had to be running out of ammunition-and warriors-by now.
This was the first time General Halik had led an entire battle alone. He and General Niwa had realized that staying together had been the greatest mistake they’d made on Ceylon. Neither had been in a position to avert several disasters that occurred too far away for them to influence, and they’d determined never to allow such a concentration of command again. Niwa was in the south, coordinating the various actions there, and Halik wasn’t nervous, exactly, but he did feel a measure of unease. He believed he’d planned this battle well, and the enemy had done exactly as he hoped-at first. The resilience of the defenders on that cursed northern hill and the speed with which the force in the pass had reacted to his attack there had surprised him, but he didn’t think he needed Niwa here. His battle was taking longer than expected, but he believed it was still in his grasp-yet he missed the Jaaph officer. Niwa’s cool counsel was always welcome at times like this, when Halik’s blood began to boil.
A shadow flitted across him, and he looked up. Not again! Several of the blue-and-white enemy aircraft swooped low, directly over his converging horde, and released more of their hideous firebombs. The things exploded, flinging streams of fire among his precious, disciplined Uul more vigorously than his own similar weapons could ever manage. He raged. He didn’t have any of the large fire throwers here, nor did he have enough artillery. What guns he had were deployed against the force in the gap. Worse, he had no more airships to use here either-all that remained in India had been taken from his command for “something else,” even General Niwa had no details about. He assumed General Esshk and General of the Sea Kurokawa were coming at last, but he had no confirmation. His rage dampened just a bit. It barely mattered. The enemy machines would make short work of his airships again, even if he still had them at his disposal.
This fight would have to be decided the old-fashioned way, but he still needed to win it quickly. The first “new” Uul had been landed a few weeks before in the Cambay Gulf, just as he’d asked. He’d actually been surprised by that, but he was grateful. Now they were hurrying here, even as the battle raged. They were not “attack” troops. Not yet. They had been designed from birth to defend. They were very young, barely mature, but he’d been assured they could do what they were made to do: stand and fight to the bitter end-just as his enemies now did atop that thrice-cursed hill!
This attack had to succeed, but at what cost? What price could he pay for that wretched hill? He still needed these attack warriors in the gap, and they were withering before his eyes! Had he become distracted from his own plan? He might yet win the hill and lose his primary objective. Only once the enemy in the gap had been pushed back could he fortify a defensive, impervious position with invincible troops! The enemy would never break out onto the prairie where its better, more coordinated mobility could be fully employed. Again he wished he had fast animals his own troops could ride! The enemy cavalry, as Niwa called it, had been nearly as dreadful a surprise as its aircraft! He wondered if there was not something, somewhere, in all the realms of the Grik, that could be tamed for such a purpose.
More bombs fell, and now the summit of the hill was all but invisible through the roiling black smoke of burning fuel and bodies, and the white smoke of guns. He tensed, watching closely.
Flynn’s defenses had been forced back into secondary positions all around the perimeter by the amazingly well-executed attack. A couple of Sularan guns had been overrun in their forward positions, but not before they’d been disabled. Most of the paalkas were dead, either riddled by Grik bolts or burned to death two nights before. Unlike meanies, the stupid damn things wouldn’t lie down under cover. Billy Flynn had heard from the Maa-ni-los that they couldn’t lie down or they’d suffocate. He figured they would know, but the result was that his draft animals had been effectively exterminated. The rest of the guns had been heaved, by hand, into a contracting circle around the central hospital stockade, where new positions had already been dug. At the moment, it didn’t look like it would matter. Ammunition was dwindling fast, particularly for the new breechloaders and mortars, and they were almost out of canister. All they had was what they’d brought with them, and there was little possibility of resupply. General Maraan probably had the power to reach them, but she couldn’t deploy it in the narrow gap and pop the cork the Grik had shoved in. Worse, from what Flynn heard through Madras HQ, if she did break through to them before General Alden could support her, Flynn would probably have to find room on North Hill for all of II Corps! What a crazy mess.
“Hammer ’em,” Flynn yelled as he moved, crouching, behind the secondary breastworks. The Grik crowded so densely in front of it that it was impossible for a shot to miss. Crossbow bolts thrummed past or stuck in the shields that a pair of Marines insisted on defending him with as he moved. “Chew ’em up! Shred ’em!” he chanted. “Stomp ’em like the goddamn lizardy roaches they are!” He wasn’t even sure his troops could hear him, but they poured in the fire or stabbed with their bayonets at anything that got close enough. This would be a swell time for grenades, he thought, but they’d already run out of those. It was terrible and horrifying-and magnificent all at once.
One of his Marine guards dropped suddenly, his head misshapen by a Grik musket ball that punched right through the shield and hit him above the ear, sending his helmet flying. A Sularan quickly slung his musket and snatched up the shield. Dammit, I wish they’d just use their weapons! Flynn seethed to himself, angry that yet another of his guards was dead-but this was the crisis, the tipping point, and he thought he had no choice but to expose himself so. If there was any consolation, he didn’t think he was being specifically targeted. The smoke was so dense and visibility so poor, few of the enemy could even see him. Besides, the Grik leaders in this attack, if there were any, seemed to be leading from the pack, and the common Grik warrior probably didn’t know to single him out.
“Captain Bekiaa!” he shouted, finally slipping down into the trench beside the female ’Cat, where he sensed the greatest enemy pressure. Trust her to find the hottest spot first! His guards followed and he yelled for them to get back in the fight, which they gladly did.
“So, you’re our reserve now. Huh, Colonel?” Lieutenant Leedom asked ironically. He’d found a bloody Lemurian helmet and had tied the straps beneath his chin. He also had Flynn’s own ’03 Springfield, since he wasn’t as familiar with a musket. Flynn had kept the weapon but hadn’t used it himself since they invaded Ceylon. Apparently, the ’03 was in good hands. The long bayonet was reddish black, and Leedom was pushing bright brass shells through a stripper clip into the magazine.
“I’m all that’s left,” Flynn confirmed, raising his musket and firing. He nodded at the guards as he started to reload. “Me and those fellas.”
“We’re almost out of ammunition!” Bekiaa yelled.
“There’s more on the way,” Flynn assured her, “but it’s about the last of it.” He nodded at the surging enemy. “Won’t need it in a second. Bayonets!” he roared as the Grik hurtled forward.
Few in what remained of Flynn’s division had shields anymore. Only the Marines still habitually carried them, and that was mainly because the Marines at the Dueling Ground had done so, and it had been reported that they could turn musket balls-for a while-if held at an angle. Flynn realized now that letting his Rangers discard their shields had been a mistake. The weird Grik matchlocks fired bigger balls than the Dom muskets did, and if they didn’t always punch through a shield, they made very short work of it. But shields still came in very handy against crossbow bolts, and at that moment, as in the jungles around Raan-goon, a wall of shields would have been very welcome. The Grik must have recognized that too, because the biggest Grik charge didn’t come against the Marines; it came right at Flynn, Bekiaa, and Leedom, and the now utterly mixed “company” of Rangers and Sularans.
One very important thing Flynn suddenly-vividly-remembered from his time in France was that once the enemy reached your trench, you didn’t stay in it and let him land on top of you unless you wanted to die.
“Up!” he roared. “Up and at ’em! Charge bayonets!” Shrilly, the order swept down the defending line like a crackling electric current. Even as the Grik charge waded through the entanglements and reached the breastworks beyond, the Rangers and Sularans flowed up out of their trench and met them in a slashing, shooting, stabbing melee. As had long been observed, the Grik were better armed, physically, for such a fight, but the training and discipline-not to mention the bristling bayonets and thundering muskets that fired in their faces-left the Grik stunned for an instant. An instant was all it took.
Saachic’s cavalry, dismounted and without orders, joined the countercharge with a stutter of carbine fire and their long, deadly blades. A clawing, shrieking, hacking brawl ensued like hadn’t been seen since the fighting for the south wall during the battle of Baalkpan. Grik claws slashed and tore past their own small shields, which were suddenly in the way. ’Cats screamed and rolled back into the trench, bleeding or dead, but the long bayonets on the Allied muskets were sharper, better, and more horrible than any spear. Also, if a ’Cat had a chance, he or she could still load and shoot-and the steel butt plate on the other end of the musket was a far better weapon than the butt
