Fourth Vector Ch. 40

And Ferberg was willing to sacrifice those men if it meant attaining eternal glory.

Ferberg summoned his aide. "Tell my generals I want to attack within a few hours. I want the full force of our army to be sent barreling against the Allied positions by two o'clock this afternoon."

"Yes, sir!"

*****

It didn't take long for the Allied forces positioned on the northern road to see the enemy pressing toward them. Greg had the first reports of battle not long after two o'clock and by all accounts, it started with a fierce but short bombardment followed by a heavy infantry press by the Swabians.

The lush coastal meadow north of Murgullah was soon a deadly killing ground. Only half an hour after the attack began, the order was given for the Allied troops to begin to move toward the rear, where the hope was that they would be able to lure the Swabians into their trap.

The move worked largely as intended. As the Allies gave ground, the Swabians pressed on, pushing in closer to the city. They were supported by the Allied fleet outside the harbor, raining down heavy salvos on the enemy position. By late afternoon, the noise from the battle drowned out every other sound in the city of Murgullah as the Allies fought gallantly to hold the city.

Greg's only issue now was that he wasn't on the front lines with them. Art was in overall command on the northern road while he'd been relegated to the southern and western positions, keeping a watchful eye on those roads lest they be visited by any surprises. Unfortunately for Greg, both positions were incredibly quiet for the first few hours of the battle, without a single incident being reported.

However, that was soon about to change.

"General Vaughn, sir! We have enemy movement on the western road!"

That statement caused Greg to stop in his tracks. He wheeled around to find a Samaran captain trying to flag him down. Behind the captain was another ten or twelve soldiers, all of them carrying or dragging wounded men.

"What do you mean they're on the western road?" asked Greg. "What's going on over there?"

"Sir, we've been scouting the position like we've been instructed to," answered the captain. "One of my platoons was placed at the vanguard of the men on the western road and they noticed a cloud of dust just on ahead. They moved forward to scout the position and ran into a Swabian force that was at least the size of a regiment!"

Greg's eyes widened. "You're sure it was a regiment? Was it just a regiment or more?"

"Possibly more, sir! They opened fire on us and my platoon was decimated! There's a full fight developing now on the flank and my men are crumbling in their positions!"

"Drop the wounded off here in the city and get every man that we have available that's not fighting in the north of the city to plug the gap on the western road," ordered Greg. "I want to find out the true size of the force that's attacking us right now! Get some airplanes into the sky and have them do the scouting but we need to know right this instant!"

The captain saluted and soon went about following orders while Greg radioed Jack and Art to let them know what was happening. As he rushed toward the western road, Greg could already hear the sounds of a firefight in that direction.

And that firepower sounded heavy. Certainly larger than a couple regiments.

Had their gamble failed? Had the Swabians found a way around their flank?

*****

On the northern road, the fighting was thick and bloody. It was early evening, and despite several hours of devastating attacks, the Swabians showed no signs of breaking upon the wall of Allied resistance. That wasn't for a lack of trying either.

The Swabians showed little regard for human life because they just kept coming, even long after the Allies had sprung up on their flanks and started shooting at them from three sides. Where any other soldier would have broke and ran, the Swabians stared bravely into the face of death and charged. It was almost poetic to watch them continue to leapfrog ahead of each other until every squad and platoon was mowed down where they stood.

By the time the sun started to descend, there weren't just piles of enemy dead.

Instead, there were small mountains of bodies--all caused by the men on the ground and the Allied fleet off the coast.

"How much more of this are they going to take?" asked Jack to Art, who was positioned not far from him. "They can't break our men and they're losing their army in the process. How soon until they break?"

"That's what worries me, Jack," said Art. "They don't show any signs of breaking just yet!"

Art seemed to be correct. The Swabians poured their endless numbers of troops through the gap as if determined to storm their way into Murgullah. On the Allied side, casualties were relatively light amongst the ranks in their elevated defensive positions but that wasn't to say that there were no losses.

It was just that compared to the Swabians, a few battered regiments looked very light.

It was about to get worse for them too. Jack's remaining tanks had been wheeled up from the city and were now reinforcing the southern flank. Their large caliber main weapon and machine guns were added to the small arms fire of his men, making the coastal road a true killing field.

Jack almost pitied the Swabians caught within it.

Almost.

*****

With Greg's orders for fighters getting into the air, Dustin was amongst the first to answer the call. He was part of the group that did the initial northern reconnaissance of the Swabian Army, and now he was heading back up to see the western route out of the city.

Dustin was a little apprehensive about going into the air this time. Mostly it was due to the fact that Dante had already gone up to patrol the north about an hour before him and he'd taken most of his veteran flyers with him.

That meant that the other four pilots going up with Dustin were relative novices. There was one Galician, two Picards, and one hefty Apulian with a double chin going with him, and Dustin estimated he alone had more time in the air than all of them combined.

He just hoped he didn't run into a group of Swabian flyers up there because there would be no one to watch his back.

Even with the roar of the engine, it seemed less noisy and chaotic once he was flying over the city and watching the battle unfold below. The field they used as an airstrip was just south of the city and since it was angled with a south-north orientation, it meant that Dustin flew over the northern battlefield first. From this height, he could see all the developments unfolding below and he could even see the mass of Swabian dead that seemed to be centered on the road.

Dustin rocked his wings to signal the formation to turn to the west where they then centered on the western road coming out of Murgullah. A short distance out of the city, it wasn't hard to see where the real firefight had developed against Swabian forces. Dustin dove lower to the ground so he could approximate the size of the force that was now pouring out of a lush forest to the north before pivoting east to attack the city.

And there seemed to be no end in sight for the number of Swabians erupting from the forest. Dustin did another pass-through just to be sure but as he flew by a second time, his mouth dropped open.

This wasn't merely a regiment or two that was being used as a diversion for the Swabians.

This force was easily the size of an entire division, maybe even two. There were at least fifteen to twenty thousand men pushing up this western road and about to run into a meager defense by the Allied Army.

The Swabians would steamroll everything in front of them. And if they managed to brush aside the Allied forces, they would be able to fall upon the rear of the entire army and destroy it before the day was done.

Dustin rocked his wings to signal a turnaround but that was when the double-chinned Apulian next to him managed another signal. He was pointing to the west but since the sun was now setting, it was hard to tell exactly what he was pointing to.

Dustin changed course and glared back into that direction and soon found out what the Apulian was trying to tell him.

Nearly ten Swabian warplanes had now pounced, diving out of the blindness of the sun and dropping on their flanks.

In a matter of moments, Dustin went from seeing no sign of the enemy to having two enemy flyers right on his tail. One of them fired at him, and Dustin saw the bullets shred part of his wing.

"Oh, this is about to get really bumpy!" he muttered to himself.

*****

About two thousand feet below him, Greg was having a hell of a time holding back the Swabians from bursting through his lines. He'd soon found out what Dustin had found out as well--this was no mere raiding party.

It was a concentrated Swabian attack, all designed to destroy their flank and roll up their lines from the west. The scary part of it was that they had the numbers to do so.

"Keep up your fire, men!" yelled Greg. "Don't waste your ammunition firing blindly! Center your rifle on your enemy and pull the trigger!"

Thankfully, the Samarans in this sector of the battlefield were incredibly well-trained. They operated as a coordinated unit, mowing down Swabian attackers the second they got too close. The only problem with that was that for every Swabian they killed, two more appeared right behind him.

Upon seeing the strength of the Swabian attack, Greg gave two orders to help stem the tide. The first was to have the strategic reserve in Murgullah directed to the western road. The second was to have the navy begin to fire on the western road, hoping that their artillery support would help to push the Swabians back.

Unfortunately, their position was too far inland for an effective naval bombardment. Greg watched with much disappointment as the naval salvos fell all over the place, being ineffectual at best and useless at worst.

He did manage to get more reinforcements from the strategic reserve though, but by the time the five thousand Galicians appeared, it was already too late.

Greg had to give the order to the men to start pulling back toward the city. It wasn't the easiest order to give to abandon their defensive positions but the Swabians had already started swarming over them, and in some cases, they'd killed the defenders in one section before they could be dispatched by the Allies next to them.

If they didn't pull back now, they wouldn't be able to keep any distance between them and the enemy.

What followed next was the most dangerous part of the battle. Greg's soldiers, operating without any coverage, moved in small groups backwards. They worked together as best they could to cover the flanks of their comrades but it was all they could do to keep the retreat orderly.

Soon they would run out of ground. And Greg didn't want to think what was going to happen when they arrived at the city and could no longer hold back the flood of Swabians.

For now, they would fight while they still could. The Swabians still fell in droves but when Greg reached the halfway point back to the city, he had word sent to Jack warning him of the danger.

That was one of his last conscious thoughts. Mortars were soon set off by the Swabians, and several landed not far from where Greg was situated.

The closest mortar to him was powerful enough to not only knock him off his feet but send him flying backward. Greg barely felt the tree stump that he'd crashed into but it was enough to rob him of his senses.

The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes were victorious Swabian soldiers pushing forward.

*****

On the northern end of the battlefield, things hadn't quite disintegrated yet as they had on the western side. Jack watched as hordes of Swabian soldiers marched through the killing field of his troops while being continually cut down where they stood. It was now bad enough that it was no longer possible to tell there was a road or a field where they were now attacking.

Any newcomer to the scene would have guessed it was nothing more than a field of blood.

Yet as well as things were going in the north, Jack received the urgent message from Greg about their crumbling fortunes on the western route. Greg's message had been desperate, detailing a situation that was becoming more out of control by the minute.

The worst straw was when he lost contact with Greg, his position being attacked by mortars. Jack didn't know if his old friend was dead or alive and now the entire army was in jeopardy.

He did the only thing he could do in that regard.

"Art, we have to retreat. We have to pull back to the city and try to organize a new line to the south," said Jack to his other general. "If we stay here, we're going to get crushed on both sides! Give the order!"

Thus, the action on the northern road was decided. Despite cataclysmic casualties suffered by the Swabians, the Allies were the ones to evacuate the field of battle first. Jack oversaw the withdrawal of the men on the cliffs first before setting up what remained of their tank force as a cover to protect their retreat. All the tanks were sacrificed in the process, buying them the needed time to get south into the city. The Swabians were emboldened by the first signs of victory and pressed forward, leaving the dead and dying to the killing field along the road.

Jack made it back to the city seemingly just in time. He had barely positioned a unit of Apulians along the west before he saw the first signs of the Swabian attackers pushing east.

It now became a deadly squeeze between the two forces, and Jack was determined that none of his army would get stuck in between.

Fighting in the city lent them some form of advantage. The narrow streets and alleys of Murgullah aiding the defending soldiers and the fighting truly became a house-to-house affair. Groups of Swabians moved into each dwelling along a certain street and sometimes, only one or two men would emerge back outside.

Having the entire Swabian Army closer to the coast also helped from the naval perspective as well. Jack was able to bring most of the enemy under fire, which helped with stemming the tide of their assault.

Jack and Art grabbed a position outside a row of houses where a new line was hastily established. It bought them a few minutes of space but it was beyond obvious that the army was exhausted and on the verge of breaking.

"We can protect this street as it runs all the way to the port," said Art, appraising the new situation. "It anchors on that street right there, where I have my subordinates positioning a new line. It's not perfect but at least we don't have to worry so much about our flanks."

Jack shook his head. "With the debacle of the western route, I'm concerned about the southern route too. They've shown they can move fast when they want to, and I'm not going to give them any more chances to get around us. We need to keep moving south until we can set up a new, solid defensive position."

Art gave him a hollow look. "You want to abandon Murgullah altogether?"

Jack nodded. "Art, the city is already lost."

*****

"Son of a bitch! Get off my fucking ass!"

Dustin roared as he once again threw his stick to the right, sending the plane cutting through the sky. Behind him, two Swabian warplanes were trying to lock him in their sights, occasionally firing bursts of fire at his plane. Several bursts had already connected, shredding his wings and taking holes out of the wooden frame.

But try as he might, Dustin just couldn't manage to evade two of them at one time. Even though he prayed for a miracle (or that one of his pilots could shoot down the planes behind him), no salvation was likely to appear at this late hour.

The only thing he could rely on was tactics. Dustin tried another evasive move that brought him well out into the water outside of Murgullah where he then dove as close as he dared to the sea. Below him, the ocean was at most only about a hundred feet away but he deemed it necessary to get away from the Swabians.

They kept on his tail, and now one plane seemed to be moving in for the kill. The Swabian dove onto him as his guns blazed.

Dustin saw the evidence of the gunfire flying past him as several more smacked into his plane.

And then the unthinkable happened.

Several rounds connected directly with the engine in front of him. With a small explosion and a giant puff of smoke, the great engine of the airplane sputtered and stopped.

"Oh, no, no, no, no," muttered Dustin as he tried to bring the plane back to life.

It was to no avail. The engine was truly dead. And so was he.

The nose of the plane tilted down toward the water. In a matter of seconds, he was going to hit the water with full force.

Dustin's eyes went wide as he saw his life flash in front of him.

This would truly be the end.

With a giant splash, his warplane barreled into the sea as the triumphant Swabian warplanes flew by on a victory lap.

The aerial portion of the Battle of Murgullah was truly over.

*****

The city may not have been lost yet but it wouldn't be long. Swabian forces poured into Murgullah from both the north and the west. They fell upon the newly-created Allied defensive lines with a ferocity that couldn't be understated. Perhaps it was because they smelled blood in the water or perhaps it was because they were tired of watching their own comrades die.

Whatever the reason, the Swabians were in a bloodthirsty rage as they sought to push the Allies from the city.

The Allies were holding for the time being, but there was a steady stream of dying and wounded men heading south, all trying to reach some semblance of safety.

One of those men was Greg. He came to nearly forty minutes after the mortar explosion that knocked him out. The first thing he realized was that he was being carried by two men. One man had him by the shoulders while the other had him by the feet.

It was only once Greg made a sound and tried to move that he realized the men thought he was dead. They nearly dropped him out of shock.

"What's going on?" asked Greg as he tried to move on his own. "What's our status?"

"Sir, the city is falling now," replied the lieutenant that was holding onto his feet. "We're trying to move all the wounded south. We thought you were a goner though, sir. You've been out cold this entire time!"

"What about our men?" asked Greg. "Have they been encircled?"

"Negative, sir. The army is moving south as one unit but the Swabians keep hitting us hard! I don't know how much longer they can hold!"

That seemed to be entirely accurate. Greg could hear the sounds of gunfire and they seemed only yards away from their current position. As they moved throughout the street, he realized just how close the Swabians actually moved when he saw their soldiers just one block ahead to the north.

"Give me a rifle damnit," said Greg. "If they're this close, I'm going to fight!"

Neither soldier was in any position to defy him and he was handed over a Galician Bornmount V2 that had been taken from a fallen soldier not long before. Greg continued to move with the men towards the rear, hoping to find Jack or Art, but he couldn't resist getting a few shots off at the incoming enemy soldiers.

Unfortunately, he scored no hits of his own. The mortar round still had his head very fuzzy, and he wasn't going to be much of a threat to anyone until he had time to relax.

Putting away his pride, Greg managed to head south while he fumbled with his radio on the search for Jack.

"Jack, can you read me? It's Greg. Come in."

*****

Far to the south, Jack picked up Greg's voice on his radio and let out an immediate sigh of relief.

"Greg, I'm here. Thought we lost you for a second."