by C. P. Odom
McDunn opened the cases and lifted the covers of both tablets to inspect the status indicators on their screens.
“Ah! Copying has started, and it wouldn’t be doing so if the system hadn’t found enough storage on the two tablets for what I’m backing up. I had to delete a bunch of garbage files from those tablets to free up enough space.”
Darcy and Fitzwilliam looked at each other before Darcy shrugged and shook his head. “Again, I recognize your words, my friend, but I am afraid I do not understand their meaning.”
“Not surprising. Think of it this way. If you have a single bookcase in which to store books, and you buy a bunch of new books, you must remove enough books from your bookcase to allow you to put your new books on the shelf. The storage in the tablets is similar. I had to get rid of—delete—enough useless books to make room for my new books. Is that any clearer?”
Again, Darcy and Fitzwilliam looked at each other, but this time they nodded.
“More or less, McDunn,” Darcy said. “So, electronic books instead of leather-bound books. I am not sure I am altogether comfortable with not having a book in my hand.”
“I feel the same way, but electronic data is all I have to work with right now.”
“And these useless books you got rid of were no longer needed?” Fitzwilliam asked.
“Not in the slightest. Most of it was military information like regulations, manuals on how to clean our rifles and similar stuff we already knew. It was a bunch of junk that bureaucrats who’d never worn a uniform thought we had to have. Uh—does the word ‘bureaucrat’ mean anything to you?”
“Oh yes,” Fitzwilliam said emphatically.
“I wish it were possible to keep the breed from appearing in your world, but I suspect it’s already too late. Likely, they’re already burrowed deep into the foundations of your government.”
“I am afraid you are quite correct, especially in the government,” Darcy said. “Clerks and such. Richard has a special dislike for them and has said so more than once. His wording was somewhat excited, and he made sure Georgiana could not hear before he shared it with me.”
Since Georgiana’s head was bowed as she raised the cover of one tablet to check on the status of the download, none of the gentlemen saw her small smile of triumph.
Richard was not nearly as thorough as he thought he was in making sure I was not within earshot! I shall definitely ensure he minds his language once we are safely married!
***
Among several surprises McDunn discovered in his pack was a partially used package of ballpoint pens in one of the many pouches.
“Ballpoint pens,” he said as he demonstrated how the pens worked and handed one to each of the others. “I think I can get some use out of these, at least, unlike a bunch of the other rubbish I put aside.
“Another marvel!” exclaimed Darcy, inspecting the fine, precise lines of his signature using McDunn’s ballpoint pen.
“But only of transitory use for us since the ink in them won’t last forever. I doubt it’ll be possible to manufacture anything like them very soon.”
McDunn picked up a quill pen from a nearby writing desk and inspected it critically. “It’s going to be a pain to have to learn to write with one of these, though.”
“There are metal nib pens available. I purchased one in London, but it seemed to clog too often,” Darcy commented. “I think it might be due to the ink, but determining such things is your skill rather than mine.”
“I’ll take a look at it,” McDunn said, putting the pens in a drawer of the desk Darcy had directed be moved into his room. “I might figure out something better, but it’s doubtful a new writing implement would be initially profitable. Perhaps later, but feel free to use these when you’re in this room. We might as well get some use out of them before the ink dries up, but we’d best keep their existence private.”
Pulling a pad of paper from his pack, McDunn handed it to Darcy. “Here’s something else I had forgotten about. I’d like to figure out how to make paper like this eventually, but I think it’ll have to wait for a while. Maybe I’ll look at it when I try to develop a better ink pen.”
Darcy and Fitzwilliam inspected the pad of paper. The sheets were thin and dense compared to the rather porous paper they used. Georgiana showed no interest. Her letter writing had been limited since Fitzwilliam returned from Spain.
When McDunn had gone through everything in his pack, the only things remaining were his rifles and the canvas bag of ammunition. Georgiana’s curiosity again seemed boundless, and she was quite interested.
“William described your rifles to me, but I have not seen them closely. May I examine them, Major?”
McDunn glanced at her brother who only shrugged and said nothing. Fitzwilliam, on the other hand, openly chuckled.
“Very well, then,” McDunn said. “Let me take everything out.”
He retrieved his battle rifle first and laid it on the table, first pulling the bolt open to ensure it was unloaded. “This is the main weapon most of us in the Brigade used. The M-36 rifle. It’s not mine, but it was the one on my shoulder when the Siege sent me through the portal. It really doesn’t matter, though, since all of these rifles were exactly alike, just like my pistols.”
“That is not at all like our muskets and pistols,” Fitzwilliam said. “My pistols were hand-made by a master artificer, and I would not dare try to change a single part from one pistol to another.”
McDunn nodded and, the tone of his voice like a chant, said, “This is a United States Rifle, M-36, a gas-fed, rotating bolt, semi- or full-automatic shoulder weapon with a detachable thirty-round box magazine. It fires the 7.62-by-51 millimeter NATO cartridge at a maximum rate of fire of seven hundred fifty rounds per minute, a muzzle velocity of eight hundred fifty meters per second, and a maximum range of five hundred meters with iron sights and eight hundred meters with an optical sight.”
Life came back into his face and he smiled. “We had to memorize this description during recruit training, and woe to the recruit who couldn’t spit it back to the drill instructor whenever he demanded it! I expect to go to my grave with the recitation on my lips.”
“What is this meter you mentioned?” Darcy asked. “And millimeter. Those are French measurements, are they not?”
“Yup. In the Corps, everything was metric as was almost everything in engineering. Those maniacs who ran the country for a decade and a half tried to ram the metric system down the throats of the populace. It was about the only thing they did I could agree with, but it never caught on completely. The metric system makes sense from a logical point of view.”
He handed the unloaded rifle to Fitzwilliam, who inspected it with intense interest. His cousins stood at his elbow and watched.
“Thirty cartridges in one magazine, you say?” Fitzwilliam asked in awe.
“Right. With the rifle set on semi-automatic, a marine could fire one round every time he pulled the trigger, just like my pistol.”
“And seven hundred rounds a minute.”
“That’s a theoretical maximum on full automatic, but we never used full-auto. It used up ammo too quickly, and we didn’t have any to spare. ‘One round, one bad guy down,’ was our motto.”
“Ah,” Fitzwilliam said, his expression almost ferociously intent as he listened to details he could understand better than the others
“Now, this is a standard thirty-round box magazine,” McDunn said, pointing it out on the table. “It slides into the recess on the bottom and doesn’t require the marine to stand up to insert it or to change it, unlike your infantry when reloading their musket.”
“It would be a great advantage to the British soldier,” Fitzwilliam said. “I wish it were one of the inventions you are considering.”
“Not in the foreseeable future, at least, for reas
ons we talked about earlier. I’m not sure the proper strength steel can be made today. And even if it could, there’s the difficulty of machining parts to the proper dimensions and tolerances.”
Fitzwilliam nodded, his unhappiness quite apparent, and handed the rifle to Darcy, who examined it without his cousin’s insight. And Georgiana had to be content with simply holding the rifle in her lap. It was too heavy for her to handle as her cousin and her brother had done.
“As I’ve mentioned, you’ll defeat Napoleon in four or five years. Afterwards, Britain will cut back its armed forces dramatically, especially the army. There simply won’t be any money for even simple improvements to their muskets. The army might think it’s a good idea, but they won’t have the funds to buy it in any numbers.”
“Too bad,” Darcy said, “but you say England does put paid to the Corsican?”
“In the end. I remember Napoleon was exiled to some island off the coast of Italy, but he came back, and the French nation flocked to his flag. The British and their allies had to fight him all over again. The second time they sent him far away to an island called St. Helena, I think, and he died there.”
McDunn stood and retrieved the brown-and-green sheath that had been across his back when he was first discovered. He opened it and pulled out a rifle similar to his M-36 but with a few obvious differences.
“This is an M-40, one of the regiment’s sniper rifles. We used it to pick off barbs at really long ranges. It uses the same cartridge as M-36 but it has a thicker, more accurately machined barrel and a highly machined trigger assembly. But the real secret is the optical sights.”
He pointed to a black, cylindrical device mounted to the top of the rifle and moved a switch on the top of the scope to turn on the electronics.
“Put it to your shoulder and look through the sights out the window, Colonel,” McDunn said.
Fitzwilliam did so and then exclaimed, “Good Lord!”
He took the rifle from his shoulder, looked at it in astonishment, and then looked again. “Do you mean to tell me I can hit anything I can see in this…this—”
“Optical sight. And not exactly. It’s zeroed in at eight hundred meters. If a marine sniper calculates range and wind adjustments accurately, he could put a round within a few inches of where the crosshairs lie.”
“Astonishing!” Fitzwilliam said, and handed the rifle to Darcy. “With rifles like these, how could your marines lose to those—what did you call them—‘barbs’?”
“Because there were always at least twenty or thirty barbarians for every one of us,” McDunn said bitterly. “We sometimes couldn’t kill them quickly enough before we had to bug out to keep them from turning our flank.”
McDunn paused at the looks on their faces and thought back to what he’d said. “Uh, ‘bug out’ is slang for retreating. Fast. The barbs didn’t seem to mind dying, you see. Suicide fighters. ‘Berserkers’ might be a term you’re more familiar with. We called them kamikazes, as well as less polite terms.”
“I want to see!” Georgiana said. “I want to see!”
But when her brother handed her the rifle, she couldn’t lift it to look through the sights.
“Here, let me help, Miss Darcy,” McDunn said. “Hand me the rifle and sit in the chair.”
By leaning back and supporting the rifle on his chest, McDunn was able to allow Georgiana to look through the telescopic sight. Her exclamations of amazement were on a par with the gentlemen.
McDunn looked over at her brother and cocked one eyebrow. “Bloodthirsty sister you’ve got, friend Darcy.”
“I was thinking the very same thing,” Darcy said in response, but he could not fully restrain his smile.
“Be quiet, you two!” Georgiana said, moving the rifle slightly, experimenting with letting the crosshairs move across the landscape.
“We are indeed fortunate your rifle is too heavy for her, Major,” Fitzwilliam said dryly. “Otherwise, she would pester you for cartridges so she could deplete Darcy’s groves of his deer!”
“There shall be no jests at my expense from you either, Richard!” she said forcefully.
McDunn recognized the tone in her voice, and he glanced aside at Fitzwilliam, who seemed to have noticed nothing.
There was a note of possession in that young lady’s voice just now, he thought. I wonder if Fitzwilliam knows his days as a carefree young bachelor are numbered.
The only unexamined item remaining was the ammunition, and McDunn started by pulling it out of his pack and stacking it in groups on the table.
“I remember asking Kaswallon to find some ammo,” McDunn said, shaking his head in amazement, “but the man stuffed rounds into every little pocket and pouch. There was even some in the pockets of my BDUs. Where’d he find it all?”
When McDunn added the ammunition from the canvas bag, he regarded the piles in a mixture of wonder tinged with frustration.
“It’s not quite enough to fight a war, but it’s a lot of ammo!” McDunn said to the others. “I’m really amazed. From what I saw when Kaswallon was dragging me to the cave, it looked as though it was hand-to-hand fighting on both sides. That usually doesn’t happen until both sides have empty weapons.”
He sorted the ammunition into classifications. When he was through, he looked at the stacks a bit less cheerfully.
“I’m disappointed the rifle ammo isn’t all the same. Only about two-thirds of it is even ours.”
“I am sorry,” Georgiana said, looking at the cartridge McDunn was holding up, “but I do not understand.”
“This is our ammo, what we called 7.62 mm NATO,” McDunn said. “It’s actually rather old and was considered obsolete, but there was a lot of it stuffed away in the back of our old ammo dumps. Because the British army used this cartridge longer than we did, we figured we might find a bunch of it in some of the British army dumps. And we did, but not as much as we’d hoped.”
He held up a different, smaller cartridge. “This is the ammo the bad guys used for their AK-47s. It’s shorter and lighter than ours, and it won’t fit our rifles. Without an AK, it’s useless. But at least there are a couple of dozen loaded magazines for my pistols.”
The other three fell silent. Since McDunn was mystified, they seemed even more so.
“This is more ammo than I originally thought,” McDunn said, “but I’m still irked, and I shouldn’t be. Maybe that’s it. I’ve had so much good luck, I’m reacting childishly to some bad luck. Whatever the case, I think I’ll have a drink. Anyone care to join me?”
Darcy nodded his assent, and his cousin said, “Capital idea! In fact, I believe I will have a glass of your disgusting whisky since I know my cousin sent you another bottle.”
McDunn gave a sharp laugh and returned with glasses for everyone, including two glasses filled with the dark liquor.
“Absent comrades,” he said, holding up his glass.
“Absent comrades,” all three said, and there was now a world of understanding and friendship in their toast. McDunn and Fitzwilliam had understood each other from the first, but the past few days had given the others a deeper meaning of it.
Chapter 7
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
US poet, essayist, and lecturer
Late October 1809
Pemberley, Derbyshire
After going through all of the items he’d carried through the portal, as well as the contents of his pack and his canvas bags, McDunn turned his attention to the software and technical data in his tablets, spending hours sorting through the files for information relevant to his new world.
One afternoon while he was deeply immersed in his investigations, his three friends interrupted him, and the twinkle in their eyes informed him this was something
more than a casual visit.
“I have some interesting news,” Darcy said.
“May I assume it’s good news, given that you’re not even trying to maintain your usual dour expression?”
“You may,” Darcy said, laughing aloud, which was even more unusual. “You remember Georgiana did a definitive accounting of your gold?”
“I do. More than thirty-four hundred Krugerrands.”
“Three thousand, four hundred, and forty-four Krugerrands,” Georgiana said firmly, “along with one hundred fifty-seven Canadian gold maple leaf coins and thirty-two Britannia bullion coins.”
McDunn’s eyebrows rose, and she smiled slightly. “I looked up the other coins in the encyclopedia on your tablet, Major.”
“Ah! Very enterprising, Miss Darcy.”
“And she also weighed your coins using a jeweler’s scale I had sent up from town,” Darcy said. “All of them.”
“Almost all the Krugerrands were heavier than a troy ounce, and they varied quite a bit,” Georgiana said. “The other coins did the same.”
“We will most likely get some variation when we melt down the coins and take the nuggets to a gold dealer in town, since only a precious metal dealer can truly assess the purity of the gold,” Darcy said.
“And I’ve been doing a little snooping of my own,” McDunn said. “If we can find a way to send the blacksmith and the stable-hands somewhere for an afternoon, I believe the three of us—”
“—and me!” said Georgiana.
“I stand corrected. The four of us can use the blacksmith forge to melt down the coins without involving anyone else.”
“In any case,” Darcy said, “using the figure of ninety percent pure for the Krugerrands, I believe we can now put an approximate value on your fortune. You should be able to put more than twenty-four thousand pounds into the Funds when we sell all the gold.”
McDunn was tempted to nod knowledgeably at this, but it seemed better to be truthful. “I think I need to admit my ignorance here, Darcy, but from your expression, I assume it’s quite a bit of money.”
