Hells march, p.2
Hell's March, page 2
Leonor still dressed and acted like a man in the field, even though she’d been taken under the wing of Samantha Wilde and her French friend, Angelique Mercure. Both ladies were abandoned by Isidra on the beach with Commissary’s survivors. Fortunate for them, as it turned out. But under their influence, Leonor had taken a few tentative steps toward becoming a “lady,” when she deemed it appropriate. Still a fighter, however, she’d earned the men’s respect as such with her own pair of Paterson Colts, often leading scouts. Otherwise, she stayed busy at her self-appointed task as aide and protector for her father—and now Lewis Cayce, whom she had secret, complicated feelings for.
Lewis smiled and nodded at her. “Like last time,” he agreed. “The smaller force, and I expect we’ll almost always be, must do the unexpected.”
“I hope Tiger’ll have a bigger part in whatever you cook up this time,” Captain Holland groused.
Lewis grinned at the old sailor, now in uniform as well, but still wearing his gray hair long and unbound. He looked eighty, but couldn’t be. Even if he was only sixty, he was as strong and fit as a man half that age. He’d been master of the privately owned transport Mary Riggs, but spent time in the navy and knew how to fight a ship. Once referencing going through the grinder with Porter at Valparaiso back in 1814, he wasn’t fond of the British and passionately hated carronades. He’d gone out to Tiger, lying helpless and dismasted at anchor offshore, and taken charge of her demoralized skeleton crew. Her owner and master had left with her passengers in Isidra to “get help.” From what they’d learned of those people’s fate, Holland figured Tiger’s skipper was the only one who deserved it. The ship was unquestionably “his” now, manned by the surviving sailors of all the wrecks and some Uxmalo fishermen.
“Stop complaining,” Samantha Wilde told Holland, rolling her eyes and briskly waving her little folding fan. Like Sira Periz, she was dressed in green, a classy but sensible day dress complementing the curly blonde hair escaping from the wide-brimmed, low-crowned straw hat on her head. Like them all, she was perspiring, and the fan was useless against the heat, but it served as a—probably unconscious—manifestation of her moods. Impatience, in this instance. “You’ve had considerable excitement of late!” she exclaimed.
Tiger had all her heavier, lower-tier guns removed when she was sold out of service—she was sixty years old and couldn’t bear their weight anymore—but her twenty upper-deck 12pdrs and ten 6pdrs had been more than a match for several Dom transports and now two armed enemy galleons snooping around the mouth of Uxmal Bay. There’d been no survivors from either one since Dom naval officers had been early converts to the even more radical “Blood Priests” who were gaining power in the Dominions and apparently had the same “victory or death” mindset as their upper-class hidalgo lancers. In the first instance, they’d murdered their surviving crew and then themselves after their ship was hopelessly bilged on coral heads inside the bay itself. In the second, after being disabled, they burnt the ship with everyone aboard. The horrifically voracious predators in the sea on this world quickly devoured those who jumped in the water.
The same wasn’t true for the transports Tiger caught, loaded with supplies for Don Frutos’s army. Their officers had been taken, too afraid to kill themselves, but then even more fearful of talking—at first. The fate of their souls was a factor, but they were more concerned what would happen to them if they were “rescued.” Their crews were another matter. Nearly all were slaves, terrified and expecting to be murdered, eaten—who knew what—by demon and heretic captors. They were so pathetically grateful when treated well, Holland thought he could use them when their shock wore off. Granted, they’d been enslaved in conquered territories and were deemed “heretics” themselves, but Varaa said slaves often acted as rabid as Blood Priests to “prove” they’d converted. Lewis considered. Either way, it’s the first indication the perverted “True Faith” of the Holy Dominion isn’t all-pervasive, even where it’s been long-established.
“I did, a little,” Holland agreed, “an’ the prize money for the cargoes was appreciated by the lads.”
Sira Periz waved that away. “A small payment to your crew was cheaper than producing the goods and ships.”
“I’m most thankful for the part of the cargo coming to us,” asserted Captain Elijah Hudgens, commanding C Battery. His accent left no doubt that, like Tiger, he was born in Britain. Lewis suspected nearly half his six hundred or so surviving Americans had been immigrants to the United States—before they came here. So many factions, so many rivalries! But maybe that’s for the best. All those factions from that world and this have fused into a surprisingly cohesive “us” against the “them” of the Doms. He shook his head and looked back at Hudgens, who was also responsible for emplacing ten of the twenty field guns they’d captured at the Battle of the Washboard.
“All that gunpowder and copper roundshot for these ugly buggers,” Hudgens continued, gesturing at the nearest weapon. “The powder’s not as good as the ‘powder monks’ are making at Uxmal now, but it’ll do. And we needed more roundshot than we captured with the guns. It’s all the wrong bloody size!” He elaborated, waving at the closest cannon again. The tube was bronze and reasonably well-made, but American guns (and the British ones on Tiger) were bored for six- and twelve-pound shot, a little more than 3.5 and 4.5 inches in diameter, respectively. Dom field guns were 8pdrs and required a ball just under four inches in diameter. A whole different size they’d have to make. The captured cargo gave them more time to do so. The “ugly” part Hudgens objected to most was the bright yellow–painted, split-trail, solid-wheel carriage. It was ridiculously heavy, bulky, and entirely unsuited to rapid movement around the battlefield. “Proper” carriages were under construction back in Uxmal and elsewhere for the captured cannon, even the giant siege guns they’d taken, but emplaced in the walls of Nautla, these didn’t need them yet.
Looking back at Holland, Lewis asked, “There were charts in the transports you took?”
“Aye.” Holland grinned. “Crude, ugly sketches showin’ little more than the Caribbean, an’ all lookin’ like somethin’ Magellan or Cabrillo would’a scribbled.”
“I don’t know who they are,” Varaa said, “but remember, the shorelines on this world are not the same as yours. The charts may be quite accurate.”
Holland frowned. “Don’t see how. It gets really strange down past the Mosquito Kingdom . . . area. . . .” He shrugged. The Mosquito Kingdom didn’t exist here, of course.
Lewis wasn’t interested in south at the moment. “What about Vera Cruz?”
Holland dipped his head and sobered. “I was hopin’ you’d ask about that. When the merchant officers we caught started talkin’, they confirmed Isidra’s there. Maybe some o’ her people.” He scratched his bristly chin. “No idea if she’s fit for sea or her engineerin’ plant’s in one piece—regular folks don’t ask questions like that—but the stack’s been down, then back up, an’ there’s been a lot o’ comin’ an’ goin’ aboard, aside from general repairs.” He frowned. “Hafta assume they’ve drawn plans o’ ever’thin’ in her by now.”
Varaa frowned and blinked rapidly, tail swishing behind her. Lewis knew she and King Har-Kaaska were concerned the Doms would develop steam-powered ships and eventually threaten their homeland. Wherever that was. Lewis didn’t like it either, but without information, there’d been nothing they could do. Now . . . ?
“On the bright side . . . maybe,” Holland continued, “they’ve replaced her masts an’ crossed her yards. No sails hoisted last time our fellas saw, but they’ve had time to sew a suit an’ get it up by now. Prob’ly won’t risk actually operatin’ her without backup. We might still cut her out before they do. Deprive ’em of experience if not a design.” He paused. “Wouldn’t want to try it if she can’t make sail, mind. We’d never tow her clear. There’s usually two or three warships like we already handled in Vera Cruz. Wouldn’t concern me if we could maneuver,” he said disdainfully, “but luggin’ Isidra, they’d pick us apart. Them an’ the shore batteries.”
“Shore batteries?” Lewis asked.
“Aye. Big devils. 36pdrs like those siege guns you captured. Confirmed that by talkin’ to the transport crews, though they don’t hardly know how to tell us what we want to know, if you get my meanin’. Most’a the poor devils ain’t allowed ashore an’ some can hardly speak. More like dogs than men. Prob’ly been cooped up on ships since they was nippers, just doin’ what they’re told. Ask ’em about shoals an’ some might know. Ask about shore batteries an’ they know they’re there, just nothin’ about ’em. Hafta get the officers to draw things up better if they can.” He chuckled. “It finally dawned on ’em their best chance o’ livin’ is if they don’t get rescued, so one, at least, is bein’ more cooperative.” He paused and rubbed his stubble again. “I did get that the Doms don’t have many warships in the Atlantic. Seems they’re more worried about the Pacific.” He glanced at Varaa. “Them ‘New Britain Isles Imperials,’ er whatever they are.”
No one knew much about the “Empire of the New Britain Isles” except its people were—apparently—British, or descendants of British sailors who’d come to this world just like them at some point and were based out in the Pacific. Other than that, it was believed they were enemies of the Doms, but also traded with them—some said for slaves. It was rumored they’d established outposts or a colony in territory the Dominion claimed but didn’t inhabit, up in the “Californias,” and the Doms had spent years building a massive force called “La Gran Cruzada” to expel them. That was probably the only reason they hadn’t sent more troops here.
“Damned Brits’re always stirrin’ things up wherever they are, even here,” Holland groused, then hesitated, thinking aloud, “I guess the Doms could bring more ships ’round the Horn if we raise too much fuss.”
Varaa blinked rapidly, thinking hard, eyes narrowed. “I don’t think so. When my people came here twenty years ago—Mi-Anakka,” she stressed, as opposed to her Ocelomeh, “we surveyed the coast as best we could. Exploration was our purpose, after all.” She bowed slightly to Sira Periz. “I assure you the coastlines we contributed to the embroidered atlas in the map room of the Audience Hall in Uxmal are correct. We missed places,” she confessed, glancing at Holland and blinking curiosity, “a long stretch to the south of what you call the ‘Mosquito Kingdom,’ in fact.” She shook her head. “But we started as far south as possible. There is no passage around the ‘Horn.’ It’s entirely choked with ice.”
Anson shrugged as if none of that mattered. To him, it didn’t. “So there’s Brits in the Pacific. Good. If so, they’ve helped us this time whether they meant to or not. Remember what Don Frutos said about not givin’ much of a damn about us right now, with somebody else pesterin’ ’em somewhere else?” He nodded at Varaa. “Goes along with the rumors your people picked up, about most of the Dom army bein’ drawn northwest.”
“Which makes this the best possible time for us to press them here,” Sira Periz insisted. “Destroy them,” she added hotly, “so the shadow of the horror they bring no longer lingers over us!”
Lewis smiled at her again. “Oh, I agree entirely, though I don’t think we’ll do it here, exactly.”
Sira was taken aback. So were most of the others. “Before I go on, let me ask a few questions,” Lewis said to Sira. “First of all, can you tell me how negotiations are going to form a true Union of all the city-states on the Yucatán? We all agreed it’s essential,” he pressed.
Sira and Samantha both looked troubled. “We did and do,” Sira confirmed, “but others are . . . less sure.” She sighed. “I fear little has changed since our earlier efforts except I and King Har-Kaaska are now convinced as well. So are Alcalde Truro of Itzincab, Alcalde Ortiz of Pidra Blanca, even Alcaldesa Yolotli of Techon. All the leaders of the biggest cities. But the ‘how’ and ‘to what extent’ we’ll unite remains undecided, so many smaller towns and cities stand and wait,” she ended sadly. “They send supplies and volunteers to join us—all know what is necessary, that we must work together—but this ‘Union’ is too strange to them, too much like, pardon me,” she apologized, “surrendering themselves to become one with the Dominion.”
Leonor snorted. “Big difference is we won’t kill ’em for not joinin’, but the Doms’ll kill ’em whether they do or not.”
“And that’s part of the problem, my dear,” Samantha said. “Many of their leading citizens blame us for stirring the Doms against them!”
“Nonsense, of course,” Father Orno assured, speaking for the first time. “The Doms would’ve had us already, just using the Holcanos, if God hadn’t brought you here.”
Captain Anson shook his head. Like Lewis, he was always uncomfortable with the idea that God—quite traumatically, in fact—brought them all here just to fight the Doms. Harkin an’ Orno are convinced, an’ so are a lot of the men, he thought. Lewis never discourages the notion an’ I wonder if he believes it himself, deep down? He supposed it was easier to accept everything that’d happened to them if they thought there was a purpose behind it. “So where does that leave us?” he asked.
“Officially, essentially where we were,” Sira confessed, “but unofficially, things are much closer than that. Uxmal, Techon, Pidra Blanca, and Itzincab—I’ll include King Har-Kaaska and his Ocelomeh—remain independent, but as firmly allied as it’s possible to be.”
“Rather like your various states under the ‘Articles of Confederation,’ ” Samantha supplied helpfully.
“That didn’t work very well,” Lewis reminded her.
Sira Periz shook her head. “Whatever that was, we’re integrating our economies and everything we make, beyond what our people must have for themselves, to support the army”—she threw Holland a smile—“and navy.” She looked back at Lewis. “All under your direction, Major Cayce. Even King Har-Kaaska will obey your commands.”
“How do you keep all that sorted out?” Anson asked skeptically.
“As originally envisioned, Colonel De Russy mediates disputes between us and advises us what the Allied Quartermaster’s Department under Mr. Finlay and Procurador Samarez requires, who must supply it, where it must go, how it will get there and who will use it.”
“Watch that little villain Finlay.” Holland chuckled. “Wasn’t above linin’ his pockets when he was my purser in Mary Riggs.”
“He and Procurador Samerez both, then,” Sira Periz said dryly, “but there’s no evidence they’re doing it now.”
“Not while their lives are on the line,” Holland said, nodding. “Both were made for the job an’ neither wanted it. It’s that or fight, though, an’ die if we lose. I reckon they’ll do fine till the war’s over.” He laughed. “After that, you better fire ’em both.”
“The whole thing’s working rather well,” Samantha assured hopefully. “De Russy presides as manager over the Council of Alcaldes and makes final decisions. He can be outvoted,” she admitted, “but it hasn’t happened yet.”
Lewis grunted, obviously less than pleased. Everyone knew he wanted a truly united nation, a “new United States” and rock-steady cause for his army to fight for. But the army was already united. It knew the stakes, and its cause was survival and freedom. He’d united it into a single, integrated force, already fighting for the cause he envisioned, whether its provincial leaders understood it or not. And after he led it to victory over the Doms at the Washboard—something no one ever imagined—Lewis Cayce would’ve been amazed, possibly horrified, to learn the army would go anywhere and fight anyone—for him.
“Does this affect your planning?” Sira Periz asked anxiously.
“Yes,” Lewis murmured absently. “Well, no, not really. As you say, with Agon on his heels and most of the rest of the Dom army with this Gran Cruzada and heading as far away from us as it can go, we’ve a brief opportunity to beat the enemy soundly and decisively. We have to seize it.” He looked at her. “Perhaps clear away that ‘shadow’ you spoke of forever. What’s the strength of the Home Guard now?” he asked as if changing the subject. “And the Pidra Blanca Home Guard as well?”
Sira raised her eyebrows. “Guard losses at the Washboard weren’t severe, but they were heavily depleted by transfers to line regiments that did suffer badly, to bring them up to strength. Particularly the 1st Uxmal and 3rd Pennsylvania,” she added somberly. “But the victory has boosted enlistment to the point that I don’t think we’ll have to resort to conscription. At least not right away.”
That was good news. Lewis hated the very idea of conscription, almost as much as he hated slavery. Ironically, slavery was as deeply entrenched on this world as the one he’d left, but it didn’t have the impossible (for him)-to-defend racial component prevailing in his homeland—and his native state of Tennessee. Only captive enemy warriors—mostly Holcanos—were forced to labor by the Allied cities on the Yucatán, and having seen the savage aftermath of battle with that hated foe, he had to confess that well-fed servitude was more humane than slaughtering them all. Far more humane than what the Holcanos—and Doms—mean to do to every living soul in this land, he grimly rationalized. He still didn’t like it. It had too much of the sense of Imperial Rome to suit his Whiggish leanings, but the only way to change it was to win.
Sira Periz was still talking. “And Major Wagley—much improved from his wound, by the way,” she inserted a little smugly, knowing no one had expected the young Pennsylvanian to live, “is finding the new recruits more enthusiastic and willing to learn. As of now, the Home Guard at Uxmal stands at fifteen thousand including support—at various levels of readiness, of course—and a thousand are armed with captured Dom muskets. I’d ask for more of those, but I know it takes time to make the necessary alterations and most must go to ‘line’ units until we can make our own weapons.” (As issued, Dom muskets were bulky and crude but reliable enough. The biggest deficiency was that their bore diameters ranged wildly from roughly .72 to .76 caliber, so the “standard” Dom ball was about .70 caliber and rattled erratically down the barrel when the weapon was fired, making it ridiculously inaccurate. All were being reamed true to .77 caliber, to fire a larger standard ball for better accuracy. Blacksmiths were also reforging the thousands of plug-style bayonets they’d recovered and fitting them with tubular sockets that could be fitted on the outside of the barrel, allowing soldiers to keep shooting with the blade affixed.)
