Garrett reported that the “city” was secure at last and his cavalry was busy chasing those who had fled toward the mouths of the Irrawaddy. Behind them, Garrett dug in beyond the city with a Baalkpan regiment while the rest of his troops went to bolster his connection with the center line and reinforce Queen Maraan. A few squads still roamed the city, torching anything that would burn. Most important, Pete Alden finally arrived at Rolak’s position with eight hundred of the 1st Marines. He was breathing hard, but not exhausted after his slog through the calfhigh sand. He’d lost a few Marines to straggling and injuries along the way, but those who made it were ready to fight. Company commanders and NCOs were already deploying the Marines when Pete went to find Rolak.
Rolak saluted him when he appeared at the command post and Pete waved back.
“I could use a drink,” Pete said, grinning.
“Water?”
“Not unless it’s ship’s water, boiled—or maybe mixed with something stronger. The last thing I need right now is the screamers. I still have my canteen, so something stronger would be nice.”
“Orderly,” Rolak called, “bring chilled beer for the general.” He huffed apologetically. “I fear ‘chilled’ will be a relative term, General Alden.”
“Anything below eighty degrees will be plenty refreshing, Lord Rolak. Could you send a few water buckets to my Marines so they can drink and refill their bottles?”
“Of course. Colonel Grisa?”
Grisa called one of his own orderlies to delegate a detail.
Pete gulped the sweet Lemurian beer that was brought to him. “My God, but that hits the spot! War’s getting downright civilized around here.”
“It was not so ‘civilized’ a short while ago, I assure you. We held well enough, but it was costly.”
Pete nodded grimly. “Sorry about that. You did swell.” He shook his head. “Logistics was a goose-screw in a sack. We have to sort that out.”
“We must, or those who died here today will have done so for nothing.”
“Not nothing. We’ve already learned a lot. I hope we learn a lot more. Weird fight, though. Going by what Captain Garrett’s faced and what you’ve been facing here, it’s almost like we’ve got two entirely different Grik tribes.”
Rolak nodded. “Yes, I ‘got the word.’ The ones he faced were ... less healthy, it seems.”
“Yeah. You had it tougher. Glad we got here during a lull. You think they’ll hit the same place?”
“I am as certain of it as one can be about such things,” Rolak replied. “Our scouts, and those attached to the Queen, say they are massing everything that faced us both into a single concerted effort against us here. The fighting was fiercest here, so they must believe us the weakest.” The grin that stretched across his teeth was feral. It faded. “I do wish
Salissa
’s planes would arrive and confirm that, however.”
“Another hour or so, according to the report I heard from Queen Maraan’s command post.”
Rolak nodded. “We heard the same. We can hear the planes themselves report, but they cannot yet hear us.”
Pete pointed at the aerial. “Not enough antenna, I guess. Too many trees too. Too much interference. The ships can talk to ’em.”
“That will have to do.”
“Maybe it’ll get better when they’re closer. It’ll be tough coordinating everything through the ships.”
Grik horns brayed in the woods, interrupting their conversation. Many horns. More than before, Rolak thought.
Pete finished his beer and wiped his lips. “Here we go again,” he said, turning for the front.
“Do you mean to stand in the line?” Rolak asked accusingly.
“Yep. I have to, to see what happens.”
“Unfair!” Rolak protested. “You ordered me to stay back and I spent the entire last fight strolling about with nothing to do!”
“That’s your job. Normally, it’d be mine too, but I have to see this.”
“Then perhaps I ‘have to see’ it too!”
“Well ... what if I get knocked off? You know the plan. You can still carry it out.”
“Everyone here knows the plan, General Aal-den. But if you
are
‘knocked off,’ who else here has my experience in war? Who else would be better to observe the enemy reaction than I?”
Pete shook his head and shifted the sling of his Springfield. “Aww, hell. C’mon!”
The Lemurian “phalanx,” as Captain Reddy had helped create it, worked much like its historical predecessors on that other earth. No physical activity ever conceived could possibly be as exhausting as prolonged hand-to-hand combat over a shield wall. The tactic was therefore designed to allow periodic rotation of combatants from the front rank to the rear, where they might manage a little rest until they started forward in the rotation again. Ideally. The trouble was, Grik assaults were usually so relentless and chaotic, there was rarely a “good” time to rotate troops. In this war, the ’Cats had learned to do it by “feel” and fleeting opportunity more than any other way. The system worked after a fashion, but some fought, by necessity, until they were nearly dead from fatigue, and that often resulted in them being completely dead. The fighters in the front ranks relied on the spearmen behind them to give them the break they needed, and woe was he or she who did not learn spearwork well, because in this business, what went around came around ... literally.
Rotation must have been fairly steady in this fight
, Pete thought, looking at the blood-spattered troops. “Okay, fellas,” he shouted, his words echoed by NCOs down the length of the line. He always used the term “fellas” inclusively, whether his troops were male or female. Here, with B’mbaadans and Aryaalans predominating, there were still few females in their ranks, although that was changing. It was impossible to ignore the fact that Pete Alden’s Marine Corps ran about half and half, and it was composed of volunteers from every “nation” in the Alliance. It was equally clear that even the best-trained, most-conservative Aryaalan regiment would never want to tangle with the Marines. Queen Maraan’s Six Hundred were on a par with them, but it also accepted females now. Nobody was really
happy
with that arrangement, least of all Pete and the human destroyermen, but the Baalkpans, Manilos, and various sea folk insisted on it. It was their way. It also worked.
“You’ve had a tough fight and killed the bastards like proper devils,” Pete continued over the growing tumult of the Grik horns as the enemy prepared for its next attack, “but this time we’re going to play something new. At my command, the first and second ranks will remain in place. Third and fourth ranks will step to the rear, behind the First Marines!” He waited while the order was relayed. “Execute!”
The two rearward ranks, gore-streaked spears on their shoulders, about-faced and marched through the waiting ranks of Marines. “First Marines! Take positions ... March!”
The two ranks of Marines that stretched the entire length of the line, except for the most extreme right, stepped forward in near unison, their blue kilts and largely unblemished white leather armor a stark contrast to the troops they’d replaced.
“Load!” Pete roared.
Eight hundred of the new muzzle-loading Baalkpan Arsenal muskets were removed from shoulders and placed butt down on the ground. Almost in unison, each Marine shifted his or her black leather cartridge box around, closer to their front, and proceeded to load their weapons by silent but endlessly practiced detail. Finely woven, almost silk cartridges made from the webs of some kind of long-bodied spider were handled and torn open with sharp teeth—the Alliance still didn’t have any real paper—and the gunpowder within was poured down eight hundred 36-inch barrels. The remaining silky stuff at the base of the “service load”—consisting of a .60-caliber lead ball with three roughly quarter-inch balls stacked atop it—was wadded up and the whole thing was seated on top of the charge with a glittering flourish of eight hundred bright ramrods. The weapons were then brought up to an almost precise forty-five degrees, hammers placed on half-cock, and tiny copper caps were pushed onto the nipple-shaped cones at their breeches. Again, with a simultaneity achievable only after long, repetitive drill, nearly every musket landed back on its owner’s shoulder.
Pete climbed to the top of the breastworks, looking back at his creation. The Marines were his, of course, but even the various national regiments were “his” in a way. The tactics were Captain Reddy’s, but he was the one who, with—now Colonel—Tamatsu Shinya’s help, had formed the Armies of the Alliance. Currently, Shinya was still doing the same job in Maa-ni-la. For a moment, oblivious to the growing tide that prepared to thunder down upon it, he took time to admire what he’d achieved. Ostentatiously, he unslung his own M-1903 Springfield, with “S.A. 1—21” stamped prominently near the muzzle, and pulled his sixteen-inch bayonet from its scabbard. The bayonet was dated 1917. Strangely, it suddenly occurred to him that he’d been nine then. Thirteen when his beloved rifle was made.
Odd, The sort of Things that go Through your mind at Times like This.
He shook his head. The Grik tide had been released.
“First Marines! Fix ... bayonets!”
Weapons came back off the shoulders they’d been resting on, and the twenty-inch, triangular-bladed socket bayonets were jerked from their scabbards. Adding an historical flourish that Captain Reddy had thought of and Pete just loved, every Marine brandished his bayonet with a roar, as if showing it to the enemy. Then, with a satisfying clatter, the wicked weapons were affixed to the muzzles of eight hundred muskets.
There was no Grik-fire this time. It had all apparently been destroyed by the earlier bombardment, but swarms of crossbow bolts filled the air. Pete stepped down, grinning, from the breastworks, and rejoined Rolak, who’d been watching him with interest.
“You are a most unusual creature, General Aal-den,” Rolak said. “In some ways you remind me of Cap-i-taan Reddy. Even as I grow to dislike this war, I believe you are learning to enjoy it!”
“God help me, Rolak, I think I do—but not the way you think. I purely do enjoy killin’ the literal hell outta those nasty Grik bastards, and I’m proud of the tools we’ve put together to do it. But you got the Skipper wrong if you think he likes all this. He doesn’t, really.” Pete paused a moment, thoughtful, while the Grik horde swept down upon them. “Not usually, anyway,” he said at last. “It does bring out the best in him, though, doesn’t it?” He glanced quickly over the breastworks. It was time. “You may employ your artillery now, General Rolak!”
Firing off the muzzle blast of the next gun in line, one after another, two batteries of five light six-pounders each sprayed canister into the face of the charging mass of Grik. Again the distinctive yellowish-white smoke accompanied the thunderclaps, and through the smoke the roar became mixed with the wails and shrieks of countless wounded. The guns pulled back and the shield wall closed before them once more. With a momentous crash of bodies, weapons, and shields against shields, the Grik slammed into the wall. Again, the wall bowed, but with all the might of the first two ranks, doing nothing but pushing against the enemy, the wall regained its place.
“First rank, First Marines, pre-sent!” Pete bellowed. Youngling Marine drummers, ranged behind the line, relayed the command with a staccato tattoo.
“Fire!”
Four hundred loads of buck and ball slashed into the gaping jaws of the Grik warriors. Through the smoke, a perceptible cloud of downy fuzz from the feathery-furry bodies mingled with the misty red spray from so many simultaneous impacts. The shield wall almost collapsed forward into thin air when the pressure against it abruptly lifted.
“Second rank, First Marines, pre-sent!” Pete called, even as that rank stepped forward to the right and the first rank stepped back to the left and began reloading. Pete waited a few moments to let the first rank get well underway with their task and allow the enemy to press forward once again.
“Fire!” Horizontal jets of flame lit the lingering, choking smoke of the first volley, and again the pressure against the wall fell away. A collective loud, keening moan had replaced the anticipatory roar.
“First rank!” Pete yelled relentlessly. “Present! Independent, fire at will.” The drummers altered their cadence. “Commence firing!”
The ensuing shots were almost desultory. A volley would have been wasted, since there was little left to shoot at. A few Marines got to practice their new combined drill, skewering Grik from behind the protection of the shield wall with their bayonets, just like spearmen would do, but then being free to shoot other enemies when none were directly in front of them or within reach. That was the real test Pete had hoped for: the bayonet as a primary weapon and the musket fire just the music before the dance—as well as an added “killer of opportunity” that spearmen could never indulge in with their bows. He’d hoped the initial volleys would provide a psychological effect, but they’d been unable to really evaluate that. The Grik hadn’t had time to “break” into Courtney’s Grik Rout. A lot did run, but most of the Grik force in front of the shield wall had been eviscerated before it had a chance to make up its mind
what
to do.
“Marvelous! Utterly marvelous!” Rolak chortled, yellowed teeth showing in a genuine, delighted grin. “I
did
enjoy that! We will pursue them now, of course?”
“Yeah. As soon as we kill the enemy wounded in front of us. Even if they are Grik, it ain’t decent to let the damn things suffer. Besides, some might still be dangerous.”
“Generals!” cried a runner from the command post tent. “The aarplaanes from
Salissa
Home draw near! They report seeing smoke from the city, and smoke from this fight. The wing commander, Cap-i-taan Jis-Tikkar, asks how his force might best be employed.”
“Tell ’em to bomb the hell out of any large collection of Grik they see southwest of our current position. Try to herd ’em toward the swamplands. I’d also appreciate a look at our far right, northwest along the river, to make sure there’s nothing else out there. Mainly, though, advise Captain Tikker that we’ll be pushing forward momentarily, so he should watch where he drops his eggs! Oh, and give my respects to Queen Maraan, and tell her we’re about to advance. I want the shield wall to stick together as much as possible, just like in the plan.”