Union Forever

by William R. Forstchen

  "No, I am here, as is obvious," Muzta replied with a cold smile, "and might I add as one protected by your pledge of blood."

  "You need not remind me of my own words, Tugar," Jubadi bristled, "but I must now remind you of yours."

  Muzta, laughing softly, strode up to the raised dais in the middle of the tent and sat down by Jubadi.

  "Remind me then," he said quietly.

  "You were to have an umen of your warriors posted in the hills that flank the Inland Sea, there to await the word from Hulagar to sweep up and pin the Roum when the time was right. Instead you are here. Hulagar did not find your support. He found nothing."

  Jubadi came to his feet.

  "Nothing!"

  Muzta nodded, leaning over to pick up a sliver of meat.

  "That is obviously so," Muzta said quietly.

  "Do you realize that the army of the Yankees is now in Roum? There is nothing to occupy them there, and all my forces are now in Rus."

  "And you promised me the cannon you were making, you promised me a thousand of the Yankee guns, you promised me food. Who has to feed my people while my ten thousand rode on campaign?" Muzta snapped.

  "Your food was waiting for you in Roum, the food that you should have taken the first time you were there."

  Muzta leaned back and laughed darkly.

  "You have yet to truly fight them. I have and I know. Before, we could slaughter the cattle by the hundreds of thousands every year and not one of the hordes would be slain. The price of food has gone up, Jubadi Qar Qarth.

  "You did not tell me that the Yankee army would be in Roum, you led me to believe that they would be in Rus, that you would fight them there and I would sweep up Roum after their fall.

  "So I began to think. Here were the foe that I must admit defeated me when I had six times the number I now have. I was to attack them again. And what would I have to show for it?

  "The rest of my warriors die, and the Merki horde ride into Rus and eat till the grease rans from their mouths while Tugar corpses litter the fields. Beyond that it would be you who would hold all their secrets, their places that make machines, that make the guns."

  "The plan changed," Jubadi said evenly. "I did not expect the Yankees to move as they did. I thought we would take the Roum city, our army acting as a barrier while you took their lands to the east."

  Muzta leaned over, laughing and holding his sides.

  "And what military purpose would that serve? If their capital city was yours, the outlying provinces would be no threat. No, Jubadi, I saw your plan, and my people would be defenseless."

  "Then why did you come back if you refused to do what I asked?"

  Muzta held up his hand and smiled.

  "We still need each other, Jubadi. I want the Yankee weapons, and you still need the strength I have. Tell me, is it true you lost half an umen to the Bantag?"

  Jubadi silently nodded his head.

  "You know they will reach their place of crossing the Inland Sea within sixty days."

  "I know that."

  "So they will cross the sea ahead of you and turn north. They harry you through the passes of the great hills. Slowing you down. What will you do?"

  "That is none of your concern. Are you a spy for them?"

  "There is no need for you to hide it, actually. You will take those ships of iron that float, and block the Bantag to the south, and use the cannons to slay them when you have captured all the weapons of the Yankees. It is easy enough to see."

  Jubadi said nothing, watching with hawklike eyes as Muzta leaned over and took another slice of meat.

  "If the Bantag defeat you, they will be hungry for me as well," Muzta continued. "That is why we need each other. I tell you now, Jubadi, before my people will move to support you, I want the guns and the stinking smoke that powers them. I want the right to harvest of the Carthas when the time comes. Then I will turn to strike the Roum when the Yankees have ridden back to the west.

  "I must admit your trick was a good one, though it insults me that you thought I would actually believe it."

  Muzta started to laugh softly, and Jubadi, a smile crossing his features, started to laugh as well.

  "The guns will be yours, Muzta Qar Qarth."

  When I defeat the Yankees I will not need you, Jubadi thought even as he smiled, as long as I have kept you close by for the kill.

  "Then we are agreed."

  "When do your umens ride north to strike the Rus?" Muzta asked as if in an afterthought.

  "In another ten days, but they will only be one now."

  "You are late."

  "The Bantag. They were forced to cover the westernmost passes longer than I had planned for. Even now they should be pulling eastward. They will come to the coast and relieve the Vushka, who will go north. We will be in Rus in not more than twenty days."

  "Still, you will have their city and I will have nothing."

  "We will share in its wealth, Muzta Qar Qarth."

  "But of course," Muzta said with a smile.

  Without another word, Muzta Qar Qarth stood and walked out of the tent.

  So he does not know, he thought with an inward smile. It is amazing how we can all so happily betray each other, for surely Jubadi will betray me as I will him. Even as the cattle who had once been a ruler from the Roum had slipped away to his spies on their southern border to tell him how the Yankees were again making their machines, iron floating machines that would fight the ones of Cromwell.

  We will all play our games and lie, and there will still be a place for the Tugars when all is settled.

  Ignoring the salutes of the guards of the Vushka, he swung into his saddle and cantered away.

  "Their people are in position," Hamilcar said, as Tobias climbed up to stand on the deck.

  "It's the perfect night for it," Tobias said quietly, pulling his oilskin coat up to ward off the steady downpour of rain.

  A flash snapped over the river to the north, followed several seconds later by the bursting of a shell inside the city. The bombardment was taking its slow methodical course, tearing down the walls, spreading terror, harassing. The southwestern bastion had long been abandoned except for some infantry who were solidly dug in and would occasionally trade their one-ounce musket balls for a fifty-pound shell.

  The land action was as he had expected as well. He knew he'd never have the numbers to seize the city and the factories by assault. This was a battle of minds, and so far he knew the tide was surely turning in his direction.

  When humans fought Tugars, there was only one alternative, victory or death. But when humans fought humans, there were always a hundred shades in between.

  The walls of the city were less than seventy-five yards away, so close that he heard a guard sneeze on the battlement. A moment later there was a muffled scream and at the same instant a snap of light shot up, the rocket bursting over the river.

  "Now!" Hamilcar screamed.

  The water on either side of the Ogunquit foamed as hundreds of oars from three galleys bit into the river, the ships swinging out from behind the ironclad and racing toward the shore.

  A musket snapped off, the report a dull pop. Several more fired from the bastion, and then there was silence.

  "Their powder's wet!" Tobias laughed.

  Cries of alarm sounded, racing up and down the wall.

  "Fire!"

  The Ogunquit rocked beneath his feet. The five shells were aimed high, arching over his men and on into the city. The line of gunboats opened with a ragged volley. From the gun flashes he could see the galleys hitting the docks, the men leaping out, racing for the shattered wall. The bastion was already overrun, the column of a thousand men pushing straight in toward the gate, which was already open.

  Smiling in the darkness, Tobias looked over at Hulagar.

  "I told you Mikhail would have the way open. Already we are in the city."

  "You have done well, Tobias."

  To his surprise the voice in the darkness was Vuka's. S
omething had changed with that bastard, he thought, barely taking notice of Tamuka, who stood by Vuka's side.

  Chapter Thirteen

  With whistle shrieking, the locomotive inched forward, the rail beneath her creaking under the weight. With a loud vent of steam the engine braked to a stop.

  Chuck Ferguson leaned out of the cab.

  "Unhook 'em."

  A brakeman leaped down from the tender and pulled the pin connecting the engine to the twenty-car train, and stepping back, signaled that the engine was clear. Looking forward, the switchman waved that the line was open. Edging the throttle back up a notch. Chuck inched the locomotive into the siding. To either side of the engine was a heavy scaffold made out of uncut timbers. The train inched up the incline and then leveled off, the timbers of the rotating roundtable groaning under the weight. A signalman stood to one side of the cab, holding up his hand, slowly waving him forward. He held both hands up with wrists crossed, motioning for him to stop.

  "Shutting down!" Ferguson shouted as he closed off the damper and turned open the vents.

  God, I never thought I'd make it, he thought, wiping the sweat from his face with an oil-streaked handkerchief. Climbing down from the cab, he stepped back and looked up at the crane that the engine would now power. The engine would be jacked up in place and the drive wheels would be connected to overhead pulleys, which would power the crane hoist.

  Once the crane was hooked onto a locomotive the entire engine would be raised up and the turntable would be rotated, swinging the locomotive off the track to the first station, where the steam engine would be disconnected from the chassis. Lifted again, the engine would be swung over the dock, then lowered into the gunboat resting alongside the dock, while the chassis was pushed away down a side track. As the gunboat was towed away, the turntable would swing back and start the process all over again.

  Walking away from the engine, he stepped back out onto the track. Hundreds of laborers were swarming over the flatcars, which were packed with the precious tools that had been stripped out of the Hispania workshop, and hauling the equipment over to the dockside, the work crews from the rail line shouting orders at the uncomprehending Roum workers. Without those precious tools, lathes, and forging equipment, Ferguson realized, the job facing him would have gone from improbable to impossible.

  Looking back up the rail line that ran the length of the dockside, he shook his head in disbelief at what they had accomplished in just thirteen days. It was packed from one end to the other with steam-venting trains, boxcars piled high with supplies and crossties, flatcars stacked to near bursting with rails. The procession turned at the end of the dockyard, going over the rubble of several houses that had been smashed down to make the curve manageable and up the hill to the forum, a passage that would be impossible to climb and was damn near a killer to slide down. From the forum the trains were backed up all the way out of the city and on across the practicing fields beyond.

  It was a hell of a tangled mess.

  Four miles a day, five and a quarter miles in this the final run—the pace had been killing. Not even old Hermann Haupt could beat that. But then again, he had to concede, Haupt didn't have over ten thousand workers on his line.

  The job still wasn't done yet. The rail line would be driven on for another four miles, straight through the wall and most of the way down to Ostia. As the cars were unloaded, their purpose for the campaign was finished; the second engine in line would serve to push the empties on down the line and out of the way of the construction.

  "You've done a hell of a job, Ferguson," Vincent said, coming up to slap him on the back.

  "Yeah, but there's one problem."

  "What is it?"

  "I never really thought about it till now," Ferguson said, shaking his head, "but getting all these cars back up and out and then all the way back to Suzdal after this war is over is going to be one hell of a job. The entire rolling stock of the M FL&S will be sitting on a siding with nearly eighty miles of empty space separating it from the nearest piece of track to home. Except for the five locomotives with Kindred and the two working here, all our motive power will be stripped and sitting inside the ships. This railroad will be crippled for months after the campaign is finished. There isn't an engine around that could pull a single car back up the forum hill."

  "You sound like you're already planning for after the war."

  "I've got to."

  "You think we'll actually win this one?"

  "My job's the engineering, and Mina's my logistics boss— that's all I worry about for now. I'll leave the rest for Andrew. Come on along—I'm going over to check our first gunboat."

  Leading the way. Chuck climbed up over a growing pile of crossties and stepped out onto the dock. Directly below him a heavy grain ship was tied up to the quay, men swarming all over the vessel. Climbing down a ladder, he leaped onto the deck.

  Workmen looked up, nodded a greeting, and then continued with their labor.

  "She seems awful high out of the water," Vincent said.

  "We'll be loading on nearly a hundred tons of rail and another hundred tons of wood for armor. Add in the guns, the engines, crew, and ammunition, and it'll be over three hundred and fifty tons by the time we're done. All I can say is, Bullfinch had better be right with his displacement, or we've got problems."

  Leaning over the open deck near the stem, Ferguson looked down below.

  "We've got the mounts framed out for the two engines. The driveshafts to the propellers will be hooked into the engines by leather belts. Bullfinch kicked up a holler over that—said if they get wet we've got real problems— but there simply isn't enough time to make the gears to match the engine strength to the ship."

  "There's a lot of space forward in the hull, from the looks of it," Vincent said, getting down on his knees and bending over to look below.

  "Firewood, Vincent—though to save on space, we'll be towing some barges with additional wood. The rest is for the crew and ammunition. Come on, let's go forward."

  Ferguson stopped for a moment to look admiringly at the blockhouse resting amidships. Climbing up to the top of the six-foot-high wall, he sat down on top, even as the workmen around him continued with their tasks.

  Vincent climbed up to join him.

  "We've yet to close this over. We won't do that till the guns are put in."

  He reached down and slapped the wall beneath him.

  "A double layer of rail ties, two feet thick on top, sloping down to three feet thick at the bottom. We're going to double-layer the rails over the outside. The bottom row will be bolted straight into the ties, facing out. The top layer will be reversed and strapped in with U-bolts. If I had a couple of months more and a rolling mill I'd turn these into plate. There are going to be gaps and spaces between the rails, but they're still equal to several inches of armor."

  "Think it'll keep the shot out?"

  "It'll be as noisy as hell in there, but they should stand against fifty-pounders. We're putting a single layer of rail ties across the entire deck, then a layer of rails. On top of that we'll lay down planking so footing on deck will be easier. Along the sides we'll build a belt of rails down to a couple of feet below the waterline in case any shots skip in low.

  "The trick is going to be how these damn things handle in anything beyond a flat calm. The hulls are deep, but there's a lot of weight topside, rather than down below the water-line. I think they'll roll like tubs. Again, it's a question of time, and not knowing much about ships—that's Bullfinch's department, but personally I wish I'd studied the subject more. Remember, railroading was what I was interested in."

  "You don't sound too optimistic," Vincent said quietly.

  "Give a good engineer a problem, the right tools, and a little time, and he can figure it out.

  "As for everything else, I'm just the engineer, Vincent. The colonel gave me a job, and by damn I'll do it for him. I'll leave the strategy of winning it to him, and the fighting of it to you."

&
nbsp; "Somehow I wish we could trade places," Vincent said, his voice distant.

  Chuck looked over at Vincent and laughed.

  "You've got to be kidding. I've got sixteen days left to build the gunboats. Even with two engines in each ship I'm not sure if the power ratio will be right. Now if those damn things go out there and break down, or worse yet, simply slide under the water and sink, this whole world's gonna remember me for Ferguson's Folly. I'll take your job any day."

  "How long were you with the 35th?" Vincent asked softly.

  "You mean back home? I joined in '62. Lord, did my parents kick up a squawk."

  "You were an engineering student. How come you didn't go into the Engineer Corps? They'd have made you an officer."

  Ferguson shook his head ruefully.

  "My best friend, Frank Smith, he had his heart set on going into the 35th and kept telling me I wouldn't see any fighting if I went into the Engineers."

  "You wanted to fight?"

  "Sure, didn't you? Hell, everyone's talking about how you're the best damn fighter in the army."

  Vincent lowered his head.

  "So you joined the 35th, then?"

  "Just before Antietam, same as the colonel. Was in every fight since, though I kept getting sick all the time and the colonel kept trying to talk me into taking a job in the rear."

  "Why'd you stay if you had a chance out?"

  "Cause a reb kilt Frank," Ferguson whispered. "He wasn't in his first fight more than five minutes, Antietam, and then he was dead."

  Ferguson paused for a moment.

  "I liked killing rebs," he said softly. "At least I thought I did."

  Chuck looked closely at Vincent. His face was still puffy and pockmarked, but the infection was finally going down.

  "Something troubling you, Vincent?" Chuck asked softly.

  Vincent stood in silence.

  "I heard how you pumped six slugs into that Merki, even after he was dead," Chuck finally ventured.

  "I liked it," Vincent replied, looking back up, his eyes shining. "Watching the bullets hit into him, his body jerking. I'm starting to think there is no God, that we are nothing but born killers, that everything I ever learned was a sham."