The Road to Hell

Chapter Thirty-Three

February 14

“…and the last of the steam drays should be swayed aboard by midday, along with their mud tracks, Sir.” Battalion-Captain Rechair chan Ersam flipped his notepad closed with something between a grimace and a smile. “After that, gods only know what else will go wrong, but I don’t think it’s going to be my people’s fault when it does. Of course, I’ve been wrong before.”

“No! Really?!” Brigade-Captain Desval chan Bykahlar looked back at his silver-haired Delkrathian quartermaster in mock disbelief.

“Really, Sir,” chan Ersam replied solemnly. “Why, I remember the last time clearly. Three years ago, it was, I think, during those maneuvers at Fort Erthain.”

“Actually,” Regiment-Captain chan Therahk said dryly, “I believe there may have been at least a time or two since then.”

“I’d hate to disagree with a senior officer,” chan Ersam told 3rd Infantry Brigade’s executive officer,” but I distinctly remember that it was three years ago.”

“Are you sure you don’t mean three weeks ago?” Battalion-Captain Fernis chan Klaisahn, 3rd Brigade’s chief of staff sounded a bit more sour than the XO. Chan Klaisahn was a native Ternathian, six and a half feet tall and immensely strong, with huge hands, who’d won more than a few beers by straightening horseshoes without benefit of an anvil. Now he cocked his head at chan Ersam. “Something about Regiment-Captain chan Ferdain’s tents, I believe it was.”

“That was entirely TTE’s fault,” chan Ersam asserted. “My people had all the right paperwork. It wasn’t our fault TTE put them on the wrong train.”

That won a chuckle from the officers seated around the utilitarian desk. That desk sat in in the quayside office which had been made available to chan Bykahlar while the men of his brigade-and the mountain of food, equipment, and ammunition accompanying them-filed aboard the transports which would carry them across the Vandor to what ought to have been New Ternath. And while that chuckle was entirely genuine, it had a sour edge which had quite a lot to do with that logistical mountain, because the truth was that chan Ersam had a point.

The battalion-captain was a bit long in the tooth for his current rank (at fifty, he was only three years younger than chan Bykahlar and three years older than the XO), but that was entirely due to the six years he’d spent in forced medical retirement after losing his left leg below the knee in a training accident. It had taken him that long to browbeat the Personnel Board into letting him and his peg back into uniform. The sheer determination that accomplishment had required-coupled with his undoubted capability and the closeness of their ages-was one reason he got along so well with chan Bykahlar, and during his career, he’d probably seen just about every mistake a quartermaster could make. No doubt the Quartermaster’s Corps was thoroughly capable of inventing new ones, but that hadn’t happened in the case of the tentage for Hahlstyr chan Ferdain’s 312th Infantry Regiment. It wasn’t really the Trans-Temporal Express train masters’ fault, either, chan Bykahlar supposed. They were shoving things into every nook and cranny aboard the torrent of trains pouring down the chain of universes from Sharona to Traisum, and it was inevitable that at least some of those things would end up misplaced. In its way, that was stupid-military logistics depended on things arriving where (and when) they were expected; simply getting them there early if no one knew they were coming was pretty useless-but he certainly understood why it was happening.

What bothered him, truth to tell, was less that the tents had arrived when they did-they had been early, not late-than the reason the space they’d been pushed into had been available. According to the official lading transmitted down the Voice chain, that train ought to have been full of Uromathian infantry, at least as far Frayika. In chan Bykahlar’s opinion, the fact that it hadn’t been didn’t bode well.

“If pressed, I will concede-unwillingly, but concede-that I can’t really blame you for that one, Rechair,” he said after a moment. “Which doesn’t mean I won’t have your guts for gaiters if we have any major screwups on the move to the front.”

“In all seriousness, Sir, I don’t expect any.” Chan Ersam’s tone and expression were much more serious than they had been and he rested his palm on the closed notepad. “The truth is that all of the reports coming back from Shosara sound like this is actually going to work. Assuming TTE’s people are their usual efficient selves, we ought to be detraining in about five weeks in Resym.” He shook his head. “When I first heard about this brainstorm of the Division-Captain’s, I thought he was crazy. I was much too respectful to say so, of course, but any experienced quartermaster could’ve told him the whole idea was insane. Push an entire corps down a seventeen thousand-mile corridor through six different universes in only four months? With an ocean crossing thrown in for good measure, and with fifteen hundred miles of unimproved travel after we run out of railroad?” He shook his head again. “I suppose it’s a good thing Division-Captain chan Geraith isn’t a quartermaster. If he was, he’d never have tried it!”

“No one ever accused the Division-Captain of thinking small,” chan Klaisahn pointed out. “And we have been playing with the Bisons and Steel Mules for a while now. Not that I don’t think you have a perfectly valid point, Rechair.”

“From the sound of things it’s been going better than we had any right to expect it to,” chan Bykahlar agreed. “But it’s our job-read that as your job, Rechair-to make sure it keeps going that way.”

“I know, Sir. And if I’m going to be honest, I’m more than a little nervous about how many steam drays we’re going to end up using. I was joking when I said it was a good thing the Division-Captain wasn’t a quartermaster, but he really is demanding an awful lot out of our logistics net. The Bisons and Mules seem to be having fewer maintenance issues than I’d expected, but the drays are making up for that. And given that long stretch through the Dalazan, I’m nowhere near as confident as I’d like to be that they’ll hold up under the pounding.”

“We’ll just have to do the best we can,” chan Bykahlar said. “And, speaking of doing the best we can, it’s occurred to me that once we reach Shosara and start breaking bulk for the move to Kelsayr, it might be a good idea to make sure the ammunition for the 37s and the pedestal guns is well to the front of the queue. So, what I want you to be thinking about Rechair, is-”

February 15

It was as hot as it had ever been at Fort Salby, Arlos chan Geraith thought, and much, much, much more humid. He hadn’t thought anything was likely to make him long for that remembered heat as a breath of cool air, but he’d been wrong.

He stood on the platform of his command car, sweating in the oppressive early afternoon sauna and smoking one of his cigars while he listened to the shouts of command, the snort of heavy equipment, and the clang of metal on metal as Olvyr Banchu’s and Ganstamar Yanusa-Mahrdissa’s work crews labored furiously. That labor continued rain or shine-and a lot of the weather was rain, not shine, here in the very center of New Farnal-driving even the enormously experienced TTE personnel past the brink of exhaustion.

The Trans-Temporal Express had laid track through the heart of the Dalazan Basin in at least half a dozen universes, and its engineers had all the maps, all the records, all the construction logs at their disposal. Without that, the current effort would have been a madman’s dream. Even with it, it was a task to daunt the ancient tomb builders of Bolakin, but they were actually doing it.

The troop train upon which he’d arrived would be forced to back for over forty miles to the nearest triangle junction-the railroad men called it a “wye”-where it could be turned to head back the way it had come. Eventually, Yanusa-Mahrdissa had told him, there’d be balloon loops, or even proper wheelhouses and switching yards, spaced along the line at convenient intervals. But at the moment, he was also at what was-for now-the very end of the rail line from Traisum, and those improvements were a future luxury their frenetic present had to do without. And however primitive their facilities might be, they were working…so far, at least. At this moment, as he stood smoking his cigar and cradling a cup of tea in his left hand, looking out across the raw-edged railbed and muddy road hacked out of the rain forest, he was the next best thing to two thousand miles from the point at which he’d entered the universe of Resym.

Of course, I’m still seven hundred miles from the point at which I intend to leave Resym, he thought. And when I do, I’ll be going from all this nice heat into a godsdamned icebox.

He snorted at the thought, but at least the reports coming back from Battalion-Captain chan Yahndar were hopeful.

Young chan Mahsdyr’s Gold Company, the very tip of 3rd Dragoon’s spear, was well into Naisom. The weather had been just as bad as chan Geraith had been afraid it would, and if the Imperial Ternathian Army wasn’t quite as accustomed to campaigning across the crazy-quilt geography of the multiverse as the Portal Authority’s troops were, at least he and his staff had been able to pick the brains of people like Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik and Division-Captain chan Stahlyr’s quartermasters back home in Sharona had done their homework. They’d also consulted with Orem Limana’s experts at the Portal Authority on equipment lists and requirements, and the decision to use Regiment-Captain Gerdain chan Malthyn’s 12th Dragoons as his vanguard was paying a handsome dividend. The Army might not have seconded as many of its officers and men, proportionately speaking, to the PAAF as the Imperial Marines had, but the Army was much larger than the Marines. Even a relatively small percentage of its total strength was a surprisingly large number, and the nature of the PAAF’s requirements meant the Army personnel temporarily assigned to the Portal Authority tended to be drawn from mobile units like the 3rd Dragoons. As a result, chan Geraith had discovered a surprising number of officers-including both chan Malthyn and chan Yahndar-who did have that sort of experience. The 12th had still suffered several cases of frostbite after crossing into Nairsom, but there’d actually been remarkably few of them.

And now it’s time to see how the rest of us make out, the division-captain reflected more than a little grimly.

There was no doubt in his mind that weather-related casualties were going to climb once the 3rd Dragoons’ main body hit the frigid reality of a Roanthan Plains winter. Not every regiment-captain or battalion-captain had served in the PAAF, and however good they might be at looking after their men back home, some of them would take time acquiring the…mental agility such an abrupt transition from rain forest summer to high plains winter required.

And while they were acquiring it, their men would pay the price, however conscientiously those officers tried to minimize their inevitable mistakes.

Well, you knew it was going to happen when you came up with your brainstorm, Arlos. It’s not as if you’ve got a choice, and experienced or not, your boys’re damned good. If anybody can pull it off, it’s the Third Dragoons, and you know it.

Yes he did. He drained the last tea and stepped back inside the car to set the empty cup beside his lunch tray, then folded his hands behind him and stood gazing at the huge map pinned to the car’s inner bulkhead.

The bold black line of Yanusa-Mahrdissa’s steadily lengthening rail line stretched across it, and chan Geraith’s mind went back over the wearisome train trip to his present location. There’d been plenty of signs of improvisation along the route, but it was good, solid improvisation. The speed with which the TTE’s construction gangs could throw timber trestle bridges across rivers had to be seen to be believed. It was something they’d done countless times over the last eighty years, and even now the snarling scream of one of the mobile steam-powered sawmills drifted in through the compartment’s open window. It was all going to have to be replaced with more permanent construction as soon as possible, and the trestle bridges couldn’t handle trains as heavy as those booming down the mainline from Sharona to Traisum, but it was doing what needed to be done, and he’d settle for that joyfully.

He glanced out the window as another convoy of Bisons rumbled past, towing their enormous trailers. The trailers’ outsized pneumatic tires had been designed to reduce ground pressure for better cross-country performance, but the designers hadn’t visualized the abuse to which he intended to subject their brain children. The TTE, on the other hand, had a great deal of experience when it came to moving heavy equipment through difficult terrain, and Olvyr Banchu’s workshops in Renaiyrton had improvised “mud tracks” for the trailers-continuous tracks similar to the Bisons’ own tracks, with the tires functioning as bogies-to decrease ground pressure still further. They’d scavenged the material for the first few hundred sets from their own forward equipment depots, and the original design-sent up the chain to Sharona by Voice and slightly refined-had been put into crash production by Ram’s Horn Heavy Equipment. Enough of them were coming forward to keep up (barely) with the Bisons and trailers being moved up from the Kelsayr railhead, but the heavy traffic was still pounding the jungle roadway into soupy mud. His own engineers and everyone the TTE crews could spare were dumping hopper cars of gravel into the task of keeping them moving-gods only knew how many thousands of tons of that TTE had shipped forward and stockpiled for railroad ballast! — but the farther they got from the railhead, the worse it was going to get.

The platoon of Bisons churned on up the path and out of his field of view. As the five behemoths disappeared, a longer column of Steel Mules followed. The half-tracked vehicles made heavier going of it than the fully tracked Bisons, but reports from farther down-chain confirmed that, on firmer terrain, the Mules were both faster and more maneuverable. They were also considerably quieter, which might prove a significant factor once 3rd Dragoons ran into the Arcanans. That didn’t make it any easier to wrestle them through the rain forest, unfortunately, and the commercial steam drays had an even harder time of it than they did. On the other hand, TTE and the Portal Authority had turned up Chindarsu’s own horde of the things. Even with mud tracks turning them into improvised (and much less capable) siblings of the Steel Mules, they were restricted to rear areas where there’d been at least some improvement of what passed for a roadbed, but they were helping enormously.

Of course, none of Regiment-Captain chan Kymo’s original calculations had included hauling the kerosene to fuel that many boilers. For that matter, his estimates for fuel consumption for the Bisons and Steel Mules were proving at least thirty percent low, mostly because the vehicles were spending more time slogging through mud than he’d allowed for. The abundance of steam drays eased much of the strain in that respect, and there were enough more of them than expected to manage-barely, but to manage-to haul forward enough fuel to meet the higher than anticipated requirements.

And at least fuel expenditure at the spear point of the movement should be dropping again soon. The one thing a high plains winter would provide was good, solid going once they got into Nairsom. Of course, they still had dozens of rivers-including the upper reaches of the Dalazan itself-and another seven hundred miles of jungle to cross before they got there.

But many of those rivers had already been bridged, and although the Bison’s tracks were taking a worse hammering than he’d hoped, they were also holding up extraordinarily well. Breakdowns were deadlining perhaps twenty percent of his total forward Bison strength at any given moment, but most of the problems were directly related to the pounding their tracks were taking. They’d been designed for the beginning for fast replacement of broken links, and the spares situation was actually better than chan Kymo had anticipated. The parts they needed for repairs were there; it was the time required to make those repairs which posed potentially serious problems.

But we’ll do it, he told himself, settling behind his desk to deal with the day’s paperwork. That was one thing he wasn’t going to miss when he abandoned the train for one of the Steel Mules and headed forward tomorrow morning.

We’ll do it, he repeated, and when we have, the frigging Arcanans will damned well wish they’d never been born.

* * *

“Chan Wahldyn! Vothan’s Chariot, man! We’re supposed to be building the godsdamned road!”

Company-Captain Hyrus chan Derkail, CO of Silver Company, 1407th Mounted Combat Engineers, looked up. Senior Armsman Tyrail chan Turkahn, the senior noncom of his second platoon, stood atop one of the parked Bisons, hands on hips, glaring at another Bison which had just slithered across fifty feet of muddy roadway and demolished the approach to the crude felled-tree bridge across yet another of the Dalazan rain forest’s innumerable waterways.

It really wasn’t Armsman 1/c chan Wahldyn’s fault, and chan Turkahn undoubtedly knew that as well as chan Derkail did. Expecting him to admit anything of the sort was futile, of course. Senior armsmen simply didn’t do that. As the junior armsman of chan Derkail’s own first platoon had explained to him, one might be able to accomplish more with a spoonful of honey than a cup of vinegar, but one could accomplish even more with the toe of a boot applied smartly to an errant trooper’s arse.

At the moment, however, chan Derkail was more concerned with getting chan Waldyn’s Bison back out of the stream-or off the wreckage of the bridge, at least-and getting that bridge repaired. The Bisons could ford this particular river without undue difficulty, and the Mules could probably do the same, but the commercial drays couldn’t, and they were carrying a lot more of the logistical load than the operations plan had originally called for.

Fortunately, Senior Armsman chan Turkahn realized that as well as chan Derkail did. For all his red-faced outrage, he was already clambering down and wading into the confusion-and the waist deep stream-to sort things out. Platoon-Captain chan Gairwyn, 2nd Platoon’s CO, wasn’t afraid to get his own boots muddy, either. He arrived in a splatter of mud on an even more mud splattered Shikowr gelding, and dismounted quickly beside chan Derkail.

“Sorry about that, Sir,” he told his company commander. “Chan Wahldyn knows to be more careful than that. That’s why chan Turkahn’s playing traffic director.”

“Not his fault,” chan Derkail replied. “Or yours or Senior Armsman chan Turkahn’s, either.” He shrugged. “We’re getting at least two thunderstorms a day, Ersayl, and that stretch is more like porridge than mud at the moment. No wonder the Bisons and Mules wallow like pigs in shit trying to get through it! We just need to make a note to move the tracked vehicles’ fords farther from the bridges to give us a little more slack.”

“Agreed, Sir. And chan Farcos is already on it.”

The platoon-captain pointed, and chan Derkail grunted in satisfaction as a Mark 2 Bison came churning up the roadway. The massive vehicle was over twenty feet long and ten feet wide, and its kerosene-fueled monotube boiler produced almost twice the steam pressure of the Mark 1’s pelletized coal-fired boiler. In fact, it had better than twice the horsepower of the TTE’s famous “Devil Buff” bulldozers, and Battalion-Captain chan Hurmahl had decided to fit a quarter of the 1470th’s Mark 2s with bulldozer blades of their own. Now Junior-Armsman Urmahl chan Farcos, the senior noncom of 2nd Platoon’s third squad, lowered the blade on his vehicle and went grinding forward.

Jungle trees toppled and deep, soft rain forest loam rose in a bow wave as the Bison began broadening the cleared approach to the stream, and chan Derkail watched it with a sense of wonder experience had yet to dull. He’d grown up as a combat engineer of the Imperial Ternathian Army well before Division-Captain chan Stahlyr had first proposed his radical concept of “mechanization.” In those long forgotten days-all of five years ago-scores of men and dozens of horses would have spent the better part of two full days laboring on the task chan Farcos and his Bison would accomplish in no more than a couple of hours. There were times-many of them, especially when he found himself cursing a breakdown or dragging yet another of the massive vehicles out of the muck when they hit a swamp deep enough to mire even them-when he missed those simpler days of muscle-powered shovels and transports with hooves. But without the Bisons, without the additional bulldozers, graders, steamrollers, and steam shovels the TTE was driving forward behind the spear point of the 1407th Engineers, this entire operation would have been flatly impossible.

As it was, it was simply very, very difficult.

So far, at least.

The company-captain removed his hat and mopped at the perspiration coating his shaven scalp. It didn’t make any difference, of course. By the time he put the hat back on, the sweat would be just as deep and just as irritating. But at least it gave him the temporary illusion of having done something about it.

At the moment, Silver Company was five hundred miles from the current railhead and barely two hundred from the Nairsom portal at Lake Wernisk. According to the Voice messages from their rear, the TTE was doing wonders improving the roadway behind them, as well as extending the rails, but that was still five hundred miles of heat, snakes, monkeys, insects, crocodiles, and mud. Frankly, chan Derkail was astounded they weren’t suffering even more delays.

More trees crashed down as chan Farcos bulldozed them into the river, and chan Derkail nodded in approval. Even with all the powered equipment, they were the better part of a week behind schedule. The good news was that the schedule had built in a certain amount of cushion for slippage. The bad news was that they were rapidly using up that cushion, and somewhere far out in front of them, on the far side of the Nairsom portal, Battalion-Captain chan Yahndar’s patrol was already nearing Lake Wernisk. It would be weeks yet before 3rd Dragoons main body overtook its 12th Regiment, but when that happened, this muddy, mucky, hot, humid, rain soaked, bug-infested wound gouged through the rain forest would be the entire division’s logistical lifeline. The task of building and, even more importantly, sustaining that lifeline was in the hands of Hyrus chan Derkail and his men, and they weren’t about to fail at it.

He shoved his sweat-sodden bandanna back into his pocket, settled his hat on his head, and nodded to chan Gairwyn.

“I’ll be moving up towards the head of the line, Ersayl. If you need me, have chan Kostyr Flick a note to chan Dorth.”

“Yes, Sir. I’ll let you know as soon as we’ve finished widening the ford, as well.”

“Good.” Chan Derkail patted the platoon-captain on the shoulder. “And don’t forget we’ll need a four or five hundred more feet of timbers tomorrow. It might be a good idea to start felling the trees while chan Farcos is working on the ford. Company-Captain chan Kilstar will be coming along behind you later this afternoon. He should have the transport to haul the logs forward.”

“Yes, Sir.” Chan Gairwyn saluted, and chan Derkail gave his shoulder another thump before he climbed back onto his own horse and started across the stream.