Hells march, p.12
Hell's March, page 12
Anson frowned. “Not much cover. They didn’t have scouts out, but saw ours sneakin’ up. That’s what set ’em off. We could’ve halted the whole army an’ waited for night, I guess. Scout ’em proper.”
Lewis shook his head. “No, this is just as well. We’re in something of a hurry after all and we’d have wasted a day waiting to fight them tomorrow. I think they would’ve noticed us by then and been more prepared.” He watched another volley on the right chase the retreating Holcanos and called for his dragoon bugler to sound “cease firing.”
A cannon belched a final blast of canister at extreme range, knocking several of the enemy down. Who knew how many bodies already hid under the tall grass and yellow-white smoke streaming out across the field? The rest of the Holcanos were running for their camp about eleven hundred yards away, where more warriors were gathering, but they didn’t look anxious for more.
“What now?” Varaa asked.
“We have to go at ’em,” Leonor said as if that was obvious.
“Perhaps,” Lewis agreed, “but it’s early yet. Barely nine o’clock. We’ll wait for everyone to finish coming up.” He gestured behind where the 1st Uxmal was beginning to emerge from the trees.
“We have to deal with ’em,” Leonor insisted. “Can’t just leave ’em.”
“I’ll remind you there are women and children over there,” Reverend Harkin murmured warningly, but it came off as an obligatory remark. He knew as well as anyone they couldn’t “leave” the Holcanos to run west and warn General Agon, but wanted them to consider the consequences of an all-out assault. Not only would they take significant casualties themselves—difficult to deal with on their isolated campaign—the Uxmalos and Ocelomeh might be hard to manage in the aftermath. They’d been fighting this enemy for generations, and the Holcanos committed atrocities without thought, often eating their victims. The Ocelomeh in particular likened them to dangerous vermin, and he expected a vengeful slaughter.
Lewis had more confidence in the growing discipline of the army’s native troops. The peaceful (actually, rather spoiled by the Ocelomeh when it came to fighting) Uxmalos hadn’t produced many senior officers yet, but they were learning. And their common soldiers had absorbed a lot from the example of the Americans in the Detached Expeditionary Force. Most of their new NCOs and junior officers had actually served in the ranks of the 1st US or 3rd Pennsylvania first. The Washboard, if nothing else, had changed them enough that he considered the 1st Uxmal as steady as his other regiments.
But Harkin had changed a great deal as well. Aside from losing a lot of weight and looking healthier (except for alarmingly baggy skin), the self-absorbed, comfortably complacent minister, who’d “followed the drum to Mexico” with his friend Ruberdeau De Russy to attend the souls of the 3rd Pennsylvania, had grown more thoughtful and (of necessity) more tolerant of notions challenging his prior beliefs. That left him concurrently more realistic about war in general, yet idealistic about their new cause. He’d been on the beach when the Holcanos and Grik attacked and seen their barbarity on display. He’d even fought in the Battle of the Washboard after a fashion, taking up a rifle himself, so he understood the nature of war with the Doms. But the greater cause of defeating the Dominion had become a holy crusade in his mind. The Doms weren’t just their ultimate enemy, they were the chief enemies of God in this land that He had specifically brought them to confront. Why else were they here? The Holcanos were merely a gnarled finger on the malignant hand of the Devil, and if it wound up they had to kill every one to get on with their bigger business, he’d regret it terribly and feel very guilty, but he’d live with it.
Lewis, on the other hand, knew many of the American troops that came to this world simply wouldn’t stand for that, even now. They seemed genuinely devoted to their new cause, but he was thankful that most still harbored a fundamental appreciation of the difference between right and wrong. Not making war on civilians—of whatever sort—remained the principal distinction between them and the enemy and convinced them their cause was right. He had to come up with a better way.
“All messengers to me,” he called. “Yours as well, Captain Meder.”
“What do you intend?” Varaa asked. She’d watched for signs of the ruthless obsession that came over Lewis in battle; almost a detachment from anything but the fight that both heartened and concerned his friends (especially her and Leonor, and maybe Giles Anson, Captain Hudgens, and Corporal Willis, who seemed to be the only ones aware of it). It heartened them because at times like that it was like Lewis could somehow see the whole battle from above and instinctively knew where the crisis would come or where he must mass his greatest strength. Sometimes he got that way when planning a battle, distant and thoughtful as if already knowing how it would go, but mostly it came in the thick of the fight, when musket balls and roundshot were tearing all around him. That’s what concerned them; especially when the instant of decision seemed upon them and he whipped out his M1840 artillery saber and threw himself and his blade where he thought they were most needed. Varaa decided he hadn’t been like that today, but of course there hadn’t been time, or really even a battle. A quick survey had returned a report of six dead and eleven wounded. The Holcanos had certainly lost scores.
Lewis smiled at Varaa. “I’m not entirely sure.” He gestured ahead. “I doubt the enemy will attack again and they can’t retreat with their families.” He raised an eyebrow. “To their credit, Holcanos do seem more attached to their wives and children than Doms. . . .”
“Only sons matter to Doms,” Harkin agreed. “Wives and daughters are property that can be replaced.”
“So we’re given to understand,” Lewis hedged. There was still so much they didn’t know! “In any event, the enemy appears to be preparing what they must believe is their final defense. The only options they’re likely to imagine are ‘fight or run away.’ We’ll eliminate the second and give them a third to consider.”
Mounted messengers had arrived as he spoke and he quickly detailed their instructions. “They must hurry,” he told the men, “and cross the clearing far enough away that they’re not detected.” He pulled his watch from a pocket above his saber belt and glanced at it. “We’ll advance in two hours and make the ‘signal’ shortly after.” He glanced at Varaa. “If the detached battalions of the First Ocelomeh were where Consul Koaar-Taak’s morning report placed them and they’ve managed to keep up on those parallel trails, that should be more than sufficient time.” Koaar was the only other Mi-Anakka with the army, and he commanded the 1st Ocelomeh, but they were still “Varaa’s” people.
“You’re gonna surround ’em?” Leonor asked.
“That’s the idea. Hopefully they’ll see reason with three entire regiments in front of them and almost a thousand of their bitterest enemies blocking their retreat.”
Varaa spat, flicking her tail. “Reason? With Holcanos? Bah!”
Anson chuckled, touching one of the massive Colt revolvers at his side. “You’d be amazed how easy it is to ‘reason’ with folks, even knowin’ they’ll be hanged, with one o’ these pointed at ’em.”
With the 1st US, 3rd Pennsylvania, 1st Uxmal, a battalion each of Rangers, dragoons, and the rest of Capitan Ramon Lara’s Yucatán Lancers coming up from the rear, leaving only the rearguard Ocelomeh guarding their baggage train, Lewis’s army spread out in a broad, impressive crescent with parade ground precision, flags snapping, drums rolling. And with that same daunting precision, the two sections of 6pdrs and one section of 12pdrs—a full battery of six guns—reassembled in front of Lewis and his “staff” in the center of the line. Glancing at his watch again, he straightened in the saddle and spoke to Majors Beck, Ulrich, and Manley, who commanded the 1st Uxmal. “We’ve given them an hour and a half to watch and think. Advance the infantry, gentlemen. Slowly, if you please, and why don’t you strike up a tune? Advance your battery, Captain Hudgens. Unlimber your guns five hundred yards from the enemy. The infantry will stop there also.”
Beck and Manley both nodded briskly and turned their horses to their troops. Ulrich hesitated only a moment but turned to his men as well. He was older than the other regimental commanders, almost thirty-eight—the same age as Lewis himself—but seemed the most unsure. Lewis understood. The man had been an NCO most of his life, joining the Pennsylvania Volunteers after twenty years in the regular army. He’d spent all that time taking orders and carrying them out, and it had to feel strange to give them to other officers.
The 1st US stepped off first, its musicians striking up “The Old 1812,” followed immediately by the 1st Uxmal and 3rd Pennsylvania, which also took up the music. Four up teams of horses started pulling A Battery up by pairs, the two 12pdrs in the lead.
Anson was looking at his own watch. “A little early.”
Varaa kakked a laugh. “It’s a pageant, you old badger!” she said with great satisfaction when everyone laughed at his surprised reaction. Anson once called her a “possum” and wouldn’t explain what it was. Leonor did later and suggested an animal that reflected not only her father’s graying whiskers, but his temperament as well. Lewis smiled. He liked and relied on Varaa a lot and sensed King Har-Kaaska didn’t fully approve of the casual, familiar friendship she returned. No doubt he was chiefly concerned she’d reveal where her strange people, stranded in this land by an ordinary shipwreck twenty years before, originally came from. That was information he meant to keep from the Doms at any cost. Lewis understood and never pressed Varaa about it. Har-Kaaska needn’t have worried. Aside from a few vague references regarding the background and culture of her people, she never even hinted where they were. “It’s sure to focus the enemy’s attention while the Ocelomeh get in place,” Varaa now added triumphantly.
Lewis nodded at her. “A pageant, yes, but not much appreciated.”
The Holcanos were already panicking. They had about the same numbers as Lewis, but less than a third were warriors. Those were mostly already on the defensive line they’d established, many having used the time Lewis gave them to paint themselves red and black. Others were tearing down shelters, however, or just running around in terror. Many doing that were old people, or bare-breasted women bearing infants. They had to know that even if their attackers only scattered them, there was little chance any would make it to Campeche. Even in the dry season (it was worse when it rained), only large, well-armed groups could defy the predators in this land—and they lost people too, as Lewis knew well. Men alone or in small groups were almost certainly doomed, and a woman with a squalling infant would only attract hungry predators. They were watching annihilation march slowly, remorselessly toward them in the shape of sharply uniformed men, brave flags, and cheerful music.
At a distance Lewis judged to be almost precisely five hundred and fifty yards, Captain Hudgens commanded, “Action front! Form line advancing—March!” Immediately, the chief of his section of 12pdrs cried, “Walk!” and the two others shouted, “Section into line right (or left) oblique!” The crews were well enough trained by now that there were no commands, while the men on the lead horses automatically separated their guns and limbers by the specified seventeen yards and halted until the gunners and other men sprang down from half the horses and ammunition chests atop the limbers, pulled keys from pintles, and raised the trails, and gunners cried, “Drive on!” to the men still on the horses. Even as animals and limbers pulled away to the left and rear, guns’ crews spun the one-ton weapons around (almost a ton and a half for the 12pdrs and mostly achieved by the Numbers One and Two men pulling or pushing the sturdy spokes of fifty-seven-inch iron-shod wheels) and aligned them with the others on either side. Only then did the gunners and Number Five men lower the trails to the ground. Handspikes were unsecured from cheeks and locked in sockets at the rear of the trails while all the other artillerymen took implements and assumed their positions around the guns. The whole battery was now ready for action in seconds, with hardly a word, and Lewis was proud of the work Hudgens—who’d started as a foot artillery private—had done to turn these men into some of the best flying artillerymen he’d seen.
Then his eye caught the unremarkable, somewhat scruffy-whiskered First Sergeant Nevin Petty striding forward from the line where each limber and its team of horses had taken its place behind its respective weapon. He’d started here as a corporal, but like Captain Olayne’s First Sergeant McNabb, Petty was a steady, knowledgeable artilleryman with long experience and had at least as much to do with C Battery’s success as anyone. Some said he was a little intense and didn’t talk much until he got to know you. Obviously, that made getting to know him somewhat tedious. Those few who made the effort reported that he talked quite a lot after that and had a good, dry sense of humor. I should’ve sent him to Uxmal to form a battery of his own from captured guns, Lewis thought.
Number Six men, as well as the Numbers Five and Seven men, were unlocking the chest and taking heavy leather haversacks to carry ammunition forward, and Lewis had turned to watch the infantry move up on either side of the line the artillery established when Captain Hudgens called back, “Shall we load, sir?”
“By all means. Load solid shot and hold,” Lewis replied.
“Have you a specific target in mind, sir?”
Lewis pointed out a section of rubbled wall protruding from the distant tall grass, bleached white stone blocks harshly contrasting with the bluish green all around and the hazy forest beyond. “Destroy that structure, if you please.”
“Why waste ammunition?” Leonor asked. “Those Holcano devils make a fine target.”
“The ‘pageant’ isn’t over,” Lewis answered vaguely. “We’re still slightly early, as Major Anson pointed out, and I’d rather intimidate the enemy a little longer than possibly send them running before Consul Koaar is ready.”
“Couldn’t have been much of a city if that’s the most prominent ruin still stickin’ up,” Anson observed. “Doesn’t look like there ever was a pyramid.”
“We were wondering about that ourselves,” said Capitan Lara, riding up with Captain Felix Meder of the Rifles and Lieutenant Fisher in charge of the dragoons. They’d be wondering what Lewis wanted his mounted men to do when the action started.
“Perhaps that’s why it’s such a desolate ruin,” Reverend Harkin speculated darkly. He looked around at their questioning expressions. “No pyramid,” he explained. “Judging by the condition of the ones we’ve seen and the ancient parts of the cities around them, the ‘pyramid people’ must’ve outlasted others. Perhaps they even wiped them out.”
Leonor frowned. “Uxmalos have a pyramid. They call it the Temple of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Harkin was nodding. “But they didn’t build it, my dear. And though they’re aware it once hosted terrible rituals like the Doms still perform—Father Orno described the ghastly evidence they’ve uncovered—they’ve quite appropriately repurposed it. The Uxmalos—all the civilized nations of the Yucatán”—he raised a brow at Varaa, whose Ocelomeh remained largely pagan—“are recognizably Christian to a degree, but even though they’ve been here longer, they know little more than we do about the ancient history of this land.”
Anson grunted. “Seems the Doms remember more, an’ keep up the older ways. But by your reckonin’, wouldn’t the Doms themselves be sorta ‘recognizably Christian’? Jesus is big to them too.”
“Absolutely not!” Harkin flared. “Entirely aside from their . . . abominable practices, Jesus is not their savior. Only the pain and suffering He endured sets the example for their salvation. He’s deemed a prophet at best, a weak, wayward son of their terrible god, full of silly notions of love, who was sent to die as an object lesson and example of the only path to heaven.” Harkin was actually shaking with rage. “Their blasphemy is so profound, only the Devil could’ve inspired it!”
Leonor was quietly watching the Holcanos ahead, some standing silent, waiting for death, others working themselves into a frenzy. “What do they believe?”
“They’re ‘pagans,’ like my Ocelomeh,” Varaa answered sourly, blinking very fast and swishing her tail, “but the differences between them are as big as those between Uxmalos and Doms.”
Each gunner (a corporal) had repeated the command to load solid shot when it was officially passed by his section chief and the Number Five men went forward with the fixed ammunition—new copper roundshot strapped to wooden sabots with woolen bags full of a pound and a quarter (two and a half pounds for the 12pdrs) of the finest new Uxmalo powder tied to the bottom of it—in their leather haversacks. They paused at the gunners who checked what they brought and nodded them on when the Number Three men cleared the vents and pressed firmly down with leather-covered thumbs to prevent air from sucking or blowing through them. This was particularly important when firing rapidly since rushing air could brighten lingering sparks. They did it every time so they’d never forget. Taking the worm staffs from the Number Two men, the Fives waited while they fished the ammunition out and brought it up close to their chests before sliding it along the bottom of the gun barrels and inserting it at the muzzles. The Number One men had been waiting, rammer staffs poised. Now they shoved the shot and charges down together, pulling as much as pushing as they stepped between barrels and wheels. Withdrawing the rammers, they stepped back around the wheels to their positions by the axle hubs. This was when the gunners stepped forward and placed vernier rear sights weighted on the bottom in brackets screwed to the back of the breech, crouching to rest cheeks on their left hands, now grasping the large, knob-shaped cascabels. Tapping one side of the trail or the other with their right hands—there were only hand signals now because voice commands would be lost in battle—gunners directed the Number Three men, gone to the end of the handspikes, in which direction to shift the trail. They adjusted elevation themselves, turning the four-spoke tops of large coarse-thread screws in front of them under the breech. When the gunners were satisfied their pieces were aimed at the target and the elevation was appropriate to the range, they stepped back and made a sign to their section chiefs, who informed Captain Hudgens. Again, with everyone working together, all this took only seconds.
