Chapter 34: Mice and Men

Six days after they leave the main compound the Shiloh Strike Force filters through the trees nearest the smaller town to where the scouts wait at the tree-line. They could have gotten here a bit earlier, but Kyle used the time to do some training of field maneuvers they may need in this campaign and they found some perfect places for it on the way.

As they walk through the forest Kyle appreciates some changes KK had made to the saddles during the wait at Shiloh. The cavalry saddles have two attachments to carry two lances in beside the horse on their right hand side, out of the way and still easy to grab to use. On the left side is a similar set up for them to carry their longbow, with another on the saddle horn for their short bow. Quivers of arrows attach to the saddle bags, and on the other side of the saddle horn to the short bow. A small wooden shield hangs just behind their left leg. Archers have the same arrangements for the shield, bows, and arrows, but they have extra quivers of arrows they carry. Each trooper also has a large saddle roll with good bedding and two water canteens. If the force has to scatter they each have what they need to stay alive in the way of weapons and provisions so they can support themselves in the field for some days. The extra food also improves their combat range.

Kyle likes the way the weapons carriers are down beside the horses because Nadia originally had the soldiers carry them the way lancers did on Earth with the lance sticking up from a boot at their right foot. But this does make moving through the forest very awkward, which is why the changes KK made are so good. They make for easier movement and people can’t tell what they are until they’re up close.

They come to a halt about thirty feet back from the tree-line, and get down from their horses. While they take a few minutes to care for their horses the scouts update Kyle on what the situation is in the village or town, they aren’t sure which it really qualifies as. More troops arrived earlier that day and there’s now about four hundred in the town. The barracks are full, and some are in tents beside the barracks.

After picketing the horses and setting up for a cold camp Kyle has an Officers Call to discuss the situation. It doesn’t take long for them all to agree they don’t want the extra troops moving on and they doubt they’ll add too much trouble to the plan they came up with on the way. They’ll attack in the morning by using their current plan.

When the dawn arrives the next day it finds the Shiloh force in place for today’s battle. The scouts are out to warn of any approaching forces, the cavalry are mounted and ready just inside the tree-line while the archers are lying in the field just short of the concealed trench. The archers are lying down in two sections of fifty troops each and spread out in a line. They’ve their shields in front of them, both bows, and lots of arrows beside them, all hiding under green cloth designed to look like the grass of the field. It’s hoped the enemy guards will take them for a part of the field, at first. All of them moved into place during the dark just before dawn and they’re now waiting for the enemy to start their day. The Shiloh archers have each been assigned an area to cover and they’re to shoot at everyone within their area when the combat starts.

Carl’s troops don’t have a mess hall, for the hot meals the cooks use open fires to cook large cauldrons of food to one side of the parade area in front of the barracks. The troops line up to walk past the cooks to get their ration served into their bowls then walk off to sit in the parade ground to eat. The cooks start just before dawn and the meal is served a little after dawn. There are some guards wandering around the town in groups of five with about twenty at each road entry, but next to no one is watching out over the fields. Every few minutes the officers at the gates look across the large fields for approaching people, but that’s all.

The troops leave the barracks to line up for their breakfast, most haven’t brought any weapons with them beyond a knife. They get their food, and sit down to eat. About two thirds have been served when Kyle blows the ’Engage’ on his whistle.

One hundred archers come up to their knees and each fires four arrows as fast as they can at the mass of troops getting their breakfast. The first flight of arrows arrives and is on target. The screams of the men hit by the arrows gets the attention of all within hearing. Even the gate guards turn to look at the men screaming. Those closest to the shot men can see the arrows in them so they start to look around. Then the next flight of arrows arrives. The unhurt men start to scatter while the third arrives and the fourth lands among the panicking troops. By the time the area is cleared of retreating troops it’s littered with the bodies of over three hundred enemy troops who are dead or dying. Kyle blows the command ’Secondary Targets’ and the archers turn to fire controlled volleys under the directions of their officers. One platoon to each of the two road gateways near them, one platoon to deal with the roving patrols, and one to watch the barracks. The enemy at the gates are now moving around a bit while they try to find cover, the men take care with their aim and the shots aren’t so quick. However, the gates on this side are soon guarded only by corpses, a few did survive, for now, by running away. The roving patrols now litter the streets. Kyle blows the command to execute the next phase of the attack. One platoon stands and gathers their gear before racing back to their horses. They’ll ride around the town to secure the other gateway to stop the enemy troops from escaping that way. Another platoon stands and gathers their gear before jogging over to the nearest road to set up to cover a third platoon joining them while the fourth stays where it is, because it has the best sight of the entrances to the barracks and are shooting at anyone exiting the buildings or looking out of it.

Fifteen minutes later the two platoons moving in on the gateway have leapfrogged to the barrier and they confirm all of the enemy there are dead before they move inside the picket fence to cover the barracks. The fourth platoon stands and follows after them.

With seventy-five archers inside the town Kyle places KK in charge of the fifty keeping an eye on the barracks as he takes one platoon and Dana to clear the town. He’d discussed this with the troops and they did do some training in the Shiloh compound, but this is the first time in real life so Kyle is leading the urban warfare building check team. In groups of five they leapfrog from cover to cover to the first building.

The officer and twenty men stay outside while Kyle leads Dana and the rest into the building. Before entering the building the five men take their short bows from across their backs, where they put them before leaving the field. The longbows now go on their backs. The short bows are better for the fast close in work done inside and around a building. Kyle has the best armor, so he goes first by pushing the door open and moving in and to the side. The five bowmen and Dana soon follow him. Kyle has his sword in one hand with a throwing knife ready in the other. He can swap both very quickly. It takes them only a few minutes to check every room and hiding place in the building. They only find the family of townspeople who live here and run the shop. Kyle apologizes to them and they leave them alone.

Once outside the men change back to their longbows and another five change bows to follow Kyle into the next building. This is so the whole platoon gets experience in doing this with Kyle so they can see how it should be done.

The ninth building they enter has an unconscious woman and a wounded man on the floor. Kyle calls for the team medic and they stay there while he checks them over and treats them. Two more men are called in to protect the injured while the clearance team checks the building out. In one of the back rooms they find three soldiers holding three children as hostages. The one on the right has blood on the knife in his hand. Kyle raises his right hand and points at the other two, saying, “Drop your weapons and put your hands on your heads and you can leave here alive. Otherwise you die.” The two scared younger soldiers drop their weapons, and put their hands on their heads.

The older soldier with the bloody knife glances at them while saying, “Bloody cowards, they...” He stops speaking as the knife Kyle threw when the man glanced at the other soldiers cuts through his larynx and spine. With no messages to them his muscles relax and his arms drop, causing the knife at the girl’s throat to drop away to fall on the floor.

The released girls race to a central point to hug while two of Kyle’s troops tie up their prisoners. They’re all soon back in the front room. The medic reports the man looks worse than he is and he’ll recover well with rest: it’s just a shallow wound with a lot of blood. The troops leave the building and go outside, leaving the man to his family’s care.

The two prisoners are tied to a post and left with one guard until they return. They move on to the next building. The process is slow but sure and they know the buildings are empty of enemy troops by the time they reach the other gateway. The guard with the prisoners now has seven tied up young men to watch.

Stopping in front of the last building on this side of the street Kyle looks at the group of soldiers hiding where they can at the gateway on this side. By the looks of the bodies he guesses his men got here just as some were leaving and the rest took cover within the barricade as best as they could. Kyle calls out to them to surrender, and he soon has another eight young soldiers as prisoners. His other platoon rides up and dismounts. The dead are dragged back inside and the barricade reset. Ten troops are left here to watch the gateway while the other fifteen take the prisoners up to the others and Kyle leads his platoon to the buildings on the other side of the street.

Since all of the men now know how to watch outside Kyle takes the officer inside with him and shows him how to do the room clearance. By the time they reach the last building before the open area in front of the barracks Dana and the whole platoon are all experienced in this work and most have had an opportunity to take the lead. More practice will only make them better. No more prisoners are found.

There’s now only three buildings to clear, because the last two done are the stables. Now they have to clear the troop barracks and a smaller one for officers and non-commissioned offices (NCOs).

A quick check of the tents shows no one’s there, while a check of the buildings show no back doors. However, a platoon of archers move into place behind the buildings to deal with anyone who tries to leave by the back windows.

Dana calls out for the men in the smaller building to surrender. The only answer he gets is a few arrows from the building windows. Kyle nods and the men getting ready to act move forward to toss fired clay bottles at the smaller officers’ and NCOs’ barracks.

The first six long necked bottles contain a pint of ground fat (what the locals call crude oil found on the surface) and the second six are full of petrol made by refining the crude oil. Jonas set this up some years ago; the refinery processing provides petrol and a tar like mixture. They don’t produce much, but they do have some for use in warfare and a few other things; the tar has many good uses around the farms as well.

The two lots of bottles are thrown at the building, they shatter on impact, spaying their contents about. A moment later several archers use fire arrows to set the building alight. These arrows are made by wrapping a rag around the shaft, soaking the rags in petrol, and setting them on fire just before firing at the building. The arrows arrive and set the petrol alight. The petrol fires don’t last all that long, but they do last long enough to cause the crude oil to start burning, which burns a lot slower and longer while it sets the wood walls on fire. One set of bottles hit on the edge of a window to splash inside as well, that fire starts things in the room burning too. One set on the roof soon has it burning well.

It takes several minutes for the fires to spread enough to be sure the building will burn down. In that time a few try to leave the building by charging out with weapons in their hands. They only make a few paces before they’re killed. The building must not have been well built as the roof falls in much sooner than Kyle or Dana expect it to. The flames in the middle of the fire are quick to grow higher than the walls. The middle floor collapses. Not long after that the sides collapse backward into the fire. During this there must be more than a few screams while the men inside die, but little is heard over the roar of the fire.

Once it’s clear there’s no one left alive in that building Dana calls on the men in the barracks beside it to surrender by coming out with no weapons and their hands on their heads. A stream of young men walk out with their hands on their heads. Before Dana can call to the last building unarmed men with hands on their heads are walking out the door. They soon have the eighty-three prisoners sitting down with their hands tied behind them. That gives them ninety-eight prisoners and the last two barracks buildings are empty.

From the interrogation of the prisoners they learn all of them are new levies who are under indentured service to Carl’s people. So they have no vested interest in fighting, but did so because they were ordered to. Kyle is very sure the naive young men had been tricked into the being indentured servants. These men have no troubles in accepting slavery due to being captured in combat. Kyle sets their terms of indenture as five years and organizes for the scouts to take them to work on the farms on the far side of Shiloh. That’ll free up some men to help in the combat force.

Before they leave the new and old Shiloh people have some work to do. The first is to clear the turf off of the trenches and to break the wood spikes set in them. This is done by getting a log almost as wide as the trench and tying ropes to the ends. The log is dropped in at one end of the trench after someone reaches down with a hammer to break the spikes there, then two riders pace each other while their horses drag the log along the trench. It breaks the spikes as it goes along.

The dead are stripped of valuables and tossed in the trench, just the single layer and then only on the one side before they run out of dead. The next day the remains of the burnt building are checked through, and the rubbish tossed along the trenches as well. The removed dirt is in a nearby pile and it’s brought back to fill the trenches before the turf is laid back on top. This takes four days to do.

Shiloh now has six new wagons with five hundred and fifty horses from the stables. Two of the wagons are loaded with hay and grain from the stables, and three wagons are loaded with the planks and wood from the barracks, the last has the plunder from the dead.

Before they leave Dana and Kyle make sure all the townspeople now have their own sets of swords, bows, and arrows to defend themselves. They also tell them where to find the main Shiloh compound so they can send for help if they need it. The people are very surprised Kyle isn’t going to take over their town because he conquered it. He smiles at the mayor and says, “I didn’t come here to capture your town, but to set it free. That I’ve done. So now we leave!” That leaves the mayor and others with a lot to think on while they watch the two Shiloh forces ride away just after having their lunch.

The Shiloh combat force is very happy and carefree while they ride to the next captured town; but Kyle, KK, Larry, and Dana are concerned. The men are happy because they just defeated a force more than twice their size with their worst injury being a cut hand when someone fell over onto something sharp. The leaders are worried as the troops are too cocky and that usually leads to mistakes. Also, the next force is a bigger one with a different set up, so the same plan won’t work. They think hard and discuss plans for dealing with the next force. Over the next few days they come up with an amended plan that should allow them to win while keeping their own casualties down.

The reports from the scouts at the larger town describe a similar set of defenses, except there’s also a barricade and open space between the town itself and the military base area. There’s only one road that goes through the town. The town has a couple of extra side streets at one end with just a few buildings along the road at the other. Carl’s forces have put up ten buildings on the end where the town is only one row of buildings on each side of the road. The barracks and stables form a ’U’ with the open area facing the town, thus the parade square is protected by buildings from outside attack. Only the gaps between buildings give a shooting sight into the area, with the one for the road being wider than the rest. The outer barricade is a rectangle around the whole lot and there’s another a few paces from the last town building with twenty paces from the first of the barracks. Again there’s a hidden trench about twenty paces out from the barricade and about ten paces out from the side of the road between the trench and the barricade. This is so people have some room to walk beside the road to let wagons pass by.

The Shiloh force is hiding in the forest near the town while Kyle uses his telescope to check the small military base, as they’re over half a mile from the barricade. The forest was moved back by the simple expedient of cutting it for wood to build with. Unlike the other town where they used planks the barracks buildings here are made from wood logs and no outside windows on the ground floor. This is not an easy place to take. There are weak points, but whoever designed it also included some ways to cover them. Their plans need to be changed, again.

For the next day and a bit Kyle and Dana watch how they go about things in the town and the military base. Kyle is really thinking of this as a military base attached to a town, where the other was a military barracks at a town. It’s clear this was built to withstand an attack and it’s meant to be a central base. Thus it’s one they must take out.

On the morning of their third day on site Kyle sits down with all the officers to discuss his new plan. They all work hard at picking it apart and suggesting improvements. The plan is amended with some good ideas the others thought of. After reaching an agreement they break up to talk to the men and pass on their concerns and the plan.

The Shiloh force is camped in the forest with a hill between them and the town so they can have fires for meals. The fires are started at dusk and kept low. That way the light doesn’t show through the forest and the smoke isn’t seen in the dark. Thus they can have hot meals for a late dinner and an early breakfast while lunch is a cold meal.

Just after a large and late hot dinner the archers mount up to move out. They have a few miles to ride to get to the other side of the town. The twenty man scout force will stay here with the cavalry and provide them with support as archers. Their job is to stop anyone from leaving the base via the road on this side. When the action starts they’ll move into place a bit out of short bow range, but well within longbow range.

Moving quietly while well inside the tree-line the Shiloh archers ride around the town and stop at the point closest to the gateway through the barricade on the side of town opposite the military base. They camp and nap as best as they can while they wait to move in.

Just after midnight Kyle leads a platoon of archers crawling across the field with their green sheets over them while they head toward the junction of the road and the trench. They reach the junction and crawl along in the grass beside the road. The tired guards don’t see the small humps the men make in their sheets due to how dark it is and them being used to looking for people standing up or riding a horse. The archers reach the position they want and settle down to wait.

About half an hour after Kyle and his force get ready the guard force at the barricade changes, so do the two patrols wandering the town. Kyle waits another half an hour for the old guards to get to bed and for the new guards to settle down. Kyle reaches out and taps the archer beside him who taps the next and so on. They also wiggle their feet so the men behind them can see the movement. Another short wait then Kyle crawls forward a yard, slowly rises to his knees, and raises an arm out to the side. The archers slowly rise to their knees, lift their bows, string the arrows they have waiting and select the targets they were given earlier. Kyle’s arm drops and twenty-one arrows take flight at twenty-one targets while four others wait to see if they’re needed.

The officer and twenty guards at the barricade are more interested in chatting about what they did during the day and plan to do tomorrow when twenty-one arrows pierce their chests and they all start to die as they fall to the ground. When they fall Kyle stands up, so does the platoon with him. They race the remaining few yards to the barricade and move through it. The dead are soon dragged off to the side and out of the way while the Shiloh troops make like the guard.

KK is using a telescope to watch this from the tree-line. When she sees Kyle take up a position in the middle of the road she orders the next platoon of archers to run to the barricade. They’re quick to run across the ground, but it takes a few minutes to cover the mile and a bit to where Kyle is waiting. The men are let through and their officer takes them forward to seek out the two patrols wandering the town.

Within minutes his platoon comes across the first twenty-one man patrol in one of the side streets and takes them down with well-placed arrows from behind. There’s no rules or fair play in warfare on Chaos. After another few minutes they catch up with the other patrol on the other side of the town while they walk along one of the side streets. The dead are dragged back to beside the first buildings to be out of the way.