A Band of Brothers

by William R. Forstchen

  Hans returned Timokin’s gesture. Seconds later he was moving forward again, following the old Roum road which continued on to the northeast. According to the map, there was a secondary road, unpaved, that turned northward five miles ahead and then drove straight north, intersecting the rail line ten miles farther on. The ten ironclads crept up over the hill and disappeared, followed by a column of a hundred mounted infantry and four horse-drawn wagons loaded with extra kerosene and ammunition.

  “Still think you should keep your force together?” Ketswana asked, sitting astride a horse next to Hans’s ironclad, the St. Mina.

  Hans shook his head.

  “We’ve decided it. One column splits east, the other, that’s us, takes the west side of the river. If we both get through, we turn on to the tracks, cutting fifteen, maybe twenty miles of line, tear it up as we go until we meet at the bridge, rejoin, and burn everything in between. That way if they mobilize from either direction we have time to react and pull back undisturbed, and maybe we just might get lucky and bag an engine or two;”

  “Still don’t like splitting. Hell, we have only eleven machines left with us, and no telling how many by the time we get there. Rather have all our firepower together if they come up.”

  “And do what? Charge eleven gatling guns? We’ll annihilate them,” Hans chuckled.

  “You’ve got two thousand rounds in that bucket of yours. Burn through that and then what?”

  “Don’t spoil my day,” Hans replied, squinting and looking to the west. “I’m actually enjoying myself after that damned siege.”

  “I’d rather be back there. Had a nice hole, it was warm, I enjoyed sniping at the bastards. Out here we’re naked.”

  “Well, I didn’t ask you to come. You invited yourself.”

  “I’m supposed to be your bodyguard, remember.”

  “I don’t need a bodyguard and never asked for one.”

  “That’s the job the colonel gave me, and that’s the job I took when you were running around like a damn fool back in Chin.”

  Hans looked at him, and his friend fell silent. The memory of fleeing Ha’ark was still too bitter. It was a little short of a year past and had not yet retreated, as most memories do, to the point where the pain is blunted and one can draw a smile at the shared hardship and the fantasy that there was adventure in it all.

  Ketswana, as if having troubled himself as well with the recollection, nodded, and the two were silent for a moment.

  Hans raised his field glasses, trained them on the horizon, and finally lowered them again.

  “We’re about to get company.”

  “Where?”

  “A flyer,” and he pointed.

  The machine was moving quickly on the westerly breeze, and seconds later he spotted another one farther to the south, riding close to the slope of the mountains now a dozen miles away.

  They were coming on straight toward him, and he knew they had been sent out to look. At least one Bantag must have escaped and spread the alarm. How many hours ahead of us? Maybe six hours’ warning.

  But if so, where was the resistance on the ground? The few guards on the stone bridge had obviously been surprised, and the bridge would have been a logical place to block them, keeping the attack on the west side of the river.

  He’s still not sure, Hans sensed. The warning is just going out and they’re sending the flyers up to doublecheck. Good. But where are our damn flyers? He turned his glasses to the southwest, scanning the ridgeline. The weather had been good since midnight. Petracci should have at least flown up to the quarry, seen that it was occupied, and either landed or pushed on. But he was nowhere in sight.

  Damn.

  The flyer that was coming straight at him turned slightly in its path. Nose going up. Cautious bastard, making sure to stay out of gun range. The flyer passed a mile to the north and half a mile up, and even before it reached the river it turned and went into a shallow dive, racing north … toward the rail line.

  “Let’s move it!” Hans shouted, looking back at the other ironclads in his column and the mounted infantry behind. Clenching his fist, he jerked his arm up and down, then pointed forward.

  The machine beneath him lurched and in a skidding turn swept around the flank of the hill and down toward the old Roum road running to the west and north.

  He felt a thrill of excitement. It was like being back in the old cavalry again, out on the prairie, but this was a mechanical horse. Fine, never did like horses anyhow, always kicking you when your back was turned and dying just when you started getting attached.

  Standing in the open turret, he looked back. The column was moving, all except for one machine with a burst of steam blowing out its stack. Damnation! The side hatch opened and the crew scrambled out, looking at the machine as if it had suddenly turned into a fire-breathing dragon that had mysteriously appeared before them.

  Four mounted infantrymen pulled off from their column, leading extra mounts for the crew to ride back toward the mountains, while others dismounted, ready to strip out the gatling gun and ammunition and drain the fuel before setting the machine afire.

  Ten ironclads left and twenty miles to go, Hans thought grimly, his cheery mood shattered.

  The entire monitor seemed to recoil under Bullfinch’s feet as the two massive ten-inch guns fired in salvo. The shells slammed into the warehouse on the other side of the river, less than a hundred yards away, and detonated. The entire structure collapsed, bringing down with it the dozens of Bantag snipers perched in the upper floors.

  A shell slammed against the outside armor, a light- caliber round from a field gun on the east bank of the Tiber River, and harmlessly ricocheted off with a whine. It was like a mosquito trying to punch through the hide of an elephant.

  “Keep up the fire,” Bullfinch ordered, “and by God don’t let them get on that bridge.”

  He started to the back hatch of the turret, which had been flung open. Looking at the gangplank run out to the dock, he took a deep breath. Bales of cotton had been rolled up on either side, and infantry men were behind it, firing across the river. A mortar round shrieked down, impacting in the icy water between the monitor and the dock, a geyser of spray splashing down on the deck.

  Bullfinch stood in the hatchway and waved, and a colonel behind one of the bales held up a hand for him to wait. He turned to shout an order, and the rifle fire along the dock redoubled. From the smashed-out windows of one of the warehouses a fieldpiece barked, sending a spray of canister into the windows of the warehouses across the river.

  The colonel held his arm up and jerked it.

  Bullfinch leaped out of the hatch, scrambled across the armored deck, gained the gangplank, and ran for the dock. A railing by his side exploded in splinters, and he heard another bullet hum past, tugging at his coat hem. Hitting the dock, he sprinted for the narrow opening between the bales, leaping over the body of one of the infantrymen who had been killed running the gangplank out.

  Dodging between the bales, he ducked down, gasping for breath.

  “Hot out there, sir?”

  Bullfinch nodded. “Damn, never expected to come up into this. What the hell happened?”

  “The general’s waiting for you, sir. He’ll fill you in.”

  The colonel detailed off four infantrymen, pointed to an open door, and then called for another volley.

  As the rifle fire erupted, Bullfinch was up, running hard for the door, outstripping his escorts, who were burdened with rifles and packs. Bursting through the splintered door, he lost his footing in the dark and slammed into a wall and fell.

  The four escorts piled through behind him, picked him up, and dragged him out of the foyer and into a back room. They had barely stepped into the back room when a shell burst in the doorway behind them, a fragment slicing through the wall, bouncing off the ceiling, and coming to rest by Bullfinch’s feet.

  “Damn hot work.”

  The men said nothing as they helped him back to his feet. The mood of
his four escorts was grim, and he wanted to comment on it, but looking into their eyes stilled his voice. They were gaunt, eyes sunken, the white circle insignia of 2nd Division, 1st Corps stained and blackened. The stench of them washed over him, and he saw that their uniforms were in rags. One of the men was wrapped in a dirty blanket held around his shoulders with a makeshift pin.

  “Come on,” he said, “let’s go.”

  They went through the next door into a vast open space, the interior of the building, packed with troops. There was little order to them, just dozens of clusters of men sitting on the floor of the warehouse, leaning against the exterior walls, some of them asleep, others talking quietly among themselves, and he could sense their defeat. Officers wandered through the room, calling out unit numbers, trying to sort the rabble out.

  Leaving the back of the building, they headed up a narrow street. Several of the buildings were on fire, and no one was making the slightest effort to put the flames out, except for a few emaciated civilians who were making a ludicrous attempt, scooping up snow and throwing it at the flames.

  “No water,” one of his escorts announced. “Aqueducts cut.”

  “What about a bucket brigade down to the …” And he fell silent; the river was now the front line.

  Along the side streets that he passed he saw swarms of refugees huddled in alleyways, children crying, many of the adults in shock, trembling with fear at each new explosion.

  A shout erupted ahead and a gun came around the corner, thin horses pulling, the ten-pounder bouncing and rattling as it raced past, followed by a lone caisson. No other pieces followed, and he watched it pass.

  At last the rear of the Senate was in view. Bantag gunners across the river had made it the center of their attention, and barely a second passed without a shell impacting on the polished limestone walls which had been so lovingly restored after the damage sustained during the Cartha attack before the beginning of the Merki War. But that attack had been with a handful of old smoothbore cannons. Now the Senate was being systematically taken apart with high-powered rifles.

  A continual rain of rubble was cascading down into the street behind the palace. Waiting for what he hoped was a pause, he sprinted for a doorway, jumping through just as another salvo exploded above him.

  “Admiral Bullfinch?”

  He nodded, panting hard.

  “This way, sir.”

  Bullfinch looked back at his escort, who were in the corridor. Opening his breast pocket, he pulled out a flask and tossed it to one of the men, and for the first time since coming to this damned city he saw a man smile.

  “Stay alive, soldier.”

  “You too, sir.”

  As he weaved his way into the interior of the palace the roar of battle lessened, but the palatable sense of a disaster unfolding hung about him. The usual crisp sense of order at headquarters, evolved across three wars, seemed to be disintegrating.

  Going down a flight of stairs, he heard shouting, and when he stepped into the headquarters room he was startled to see Pat and Marcus glaring at each other, standing but inches apart.

  “I want my men out of there!” Marcus shouted. “Get them out while we still hold the bridge!”

  Pat vehemently shook his head and slammed his fist down on the map board.

  “They stay, dammit, they stay. He can’t keep this sustained level of attack up. He just can’t. He must be burning off ten thousand shells an hour, half a million rounds of small-arms ammunition an hour.”

  “And that fire is annihilating what’s left of 11th and 12th Corps. I want them out of there.”

  “Dammit, Marcus, we still have a hold on the east side with them.”

  “I notice that all of the Rus troops are on this side of the river, though.”

  Pat’s color drained, and wearily he shook his head.

  “Do you really believe that? Do you really think I’d position units based on where they came from?”

  “I don’t know what to believe anymore,” Marcus replied coldly. “All I know is that 9th Corps is gone, 11th and 12th are being annihilated, but your 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 6th all seem to be secured.”

  “And a third of the regiments in those corps are Roum, and ten of the regiments in the corps you call yours are Rus. Damn you, Marcus, retract what you’re implying.”

  “I will not. I have to think about what will happen next. Half my city is destroyed, my country is occupied, and I think you will pull out of here.”

  “How?”

  Marcus pointed at Bullfinch.

  “Isn’t that what he’s here for? To figure out how to evacuate?”

  “No, sir, that’s not why I’m here,” Bullfinch snapped.

  “They left the way open to you to the southwest. Pull out of here tonight, head down the coast, dig in, and get picked up.”

  “Are you offering a plan to me, Marcus?” Pat interjected before Bullfinch could point out that he couldn’t marshal one-fifth the shipping needed to get what was left of four corps and their equipment out along with the thousands of wounded.

  “If the plan fits, you take it,” Marcus replied.

  “And your plans?”

  “I’m thinking of asking for terms.”

  “What? Are you mad?”

  “No, I think it is you who are mad to continue this fight. Can’t you see it’s lost? Your precious thaw you always talked about has not come. This mad raid Hawthorne cooked up, well, the lad always did have more fighting spirit than brains. I always figured he’d get himself killed.”

  “Hans is leading it,” Bullfinch interrupted.

  Both turned and looked at him.

  “That’s right. Hawthorne’s back in Suzdal. Hans is leading it.”

  “Why, for God’s sake?” Pat asked.

  “He was better suited to it, and I agreed. Vincent can barely walk, let alone go off on a raid like that. The men involved having fought with Hans, they know him, and he’s got the cunning Vincent, God bless him, lacks.”

  “Damn all to hell,” Pat sighed, sitting down as if already hearing that his old friend was dead.

  “Well, he’ll cut the rail for a day. So what?” Marcus said, shaking his head. “Then he gets killed, they bring their supplies up, and the attack continues.”

  “You actually think Ha’ark would honor whatever promise was offered?”

  “He made an offer to Kal, didn’t he? And I think that wily old peasant is half considering accepting. For all I know he has accepted.”

  “The president stands firm behind the war,” Bullfinch replied, somewhat exaggerating the commitment he had heard when he had dropped Vincent off at the White House two and a half days ago.

  There was fear that Marcus might actually do what he was now openly voicing, and if the Roum left the war and submitted to the Horde, that would mean that Suzdal would again stand alone, barely able to field an army a third smaller than the one that had faced the Merki.

  “Months ago, Ha’ark said he would spare this city all but the old tribute of one in ten that existed in the old days before you Yankees came,” Marcus said.

  “Again the blame,” Pat snapped. “You were damn eager to embrace the freedom we brought when we had already defeated the Tugars and there was no talk yet of Merki or Bantag.”

  “But tens of thousands of Roum citizens have died in this siege, tens of thousands more in the ranks, and only the gods know how many out in the countryside. One in ten was nothing in comparison.”

  “Because you and your nobles never had to pay the price,” Pat snarled. “No, as you lords and grandees always have, you picked others to do the dying for you.”

  Marcus bristled.

  “Anytime you want to settle this with arms, you know where to find me,” Marcus growled.

  Drawing a deep breath. Bullfinch stepped between the two. “Stop it, dammit!”

  The two barely noticed the diminutive admiral until he thrust both arms out, pushing them back from each other.

  “I have my mon
itor on the river, another one’s coming up tomorrow, and one’s already here. We anchor them by the bridges. That will keep them back—ten-inch guns packed with canister and shot. You can still hold this city.”

  “With what?” Marcus asked. “The harbor’s cut, half our food stockpiles are burned, and ammunition’s down to three days’ supply. Just how do you propose to hold?”

  “With guts,” Pat replied, knowing he was playing his last card. “It’s what Andrew ordered us to do.”

  Marcus sighed and shook his head. “Don’t drag that poor man into it.”

  Never had Bullfinch heard Andrew referred to as “that poor man.” Startled, he looked at Pat, who stood silent.

  “Still, it was his orders.”

  Marcus finally lowered his head.

  “All right, for the memory of his friendship and for that only. We give it a day, see what madness Hans can do. But if that fails, or if they get across the river at any point, I will surrender rather than witness a massacre.”

  “It will be a massacre anyhow if you do surrender.”

  “Maybe, but that’s a maybe. Ha’ark wants a live domain, not a land of ghosts. But if they gain this side of the city, there are near to half a million people I must be responsible for, and they will be massacred for certain. I will take my chances with a surrender.”

  “If you do, I will take your offer of a duel,” Pat replied bitterly.

  “Anytime you wish.” And without going through the ritual of exchanging salutes, Marcus stalked out of the room.

  “Poor Andrew?” Bullfinch asked. “What the hell does he mean?”

  Pat drew Bullfinch aside. “It doesn’t look good. He’s been alone down in his room all day. Kathleen ordered the guards to let no one in, not even me or Emil. They say they could hear him crying in there.”

  “Just what the hell is going on here?” Bullfinch asked. “Last time I was here you still held most of the city, and Andrew was hurt bad but mending. And I come back to this.”