Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #12 March 2015 | Page 44

hours of work later, the naval engineers finished long
after sunset.
Still, they were almost there; the rebel town and fort
were close enough that they should reach them in
another hour or two, and after that, things should be
finished swiftly.
Two hundred British Soldiers, one hundred native
levy, sixteen lancers of the Cairo Horse, forty-two
soldiers of the East India Trading company along with
one siege mortar, one land frigate and its entire company of support ratings, four Ironsides, two six-pound
field guns, and six Baker Simpson Rotary machine
guns. Along with 160 native bearers and a score of
wagons carrying supplies and the tons of coal that
Greyhound seemed to consume every hour.
More than enough firepower to deal with one bandit
chief and a fortified town.
Greyhound clanked past, the general’s well trained
horse barely noticed the great smoke belching mass
of iron and steel but the General took the time for a
careful look.
Chapter Eleven
The endless sand and dust were giving way to hills
and scrub bushes at last; the trip should have taken no
more than five days but thanks to Greyhound it had
taken eight long, hot, dusty days.
General Sir Eustace Edward Arthur Summerby settled
himself more comfortably in the saddle and turned to
look at the poorly named Greyhound.
Her Majesty’s Land Frigate Greyhound, one of the
Warhound class of steam-powered land frigates was
big, ugly, and very very slow—five miles an hour on a
good day—and so far this trip had yielded three good
days, two average days, two bad days, and one it’s
broken down and we need to take the gear box apart to
fix it and that will take three hours day.
As it turned out, the shattered gear had twisted a drive
shaft which required removing a wheel to fix, and ten

PAGE 44

Land ships were a fearsome thing to face in battle or
to see for the first time. The smaller land frigates or
the massive land cruisers, like a house or hall on the
move, covered with guns and clad in inches of thick
armour.
Of course once you had worked with them for a while,
you came to know just how much trouble they were.
Stopping to coal and water every two or three hours,
breaking down twice a day. They required a small
army of men just to keep them running, would get
stuck if they went anywhere near woods or boggy
ground, and the crew were all but blind to anything
close by.
Still from time to time, they would find a battle that
suited them, and then they would advance, bullets
pattering off them like rain, crushing walls, barricades,
or fences beneath them and raining shot and shell on
the enemy. Many soldiers simply broke ranks and fled
at the sight of them.