The Guns Above

by Robyn Bennis

  “Very good,” Josette said. “Continue repairs.”

  “Shouldn’t we at least make ourselves a moving target?” Bernat asked.

  “Our orders are to keep station.”

  “Lovely.”

  Kember lowered her telescope. “The Vins are forming columns of division. Six battalions up front and more following behind. Big sons of bitches.”

  “Send it,” Josette said.

  The signalman on the starboard side flashed the message to the command tent.

  Bernat went forward to look, but soon wished he hadn’t. When he heard “columns of division,” he imagined a formation akin to a column of march, but these columns were something else entirely. The front of each was made up of something like two hundred musketmen, arrayed in a battle line that was three men deep and about sixty across. Following fifty paces behind them was another line of the same form and complement, and fifty paces behind that another line, and then another, and another, until each column resembled the rungs of a ladder—if the rungs of a ladder bristled with muskets. He counted the number of rungs in each column. The smallest had fifteen. He couldn’t say how many the largest had, for he lost count at thirty. The damn thing was half a mile long, and at the back the individual lines blurred together in the morning haze.

  And all at once, they were on the move, marching smoothly out onto the battlefield. When the front ranks were past the grand battery, a screen of loosely spaced men spread out in front of them, while a similar screen of riflemen left the Garnian lines and ventured into the field to meet them.

  These skirmishers, Garnian and Vin, moved with none of the coordinated precision of the columns. Once they closed in and came within range of each other in the middle of the field, every skirmisher sought cover independently. They traded shots, but the action was too far away for Bernat to make much sense of.

  “Who’s winning?” he finally asked, when Josette joined him to observe from the rail.

  “Given the numbers involved, I imagine they are,” she said quietly.

  It wasn’t long before she was proved right. The Garnian skirmishers were pushed back, and farther back, until they reached the clear ground in front of the stream. From there, they ran back to their own line, each one stopping once along the way to kneel and fire off a hasty shot, as if to inform the enemy that this was a withdrawal, but certainly not a retreat.

  Whatever it might have been, many fewer men crossed the stream coming back than had crossed it going out, and the Vin skirmishers were close on their heels. “Rifles to the forward rail,” Josette said, as they came within range.

  As a loader handed a rifle to Bernat, he heard a twang near his feet and looked down to see the frayed edges of a bullet hole. Josette was already kneeling behind the rail, so he joined her.

  “Forget they can shoot back?” she asked.

  He had, actually. He scooted along the rail and glanced over to take a shot. The Vin skirmishers had advanced to near two hundred paces from the Garnian line, and were pelting it from outside effective musket range.

  Yet muskets suddenly crackled in uncoordinated fire from several places on the line.

  “God damn it!” Josette shouted. “Signal those idiots to cease fire!”

  Bernat looked out at the Vin skirmishers to see the effect of the musketry. Despite thousands of balls loosed on the enemy, hardly a man among the Vin skirmishers was hit. On the other side of the field, the Vin airship was already flashing signals, no doubt reporting which sections of the Garnian line had fired, and thereby identifying the points where the defenders were the least experienced and most poorly disciplined.

  “Can we reposition the weak units to spread them out along the line?” Bernat asked, trying to look on the bright side.

  Josette only stared over the rail and said in a hushed tone, “Not before that gets here.” A rolling thunderclap punctuated her words.

  Bernat looked out past the Vin columns to their grand battery, which was now invisible behind a spreading, impenetrable cloud of smoke.

  Dozens of cannonballs split the air below. They struck the line, streaking over or tearing through the diminished earthen wall to cut men down by ones and twos and send them flying back, often in pieces.

  Bernat heard a crash above him, and looked up to see a ball tear a furrow down Mistral’s keel, snapping struts and sending splinters in every direction as it plowed through to exit just behind the hurricane deck. Another ball hit on the starboard side, the whistle of its passage becoming an unnerving, high-pitched squeal as it tore through three luftgas bags.

  And the volley wasn’t even over, for now the howitzers’ shell shot arrived. As the shells exploded, Bernat was not ashamed to cower between the two bref guns, as most of the deck crew was doing the same. Even the steersmen had ducked down, squeezing as much of their bodies as possible behind the scanty protection of the wheels.

  “Under the circumstances, can we not move?” Bernat shouted over the booming of the shells.

  Josette returned a grave look and called up the companionway, “Get Chips to work on these girders. I’d rather my ship didn’t snap in half.” Blood was running from a wound on her forehead. She noticed Bernat’s eyes on it and, as she reached up to pull a splinter out, said to him, “It’s shaping up to be a hot day, Bernie.”

  * * *

  CHIPS SAWED A plank on the catwalk above and ahead of Josette, sending a fine sprinkling of sawdust into her face. It was not the most irritating thing about standing in the open during an artillery bombardment, but after the deadly metal fragments flying in every direction, the sawdust was a close second.

  Third was the goddamn music.

  The Garnian national anthem floated up from a regimental band somewhere below, mingling discordantly with “Patriot’s March,” which was being played by another regiment’s band farther along the line. Josette didn’t know how well these regiments would do in a fight, but she hoped to God they fought better than they played the fife.

  A cannonball shrieked past below, cutting the national anthem short with the sound of a shattered snare drum. The melody was replaced by sounds of agony, and she reflected that the music had not been so bad after all.

  A peppering of rifle bullets hit the hurricane deck. A bullet hole opened in the wicker, not a yard from Josette’s place on the deck. The gun crews sheltered in the shadows of their cannons, and were rewarded for their prudence when a ball that might have struck one of them skipped off the port bref gun instead, leaving the barrel ringing like a bell. Most shots missed the deck entirely and spent themselves in trivial damage to the bags and envelope. Cruising behind the line at an altitude of nine hundred feet, the crew members on Mistral’s hurricane deck were a long shot for even a skilled rifleman. Thank God Fieren hadn’t thought to specify the altitude they were to hold station at, and had merely ordered them to remain below the clouds.

  Which consoled Josette only a little as she stepped to the rail, into plain view of the Vin skirmishers, and looked out on the battlefield. She knew the situation was bad, and thought herself prepared, but the sight still staggered her. The Vin artillery, concentrating its fire on the weakest sector of the Garnian right flank, had torn bloody swaths through the line. In places, there were only enough men left to make a single rank where there should have been three. In a few spots, there was no line at all—only craters and corpses.

  The reserve companies, who should have been plugging holes in the line, were instead huddled at the rear. In the chaos, perhaps, no one had ordered them forward, or perhaps they simply refused to advance into that smoking hell.

  A thousand paces away, the six Vinzhalian columns marched on as if powered by clockwork. She saw a well-aimed Garnian cannonball tear through a file of men, but the files on either side stepped in to fill the gap, taking the place of the dead without orders or hesitation.

  Her eyes flitted across the color guards dotted down the middle of each column, their regimental flags hanging limp in the light airs. By dra
wing a mental line from one flag to the next, and extending it until it intersected the Garnian line, she could see where each column would deploy. As she suspected, one or two aimed to keep the left flank occupied, while the rest would attack the right flank, where the Vin artillery was already eviscerating the weakest parts of the Garnian line.

  A bullet hit the rail near Josette, snapping her away from her thoughts. She pulled paper and a short stub of pencil from her jacket pocket and began sketching the enemy disposition.

  “Good God,” Bernat said. He’d come up from behind and was now staring at the carnage below.

  “It isn’t as bad as it looks,” she said, even though it was exactly as bad as it looked. “Our gun batteries are still firing.”

  And that, at least, was true. The Garnian cannons were in decent shape, dug in amid their little bastions all along the line. But they could not answer the concentrated fury of the Vins’ grand battery, for each Garnian battery was an island unto itself, two to four guns projecting slightly ahead of the line, and they could not easily coordinate their fire with the other batteries.

  She finished sketching the enemy’s disposition and discreetly wrote a note in the corner that read, “Right flank will break at first contact with the enemy.” She underlined the note and placed the sketch into a tin cylinder with a red streamer attached, which she then dropped over the side. Within a few minutes, an ensign on horseback came along, fetched it, and galloped back to the command tent. Ten minutes after that, the command tent’s signal lamp began to flash.

  “Orders coming in,” the starboard signalman said, then winced as a shell exploded off the bow. “Blimps will take up picket positions. Scout will take up relay position. Chasseurs will support the right flank. Mistral in vanguard.” The signalman looked despondent. “Why us again?”

  Josette ignored the lament. “Acknowledge the message. Send up a green flare and when Ibis breaks cloud cover, relay our orders.”

  Ibis appeared below the clouds and received the orders. After her acknowledging flash, there came an additional message which read, How you holding up, Jo?

  “Signal Ibis: You’ll know too well shortly.” The signal was sent and, true to prediction, Ibis came under fire soon after.

  Ibis signaled each ship its orders as they broke cloud cover. The three chasseurs proceeded to the weak right flank, Mistral foremost, to add the pitiful fire of their bref guns to it. Grouse, the scout ship, was ordered to the relative safety of the rear, where it would take over for Mistral as signal ship.

  The unweatherly blimps broke cloud cover last of all and farthest from their proper stations, and upon receiving their orders went forward to screen the chasseurs. They hadn’t been given this job because they were the most capable, Josette knew, but because they were the most expendable. Their only mission was to warn of approaching Vin airships, by signal flare if practical, and by exploding under enemy fire if otherwise. The little Swamp Hen struggled along on Mistral’s port side, and Josette was tempted to move her ship farther away from it, in case a lucky shell set off its inflammable air.

  The blimp had no keel, only a gondola slung twenty feet below the bag, to keep a wide space between bag and boiler fire. On the prow of the blimp’s gondola stood her captain, a fresh-faced junior lieutenant. His feet were on the rail and he leaned forward over the abyss, holding a martingale with one hand. When he saw Josette watching him, he saluted with the other.

  Josette put her heels together and returned the salute. Swamp Hen’s captain gave her a toothy grin that invited no sympathy or pathos, but only reflected an unrelenting commitment to this grim job that some poor bastard had to do.

  “Steersmen, fall in ahead of Swamp Hen,” Josette ordered.

  “Uh, Captain?” Lupien asked, eyeing the explosive little blimp. “How far ahead?”

  “Directly ahead, if you please.” She noticed the trepidation in the deck crew. She lifted her voice to address them collectively. “Make no mistake, men, it’s guts and glory from here on out. Anyone who doesn’t like it is free to get off now.” This elicited only a few polite chuckles, but the words did their work, steadying her crew.

  When the squadron came within range of the columns, Swamp Hen split off and rose into the clouds, while Mistral and the other chasseurs took their new stations. Josette ordered, “Riflemen to the starboard rail. Bref guns commence firing.”

  Kember pulled the lanyard and the cannon spat its round shot into one of the center columns, slicing down a file of men, hitting the first in the head, the second in the shoulders, and the next in the guts. Kember fired the other gun to lesser but still brutal effect.

  The column’s foremost divisions chose to return the favor, firing a volley that must have numbered in the thousands of muskets. Mistral’s envelope fluttered with the impact of the bullets, most of which failed to penetrate even as far as the luftgas bags—their sting much reduced by nine hundred vertical feet. Josette leapt as one hit the deck under her foot. “God damn it,” she shouted, hopping to the companionway and sitting down. Bernat and a signalman ran to help, but she waved them away.

  A keening shriek came from the stern, drawing all eyes. Jutes shouted down the companionway, “Private Davies is hit, sir.”

  “How bad?” Josette asked, rubbing her foot.

  “Not mortal, sir,” Jutes said. He hesitated. “Didn’t even get through his clothes. He’ll be back on his feet in a few minutes, but in the meantime, if you need someone to sing soprano…” On the deck, every man winced in sympathetic pain.

  * * *

  THE VIN OFFICERS marched apart from their men, making them easy prey for Bernat. After firing six shots, he thought he’d killed a major and wounded a captain, and he could have kept it up if he hadn’t run out of loaded weapons. As he helped reload, the drums drew his attention out to the columns.

  Those damned columns were endless. He could shoot officers all day long and there would still be plenty left. As he watched, round shot from a Garnian cannon tore a swath through the column nearest Mistral, killing three men outright and knocking more off their feet from the concussion.

  And now the columns had drawn near enough for the Garnian howitzers to blast at them with canister. Bernat saw a canister shot that must have killed twenty men at once, cutting through three ranks as easily as a scythe cut wheat.

  But the column didn’t stop, didn’t even slow down. The files stepped in to close the gap and the ranks behind stepped briskly over the bodies of their comrades. In seconds, the column was as firm as ever and marching on to the beat of the drums.

  Mistral’s bref guns now coughed their own canister shot, adding to the butchery. To starboard, Ibis fired her two guns, and further on Lapwing did the same with her one. But the holes in the columns filled in with men as soon as they were made. There were always more men. Vins were dying by the score, but the bastards kept marching into fire, so cool they might have been on parade.

  Bernat finished loading and raised the rifle to his shoulder, searching for a target. The spacing of the columns tightened up now, until the rungs were only a few paces apart. It was harder to spot the officers in that tangle of soldiers, but he saw a sergeant marching apart from the column.

  As he took aim, a shell went off above and fragments tore through the envelope. He heard a scream from the keel. Gripped by a now-familiar desperation that goaded him into firing a shot, any shot, before it was too late, he fired hastily at the sergeant. He knew he’d missed.

  “Goddamn it,” he muttered, and set to reloading.

  “Calmly,” Josette said, stepping up behind him. She looked over the rail and nearly lost her own composure. “Oh, hell!”

  Kember and Bernat both looked at her.

  “Oh, hell!” she cried again. “Signal relay ship: Columns on our right flank are not deploying into firing lines. Anticipate immediate bayonet charge. Keep repeating that until they acknowledge.”

  Bernat swallowed, wet his lips nervously, and said, “I had thought that o
pen-field bayonet charges were not quite the thing these days. I don’t suppose you might be mistaken?”

  She shook her head. “No. They’re in a hurry—the cocky bastards—so they’ll just tighten up their formations and charge straight in. They think our line is too ragged and undisciplined to stand up to a massed charge, and they have the proof in front of them.”

  There was another scream from above, and Bernat heard a saw grating on bone. “Who’s hit?”

  Josette just looked at the columns and said, “Concentrate on reloading.” The bref guns fired and she turned around. “Reverse airscrews. Left rudder. Keep us in front of the column.”

  Bernat tried to concentrate on loading his rifle, but the sight below had a magnetic pull on his eyes. The front line of the Vin advance had reached the edge of the clearing, where the killing field was prepared for them, but the columns themselves were still so deep that it seemed impossible for the narrow, fractured Garnian line to hold against them.

  As the Vins entered the clearing, the Garnians unleashed a ragged musket volley, the columns’ front ranks hesitated, and their advance was checked—but for seconds only. The Vin formation had closed up even tighter in anticipation of the coming charge, and the next line of three ranks was only a few paces behind. That second line closed the gap and pushed against the first line, and then the third line pushed against the second, and in the end the hesitant men in the front had no choice but to advance or be trampled.

  Some of them returned fire, but they had to shoot on the move, for the column advanced like a single beast. It was a monster made of men, possessing the sum of their rage but hardly any of their fear. And now it broke into a run, screaming with thousands of voices as it charged toward that thin line of Garnian defenders.

  Josette raised her voice. “This is the moment of truth, everyone. Give our boys on the line a cheer!”

  On the deck and all along the keel, the crew of the Mistral shouted together in a whooping battle cry.

  “Better than that!”

  Jutes added, “Shout or I will make you shout, I swear to God.”