Distant Thunders

CHAPTER 18

“ A nd it was such a lovely plan, too,” Sean O’Casey said as yet another seething mass of Grik infantry slammed into the shield wall of the 2nd Marines. Chack laughed. The 2nd Marines and 1st Aryaal had met virtually no resistance to their predawn landing in the shipyard district. Even now, in the dawn’s dreary, overcast light, cutters and launches were securing the Grik fleet anchored in the harbor. As Captain Reddy had surmised, most of those ships had little more than caretaker crews aboard, and dozens were already making sail to join the Allied support vessels, blue streamers fluttering from their mastheads to identify them as prizes. The Marines and 1st Aryaal actually had plenty of time to deploy to defend the beachhead before the enemy finally “got their shit in the sock,” as Alden put it, and gathered a significant force to fall on the defenders.

The Marines in front of Chack and O’Casey heaved back against the onslaught and the cacophony was beyond anything O’Casey had yet experienced. He’d been at Baalkpan and seen the terrible nature of this war firsthand, but never from quite this close. There was a constant, roaring screech of weapons on weapons and shields on shields and Grik cries of agony as weapons pierced or slashed their vitals.

“It is a phalaanx of sorts, or so Cap-i-taan Reddy calls it. He based it on an ancient human formation, but he modified it to better fit our different circumstances!” Chack shouted over the din. “The enemy uses nothing like it. They attack as a mob, without discipline. It seems to be all they know how to do. They can bash through by sheer weight of numbers, however.” He nodded toward the left of his line, where it joined with Rolak’s. “Can you heft that spear?” he asked.

O’Casey balanced the spear in his right hand, judging the weight. “Well enough,” he assured Chack.

“Very well. Stay out of the front rank and beware the crossbow bolts!” With that, Chack called his staff, and together, they waded into the fiercest of the fight. O’Casey had been a soldier once, but he’d never been in a fight like this. The sheer scope was beyond his experience, and the type of fighting quite alien. The biggest battle he’d ever seen before Baalkpan had involved maybe a thousand men on both sides combined. He’d thought it was huge at the time. He’d lost that battle and been branded a traitor. His cause was crushed and he’d barely escaped with his life. Here, Rolak and Chack commanded nearly three thousand, and God alone knew how many Grik they faced. Many thousands more, at least. And yet Chack, whom he’d heard was once a pacifist, seemed unconcerned. He hefted the spear again and plunged ahead with the rest.

Six pounder field guns poked their muzzles through the ranks and spewed deadly, scything hail through the attackers, and two guns preceded Chack’s reinforcements into the bulging line. With a pair of thunderclaps and a choking haze of white smoke, the pressure there all but vanished. Still Chack raced into the gap, giving the battered line time to re-form around him. He and his staff bashed with their shields and thrust with their short Marine spears at the regathering swarm. O’Casey found himself right among them, poking inexpertly and a little awkwardly with his own spear. More than once he felt it bite. Even so, he decided he’d probably have to become a pistol man, maybe with a few braces draped around his neck. A swordsman he’d never been. Maybe it was time he learned that art?

“Did you find that exhilarating?” Chack asked, when the last dribble of attackers was repulsed. Chack’s white leather armor glistened with bright blood and the incongruous American helmet shone where a sword had skated across it, taking the paint. A slow, rolling, methodical broadside thundered from the frigates on the water. Donaghey ’s eighteen pounders swooshed overhead to impact in the dense but confused enemy rear, while the fewer but heavier twenty-fours of the steamers moaned over the largely Lemurian force, trailing smoke. They detonated over and among the still-gathering Grik and the screams brought a wicked grin to Chack’s face. “The new exploding shells, or case shot,” he explained. “Wonderfully destructive things, though we don’t have many yet. The fuses can be unreliable as well, which adds a

… delicious uncertainty to their passage overhead!” He watched while another broadside erupted from the covering warships. “Glorious,” he breathed happily and turned back to O’Casey.

“It is a lovely plan! What did you mean earlier? Do you fear it goes poorly?” Chack asked the one-armed man.

“What do you mean? Is this good?” O’Casey gasped.

Chack laughed again. “Everything’s swell so far! You do not know all the plan, and I do!”

“I thought ours was ta be a blockin’ force!” O’Casey seemed exasperated.

“It is! And we block well, don’t you think?” He gestured around. “We have already accomplished much of our goal. We are ashore and well placed. We have seized most of the docks and much of the repair yard. We have drawn the enemy’s focus and hopefully it will remain fixed upon us for some time to come.” He pointed excitedly, watching several squads hurry toward them from the boats. “Ah! The new mortars! Soon we will see something, I think! Soon, but not yet!”

O’Casey had already seen quite a lot. He knew, for example, that he was glad these people were his friends, and he now knew how essential it was that they be friends of the Empire. He keenly suspected that this small force to which he was attached would have made short work of the Imperial Company regiment that had ground his own rebellion to dust. They had no muskets-yet-but they had something far more important: confidence, discipline, and the unwavering certainty that they were right.

“Oh, Jenks, ye fool!” he muttered under his breath. “Where’er ye be on this field this day, open yer eyes and do nae aggravate these folk!”

“Now, now, now!” shouted Pete Alden, lowering his binoculars. With the thunder of a hundred drums, the 1st Marines, the 2nd and 4th Aryaal, the 1st Baalkpan, 3rd B’mbaado, and 2nd Sular kicked off their sweeping, or “swinging,” advance with around four thousand troops. ’Cats just couldn’t do bugles, so they’d settled on drum tattoos and various combinations of short whistle blasts to control large forces on the battlefield. The first few fights had shown the need for something like that, and now they had it. The roar of the drums sent gooseflesh down Matt’s arms.

“I agree,” Matt said, “it’s time.” He grinned. “Not that it matters what I think! This is your show, Pete!”

“If it was completely my show, you’d be watching from Donaghey right now!” Pete answered harshly. “Promise me you won’t wander off? We haven’t really been engaged yet, but the pickets I threw out on the flanks report quite a few rambunctious Grik hunting parties, or the like. We expected that and our bowmen and a few of the NCOs with Krags are dealing with them, but I’d sure hate to have to tell Lieutenant Tucker I let you get conked from behind.”

Chief Gray pointedly racked the bolt on the Thompson he carried. Gunner’s Mate Paul Stites followed suit with a BAR. “Mind your own chickens,” Gray grumbled. Besides Stites, there were four Lemurian Marines in the Captain’s Guard detail, and Jenks had a pair of his own polished muskets on their shoulders.

Matt just smiled and shrugged. Harvey Jenks chuckled beside him.

“A magnificent show, Captain Reddy,” Jenks said. “I, at least, fully understand your desire to view it firsthand!” He looked at his own distant Achilles, whose guns had remained silent thus far. “I almost regret not committing myself entirely to your support-not that it seems you need it!”

“I understand your reasons. It’s hard to engage in offensive operations against somebody you’re not at war with. I doubt the Grik will notice any distinction, however. Besides, your Marines are on the far left with General Maraan. They’re yet another blocking force, but it could be bloody work.”

“There, if they must fight, it will be a defensive engagement,” Jenks said. “Defending oneself from attack is hardly offensive in nature.”

Matt looked at the Imperial. “Again, the Grik will make no distinction. I doubt your own superiors will.”

“You wanted us in this war,” Jenks said more quietly, seriously. “I’ve come to believe we belong in it, though God knows we have problems of our own. We may need your help someday. How could we possibly ask it of you if we did not make this small gesture?”

Matt grunted. “Your gesture could cost a lot of Imperial lives. Safir says your Marine lieutenant Blair isn’t particularly open to her tactical suggestions.”

Jenks nodded. “Well, there is little I can do about that. I command my ship and I command the Marines to perform their duties. How they perform those duties is up to Blair, I’m afraid. At best, if the Grik do strike there, our people may learn from one another. At worst

…” He blinked. “Our people may learn a costly lesson from one another.”

Matt shook his head, somewhat surprised Gray had held his tongue. He surveyed the disposition of the troops and all seemed to be shaping up nicely. All but the weather. Ahead, in the west, the general overcast seemed darker as the day progressed. When he spoke, he sounded slightly distracted. He was watching the sky. “I’d hoped your Marines might bolster our lines, like spearmen behind the shields. I’m telling you that a thin pair of ranks, even armed with muskets, can’t stand against the Grik.”

Jenks’s smile was brittle. “We’ll see.” He nodded forward. “Your army will leave us behind while we discuss this, I fear, and General Alden will scold us again.”

Chack sensed a change in the Grik host before him. Another attack had been repulsed, but for a long time now, nearly half an hour, there’d been no assault. Leaving O’Casey with his staff, he trotted to where General Rolak directed his end of the line from the roof of a crude warehouse. Scrambling up the ladder, Chack saluted the old Aryaalan warrior.

“Quite a difference between this and our last meeting with these creatures!” Rolak enthused, returning Chack’s salute. “Your Marines fight splendidly!”

“As do your troops, Lord. Any sign of Mr. Braad-furd’s Grik Rout?” Chack asked.

Rolak frowned and his tail twitched with agitation. “Not yet. They do seem to have their shit in their sock, as General Alden so colorfully put it. This Hij general of theirs expends many lives, but he avoids allowing them to bunch up too deeply. If any panic, the panic spreads less far.”

“True,” Chack agreed. “But he has sacrificed mass to accomplish this. Twice they might have broken our line if they had supported their assault with greater numbers.”

“They are hesitant, I think. Few of these warriors could have been at Baalkpan. All they know is that they lost there, badly. I believe they test new tactics here, within the constraints of their warriors’

… capabilities.”

“Do you really?” Chack asked absently, thinking. “Perhaps. There are no defensive works, other than gun emplacements for their limited artillery. They do not defend as we do, behind breastworks or terrain, or with careful discipline. They defend by attacking.” He took a drink from his water bottle. “Do you think that is new? That they make ‘spoiling’ attacks hoping to slow our advance?”

“How can we truly know what is ‘new’ to them? Anything they do besides a mass attack is ‘new’ to us, but it is possible. It may also be that they think they have succeeded. We have achieved our objective, but perhaps they do not know that. Consider: would the Grik do as we have done? Land, attack, secure a defensive perimeter, then stop?” Rolak shook his head. “I doubt they can even comprehend such a strategy.”

“You may be right, lord,” Chack replied, eyeing the mass of enemies before them. Their numbers continued to swell, but they’d been badly bloodied and corpses were heaped along the length of the perimeter. “We seem to have affixed the enemy’s attention entirely upon us. As best we can tell, they have no notion of the main force bearing down upon their left.” Chack glanced at one of the Manilo couriers who’d arrived shortly before, mounted on one of the swift “meanies,” as Silva called them. The beasts still gave him the “creeps.” They looked like larger, more reptilian versions of their enemies, that happened to go about on all fours. The courier had reported only desultory fighting in front of the main force.

Rolak glanced at the darkening sky. “We are liable to have a storm today. A Strakka comes at last, I suspect. It is fortunate that we have secured a safe harbor for our fleet.”

Chack had been looking often at the sky himself. “I wish our luck with the weather might have held a few more days. If the gust front hits during the battle, it will confuse things.”

“More for them than us, I expect.” Rolak grinned. “We have a plan and they do not. At least, what they have of a plan seems to depend upon what we do for a change.”

Chack nodded noncommittally. He’d had some experience with plans now, and he knew how fragile they could be. So did Rolak, for that matter. Chack suspected the old warrior of practicing his dry wit upon him. “For myself, I would hope the Strakka holds off a bit longer so our plan might unfold unimpeded,” he said.

“You are of the sea folk.” Rolak waved his hand. “You would know that better than I.” He gestured back to the front. “Perhaps you should return to your Marines. The enemy stirs. Does it appear to you, amidst that mob, that he is shifting his front?” Rolak’s teeth appeared in a feral grin. “Perhaps he is preparing to attack in a different direction!”

“Good Lord!” Jenks exclaimed. “Do they always come on like that?”

“Yep,” said Gray. The Bosun spat.

“Pretty much every time,” Matt confirmed.

The closer Alden’s army had approached what they’d identified as the Grik main force, fixed in front of Rolak and Chack, the more crazed attackers had charged headlong against Alden’s overwhelming force. At first, they’d come in groups of a dozen or less, shrieking defiantly and waving their weapons. Arrows cut down most of those before they ever came in range of a spear. Then, more Grik charged them from the jungle that bordered the clearing they’d started across. Matt had been secretly amazed they’d made it that far before being noticed, but Manilo couriers or cavalry-or whatever they were-had assured them Chack and Rolak had grabbed plenty of the enemy’s attention.

They’d heard the cannonade grow louder as they neared and saw the warships in the bay jockey for more advantageous firing positions. Broadside after broadside sent roiling clouds of billowing smoke across the water. The new mortars were still silent for now, waiting for the Grik to wholly focus on the new threat. Then, shortly before, the dense peninsula of jungle ahead that stood between Alden’s and Rolak’s converging forces suddenly teemed with thousands of Grik shapes.

“They’ve finally turned to meet us,” Matt had announced aloud, as much for Jenks as Alden. A number of horns blew together, their different tones jumbled and discordant, but they’d seemed a suitable accompaniment to the shrill, growling shrieks of the horde that had erupted from the trees.

Now Jenks could only stare in horror at the elemental force bearing down on them. It was a mob, to be sure, but a huge one, and this first look at a Grik berserker charge was most disconcerting. He wondered how Captain Reddy could just stand there like that, watching them come. Either the man was utterly fearless or his trust in his commanders and troops was truly that profound. Jenks realized that Captain Reddy and his guards had faced this before, but he couldn’t imagine anyone ever becoming so inured to it. He stood as well. He was an officer, a gentleman, and possessed a significant measure of personal courage. He admitted to himself that he was terrified, though. Standing in the face of that seething, swarming mass of teeth, claws, swords, and crossbows couldn’t possibly be done without some fear. And yet, glancing sidelong at the American officer, this Supreme Commander, he saw no sign of any emotion other than… anticipation.

“ ’Bout… now!” Matt said.

As if reading his commander’s thoughts, Pete Alden bellowed at the top of his lungs, the order he gave repeated down the ranks and punctuated with whistle blasts.

“Commence firing!”

Twelve pieces of light artillery bucked and spewed dense clouds of smoke and double loads of canister. Arrows whickered into the darkening sky with a terrible, collective “swoosh.” Untold hundreds of Grik warriors were swept away with as little apparent effort as the command had taken to give. Others screamed in agony and writhed on the ground, clutching wounds or festooned with arrows.

“Independent, fire at will!” Alden shouted, his voice already a little hoarse after the last command and the choking smoke that followed it.

There were a number of distinct thumping, popping sounds beyond the trees from the direction of the initial landing force. Whistling sounds, dozens, scores, like Jenks had never heard, were punctuated by fearsome but smallish blasts that sent gouts of earth into the sky right among the rear of the enemy host. A few of the “mortar bombs,” Reddy had called them, though Jenks had never seen their like, erupted in the trees themselves and sent swarms of splinters into the Grik. The agonized screeching took on a desperate, terrified air.

Then, above it all, there came a roar. It wasn’t like the roar of thunder or the marching surf; it was higher pitched, excited, almost gleeful. Despite its tone, it had a profound, unstoppable, elemental urgency that stirred his most primitive thoughts. In contrast to the increasingly agonized and terrified cacophony of the Grik horde, the roar from beyond the trees was confident, eager, remorseless. It was the sound of doom.

“That’ll be Rolak and Chack!” Gray boomed happily. “They were the anvil. Probably got mighty sick of it too. Now they’re the hammer!”

A large percentage of the Grik, where the mortars still fell, had been transformed from an unstoppable juggernaut into a wild, panic-stricken mass. Jenks looked on in amazement while thousands of Grik scrambled in all directions, slaying one another with wild abandon. Some ran back the way they’d come, smashing into the howling Lemurian troops and Marines that suddenly erupted from the trees. Others raced north or south, toward the jungle or the sea. Some crashed into the rear of the forward element, still charging the Allied line. Battle erupted there, among the Grik, even as the foremost berserkers slammed into the Allied shield wall.

The slaughter was incredible. The mortars stopped falling and the field guns were pulled back to avoid inflicting casualties on the Allied forces now closing on the still-larger Grik army caught between them. The relative sizes of the armies lost all meaning, however, since growing numbers of Grik were now murdering one another. It was insane. The fighting at the shield wall was still wildly intense; the Grik that struck there as a relatively cohesive force still outnumbered Alden’s entire command, but that was when the qualitative difference between the combatants was most plainly demonstrated. Nowhere did the shield wall break. It stood like a monolithic cliff in the face of disorganized breakers, and the killing was remarkably one-sided.

Spears thrust and jabbed over, under, and around the front-rank shields, whose bearers pushed with all their might against the battering Grik. Inexorably, General Rolak’s force swept through the chaos of the Grik rear, killing any who stood even momentarily. Those who fled from between the closing pincers were mostly ignored, but few seemed to realize this and even fewer had the wherewithal or initiative to take advantage of the fact. Within an hour of the first mortar blasts, the jaws of the pincers clamped shut and all that remained of the battle was a prolonged, remorseless butchery.

Captain Reddy must have noticed Jenks’s expression. Perhaps his face was pale?

“Maybe you’re wondering why I don’t put a stop to it?” Matt’s words came in a fierce monotone. “On some level, maybe I still wish I could. But those down there”-he gestured at the dwindling Grik-“won’t quit fighting. Hell, half of them are still killing each other!” He shook his head. “I don’t know how or why they act the way they do, and frankly, that’s not my concern right now. Maybe we’ll know someday. Maybe the prisoners we took at Aryaal will help with that. But right now, we’ll use this clear weakness of theirs against them as often and mercilessly as we can. There may come a time when they get wise and it won’t work anymore.” He looked at Jenks again. “Or maybe you’re wondering if I could stop it?”

Almost without thinking, Jenks jerked a nod.

Matt shrugged. “I don’t know that either. You probably can’t comprehend what’s driven these people, my people, down there, to become what they are from what they were. Mostly, they used to be almost instinctively unaggressive. There were exceptions, but all of them have suffered loss like you can’t imagine. At least, I don’t think you can. Hell, I couldn’t have until I came to this world. Maybe the Rape of Nanking comes close…” He saw Jenks’s uncomprehending blink. “Skip it. Anyway, like you saw at Aryaal, we aren’t fighting a civilized enemy, and this isn’t anything like a civilized war. The very wickedness of our enemy is what’s allowed us to build this army, these soldiers I’m so proud of. I don’t think anything else would have done it.”

Captain Reddy sighed. “ Could I stop them from hacking the life out of every last Grik down there? Maybe. I tried once, you know, and it didn’t work. The Grik give no quarter and never ask for it. I don’t think they know how. Faced with an enemy like that, what do you think? Even if I could make Alden’s troops stop killing, the Grik won’t. I don’t know what made ‘tame’ Griks out of the ones Rasik had, but it didn’t happen in the middle of a fight. Maybe they need time to think things through, and some of the ones who get away will come in later, all peaceable and contrite. For now… I have a rule. It used to be ‘Never give an order you know won’t be obeyed.’ ‘Know’ has become ‘believe,’ but it still works pretty good. That’s my little concession to the gray area of command, and given a choice, I’d much rather err on the side of my people than those monsters down there.”

He looked away from Jenks, back at the dwindling fight. There were cheers now. Cheers of survival, pride, and relief. Cheers for Captain Reddy too. “Besides, to answer the last question you never asked: no. Deep down, I don’t want them to stop. Not after Baalkpan. Not after all I’ve lost.”

A meanie galloped up. Well, “galloped” wasn’t exactly the right word, but it was blowing hard through flared nostrils and would likely have been panting if its jaws weren’t cinched tightly shut. It stared malevolently around. “Cap-i-taan Reddy,” cried the Manilo cavalryman from its back. “General Rolak’s most fervent compliments and affection! He begs to inform you that when they made their charge, another, smaller Grik force was assembling on his flank. He had no choice but to ignore it when this show kicked off. Since it did not attack his rear as he advanced, he fears it may have wind of the blocking force to the west.” The courier motioned toward where the clouds were growing positively malignant. As before, when Matt had seen a growing Strakka, black tendrils had begun to radiate from the dark, brooding core.

Matt looked at Jenks. “After seeing this, are you sure you don’t want to urge Mr. Blair to consider General Maraan’s suggestions a little more carefully?”

Jenks eyed the semidomesticated beast the rider sat upon. “Is there room up there for me?” he demanded.

“Of course.”

Jenks turned to Matt. “Thank you indeed for a most… illuminating experience. I believe I would like to… strongly counsel Lieutenant Blair to do just that. By your leave, Captain Reddy?”

Battle for Singapore