Grantville Gazette 38

Chapter Forty-One: All Hell Breaks Loose

One of those sailors realized what was happening, and pushed the nearest visitor out of the way as he tried to rejoin his captain, one hand on the back of the disguised Swede's neck. His hand slipped off the sweaty skin and with an expression of astonishment he held up his palm to show that it was stained the same shade of orange-yellow. There was a moment of silence as everyone stared at him.

"The jig is up," Pam sighed to Dore, her heart sinking.

The man with the stained hand began to shout at the top of his lungs, presumably to rouse reinforcements. Pam realized the Swede he had pushed was actually Lojtnant Lundkvist. Thanks to their disguises it was hard to tell them apart at this distance. The Lojtnant calmly produced a very sharp sword from within his loose silk cloak and stopped the shouts by slicing the man's throat wide open. He pushed the corpse backward to fall into the other sailors who had started to follow him. These now hesitated at the sight of so much blood. Even so, it was too late. An alarm bell began to sound on the Effrayant. Within moments, around forty surly-looking marines surged onto the deck from various quarters, all armed to the teeth. The Swedes were now well outnumbered.

"Christ, they have a freaking army with them!" Pam exclaimed. She thought fast, ignoring her terror.

"Carronade! Sweep that deck," she screamed at the top of her lungs. Her men were ready for that signal and all of them dropped to the deck. Gerbald leaped from his palanquin, and knocked over the captain on his way down, it having been decided they wanted to keep that one alive if they could. The other officers, realizing what was happening, flung themselves down to the deck as well. The bosun swept the cover off the carronade and aimed it directly at the marines heading toward their gangplank. Not a second later its load of anti-personnel shot sprayed death across the Effrayant's deck. At least half the enemy fell dead or dying to the deck, their moans of agony awful to hear. Still, that left at least twenty, who hurried across the gang plank or swung to the dock on ropes.

Knowing it would take time for the bosun to reload, Lundkvist and his Swedish marines, who had mostly been stationed near the front of the procession, leaped back to their feet and opened fire on the advancing soldiers, along with any sailors who had dared to draw their arms. Pam gasped as a musket ball hit the Lojtnant, shattering half of his left knee in an explosion of blood and white bone chips. He started to fall but was held up by two of his men, who continued to fire their uptime-make pistols into the charging soldiers even as they dragged him backwards to the line the men around Gerbald were forming. Stunned by the amazing rate of fire, the soldiers quailed long enough for the Lojtnant to reach safety before finding their courage and mounting a charge. The marines swiftly closed with the Swedes, who were making a stand, and the dock rang with the clang and crash of close quarters sword fighting.

Meanwhile, Gerbald had pulled out his Snake Charmer, and had the nasty little shotgun pointed directly at the captain's head. The rest of the palanquin bearers had their swords and pistols aimed at the prone officers. The prisoners were quickly relieved of their weapons while the Swedes tightly bound their hands behind them and tied their ankles together; they wouldn't be going anywhere for a while. The captain was pulled roughly to his feet by the Swedes, the double mouths of Gerbald's shotgun-pistol jammed into the back of his neck. This group fell all the way back to the Second Chance Bird with their captives. Pam could hear Gerbald loudly taunt the captain over the din of combat.

"Surprise, surprise, surprise!" Gerbald exclaimed cheerfully in his best Gomer Pyle imitation, the skill of which would sadly be lost on the captive captain. "I'll bet you speak English better than I do French, eh, mon capitan? Well, don't you?" Gerbald gave the trembling man a little shove against the cheek with the barrels of his weapon. "Speak up, quickly! German will also do," he added in his native tongue.

"I speak English. What do you want, you stinking buffoon?"

Gerbald smiled broadly at the insult, respecting the man's courage for uttering it before slapping him so hard across the face that the man fell to the ground and had to be lifted up again. Now Gerbald brought his face within a few inches of the captain's, and his voice turned as cold as Germany's winter skies.

"Call your dogs off, now! If they don't surrender immediately I will take great pleasure in killing you, you son of a jackal. I may yet. It's best to do as I say. Understand? Now tell them, tell them if you want to live!"

Pam suppressed a groan, she could hear The Terminator loud and clear in that last line. We really do need to get him an acting job someday, he has truly missed his calling.

"Yes, yes, I will do it," the captain cried, cowed by Gerbald's menacing presence. With panic in his eyes he began to scream orders. Some of the enemy paused at the sound of his words, but the battle continued. Pam saw to her horror that two Swedish marines had fallen to the dock's knotted planks, undoubtedly beyond help. Even so, their side's weaponry was superior. The dock was littered with renegade corpses, rivers of blood running off the edge to make crimson waterfalls, expanding into billowing red clouds in the clear waters below. The captain continued to order his troops to stand down and slowly the combat ground to a halt.

Pam had been so caught up with the action nearby that she had completely forgotten about the colonists. She looked to the shore to see that they had another problem. Two dozen of the African slavers had arrived, each wielding a nasty looking scimitar. They were running down the dock, straight toward Second Chance Bird.

"Gerbald, look!"

"Tell them to stop!" he ordered the captured captain. The captain shouted hoarsely at the charging men but they ignored him, blood-lust flashing in their dark eyes. The Swedes had formed a circular line around Second Chance Bird's lowest point and were reloading their weapons. The men at the carronade were frantically trying to do the same, but were having some kind of trouble with the weapon. As usual, Murphy's Law was in effect. The bosun's curses echoed loudly around the bay. The enemy marines started to advance again but the terrified wail of their captain made them stop. Never taking their eyes off their first foes, the Swedish marines rejoined the rest of the men, and made ready to resume fighting. Obviously against their will, the enemy fighters were backing away toward their own ship, disgusted with their leaders for getting captured so easily, but unwilling to sacrifice them for a certain victory, either. They stepped silently aside as the slavers trampled past them, whooping an eerie war cry.

Dore grabbed Pam and shook her. 'Your gun! Shoot them, Pam!" she implored her friend. Pam nodded, pulling the heavy pistol from its holster as quickly as she could. It tangled on her sash for an agonizing moment, but she managed to free it. Below her, Gerbald kicked the captain's knees out from under him, sending him crashing face-first to the dock along with his officers and out of the way. He stepped over the man into the front of the line and unleashed the Snake-Charmer with one hand while pulling his katzbalger short sword out of its scabbard with the other. The two leading slavers fell beneath the shotgun pistol's wrath and the third had his scimitar knocked out of his ruined hand before receiving the katzbalger in his gut. The Swedes joined in the fray, pistols firing and swords flashing.

Pam decided to shoot at men farther down the dock so as not to shoot any of her own by accident. She was too excited and her first shot went wild. She felt Dore grip her shoulders from behind to help steady her. Pam gripped the pistol in both hands, firm but not too tightly as her uncles had taught her, and took a deep breath. She took aim at the chest of a burly-looking brute holding a scimitar in each hand as he shouted bloody murder in his incomprehensible tongue while running headlong at her friends. Breathing out, she pulled the trigger. There was a red explosion in the center of the brute's chest, and he went down like a sack of rocks. The man behind him tripped and fell onto his back, as he started to get up he received Pam's next bullet through his left eye; it continued right out the back of his head as brains spurted out like watermelon innards at target practice.

Pam took a moment to get her bearings, there were no clear shots now that the enemy and her men were locked in combat. Gerbald was dancing through the slavers with his short sword, thrust-and-slice-and-step-and-kill. Pam was astounded once more by the solid old soldier's almost dainty grace in combat. Having cut himself clear of the fray for a moment, he calmly reloaded the Snake-Charmer, looking all the world as if he were taking a breather from nothing more than a healthy morning walk.Just as he snapped the weapon closed, a wild-eyed slaver ran straight at him, scimitar held in both hands over his head, ready to chop Gerbald in two. Gerbald destroyed his assailant's face and throat with one barrel, and gracefully stepped aside as the dying man continued to run past him to fly right off the dock into the water. Pam couldn't help but laugh aloud as he nonchalantly wiped the man's sprayed blood from his face with a billowing silk sleeve, smearing one painted eyebrow all across his forehead. She stopped laughing as she took aim at another slaver headed directly for Gerbald. She shot him squarely in this side above the ribs, puncturing a lung. Gerbald frowned at her, raising the remaining barrel of his shot-gun to as if to say "I had him!"

The enemy marines had been watching all this, and couldn't stand aside any longer. Despite their captain's imploring shouts to stand down, five of them decided to enter the fray, and began running down the dock toward the action. Perhaps they thought the invaders were distracted by the slaver attack enough that they could win their captain back. Perhaps they had simply decided they didn't care if their leader lived or died after all, and wanted to make sure their lucrative little kingdom continued with or without him. These were desperate men, men who probably couldn't or didn't intend to return to their homeland anyway.

Pam knew she only had two shots left before she would need to reload. She drew a bead on the first in line but he saw her, and tried to dodge. Her bullet hit him in his sword arm and he fell down, gasping in pain. Next in line was a rangy-looking fellow with a really bad mustache. He tried to duck but she was ready for that and aimed low, catching him in the center of his forehead, an instant death.

"I'm out!" she cried, feeling both horror and elation at her kills. Four out of six, not too bad! That brings the count of men dead by my hand to eight, yo-ho-ho.

Gerbald took down the next fellow with the Snake Charmer's second barrel. The remaining two decided that the odds were against them and came to a skidding halt as Gerbald advanced on them with his katzbalger, its steel stained scarlet. One of them turned and fled back to his ranks, while the other simply dove into he water, taking his chances with the sea rather than face the deadly German.

Pam reloaded her pistol, taking deep breaths to stay calm. By the time she was ready for action again the attack had drawn to a close. A Swedish sailor lay gasping, horribly wounded, but all the slavers were dead or dying. Not bad, really, she thought to herself with the cold, cold part of her mind that was Captain Pam doing her bloody work. We got more of them than they got of us.

She turned to Dore. "It's time!" she said. "They will have heard all the gunfire by now so if they haven't started their revolution already, they should do it now!"

They nodded to each other and in unison let out a ringing shout.

"SAVE THE DODO!!!"

Dore gave the ship's gong a powerful thump with its heavy mallet for good measure, when its deep metal tone faded they could hear shouts coming from the town and distant hillside fields. More shouts of "Save the dodo!" echoed across the harbor as the colonists and her fighting men took up the battle cry. Up on the fortress walls Pam saw two Swedish farmers throw a slaver off the gangway running along its top to fall to his death. One by one, men were shedding their chains and taking up the scimitars of the dying slavers, who they now outnumbered.

Gerbald walked over to where the captain still lay on his stomach, he and his fellow officers bound and placed in a row like railroad ties. Gerbald turned him over with his boot as he reloaded his shotgun pistol again. The Swedes all reloaded their pistols and had formed their defensive circle. Seeing what the Swedes were capable of, the remaining enemy marines and sailors decided to lay down their arms, then shuffle back with their hands raised, all the while keeping a wary eye on the fearsome deck gun of the Second Chance Bird. Captain Leonce Toulon de Aquitane began to beg for his life. "Please, know that my well-being has a rich value in gold; there will be rewards for my safety!" the would be pirate-king pleaded, quivering with fear.

Gerbald gave him a sharkish grin. "Your riches are meaningless to us! As long as you continue to do as we say, you will continue to live! Now, send one sailor each into the warships. I want Swedish prisoners freed and sent out first, unbound! Then, all the rest of your crew must exit the ships, unarmed, with their hands on their heads. If they don't, I will take great pleasure in killing you. I may yet. It's best to do as I say. Understand? Now tell them!" Gerbald lifted the man roughly to his feet. The captain gave the orders as instructed, speaking in a high, nervous pitch. Two of his men obeyed, jogging up the gangplanks to disappear into the Muskijl and Effrayant's lower decks.

Dore turned to Pam. "Now that the fighting has stopped may I go down onto the dock to help the injured?"

Pam allowed herself a smile. "Of course, Dore. Please see to the Lojtnant first, his leg is in bad shape." They gripped each other's hands quickly, then Dore ran for her first aid kit.

Pam turned to see a line of dirty, gaunt, but smiling men come down the gangplank from the Muskijl. The freed Swedes carried weapons taken from their former captors who followed behind, heads bowed and afraid. More Swedes emerged from the Effrayant, shielding their eyes from the bright sun but their faces were filled with joy. The captured enemy were directed to lie down in a line where they were bound hand and foot beside their officers.

The half-starved, but elated Swedes freed from their captivity gathered near the Second Chance Bird. At first they stood a little way off, blinking and muttering amongst themselves, wondering at the identity of their strange looking rescuers until Pam's crew realized how odd they must appear and began to laugh and joke in Swedish.

"Do you not know us? We are your brother Swedes! We have disguised ourselves as heathen Easterners to fool this trash!" The freed crewmen started laughing too, and a few happy minutes of embracing and happy back slapping followed.

The Lojtnant, who had come to his senses despite the terrible injury to his leg, ordered his men to help him stand, despite Dore's insistence that he stay laying down lest the bandages come loose. For once, her orders were ignored. The man was too proud perhaps for his own good but Pam understood his feelings. She caught Dore's eye and subtly motioned for her to let him do as he wished. The formidable German scowled deeply but kept still.

Lundkvist saluted Kapten Lagerhielm of the Muskijl, a tired-looking fellow with a scruffy red beard, who barely resembled the proud officer Pam remembered meeting in Bremerhaven so long ago and far away. Lundkvist quickly told him a very brief version of their adventures and introduced him to the leader of the rescue, Captain Pam Miller.

Lagerhielm looked up to Pam where she stood on the junk's castle deck and saluted her. "Madame Captain, you have my deepest thanks. Please consider my men yours to command until this crisis is resolved. I'm afraid we are all half-starved and too weak to do you much good, but we shall try."

Pam saluted him back. "Thank you, Kapten Lagerheim! It is so very good to see you all safe!" Pam felt a sense of growing elation. They had lost good men, but they were winning the day, their sacrifices would not be in vain.

The Lojtnant turned to Gerbald. "Herr Gerbald, I am giving you a field command in the Royal Swedish Marines and promoting you to sergeant, the rank you once held when you fought for our king in this long war. Since I am out of action, the men are yours." The orange-skinned Swedes all cheered and slapped their well-loved German comrade heartily on the back. Gerbald gave Pam a hugely pleased grin and a big thumbs up. Pam couldn't stop herself from emitting a rather un-captain-like squeal of glee and jumped up and down briefly. Yes, we are winning, but it's not over yet you fool, save it for later! she chided herself.

With the dock in order, Pam ordered Sergeant Gerbald to begin the next part of their plan. He assigned Kapten Lagerheim and six of his newly freed Swedish sailors to guard the captured officers and sailors, holding the enemy's own pistols and muskets to their heads. The enemy were not going to offer any resistance; they had seen the power of the Second Chance Bird's men and guns and feared for their lives. Gerbald led his shipmates, and those freed men who were strong enough to fight, through the carnage littering the dock and headed for shore. Upon reaching the open gate of the unfinished fortress they split into two groups, one entering the town, the other going around the walls and up the slope toward the hillside fields. They were angry men who moved like tigers on the hunt, men on their way to undo terrible wrongs, men with blood on their minds. Pam swelled with pride to see them, her fears for their safety evaporating in the glory of the moment.

Pam turned to Lagerheim. "Are all your men accounted for?"

"Yes, but a few who are quite ill still remain on the Muskijl, they need the attention of a physician. There is one we know is being kept out on the Ide who you-" Lagerheim was interrupted by an imploring call in English from near his feet.

A man who looked to be in his late fifties, wearing neither the garb of a sailor or an officer, turned a pale, mustachioed face up to her. "Mademoiselle Capitan, please, May I have a word! It is most important you hear me!"

Pam looked down at the man like a circling raptor would mark a lone duckling peeping on a pond. "Yes, sir, you may. I'm listenin'." she replied in a danger-filled but cordial drawl, her West Virginia Hillbilly accent in full twang as sometimes happened when she was keyed up.

"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Doctor Arnaud Henri Durand of Normandy. I am a physician, lately finding myself trapped in the service of these wayward men. Please, I can help your wounded, I swear to you on the holy cross! Allow me to assist; lives can be saved." he motioned toward Lundkvist with his chin. The Lojtnant was lying on his back again, his face a mask of pain as Dore wiped his brow and worried over him. "Your fine young officer there. His injury is most terrible, he may lose his leg today. Please, if you don't let me apply my skills, he will certainly lose his life before the sun sets! Let me help him!"

Pam gave the man a long, considering look. "All right then. If you make yourself useful, Doctor, you will live. Try anything funny, though, and I'll shoot yer head clean off." Pam lifted her pistol in front of her chest for dramatic effect. She switched back to Swedish "You men, go ahead and untie this doctor and let him do his work, but keep a close eye on him." The Muskijl's sailors cut the man loose and helped him to his feet.

Once free, the French physician bowed deeply. "Thank you, Mademoiselle Capitan. It is best we don't try to move the gentleman, please allow me to get my surgeon's tools from the Effrayant."

Pam sent him on his way with two guards. Durand fell politely into line in front of the watchful Swedes, walking as quickly as he could without running, which might alarm his escort.

Kapten Lagerheim turned to Pam again. "I can vouch for that man, Captain. He was captured by these creatures and forced into duty. He tried to help us when he could, whenever this son of a whore allowed it, or behind his thrice-damned back." The Kapten gave the bound captain a sharp kick in the side for emphasis, making him howl. Pam didn't stop him. She figured the deposed tyrant deserved whatever he got, and concepts like the Geneva Convention were a long stretch of space-time away from the Indian Ocean of the seventeenth century.

"We begged them to let the doctor help when they found-" He was about to say more when their attention was drawn away to a commotion on the shore.

Pam and her borrowed crew had been watching what they could of the land battle, occasionally able to see Swedes and the cruel African slave-masters locked in combat. Pam prayed fervently that none of her people would lose their lives, but knew that some would. The battles they had been through today were too big, the foes too numerous. The slavers fought fiercely, with the tenacity of cornered animals struggling for their very lives. To Pam's great joy, shouts of triumph in Swedish could be heard, the whoops and hollers of free people released from months of painful captivity. A band of some thirty of the slavers, the fight taken out of them, were fleeing down the muddy track to the dock, calling to each other in voices filled with fear. They were in a panic, running pell-mell as they headed for their swift, lateen-sailed craft.

The bosun called out to her. "Captain Pam, the carronade is ready for firing!"

She turned to see him and his gun crew waiting for her command. Pam looked back at the would-be escapees hastily untying lines and readying their sails. They were utterly terrified, looking back over their shoulders at their pursuers with wide, frightened eyes. She hesitated. Should she just let them go, let them carry word back that Mauritius was free, and the Swedish colonists were strong? So much blood had been shed already today, should she be merciful to these men despite what they had done? Yes, she had learned to kill, but she still didn't think of herself as a killer; she was a soldier in war-time now, doing what she must.

A large group of Swedes were in pursuit, a mix of sailors and colonists berserk from wreaking their bloody revenge on their former tormentors and ready for more. Their bellowing shouts rang with hatred, the very sound of them sent a cold shiver up Pam's spine. This is what happens when you push these calm, congenial folk of the North too far. The giants have awakened and they are angry. Following the men came women, wailing and cursing as they carried their wounded on makeshift stretchers, lifting the injured to the heavens as if to say "See? This what has been done to us! We must be avenged!" Pam saw one young woman born aloft by her kinfolk, splattered in her own blood from head to toe. She was suffering from awful wounds, her face was pale and distorted by agony but her eyes were bright, burning with the flames of vengeance. Pam gasped. Despite the distance, she knew in her heart that this was Bengta, a courageous soul who had suffered at the hands of the slave-masters for her role in the revolt before she could be rescued. That was enough for Pam. This was war.

"You men down there, everybody get down! Bosun!" Pam's voice cut through the smoky afternoon air with a cold steel edge. "Target those boats trying to get away and fire at will!"

The bosun hadn't waited for her order to target the fleeing Africans; they were already locked on. His shouted reply of "Yes, ma'am!" was drowned out by the nearly immediate blast of the deck gun, its lethal projectiles mowing down the would-be escapees by the dozen. Before the smoke could even clear they were reloading.

Pam called down to the gun crew waiting below decks with the Chinese cannons. "Gun crew! Fire Number One and sink that ship that's getting away." She heard only half of a "Yes, ma'am!" as a boom sounded, heralding the exit of a heavy Chinese cannon ball. The projectile plowed through the bow of the light craft in a shower of splinters. "Number two! Fire!" Pam bawled. Shortly, another blast tore into the enemy ships, breaking up men and boat as if they were cheap toys. Lost Redbird's fearsome deck gun sounded again, shredding the slavers into a gory mess of bone and wood splinters. Two of the boats were sinking beneath the harbor's calm waters in a widening stain of blood and grease, the remainder stayed at the dockside as there was no one left alive to take them to sea.The Swedes had stopped to watch the destruction, cheering the Second Chance Bird's gunners on from a safe distance. Dore climbed back up to rejoin Pam, she looked at the scene dispassionately, sweat running down her strong, proud face.

"My God, we tore them all to shreds. I've never seen anything like it," Pam said in a small voice, stunned at the destruction she had unleashed.

"I have." Dore's voice carried the chill as the winter wind. "Better like that than with the swords, Pam. Better those dogs die quickly than our people be hurt or killed in more fighting. They made their choice and now they have paid for it."

Pam nodded quietly in agreement. She winced at the awful carnage, but also felt a burning pride. Fear us, fear the people of the dodo! The tribalistic epithet that had come to her mind made her smile; she might just use it some time. The truth was, the fury of the Norsemen was running in her, too. She had caught it from them and found she liked its burning taste. She rejoiced to see their enemy obliterated, humiliated, defeated. Blown to smithereens! she thought with a cold satisfaction. Whatever demons these days of blood and conquest had loosed in her, she would have to wrestle with later. Today she was a fighting captain; today she was victorious in war.