The tide of victory

worth.

Chapter 38

Belisarius hunched, covering his head with his hands. The motion was more instinctive than reasoned, since his helmet would provide far more protection than his hands. From the sound of it, the mortar shell had landed too far away to be any danger anyway.

'Those are the worst,' said Gregory. 'The round shot, even from their big twenty-four pounders, can't really make a dent in these soft-earth berms. But those damned big mortars of theirs. '

'Just one of them killed eight men earlier this morning,' muttered Felix. He gave Belisarius a keen scrutiny. 'Are you sure. '

Belisarius shook his head, as he rose up from his crouch. 'Not yet, Felix. Don't think Sittas hasn't been hounding me about it, either.' The general placed the periscope back over the rampart. The optical device was one of twenty which Belisarius had brought with him from Charax. Aide had recommended the things, and, sure enough, they had proved invaluable once the Malwa siege began biting in.

'He's champing at the bit to lead a sally, because he's positive he can get to those trenches and butcher the Malwa mortar crews without losing too many cataphracts.'

Belisarius slowly scanned the enemy forces in the trenches not more than a few hundred yards away. 'He's probably right, too. Unless I miss my guess, the Malwa commanders are still preoccupied with getting their forces into position. Those fieldworks are pretty badly designed. Sloppy. The kind of thing soldiers throw up in a hurry, each unit working on its own, without any real overall planning or coordination.'

He heard the soft whump of a Roman mortar being fired, and followed the trajectory of the shell with his naked eyes. A few seconds later, the missile struck almost dead on in a Malwa trench. By now, two days since the fighting at the forward fortifications had begun, the Roman crews manning the coehorn mortars had become very accurate with the crude devices. They were using Malwa powder instead of Roman, since Belisarius had wanted to reserve the better grade for his field guns. But, with a little experimentation, the Roman mortar crews had adapted handily. This many years into the war, even Malwa gunpowder was far more uniform and standard in grade than had been the case earlier.

'I don't think those men out there are convinced yet that they've got a real siege on their hands,' he mused. 'Which, if I'm right, means that they'll be mounting a mass assault pretty soon. That's why I've kept the mitrailleuse out of sight, and have been using your sharpshooters so sparingly. I want to mangle them as badly as possible when they come in. Then-when they're retreating-Sittas can lead out his beloved sally. That'll turn the whole thing into a complete bloodbath.'

The savage nature of the words went poorly with the soft, almost serene voice. But Belisarius had long since learned to put his personal feelings aside in the middle of a battle. A man who was warm by nature was also capable of utter ruthlessness when he needed to be. He no longer even wondered much at the dichotomy.

Neither did Aide. The crystal's thoughts were even more cold-blooded than the general's. They won't have any real experience with modern fortifications, either. Even if they've been instructed, the instructions won't mean much. They'll come straight at the curtain wall, instead of the bastions like they should. The mitrailleuse will catch them enfilade, piled up against the wall with scaling ladders.

Belisarius was standing in one of those bastions himself. The bastion was shaped liked an arrowhead, with the rear sides of the 'blade' facing the curtain wall at a ninety-degree angle. Those sides were what was called a 'retired flank,' invisible to an attacking enemy because of the protecting lobes of the 'arrowhead'-what were called, technically, 'orillons'-and sheltered from cannon fire. The gun ports in the retired flanks were empty now. But mitrailleuse crews waiting in a bunker below would bring the weapons up once the attack began. From those gun ports, the crews would have a protected and perfect line of fire down the entire length of the curtain wall which separated this bastion from the next one, some two hundred and fifty yards away.

The fortifications, which were thick earthen ramparts rather than stone construction, were fronted by a wide ditch. There was perhaps two feet of water in the ditch, due to natural seepage from the high water table. In the more elaborate fortifications which Belisarius was having built several miles to the rear, where he planned to make his real stand, his engineers were designing the ditches to be suddenly flooded by ruptured dikes. But these simpler outer fortifications had no such elaborate designs.

They didn't need to. The purpose of the outer fortifications was twofold:

First, give Belisarius the time he needed to finish scouring the area north of his 'inner line' of any and all foodstuffs. That work was now almost finished.

Second-hopefully-draw the Malwa into an ill-conceived mass assault which would enable Belisarius to bleed them badly. That remained to be done. But, from what he could detect through the periscope-and even more from his well-honed 'battle sense'-it should be happening very soon.

'Tomorrow,' he pronounced. 'No later than the day after.' His gaze, looking through the gun ports in the retired flank, ranged down the length of the curtain. He could envision already the mass of Malwa soldiers piled up against that wall, and the pitiless enfilade fire of the mitrailleuse and canister-loaded field guns which would turn a muddy ditch bright with color.

It was a cool thought, for all that the color red figured so prominently in it. Containing no more in the way of mercy than a blacksmith shows mercy to a rod of iron. As he examines the metal's own red glow, gauging the strength of his hammerstrike.

* * *

That night, Menander and Eusebius ran the fortress on the Indus. Ideally, they would have preferred to wait for another week, when they could take advantage of a new moon. But time was critical. They still had no way of knowing if Belisarius had succeeded in his plan to seize the lowest fork in the Punjab. But, if he had-and neither of them was prone to doubt on that score-the general would soon enough be in desperate need of the men and supplies they were bringing. And, perhaps even more, the control of the river which the Justinian and the Victrix would provide.

Ideally, also, they would have hugged the eastern bank of the Indus, keeping as far away as possible from the huge guns in the Malwa fortress. But the river was uncharted this far north-at least, for Romans if not Malwa- and Menander was far more concerned about the danger of running aground at night on a hidden sandbar. So he would stick to the middle of the river, where that risk was lowest.

The Victrix would have to take the risk, of course. In order to intercept the Malwa picket boats which were certain to be stationed on the river near the fortress, Eusebius would have to steam close to the western shore. Although it was theoretically possible to 'walk' a side-wheeler across a submerged sandbar, neither Menander nor Eusebius had any desire to test the theory under enemy fire. So the Victrix would have to rely on speed alone. For which reason, the barge which the fireship had been towing was now attached to the Justinian.

'Talk about sitting ducks,' muttered Menander to himself, as he watched the outlines of the fortress looming up to his left. 'I'm moving as slow as a snail, and Eusebius is practically walking into the lion's den.'

The faint light shed by a crescent moon didn't provide enough illumination to make it possible to discern the details of the fortress' construction. It just looked very dark, very big-and very grim. Already Menander could spot the glowing lights which indicated that the fortress had long since fired up the hearths where the shot was being heated.

There would be no surprises here. Belisarius' drive to the Punjab had shredded the enemy forces stationed to the east of the Indus, but the Malwa retained complete control of the west bank north of Sukkur. Malwa cavalrymen had been keeping pace with the small Roman flotilla since it steamed out of Rohri, reporting its whereabouts to the fortress by using the telegraph line which the Malwa had stretched from their camp besieging Sukkur all the way to their headquarters in the Punjab. And from there, Menander had no doubt at all, to the capital at Kausambi.

Still, he and Eusebius had one 'secret weapon' up their sleeve. Menander turned his eyes away from the fortress and studied the fireship which was starting to pull out ahead of him. Any moment now.

A sudden flash of light came from a dinghy being towed behind the Victrix, as the small explosive charge was ignited. Within seconds, the infernal chemical concoction which Eusebius had prepared