"Frankowski, Leo - Stargard 5 - Lord Conrad's Lady" - читать интересную книгу автора (Frankowski Leo)

УJust figured I should ask, sir.Ф

I was already on my way as the expensive set went flying to smash on the siding of the railroad.

It took an hour to get the job done, and the carts were more strung out than I would have wished, but fourteen hundred tons of gold and silver were scattered out beside four miles of track, along with three times that weight of fancy swords, decorated armor, and other booty. Four hundred tons of surplus food were dumped as well, but we were running to Cracow.

I ordered the last company in my column to stay there and guard what we had abandoned. They didnТt like it, but they did it.

Running at double time, the men pulling have to be changed every quarter hour, but the carts donТt stop. Everything happens at a run, and each man is relieved when his replacement catches up with him. There were ladders on both sides of each cart to let a man climb up even when it was moving, but the warriors rarely used them. Once you knew the trick, you could step between the spokes of one of the huge wheels, let it carry you up, and then step from the top of the wheel to the top of the cart. Pity the man who trips and falls, but donТt stop for him!

In practice sessions weТd been able to keep this up for an entire day and a night with fresh troops. These men were far from fresh, having started out nearly exhausted, but they did it, anyway.

We ran nonstop for the rest of the day and ate two meals literally on the run. As dusk fell, the lanterns were set out at the ends of the carts, and we pushed on into the night. I ordered a midnight breakfast since, as the Eskimos say, food replaces sleep.

I sent three of our scouts forward to find out anything that they could. I desperately wanted to go myself, but I couldnТt. My place was with my troops.

The pace was deadening, mind-numbing , absolutely exhausting, but to drop back to a walk would delay our arrival in Cracow by a day. How many of our countrymen could be killed by a Mongol horde in a day? Thousands? Tens of thousands? We had to push on, no matter what the cost, for the price of anything else was more than I dared pay.

And it was costing us, how much I didnТt know. Most of my men had had only four monthsТ training, and many of them couldnТt keep up the pace. Men dropped and lay where they fell, and more than once I felt my mount jump an obstacle on the path beside the track. I could only hope that we didnТt trample anyone. As men began to fall and not get up, officers at the rear of the column started abandoning carts and moving the men forward to replace our losses. These abandoned carts would make Baron VladimirТs job of reaching us that much harder, but there was nothing else we could do.

The Night Fighters used a smaller war cart than did the rest of the troops, pulled by a seven-man lance rather than a forty-three-man platoon. With only four men pulling, they were having a hard time keeping up with the other, more efficient full-sized carts. Over Baron IlyaТs protests, the Night Fighter Battalion was disbanded, the carts put off the road, and the men distributed to the other five battalions as replacements.

It wasnТt as hard on me as it was on most of the men, since I was one of the few who were mounted. I felt guilty about it, but I didnТt lend out my mount, since it was my job to be alert for any emergency. Easing the pain of one of my men could get thousands of them killed if we were ambushed and I wasnТt ready to give quick orders. Yet it was still vastly tiring, and I was older than most of the men under me.

Extreme fatigue always gets me first in the eyes, and now, what with the wound I had gotten from a Mongol arrow, I had only one eye left. It felt like there was sand in it and that the sand had been there forever. At night, since there wasnТt much to see, anyway, I closed my eye, held on to the saddle, and trusted to the incredible night vision of my new white mount.

We were all exhausted, the men worse than I, but I knew that once the battle was joined, weТd be awake enough. God always has a last supply of adrenaline for a man when his life is on the line.

It was gray dawn and the towers of Brzesko were on the skyline to our left when the first scout came back to report. Cracow was indeed burning, and the outer walls had fallen to the enemy. The lower city was filled with fighting, but Wawel Hill, with the castle and the cathedral, still seemed to be in friendly hands.

As a hint of the sun came over the horizon, I had the semaphores signal SAY YOUR VOWS ON THE RUN. We had all sworn to repeat our vows every morning, but I wasnТt going to let anything slow us down. I could hear the troops near me gasping for breath as they chanted:

УOn my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and to the army. I will obey the WarriorТs Code, and I will keep myself physically fit, mentally awake, and morally straight. Ф

The WarriorТs Code:

УA Warrior is:
Trustworthy, Loyal, and Reverent;
Courteous, Kind, and Fatherly;
Obedient, Cheerful, and Efficient;
Brave, Clean, and Deadly.Ф

They meant it, too.

Most of the towns and castles along the Vistula were set right on the river to make them easier to defend. Our new rail lines had to swing out and around them, to the north at Brzesko and Cracow. After the scout reported, I sent him to Brzesko to see how things stood there. He reported shortly that the castle and town were a smoking ruin, with no one there left alive. We pushed on.

I couldnТt understand how all this was possible. Until the big battle near Sandomierz we had had aircraft patrolling the skies and riverboats on the Vistula. How could they have possibly missed an entire Mongol army? We had lost the planes through sheer vanity and stupidity, but what had happened to the riverboats? There had been at least nine of them left when I had parted company to join the land forces. They were equipped with lights and didnТt stop for the dark. The railroad paralleled the river. Why hadnТt I seen a single boat all night long?

Dear God, just what the hell was going on?