But there was no situation as bad as that of these boys. Jeff and Larry Wild were the only ones who lived in Grantville. They lived right next to each other, in two of the double-trailers in the trailer park next to the fairgrounds. Jimmy Anderson and Eddie Cantrell, who lived in Barrackville, had been visiting them. Jeff and Larry's families had all been gone for the day. The four teenagers had been taking advantage of the situation to enjoy an uninterrupted and adult-free game of Dungeons and Dragons.
None of them except Jeff had reached the age of eighteen. And now, orphans in all that mattered, they were adrift in a world more vicious than any fantasy adventure.
"About time," said Jackson.
Mike pushed all other thoughts aside. The enemy, he saw, was a hundred yards away.
"You're the expert, Frank," he said. "It's your call."
Frank cupped his hands around his mouth. "Light 'em up!" he bellowed.
The M-60 erupted, sweeping the front ranks of the tercio. The man firing the weapon was using the three- to six-round bursts of a veteran. The stuttering machine gun started ripping holes in the tightly packed front line of the enemy. At that range, the.308-caliber rounds could punch right through an armored man and kill the man behind him.
The M-60 had been placed on the left flank in order to maximize its effectiveness. The gunner had a semienfilade angle of fire and was taking full advantage of it. In less than two seconds, all of the men behind the parapet added their rifle fire.
The seemingly unstoppable tercio staggered. The front rank fell, like a glacier calving flesh instead of ice. The M-60 traversed back. Another rank spilled and shattered. Back again. Another. It was like mowing wheat.
Mike was amazed at the reaction of the soldiers taking that incredible punishment. He had expected them to break immediately. Instead, the tercio was stubbornly pushing forward. If anything, the pikemen reacted to the horrendous losses by stiffening their determination. The men in the rear ranks were stumbling over the bodies in front of them, but they were still coming on. Some of them even tried to dress their formation.
God, those men are tough! That's just pure balls keeping them up.
Something of his thoughts must have shown in his little shake of the head. Behind him, Jeff Higgins whispered: "That's what this kind of early gunpowder warfare was all about, Mike. Guts, sheer guts. There wasn't-isn't-much skill involved in being a pikeman or a musket-shooter. Slam it out until somebody quits. That's how they're trained."
Mike didn't doubt the words. He knew that military history was one of the enthusiasms shared by Jeff and his friends. But he had none of Jeff's "knowledgeable" nonchalance about it. Mike was not a teenager. He had a much better sense than the boys behind him of what it really took for those men to keep standing under that punishment.
Say what you will about those bastards. Murderers and thieves and rapists, some of them. But don't ever say they lack courage.
As he watched, the enemy arquebusiers on both flanks managed to get off a volley. Few if any of the rounds, at that range, came even close to the Americans. Before the mercenaries could reload, the M-60 hammered their neat front line into shreds.
Yet, for all the wreckage which the machine gun inflicted on the tercio, most of the casualties suffered by Tilly's mercenaries were actually caused by the rifle fire. Almost all the men shooting those weapons were experienced deer hunters. Many of the older ones were combat veterans. They were using modern rifles, firing into a pack of massed men at less than a hundred yards-point-blank range, essentially, for those weapons. Few of their shots missed a target, and the armor worn by the mercenaries was never designed to protect against high-velocity rounds.
By later examination, it would be determined that well over two hundred of Tilly's mercenaries were killed by rifle fire. The same number, wounded. All in less than a minute. The machine-gun rounds, in contrast, caused fewer than two hundred casualties-a majority of whom were simply wounded. If for no other reason, Frank had given orders to be sparing with the ammunition. Those three boxes were all they had.
But It was the M-60 that broke them. One in five of those rounds was a tracer. On that gray and cloudy day, the tracers blazed like streaks of magic fire. To Tilly's men, and the Scots who watched, it seemed as if a sorcerer's wand was smiting them down. Along with, seconds later, the spitfire of a dragon. Ferrara and Jeff's confidence proved to be warranted. The warheads on the rockets were not particularly powerful, but the missiles themselves sped swift and true.
The center of the tercio finally caved in under the M-60's blazing hammer blows. Holes were torn throughout the formation by the rockets. And, everywhere in the first five ranks-and then the next, and then the next, and then the next-men withered under the deadly rifle fire. In less than two minutes after the battle erupted, the proud and confident little army which had marched on Badenburg was an utter ruin.
Alexander Mackay was not the only Scotsmen, then-not by far-who committed the sin of blasphemy.
"Jesus Christ son of God," he whispered. "Jesus Christ son of God."
Andrew Lennox did not join in that violation of the commandment. Not because he was more saintly, but simply because he was more hard-bitten. His ruddy face might have paled, a bit. But his cold eyes never ceased ranging the battlefield.
"Hoffman's men are beaten," he announced. "They dinna fire more than one volley, th' wretchet cowards." His voice carried utter condemnation. Calvin and John Knox, speaking through a veteran, pronouncing the ultimate sin of a seventeenth-century soldier. They did not stand and take it like men.
Mike looked to the left. Sure enough, the Protestant mercenaries were retreating before their Catholic counterparts. Years of garrison duty had turned Hoffman's soldiers into a gang of simple toughs. Extortionists, now facing real soldiers on a battlefield. They were already scrambling toward the road, with Tilly's men lumbering in pursuit.
Mike bellowed an order; then, repeated it twice. Raggedly-his coal miners and school boys were hardly a trained army yet-the American riflemen shifted their aim and began firing at the separate Catholic detachment on the left. The distance was greater, but it was still within easy range for good riflemen. Those mercenaries began dropping too. The men in the rifle pit began shifting the machine gun, but Frank shouted at them to hold their fire. Plain enough, there would be no need for the M-60, and they had to husband the ammunition for the machine gun.
Mike turned to Mackay. "I think…?"
Mackay was still too shocked to think. Lennox shook his arm.
"Yes, lad-he's right. Let's to it." The next word was spoken with sheer relish. "Pursuit."
Both wings of Tilly's mercenary army had collapsed by now, and the survivors were retreating in disorder. Mike called out the order to cease fire. A bit raggedly, again, the American riflemen obeyed the order. Mackay and his two hundred and fifty Scots cavalrymen poured onto the battlefield. Within seconds, they had overtaken the enemy and were calling on them to surrender. Those who resisted or continued to flee were ruthlessly sabered or shot down with wheel-lock pistols.
The battle was over. It had been Mike's first, and he was finding it hard to control his gorge.
"Is it always like this?" he whispered.
Frank shook his head. "This wasn't a battle, Mike. This was just a slaughter." The Vietnam veteran stared out at the bodies littering the field. Mounds of them, in places. "I almost feel sorry for the poor bastards, now. Almost."