Like a Mighty Army

by David Weber

  Lieutenant Karmaikel, the earl observed, seemed disinclined to give the army outside Thesmar the benefit of the doubt. For that matter, Hanth wasn’t prepared to give them the benefit of much doubt, but as he’d said, the Desnairians and Dohlarans had at least tried. Their fatigue parties had waited until full dark every night, then moved up as quietly as possible to just behind their frontline and gone to work on the gun pits. They’d stopped work well before dawn and done their best to conceal the growing line of emplacements behind loads of cut greenery.

  They got that one from Taisyn, he thought grimly. Which at least shows they aren’t too proud to learn from someone else. Unfortunately for them, it doesn’t work anywhere near as well against someone who can look directly down on it from above.

  The Sulyvyn Hill lookout tower had spotted the enemy’s efforts the very first night and carefully plotted them on the engineers’ maps. Because a twelve-pounder smoothbore’s maximum range was no more than sixteen hundred yards with solid shot—about thirteen hundred for shells—the enemy gun line had to be within twelve hundred yards or so of the entrenchments if it hoped to suppress Hanth’s own artillery. They were actually a bit closer than that, and some of the guns they’d brought up close behind their front and hidden behind local terrain obstacles were interesting. They hadn’t managed to conceal them anywhere near as well as they clearly thought they had, and Hanth had climbed to the lookout tower to examine them himself through his double-glass. They had shorter, stubbier barrels, like undersized carronades, and he’d come to the conclusion that they were probably the Dohlaran angle-guns the spies had reported.

  I could’ve gone all year without those turning up, he thought now, looking back down at his maps while he considered Karmaikel’s report.

  He had no reports on their maximum range. They certainly shouldn’t be able to match the range of his rifled naval angle-guns, but it was entirely possible they could throw shells farther than their regular field guns, given the angles to which they could probably elevate. He doubted it could be much over two or three thousand yards, given their barrel length, the fact that they were smoothbores, and the apparent size of their shells, but he didn’t like the thought of shrapnel raining down on his own gunners. He’d known of their existence before anyone ever spotted them here at Thesmar, so he’d taken precautions by roofing his riflemen’s firing positions with timbers and a two-foot layer of dirt for overhead protection, but he was still in the process of extending that protection to his artillerists. He’d concentrated on the farthest forward batteries, especially here on the Allies’ left, where the enemy’s preparations were most evident. The work remained far from complete for the batteries in the center and on his right, however, and they couldn’t provide overhead cover to his own angle-gunners. They had to be out in the open to work their high-trajectory weapons.

  We may be going to lose some of them, he admitted to himself. But not as many as those bastards on the other side are going to lose!

  “All right, Dyntyn,” he said calmly. “I assume Major Zhadwail’s men have been stood to?”

  “Yes, Sir. His battalion’s on full alert. And Commander Parkyr’s moved up to the Navy Redoubt,” Karmaikel added with a careful lack of expression.

  “Well, I’m sure that’s filled Lieutenant Bukanyn with joy,” Hanth observed dryly. “Still, he’ll manage to survive, I think.”

  “As you say, My Lord.”

  Hanth shook his head without ever looking up from the map. Lieutenant Symyn Bukanyn was officially HMS Trumpeter’s third lieutenant. Unfortunately, Admiral Hywyt had completely disarmed Trumpeter, distributed her guns to the Thesmar defenses, and turned the galleon herself into a hospital ship. The Navy Redoubt, just behind the first line of earthworks, was armed with six of her thirty-pounders, four of her fifty-seven-pounder carronades, and two rifled six-inch angle-guns. Hanth didn’t like having the angle-guns that far forward, since there was no way to withdraw such massive pieces if the enemy managed to break through, but they gave him several miles’ reach into the Temple Boys’ position. He hadn’t used them yet—plenty of time for that after the other side had moved sufficiently juicy targets into their range—and he had no intention of using them tonight, either, although Commander Ahrthyr Parkyr had full authority to bring them into action if he decided it was necessary. That was undoubtedly why Parkyr had taken himself off to the Navy Redoubt, although Bukanyn probably wouldn’t see it that way. He was a rather thorny young man, with an irascible personality, but those flaws were accompanied by an extraordinary amount of energy and a painstaking attention to the details of his job.

  I imagine Ahrthyr will keep a light hand on the bridle, assuming one’s necessary. Of course, I’d prefer for my artillery commander to not get his silly arse killed the very first night, too.

  “I think it’s probably time we moved outside, Dyntyn,” he observed in a resigned tone. He really wasn’t looking forward to the climb up the lookout tower in the middle of the night. He wasn’t getting any younger. But at least if they got an early enough start he could stop to catch his breath every fifty feet or so.

  “Yes, My Lord.”

  If Lieutenant Karmaikel felt any amusement at his decrepit commanding officer’s resignation, he was wise enough to keep it to himself.

  * * *

  Colonel Ahlfryd Makyntyr squinted up at the sky. The night was blacker than Shan-wei’s riding boots, and he was happy it was so, despite the fact that he was standing in the midst of well over two dozen artillery pieces which were being loaded in complete darkness. His gunners were sufficiently well trained to assuage any worries he might have felt on that score, and the moon would be rising within the hour. Not that it would be much help; they were just past the new moon, and the waxing crescent was little more than a nail paring. The angle-guns had been provided with incendiary rounds, which should do a decent job of illuminating the target, but neither he nor any of his gunners had any desire to be carrying lanterns around with all those powder cartridges just waiting to explode.

  Makyntyr grimaced at the thought, but it was secondary. The timing was more important, and Sir Rainos would not be pleased if they got it wrong.

  The colonel and Sir Rainos didn’t much like each other. Makyntyr had been transferred from the Navy to teach Ahlverez’ artillerists their trade. Before that, he’d been Captain Makyntyr … and a firm supporter of Earl Thirsk’s effort to reform the Navy. Given Ahlverez’ attitude toward Thirsk, that had created a certain inevitable tension between them. Fortunately, even though Ahlverez was just as bigoted where Thirsk was concerned as Makyntyr had expected him to be, he’d also realized how badly he needed someone with Makyntyr’s expertise. That had kept him civil long enough for both of them to recognize that they had a job to do, and while they were never going to like one another, they’d settled down into a decent working relationship.

  And as long as I don’t find some way to screw up, it’ll probably stay that way. Probably.

  At least Ahlverez was no more enthusiastic about this particular exercise in Desnairian stupidity than Makyntyr was, so he was unlikely to hold its inevitable outcome against his own artillery commander. Whoever got the blame, however, a lot of men were about to get killed, and far too few of them would be heretics.

  Now that’s a thought you’d best keep to yourself, Ahlfryd, my boy. I believe it’s called “defeatism,” and I suspect Father Sulyvyn would have a little something to say about it.

  No doubt the Schuelerite would, and Makyntyr intended to do everything he could to make the assault succeed, and counting the guns in his own and the Desnairian battery to his right, between him and the Bay, they had four times the artillery they’d observed on the heretics’ side. In this particular area of their fortifications, at any rate. But unlike the Desnairians, he knew what “new model” artillery could do, and the guns in those entrenchments were even better protected now than they’d been two five-days ago. He didn’t know if the heretics realized the Royal Dohlaran Arm
y had its own angle-guns, but they’d been steadily improving their positions’ overhead protection, and the Army of Shiloh’s delays had given them entirely too much time in which to work. Worse, all of the Army of Shiloh’s guns were lighter than anything on the heretics’ side, and at least some of the Desnairian gunners seemed to think that was a good thing.

  Idiots! I’ll guarantee they don’t have a clue what Charisian gunners can do.

  Ahlfryd Makyntyr did. He’d been a first lieutenant aboard one of the Dohlaran galleons Admiral Gwylym Manthyr had pounded into wreckage before his own ships had been forced to strike at the Battle of the Narrows. Obviously no one in the Desnairian Army had bothered to discuss the implications of that little affair with someone from the Desnairian Navy. While it was true that twelve-pounders fired rather more rapidly than thirty-pounders, the difference was far lower than the imperial gunners seemed to be assuming. For that matter, no gun could maintain its maximum rate of fire forever. In fact, once the tubes heated and forced the gunners to slow down, the advantage—if there was one at all at that point—shifted to the thirty-pounder. And he rather doubted that any Desnairian, even in their navy, had any concept of what a charge of canister from a thirty-pounder was like.

  Well, they won’t be able to say that this time tomorrow, will they? Those who’re still alive, at any rate.

  Somehow, despite his personal dislike for Desnairians, that thought gave him very little satisfaction.

  * * *

  “Stand by,” Sir Shailtyn Lywys, the Baron of Climbhaven, said tersely.

  The baron crouched in a small lean-to, open to the west but with a solid—very solid—wall to the east. He’d made certain of that, since he had no desire for any chink of light from the bull’s-eye lantern to warn the heretics what was coming. He needed that lantern to keep an eye on his watch, however, and for one of the few times since the Army of Justice had headed north, he felt a sense of profound satisfaction.

  Climbhaven was sixty-five years old, and the riding accident which had crippled his right leg thirty years ago had left him with continual low-grade pain which tended to flare up into something far more acute upon occasion, especially in cold or rainy weather, and had ended his cavalry career forever. The bitterness of his forced retirement had added an even sharper edge to a naturally crotchety personality over the ensuing decades, but while Climbhaven was a tiny barony, so small it appeared only on the largest scale maps, it was also an ancient one, and the current baron was related to many of the Empire’s most powerful families. He was even a connection by marriage to Duke Traykhos, and he’d traded shamelessly upon those connections when Mother Church decreed the massive enlargement of the Imperial Army for service in the Jihad.

  All the connections in the world couldn’t put him back in command of a cavalry regiment, however, and so he’d ended up as the Army of Justice’s senior artillerist … despite the fact that he’d never even seen an artillery piece two years ago. Most of the Imperial Desnairian Army’s officer corps could have made that statement, however, and he’d done his best to master his new responsibilities since. Along the way, he’d been amazed by the “new model” artillery’s lethality, and he was looking forward to unleashing that lethality upon the heretics.

  And that accounted for his current satisfaction. Denied regimental command or not, the entire Army of Shiloh was awaiting his signal. His gunners would open the attack, and he was determined they’d do it precisely on time.

  He watched the second hand sweep around the watch’s face. No one would fault him if he was off a minute or so either way, but he wasn’t going to be. Not tonight.

  He raised his left hand, aware of the lieutenant standing to one side, where he could see into the lean-to’s illuminated interior and simultaneously be seen by the crews of the nearest guns. Climbhaven never looked away from his watch. He simply waited, and as the secondhand reached thirteen, his hand slashed down.

  * * *

  It was certainly impressive, Hauwerd Breygart acknowledged.

  He stood atop the lookout tower with Karmaikel and a signalman, and the darkness to the west exploded as scores of muzzle flashes ripped the night apart. The fiery streaks of the shells’ fuses burned their way through the dark, and his eyes narrowed as some of those streaks rose in high arcs before they came plunging towards earth once more.

  So those were angle-guns. Not a surprise, but still good to know. We’ll have to get the sketches circulated so everyone else knows what they look like, too.

  The thought moved through the back of his brain; its front was busy watching to see how effective that hurricane of light and thunder truly was.

  One of the problems the enemy had created for himself by moving his guns up in darkness was that none of the gunners had been able to register their fire. They knew the entrenchments’ general direction, but that wasn’t the same thing as being able to aim properly, and most of the initial salvos had very little effect. Shells that actually hit the earthworks—and didn’t just bounce off—were simply absorbed, and black powder was a fairly anemic explosive, when it came down to it. The quantities packed into a Temple Loyalist twelve-pound shell, especially one with most of its internal volume taken up by shrapnel balls, did minimal damage to the solidity of an earthen berm twenty feet deep at its base.

  Only a minority of them did hit the entrenchments, however. The majority landed short, and while some of the short rounds managed to ricochet into the earthworks’ face before they detonated, at least a third of the rounds fired went high, instead. Most of the overs whistled well beyond the waiting Allied infantry and artillery, and only a handful exploded in midair at a point which might actually have thrown shrapnel into the defenders.

  Hanth doubted that came as a total surprise to the enemy gunners, and it certainly wasn’t a surprise to him or Commander Parkyr. While he was pretty sure the Army of Shiloh had expected the sudden, completely unanticipated eruption of artillery to have a severely demoralizing effect on its enemies, it probably hadn’t hoped to inflict much actual damage with its first few salvos. What it had achieved, however, was to put at least a dozen incendiary rounds behind the Allies’ parapet. Packed with saltpeter, sulfur, and meal powder, they gushed light and flame through the holes bored through the shell walls for that very purpose as they bounced and rolled. Fortunately, most of them landed in the empty space between the first and second lines of entrenchment, with nothing much to set on fire, but they accomplished their primary purpose.

  * * *

  Baron Climbhaven leaned heavily on his cane, watching as the heretics’ parapets were suddenly etched against the Shan-wei glow and smoke of his incendiary shells. He was breathing hard, his heart racing with the exertion of dragging his bad leg to his present position, but it was worth it when he heard the nearest gun captains shouting to their crews.

  They can see what they’re shooting at now, by Chihiro! he thought exultantly. Now lay it to the bastards!

  * * *

  “Open fire!” Lieutenant Symyn Bukanyn barked as the first enemy rounds thudded to the ground around and behind the heavily dug-in battery of the Navy Redoubt.

  There’d been some argument over exactly what to call that battery. Originally, it had been labeled simply “Redoubt #2” on the engineers’ plat, but Bukanyn had been unwilling to settle for that. He’d wanted to christen it the “Trumpeter Redoubt,” given where its guns—and commander—came from. Unfortunately, that name had been pinched by that insufferable sprout Dairyn Sahndyrsyn, HMS Trumpeter’s fourth lieutenant, before Bukanyn got his bid in, and Earl Hanth had decided it was a case of first-come, first-served. So Bukanyn had been forced to settle for the Navy Redoubt, although at the moment he at least had the satisfaction of knowing Sahndyrsyn’s battery was over eleven miles away on the slopes of Shadowline Mountain. He might have gotten the name Bukanyn wanted, but Bukanyn and Lieutenant Fraydyk Hylsdail in Redoubt #1 were going to fire the Navy’s first rounds in the defense of Thesmar.

  And
if the Navy Redoubt didn’t get its first shots off before Redoubt #1, Symyn Bukanyn would know the reason why.

  Fortunately for Bukanyn’s gunners, they did.

  * * *

  Baron Climbhaven winced as the enemy fired. They were enormously quicker off the mark than anyone had expected. Clearly the heretics must have gotten some hint of what was coming! And the shells smashing back at his artillerists were far heavier than he’d anticipated. He remembered a discussion with Ahlfryd Makyntyr in which the Dohlaran had suggested his Desnairian allies might be underestimating the destructiveness of naval artillery. At the time, he’d put the warning down to Dohlaran timorousness. After all, the Dohlarans had allowed themselves to be penned up in their defenses around Tairys by a mere handful of those fearful “naval guns.” Of course they’d emphasize how deadly dangerous they were!

  Perhaps he owed them an apology, he reflected, although he’d see himself damned and in hell before he offered one.

  He ducked, losing his cane (and his footing) and going flat on his face as a heretic shell slammed into the ground in front of him, bounced high into the air, and then detonated. He heard the splattering impact of shrapnel balls driving into earth—or flesh—and a sudden chorus of screams. Only his fall had taken him out of the path of those projectiles, and his aide had been less fortunate.