Read Online Dawn of Steam: Gods of the Sun by Jeffrey Cook, Sarah Symonds - Free Book Online Page B

great deal of my officers, of what they had seen and experienced, and in many cases, what they had left behind. Certainly some of the men who had before barely known one another came to know one another quite well, and some few gained a grudging respect for one another's experiences. I could but hope it would pass onto the troops under their individual commands.
    I was about to leave the table for a while to survey the walls when we came under attack. The cry went up before the first shots, and then the crackle of rifle fire began. I must say that I am impressed by the colonists. Where the British riflemen train and drill extensively, shooting at targets and working in units, almost all of the men entrusted with rifles here have little sense of company, but they learned their craft shooting at birds and squirrels. Few Englishmen are in the circumstances to become hunters, and targets, however small, however distant, do not move in the fashion of a nervous bird or twitching squirrel. They do not all have the nerves of British rifle companies – and certainly do not fire with such unity – but they fire with more precision than I have ever witnessed, aside from Eddy. When an American with a rifle shoots, it is almost worth placing money down that he will hit what he fires upon.
    The Spanish of this land have long since divorced themselves from European tactics. They fight like Americans now, moving from cover to cover with a loose and flexible unit structure. While this sometimes leaves individuals vulnerable – and can lead to command structure breakdowns – it also makes it hard to find targets of significance. They also have a g reat number of natives and half-bloods among them, capable of moving with such care that they are almost upon you before they can be picked out from the wilderness around them. Thankfully, our rifleman had a very thin edge on skill, but their muskets were just as deadly as our own, and they had numbers on us.
    I did have one particular advantage based upon my extensive writing and reviewing of battle reports. During the war with the French, we could often tell when there were many Spaniards among the opposing numbers, at least in hindsight, as their commanders and veterans had a tendency to seek individual accomplishment and glory. Sometimes this led to staggering accomplishments and acts of bravery, and sometimes was exploited to their detriment. Without even consciously thinking on this, I'd told some of our commanders to watch for such acts of bravado that might give the Spanish an opportunity to establish a hold closer to our walls than we might have liked. The Spanish here proved no less brave, or perhaps foolhardy, than those I'd known in Europe, and we were able to blunt two of their early offensives.
    Eventually, they ceased trying for some bold and decisive charge. The day dragged on, with the Spanish trying to move to take and hold territory, while we sought to deny them any approach. Our accuracy and fortification counteracted their numbers, and much of the day was spent with green musketeers on both sides exchanging ineffective fire. Regardless, while I am certain they took far more casualties than we did, I do not know how many men they had. Once beyond the area cleared around the fort, there was simply too much cover, and they had too many men skilled at exploiting it. Of note, however, the one thing I did not see all day amongst the fallen or those who fled was even a single European uniform.
    The men attribute me with several sound decisions which changed the course of the battle, as well as a conservative strategy of combat that was suited well for this batt le. I made sure we were as well defended as possible and ignored avenues where we might have taken some risk in order to push our advantage – in exchange for making sure we did not overextend. Instead we used every lull to try to fortify our position further and replace our losses on the walls. It is quite possible that some