In addition to the trebuchets, the Chinese were using man powered launchers. The oldest form of catapult, they consisted of two A frames with an axle between them and a throwing arm mounted to the axle. The basket was loaded and then six or eight soldiers simply jumped up and pulled down on ropes tied to the shorter arm to launch.
Machine guns and rifles had longer ranges, so the simple throwers were going out of business fast. In a few minutes, the trebuchets began to disintegrate under artillery fire, but they had done their job. We were stuck in the open. At least I was. I could see that some units had retreated successfully to the last defensive line.
While we carefully picked our way out, thousands of Chinese and Mongol troops would be firing at us from foxholes and barricades, and doing a lot of damage.
The carts were just stuck. There was no way to maneuver a Big Person and two balloon tires past the caltrops field. The machine gunners kept firing from where they were, covering our retreat. I saw two troopers jump off their Big People and climb onto a cart to protect the gunners with their shields. Up and down the line people were coping.
It seemed like Silver had been tiptoeing forever, when I looked up to see troopers dragging parts of the Chinese wooden walls toward us.
Soon I was clear, but on the clock. If the flanking force hit the main Mongol camp with only nine thousand men and no main force, it would make the charge of the light brigade look like a cake walk. We had to get across fast.
I told my number two to grab whatever material he could and bridge the caltrops field. He was to get our men across as soon as possible and establish a base on the other side, but to wait until he saw the signal flares from the rigidibles before he advanced. We couldn’t create shock waves in small groups. I gave the same orders to the radiomen to transmit and then sent messengers north to make certain everyone got the message.
I headed south with a small force to spread the word and keep the action going. It turned out the caltrops fields were not complete, so a few companies had gotten across with little trouble. Maybe the Mongols had deliberately left small areas clear of mines for their own horses. Other troops were reforming to use the clear lanes, and some were building wooden roads. In all cases, the Chinese and Mongol troops were firing from protected positions on their embankment and we were taking loses. The longer our men were in the cleared area, the more we lost.
I was over a mile from the southern end of our line when I saw Baron Krol behind the lines on the Mongol side of the field. His force had been so far south that he was beyond the Mongol defenses. He had just ridden by the defenders and turned north to clear the opposition. It was one of the few times I was able to watch a cavalry charge and see the grandeur because I wasn’t being shot at. He and his men were running Hell bent over the bodies of the Chinese, firing and stabbing as they went, scattering or killing everyone in their path.
I decided to cross over and follow the baron north. Most of the fighting was happening ahead of me as the baron’s men cleared Chinese troops from their embankment, but we took and gave fire from Chinese on the camp side. As I rode hard to catch them, I could see men in red uniforms streaming south, away from the battle. In the distance, I saw them overwhelm a mounted officer who was trying to stop them. Maybe we would only have to fight the Mongols themselves. I started with most of a company, maybe two hundred men, but I was losing a few men to gunfire and dropping off men to aid the wounded who had fallen from Krol’s force
By the time I reached my own Komand with my last hundred men, they were across the ramparts and moping up the opposition. My first thought was that it was time to move on. We were short of machine guns and artillery, but some had gotten across and even the artillery left behind could give us support.
Fortunately my adrenalin dropped enough for rational thought. My radio cart was set up in a safe area and I took time to assess the situation before I leaped into battle.
My biggest worries were the green army reinforcements coming onto the field and what would happen to the flanking force if they moved ahead of us.
Zephyr was hanging over the green army, but the report was confusing. “The first red troops ran into the green formation about an hour ago, and they got a very unfriendly reception. The front line of the greens sprayed them with fire lances, and there was some fighting. Fifteen minutes later, the greens opened up clear lanes through their formation and began letting red troops retreat through them. Now I see that some red groups have stopped running and joined the greens. It looks as if they are letting the cowards run and leading the better troops back into battle.
I’m not even certain if they are friends or enemies or which side they’re on but they aren’t going to be a problem for another hour or so. They stopped moving toward your flank and they are now moving around to the back of the Mongol formation. Maybe they’re going to interleave with the Mongols and reinforce their front line."
Flying Cloud was over our flanking force, trying to help out with drops of improvised bombs and the Mongol arrows that we captured. Commodore Stanislaw was directing the air war from there. “We’re holding. We have four planes doing strafing runs on the Mongols and we’re dropping everything we’ve got. Its close, but we’re holding so ….. What the Hell is that?”
I was still looking down at the radio when the sun went out. Literally. I looked up to see the biggest damned airplane in this or any other world block the sun as it passed overhead. My first thought was “My God. I hope that’s ours”. Everyone else saw it too. The battlefield almost went quiet as necks strained to follow the behemoth as it rose into the northern sky and then suddenly nosed over and dove faster than anything the medieval world had ever seen.
I was still holding mike when the receiver came alive. “Hetman Conrad, Commodore Stanislaw, this is Captain Lawson on the White Dragon. I think we can be of assistance to your flankers.” I could hear the roar of machine guns before he closed his mike.
I could see the huge rigidible buck and shudder when its machine guns starting firing. It seemed to almost stop in the air and I could see the huge white wings flexing momentarily. Then it smoothed out and headed for the clouds.
It was enough for the Chinese. A sea of red uniforms ran, rode, stumbled and scrambled to leave the field. By the time White Dragon made its second pass, all we had left to fight were the Mongols – a lot of Mongols – well armed.
I listened into Captain Lawson talking to Commodore Stanislaw on the radio, “My apologies for the surprise Commodore. Twelve hours ago we were two thousand miles away on a shakedown cruise and I doubted we could make the party. We were ordered to make the attempt but keep a low radio presence.
Should we make a pass at the green force approaching from the north?"
“Not yet. We think they are hostile, but we have no idea who they actually are. It’s better to concentrate on more immediate threats. If we kill enough Mongols, there will be no battle for the greenies to join. Attack the Mongols wherever you see a target.”
We still had time to soften them up a little more. I got on the radio to the Commodore. “Commodore Stanislaw, for the next hour, the primary job for your ships will be working with the artillery. There is no point in letting a Mongol get close enough to shoot at us when we have thousands of artillery rounds left. In an hour we’ll evaluate the damage and decide whether to go.”
I sent several riders out in both directions with messages for any artillery units out of radio contact. They were ordered to kill anything they could find for the next hour if they couldn’t contact a rigidible for targeting.
Then I sat down for lunch with my men. It made sense. There was nothing to do for the next hour but listen to whistling shells and watch explosions.
The medical corps used the time to set up aid stations just behind the lines, where they stabilized the wounded and tagged dead before they were sent back to our main camp. Business was good, too good.
After I refilled my ammo supplies, I joined the circle of men sitting behind a
dirt mound and opened a can of “lunch”. It wasn’t too bad. It had a separate container on the top for a thick chunk of bread and the stew inside was edible, sort of, even cold. If I had a cigar, the world would be good.
I would have loved to have swapped war stories and lie about women with the men around me, but, as usual, being the boss was a conversation dampener. I settled for lying back with my hands behind my head, wondering what I would do after the battle. My future plans ended with a sword point in the khan’s neck.
The idyll ended when I remounted Silver, and signaled to the radioman to give the move command to the rigidibles. Green flares began to drop from the sky a minute later and we moved out.
We were about mile from the center of the Mongol camp and the ground in front of us was a mangled mess. My first impression was a lot of shell craters surrounded by pieces and parts of tents, bodies, and junk. There wasn’t a living soul in site. The previous inhabitants had fled, retreated or died.
We started out at a gentle trot. There was, after all, nothing to charge. Above us, White Dragon began a strafing run. Unfortunately, the Mongols learn war faster than most. When the Dragon bottomed out less than a thousand feet over the camp, dozens of cannons fired straight up. It was the medieval equivalent of flak, and they got the luckiest shot in the history of warfare. As the ship rose, I could see a huge hole in the left wing and she began to roll over on to that side. The roll stopped with the ship hanging in the air at almost ninety degree angle and drifting very slowly back toward the Earth. As the minutes passed, the drop slowed and she seemed to lift very slowly. We were on our own.
There was no more action until we were less than a thousand yards from the edge of the camp, then all Hell broke loose. The bastards were supposed to be dead, but they must have dug in really well because there were a lot of them shooting at us from behind barricades and berms.
We were ready. We pushed up machine gun carts and cannon ahead of us all along the line. We slowed our advance while the cannon fired grape shot and the machine guns swept barricades. The progress was slow but steady. We were taking loses, but hurting them more.
As I expected, the last hundred feet was strewn with more caltrops. The carts slowed down, but kept up a slow but steady suppression fire as I and the troopers dismounted and walked our Big People through the caltrops field. Then we were over the line and surrounded by Mongols. Armed Mongols, armored Mongols, hiding Mongols, prone Mongols, mounted Mongols and mainly very angry Mongols. I didn’t even need to aim. Behind us, the cart drivers were throwing down ground cover and trying get past the caltrops.
The artillery was still falling on the middle of the camp and the troopers were struggling to get the ones we brought with us past the barriers. About one Big Person in twenty carried a machine gun strapped to his side. They stopped at the highest places they could find where the riders unpacked the guns and set them up on tripods while the rest of us kept the Mongols away from them.
After a few minutes, I jumped down from Silver and gestured for the rest of my men to do the same. Now that the Mongols all had guns, it didn’t make sense to sit up in the saddle and make a good target. I told Silver to get away from me and find shelter. He just snorted and refused to leave. If I could have caught her, I would have thrown Terry off the battle line, but she also refused to leave.
The next half hour was trudge and smash. The Mongols came out of trenches, fired from behind mobile walls, poked up out of foxholes and occasionally rode down on us. They came in groups from our flanks and, on one occasion, a small group of them got behind us.
We struggled over their dead bodies and killed them with Sten guns, grape shot, and occasionally good old fashioned steel, and they kept coming. I didn’t know how we were doing, but every tine I looked around there were different troopers around me and sometimes fewer of them.
I think that I just caught sight of the general’s tent when the lights went out and the world slipped away.
Post Game Highlights
When I woke up, there was a Chinaman in my tent. I was surrounded by corpsmen, two bodyguards, and a Chinaman dressed in glorious golden and purple silk robes. I seemed to have only one eye working, but I could see him sitting in a red and gilded chair near the foot of my bed. After awhile I managed to say, “I see we lost.”
He gestured to a corpsman near him and said in the worst pigeon I have ever heard, “Get General.” Then he listed to his translator and turned back to me. “No. No lose. I Su Song. Chinaman. We kill Mongols, you and me. No Mongols now.”
That seemed to exhaust his pigeon and my strength so I drifted back to sleep.
When I awoke again, the sun was going down and he was still there. I tried to lift my head but someone seemed to have put lead weights on it. I managed to croak, “How long.”
The Chinaman leaned toward me and said, “General come. Rest now. Four days here. Was bad. Better now.”
I couldn’t wait for whoever The General was, I asked the corpsman, “How is Terry? Is Silver alright?” I felt the chill in the room. No one wanted to tell me. The Chinaman’s translator spoke to the corpsman and then his boss. His boss thought for a moment and spoke through the translator. “Not all news is good. The girl with you died covering your body with her own. The horse was badly wounded trying to drag you back to the doctors. He is alive, but they do not know if he will live long.”
He could see my agitation. He spoke through the interpreter again. “You did well. Almost half your men survived. They will see home and family again. It was great battle. There will be murals painted and stories will be told for a thousand years.”
About that time Count Wladyclaw entered the tent followed by two of his aids. “It is good to see you awake, your grace. I see you have met Su Song.”
The name seemed so familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I had heard it. “I’ve met him but I don’t know why he’s here or who he is.”
Wladyclaw smiled and bowed slightly to the Chinaman, “This honorable Chink is the man who brought the army that saved our Christian butts. He says that we would have known that earlier if we hadn’t shot down both of the messenger planes he sent to us.
He knew your name and was particularly keen to meet you. His official post now is liaison with us barbarians, and his tent is pitched next to yours."
“How did the battle go? I seem to have missed it again.”
“You couldn’t have missed much. You went down on a pile of Mongol bodies that you created yourself. You were almost out of ammo and your sword, your armor and most of your skin was covered with blood that wasn’t yours. You didn’t miss much.
The blow to your skull finally brought you down, but you’ve got one broken arm, slashes on both arms and one leg, and your body is one mass of bruises.
When you went down, both your main force and the flanking expedition were holding their own, but we were unable to advance on either front. Apparently our reputation of not taking prisoners energized the Mongols to insane resistance. We were in severe danger of having a pyrrhic victory when Su Song hit the Mongols from behind with the Song Imperial army and a lot of Chinese who started the day fighting for the Mongols
He told me that his major fear was that we would attack him with our flying machines before he had a chance to fight. Fortunately, the planes and rigidibles were too busy defending us to bother with him. When Song hit the Mongols from behind they panicked and sent troops back to block the newcomers.
That relieved the pressure on Count Grzegorz and the wolves. He broke through and overran the Mongol command center in less than half an hour and they just keep going until all the Mongols stopped breathing."
There were a few tense moments when the wolves met the Chinese, but it didn’t take long to realize we were both in the same business. "
“How is Count Grzegorz?”
He shrugged. “The doctors say that there is still hope. We lost a lot of good men. By the way, when I took temporary command, I had a couple of the coded messages
you have been refusing to read decoded. You need to read this one. It’s been around for several weeks.”
From: Count Piotr, Hetman of the Free Christian Army in Europe.
You might notice the name change. We have completed our negotiations with King Henryk.
In your absence, his transgressions became intolerable. He demanded full control of our finances. He demanded that all Jews be allowed to hold only low rank in the Army and forbade intermarriage. He insisted that all Muslims be expelled from the Army and issued orders that we attack peaceful Muslim countries and kill every Muslim who refused to convert to Christianity.
None of this was allowed by our creed.
When he arranged his own coronation as “Emperor Henryk, King of Poland and the Middle East, King of Egypt…” and so on, it was obviously time to dump our medieval monarch.
However, oath breaking is a serious matter and we opted to negotiate his removal rather than simply declare that we no longer recognized him as our Liege Lord.
We agreed to cede several forts to him and to give him a one time payment of twenty percent of all funds held in Europe. There is also an agreement for annual loyalty payments to be made for the remainder of his life. Even in Poland, we retained control of all of our factories, ships, bases and businesses.
We now hold dominion over most of the old Arab states of the Middle East, the former Cuman Khanates, Sicily, Gibraltar and various small states that were without leadership and protection. The area formerly controlled by the Golden Horde is ours to occupy if we want it.
Most of northern Africa is held by our vassal states, and our close friends, the Byzantines, have retaken all of the territory on the southern shores of the Black Sea. Our relation with the remaining Muslim lands is friendly and a few of the smaller states have asked to taken into Army dominion.
Conrad's Last Campaign Page 34
