S. Stirling - Against the Tide of Years

Inconspicuous, he thought, looking at his own position. Looks exactly like about one company, hastily dug in.

Besides the maskirovka, they'd used the irregularities of the ground well; the supplies and hospital tent were out of sight altogether, behind swellings that turned them into dead ground.

He looked back and forth. Troops dug in, reserves at hand, weapons placed by the book… now all he could do was pray.

"They come," Raupasha said, jumping down from her chariot before the hillock that held the expeditionary force's command personnel. That wasn't much: Kenneth Hollard, his six-person staff, and a clump of communications technicians and runners.

The horses were flaring their nostrils to draw breath, foam splattered their necks and shoulders, and several arrows stood in the frame of the vehicle. Kenneth Hollard saw with a sudden stab of alarm that she was holding one hand to her side, with blood on her fingers.

"You're hit?" he said.

"It is nothing, Kenn'et," she said. "A graze. One of the Hittite charioteers had a gun-the type with two barrels, that shoots many bullets…"

"Shotgun," he said automatically.

"A shotgun. But he aimed badly, and I did not." She pointed behind her. "They come."

He nodded. The Hittites were whooping forward about half a mile away, and the Mitannians retreating fast and to the right. Thank God they'd kept enough wits to remember what he'd said; he didn't want friendly forces masking his fire when the fecal matter hit the air-circulating device. And from the dust-bless the dust here, you couldn't move troops without raising it, and it was a boon to the man standing still-Walker's men were coming in on their right a mile further back, ready to support their local allies.

"You should get back to the hospital tent and have that seen to," Hollard said sternly, then smiled. "I don't want it festering."

"No, it would spoil the coronation if I smelled like a corpse three days dead," Raupasha laughed. "Teshub and Indara be with you, Kenn'et, and hold their hand over you."

"Amen," Hollard muttered.

She saluted and gave him an urchin grin as he returned the gesture- she had earned it, today and in Babylon. Then she walked away; the driver handed off his team and went after her, carrying the scabbarded Werder and the ammunition, and following the princess with an expression about as doglike as Sabala's.

Have to find her a husband, I suppose, Hollard thought. Though… most of the local aristocrats and princelings wouldn't be very happy with a woman who had been contaminated with Islander ideas of independence. Not necessarily or all the time, he thought. Look at my new brother-in-law. So we should be able to dig someone up for her. The thought was obscurely irritating, and he pushed it aside. Business to attend to.

Now to see if his plan worked. Usually they didn't, in combat. The exceptions were where you'd completely suckered the other side, a successful ambush or flank attack. That was when you won big.

The Hittites were coming full-tilt for his position. He leveled his binoculars; chariots in front at the trot, footmen running behind- standard formation, for the Near East in the thirteenth century B.C. The Hittites would be more prone to try and ram right in than most, using the chariot for shock. He caught one man with a sun disk on the top of his conical helmet, shouting orders and waving a sword; not Kurunta of Tarhuntassa himself, but probably a relative-the Hittite Empire was a family business, cemented by a stream of daughters from Hattusas sent out to marry vassal kings, and vice versa. The snipers had been briefed to look for that insignia.

Closer, closer. Hollard's lips skinned back as he scanned to his left. Walker's men were coming on briskly, advancing in company columns at the double, with their rifles across their chests. Trotting along were what looked like fieldpieces, six-horse teams, and light gleaming off iron and brass.

They're using the Hittite's to unmask and develop our position, he thought, plus using them to simply soak up bullets. Reasonably well-trained men and a commander with some grasp of tactics, then. Possibly one of Walker's Islander renegades. He hoped so; it would be a positive pleasure to string one of them up. They'd all been sentenced to death for treason in absentia years ago, too.

Hollard judged distances; you went by which features of a man's body you could see easily, when legs became separate from the generalized antlike blob, when you could see arms swing or a face. The Hittites were closing rapidly, but the Walkerites were hanging back- over two thousand yards, extreme rifle range but well within that of heavy-weapons fire.

He reached for the radio at his belt and clicked. "Captain O' Rourke."

"Here, sir."

"Let them have it, Paddy."

"With a will, Brigadier, sir, with a will."

BAAAAMMM! A hundred rifles volleyed from the Scouts' deliberately badly camouflaged rifle pits. Maskirovka was more than just hiding; it was deception, disinformation. It wasn't what you didn't know that killed you, it was what you thought you knew that wasn't so. A dozen Hittite chariots went down; a few of them flipped completely over, pitching forward and squashing the screaming crews like bugs beneath a frying pan.

Schooonk… whonk!

The Scouts' mortar opened up as well. A shell landed in the middle of the dense-packed Hittite infantry, and men fell, opening out in a circle around the explosion like an evil flower with a crimson blossom. The riflemen were firing independent-rapid as well and at less than four hundred yards mostly hitting. Men and chariots were going down all across the Hittite front; he saw arrows fly out, few covering even half the distance, and there were puffs of smoke from some of the chariots-smoothbores firing shot, even more futile than the bows. The charge wavered, which was exactly the wrong thing to do, like most half measures. They should either run as fast as they could, take cover, or keep charging. A running man could cover four hundred yards in a disconcertingly short time, if you were on the receiving end.

Horns and trumpets sounded. Hollard brought up his binoculars; the man with the sun disk on his helmet had survived and was going into a frenzy of signaling. In between he fired shotguns, handing them off to a loader as he did so-a new use for the three-man Hittite chariot crew, and quite ingenious. The chariots reversed themselves and galloped away, and the infantry flattened themselves to the ground.

Schooonk… whonk! More mortar shells falling among the prostrate men. He sympathized, in a way; that was the most unpleasant part, having to wait helplessly and hope you were lucky. Mostly he felt detached. Down underneath he could feel fear, not so much fear of death as of certain mutilating wounds, and more fear for the lives that depended on his decisions.

"Here they come," he said aloud, and his staff nodded soberly.

The Walkerites were deploying, going from column into a two-line formation, well spread out, swinging in to envelop the little Islander position.

"Right, about six hundred up, say three hundred in reserve," he said.

Through the binoculars he could see men manhandling weapons forward. They were on field-gun carriages with shields, like the Islander Gatlings but not quite the same. Fairly light, or they couldn't be brought forward that fast-keeping up well with the infantry. A battery of six real field guns galloped forward and then deployed, the teams turning and then being unhitched and led to the rear, crews leaping down and running the ammunition limbers forward, ready to form a chain to hand rounds up to the loading teams.

Budumm. A sound like a heavy door closing and a long puff of smoke from one of the enemy cannon; it ran back under the recoil. No surprise; the Republic couldn't make a mobile gun with a recoil-absorbing carriage yet either. Then a savage snapping crack of red fire in the air not far behind Paddy's position, and a wide oval of dust as the casing fragments and lead balls hit the ground.