In the Company of Night

by Mitch H

Battle Is A Democracy

SBMS147

The Colonel of I Vallee du Pierre was a middle-aged earth pony named En Banc. She was nopony's idea of a warrior-poet in the classical mode, but I was sure that if I ever had to press my case in the Inns of Chancery, she was my mare. Her control over her battalions was notional at best, and she generally left the tactical decisions of the regiment to her ruthlessly efficient first major, Jean-de-Dieu, a jack who usually insisted on being addressed as 'Major Soult'. Colonel En Banc was generally satisfied with the direction and support of her regiment, content to deal with discipline, logistics, and the myriad tasks which consume the overwhelming majority of any unit commander's time and energy. The first major was welcome to the oversight of drill and evolutions which are the showy and obvious portions of command.

What this meant was that the Colonel stayed in camp with me and my cattle, while Major Soult took out the troops that morning to establish a cordon to the south of High Earth and eastwards, north of distant Dover. Octavius put himself and Third Cohort under the command of the forceful Major Soult, and I didn't squawk about the decision. It was his command, and his choice.

But I did sit down mentally with the Spirit and sent a message to the distant Captain, strongly suggesting that the Lieutenant be forwarded immediately to take over oversight of the swarm of pegasi and griffins screening our advanced position. Feufollet and a short battalion set off on my strong recommendation to secure the Road way as far forward as possible. All indications were that the enemy was concentrated due south of High Earth, and southeastwards of Dover, away from the Road proper.

From our point of view, the Road was the most important military fact in the theatre, and the spine of our advance and our logistics. It was a straight arrow from distant Rime to the gates of besieged Coriolanus, and securing that line of advance was our primary operational goal.

From the enemy's point of view, their most important military fact was the untrammeled, unobstructed passage of the Housa River, and close logistical contact with that waterway. Their logistics ran along that river, and their primary military supports would be, if I wasn't mistaken, the White Rose's large riverine fleet, which had run the ruined fortifications at the Second Mouth, and now dominated the Housa up to the string of fortifications that protected Coriolanus and her bevy of shipyards.

Feufollet had hoofed off Night Watch to my care when the opportunity to go haring off into the bloody wild came calling. And Night Watch was an eye-opening education in the military geography and facts on the ground of our new theatre of operations. He helped me understand why the retreat of a broken fragment of the Army of the Housa into an old river-side fortress at Braystown had been a provocation and an obsession for the victorious White Rose.

The Braystown fortress was sheltered behind an oxbow, at the end of a series of disconnected hilltops jutting out into the Housa, said ridge-like formation creating a sort of obstruction and choke-point on that mighty river. All that was needed to complete the gate upon the river was a heavy boom of wrought-iron chain, which had been easily dropped into place. So long as the decayed walls of the Braystown fortress were defended, the White Rose's Housa flotilla couldn't advance any further. The bloody defeat at the Wirts had given the Rebel little but a supply of corpses and easy inland access to all the districts between the Wirts, Braystown, Dover, and right up to the line of the Hayfriend, behind which sheltered the rest of the shattered Army of the Housa.

Night Watch refused to commit to a definition of that stream - whether it was a small river, or a large creek, was apparently a matter for geographers and farmers and military ponies, not simple tinkers and peddlers. But he was quite sure that it was neither navigable, nor passable in this season, especially not after a wet and stormy spring like the one we had just endured. And the White Rose, although present in fairly large numbers, couldn't get the leverage to push across that ambiguous little stream to sweep away the remnant fragments of that army and push into their prize, the Queen of the Housa, industrious Coriolanus. Especially not with Braystown lodged in their naval throat.

While we discussed the ongoing travails of our common enemy, I received two pieces of news. The Lieutenant was rushing forward to take over the Company's affairs before we all got into more trouble than she could dig us out of, and a flight of our pegasi had ran as far forward as they could, and found the headquarters of the remnant of the Army of the Housa outside of a town named Cleves, on the far side of the marshy Hayfriend.

I thought about that news, and the clever Patroler detected my distraction. I clearly needed to work on my poker-face while being informed by the Spirit of things I ought not know.

"Dear doctor, it is as obvious as the remaining eye upon your face, that my recitation of paltry facts has birthed some sort of hypothesis, or theorem, within your imagination. Could you assuage my curiosity as to what you've thought of, that this discussion brought to mind?"

"Such a grandiloquent way of asking what I'm thinking, sir. Which fragment of our shattered sister army contained the command staff of that luckless formation? Who's in charge, and where?"

"Oh, very hard to tell from outside looking in, from the Westerners' point of view no less than ours, thank the Princess of Night and Day. There is somepony in command of the Braystown Shambles, for it has not surrendered this past fortnight and change, despite a steady and violent bombardment by the Westerners' great fleet of boats. Fire and horrors, they say, expend themselves night and day against those ancient rocks, and still something stirs within the old pile, and flings a reply from time to time, in defiance." The civilian's eyes flared with enthusiasm as he told his tale. Everypony loves a good war-story when they aren't the ones having fire and damnation rained upon their polls and withers.

"Is it just that they're in no particular hurry to force the gates of the East, or have they tried and failed? Have they assaulted?"

"Oh, a little of one, a bit of the other. It's as good as one's life to get too close to such things, the Westerners are convinced that all ponies in these loyal lands are spies, and saboteurs, and sneaking assassins," said the pious spy. "As far as we can tell, the Westerners have expended most of their intact undead in an attempt to break the walls of the Shambles, and failed. Some stories are told in taverns taken over by Western scouts and irregulars, that the ghouls sent into the Braystown Shambles to open breaches in the walls, never came back out, and were later seen upon those walls themselves, turned to the defense of the Loyalists within."

"A legate, they think? There's a legate besieged in the Braystown Shambles?"

"In the days before the Loyalist army was lured foolishly into battle for the Wirts, I heard tell that d'Harcourt had been joined by one of the Empress's duly appointed legates. It may have been the one they call the Beau. What has occurred within the Shambles certainly matches what is known of the Bride's favorite subordinate."

I did my best to not react to what came next, as the Princess within the Spirit screamed in rage and horror. Contact had just been made on our front, and by the Third Cohort. I could feel the echoes ringing through my other-self, and She was incensed. I made my excuses to the baffled Night Watch, muttering something about having forgotten a necessary inventory and survey of my local materials scheduled for the late afternoon.

I hurried across the castral grounds, and found the hospital, bustling. Sack had heard the alarm as clearly as any other Company pony might have, and he was already clearing the surgery and directing his cattle to their preparations.

"Should we be moving out with the ambulance?" I asked before running over to collect the surgeon and the doctor who were attached to the Vallee regiment.

"I think clash too far for ambulance to make difference?" said the ox, in some confusion. "Not sure how they got that far out? No, we should go out anyways. And… maybe other empty wagons. Must go, now. Calves! On me!"

As they ran for their conveyances, I went to collect the two militia-medicos. They had spent more time under Company standards than most of the militia doctors, having been of great use to Rye Daughter during the weeks of field exercises. Doctor Gaspard and Sweet Scalpel were both steady ponies, who knew their business as well as anypony else.

"OK, folks, it looks like the signal went up. We've got casualties if we're lucky, if we're not lucky, we've got the enemy coming. Look alive."

The 'princess radio', as Feufollet called it, was almost useless that day. The death and dismemberment crashed the system, and all we could figure out from it was that Company ponies were in contact. I got more of use from far in the east, where Feufollet and a hoof-full of Company sections were successfully ambushing a stray enemy column, than a hoof-full of miles in my immediate front, where all I could get was chaos and confusion.

Eventually Sack and his convoy of carts signaled me through the mess, and I hurried my two militia-physicians forward to meet the slaughter-wagons. We met them a mile and a half southeast of High Earth, on the main market-road to Dover. The ambulance was full of bleeding Company soldiers, and their companion wagons, pulled from both the Company train and the much larger militia-train, were likewise full of bleeding and dying militia. The three of us, plus Sack in support, got to work as the bull-calves and the carters hauled our rocking vehicles back to the more-sterile confines of the castral hospital.

We worked all through the night, to save what we could, and to ease the passing of those we couldn't.

Major Soult had proved over-eager, and had extended himself and his two maneuver-battalions in an attempt to bring some platoons of enemy scouts to battle. He trotted right into a trap, and bled badly for his lesson in caution. Octavius had led the Third in a counter-assault to retrieve the situation, and been bloodied in the fight. Octavius himself was one of the ponies bleeding out into my much-bled-upon ambulance. A terrible storm swept over us as we rolled back towards High Earth and the hospital. It turned the roads to gravel-graced mudholes, and the bull-calves and other carters strained mightily to haul us home.

We suffered eighteen other seriously wounded ponies, and two dead. Dead of their wounds from the Company was the caribou buck Langenschritt, and the earth pony mare Golden Tansy.

The Vallee du Pierre lost fifty-six dead, and a hundred and fifty-five wounded. The survivors of both the militia and the Third Cohort fell back in good order, and repelled the subsequent charges by the enemy. The Crow did yeomare work scaring off the enemy, who had apparently advanced in brigade strength, seizing Dover and the terrain around that town. But the storm and rain probably did more to discourage pursuit.

We were at least a day from reinforcement, and the enemy was within a single day's march in twice, perhaps three times our strength. And our vaunted new communication system had just proven to be less than reliable in battlefield conditions.

Comments

[TheStratovarian]

Knock enough links out, and there's no signal to bounce off of. But ah, this would be an answer to yesterday.

This explains to one why they are frothing mad at being stymied so.

[Minalkra]

The perils of a single band system and no radio discipline. Can't blame anyone, something never done and never seen is bound to have some kinks to work out.