The Tide of Victory

"It's insane," snarled Belisarius. "The Malwa are still carrying out their orders long after the situation which called for those orders has changed. No point in a scorched earth policy in the Sind now. We're already at the gates of the Punjab. They ought to be corralling the populace in order to use them for a labor force themselves."

Half-gloomily, half with philosophical satisfaction, he studied the ruins of Rohri's outer fortifications. The only reason the first charge of the Greek cataphracts had broken through, for all its headlong vigor, was that the fortifications had not been completed before the Roman army arrived unexpectedly from the south. The civilians who could have finished the work were dead before it got well underway.

"Insane," he repeated. Then, shaking his head, looked away and studied the terrain ahead. What was done was done.

"Send a courier to Sittas and tell him to follow us whenever he can get those maniacs back under control. If we wait here for them, we'll lose the initiative. I think, judging from Abbu's report and the sound of those guns, that if we move now we can take the good ground on the south bank."

Maurice nodded, summoned a courier, and gave him the necessary commands. By the time that was done, Belisarius had already set his army into motion.

What was left of it, at least, with the Greek cataphracts now out of action for a time. So, the army which finally reached the bank of the Indus across from Sukkur was the smallest Belisarius had led in years. Three thousand of his own bucellarii, two thousand of Cyril's men, several thousand Arab and Syrian light cavalry, two thousand artillerymen—and, fortunately, Felix's five hundred sharpshooter dragoons.

Which rump of a rump army was what made the difference, in the end. Because by the time Belisarius and his army reached the south bank, the Malwa commander of the great army besieging Sukkur across the river had already sent thousands of his men across the Indus to relieve the garrison under attack in Rohri.

But . . . that flotilla of barges and river boats hadn't quite reached the bank, when Belisarius arrived. Quickly, Gregory began bringing up the field guns to repel the looming amphibious assault. In the meantime, moving much more quickly, Felix had his sharpshooters—firing under discipline, at coordinated targets—begin taking out the helmsmen and sailors controlling those ships.

It was a close thing. But Felix managed to throw the oncoming flotilla into enough confusion to give Gregory the time he needed to position the field guns. Thereafter, volleys of cannon-fire added their much heavier weight to the battle between land and water. By then it was already sunset. And if three-pounders were far too small to make much of a dent in good fortifications, they were more than enough to hammer river boats into pieces. Enough of them, at least, for the Malwa to call off the assault and retreat back to the opposite bank.

* * *

Not for long, of course. Early the next morning, just after dawn, the Malwa boats came again. This time, spreading out to minimize the damage of the cannon and sharpshooter fire. The Malwa suffered considerable casualties in that crossing, but they did manage to land a total of ten thousand men in three separate places along the south bank by midmorning. In numbers, at least, they now had almost as many men as Belisarius on his side of the Indus.

It did them no good at all. By then, Sittas had restored order among his cataphracts and pulled them out of Rohri. The Malwa had barely gotten their feet on dry land when yet another furious cataphract charge, sallying from the Roman lines, crushed them like an avalanche. Eight thousand armored horsemen, using bows and lances and sabers, throwing their weight atop the forces Belisarius already had hammering the Malwa in their three enclaves, were more than enough to destroy yet another Malwa army.

Although, this time, Belisarius was able to save the Malwa soldiery trying to surrender. The Greeks had sated their bloodlust in Rohri the day before. Even they, belatedly, had come to understand that a captured soldier was someone else to do the scut work of erecting fieldworks. And even they, belatedly, were beginning to realize that real war was a lot more complicated than simply a series of charges.

* * *

Three battles and three victories, thus, were added to the luster of Belisarius' name by the time he finally reestablished contact with Ashot and Emperor Khusrau.

Kulachi. Rohri. The Battle of the Crossing.