Citadel of Death (A Captain Gringo Western Book 11) by Lou Cameron

Author:Lou Cameron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: renegade, mens action adventure, lou cameron, captain gringo, ramsay thorne, best western novel, western novel ebook, western novel online, menoffortune, novels steamy
Publisher: Piccadilly Publishing

“Most high ranking officers who can’t avoid a post like this have to be. But what do you need a permit for in the first place, Boss? You’ve already got more guns than your men can carry.”

“I want you to start training them,” added Van Horn. “We can’t fire any weapons until we have a legal excuse for the sounds of distant gunfire, damn it!”

The tall American said, “Most of them probably already know how to pull a trigger. Want me to start them on some basic field tactics with dry fire?”

“Dry what?”

“Empty guns go click click click. You want them transformed from a rabble-in-arms to a field battalion, right? Okay, they have to know how to form ranks, move in lines of skirmish and so forth. Your guys are already natural fighters. But I can show them the basic shalls and shall riots. It’s mostly shall nots. Green troops make the same basic mistakes with monotonous regularity. Once upon a time there was a company of colored troopers the real Apache had been making hash out of. In less than a week, the company left the base and was turned into soldiers, good soldiers.”

“Really? I didn’t know you could train a man to shoot and salute in only a week.”

“Hell, the Tenth Cav had already taught them to shoot and salute. The other white officers tended to dismiss them as poor dumb coons and didn’t think they could grasp basic tactics. I damned near shit the first time I led them on patrol. They bunched up when they should have spread out. They charged decoy Indians blind and brave. My black non-coms yelled mother fucker instead of giving sensible commands and, well, it was a good thing the Indians weren’t very good, either. I took them back, chewed them out, and started explaining the way it was done. Some of them couldn’t read or write. But nobody likes to die in combat and the rules of soldiering aren’t that complicated once somebody explains them to you.”

“They sound complicated to me,” Van Horn admitted, “but you’re the expert. Tell Chef I said you were to train him and his men in this dry fire business. How long will it take you to train three machine-gun squads?”

“Too long, if you want good ones. I can probably teach them how to fire from fixed positions without having the breech block imbed itself in anybody on our side. If I can select good platoon sergeants and explain how machine guns are used defensively, they might come in handy. What kind of automatic weapons do the colonial troops have?”

“I don’t know. But I can find out, if it’s important.”

“It’s important. The machine gun’s new and I notice the French army is cheap. You’ll be badly outnumbered, at least until you can capture some arms and recruit more followers. If the government armories have some other Maxims, maybe. If they don’t, your revolution promises to be long and bitter. Guys potting at one another with rifles takes forever to settle.

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