Chapter 66

It didn't take Rory long to mount up and to get ready. I had him leave his weapons behind. I didn't want the enemy troops to find a reason to hurt the young man. I quickly handed him a message to deliver and a waiting guard handed him a pole with a white flag on it. When he was ready I ordered the sally port in the west gate to be opened. Without any further ado Rory rode out through it and past the cannons that were being set up out beyond the wall.

By now there were six cannons there. They were divided into two gun batteries with one on either side of the road leading away from the west gate. All of them were eighteen pounders and all of them were mounted on skids that could be used as a gun carriage. At the time Rory rode by, the gun crews were busy digging the weapons in and elevating them so that they could engage the enemy formations when and if we had need of their service. While the gun crews did that, workers were piling shot beside each weapon. Behind each battery stood a tarp covered cart loaded with powder charges. Dupree even had volunteers outside the wall raising a low breastwork in front of each gun emplacement in the hopes of providing some protection to the gun crews if they came under fire. Hopefully it would be enough.

I stood on the wall and in the cold rain and watched through the binoculars as Rory walked his horse the quarter mile to where the enemy forces were amassing. I could see that it caused a bit of a stir when the men there spotted him and his white flag. There was pointing and gesturing amongst the men formed up in ranks ready to march towards us, and there was shouting going on between their troop leaders and their officers. With my enhanced hearing I could just make out their voices rising and falling as they bellowed at each other.

Rory took his time getting to the front of the enemy lines. He knew that he was out there as a distraction and nothing else. I had no real desire to treat with these people unless they wanted to surrender and I had serious doubts that they would do that. It was however the message that I had given Rory to pass on to their commanding officer. If the men laid down their weapons and surrendered, I would spare their lives.

When Rory got within a few feet of the enemy he halted his horse and called out to them. From the wall I watched the greeting he received. Men armed with what looked to be submachine guns ran forward and surrounded him. Once they had done that, a big man strolled out and walked directly up to where Rory was sitting upon his mount. The man simply reached out and grabbed Rory by his sprained arm, the one still in a sling and thus visibly injured, and then the man pulled Rory off of his mount. I cursed as I watched my young friend get pulled to the ground and then swore as the man gave Rory a boot to his head.

Rory took the abuse without any resistance and the man tired of it after a second. He grabbed up the missive that I had given Rory to deliver and he ripped it open to read it. By then other officers had shown up and they were all milling around, waiting to hear what the message said. The man read the missive and then showed everyone what he thought about it by spitting at Rory. He then handed it to another man. That man read it for a moment or two and then he ripped it up and tossed the torn pieces of paper into the wind. After that he started issuing orders. The first was to tie up Rory and to drag him off. The second was to take hold of Rory's horse, and the third saw troop leaders running about again, trying to get their men back into formation.

I stood and watched it all for a moment or two, contemplating what I was going to do next and counting the minutes Rory had given us by riding out to where the enemy was formed up. I used the binoculars to burn the faces of the two officers into my memory. If they survived the coming battle I would deal with them personally. It was about then that I noticed that there were more men present in the distant fields than there had been before. I quickly came to the conclusion that these bastards had been getting reinforcements and that was why they hadn't attacked yet. Seeing this I decided it was time to stir up the pot before their numbers grew to a point that I couldn't deal with. Turning to the captain of the guard, I told him to prepare for battle. Then I hurried off the wall and moved to join the mounted troops that were gathered together below. As I did, I heard the captain of the guard yelling over the parapet to the gunners below, ordering them to open fire.

A second later there was a quick succession of booms as one gun after another opened up. The loud noise startled the horses and the men mounting them had problems keeping them in check. I hoped that it wouldn't be a problem as I reached the spot where my grey was tethered.

"Here," Nimue said as I settled myself into my saddle. "Take these."

I turned to find Nimue handing me a satchel of hand grenades. A quick look into the satchel showed me that these were not the grenades from Panwan or Temasek, but instead modern style fragmentation grenades. There were a half dozen in the satchel.

"I've passed them out to everyone with us," Nimue told me as she watched me put the sling of the satchel over my shoulder. "Everyone has a couple of them and I gave you the remainder. I figured you would have a better use for them than the rest of us, given the range of your arm and your accuracy with weapons."

"Good," I stated in acknowledgement. "However the question is do they know how to use them?"

"I gave them a short lecture and dry demonstration," Dupree said as he rode over to join my mate and me, "so if we're lucky, no one will blow him or herself up."

At that moment the cannons roared again and the horses started and I got distracted for a moment or two while I settled the grey. Then I decided it was time to go. Yelling at the guards on the gate, I told them to open it up. A moment later we were off and out through it at a gallop. As we road, I palmed a grenade into my free hand and waited to make use of it. That moment was quickly approaching.

There were only fifty of us in the attack and only half of us had firearms. The rest had crossbows as ranged weapons. We rode as fast as we could with me leading and Dupree on my right and Nimue on our left. As we zipped past the cannons they spoke again, putting wings on our beasts. Our mounts nickered with fright and dashed on without restraint.

The cannons were actually proving to be effective. The shot was slamming into the ranks of formed up troops and the incoming cannonballs were breaking them up. There were men lying injured and dying on the ground and other men running about in a panic. What order had existed was already gone.

I truly think that our sudden appearance took the enemy by surprise. These men weren't used to being attacked by mounted men in armour and personally I think that they weren't used to being attacked at all. Their initial reaction was just to stare at us in disbelief. Of course that didn't last too long. As always there is at least one good man in the crowd who knows how to do his duty and when he does, others quickly follow his example. The bastards started shooting at us well before we reached them.

Luckily the first shots were wild and none of them hit us. When we got within grenade range, I turned my mount to the left so that I could ride down their front line. As my mount turned, I pulled the pin on the grenade in my right hand and I lobbed it into the ranks of men who were still busy picking themselves up after the cannon barrage. The grenade went off a few seconds later, followed by another and another and all I could hear was screaming. Then another barrage fell as my force rode out of view adding more death to the chaos that we'd left in our wake.

We got lucky. We only lost one man in our ride past the enemy's front echelon and we lost that man when someone shot his horse out from under him. The horse ended up pitching forward as it collapsed and the man went over its head and he ended up breaking his neck. It was regrettable but it could have been worse. Unfortunately that was the last piece of luck that we got. As we drew our horses to a halt south of where the enemy had formed up, we were immediately set upon by a squadron of armoured cars. Fearing the worst I ordered my men into the tree line southeast of us. We made it with only the loss of one more man.

Once in the woods I ordered everyone off their mounts and then I told them to lead them back towards the vehicle park. My intention was to set up a skirmish line there in hopes of drawing in a few of the enemy troops. I gave that job to Dupree to manage while I turned my attention towards keeping the armoured cars busy. The man just grinned at me and shook his head.

It really wasn't much of an effort. The armoured cars had formed up on the edge of the woods after they had chased us into them and their gunners were spraying the trees with their light machine guns. Of course with weapons mounted a good seven feet off the ground and with only a limited amount of depression, they weren't doing much other than knocking the last few leaves off of the trees that still had any foliage. Luckily for me the woods had a few pines mixed in with the other types of trees and there was plenty of low lying brush for me to hide behind. Using it I worked my way south for a bit and then I came back west until I was near where the armoured cars were parked.

To my amazement, I found the vehicles unprotected by any supporting troops. Whoever was in command of these men and vehicles was quickly proving that he had never seen combat before. I just shook my head at that and then pressed on. I reached into my satchel and quickly pulled out a grenade. As I did, I stood up in the depression where I had been hiding. Then I pulled the pin on the grenade and lobbed it at the vehicle that was closest to me. Without err the grenade arced up and then it fell down into the open turret of the armoured car, passing between the gunner and the turret ring. As it did, I dropped to the ground. A second later there was a large 'wham' sound followed by the sound of ammunition cooking off and the screams of men dying. It made quite a racket and I decided to take advantage of it before somebody came to see what was going on.

The armoured car nearest me was on fire and out of action with its gunner now lying dead upon the ground beside it. The man had been blown out of the vehicle when the grenade had gone off. Ignoring the grisly sight I jumped to my feet and I dashed out from where I had been hiding. With determined strides I ran around it and headed for the vehicle next in line. As I did, I immediately came under fire. Rounds started to strike all around me but none of them hit me. Sensing that my time was short, I grabbed another grenade from the satchel. Then with the dare-to-do that I'd seen in many a war movie back on my Earth, I leapt onto the rear of the next armoured car parked in the row and I started scrambling up it. The gunner saw me and he started to shout an alarm. He also tried to traverse his small turret about so he could bring his machine gun to bear. He wasn't fast enough. I reached the top of the vehicle and then I literally stepped on the man with my booted foot. Pinning his head against the top of the turret, I pulled the pin on the grenade and then I dropped it down into the open turret. As it clattered about the interior of the vehicle, I used the man's head as a springboard so that I could leap over him and off of the vehicle. More rounds hit about me as I jumped forward but none of them hit me. A moment later I landed in front of the armoured car and I was rolling away from it. That was when the grenade went off and a second armoured car ended up destroyed.

I continued into the woods after that, rolling for a bit before getting myself into a crouch so I could get away. Without hesitating I headed after the rest of my men. Behind me I heard the cries of pissed off troopers and the bark of troop leaders ordering them after me. Automatic fire still lashed the upper branches of the trees from the other two armoured cars but it really had no effect. Once I was out of sight of the vehicles I stood up and hurried as fast as I could away from them.

I found Dupree and Nimue waiting for me at the edge of the vehicle park. Nimue handed my carbine to me as I ran up to her and Dupree just smiled and shook his head. Then his face turned serious and his own carbine came up and it started to speak. A second later Nimue's shotgun went into action as did a couple of other weapons fired by my posted men. As I turned to see what they were firing at, I saw a troop of ten enemy soldiers get chewed up by my people's weapons.

"That was close," I muttered when the firing stopped. Then looking at Dupree and Nimue, I said, "Thanks."

"Hey, no problem, my lord," Dupree chuckled in response; "after all, you brought them to us so we could play so the least we could do was to oblige you."

I smiled at that bit of whimsy and then got serious. The ten dead troopers had provided us with a boon. I sent out a couple of my men who were armed with crossbows and told them to strip the dead men of their weapons and ammunition and to dole them out to their fellow bowmen. I figured that a few more rifles would help bolster our defence. While they did that, I moved in amongst the parked vehicles until I was standing at a point where I could see what was going on back where the enemy had been standing.

It was bedlam there. Officers and troop leaders were trying to form people up again but they weren't having much luck. Our cannon barrage was still falling on their front echelon and it was taking a toll. Nobody wanted to form up anywhere near where the cannons could get them. In addition to the casualties caused by the cannons, there was wounded and dead lying everywhere, the result of our ride past and the grenades we had thrown at them. The enemy still had numbers in the thousands, but it was clear to everyone that they had no stomach for what we were dishing out to them. Seeing this I decided that I'd help the enemy's morale a little more by doing a little sniping.

I sent Nimue to my horse while I used my spy glass to scan the enemy and see what he was up to. She returned a few minutes later with the Ross rifle Elsa and I had found in the camper a number of weeks ago. The high powered rifle was perfect for what I wanted it for. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to use it. The enemy pre-empted me.

Somebody on the other side got smart or at least they got a backbone and they took a risk. As Nimue handed me the rifle, I spotted movement to the far right of the enemy force. I immediately noticed another squadron of armoured cars moving about and then I realized that they were heading towards the road and us. Quickly I shouted at my men to get down and to grab for grenades. We were lucky with that.

The armour cars weren't actually coming for us. They were in fact heading for the cannons positioned outside the west gate. However as they came flying by our location they sprayed the parked vehicles with automatic fire. Rounds tore up windscreens and holed the roofs of vehicles but that was it. We lost a horse in the fusillade but all of my men were on the ground when the armoured cars drove pass. The armoured cars were bouncing about on the rutted, muddy road and at the speed that they were travelling they didn't have a hope in hell of hitting anything unless by luck.

Fear moved me though. I knew that my gun crews weren't a match for the armoured cars and their light machine guns and that the gun crews would be slaughtered. There were four vehicles in this squadron and the moment the last vehicle drove by where I and my mate were hiding, I leapt to my feet and went after it. I already had a grenade in my hand and as I cleared the cover of the vehicle park, I pulled the pin and I lobbed it with all my strength and with a prayer to the spirits to aid my aim. As the grenade arched up through the air, other members of my force tried to do the same. That proved deadly.

The gunner in the last armoured car had traversed his gun to the rear and he opened up the moment he saw me rise up and step out from the safety of the vehicle park. With my enhanced speed and agility the man hadn't a chance to get me, but he did mow down two more of my men before my grenade hit its mark. This time the grenade did not plop down into the interior of the vehicle. Instead it landed just in front of the vehicle and as the vehicle drove over it, the resulting blast that occurred when the grenade went off, blew the vehicle's front right tire off of its wheel hub. The armoured car ended up skidding to a halt and a couple more grenades from other men in my force made certain that it was out of action.

It didn't help the men manning the guns though. Luckily the man that Dupree had left behind in command of the guns wasn't a fool. The man had spotted the problem that was heading his way and he acted instead of reacting. He ordered his right battery to depress their cannon and to open fire when they were ready. I learned after the battle that everyone was shocked by the outcome of that decision. It turned out that the armour on the armoured cars was fairly light and that when the first shot of eighteen pounder fire hit the front hull glacis, the resulting impact actually caused the vehicle to stall. The second shot hit low on the vehicle and it took off the left side tire. That brought the vehicle to a dead stop and exposed its gunner to fire from the wall. A well placed arrow put him out of his misery before he could duck for cover.