogatives of command was that he could simply rely on his staff for the time.