Chapter Forty-Two: Victory Lap
"Let's go ashore. Bosun, you are with me. Gun crews, stay on watch. Come, Dore, let's go ashore." Pam shed her white robes and straightened her royal blue, gold embroidered Chinese jacket, the Swedish colors which she wore with pride. They had adopted her and she had accepted their kinship; she was one of them now. She pushed wisps of loosened hair back behind her ears, and stood up straight. Dore grinned at her as she carried the colonial flag she had made, now fastened to eight feet of bamboo pole. Pam slapped her friend on the back just the way the men always did to each other and led her and the Bosun down onto the dock.
The doctor had returned, and seemed satisfied with his work on the Lojtnant, who was visibly more at ease, his leg smothered in bandages.
"How is he, Doctor Durand? Pam asked him politely, having decided the man was indeed who and what he said he was. His warm, brown eyes were full of relief that she had accepted him.
"I may have saved his leg; we will know better tomorrow. Even so, he will never run again and will need to use a cane to walk. I'm afraid his days as a fighting soldier are over."
"Perhaps. I have a job in mind for him where that won't pose too much of a problem. I'm claiming the Effrayant for the crown of Sweden for use in guarding this colony. She will need a captain." She looked down at the Lojtnant, whose hazel eyes brightened at her words. "She is yours to command if you will have her, my friend." Pam told him, her voice trembling with pride just to be a friend of this brave man before her, a man who would have gladly sacrificed his life for their cause this day, and almost had.
Lundkvist looked up and gave her an exhausted but happy smile. "It will be my honor. Thank you, Captain Pam. Your deeds today will never be forgotten. You truly are our hero."
The Lojtnant's praise made Pam's eyes mist up, but she fought back the joyful tears, and put a stern face on. There was another person she needed to speak to before any celebrating could take place. She turned to the doctor again. "Come with me. There is a woman on shore who needs you right away. Once you do what you can for those most badly injured. I want you to see to a young boy on my ship. He fell from the rigging yesterday and I fear for him. He is dear to me and if you make him well you can consider me your new best friend."
The doctor bowed to her with courtly grace, and fell in behind her.
They walked past the rows of captives. Pam came to a stop over the corrupt captain, the architect of all their suffering. His reckoning day was near. He was the helpless captive now, a tyrant deposed. He eyed her uncomfortably from his trussed-up position, cold, frightened sweat beading on his face.
"Hey, fuck-head!" Her voice seared the air with a heat she hadn't known was within her, a voice that could burn an evil man like this with its very sound. His eyes were bleary, swimming with dread. Pam found she relished his fear, it was delicious. She pressed the pointy tip of the odd, patent leather Chinese shoe she wore into the captain's long nose, making him grimace. "I'm going to see to it that you pay for what you have done here, do you hear me? Pay! Your worthless, scumbag life now depends on how many ways you find to make yourself useful to me. We'll start with a full account of just who you and those slave-master fuckers doing your dirty work are, or, in their case, were. If you don't tell me everything I want to know, I'll throw you to those people you have been torturing for all these months, and laugh while they tear your arms and legs off. I'll make sure they do it nice and slow, too. So, capitan, we'll talk later, at my convenience. Asshole."
The thoroughly humiliated villain didn't even try to speak, just nodded his assent as best he could with Pam's shoe smashing his considerable nose. Pam sneered at him, then walked on, her steel-gray eyes glittering with wrath and exultation, chin held high, hardly believing these things were happening and that it was she herself who was making them happen. Who are you and whatever did you do with meek and mild birdwatcher Pam Miller of Grantville, West Virginia? a voice in her head mused. Oh, she's still around, but right now it's a bad-ass warrior-queen of the Norsemen we need, so shush up, it's time for the victory lap!
They stepped onto the shore before the rescued Swedish colonists. Pam suddenly grew shy and stopped. Pam's fighting men, their orange-skin now smeared with blood, grinned at her like fools. She winced as she counted them, yes, some were missing. There would be time for mourning later. Her heart swelled as they came, led by Gerbald, to stand beside her, showing their loyalty and love.
"Who is she, who is she?" the colonists whispered to each other.
Then, Pam saw Bengta among the crowd, watching from her stretcher, sea-green eyes full of triumph despite her pain. Pam ran to her, towing the doctor behind her. She gently took the young woman's hand. "Oh, Bengta, I am so sorry. What have they done to you? It's all my fault!"
Bengta smiled at her, gripping Pam's hand back with what was left of her strength. Pam tried not to look at the woman's awful wounds, the doctor was already muttering prayers under his breath as he went to work.
"No, Pam, you have saved us. If you hadn't come who knows how long we would have suffered? You gave us hope, made us brave."
The women attending the grievously wounded young woman turned their tear streaked faces up to Pam. "Please, who are you?" they asked.
"Why, don't you recognize her?" Despite the pain of the effort Bengta spoke in a loud voice so all could hear, "She is our own Pam Miller, the Bird Lady of Grantville who led our expedition from the start! She has revealed to us that she has the heart of an eagle, the courage of a lion! She is our hero, the liberator of all our people here on this lonely isle so far around the world from old Sweden, this beautiful paradise which we will make our home!" Pam saw looks of recognition and adulation forming on their haggard faces.
Pam found her voice and spoke up. "Thank you my friend, but it is you who are the true hero. It was brave Bengta here who led you to fight for your freedom! All hail Bengta!" she cheered at the top of her lungs, so that it rang all around the harbor. The crowd took up her cry and then added "All hail Pam Miller! All hail the Bird Lady!" to the chant.
All of this made Pam smile broadly; a rakish, fearless, kind of smile, one that she was quite sure she had never felt on her face before. She found it quite to her liking though, and wore it as she was enfolded into the embrace of her joyous people.
Chapter Forty-Three: There's Got To Be A Morning After
Bengta died during the night. Doctor Durand had done all he could, but she had lost too much blood. Pam sat beside her to the end. She passed quietly, with a soft smile on her lovely face. Pam wept, held by Dore as Gerbald and the bosun stood behind her while Durand gently closed her pretty sea-green eyes. A tear rolled down the French doctor's tired face. He was visibly devastated to have lost one so young and brave. Pam decided that she would indeed be his new best friend.
The butcher's bill had been high. Of the colonists, they had lost twenty-three total, twelve of them had succumbed over their long months of captivity, including three children. The rest had been killed fighting for their freedom, eight men and three women, including Bengta. The details of Bengta's torture when the slavers discovered she had started the revolt made Pam draw blood from her palms as her nails bit into her clenched fist. By the time the colony's men had been freed and could rush to her aid it was too late. In their rage they had literally torn Bengta's torturers apart limb from limb, confirming Pam's earlier suggestion that they were quite capable of doing that. She looked forward to mentioning it to the deposed captain in their next meeting. Pam decided that being blown up had been too good for the ones who had tried to escape. They were heartless men who sold their own brothers and cousins into slavery back in Africa, chosen by the renegades for duty here because of their ruthless cruelty. Pam vowed vengeance on their evil tribe one day.
Of the crew of the Muskijl, only fourteen had survived. Pam had lost five of the Second Chance Bird's men, two sailors and three marines. Their names and faces paraded through her mind, her friends and protectors, smiling
and full of life; that's how she wanted to remember them. She would never, ever forget them and their sacrifice for her cause. Lojtnant Lundkvisthad lost his leg after all,no fault of the doctor, who truly was a fine physician for his time. The proud, young captain of an enemy warship he himself had helped capture would have to walk on a peg leg with a cane for the rest of his life. And, finally, there was Pers, who she had brought into her heart as a true son, laying feverish and comatose, somewhere between life and death. Doctor Durand told her there was hope, but she hardly allowed herself to feel it.
Pam stood high on the town's wall, looking out across the harbor. Beside her, Dore's flag flapped in the early dawn breeze, proof of their triumph. She had asked for a little time alone. She needed to stop and absorb all they had gone through. The torches and lanterns of the fleet of ships they had accumulated glowed warmly in the slowly brightening purple light, casting long, orange reflections across the bay's clear waters. The Annalise and Ide had been brought into the dock and the colonists had slept there, back in the relative comfort of their bunks after months sleeping on the ground. The renegades now occupied the former slave quarters, under guard by grim-faced colonists. There were a few exceptions, five parolees released into Durand's command, good men who had been shanghaied into service just as he had. Pam trusted the man and his judgment, but a couple of burly Swedes kept a close eye on them anyway.
As for Capitan Leonce Toulon de Aquitane, that heartless bastard was now in solitary confinement, locked in an outhouse. Pam had told her men to "Put this shit somewhere small and dark," and they had taken her literally. Actually, she thought it was too good for him. She intended to let him spend the entire day there without food and water, enjoying the stench. They would interrogate him the following night, by then he ought to be plenty cooperative.
Pam shook her head in disbelief. How had she come to think such black thoughts as these? How had she come to be a calm, cool, killer of men? Hard times made one harder, if you lived through them. They had been lucky, so lucky to have pulled this rescue off without even more loss of life and limb. Pam wasn't much of a Methodist anymore, but she did say a brief prayer of thanks to a God that usually seemed distant and uncaring. All told, she thought maybe He had been on their side for once. She silently prayed He would take their fallen into His arms up in Heaven. They had more than earned their places in Paradise. The thought comforted her despite her modern doubts, she would take all the solace she could get.
The sun came up over the ocean as if in answer to her prayer, a golden beauty of a dawn, complete with radiant beams and towering lavender clouds. Pam couldn't help but smile. She had lost much, but she had won more. This island was hers, the dodo would be saved, and maybe there was even hope for a rangy old crow like Pam Miller. Maybe she could make a new and better life for herself now that she had been through all this. Redemption, la, hallelujah! She clambered down the bamboo ladder to the trampled path below and set about looking for her friends.
Walking out onto the dock she was greeted by the bosun, who was bustling his way toward the shore. It was plain to see he hadn't slept much, but his eyes were bright and lively anyway. "Captain Pam! Good morning! I was just coming to fetch you!"
"Good morning! What's happening?"
"You have to come see for yourself, please, follow me!" The bosun, quite uncharacteristically took Pam by the hand, and practically dragged her behind him down the dock. Pam had to laugh aloud at such behavior from her usually stolid and rank-conscious friend.
"What is it? What do you want to show me?" she asked, falling into a near jog to keep up with him.
He turned to her with glee on his red-cheeked face. "It's a miracle, that's what it is!" and he would say no more. They passed by Second Chance Bird to board the Effrayant. One of her still slightly orange-skinned marines, broad-shouldered Ulf, stood guard. His face was split in a silly grin to match the bosun's. Just what on earth was going on?
Pam was led onto the deck and told to stand looking out at the water. She heard the bosun whisper something, then there were footsteps. She turned around to see Kapten Lagerheim and beside him stood . . .
Pam's jaw dropped. She was seeing a ghost. It couldn't be! There, his long, reddish blond hair a-glow in the morning sunlight like a bronze halo, stood Torbjorn, lost captain of the Redbird. Not a ghost, but an angel! He was a lot thinner, and there was a bit more gray in his hair than before, but he was still tall, and a warm smile was spreading across his angular but handsome face, his icy blue eyes shining. Incredibly, against all hope, he was alive. Alive! Pam's heart skipped like a stone across a pond, her palms grew sweaty and her knees wobbled.
Torbjorn chuckled, that warm, rumbling sound Pam had thought she would never hear again. "Pam! It is so lovely to see you!" She just stared at him, her mind spinning around on a merry-go-round, unable to find its way off. He nodded, understanding her startled surprise. "My apologies Pam, I'm sure it's something of a shock, you must think me a ghost! I am so sorry for that. The fates cast me off to the north while you went south. I suppose I must call you Captain Pam now. You have become quite the hero. I always thought there was more to you than meets the eye! It seems I shall have to find a new job! Perhaps you could use an able mate?" He gazed at Pam with great admiration on his face and something more. Something wonderful.
Pam lunged forward, launching herself into an embrace that would have knocked him over if he hadn't been such a large man. She hugged him tightly, unable to form words yet. He hesitated in a gentlemanly way for a moment, then hugged her back with equal strength and affection.
"I am so glad to see you, Pam," he told her softly, "I was so afraid that it was you who might have left this world. I thought about you every day, and prayed that-" Torbjorn was unable to finish his sentence because Pam was now kissing him on the lips with a fierce urgency she hadn't felt since she was seventeen. Torbjorn's eyes widened, but the good captain had the presence of mind to kiss her back, and there was no mistaking he was glad to be doing so.
The White Plague
Brad Banner
Run! Yes, run, do not walk . . . to the nearest doctor's office and demand that they write a prescription for a twelve-month supply of isoniazid for every member of your family.
Unfortunately, even if the pharmacy has any of the drug, he is going to tell you "Hell, no." He knows just as well as you do that in 1631 you have been dropped in the middle of an epidemic that will last another 250 years. No, it's not the black plague. It's not smallpox, and it's not any of the sexy, fast-burning epidemics.
It is the white plague-tuberculosis.
Every person in Grantville is very likely to be infected with tuberculosis mycobacterium within the first year. One-third of them will get sick. Without modern medical treatment, probably half of those who get sick will die in the next five years. About one-fifth will be chronically sick and eventually die from the disease, and one-third will recover.
How do "they" prevent that from happening? I'm sorry, but "they" includes you and you have an important role to play. How? First you have to learn everything you can about tuberculosis.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium bovis, the main two causative agents of tuberculosis(TB), have preyed on their human and animal hosts for thousands of years. Tuberculi and tubercular lesions were found in mummies from Egypt that are thousands of years old. They were found in pre-Columbian mummies and skeletons in Peru. On most continents, there is evidence of TB as soon as people gathered in agricultural communities. M. tuberculosis causes most human TB. M. bovis, which also infects cattle, sheep and goats, is responsible for 5-25% of human infections depending on time period, geographic area, and control measures.
The common names for tuberculosis disease include TB, consumption, scrofula, phthisis, Pott's disease, and white plague. Phthisis is the ancient Greek and Roman name for TB and was the name used by doctors until the 1800s. Consumption, the common name for TB for centuries, was so ubiquitous in the 1800s that the pale sk
in and wasted appearance of its upper-class victims became fashionable. That fashion has persisted to this day. Think of the heroin addict appearance of many top models or the pale-skinned, razor-thin vampires of contemporary fiction. Consumption was associated with vampirism in some superstitious cultures of the Early Modern Era.
The fashionable consumptive appearance of TB is not the only aspect of the disease that has persisted into the present. Up to one-third of the world's population today is or has been infected with TB. One-tenth of those infected with TB develop disease. Of those that develop disease, over half die within five years if not treated. Between one and two million people die each year from tuberculosis. It is the most common infectious disease on Earth . . . just as it has been since antiquity. Most of today's TB infections and disease occur in Asia and Africa, where the same poor living conditions that were common in 1600-1900 Europe predominate. The sub-optimal living conditions include overcrowding (even in rural villages), poor workplace and home ventilation, malnutrition, poor hygiene, other common diseases, and lack of basic healthcare.
TB can affect nearly all of the body's organs. The most common and well known symptoms are related to the respiratory system. Small and large pulmonary granulomatous (cheesy) abscesses, known as tubercles, form and destroy normal lung tissue and rupture blood vessels in the lung. The disease can spread to other organs from the lungs.
The bovine strain of TB is usually acquired by ingesting infected milk (especially) and meat. It most commonly attacks the digestive system forming tubercles in the lining of the intestines. Tubercular meningitis is common in infants exposed to the bacteria. Scrofula refers to the form of the disease in which the lymph nodes of the throat are visibly swollen. In Pott's disease, the bacteria attacks the bones and connective tissue. The skin form of TB is known as lupus vulgaris. It causes terrible ulcerous disfigurations of the face that resemble leprosy.
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