Hells march, p.24
Hell's March, page 24
Again, it was a question of boats. The ships that brought them could only carry four apiece. They were pretty big and held thirty men each, but some would have to row back for the rest of their force. Ixtla’s infantry and Hayne’s dragoons were going for the docks and merchantmen tied there. With the whole city full of thousands of people, they needed the most men. Razine had to show them around, and Captain Holland—who really wanted to come with Sal—went because he was in charge. Second Lieutenant Sessions was coming instead and would lead the boat boarding Isidra with a couple more sailors along. Not much resistance was expected there and hopefully most of the Rangers could join Sal’s assault on the fort, leaving just the sailors behind. One was a black man named Daney Reese, a miraculous survivor of Xenophon’s upside-down crash on this world. Like a very few others, the Ocelomeh had rescued him and nursed him back to health. He’d been on Tiger ever since. One thing about Daney, he’d spent four years as an engineman on a riverboat, which meant he had more “steam” experience than just about anybody. He’d determine whether Isidra’s engine was operable and how long it would take to raise steam if it was.
Ultimately, though, it was the boat situation that left Sal with only twenty-four fighters to start securing each objective. Razine said the warships with their big—at least a hundred men—crews might be the toughest, even with most of their officers likely ashore. The officers would’ve taken their boats and the sailors were trapped on the ships. Good way ta keep ’em from desertin’, I guess, Sal supposed. The water seethed with voracious predators, and nobody knew how to swim on this world. What would be the point? The very thought of falling in the water trying to board an unfriendly ship in the dark sent a shiver down Sal’s spine. Not my job, thank God, he thought.
They were getting close, and Sal could see the warships better. His eyes had adjusted enough to make him worry his little flotilla would be seen as well, and he cringed with every stroke of the oars, expecting a bright cannon flash and spray of deadly grapeshot. Looking at the boat to his left, he waved to get Sergeant Tinez’s attention and motioned him toward the warship on the right. Tinez nodded grimly back and leaned on the tiller, veering for his target. The boat behind immediately turned for the other. That went precisely according to plan, but “the plan” was almost exhausted except for what Holland, Ixtla, and Hayne would do. Razine knew the layout of the city, but no one knew the fort’s internal arrangement. Sal expected a few sentries, but otherwise had to plan his attack there as he went.
As for the rest . . . Razine had told them there’d be more sentries on the city dock, but hadn’t known how alert they’d be to an approach from the water. Their duty was to protect the ships and cargoes from thieves on land. No one had ever attacked a major Dominion city, and none had even been threatened on the Atlantic coast before. For that same reason, Razine hadn’t expected vigilant watchers on the warships.
Sal could only pray as he eased his tiller over and aimed his boat for the dock under the new bowsprit the Doms installed on the dismasted Isidra. Sessions’s boat, just astern, veered slightly left. There was a barge outboard of Isidra, snug alongside, apparently to assist with repairs. Sessions had seen it too and was steering straight for it. Sal shook his head. Sailors’ll have it easiest of all, gettin’ aboard. That was fine with him. The quicker they secured the steamer, the quicker some of them could help with the fort. The dock was just ahead.
“Slow down, damn you,” he hissed, and Corporal Ruaz chuckled lightly. Sal didn’t know what a real sailor would say, but his men eased up on their oars. Several toward the front stood and crouched with oars, ready to fend off as the boat glided gently into the deep darkness between Isidra’s bow and the dock with hardly a sound. Now, plan or not, Sal’s Rangers fell back on training and experience. The men in the front of the boat, dark jackets and hats invisible, leaped up on the dock with a line. One held it securely while others drew long knives called “Bowie swords” and vanished in the darkness to the left and right. Intended for close work, Bowie swords had been made especially for Sal’s Rangers, forged from the iron hoard salvaged from the wrecked transport ships, with hilts and guards like Bowie knives, but longer blades better shaped for stabbing—similar to the gladius-like short swords of the foot artillery. A second man pulled the back of the boat in with another line.
“Get the rest up, Ruaz,” Sal whispered, “but keep ’em close till our boys come back.”
The boat quickly emptied except for the men who’d return it to Roble Fuerte for reinforcements. Sal brought up the rear, still watching all around on the water behind them. “Cast off,” he told the men holding the lines and thought he got that right. Two rowers pushed off with their oars as soon as he stood on the dock, and in spite of the prospect of imminent action, he released a sigh of relief. At least now if I die, it’ll be on land, he told himself. He’d hated every instant on the terrifying water in such a little boat.
A strangled, muffled shout came from one of the warships. It was so quick, followed by silence, he almost thought he’d imagined it. He hadn’t, of course.
“Now, sir?” Ruaz asked.
“A moment,” Sal told him after a brief hesitation, as unaccustomed to being called “sir” as anything else on this world. A shape appeared from the left. The first man returning.
“One sentry,” the young Ranger declared. “Died in his sleep,” he added simply, with a trace of disgust.
“Could you see anything on Isidra?” Sal asked.
“Our sailors an’ other Rangers climbing the rail. No other movement.”
A second and third scout returned. All were Ocelomeh, chosen by Sal for their stealth and reputations as ruthless hunters of Holcanos.
“There was no one the direction I went,” one said with a note of disappointment.
“More that way,” murmured the third man. Now that Isidra wasn’t blocking it from view, they could all see a large, heavy-timbered gate under an impressive stone archway at the base of the wall of the fort. Two burning braziers flanked the entrance, and a pair of bored-looking men in the yellow-and-black uniforms of Dominion troops sat against the wall, smoking long-stemmed pipes. They seemed to be relying on that and their conversation to keep them awake and couldn’t possibly see anything beyond the glare of the braziers.
“Madre de Dios,” Sal murmured. “The gate’s just hangin’ open. One side of it, anyway.”
There was a low babble of excitement. “This is too easy,” Ruaz objected.
“I’d agree,” Sal said, shaking his head. “If I hadn’t seen the arrogance of green Dom troops with my own eyes at the Washboard, I’d be certain of a trap. Even now . . . It’s hard not to be suspicious.” He nodded at the firelit figures. “But if those’re just bored, lazy versions of the ones we fought before, just as arrogant an’ never been attacked . . .” He shrugged. “Whatever fight there is, trap or not, we need that gate before a ruckus somewhere else makes ’em shut it. C’mon.”
They were almost in position, half Sal’s men in the shadows on either side of the smoking guards and the rest with him, waiting to burst through and surprise anyone beyond it—when shooting commenced almost simultaneously on the first ship to be boarded and the distant city dock.
* * *
“God damn it!” blared Captain Eric Holland in his best quarterdeck voice. “Push through, damn you. Make a line on the other side before the whole waterfront goes up!” Dragoon Brevet Lieutenant Tom Hayne sketched a salute and sent two companies down the streets on either side of the big, adobe-walled, timber-roofed warehouse that had suddenly become a raging inferno. “What kinda idiot stores so much o’—whatever’s in there—in such a place?” Holland seethed at Capitan Razine. The former Dom sailor was still terrified by his part in all this, but that terror—and something else—had combined to make him almost giddy, somehow. “It’s Alcalde Borac’s pulque, Capitan!” He actually laughed. “All of it. A year’s worth of bribes from every ship bringing it into port. It’s easier and cheaper to guard it all in one place, not to mention convenient to the docks for taking it in and shipping it out. I fear he’ll be quite distressed,” he added with mock sympathy.
“What other mass store of ‘bribes’ do we need to worry about?” Holland demanded. “Gunpowder?”
“Oh yes. Who knows what else. And it isn’t all bribes. The patricios who own nearly everything, even the men I carry cargoes for, did not get rich by being extravagant. They store their wares the same way. There’s no external threat,” he reminded. “The guards here are supposed to prevent theft”—he actually giggled—“and fires!”
“Gunpowder, by God,” Holland seethed. “Now the whole place might blow up in our face. It ain’t funny, damn you!”
“It is to me,” Razine countered. “You can’t know how amusing I find it.”
Like every great endeavor or military adventure that goes awry, it was one of those little things that hurtled everything else out of control. Ixtla’s infantry, mostly Ocelomeh and already experienced warriors, had been given the job of securing the moored merchant ships as they went ashore. This they did, almost entirely successfully and without notice—at least by anyone who lived long enough to sound an alarm. But if the ancients didn’t have a terrible, two-faced god named “Almost,” they certainly should have. A boat with a partial company of Uxmalo infantry had floundered to the left of the “line” on the way in, and the Ocelomeh infantry detailed to secure the smallest ship at the dock had been pushed inward where they doubled up on another one. The Uxmalos weren’t supposed to board any ships and left the little one alone as well, assuring themselves the Ocelomeh would handle it. Hayne’s dismounted dragoons, coming in behind the leftmost infantry, naturally assumed the small two-masted vessel was already secure. In the confusion, it wound up entirely ignored, behind the invading dragoons.
All might still have been well. Only merchant ships with free crews ever tied to the Vera Cruz dock, but they had to worry about thieves as well. If every freeman in the city had employment, none would sell themselves as slaves. Many wouldn’t anyway and resorted to theft, possibly preferring impalement (if caught) to servitude. So the ships kept a watch. It was rarely big or even very diligent since “unprotected” thieves, meaning those not in gangs the patricios often supported to torment one another, usually worked alone. (The bounty offered to informers frequently tempted petty criminals to turn partners in.) In any event, that’s why both “guards” aboard the little La Bitcha were sound asleep.
One old man wasn’t asleep—a free crew member who never went ashore, preferring the safety the little ship afforded. At his age he wasn’t worried about navy press gangs (most of its sailors died from mistreatment and malnutrition, not battle, and its ships were always shorthanded), and besides, he was a relatively rare “true believer” among the lowest class of freemen, and that earned him consideration by the relentlessly pious navy as well. No, he stayed aboard La Bitcha in port solely to protect himself from the terrible temptations of the flesh. He’d suffered dearly from his last transgression and still did. Worst of all, the Blood Priests said he accumulated no grace at all from that kind of misery. Best steer clear.
Thus it was that he was taking his ease, smoking his pipe and contemplating his piety while relieving himself at the ship’s head when he saw shadows flitting about on the city dock. Armed shadows. Thieves didn’t go armed. Most hired dock guards didn’t go armed with anything other than clubs. Mere freemen weren’t allowed arms unless on actual duty with la milicia. Hidalgos might wear swords and pistols, but only Dominion troops carried muskets—as these many, many men did. In a rising panic, he realized he wasn’t watching Dominion soldiers, and he stood abruptly from the “seat of ease” and turned to bolt for the alarm bell. Unfortunately, he’d neglected to pull up his breeches.
Feet tangled, he fell against the headrail—and flipped over it. His scream was drenched by a splash, but then came the terrible, bloodcurdling screams of a man being eaten alive. One of the sleeping guards woke and ran to the alarm bell. Not because anyone could help the old man, but he saw the armed men as well. The bell alerted guards in the alcalde’s warehouse full of pulque, all of whom had been drinking as much as they could. Some were smoking pipes. Their sudden terror they’d be caught, drunk on the alcalde’s pulque, started a panicked, jostling stampede to flee and hide—which resulted in the inevitable. That’s how “almost” nearly destroyed Holland’s raid before it began.
The fire drew other guards, the curious and concerned, a fire brigade was quickly summoned—and so was a regiment of Dom troops quartered in the city, waiting for transport to join General Agon at Campeche. Musket fire erupted in front of Hayne’s men as they pressed outward, killing one and wounding another, the yellow-and-black uniforms of Dom regulars illuminated by their weapon flashes. Hayne was a dragoon. He didn’t know how many enemies he faced, but knew he had to hit them hard before they established a battle line. He charged half his men. Much the same was happening in front of Ixtla, Dom troops filtering forward as other people fled. Ixtla formed his men, fired a scathing volley, then advanced as well, bayonets flashing in the flames. Lit by the lurid, expanding fires on the dock, Captain Holland’s raid on Vera Cruz turned into a battle.
* * *
The two Dom soldiers at the fort gate simultaneously saw the first gulp of flame on the distant docks and sudden flashes of musket fire on the warships much closer. They even had an instant to hear thumping reports of weapons before they were back on the ground, kicking in a spreading pool of blood.
“Go now!” Sal hissed. The “ruckus” they’d expected had set his flanking Rangers in motion, killing the distracted sentries with ease. He and his own men were already running for the gate. Anyone on top of the wall above was probably distracted as well, and a shout would only draw attention. That wouldn’t be long in coming, regardless. There were more sentries inside the gate, probably keeping conscripts in. More alert at first or not, they were ready for something now. Or thought they were. Sal had his revolvers, and many of his Rangers carried surprisingly well-crafted single-shot pistols that once belonged to well-to-do Dom lancers. Most were collected after the Washboard, no longer of use to their former owners. The first to charge through and fall upon the inner sentries still wielded Bowie swords, however, and they slammed the sentries to the ground, stabbing, hacking, and slashing amid a chorus of anguished screams. Sal pushed through to join a panting Corporal Ruaz, catching his first sight of the inner layout.
The fort was a primitive design, little more than a great, thick-walled square with no overhead protection for guns or crews on the walls, or even the barracks and other buildings nestled in the center. The single tall tower stood on the eastern, seaward side of the fort, lit at the top by the strikingly bright navigation lamp. A man was silhouetted, looking down, before he quickly vanished and a bell began frantically sounding. Otherwise, men were running in all directions, more than Sal expected to find. Others in various states of undress were responding to the alarm, pouring from the barracks with their weapons and looking around in confusion. Someone must’ve seen them, and a man wearing nothing but yellow trousers and black boots pointed at them with his sword and shouted, “Ahi ellos estan! Matalos!” Sal was surprised to understand him perfectly, then remembered many Dom officers spoke what they called “High Spanish.” There was a paltry, rushed fusillade of musket fire in their direction that did nothing but shower them with rock and lead fragments.
Sal raised his revolvers, and many of his Rangers wriggled out of the slings holding shortened Dom muskets secured across their backs. There was a commotion behind him, and Second Lieutenant Sessions rushed in, cutlass in hand, followed by at least half his men.
“Isidra’s secure,” Sessions cried. “No one aboard except some poor, starving buggers, chained in the bilge. Part of her original crew, but of no use right now. Daney Reese is checkin’ the engine, says it looks fine, but the Doms took her boiler apart an’ put it back together. No tellin’ if it’ll hold pressure, an’ there’s little coal on board. Maybe enough ta raise steam an’ get her out of the harbor—if nothin’ flies apart—but never enough ta get her home.”
“Then we’ll hav’ta make sure there’s no rush,” Sal responded and raised his voice. “Sergeant Sana, take eight men up that stair to the right an’ clear the wall above us. Don’t spike the cannon unless you’re pushed back!” He looked at the rest of his men, now almost thirty and spreading out in a line. “Quiet time’s over, mis muchachos,” he snapped, slipping further into his birth language as he always did in a fight. “Let’s make ’em think we’re los propios asesinos del Diablo!”
“Make ready!” roared Corporal Ruaz. “Take aim! Fire!” A ragged but lethal volley of buck and ball slashed at the forming Doms, blowing several to the ground and painfully wounding many more with the drop shot packed in around musket balls.
“At ’em!” Sal roared. “Kill ’em!”
To their credit, even confused, in pain, or still half-asleep, few of the Doms broke and ran, but even fewer had the self-control or time to reload—even if they’d thought to bring more ammunition—and none had their plug bayonets. They fought like frenzies, using muskets as clubs, but were no match for the murderous Rangers who stabbed, shot, hacked, or beat them down. Sal shot several before coming face-to-face with the shirtless, wild-eyed officer. “Rendición!” he rasped, aiming a Colt at an unflinching eye.
