Dawn of Steam: Gods of the Sun (24 page)

The Maori's courage and the discipline and coordination we'd all been working on paid off. In the midst of the confusion, a number of spearmen closed ranks around some of our muskets. While their usual instinct might have been to join the battle, I think they understood that there was just as much courage and honor to be gained in buying time for our guns to organize and fire. Indeed, a number of those brave men sacrificed themselves doing so. I barely recognized some of the men defending me as I approached the line of guns being formed at the edge of more open ground. I can only assume that some of the newcomers, impressed we seemed to have a plan amidst the shifting sea of bodies, joined in the effort. I'm grateful they did.

While they knew where and when we would be coming, I do not think the enemy was prepared for this tactic. A wave of confusion hit them at the first roar of concerted musket fire, and a number of them fell back, while others stopped in their tracks, breaking the massed charge. The brief confusion bought us time for the second rank to form up and fire into the mass of enemies as well, while our spears kept the enemy's front line from reaching us.

Somewhere amidst the chaos outside of our knot of troops, Eddy managed to rally his own around himself and Matthew. By the time I saw him, he had taken up one of those greenstone clubs and smashed his way through enemy ranks towards us. Many of the men he had been training had been forced to begin using their muskets as clubs, but were bravely fighting at his side or following after him, trying to reach our position.

Our ranks opened for him and Matthew, then bought them enough time for Eddy to first catch his breath, for that effort had nearly exhausted him in his current state, and then for him to take a position where he could start picking out enemies from the melee. The rest of us weren't able to help with the effort of untangling the close-quarters fighting as he was, but at least we had cover, an unbroken succession of fire, and no shortage of targets still coming at our position.

Miss Bowe was easy to pick out amidst the chaos, her frontier clothing standing out amidst the barer, darker, and tattooed Maori, and I think she had planned just this. Standing out among these people before their greatest warriors is like presenting a challenge. Over and over, the most heavily tattooed and celebrated of the opposition threatened her, fought their way to her and challenged her in the midst of battle. One by one, she cut them down, dodging under or around their spears, moving inside the reach of their clubs, faster, I would wager, than any opponent they had ever imagined.

This tactic cost them as well, as many of their greatest fell due to their insistence upon seeking out the opposition's strongest warrior for direct challenge. That we had that warrior to distract their best, and the greater discipline, we were able to avoid being crushed by simple numbers. The tribes we had not trained with had learned the value of muskets, but York's soldiers did not know how to put them to best use and still approached this field like they had every other in their history.

Eddy, for his own part, disregarded their honor entirely. When a target presented itself as an enemy of note, he picked the man off. If ever a single man had won a battle, this may have been it, for though many of their troops remained, they were deprived of leadership far faster than they were deprived of numbers, and our enemies fell to chaos.

With their leadership being picked off, their surprise gone, and t
heir strongest falling one by one, enough Maori to have crushed us in time, had they kept fighting, fell back upon habit. They attacked, then retreated, falling back into the woods or back towards more fortified positions. It is odd that it is in this place and time that I gain the greatest appreciation for discipline to supplement a person's courage. Many of those I have served with could have wished even a fraction of the heart and courage which seems near universal among the Maori – but between two armies with equal courage, it was the more disciplined one that won the skirmish, despite a disadvantage of numbers.

Whatever their previous insight, they showed no signs of having expected us to push past this ambush at all, certainly not so fast. There were shouts of surprise and sounds of sudden rushed motion ahead as we pursued those fleeing towards the former French encampment. We continued to advance, coming upon the perimeter of their camp and the last of our cover.

As we came into sight of their camp, we paused. The tree line had been cut down to provide the fort clear line of sight. In the cleared area were a vast number of posts. Topping each post was a human skull, often still bearing bits of hair or flesh, and all wearing the caps of French soldiers. The Maori did not place these, for while they will certainly leave sign to warn away enemies, it is not in this fashion. Sickeningly, York or some part of his troop had descended to even greater barbarism than these natives. Despite all I had seen and done, I lost my command briefly to be sick.

Beyond this, we could see the target laid before us and the challenge it presented. Most of the positions we had attacked were but basic and quickly constructed fortifications, rarely more than walls. We now faced a fully constructed fortress, guarded by muskets and cannons.

Four guard towers stood at the corners of the fortress, each bearing its own cannons, signs of rocket emplacements, and with clear lines of sight onto the field. While the towers stood, there would be no clear approach for either the airship or infantry. York's own craft was moored, floating low, over the central fortress. Bolstered by the sight of their own fortifications and the commands of officers who had remained with the fort, the enemy retreat stopped at the fortress walls, and Maori troops began massing to prepare to repel us.

While we had cover, Eddy called Miss Bowe over, the two talking quickly. When they had finished, Eddy found a tall, sturdy tree to climb to get a better look at the battle, then called Matthew to join him. Though obviously strained by the exertion, he adjusted his goggles as always, sighting in the nearest tower. Miss Bowe prepared a torch for herself, whistled for the ornithopter, and took off straight at the enemy, with one hand holding onto her machine, a blazing torch in the other, and a knife stuck between her teeth.

Eddy shot three times in rapid succession, and with each shot, one of the muskets on the walls of the tower nearest us fell from the walls, clearing a path of approach for the woman and her flying machine. The cannons were not prepared to fire upward, and while other muskets fired and a couple rockets were launched, they were prepared for an airship coming in from above, not a small and maneuverable target. The sight of a single person in flight had a similar effect on the enemy as it had on some of our own allies. Some even fled in terror, regardless of what hold their leadership and York's witch doctor have on them, helping to further clear her way.

When she reached the guard tower, Miss Bowe dropped down, sending the ornithopter upward to circle out of easy musket range. After that, aside from the strange sight of the flying machine circling the fortification like some buzzard waiting for remains, there was nothing. It seemed like hours, but was likely not more than a few minutes. Still far too long for comfort. When we next saw Miss Bowe, she did not have the torch. She was fighting her way up the stairs to the top of the tower roof.

At a new whistle, the ornithopter dove as she leaped from the walls. Just behind her, fire erupted from the building, and as she caught the flying machine, the tower's store of rockets and powder exploded in a ball of fire. The shock from the explosion sent both tumbling through the air, and suddenly the enemy ranks gathered there were fleeing from the flaming tower.

We had our distraction, and we had targets running towards us. Our lines began to shoot down those fleeing the explosion, catching them between the fire and our lines. When we had sufficient confusion, our warriors rushed ahead into their ranks, trampling down enemies under their mad rush in the only path we would get.

Eddy and Matthew fell quickly to their usual teamwork with the rifles, and Eddy began to pick off enemy muskets and cannon crews at long range, limiting the fire we would come under from the next-nearest tower and the fortress walls. Now having an angle of approach where there would be no rockets, the dirigible advanced, and Miss Coltrane dropped down into the midst of the battle.

We had one of the guard towers cleared, but we had to take another if we were going to have any chance of massing troops close to the fortress walls, or even advancing in numbers
. Otherwise, we would come under cannon fire and muskets with clear sight lines to our advance. While we had a distraction and attention was focused on Miss Coltrane, many of our spearmen charged onto the field to support her attack. Some were shot down, but many reached her position to help in a direct assault.

The charge was expensive, but she reached the tower wall at a run. Her first strike shook many of the enemy troops on the walls and nearly cracked the tower wall open. A second blow from her functional arm finished the job, opening a gap in their defenses. Maori from both sides surged into the gap, fighting for space. Miss Coltrane took the opportunity to heft some of the debris of the wall, using it as a missile against one of the cannon crews.

The enemy began to reorganize, but most of the attention was placed on the new assault. Even with Miss Coltrane, I was unsure the small group fighting for control of the entry to the tower would win out, so I chanced the odds. With a number of new spearmen stepping in to reinforce my apparent honor guard where their brothers had fallen, I led my troops forward to reinforce her. There were many close calls and small skirmishes along the way, but no one had their focus on me, and we were able to reach the second guard tower.

With fighting at that tower still furious, many of the men with me took to scaling the walls instead. Eddy figured out this new plan from his sniper position, and took down those few of the enemy who were still on guard against this tactic. Fighting began at the top level of the tower among my enterprising troops and their remaining gunmen and cannon crews, whose weapons were not as well suited to close combat as they were to firing on us from above.

With the efforts to repel our assault divided and Miss Coltrane drawing the most attention, I was able to lead a small crew past the defenses at the gap in the wall and head up the stairs, fighting our way through defenders to eventually secure one of their cannons. With help in muscling it around, I was able to fire on one of the cannon emplacements still in enemy hands. Sadly, I did not have the words to explain reloading and was forced to resume fighting with my pistol, guarded by spearmen.

We managed to take the second tower at last. There was still a great deal of fighting in the field, especially at the doorway into the courtyard, but we had reduced York's firing lines and had some cover, though the tower was badly damaged by our assault. More and more of our men fought their way to our position, eventually including Eddy and his muskets. He reported that the enemy was regrouping, preparing to hold the courtyard and launch a renewed assault on our position. With Eddy and Matthew's help, I was able to reload the cannon. Eddy moved to man another one, with Matthew scrambling back and forth to help each. While it took Eddy's rifle temporarily out of the fight, we were able to draw attention and deal more damage to the fortress walls and its gun emplacements with the cannons, difficult as the process was.

Even with that, it is possible, had it been his goal, that York could have forced us into a stalemate for a time, but seeking to restore the momentum he'd lost, he'd have none of it. In a surprisingly short time, a newly inspired – or newly terrified – enemy charged us en masse. Many of our allies were caught in the open, not expecting the enemy to regroup so fast, before they could reach our fortified point. Our muskets took to the walls, with Eddy, Matthew, and myself doing what we could to handle two cannons between us.
(11)

We did what we could from there, but the battlefield quickly descended into a scene from hell. It wasn't long before I couldn't distinguish friend from foe, save having an awareness there were far more foes in the tangled mass below. It wasn't long before our muskets were useless for supporting most of our troops, and instead had to concentrate on stopping the enemy from breaching the gap in our walls, holding the door, or shooting down enemy troops trying to scale the walls as we had. Inexact cannon fire into the walls and courtyard continued to serve as a small distraction, but Eddy felt he offered more to the fight returning to sniping, with Matthew racing between his position and mine to aid us each in turn.

With no real hope of doing any great damage, I kept trying to force the enemy in the courtyard and on the walls to continue to divide their attention and account for being under fire. Meanwhile, York and his crew had not seemed to have given the Maori much instruction in manning the cannons, so for the time at least, the fire coming back at us was even more imprecise. Even so, one shell hit very near us, shaking the walls and almost dislodging Matthew.

With her own guard of warriors, Miss Penn made her way to our tower, adding nothing to the fight save presenting a target, but that at least ensured for a time we knew where some of the enemy's strongest warriors would be. She had lost half her guard by the time she reached us, but those who remained seemed proud of their service and ready to continue.

They approached the wall, where she said something about needing to reach the Moroccan. I did not catch all of it over musket and cannon fire, but the intent was clear, and we knew either way that we would need to take not just a tower, but the enemy fortress itself, or eventually they would overwhelm us here. The only way to defeat our foe was to take their leadership, morale, and driving force today, or we were lost. As it was, since the explosion, we had seen no sign of Miss Bowe. Miss Coltrane's battle suit would not last forever, and the damaged arm was already clearly slowing her down.