And the Malwa had a lot of them. Just in the area Belisarius could sweep easily with his periscope, he counted no fewer than seventeen. The organ guns were positioned about a hundred yards away from the bastions, providing covering fire for the troops trying to storm the walls.
He glanced again through the gun ports in the retired flanks of the bastion. Then, satisfied that the mitrailleuse and grenades were enough to hold off the Malwa soldiers trying to scale the curtain walls, he turned to Gregory and ordered:
“Tell all the three-pounder crews to start firing on the organ guns instead of providing extra coverage for the curtain wall. With grape shot, at this close range, they ought to pulverize them soon enough. The one big disadvantage of those weapons is that they pretty much have to be aimed and fired by men standing in the open.”
Gregory nodded. A moment later, he was clambering down the ladder which provided access to the bastion’s fighting platform. Below, in a shielded bunker, a telegraph operator was waiting to transmit orders to every part of the outlying fortifications. And to the inner fortifications, for that matter, since one of the first things Belisarius had had his combat engineers do was lay telegraph wire to every key location in the triangle.
One of those locations was not more than half a mile away: the nearest of the fortified camps where Sittas and his thousands of cataphracts lay waiting for the order to sally. Belisarius had seen enough of the battle from the vantage point of the bastion. It was time he returned to his communication center. The sun was beginning to set in any event.
As he made his way to the ladder, he ignored the sighs of relief loudly—even histrionically—issued by his bodyguards. He also ignored the crystalline equivalent which Aide was rattling around in his brain. He even managed to ignore Maurice’s first few words when he entered the telegraph bunker.
“Finally decided to stop playing junior scout, did we?” To Isaac and Priscus, shouldering their way behind him through the narrow entrance to the bunker: “You did manage to keep the damn fool from actually dancing on the wall, didn’t you?”
The essentials having been taken care of, Maurice moved immediately to the necessities. “It’s just about time to order Sittas out,” he growled. “At daybreak, tomorrow. Every fortress is now reporting the same thing: the Malwa have been beaten off the walls, and are starting to trickle through the gaps. You could call it a ‘flanking maneuver,’ if you wanted. Except that I doubt any high-ranked officer ordered it.”
Belisarius shook his head. “I saw the butcher’s bill they’ve been paying at the walls, Maurice. Those soldiers have had enough. They’re just trying to get out of the line of fire without actually retreating.”
He stared down at the map spread across a table. The map showed the location of every one of the outlying forts, as well as the camps where Sittas and his armored cavalry were lying in wait. Like tigers, ready to spring from ambush. The outer lines had been designed for that purpose. In effect, they channeled the Malwa troops away from the fortresses into four areas which were tailor-made for cataphract tactics. The most solid ground in the area, cleared of obstructions, with nowhere to take cover.
“Give the order,” he said. “Tomorrow morning, let’s finish this.”
* * *
The biggest problem Menander faced as they neared the fork of the Chenab was restraining himself from engaging enemy forces on shore in a series of pointless gun duels. During the daytime, Malwa dragoons were constantly peppering the Roman flotilla as it made its way upriver. Menander was keeping the Justinian and its barges as far from the west bank as possible, while still avoiding the danger of hidden sandbars. But even at that range, a number of the Malwa shots struck his ship. The Roman vessel, with its heavy load of barges, was moving very slowly. It was for all practical purposes a stationary target.
Granted, the shots were more in the way of a nuisance than an actual danger. Especially since, so far as Menander could determine, the Malwa were firing simple muskets instead of the equivalent of the Sharps breech-loading rifle with which Belisarius had equipped his own dragoons.