The Great Martian War: The Gathering Storm - Snippet #5
Dec 17, 2019 12:16:38 GMT
Quendil and David N.Tanner 07011959 like this
Post by scottwashburn on Dec 17, 2019 12:16:38 GMT
Chapter Three
September, 1911, Kena, Egypt
“All right, lads, these little blighters are a bit tricky to use, so pay close attention.”
Harry and the men of his platoon closed in around the British ordnance officer and peered at the object he held in his hand. It looked like a black grapefruit on a stick. Looking closer, he saw that the ‘grapefruit’ was actually a metal sphere and the stick was a metal rod attached to the sphere. It was called a ‘Mills Bomb’ after the fellow who had invented it.
They were on the outskirts of the town of Kena, which was where the defense line running from the Red Sea met the Nile River. The 15th New Castle Battalion, after a week at Alexandria, had been shipped out with most of the other Australian troops to help man the line. It was a hot, dry, dusty place, but the line had been established and held for over a year, so it had far more amenities than Harry had been expecting. They lived in tidy tent cities. Field kitchens supplied hot meals and there was even enough water piped in from the river to allow for bathing facilities. A narrow-gauge railway had been constructed behind the line to carry supplies and move troops around.
All of this was possible because the Martians were leaving them alone. They had attacked the defenses here about nine months earlier, been repulsed, and then retreated back into the desert. They had not come back—at least not to this part of the line. Apparently the high command thought that this was a good spot to allow the Aussies to get acclimated to their new location. And also to be given some new equipment.
“The first step is to release the top half of the sphere,” continued the officer, a captain named Smyth. “The two halves are held together and sealed by this tin strap, which goes all the way round. You peel up the end of it here, like this, and then just pull the whole thing loose and the top comes right off.” He followed his own instructions and a moment later the top was off. The contents of the sphere were them exposed. It just looked like a whitish lump of clay.
“What you see is a coating of untreated rubber, mixed with a few other things. It’s sticky as hell, so don’t take the cover off until you plan to use it. Underneath that is about a pound of gelignite, which I’m sure most of you know is a powerful explosive. There is a detonator at the bottom of this sphere and the fuse is ignited by pulling a pin inside the handle here. There’s a cap over it to prevent accidents. Just unscrew the cap to get at the pin.” The cap he spoke of was at the end of the metal rod. He unscrewed it and there was, indeed, a small ring, attached to a cord inside.
Smyth held it up, ran his gaze over the men, and pointed to the ring. “Pull this and you’ve got ten seconds until it explodes. There is no way to stop it once the fuse is ignited. So don’t pull the bloody ring until you are ready to use it. Got that?”
“Yes, sir!” said all the assembled men.
“Now the idea, of course, is to use the sticky part of the bomb to attach it to the Martian tripod. Up until now, we’ve had a dozen different variations on bundles of Dynamite or other explosives, attached to ropes that the men try to somehow tie to a tripod or throw up on to one and hope it gets tangled. Works about one time in ten. But I’m told you lads are combat veterans so I don’t need to tell you that.”
“Damn bleedin’ right, mate!” said someone in the group, getting a laugh. Even Smyth smiled. Harry suspected it was Private Killian, the platoon’s wiseacre.
“All right, let me show you what this can do. Please take cover behind the sand bags.”
They were on a firing range which had been built near Kena, which was about twenty miles west of their camps. There were targets for rifle fire and also other weapons, but today they were here for something different. About twenty paces from the sandbag barrier there was a row of wooden logs sticking up from the ground; they may have once been telegraph poles. Some of the poles had already been broken off, apparently by earlier demonstrations. When everyone was behind cover, peering over the tops of the sandbags, Smyth walked out toward the poles.
“Let’s pretend that this is the leg of one of the tripods. Don’t pull the cord for the primer until you are ready to attach the bomb,” he called back to them. “Damned embarrassing to pull it early and then have the bugger walk off before you can attach it and leave you there holding the bag, so to speak. I image you fellows have seen the real thing close up before.”
“Too damned often, mate! ‘Ave you?” Yes, it was definitely Killian.
Smyth tried to smile again, although it looked more like a grimace. “All right, here we go.” He tugged at the ring and pulled the cord out of the tube attached to the bomb and then using the tube like the hilt of a knife, stabbed the bomb at the pole, as high up as he could easily reach. Just as he’d promised, the thing stuck fast. “Now you run like hell!”
He sprinted back towards them, waving his arms. “Down! Get down!” Harry obediently ducked behind the sandbags, making sure all his men did as well. A moment later Smyth tore around the end of the sandbag wall and skidded to a halt. “Stay down!”
After a few heartbeats, there was a sizeable bang and a small concussion. Smythe stood up and then said: “All good, you can get up now.” Harry stood up and saw a cloud of smoke rolling away from him, borne by the steady desert breeze. The pole had been blown in two, the bottom still standing upright, but ending in a blossom of splinters about four feet above the ground. The top part was lying a dozen feet away. “Come take a look, gentlemen,” said Smyth.
Harry and his men gathered around the pole. The bomb had blown through it with apparent ease. But it was only a piece of wood…
“Captain,” he said, “has this been tested on actual Martian equipment? We’ve found them to be a bit tougher than… wood.”
“They have,” replied the ordnance officer. “We’ve used them on the legs of enemy tripods we’ve salvaged, and the Mills Bomb is capable of blasting through their metal skins. It won’t always blow a leg clean off, mind you, but it will do significant damage.”
“And what’s the danger radius from the blast? To the men using it, I mean. You had us back off a good ways, and we won’t always have a convenient sand bag wall to hide behind.”
Smyth nodded. “The metal casing for the bomb does throw off shrapnel for some distance. We’re looking at using a different material which will be safer, but this is what we have for now. We believe this to be a significant improvement over the bombs you have been using.”
“Well, that’s God’s truth, sir,” said Sergeant Milroy, the platoon sergeant. “And if we need t’tackle one of these bastards close up, we’re going t’lose some lads no matter what we do.” The men nodded. They all had learned that there was no easy way for infantry to kill a tripod.
“Sir?” Private Greene raised his hand. “Can you throw the bomb? I mean throw it up at the main body of the tripod. Will it still stick?”
The captain made a sour face and shook his head slightly. “Well, if you made a perfect throw, then maybe. Much more likely is that it will bounce off. And once it’s fallen down and gotten dirt and sand on its sticky part, then it won’t stick at all. So I’m afraid you are going to need to walk right up to the tripod to slap one of these on. And while I can see you Australian fellows are tall blokes, you’ll still only be able to reach the lower legs. You’ll need to blow off a leg or two to bring them down to size. We’re working on a better way to deliver the bombs to the target, but for right now, this is what we have.”
“Have they tried magnets, sir?” asked Harry.
Smyth shook his head. “Won’t work. The Martian metal doesn’t have a lot of iron in it, so magnets won’t stick to it.”
“Maybe we could tie one to a long pole, or something,” said someone in the group. Other suggestions were forthcoming, which quickly became ridiculous and even rude, until Harry stopped them.
Captain Smyth smiled and said, “Nothing to stop you from using your ingenuity, lads. But if you do come up with something that works better, be sure you let the Ordnance Department know, right?”
“Yes, sir,” said Harry. “When will we be issued these things, sir?”
“They are being shipped here, to Egypt, right now. But they’ve only just started being produced in mass and are still in short supply. I’m sorry I can’t let you all try one out today, but I’m sure you will get the hang of them with no problem. We’ve made them about as fool proof as can be.”
“Dunno, sir,” said Sergeant Milroy, “we’ve got an amazing batch of fools here.” That got a laugh from everyone.
Smyth nodded to Harry. “Carry on Lieutenant.”
Harry saluted and told Milroy to stand the men to. They fell into ranks and he marched them off to where the rest of the company was waiting. They passed another platoon marching up to the firing range. The whole battalion had been brought up for instructions and each platoon would have its turn.
He had the men stack their arms and then allowed them to break ranks and rest. There was no shade and it was damned hot. It was always damned hot during the day. Dry as dust, of course; in the month they’d been out on the line, it had not rained once. One of the British officers he’d spoken to said that he’d been here nearly a year and he’d only seen it rain twice in all that time, and even then only a few drops. Australia was hot in the summer, but it did rain from time to time. Harry had never seen anything like this. Of course, it was a desert…
“How’d it go?’ asked Burford Sampson, walking up to him, Ian MacDonald and Paul Miller, the other platoon commanders in C Company followed along. They had all already had the instruction. “Nobody blow himself up?”
“No, but Captain Smyth murdered another telegraph pole. What do you think of those things, those Mills Bombs?”
Samson shrugged. “Probably better’n the dynamite bombs we were using back home. At least they are trying to give us better stuff.”
“There has to be a better way to get the bomb to the Martian,” said MacDonald.
“Almost anything would be better than having to get within spitting distance,” added Miller
“Well, if you figure something out, be sure to tell Smyth.”
“Yeah, right.”
They sat in silence for a while and Harry observed his men. They had been in hearteningly good humor during the demonstration, but now, just killing time in the heat, they mostly lapsed into silence; smoking cigarettes, or pouring sand out of their boots.
“Burf…?”
Sampson turned to look at him, a half smile on his face. “What is it Harry? You only call me Burf when you want something.”
Harry didn’t smile back. “I’m worried about the men. They’re not happy being here…”
“None of us are,” said MacDonald.
“They’re not happy and discipline is getting worse. It wasn’t like this back home, not even after holding the line at Sydney for a year or more. I… I don’t know what to do about it.”
Sampson shrugged. “At Sydney they were defending their own homes. They could look over their shoulders and see ‘em. When we got time off, we could go home. Or at least you fellows could. Everyone could see the need. But here…” He waved his hand around to take in the vast expanse of sand and scrub brush. “…here, what are we defending?”
“A patch o’ desert and a bunch o’ bloody wogs!” said MacDonald
Harry frowned. “I don’t like that word,” he said quietly.
“Neither do the wogs,” replied MacDonald, totally unabashed. “But the boys just see the millions of ‘em that have come crowdin’ in behind the defense lines and wonder why they can’t take over the job here and let us go back and retake our own homes.”
“There are a lot of native troops helping out…” said Harry.
“Not as many as there should be. It’s their homes under attack, their holy places that have been desecrated. Why’n hell don’t more of ‘em join the ranks and fight?” MacDonald spat in the dust.
“A lot of them did fight in the beginning, when the Martians overran Mecca and all,” said Sampson. “They got slaughtered. Hard to fight tripods with nothing but muskets and a few rifles.”
“We haven’t got much more than rifles—and Mills Bombs,” replied MacDonald.
“We’ve got a lot more,” insisted Sampson. “Machine guns, artillery, tanks, and navy warships. Maybe not right in our battalion, but close by.”
“Not enough, though,” said Miller. “Never enough.”
“Yeah, but how long could we have held Sydney if we didn’t have any at all? And if millions of our mates had gotten killed tryin’ to fight like that, how eager would the rest of us be to get stuck in again?”
No one had an answer to that.
“Maybe,” said Harry after a while, “maybe they can start equipping the natives with better weapons…”
“Can hardly do that while we are still waiting for better weapons,” snorted Sampson. “How would the boys feel if they knew that the natives were being given tanks and guns and Mills Bombs while we were still waiting for them?”
“Now that’s God’s truth!” said Miller. “We’d have a bloody riot on our hands!”
With that, silence fell over the little group, interrupted from time to time by an exploding bomb down at the range. The last platoon of D Company was down there now. When they were finished, the battalion could go back to camp. Back to their tents, where they would spend another amazingly chilly night, followed by another scorching day. The battalion had its own small section of the defense lines about twenty miles east of the Nile, but with the Martians well off to the south in their fortress, there was no need to keep it fully manned all the time. Usually just one company would take a day-long turn standing watch, while the other three… sweated.
They had only been there a month but the days were already blending into a blur, like some shimmering desert mirage. Everyone was wondering how long they would be stuck there. Months? Years? The defenses, which protected the lower Nile, Cairo, Alexandria, and the Suez Canal were truly formidable. Tall concrete walls, with ditches in front. Heavy artillery mounted on the walls and in positions behind it. Tank battalions sitting in reserve to deal with any possible breakthrough. And navy warships on the Nile and the Red Sea ready to throw in their help if needed—although their guns could not reach the center areas of the line. It seemed to Harry that the Martians would be fools to attack.
And if they didn’t, what was the point of the 15th New Castle Battalion being here?
Someone had to do it, of course, but why them? That was the question on the mind of every man.
The last of D Company returned and the Colonel stood them to and marched them off to the railroad depot where a train took them back to their own part of the line. Some of the men looked longingly back at the town of Kena; they had been hoping that perhaps after their instruction, they’d be granted some time off in the town. It was the only place that offered any real chance of recreation in the vicinity. On weekends men could get passes to visit, but none were forthcoming now. There was another town, Qoseir, at the east end of the line on the Red Sea that was rumored to have even better facilities, but they had not been permitted to visit there yet. Supposedly, after they had been here longer, there would even be opportunities to go back to Cairo.
The train ride took about an hour and the wind generated by their speed was hugely welcome. Since the train was moving, not the air, there wasn’t even any dust or sand being blown into their faces like when the true winds came off the desert, as they often did. They passed numerous camps on their way, many of them occupied by other Australian troops. This led to a great deal of shouting, waving, and mock insults being thrown back and forth, as men spotted people they knew. The Australian battalions had been spread out among the other troops, supposedly to allow them to learn the ropes from their more experienced neighbors. The grumblers said it was to keep the Aussies from becoming a unified force. Harry wondered if that was true.
By the end of the long defense of Sydney, the troops had grown to the equivalent of about three or four divisions in size. Their upper level organization was a bit sketchy by British standards, but it had worked well enough for a static situation like that. The battalions had been formed into brigades and the brigades had been grouped together into what could have been called divisions—with division commanders—and the whole lot had been dubbed the Sydney Defense Force under the command of General Legge. But since arriving in Egypt, all trace of that earlier organization had vanished. They’d heard nothing from Legge, and even the old brigade commanders seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth. There were whispers that the Australians would just be used as replacements for the British units and would ultimately vanish as distinct formations. If that was really true it was going to lead to trouble—bad trouble.
They stopped at a little siding next to their camp and debarked. There was the usual crowd of native children clustered about, begging for food or money or anything else they could get. They were a mix of Egyptian, Sudanese, and Ethiopians, ranging in color from little darker than the suntanned Aussies, to the deep, deep brown of the Sub-Saharan Africans.
Just like back home, the Martians had landed in the central, inaccessible regions of the continent and then, when they were ready, surged outward, smashing everything in their path. Anyone who was able had fled, some to the coasts where a few of the colonial powers had set up fortified enclaves. Some had made it to French-controlled Madagascar, which the Martians had not invaded. Others had braved the Sahara and gone north into Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, where the French and Italians had set up defenses.
And then there those who lived in British-controlled Sudan and Egypt.
As the Martians swept north, those who could fled before them along the only practicable route—the Nile. The initial attacks had come along the west side of the great river. They destroyed Khartoum and then moved north along the winding river and pushed to within fifty miles of Cairo, before being stopped by a hastily dispatched British army and by a fleet of gunboats on the river.
After being repulsed, the enemy had fallen back into the desert. A year later a new advance on the east side of the river had also been stopped. Things had been relatively stable since then. The defense lines were strong now and the route to Cairo, Alexandria and the Canal were safe.
But millions of refugees were now crowded into the space north of the defenses and they all needed to be fed, housed and cared for. Theoretically this was the responsibility of the Egyptian government, but it had proved a task far beyond their capabilities. Makeshift camps had been set up and some food was shipped in, but from what Harry had heard, the conditions there were grim. Sentries guarded the camps twenty-four hours a day, not to warn of a Martian attack, but to keep the refugees from stealing anything not nailed down. The men all pitied the emaciated children, but they were on strict orders not to share any food with them. Rations, even for the troops, were in short supply, but few men could not help but break the orders from time to time. On this day, Harry didn’t give in to temptation. A few of his men did, but he made a point not to notice.
The battalion’s camp was on a flat piece of desert a quarter-mile square. Each company had a ‘street’ with a row of the conical ‘bell tents’ lining it on either side. Each twelve-man squad had a tent, four squads made a platoon and four platoons made the company, so there were eight tents on each side of the street. At the head of the street, separated from the others by about twenty yards, there was a tent for the platoon officers and another for the captain. At the foot of the street there was a tent for the senior NCOs and another that was the company cook tent. The four companies each had their own street, which were treated like sovereign nations—no outsiders allowed without permission.
Beyond the heads of the company streets there was a short row of tents for the battalion officers and staff, the colonel rating a larger marquee-style tent. Beyond the foot of the streets was the battalion color line where they would fall into ranks. Beyond that—well beyond—were the loos. The camp was all laid out in strict accordance with regulations. Identical camps, like clumps of mushrooms, sprouted all along the rail line as far as the eye could see.
The battalion marched down to the color line and was then dismissed—all except an unlucky platoon from B Company who had guard duty. They relieved the platoon from the neighboring 4th Sheffield Battalion which had been covering for them while they were off learning about the Mills Bombs.
Harry and the other officers trudged up the dusty street to their tent and stripped off their gear. Scoggins was there in an amazingly short time with a pot of tea. He poured out cups and then gathered up their kits to clean. Harry was sure that he’d been with them for the demonstration and only just got back, too. “How does he manage to do this?” he muttered.
“He nipped off as soon as the train stopped,” said Paul Miller. “Didn’t go down to the color line with the rest of us.”
“Man’s worth his weight in gold,” said MacDonald .”How much are we paying him?”
“Not enough,” said Miller. “What with the situation around here I’m amazed he’s keeping us this well supplied with edible food.”
“You can be sure he’s doing just fine,” said Sampson. “With the money, I mean.”
Harry frowned. As junior, he had the job of keeping the account books. “He’s not cheating us,” he protested. “I’ve checked.”
“Never said that he was,” replied Sampson. “But he’s a wheeler-dealer. I’m sure that when he finds a bargain on eggs, he buys more than we need—using our money—and then sells the excess at a profit. He pays us back so our account squares, but he still makes money.”
“Huh,’ said Harry in surprise. “Is that… is that proper? Should we try to stop him?”
“Are you bloody crazy?” laughed MacDonald. “Kill the goose who lays golden eggs? I think not!”
“Not hurting anyone,” said Sampson. “Leave well enough alone, Harry.”
“All right, if you say so.” He threw himself down on his cot and closed his eyes. They were gritty with the ever-present dust and he gently scrubbed at them to get it out. Maybe he would take a bath tonight. The piped in water from the Nile was a godsend—although every mile of it had to be guarded to keep the natives from breaking it open. Sometimes it seemed that the biggest threat came from the rear.
As he lay there waiting for Scoggins to arrive with dinner, he heard a rising and falling voice in the distance. Their other neighbor was an Egyptian regiment. All of them were Muslims, of course, and the voice was calling them to their sunset prayer. Five times a day that call was sounded. Some of the men were irritated by it—especially the night prayer—but Harry found it rather soothing. He had nearly dozed off when Scoggins brought the food.
They ate mostly in silence, having exhausted all their ready store of conversation during the waits for the Mills Bomb demonstrations. Harry regarded his fellow officers. They were all good men, and while they treated him like a kid brother, he liked them and trusted them. He’d served with them for a long time and he knew he was lucky that none of them had gotten killed during the siege. Some other companies and battalions had been decimated by Martian attacks, their officers wiped out completely. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if they weren’t around to help him out.
After dinner Harry decided he was too tired for the bath and he returned to his cot. Sampson and Miller set up a chess game and MacDonald disappeared somewhere. A few hours later he was suddenly awakened by a very excited MacDonald bursting into the tent.
“Hey! Hey!” he nearly shouted. “We’re gonna be moving out!”
“When?” demanded Sampson.
“Where to?” asked Harry.
“How do you know?” said Miller.
“I was hanging around the battalion headquarters tent. The colonel was talking with some bloke from brigade. He said we needed to be ready to move the day after tomorrow!”
“Where are they sending us?” asked Harry again.
“I didn’t hear. I don’t think even the colonel knows.”
“How typical,” said Sampson. “Presumably someone does.”
“But as usual they aren’t telling us!” said Miller disgustedly. “You’d think that they’re afraid we’ll run off and tell the Martians.”
“Military habits,” said Sampson.
“Military stupidity!” said MacDonald. “To those bastards in London we’re just a pin stuck in a map. They pluck it out and stick it in again somewhere else. No need to tell us!”
“I just hope whoever is doing the plucking and sticking knows what they’re doing.”
“When did anyone in London ever know what they’re doing?” said MacDonald.
Harry looked on as the other officers talked. He really wouldn’t mind moving again, just so long as it was to somewhere that mattered. But he wondered if MacDonald was right; did anyone in London really know what they were doing?
September, 1911, Kena, Egypt
“All right, lads, these little blighters are a bit tricky to use, so pay close attention.”
Harry and the men of his platoon closed in around the British ordnance officer and peered at the object he held in his hand. It looked like a black grapefruit on a stick. Looking closer, he saw that the ‘grapefruit’ was actually a metal sphere and the stick was a metal rod attached to the sphere. It was called a ‘Mills Bomb’ after the fellow who had invented it.
They were on the outskirts of the town of Kena, which was where the defense line running from the Red Sea met the Nile River. The 15th New Castle Battalion, after a week at Alexandria, had been shipped out with most of the other Australian troops to help man the line. It was a hot, dry, dusty place, but the line had been established and held for over a year, so it had far more amenities than Harry had been expecting. They lived in tidy tent cities. Field kitchens supplied hot meals and there was even enough water piped in from the river to allow for bathing facilities. A narrow-gauge railway had been constructed behind the line to carry supplies and move troops around.
All of this was possible because the Martians were leaving them alone. They had attacked the defenses here about nine months earlier, been repulsed, and then retreated back into the desert. They had not come back—at least not to this part of the line. Apparently the high command thought that this was a good spot to allow the Aussies to get acclimated to their new location. And also to be given some new equipment.
“The first step is to release the top half of the sphere,” continued the officer, a captain named Smyth. “The two halves are held together and sealed by this tin strap, which goes all the way round. You peel up the end of it here, like this, and then just pull the whole thing loose and the top comes right off.” He followed his own instructions and a moment later the top was off. The contents of the sphere were them exposed. It just looked like a whitish lump of clay.
“What you see is a coating of untreated rubber, mixed with a few other things. It’s sticky as hell, so don’t take the cover off until you plan to use it. Underneath that is about a pound of gelignite, which I’m sure most of you know is a powerful explosive. There is a detonator at the bottom of this sphere and the fuse is ignited by pulling a pin inside the handle here. There’s a cap over it to prevent accidents. Just unscrew the cap to get at the pin.” The cap he spoke of was at the end of the metal rod. He unscrewed it and there was, indeed, a small ring, attached to a cord inside.
Smyth held it up, ran his gaze over the men, and pointed to the ring. “Pull this and you’ve got ten seconds until it explodes. There is no way to stop it once the fuse is ignited. So don’t pull the bloody ring until you are ready to use it. Got that?”
“Yes, sir!” said all the assembled men.
“Now the idea, of course, is to use the sticky part of the bomb to attach it to the Martian tripod. Up until now, we’ve had a dozen different variations on bundles of Dynamite or other explosives, attached to ropes that the men try to somehow tie to a tripod or throw up on to one and hope it gets tangled. Works about one time in ten. But I’m told you lads are combat veterans so I don’t need to tell you that.”
“Damn bleedin’ right, mate!” said someone in the group, getting a laugh. Even Smyth smiled. Harry suspected it was Private Killian, the platoon’s wiseacre.
“All right, let me show you what this can do. Please take cover behind the sand bags.”
They were on a firing range which had been built near Kena, which was about twenty miles west of their camps. There were targets for rifle fire and also other weapons, but today they were here for something different. About twenty paces from the sandbag barrier there was a row of wooden logs sticking up from the ground; they may have once been telegraph poles. Some of the poles had already been broken off, apparently by earlier demonstrations. When everyone was behind cover, peering over the tops of the sandbags, Smyth walked out toward the poles.
“Let’s pretend that this is the leg of one of the tripods. Don’t pull the cord for the primer until you are ready to attach the bomb,” he called back to them. “Damned embarrassing to pull it early and then have the bugger walk off before you can attach it and leave you there holding the bag, so to speak. I image you fellows have seen the real thing close up before.”
“Too damned often, mate! ‘Ave you?” Yes, it was definitely Killian.
Smyth tried to smile again, although it looked more like a grimace. “All right, here we go.” He tugged at the ring and pulled the cord out of the tube attached to the bomb and then using the tube like the hilt of a knife, stabbed the bomb at the pole, as high up as he could easily reach. Just as he’d promised, the thing stuck fast. “Now you run like hell!”
He sprinted back towards them, waving his arms. “Down! Get down!” Harry obediently ducked behind the sandbags, making sure all his men did as well. A moment later Smyth tore around the end of the sandbag wall and skidded to a halt. “Stay down!”
After a few heartbeats, there was a sizeable bang and a small concussion. Smythe stood up and then said: “All good, you can get up now.” Harry stood up and saw a cloud of smoke rolling away from him, borne by the steady desert breeze. The pole had been blown in two, the bottom still standing upright, but ending in a blossom of splinters about four feet above the ground. The top part was lying a dozen feet away. “Come take a look, gentlemen,” said Smyth.
Harry and his men gathered around the pole. The bomb had blown through it with apparent ease. But it was only a piece of wood…
“Captain,” he said, “has this been tested on actual Martian equipment? We’ve found them to be a bit tougher than… wood.”
“They have,” replied the ordnance officer. “We’ve used them on the legs of enemy tripods we’ve salvaged, and the Mills Bomb is capable of blasting through their metal skins. It won’t always blow a leg clean off, mind you, but it will do significant damage.”
“And what’s the danger radius from the blast? To the men using it, I mean. You had us back off a good ways, and we won’t always have a convenient sand bag wall to hide behind.”
Smyth nodded. “The metal casing for the bomb does throw off shrapnel for some distance. We’re looking at using a different material which will be safer, but this is what we have for now. We believe this to be a significant improvement over the bombs you have been using.”
“Well, that’s God’s truth, sir,” said Sergeant Milroy, the platoon sergeant. “And if we need t’tackle one of these bastards close up, we’re going t’lose some lads no matter what we do.” The men nodded. They all had learned that there was no easy way for infantry to kill a tripod.
“Sir?” Private Greene raised his hand. “Can you throw the bomb? I mean throw it up at the main body of the tripod. Will it still stick?”
The captain made a sour face and shook his head slightly. “Well, if you made a perfect throw, then maybe. Much more likely is that it will bounce off. And once it’s fallen down and gotten dirt and sand on its sticky part, then it won’t stick at all. So I’m afraid you are going to need to walk right up to the tripod to slap one of these on. And while I can see you Australian fellows are tall blokes, you’ll still only be able to reach the lower legs. You’ll need to blow off a leg or two to bring them down to size. We’re working on a better way to deliver the bombs to the target, but for right now, this is what we have.”
“Have they tried magnets, sir?” asked Harry.
Smyth shook his head. “Won’t work. The Martian metal doesn’t have a lot of iron in it, so magnets won’t stick to it.”
“Maybe we could tie one to a long pole, or something,” said someone in the group. Other suggestions were forthcoming, which quickly became ridiculous and even rude, until Harry stopped them.
Captain Smyth smiled and said, “Nothing to stop you from using your ingenuity, lads. But if you do come up with something that works better, be sure you let the Ordnance Department know, right?”
“Yes, sir,” said Harry. “When will we be issued these things, sir?”
“They are being shipped here, to Egypt, right now. But they’ve only just started being produced in mass and are still in short supply. I’m sorry I can’t let you all try one out today, but I’m sure you will get the hang of them with no problem. We’ve made them about as fool proof as can be.”
“Dunno, sir,” said Sergeant Milroy, “we’ve got an amazing batch of fools here.” That got a laugh from everyone.
Smyth nodded to Harry. “Carry on Lieutenant.”
Harry saluted and told Milroy to stand the men to. They fell into ranks and he marched them off to where the rest of the company was waiting. They passed another platoon marching up to the firing range. The whole battalion had been brought up for instructions and each platoon would have its turn.
He had the men stack their arms and then allowed them to break ranks and rest. There was no shade and it was damned hot. It was always damned hot during the day. Dry as dust, of course; in the month they’d been out on the line, it had not rained once. One of the British officers he’d spoken to said that he’d been here nearly a year and he’d only seen it rain twice in all that time, and even then only a few drops. Australia was hot in the summer, but it did rain from time to time. Harry had never seen anything like this. Of course, it was a desert…
“How’d it go?’ asked Burford Sampson, walking up to him, Ian MacDonald and Paul Miller, the other platoon commanders in C Company followed along. They had all already had the instruction. “Nobody blow himself up?”
“No, but Captain Smyth murdered another telegraph pole. What do you think of those things, those Mills Bombs?”
Samson shrugged. “Probably better’n the dynamite bombs we were using back home. At least they are trying to give us better stuff.”
“There has to be a better way to get the bomb to the Martian,” said MacDonald.
“Almost anything would be better than having to get within spitting distance,” added Miller
“Well, if you figure something out, be sure to tell Smyth.”
“Yeah, right.”
They sat in silence for a while and Harry observed his men. They had been in hearteningly good humor during the demonstration, but now, just killing time in the heat, they mostly lapsed into silence; smoking cigarettes, or pouring sand out of their boots.
“Burf…?”
Sampson turned to look at him, a half smile on his face. “What is it Harry? You only call me Burf when you want something.”
Harry didn’t smile back. “I’m worried about the men. They’re not happy being here…”
“None of us are,” said MacDonald.
“They’re not happy and discipline is getting worse. It wasn’t like this back home, not even after holding the line at Sydney for a year or more. I… I don’t know what to do about it.”
Sampson shrugged. “At Sydney they were defending their own homes. They could look over their shoulders and see ‘em. When we got time off, we could go home. Or at least you fellows could. Everyone could see the need. But here…” He waved his hand around to take in the vast expanse of sand and scrub brush. “…here, what are we defending?”
“A patch o’ desert and a bunch o’ bloody wogs!” said MacDonald
Harry frowned. “I don’t like that word,” he said quietly.
“Neither do the wogs,” replied MacDonald, totally unabashed. “But the boys just see the millions of ‘em that have come crowdin’ in behind the defense lines and wonder why they can’t take over the job here and let us go back and retake our own homes.”
“There are a lot of native troops helping out…” said Harry.
“Not as many as there should be. It’s their homes under attack, their holy places that have been desecrated. Why’n hell don’t more of ‘em join the ranks and fight?” MacDonald spat in the dust.
“A lot of them did fight in the beginning, when the Martians overran Mecca and all,” said Sampson. “They got slaughtered. Hard to fight tripods with nothing but muskets and a few rifles.”
“We haven’t got much more than rifles—and Mills Bombs,” replied MacDonald.
“We’ve got a lot more,” insisted Sampson. “Machine guns, artillery, tanks, and navy warships. Maybe not right in our battalion, but close by.”
“Not enough, though,” said Miller. “Never enough.”
“Yeah, but how long could we have held Sydney if we didn’t have any at all? And if millions of our mates had gotten killed tryin’ to fight like that, how eager would the rest of us be to get stuck in again?”
No one had an answer to that.
“Maybe,” said Harry after a while, “maybe they can start equipping the natives with better weapons…”
“Can hardly do that while we are still waiting for better weapons,” snorted Sampson. “How would the boys feel if they knew that the natives were being given tanks and guns and Mills Bombs while we were still waiting for them?”
“Now that’s God’s truth!” said Miller. “We’d have a bloody riot on our hands!”
With that, silence fell over the little group, interrupted from time to time by an exploding bomb down at the range. The last platoon of D Company was down there now. When they were finished, the battalion could go back to camp. Back to their tents, where they would spend another amazingly chilly night, followed by another scorching day. The battalion had its own small section of the defense lines about twenty miles east of the Nile, but with the Martians well off to the south in their fortress, there was no need to keep it fully manned all the time. Usually just one company would take a day-long turn standing watch, while the other three… sweated.
They had only been there a month but the days were already blending into a blur, like some shimmering desert mirage. Everyone was wondering how long they would be stuck there. Months? Years? The defenses, which protected the lower Nile, Cairo, Alexandria, and the Suez Canal were truly formidable. Tall concrete walls, with ditches in front. Heavy artillery mounted on the walls and in positions behind it. Tank battalions sitting in reserve to deal with any possible breakthrough. And navy warships on the Nile and the Red Sea ready to throw in their help if needed—although their guns could not reach the center areas of the line. It seemed to Harry that the Martians would be fools to attack.
And if they didn’t, what was the point of the 15th New Castle Battalion being here?
Someone had to do it, of course, but why them? That was the question on the mind of every man.
The last of D Company returned and the Colonel stood them to and marched them off to the railroad depot where a train took them back to their own part of the line. Some of the men looked longingly back at the town of Kena; they had been hoping that perhaps after their instruction, they’d be granted some time off in the town. It was the only place that offered any real chance of recreation in the vicinity. On weekends men could get passes to visit, but none were forthcoming now. There was another town, Qoseir, at the east end of the line on the Red Sea that was rumored to have even better facilities, but they had not been permitted to visit there yet. Supposedly, after they had been here longer, there would even be opportunities to go back to Cairo.
The train ride took about an hour and the wind generated by their speed was hugely welcome. Since the train was moving, not the air, there wasn’t even any dust or sand being blown into their faces like when the true winds came off the desert, as they often did. They passed numerous camps on their way, many of them occupied by other Australian troops. This led to a great deal of shouting, waving, and mock insults being thrown back and forth, as men spotted people they knew. The Australian battalions had been spread out among the other troops, supposedly to allow them to learn the ropes from their more experienced neighbors. The grumblers said it was to keep the Aussies from becoming a unified force. Harry wondered if that was true.
By the end of the long defense of Sydney, the troops had grown to the equivalent of about three or four divisions in size. Their upper level organization was a bit sketchy by British standards, but it had worked well enough for a static situation like that. The battalions had been formed into brigades and the brigades had been grouped together into what could have been called divisions—with division commanders—and the whole lot had been dubbed the Sydney Defense Force under the command of General Legge. But since arriving in Egypt, all trace of that earlier organization had vanished. They’d heard nothing from Legge, and even the old brigade commanders seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth. There were whispers that the Australians would just be used as replacements for the British units and would ultimately vanish as distinct formations. If that was really true it was going to lead to trouble—bad trouble.
They stopped at a little siding next to their camp and debarked. There was the usual crowd of native children clustered about, begging for food or money or anything else they could get. They were a mix of Egyptian, Sudanese, and Ethiopians, ranging in color from little darker than the suntanned Aussies, to the deep, deep brown of the Sub-Saharan Africans.
Just like back home, the Martians had landed in the central, inaccessible regions of the continent and then, when they were ready, surged outward, smashing everything in their path. Anyone who was able had fled, some to the coasts where a few of the colonial powers had set up fortified enclaves. Some had made it to French-controlled Madagascar, which the Martians had not invaded. Others had braved the Sahara and gone north into Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, where the French and Italians had set up defenses.
And then there those who lived in British-controlled Sudan and Egypt.
As the Martians swept north, those who could fled before them along the only practicable route—the Nile. The initial attacks had come along the west side of the great river. They destroyed Khartoum and then moved north along the winding river and pushed to within fifty miles of Cairo, before being stopped by a hastily dispatched British army and by a fleet of gunboats on the river.
After being repulsed, the enemy had fallen back into the desert. A year later a new advance on the east side of the river had also been stopped. Things had been relatively stable since then. The defense lines were strong now and the route to Cairo, Alexandria and the Canal were safe.
But millions of refugees were now crowded into the space north of the defenses and they all needed to be fed, housed and cared for. Theoretically this was the responsibility of the Egyptian government, but it had proved a task far beyond their capabilities. Makeshift camps had been set up and some food was shipped in, but from what Harry had heard, the conditions there were grim. Sentries guarded the camps twenty-four hours a day, not to warn of a Martian attack, but to keep the refugees from stealing anything not nailed down. The men all pitied the emaciated children, but they were on strict orders not to share any food with them. Rations, even for the troops, were in short supply, but few men could not help but break the orders from time to time. On this day, Harry didn’t give in to temptation. A few of his men did, but he made a point not to notice.
The battalion’s camp was on a flat piece of desert a quarter-mile square. Each company had a ‘street’ with a row of the conical ‘bell tents’ lining it on either side. Each twelve-man squad had a tent, four squads made a platoon and four platoons made the company, so there were eight tents on each side of the street. At the head of the street, separated from the others by about twenty yards, there was a tent for the platoon officers and another for the captain. At the foot of the street there was a tent for the senior NCOs and another that was the company cook tent. The four companies each had their own street, which were treated like sovereign nations—no outsiders allowed without permission.
Beyond the heads of the company streets there was a short row of tents for the battalion officers and staff, the colonel rating a larger marquee-style tent. Beyond the foot of the streets was the battalion color line where they would fall into ranks. Beyond that—well beyond—were the loos. The camp was all laid out in strict accordance with regulations. Identical camps, like clumps of mushrooms, sprouted all along the rail line as far as the eye could see.
The battalion marched down to the color line and was then dismissed—all except an unlucky platoon from B Company who had guard duty. They relieved the platoon from the neighboring 4th Sheffield Battalion which had been covering for them while they were off learning about the Mills Bombs.
Harry and the other officers trudged up the dusty street to their tent and stripped off their gear. Scoggins was there in an amazingly short time with a pot of tea. He poured out cups and then gathered up their kits to clean. Harry was sure that he’d been with them for the demonstration and only just got back, too. “How does he manage to do this?” he muttered.
“He nipped off as soon as the train stopped,” said Paul Miller. “Didn’t go down to the color line with the rest of us.”
“Man’s worth his weight in gold,” said MacDonald .”How much are we paying him?”
“Not enough,” said Miller. “What with the situation around here I’m amazed he’s keeping us this well supplied with edible food.”
“You can be sure he’s doing just fine,” said Sampson. “With the money, I mean.”
Harry frowned. As junior, he had the job of keeping the account books. “He’s not cheating us,” he protested. “I’ve checked.”
“Never said that he was,” replied Sampson. “But he’s a wheeler-dealer. I’m sure that when he finds a bargain on eggs, he buys more than we need—using our money—and then sells the excess at a profit. He pays us back so our account squares, but he still makes money.”
“Huh,’ said Harry in surprise. “Is that… is that proper? Should we try to stop him?”
“Are you bloody crazy?” laughed MacDonald. “Kill the goose who lays golden eggs? I think not!”
“Not hurting anyone,” said Sampson. “Leave well enough alone, Harry.”
“All right, if you say so.” He threw himself down on his cot and closed his eyes. They were gritty with the ever-present dust and he gently scrubbed at them to get it out. Maybe he would take a bath tonight. The piped in water from the Nile was a godsend—although every mile of it had to be guarded to keep the natives from breaking it open. Sometimes it seemed that the biggest threat came from the rear.
As he lay there waiting for Scoggins to arrive with dinner, he heard a rising and falling voice in the distance. Their other neighbor was an Egyptian regiment. All of them were Muslims, of course, and the voice was calling them to their sunset prayer. Five times a day that call was sounded. Some of the men were irritated by it—especially the night prayer—but Harry found it rather soothing. He had nearly dozed off when Scoggins brought the food.
They ate mostly in silence, having exhausted all their ready store of conversation during the waits for the Mills Bomb demonstrations. Harry regarded his fellow officers. They were all good men, and while they treated him like a kid brother, he liked them and trusted them. He’d served with them for a long time and he knew he was lucky that none of them had gotten killed during the siege. Some other companies and battalions had been decimated by Martian attacks, their officers wiped out completely. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if they weren’t around to help him out.
After dinner Harry decided he was too tired for the bath and he returned to his cot. Sampson and Miller set up a chess game and MacDonald disappeared somewhere. A few hours later he was suddenly awakened by a very excited MacDonald bursting into the tent.
“Hey! Hey!” he nearly shouted. “We’re gonna be moving out!”
“When?” demanded Sampson.
“Where to?” asked Harry.
“How do you know?” said Miller.
“I was hanging around the battalion headquarters tent. The colonel was talking with some bloke from brigade. He said we needed to be ready to move the day after tomorrow!”
“Where are they sending us?” asked Harry again.
“I didn’t hear. I don’t think even the colonel knows.”
“How typical,” said Sampson. “Presumably someone does.”
“But as usual they aren’t telling us!” said Miller disgustedly. “You’d think that they’re afraid we’ll run off and tell the Martians.”
“Military habits,” said Sampson.
“Military stupidity!” said MacDonald. “To those bastards in London we’re just a pin stuck in a map. They pluck it out and stick it in again somewhere else. No need to tell us!”
“I just hope whoever is doing the plucking and sticking knows what they’re doing.”
“When did anyone in London ever know what they’re doing?” said MacDonald.
Harry looked on as the other officers talked. He really wouldn’t mind moving again, just so long as it was to somewhere that mattered. But he wondered if MacDonald was right; did anyone in London really know what they were doing?