Conrad's Last Campaign

by Leo A. Frankowski

  In front of me, the Chinese had reached the forward ditch and they were throwing ladders over it. Most of them were dying, but a few had picked spots where the machine guns had cleared away the defenders and they were getting though. The machine gun platforms could hold them, but Baron Ryszard apparently thought it was time to call it.

  He signaled for a retreat to the inner defenses. Big People raced by me on both sides to recover the wounded and dead, while others hurried to man the carts parked under each elevated gun. As the machine guns in the inner line took over defense, the teams on the forward line began dropping their guns into the carts and racing back in my direction.

  Ryszard had trained them well. The movement was smooth. Five thousand men in a half mile long line raced on foot across the empty stretch between the walls and took positions among the men already on the inner line with virtually no confusion and very few losses. The machine guns were reset before the Chinese got half way across.

  Ryszard ended up on the ground between me and his radioman. “I needed to get the men out of the way before our next move. I hope you approve, Sire.” He pointed at a line of white stones across the killing field. “Kowalski has pieces ranged in on that line. He’ll let loose when they reach it.”

  Above us, I heard airplane engines, but I was too busy to look up. Eventually I heard several long bursts from the thirty cals on the planes and I stopped worrying so much about my back.

  The machine guns slowed the enemy advance, but didn’t stop it. We didn’t want it stopped. When the first Chinese reached a white stone I heard whistling overhead. Baron Ryszard tugged on my arm, “Time to duck, Sire, and plug your ears.”

  Then the ground started shaking and the earthquake went on forever. For the next twenty minutes, all I heard was whistle, boom, rocks and debris falling, whistle, boom, ………

  When we looked up, the killing field was a montage of body parts. There were a few bodies lying around, but it was mostly dirt covered hands, heads, torsos and feet, most with shreds of red uniforms hanging on them. There were so many that your mind blocked it out and you didn’t even feel nausea. It was just pieces, not pieces of people.

  A few shots rang out up and down the line where troopers were making certain that none of the survivors, if any, suffered.

  Up on the ridgeline, the fighting had stopped. The planes were still making passes, but not finding anything to shoot at. From both sides, squads from the other ridge emplacements were converging on the Chinese squad, prominently displaying Christian Army flags so the pilots would know which side they were on.

  It took a day to find out what had happened, and it was a story that would have made a ninja proud. The ridge troopers had become careless about watching the outer wall because it consisted of steep walls that would be almost impossible to for the Chinese to climb, particularly impossible in the dark.

  The Chinese had waited for a full moon and then used cannon fire to create a ladder for their troops. The cannon fire the previous day had not fallen short of its mark. Instead, it was always planned to form cracks and footholds in the cliff face. Probably starting a few hours before dark, a small group of mountain climbers had scaled the cliff in the moonlight and lowered ropes down to their companions. By morning a sizeable squad had climbed the cliff.

  Just before dawn, they attacked the observation point and took control of two machine guns and a handy place to shoot them from. I doubt that many of my men could have climbed that cliff even in the daylight and I vowed to never underestimate our enemy again.

  The Chinese attacks stopped. I didn’t know if they were waiting for a better plan, executing a better plan, or just taking a break, but it gave us a chance to finish our preparations. After we reclaimed the outer defense line, the engineers planted charges in several locations on our side of the embankments. The charges would drop the embankments into the ditch and create a quick exit ramp.

  The machine gun carts were inspected, greased and prepared for rapid deployment. Kowalski selected his most mobile cannon and set the men to greasing the wheels, loading the carts with grape shot and tightening every bolt and band. Half the pieces would be left in camp, firing high explosive shells from a distance, but the other half would go with us when we charged.

  Stanislaw’s men scavenged explosives and shells and improvised bombs for the rigidibles. Flying Cloud was carrying thousands of liberated Mongol arrows that would be simply shoveled out the hatch over enemy troops.

  Zephyr finished its survey of the terrain around the valley and sent down maps of the possible routes. It turned out that the best route from our eastern barriers around to the western side ran north of us through difficult but passable terrain. The Big People had excellent night vision and great stamina, so they could make the normally seven day journey in less than two non-stop days, but Sir Grzegorz argued that the men should stop for three hours of sleep during the night. “The men can sleep in the saddle and we can make a grand dash into battle. Hell, we’ve all done it before, but they can’t be at full capacity that way. Better the trip should take a few more hours and they should hit the battlefield refreshed. We know that we want the battle to start at dawn, so we’ll try to arrive near the battlefield early and let the men sleep the rest of the night, and stop for a few hours of sleep during the first night.”

  The nine thousand wolves that would be the flanking movement were issued enough of our remaining stock of canned food to make the trip, and loaded up with ammunition.

  They couldn’t take a radio with them because it would be pounded to death at their speed, so we’d have to coordinate through the rigidibles overhead. As the rigidibles would have to stay at a safe height, a code system was devised using colored flares and large mirrors. For detailed messages, the rigidibles would drop a canister trailing a long ribbon.

  The details went on and on, but eventually we were down to picking the actual day for the attack. Good thing, since the day was chosen for us.

  We were in our morning staff meeting and Baron Ryszard was making the case for telling the Chinese troops they could surrender. “Every time we have faced Mongols, we have been unable to take prisoners. That is not unusual, but our reputation is hurting us in this battle. The Chinese are half hearted at best in their support of the Mongol emperor, but everyone ‘knows’ that the Christian Army takes no prisoners, so they might fight on just from fear of being killed if they quit.

  If we could convince them that they could throw down their weapons and leave the field of battle without us killing them, we would have a lot less people shooting at us."

  His idea was not a bad one. Frankly, I was getting tired of people screaming in fear when they see us, but we didn’t have a chance to talk about it because Stanislaw’s aid entered the tent making the worst attempt in history to be unobtrusive and furtively handed his boss a sheaf of papers. Stanislaw scanned the first page and then cleared his throat “Gentlemen, I am sorry to interrupt the chain of thought here, but we have important news from Vagabond.” When he had everyone’s attention he continued, “Captain Orbitz is reporting troop movements up from the south. This morning, I sent him to check the rail line for signs of supply trains coming this way.

  He reports that he sighted trains stretching over several miles of track and all headed this way. He thought that they were a large supply operation until the trains made water stops. When the trains stopped thousands of troops jumped out for ‘sanitary needs’.

  Once he realized he was looking at a troop train, he scanned the area twenty miles on both sides of the track. He encountered additional thousands of mounted troops traveling parallel to the tracks and large herds of horses.

  It looks as if we scared our enemies into sending for help."

  Things weren’t adding up for me. I asked “Does the report describe the troops, Chinese, Mongol, uniformed, armored? What do they look like?”

  He scanned the second page of the report. “He says that they are similar in appearance to the Imperial troops
already here except that they are wearing green and black uniforms rather than the red uniforms we have seen. They appear to be mostly cavalry, lightly armed. He doesn’t mention armor or specific weapons and there is no mention of Mongols or Turks on the train.”

  I decided we had to speak to Orbitz, so I sent an aid outside to the radio cart. “Get Captain Orbitz of Vagabond on the horn and then run a speaker and mike in here.”

  It didn’t take long. “Captain Orbitz, do you recognize my voice?”

  “Yes my liege. I can verify your identity.”

  “Then know that you can speak freely. We need additional information about the troops you have spotted. Do you see any Mongol or Turkish troops with them?”

  “I cannot say for certain. We dropped down several times for a close look, but looking down from two thousand feet through a glass is not the best way to judge troops. However, I can verify that everyone we have seen is in uniform. There are several types, but all in uniform of one kind or another. As the Mongols and Turks purchase their own clothing and armor, they stand out from the Imperial troops, and I have seen no one like that below.’”

  “Thank you, please describe the any arms and armor that are wearing or carrying.”

  “The men in the trains are not dressed for combat, but the mounted troops driving the herds mostly have leather armor and metal helmets. I got the impression that they also had chain mail. I did see a few guards on top of the trains who were wearing steel breastplates clearly showing mail underneath.

  The train guards were carrying swords and rifles. The cavalry had crossbows slung on their saddles and rifles over their shoulders. They were very visible even from our height.

  As to heavy weapons, all I can say is that they aren’t carrying anything too big to hide inside a rail car."

  “Thank you again. Two last questions. What is your best approximation of the number of troops coming and when should we expect them?”

  “Any count would be only a wild guess. At least a hundred thousand, maybe more and they are on your doorstep. Now that the tracks are repaired, the trains move fast and they could begin to arrive in Karakorum before the end of the day. Depending upon how organized they are, you could see them as early forty eight to seventy two hours after that.”

  I thanked Orbitz and resumed the meeting. “Since I doubt that an unfriendly force could travel though China on Mongol rail cars, we have to conclude that they are simply Mongol reinforcements. A lot of them.

  We need to conclude this battle before they get here. Count Grzegorz, sir. When can your troops leave?"

  “We’re ready. Have been for days. We can get under way within the hour.”

  “Make it so.”

  The Count was as good as his word. In less than one of our double length hours, he had nine thousand wolves mounted and waiting by the eastern ramparts. By that time, artillery had been pounding the Mongols for over half an hour. The wolves could probably have ridden right through the Mongols with minimal losses, but I insisted we up the odds with well dropped explosives.

  All of the Big People had been shown the route and had the mission explained to them. They would do the navigation, leaving the wolves to watch, rest in the saddle, and fight without sweating the small stuff.

  Despite the artillery firing behind us and the shells landing a mile away, the formation was quiet compared to conventional cavalry formations. Big People don’t jostle around or snort and they knew their place in line. The wolves were all proud sons of nobility, too proud to be nervous and too nervous to chat.

  I sat on Silver overlooking the formation, but Count Grzegorz was in the lead and in command. He raised his Sten gun over his head and bowed his head in my direction. I saluted him and as my arm fell, he charged over the ramparts.

  The columns were almost two gross men wide, and they were over the ramparts in less than ten minutes. A few minutes later, another thousand men from the mobile infantry followed them. These men would be returning. There would be casualties when the column bashed their way through the Mongols and this last group of men was there to get our casualties back behind our lines. The Christian Army never leaves a man behind.

  I waited an hour until the rescue column returned with the wounded and dead. There were too many of them.

  We had forty eight hours to kill.

  The End Game.

  By the time Zephyr confirmed that our flanking column was in place, the second Chinese army was closing on the enemy camp. We needed to end this before we had to fight more men than we had bullets.

  The main force that I led was much larger than the flanking force. I was going to lead almost thirty thousand troopers and artillery men into the battle, and the enemy knew we are coming.

  I had Baron Kowalski start his bombardment just before midnight the night before. All three rigidibles were overhead, dropping illumination flares and calling in target corrections. The Baron gleefully started the bombardment by dropping shells from his five inch cannon into the center the camp. Our artillery could reach over half of the Mongol camp. They pounded the camp and the troops between us and the camp all night. It was impressive as Hell, but it takes a lot of ammo to kill a half a million men.

  Our column was very different from the flanking column. We would be moving fast only by medieval standards. We would move slowly enough keep to ammo wagons, radio wagons, mobile artillery, and surgeries with us. We were an army on the move.

  Behind us, we would leave about two thousand men as a rear guard. They would man the barriers behind us. They job was to protect the rest of our baggage train and wounded warriors. Two planes were in the air scanning for Chinese planes and four more were waiting to strafe the Mongols.

  As dawn broke, twenty charges laid by Kowalski, noisily dumped the embankments into the ditch ahead of them, and we moved out. This time I took the lead in my golden armor with Terry riding behind me protected by the new shield on her back. It felt good. Beside me two aids rode, flying my personal flag on staffs held high enough to be seen by all.

  Holding my sword over my head, I gradually sped up, leaving the carts behind and preparing to hit the Chinese line with maximum power. The first Chinese defense line had been pounded so badly by the artillery that there was nothing left to fight. The Big People and the warriors had been told to ride down any armed opponents, but to avoid killing any Chinese who threw down their weapons or who were too wounded to be dangerous. We wanted them to know they could run and live. Mongols, we just killed.

  We didn’t even slow down and very few shots were fired. Most fighting was done by the Big People.

  As we approached the Mongol camp, I sheathed my useless sword and took up my Sten. Here we hit intact defenses and had to fight. The Chinese had dug trenches and put up wooden barricades and it looked as if the massive artillery bombardment had spurred the sudden development of modern foxhole. Here I slowed down to let the machine gun carts catch up. Then we hung back a little while the guns raked the Chinese troops.

  The shock of machine gun fire scattered the defenders. We jumped the ditches and brushed through the wooden barriers. The wooden barricades made good bridges to get our carts over the ditches, and we delayed long enough to gather all of our equipment before advancing.

  The ruins of the Mongol camp were in sight. Our next obstacle would the Mongol kill zone. Like us, they had left a large clear area between their main camp and their outer defenses and had built an embankment on their side. You could be certain that they had cannon zeroed in on it and sharpshooters watching it from foxholes. If we didn’t prepare well and move through it fast, we’d pay a heavy price. Unfortunately, our survival required we move soon.

  While I waited for our artillery to soften up the defenders again, I got on the radio. We were fighting over a nine mile long front, and I had no idea how we were doing.

  The news was not a good as I hoped. Most companies had done about as well as we did. They were at final barrier. A few companies were so far south that they were past
the end of the Mongol defenses and they were already fighting their way into the camp. The flanking force had begun their swing around the Mongols when we breached the first line. At least a few companies had taken serious losses from dug in Chinese who didn’t run, but we were still in good shape for the final push. The best news was that a lot of the Chinese troops were running for China. Once they realized that we wouldn’t pursue them, death from machine gun looked a lot more certain than death from angry Mongol masters.

  On the other hand, the Mongols themselves outnumbered us four to one and they hadn’t taken any loses and weren’t retreating.

  Our success depended upon keeping the blitzkrieg going. If we stayed in one place too long, we could be overwhelmed by sheer suicidal numbers, so I didn’t have time to chat. In the twenty minutes if took to get organized, the gunners manning the machine gun carts reloaded from the ammo carts and then the Big People who had been pulling the carts turned around and got re-hitched so they could push the gun carts forward. It was a clumsy way to travel, but allowed the guns to fire on the move without hitting us.

  I gave the order to move forward, and miles of men surged out. We were almost across when Silver stopped so fast that Terry was tossed to the ground. Beside us, another Big Person screamed in pain and dropped to his knees. When I dismounted to help Terri, I saw the reason. The ground was thick with caltrops. Hidden in soft dirt, under straw or just laying on the ground, the evil things covered the ground as far as I could see in both directions.

  The caltrop is a four pointed metal star designed to land with one point straight up no matter how they fall. These were large enough to penetrate a Big Person’s foot. They had been around since Greek times, but no one had ever been able to make enough to cover a battlefield. The Chinese had done it.

  I turned Silver back, but as we headed for our own lines, I heard the creak of a trebuchet. In a few seconds, a bag opened in the air and showered the space in front of me with more caltrops. While we were picking out way through, I heard more launches up and down the line. While Silver handled the navigation, I stood in the saddle and looked back.