The Tide of Victory (52 page)

The chiliarch was comfortably back in his favorite groove. He began stroking his beard with great vigor and satisfaction. "They must have thirty thousand men within a week's march. Three times that, within a month. And once they start transferring troops from the Ganges valley, we'll be looking at two hundred thousand." A bit lamely: "Soon enough."

"Maurice," said Belisarius patiently, "nobody can move that many troops that far very quickly. It took us months to get our army from Mesopotamia to the Indus, and we could use the sea. The Malwa cannot possibly move any large number of soldiers through Rajputana. The area is too arid. That means they'll have to march any reinforcements from the Ganges to the headwaters of the Jamuna, and then cross over to the headwaters of the Sutlej. It'll take them until well into next year, and you know it as well as I do."

He jerked his head backward, pointing to the north. "Until then, the Malwa will have to rely on whatever forces they already have in the Punjab. Which is a massive army in its own right, of course, but I'll willing to bet—I
am
betting—that by now they're scattered all over the place. Half of them are probably in or around Sukkur, hammering themselves into a pulp against Khusrau and Ashot."

Maurice did not argue the point, but he was not mollified either. "Fine. But they can still bring three or four times as many men to bear as we've got. Sure, with good fortifications across the neck of the triangle, we can mangle them before they break through. But there are enough boats in these rivers to enable them to land troops downstream."

With his finger, he traced on the map the Indus and Chenab rivers as they converged south of their own location. "Almost anywhere along here. So we have to leave enough of a striking force, centrally positioned, to stop any landing before it gets established." Gloomily: "We can manage it for a while, sure. We've still got twelve thousand cataphracts, and we can use half of them for a quick reaction force against any amphibious attack. But . . ."

Gregory finished the thought for him. "But sooner or later, they'll establish a beachhead. And when they do, the whole thing will start unraveling."

"So let's make sure it happens later than sooner," said Belisarius firmly. "Because sooner or later, Menander and Eusebius are going to get here also. There's been no indication at all that the Malwa have any real warships on these rivers. Once the
Justinian
and the
Victrix
arrive, we should be able to control the banks of the triangle well enough."

At the moment, neither Menander nor Eusebius quite shared the general's confidence. First, because they still had to run the fortress which the Malwa had built on the Indus below the Chenab fork. Secondly, because they had found themselves laden with a far greater cargo than they had expected. Instead of towing one barge behind the
Justinian
, the gunship was towing three and the fireship yet another. One of the three extra barges was loaded with all six of the twenty-four pounders which Ashot had possessed; the second with the artillerymen and engineers needed to set them up and keep them in operation; and the third with the powder and shot to get them in operation through pitched battles.

Ashot had insisted. Rigorously.

"I don't need them anymore," he'd told them. "After Calopodius broke that Malwa assault on the island—the one they must have been
sure
would succeed—the Malwa stopped all their attacks on the Roman positions. They must be getting a little desperate now. Their food is running low, and now that you've arrived—don't think they didn't spot you—they'll know that they're most likely going to be losing their water supplies. They don't have any boats on the river which can stand up to either the
Justinian
or the
Victrix,
much less both combined."

"You'd think they would!" protested Eusebius.

Ashot shook his head. "You're thinking like an engineer instead of a military man, Eusebius. A year ago, the Malwa still thought they were conquering Mesopotamia. The last thing in their minds was building armed and armored gunships to defend the heartland of the Indus valley. And that's not the kind of thing you can do overnight, as you well know."

"You think they're going to lift the siege of Sukkur?" asked Menander.

"Who knows?" shrugged Ashot. "If they had any sense, they would. Unless they can break into Sukkur, which there's no sign they can after weeks of trying, they'll start starving before too long. But I'm pretty sure the general was right: Link is still way off in Kausambi, not close enough to the scene to make informed decisions. So the Malwa commanders are probably operating based on the kind of 'stand at all cost' orders which seem reasonable to a commander a thousand miles away. And the Malwa high command has made crystal clear what the penalty is for disobeying orders.

"So take the twenty-four pounders," he'd concluded. "That'll still leave me the really big guns, in case of another Malwa assault. And Belisarius can use them up north. Those monsters
can
break down walls, if the Malwa start building lines of countervallation, which they will if he's managed to take the triangle. His little three-pounder field artillery can't."

On their way up the Indus, Menander and Eusebius had picked up another load as well. A small one, however—just one man. When they came ashore on a boat to the island where Calopodius had made his stand, in order to pay him their regards, Calopodius pleaded with them to take him along.

Menander and Eusebius stared down at him. The young Greek officer was lying on a pallet in his tent. Nothing of his face above the mouth could be seen. The entire upper half of his head was swathed in bandages. Calopodius' trickery had delayed a Malwa assault, but it had not prevented it. He had still managed, by his heroism and that of his men, to beat off that attack. But not without suffering a great price. His force had suffered terrible casualties, and Calopodius himself had been blinded by the shrapnel from a mortar shell.

"Please," he whispered. "I'm useless here, now. Anthony of Thessalonica has taken charge of the forces since I was injured—doing a good job of it, too—and I've got nothing to do but lie here." He managed a weak chuckle. "Practicing my rhetoric and grammar. A pastime which pales very quickly, I assure you."

The two naval officers hesitated. Neither one of them wanted to come right out and make the obvious rejoinder:
there'll be nothing for you to do up north, either, except die if Belisarius can't hold.
 

The rejoinder was so obvious that Calopodius already had an answer prepared. Clearly enough, his request was not a spur-of-the-moment impulse. The young nobleman—not much more than a boy, really—must have been lying there for days hoping for an opportunity to leave the place where he had lost his eyesight. And, in the fierce manner of youth, try to return to the fray despite the loss.

"The general will be able to use me in some fashion or other," he insisted. "He'll be fighting what amounts to a siege, on the defensive. Lots of quartermaster work, and a lot of that can be done without eyes. Most of it's arguing with soldiers over what they can and can't get, after all." Again, the weak chuckle. "And I really
am
quite good in rhetoric and grammar."

Menander looked at Eusebius, then shrugged. "Why not? If he really wants it."

Eusebius had his doubts. But, within a day after leaving the island, the doubts began to recede. Much to his surprise—astonishment, rather—the noble Greek youth proved to have an aptitude for machinery. Or, at least, didn't look upon it as utterly unfathomable.

Working down in the hold with the steam engine, of course, was far too dangerous for a blind man. But, after a bit of experimentation, Eusebius discovered that a blind man who was willing to learn could manage the work of pumping the chamber of the fire cannon readily enough.

"It's kind of dangerous," he said hesitantly.

"All the better," replied Calopodius. Then, after thinking about it: "Unless I'd be putting you and the crew at risk."

Eusebius began to shake his head, until he realized the gesture would be meaningless to Calopodius. "I didn't mean it that way. I meant it'll be risky being stationed up here when we run the fortress. There'll be picket boats, sure as anything. I'll have to torch them as we go past, or they might board the cargo ships. That will give the big Malwa guns on the fortress as good a target as anyone could ask for at night. You'd really be safer on the
Justinian.
"

But he didn't press the issue. Safety, clearly enough, was not what Calopodius was seeking. There was something almost suicidal about the young officer's eagerness to return to combat. As if, by sneering at death itself, he could somehow restore his sight. That part of it, at least, with which a young man measures his own worth.

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.