"We might take their supply dump at the railhead," Dinnalsyn said thoughtfully. "That would embarrass them considerably."
"It's fortified, and there are ten thousand men in there," Raj said. "Not first-rate troops, but they're expecting trouble and they've got considerable artillery."
They all nodded. You might be able to take a position like that by a sudden unexpected coup de main, or if it was held by barbarians too dim to take the proper precautions. Not otherwise, not with a larger enemy field force free to operate against your rear.
"If that's all, gentlemen, we'd better see to business. Tewfik's banner hasn't been reported back at Sandoral either."
* * *
The main column trotted down a roadway through the early morning cool. It was twenty feet broad, well-graded dirt surfaced with gravel, winding down through terraced barley fields from a low ridge planted with a mix of olives and almond trees. Gullies running down toward the flat were full of reddish-green native scrub; a flock of sheep-sized bipedal grazing sauroids fled honking and gobbling into the bush as the troops passed. Dew still laid the dust on the rolling hillside. Beyond were flat fields, irrigated and intensively cultivated. The villages were deserted, ghostly, not a human or a domestic animal in sight. The peasantry had had warning enough to flee by now, driving their herds before them.
Raj finished a pear and tossed the core aside, squinting ahead. Then he stiffened and flung up one hand.
"Halto. Silence in the ranks."
The bugles snarled, and the column came to a dead stop in less than three strides. Silence fell, broken only by the occasional jingle of harness as a dog shifted.
There. A dull thudding sound, like a large door being slammed far away. It echoed, and was repeated. Again. Again.
"Artillery, by the Spirit," Staenbridge said softly.
Raj nodded, closing his eyes to concentrate.
civil government field guns, Center said. two batteries, approximately 8.7 kilometers south-southeast of your present position.
"Well, that's something serious," Bartin Foley observed flatly.
Ain el-Hilwa had been the only action hot enough to need artillery support so far. The officers around Raj exchanged glances, and so did the men in the long ranks zigzagging back up the hill. The military picnic was over.
"Kaltin," Raj said. That was where Kaltin Gruder's kampfgruppe was operating.
He called up the maps of the area. A low ridge on either side, running east-west, more flat ground to the south.
"Sound Reverse Front," he said. "Then Trot."
The bugle screamed again, and the dogs turned in place. They waited the thirty seconds necessary to turn the gun-teams and broke into a rocking trot back up the slope.
"Messengers to the raiding parties, immediate concentration here," Raj began. "Colonel Staenbridge, establish your banner there" — he pointed to the notch where the road crossed the hill- "with a firing line on the reverse slope, ready to move up. Major Bellamy, that'll be your 1st and 2nd, and the 1/591st. Gerrin, anchor your left there" — he pointed to a reservoir- "and re-fuse your right with the raiding parties as they come in. Grammek, get your guns on the reverse crest too, but keep the teams close."
The artilleryman nodded. That was dangerous-risking immobilizing the weapons if the teams were injured-but gave essential seconds of extra time if you had to pull out fast.
"No fieldworks, but put up some quick sangars for the splatguns. Suzette, have those Church people ready to triage the wounded and move them back immediately; we won't be staying. Captains M'lewis, Foley, I'll be taking a company of the 5th and the Scouts forward with me. And one splatgun. Questions?"
Heads shook. "Good. To your positions, please. Gerrin." Staenbridge reined in. "I've got an unpleasant feeling we'll be coming back faster than we go. Be ready to stop them hard." Even veteran troops could turn unsteady if it looked like a rout.
Staenbridge nodded; they leaned toward each other and slapped fists, inside of the wrist and then back. "We'll be here, mi heneral."
Raj met Suzette's eyes for a moment. No words were necessary.
"Waymanos!"
* * *
They trotted through a land silent and deserted, warming towards the crippling heat of a Drangosh Valley summer morning. Raj's little force rode in column, with a spray of pickets out ahead. The dogs kept up a steady canter-trot-walk-trot-canter, eating the kilometers. Their tongues lolled, but their ears were pricked forward, all but Horace's, which were a hound's floppy style. The guns sounded much closer now, thudding bangs. The terrain hereabouts was mixed, fingers of high doab running from the clay bluffs along the Drangosh into the lower, flatter country to the east that extended past the Ghor Canal to the foothills of the Gederosian Mountains. From the sound, the guns were firing on the next ridge south.
All the men had heard the sound before, and most of the dogs. The troopers rode with their rifles across their thighs.
Whistles came from up ahead. One of the Scouts came down the road at a quick lope.
"Courier comin', ser," he said.
The messenger's dog was panting. He pulled a sweat-dampened paper from a jacket marked with the shoulder-flashes of the 7th Descott Rangers. A smell of scorched hide came from the leather scabbard in front of his right knee, the smell a hard-used rifle made when it was slapped into the sheath still hot.
"Ser," he said, "Major Gruder reports we'ns ran inta a patrol. Thought't were a patrol, turned out t'be more wogs'n we could handle."
Raj read quickly; it was a request for reinforcements, with a quick sketch map of the action. He shook his head. Kaltin was a first-class tactician, but he had a tendency to over-narrow focus, to lock his teeth in a situation and try to beat it to death.
"My compliments to Major Gruder, and tell him I'll be there shortly. And to be ready to move position, quickly."
"Ser!"
"Barton, bring them up to a lope."
The messenger pulled his mount around and clapped heels into its flanks. The sound of the guns grew sharper as the ground rose. He could see powder-smoke rising above the higher terrain to the south. A trickle of wounded passed them, riding-wounded leading dogs with more badly injured men slung over them-it was all you could do, in a situation like this.
POUMPF. POUMPF. POUMPF. The guns were firing steadily; he could see them now, spaced out amid spindly native whipstick trees on the ridge. They were firing from the top crest, the crews pushing them back every time they recoiled. Raj pulled off the roadway, leaning forward in the saddle as Horace took the ditch with a bound and swung up the hill.
Kaltin Gruder met him. "Ran into a patrol," he said. "Company strength-one tabor. I jumped them, more of them came up, I called in my raiding parties, then even more showed up. There's a battle group of two thousand down there now, and they're not stopping for shit. These aren't line-of-communications troops. Regular cavalry, and good ones."
Raj grunted in reply, sweeping his binoculars over the slope below. It was sparsely wooded with whipsticks, tall spindly trees with branches that drooped up and away from the main stem on all sides, dangling fronds of featherlike leaves.
POUMPF. POUMPF.
The eight guns on the ridgeline kept up their steady shelling, the pressure-wave of the discharges slapping at faces and chests. At least twenty Colonial artillery were firing in reply from the lower ground to the front, half pom-poms and half 70mms. They weren't attempting a counter-battery shoot, just searching the edge of the treeline to try and beat down the fire of the Civil Government riflemen. All across the open ground Colonial dragoons were moving forward on foot, line after line of them in extended skirmish order.