Conrad's Last Campaign (9 page)

I became aware of someone riding hard behind me. When I turned in the saddle, my first thought was “How the hell did Mongols get Big People?” Then I realized that the men in the sheepskins must be from the squad sent out to watch the river. Behind each of them, a rag doll of a man bounced around much more than anyone should on a Big Person.

I told Silver to slow down and waited for them to catch up. They were soon riding along side of us. “Trooper, I would address you by your rank, but you forgot to put your insignia on your sheepskin. Where did you get your baggage?”

“Sir Kiminovsk, your grace, knight of the scouts. We got them on the river, and you’ll never believe where they come from.”

I looked over the men they had brought and suddenly realized that the red and white jackets they wore could actually be a version of my company uniform, if it was cut sloppy, the sleeves truncated, the buttons moved, and a lot of dirt and grime added. I looked at the nearest one and asked, “Who are you?”

He answered in clear Polish, “I’m Sir Willard, merchant cap’n of the Commercial Corps, commandin’ the river boat
Wanderwind
, and couple more. That there is my navigator. Who are you?”

This man was my employee! On a Mongol river! I leaned forward, “I’m your boss.”

He looked doubtful. “Don’t make much sense t’argue with any man who has an army with ‘em, but last I heard, Sir Boris was sittin’ on his ass in Kiev, spendin’ the money we merchants send ’em.”

Kiminovsk glared at him and hissed, “Not Novacek, you idiot. This is Hetman Conrad, and I’ll thank you to show some respect!”

“Hetman Conrad! Couldn’t be. He’s dead ‘bout a year since. What’s he doin’ out here?”

I waved the trooper off. “As you can see, I am breathing very well for a dead man. Now I want to know what you are doing trading on a Mongol river!” My patience was running thin and my hand was tensing on my sword hilt.

“Sorry ‘bout that
dead
thing, sir. But we been on the road, or river, fer months and, of course, Novacek don’t let us bring a radio, or much of anythin’ else out of Christian Army territory. We didn’t know you was back. We don’t hear nothin’ out here.” He reached over to Kiminovsk and touched his armor padding. “We been tradin’ fer the silk you cover yer paddin’ with. The Chinee brung it overland to Sarai. We buy from ‘em and then float it down to the Black Sea to meet our ships. It’s a long trip because we start in the Rus’ territories and go down river to Sarai. That way we don’t have to row on either leg. It’s the same way the Northman got to Constantinople in the old days. We gonna be here long? These men of yers have got three boats of ours parked on the bank.”

My scowl relaxed a little, “It depends upon what you mean by
long
. You’ve wandered into the middle of a war zone and you will be here until we are finished questioning you. At least you will be here long after dinner and maybe for a few more days.”

I saw from the shadows that it was getting late in the afternoon. “We will be stopping early tonight. There will a staff meeting during dinner. Our guests are invited.”

Since the blackboard had also gone down the gorge, we were sitting cross-legged around a spot of bare dirt where Willard could draw as he talked. Most of us were still munching on our canned dinners. Willard started by drawing a long line in the dirt, and then a half circle beside it. “The city sits mostly on the east side of the river. The Volga is a huge river and it’s hard to control traffic, so they picked a spot where there’s an island in the middle of the river. There’s a fort on the island with about twenty cannon and a musket team, so they can control traffic.

“The old part is protected pretty well with a timber palisade, a dry moat with stakes on the bottom and cannon emplacements. It’s about five miles long and stretches about the same from the river. However, the city must have gotten a lot bigger a lot faster than the Mongols thought it would. It must have a hundred fifty, two hundred thousand people now and half of the city is outside the walls.

“They’re building a new set of stone walls around the whole thing, but it’s going slow and they don’t seem to be much worried about it. It’s just foundations in most places.

“The piers are on the city side of the river, and there are a lot of warehouses behind them. It’s like any port city, the bars, brothels, and Inns are just behind the warehouses, mixed in with the tariff houses and some traders offices. The main government offices are right in the center of town. They’re the only stone buildings in town. Rich people and government officials fill up the rest of the inner city.

“Most of the rest of the inner city is divided into guild sections. There are areas for rug merchants, coppersmiths, leather works, silk merchants, and so on.”

He drew another bigger circle around the first. “Between the inner wall and the city edge,
Genoa, Vienna, Egypt, China, Korea and a few others each have section of their own. Some of them have low walls around them.”

Willard scratched a line through both circles opposite the river. “The overland trade route enters through a caravan gate on this side. That’s also where most of the Mongol guards are housed.”

Sir Wladyclaw asked, “How many Mongols?”

“At least thirty or thirty-five thousand cavalry, probably more, and there’s a bunch of Chinese troops that do most of the police work. There weren’t that many cavalry the last time we were here, but a bunch of new troops showed up in the past few months. There are huge stables near the barracks and a bigger herd of horses outside the city. Oh, and there’s a yurt village along the trade route, but I don’t know if that has more soldiers or just Mongol families who don’t like cities. There are cannon on the inner walls. Large-bore brass muzzle loaders. I’ve seen both solid and canister shot stacked near them. I haven’t seen anything resembling a mobile field piece, but then they don’t let outsiders get near the armory. The small fort on the island has about twenty large cannon facing the west bank and only about five big ones facing toward the city side. I guess that they want to make certain that no one skirts customs by bypassing the city, so they concentrated the guns that way.

“Most of the cavalry still prefer their bows when they’re on horseback. We see them practicing a lot over by the barracks. The range is as good as a musket and the rate of fire is ten times as fast. However, every soldier and policeman has a musket and a single shot pistol for emergencies. In a crisis, they can station citizens on the walls with rifled muskets and do some real damage.”

As he spoke, I realized that he was quoting from some report that he had already written, probably for Novacek’s spy agency. His bumpkin speech had totally disappeared.

“The moat is dry now, but the Chinese engineers have installed flood gates where the moat meets the river. They can flood the moat, and there is a system to drop the bridges into the moat by pulling a few chains. The thing is too big for a horse to jump and once the bottom is mud, it would be very hard to cross.”

When he paused, I said, “Your report is very complete. I assume that you have this written down somewhere, perhaps for later transmission to Novacek.”

He shook his head, “No, sir, a smart man doesn’t write down anything about Mongol fortifications while he is still on a Mongol river, but I have thought about it.”

“Sir Willard, I am still having a hard time getting my mind around this whole concept of trading in a Mongol town. Why aren’t you dead?”

Willard stroked his beard for a second. “Well, it’s been twenty years since any Mongol met a Christian Army soldier. Maybe they forgot we’re at war.

“You have to remember that when these people aren’t busy cutting off heads, they’re heavy into trade. They have been since the first great khan figured out that it was more profitable to get the peasants to farm instead of killing them off and grazing horses on their land.

“Of course, they’re still psychopaths. When the Khwarazmian guy refused a trade mission from the great khan, and then killed his representatives, they went berserk and totally wiped out the Khwarezm civilization. I hear that the blood made the river run red for days.

“Sarai was established by Obedei and Subedi after you kicked them out of
Poland. The two brothers are old school, but even they’re learning. They’re pissed because the great khan doesn’t share much of the wealth he gets in China. The only income these guys have is tribute from the Russian states and a couple of Balkan cities and what they make from the trade going though Sarai. Of course, now that the khan has the Silk Road open all the way from China to Constantinople, business is pretty good.”

My ears were buzzing and I could feel my blood pressure rising. “What the hell do you mean? You’re saying these Mongols are peaceful merchants. These are the bastards that killed half of
Russia and tens of thousands of Poles! I don’t want to hear any crap about how peaceful they are!

“And how the hell are they getting tribute from anyone in
Russia, we kicked their asses when they attacked?”

Willard was quieted but not cowed. “Yes, we kicked their asses in
Poland, but we were too busy cleaning up to chase them all the way back to Mongolia. They had already taken Tver, Moscow, and several other Russian principalities and they still pay tribute. Since that time they’ve consolidated their gains in the Caucasus and convinced several more Russian cities to sign up as vassals. They sent representatives to places like Novgorod with a simple ultimatum – ‘Either pay us and we will protect you from the Christian Armies or fight us and we’ll kill you now.’”

I couldn’t listen to any more crap. “Why the hell would anyone need to be protected from us? We don’t attack our neighbors! And, our allies are the richest, best-fed people on Earth!”

Willard just sat quietly.

“Well,” I asked, “What the hell is going on.”

“Our citizens are the luckiest people on Earth, but the Mongols pointed out that the old Polish nobility doesn’t seem to be doing as well. When we move in, the old estates decline in value and Polish products dominate the market. We put up a couple of snowflake forts to ‘protect our friends,’ we sell cheap goods, we accept anyone as a recruit, and everyone is better off except the men who used to run things.

“The Russian boyars like running things. They’d rather have power and money than foreign troops and hot water. All the Mongols ask is to send a lot of money, do the census, and accept their rather remote authority. A lot of cites joined up.

“I think the common way of describing the Christian Army was that it was like sleeping with a pet lion. It makes you feel safe and warm, but you have to hope that it doesn’t need a snack in the middle of the night.”

It took awhile to digest what I was hearing. My staff recognized my mood and sat quietly. The decisions that I finally made were obvious and unavoidable. “Gentlemen, the situation is worse than we could have imagined. If the Mongols are getting help from Christian traitors, they are more dangerous than we knew. Now we will remove this city of traitors by burning the bastards to the ground. When we leave, this must be a plain empty of all but ashes. There will be no place to for the traitors to pay tribute or give allegiance.”

Then I laid out my plan. Wars, they say, are won by those who get there firstest with the mostest. I had spent thirty years in this place making certain that I had the mostest. Now I was spoiled, and we were short of men, short of ammo, and short of time. I could still smash that city. Even with their cannon and muskets and fortified walls. We could still kill fifty Mongols to one Christian trooper – and I couldn’t afford the losses. This was going to be a long, dirty campaign.

“Sir Kowalski, we will start by implementing your plan, with a few additions. Sir Grzegorz, select a lance of wolves and polish them up until they shine. I want them to gleam when they ride with flags flying, but the first two flags in the front will be white. He’s going visiting. Willard, what languages does he need for a message to the khan?”

“Mongol is best, my lord, just to be courteous, but they have Russian and Polish interpreters and part of the population speaks Mandarin Chinese.”

“Include a couple of interpreters to help him with the Mongol language. We’ll depend on his trader background to keep him breathing.”

At daybreak, we broke camp and headed north. I instructed all of the men to look very busy and make a lot of noise, but to move as slowly as possible. I planned to camp on the banks of the
Volga, less than thirty miles north of the city. I hoped that the Mongols following us would see nothing unusual in a European army making so little progress. We were, after all, the only modern army they had ever seen and they were used to outrunning and outmaneuvering every army they met.

Sir Wladyclaw had assigned Sir Gorski as the tribute bearer. He broke off early and headed for the city, unit and truce flags flying, Mongol speaking trooper in tow. I found out that we still had about four hundred pounds of gold coins with us for payroll and emergencies, so Kowalski was carrying about thirty pounds of gold coins as a present for the khans. I figured it didn’t matter how much gold we sent, as we were going to get in back in a day or two anyway.

His troopers had rigged up a very special wagon for the gold. They emptied out on of the supply wagons and then scrounged some fancy velvet cloth, gold braid, and a couple of gold candlesticks that one of the troopers had in his bags. The chest of gold was placed in the back of the wagon on that beautiful velvet cloth, surrounded by braid and flags. It was enough to take the observers mind away from the fact that, behind the chest, the cloth actually ran on a raised floor all the way to the front of the wagon.

Under that false floor sat a very heavy machine gun and a lot of ammo. Pull the cloth, pull the pin holding the gun carriage retracted, and wagon became a 13
th
century super tank. Of course, Willard had assured us that these peace-loving bastards would respect the parlay flags, but a little insurance never hurt.

The mission turned out to only partially successful. A Mongol squad rode out from the city to meet him within sight of the walls, and didn’t kill him. However, they understandably weren’t going to let armed foreign nationals into the city under any circumstances. His interpreter told the squad leader they had a present for the local khan, but they would not be able to leave it with anyone but a high official.

That became a problem that took a few hours to solve. In the 13
th
century, people didn’t carry a driver’s license. Without seeing a throne room or some other evidence, it was hard to know who to give the gold to. Eventually someone showed up with enough fancy dress and enough retainers to convince Kowalski that he really was the assistant to the khan. A man claiming to be the local military commander was with him.

At that point, Gorski and his crew all made serious attempts at groveling and bowing. He explained through the interpreter that his commander knew he was making a serious error riding through Mongols lands without permission, but gave a convincing story of insurrection and betrayal in
Poland that demanded that we go home the fastest possible way.

Then he pulled back the purple cloth and opened the chest of gold. He explained that this was a token of our respect and hinted that we would be willing to send more back from
Poland once we reached there.

I doubt that the Mongols believed a word of his story, but they took the chest of gold and let them leave unmolested. We failed to get an inside look at the city, but perhaps we spread a little confusion and doubt about our intentions.

The rest of the troops moved out to our next campground. I had instructed the officers to have a lot of visible problems today. Wagons should appear to break down; horses would need a lot of rest; the midday meal would require a dismount while the men searched for fuel to heat their cans with.

I wanted to convince the Mongols that we were moving as fast as we could, but being an incompetent Christian army, our best pace was not too good. The Mongol warrior would carry raw meat under his saddle and pull out strips to eat with one hand while in full gallop. They should find the spectacle of soldiers hunting for dry horse dung to heat their canned meals hilarious.

Of course, the problem was getting the best trained and most motivated army in the world to act like bunglers. It is amazingly hard for competent men to act like idiots and still look natural.

Myself, I tried hard to look as if I was dozing in the saddle, but I was thinking about how we were going to eliminate the city. Normally, I would just reduce the island fort with artillery, and then cross to the island with a few thousand troops covered by machine gun fire from the banks. Once on the island, we would occupy the remains of the fort, install our own artillery on the city facing side and reduce the city defenses from there. Machine guns on the island bank nearest the city and air support would prevent any counter attacks on us until we had softened up the city enough to send the troops in to mop up. No problem.

Modern army meets medieval army. Score: modern army, thousands of kills; medieval army, zero. Works every time.

Unfortunately, we were short of artillery shells and artillery period, and way out of range for air support. We had enough machine gun ammo for a couple of battles, but no resupply. We were also short of boats in a region devoid of boats, trees, and anything else that floats. Just getting across a two kilometer wide river with any equipment was a major problem.

So, we were going to Mongol it.

I had Willard’s river pilot riding along side me. We had reached the banks of the
Volga far enough north of the city to keep suspicions down. The Mongols had built their city on the best crossing within a few hundred miles, but the pilot had mentioned a particularly treacherous section where the river was filled with sand banks and low marshy islands. It was hell for boats, but might give our Big People enough intermittent traction to keep them from floating too far downriver when they crossed.

The “bad” section of the river was about two miles long and hard to miss. As planned, two of the artillery carts broke down there and had to be upended for repairs. We moved most of the shells to other carts, but we “had to leave” the two artillery pieces and some shells behind while we moved on. Of course, we set also left enough troops to guard our equipment and set up a couple of machine guns to discourage curious tourists.

By strange coincidence, they just happened to break down near a rare stand of trees. As we left, the troopers were cutting down some trees to improve their camp while they waited.

The main body of the army moved north another forty miles and camped on the riverbank. We had made less than a hundred miles that day. The officers and I met for about two hours and went over the plans for the morning, but we sent the troops to bed early. Armies are forever forgetting that one of the most important elements in a battle is a well rested army.

It’s a good thing that the nights are long this time of year because the bugles sounded an hour and a half before first light.

Before we moved, I addressed the troops. I know that Caesar did it by shouting loudly, but I stood on a radio wagon and used an amplified microphone. “For thirty years, the Mongols have murdered their way across the world. In
Baghdad and Samarkand and a hundred other places, they put the entire populations to the sword. They murdered men, women and children indiscriminately. They have murdered and depopulated entire nations. Tomorrow, you will have the chance to change a lot of bad Mongols into good Mongols. How will you do this? It is a matter of grass. Any Mongol riding on the grass is a bad Mongol. Any Mongol sleeping under the grass is a good Mongol. Tomorrow you will make many good Mongols.”

When the cheering died down, we moved out thirty-five thousand men and Big People by moonlight. Few armies aside from Patton’s or Caesar’s could have moved so fast.

The men left behind began moving the equipment into a defensive ring with their backs to the river. By dawn, they would have machine gun emplacements and be behind low walls made out of whatever they could scrounge: brush, trees, dirt, sod, whatever was there. There wouldn’t be much point in reducing the city if we lost all of our equipment while we were gone.

We were no longer a fifty-mile long train, but even formed up two hundred fifty men across, our formation was almost mile wide and nearly two miles long. We were going to need a little elbow room for a fast ride.

How fast? The Mongol Post and the Pony Express using relays of fresh horses both averaged about ten miles an hour. A good quarter horse can hit forty-five miles-an-hour during a race, but only for a few minutes. As far as any conventional wisdom went, the Mongols knew that we were at least a day away – and on the wrong side of the river.

Even in the moonlight, Big People could make forty miles an hour on the tundra – if your kidneys could stand it. We reached the river crossing in just over an hour but it was a nightmare ride in the dark. My armor clinked and jangled and pinched everywhere. My back was killing me, my scrotum was on fire, and there was no way to judge distance or time and I thought it would never end.

When we got close the crossing point, the troops we had left behind lit torches to mark the end points of the crossing and that yellow light was the first thing we had really seen for an hour. We didn’t stop. The Big People knew what to do. They plunged into the river and swam hard. The sand bars and small islands gave some purchase, but it was a rough crossing.

It took about an hour to form up on the eastern bank. We waited only about fifteen minutes to give the last crossers time to catch their breath, and then we moved out for the city, still moving about forty miles an hour – and my butt hurt even worse than my back.

Somewhere in the darkness ahead of us were the two artillery pieces that we had left behind. As soon as it was dark, the troops had roped the trees they cut to the artillery carts for extra buoyancy and began to manhandle them across the river. Sandbars and islands do NOT help a raft so it took hours to get to the eastern bank. Then they moved out for the city in the moonlight. They couldn’t move as fast as we were, but they had enough head start to get there before we did.

It was first light when we stopped just out of sight of the city. Miles behind us here were probably a few dozen Mongol lookouts trying desperately to warn the city. I wanted to smash straight in, but we needed to rest and walk the kinks out before we went into battle. The field pieces were already there and the troopers with them had scouted out good firing positions during the night. The Mongols were famous for moving fast and appearing from nowhere. Before full daybreak, they would see how that worked from the other side.

I quickly conferred with the knight that I had sent ahead with the cannons. “Lord,” he reported. “It looks about as we expected. There is only a moat and a timber palisade on this side. Seems they weren’t too concerned about an attack from the east, and once we take out the gate, it will be down permanently. The moat’s also too small to stop a Big Person. We can jump it once the wall’s down.”

I clapped him on the shoulder, “A lot of lives today depend upon you opening that gate for us. Once you open it, work both ways opening up as many gaps as you can. How fast can you be in position?”

“The cannons are already out there. We put them in position last night, sighted them in on the gate, and disguised them as mounds of hay. Give us a one-minute head start and we’ll have the gate down as you go by.”

“Go now”. I mounted and moved to the head of the column. I took that one minute to verify that we were in formation twenty abreast, with my personal lance in the first rank, raised my golden sword and shouted, “For God and
Poland, to defend our homeland, and to improve a lot of murdering Mongols, charge!”

They knew we were here now. Thirty five thousand horses at full gallop made a lot of noise as we burst over the last little hillock between us and the city, and the cannon that fired as we passed made a lovely pair of door bells.

As we charged, the cannon behind us continued to fire at a steady pace. I hadn’t been flattering the artilleryman. This campaign depended on those two cannon. The Mongols themselves had learned in the early days that pure cavalry was a lousy siege tool. Several Russian cities survived their raids by just staying behind the walls and refusing to come out to play. Calvary is fast, hard-hitting, and dangerous, but makes a lousy can opener.

We made that last mile in about three minutes. As we approached the gate, we had to swing the formation to follow the road. A little town of wooden buildings had grown up along the road outside the wall. We swept past sleepy early risers who stared at us but were too surprised to shoot at us or who were armed only with the honeydew buckets they were emptying. Behind me I heard sporadic fire from the Sten guns as the troopers picked off armed men or men who looked as if they might want to be armed. The village would be cleared by men nearer the end of the column.

As I looked down the road, I could see the wooden gate in ruins. The boys had done their job and were now whittling down sections of the wall on both sides.

As I passed the gate, some little bastard shot me with one of their muzzle loaders. It hurt like hell, but he had only about ten seconds to gloat before a knight beheaded him. I led my lance aside to let the Wolves do their job. The first lance behind us turned left at the gate and began to clear the defenders from the inside of the wall. Behind them the second lance carried heavy grenades to open more of the wall. The third and fourth lances did the same on the right.

The rest of the troops headed for the barracks. We wanted the Mongols dead before they had a chance to mount up. For several minutes we were choked up at the gate, passing four or five at a time, but as more holes opened up, lance leaders spread the column out and troops began to pour into the city.