Ring of Fire III

by Eric Flint

  “Then why didn’t you wait to do so, yourself?”

  “Owen, when I was made a Knight-Captain of the Order of Alcantara, a Gentleman of His Majesty’s Chamber, and a member of his Council of War, I took my oaths before, and to, the king himself. In his very person, in Spain. I had my benefits and titles directly from his hand, and was, at his personal instruction, naturalized as a Spanish citizen. Honor demands, then, that if I know in my heart I can no longer be Philip’s loyal servant, I must relinquish all those privileges and garnishments at once. I can’t bide my time, waiting to be cornered into admitting that my allegiances have changed—even as I continue to enjoy the king’s coin and favor. Given the state of affairs here, honor may be all I have left—so it was both right and prudent that I keep it untarnished.”

  “Fairly spoken,” Preston said. Owen found himself nodding; the earl of Tyrone’s officers were doing the same.

  The flap of the tent came back. The young surgeon of the Tyrconnell regiment—blood still on his hands, some on his face—crossed the open center of the council ring and sat down next to O’Donnell. He said nothing, stared hard at nothing.

  O’Donnell leaned toward him. “You’ve word on our worst wounded, Dr. Connal?”

  “I do. Russell and Fitzgerald will live, but Nugent—” The young man dropped his head; O’Neill couldn’t tell if it was out of anger or grief. Perhaps both.

  “Easy, Shane, easy,” soothed O’Donnell. “Have we lost him?”

  “Not yet,” the younger man snapped through gritted teeth. “But we will, and there’s damn-all I can do to stop it. A gut wound”—he looked up, eyes narrow—“a small gut-wound. And I still can’t save him. If I were an up-time doctor—even one of their nurses—then, yes, maybe so. Probably. But me? I’m just—just a damned butcher, I am.” His head dropped again, neck rigid.

  “It’s not a bit of your fault, lad,” put in O’Neill, seeking a moment in which simple kindness might also achieve some additional interclan mending. “And let’s not hear any more o’ this tearing yourself down because you’re not up-time-trained. I’m sure those fancy Grantville doctors are not half as good as everyone says they ar—” And he stopped, transfixed by a baleful glare from Hugh’s senior sergeant and old companion, O’Rourke—until a sudden, stinging chill of realization coursed through him. O’Donnell’s young wife of barely a year had died in childbirth only six months ago—and it was universally held that her death could have been prevented by an up-time doctor or nurse. O’Donnell might have had access to one of them through his godmother, the Infanta Isabella, but he had known that Philip IV would have been sorely displeased. And so, Hugh had refrained. And so, his wife, and only child, had both died. Criticizing up-time medicine was, Owen concluded, probably the stupidest thing he could have done at such a moment. He surveyed the faces in the tent to see just how much damage he had done.

  Almost no face was turned towards him: they were toward O’Donnell, who sat very still, eyes lowered. He spoke to the doctor without looking up. “Owen Roe is right, Shane, when he says there’s no fault of yours in this. There are some things you can’t fix.” He looked up at the surgeon and smiled. “Not yet, that is.”

  Connal nodded—and O’Neill swallowed hard: looking at O’Donnell’s smile, he could see—could almost feel—how much that had cost the earl of Tyrconnell. But Hugh kept that expression in place for a long moment, only allowing it to dim when he asked, “Dr. Connal, can you shed any light on our Franciscan visitors? Were they here to save our souls by hastening us to our reward?”

  A few snickers underscored the surgeon’s answer. “Not unless the Franciscans are sending disguised mercenaries to carry out their holy work, m’lord. And desperate ones, too, to take such a job as this. Judging from the grooming and the gear under the habits, I’d say most of them were part-Spanish mercenaries—mixed-bloods, born in the Lowlands—and the rest Germans or Walloons. Some may have been simple cutthroats: no military gear on those—and not even a hint of third-rate camp hygiene. Dirty as pigs and twice the stink.”

  Owen nodded and looked at O’Donnell. “So who do you think sent them?”

  “I don’t know—and right now, there aren’t enough hours or facts to puzzle it out.” He stood. “I’ve stayed too long. But before I go, I feel I must tell you all this: the tercios are dead.”

  Owen recoiled as if struck—in fact, felt as if he had been. “What fine, parting words of encouragement for all the men, Sir O’Donnell. I’m not sure the earl of Tyrone will agree to disband his tercios on your say-so, though.”

  “Owen, I’m not talking about the existence of our regiments. I’m saying that the concept of the tercios—of that kind of warfare—is dying on its feet. The first victories of the USE are just initial freshets of proof: soon, it will be an inarguable flood. The new muskets—and now, Turenne’s breechloaders—are changing the battlefield. And those who do not learn to change with it will be the first to die upon it.”

  “So this is the reason for all the hide-and-seek I saw when I came in?”

  “The up-timer manuals call it ‘close quarters combat.’ Or, ‘CQC.’ ”

  “And the USE forces train to use these tactics?”

  “No, their equipment isn’t right for it, yet—and there aren’t enough up-timers who can teach them, either. But some special units—like Harry Lefferts and his group—use a simplified version. Granted, it seems their ‘CQC’ is based more on ‘movies’ than training manuals. But we can choose to do it right. We’ve got the discipline—and now the manuals—to genuinely learn these tactics, and then use them once we get our hands on enough revolvers and double-barreled weapons.” O’Donnell paused, looked around the ring of faces focused on him. “And if we want to be the victors instead of the vanquished, we must start learning these tactics now—before they are used upon us.”

  O’Neill made as sour a face as he could. “They look more like tomfoolery than ‘tactics.’ ”

  “And so they might, but this is just one of the ways in which war is changing—and each change will spawn more. New weapons, new training, new skills, new organization: before long, we’ll be revising everything we learned as our stock-in-trade. But we have to do it, even if it goes against our grain.”

  “Heh. It doesn’t seem to go against your grain, Hugh.”

  O’Donnell nodded somberly. “I suppose it doesn’t—not any longer. I’ve read their unit histories and accounts; I’ve seen up-timer military ‘documentaries’ that show how they—and before long, we—will wage war. Trust me, whether or not we’re comfortable with it, our tactical doctrines must change.” He looked around the tent. “And change is never easy. Never. Particularly not when one has to make many changes, and all at once.

  “And that is what is sure to happen here in the Lowlands. Soon, you will all have a choice to make. And it can’t be long in coming, because Fernando is running out of money with which to pay you. So, before that day comes, I counsel you: think upon your oaths, and listen to your hearts. Task them to answer this one, simple question: where is your loyalty? To Philip and Olivares or to Isabella and Fernando? To a distant king’s coin, or to each other? For rest assured, that choice is coming—for each and every one of you.”

  O’Donnell stepped from behind the table, crouched down as if he were going to scratch a battle plan on the ground—but what it did was put him at eye-level with even the lowliest man in the room. “Always remember this, lads. We Wild Geese—we’re all birds of a feather. We’ve been harrowed, but never broken—because we’ve always stuck together.”

  O’Neill wanted to sneer, but he couldn’t—partly because O’Donnell hadn’t parsed the old saw as doggerel, so it hadn’t sounded trite. But mostly because he could see—could feel—all the men around him respond to the elemental honesty that shone out of Hugh’s eyes. O’Neill wished he could look away, could be somewhere else—anything, just so he wouldn’t have to see the indictment of his own clan laid out so plainly before him. The O’Donnells
were leaders, always had been. They could touch hearts at a gesture, bond men to them with a whisper. Obversely, every O’Neill of note had made his name as a fighter, an intriguer, often a shrewd manipulator who might even conspire with an enemy, if it served his ultimate goals. They were renowned, feared, even respected—but never admired or loved. And that, Owen admitted, was probably the real reason behind the prickly hauteur of the Tyrones: a jealous envy after the natural nobility that they lacked.

  Owen cleared his throat. “You’ve given us much to think about, Lord Tyrconnell. I wish you safe travels—and Godspeed. And now, I should be going.”

  O’Donnell straightened up. “And I’ve stayed longer than is safe. Until we meet again, Owen.”

  Who nodded, wanted to say—something—but could not decide what it should be. So he simply added a second nod and let a potentially bonding moment slip by.

  Just as he had all his life.

  * * *

  O’Rourke made sure that Preston’s tent was empty except for two orderlies, who stayed busy—and distant—moving gear to the newly completed blockhouse. When O’Rourke indicated that the young soldiers were out of earshot, O’Donnell muttered, “There’s one person in particular who’ll now be watching all of what you do here. Very closely.”

  “Who?”

  “Isabella—my aunt.” The earl paused, looked down. “Returning the honors I had from Philip was a shame, but leaving her service—that was a hard, hard step to take.”

  O’Rourke poured a small mug of half-beer for himself. “Huh. Now that’s something I never did understand, m’lord.”

  “What?”

  “Why you always doted on the Infanta, and she on you.”

  “Well, she’s my godmother—and has looked out for me since I was a babe.”

  “Mebbe. But she also derailed the Killybegs invasion in 1627, and when at first she couldn’t scuttle it herself, she insisted that it be led by John O’Neill—with you to be left behind in the Lowlands. Just the opposite of what Philip had called for.”

  “Oh, that. You misunderstand. She didn’t pass me over.”

  “No? What would you call it, then?”

  “She was protecting me. I was twenty-two, green as could be, and yes, Philip was going to put me over John—who’d no doubt have found some excuse to put me in my grave once we were in Ireland. Besides, she wanted me where she thought I’d do the most good.”

  “You’d do the most good here? Was she mad?”

  O’Rourke looked away from the gaze Hugh fixed on him. “No, she was not mad. She remains amongst the most astute political minds of this era. She knew that if Philip did send us to invade Ireland, we would be underfunded and undersupplied. As it was, the closest we came to readiness—eleven boats waiting for a few thousand of us—would still have been suicide.”

  “Not if you and John O’Neill had gone together. The prat may be insufferable, but he’s a competent captain and a bear in a fight. Together, the earls of Tyrconnell and Tyrone would have been invincible.”

  “Gaelic bluster, O’Rourke. Don’t start believing the tales we tell to keep our spirits up during these long years of exile and waiting. Yes, I wanted to go. Yes, I wanted to lead. Yes, I agreed to Owen’s and Father Conry’s plan to create Ireland as a republic and to renounce any claim to preeminence. But unless wild luck had smiled on that project—instead of the death’s head which has loomed over all our others—the only result of an invasion led by both O’Neill and O’Donnell would have been the loss of the last two royal Irish heirs that the English are really worried about.”

  “So your godmother was willing to let O’Neill to take the lead, and get himself strung up...”

  “...in the unlikely event the invasion occurred at all; yes.”

  “And you she saved out of love.”

  “That—and practicality.”

  “What practicality was that?”

  “O’Rourke, how much trouble has our regiment had living side by side with the Walloons, even the Dutch?”

  “Other than the occasional argument over the price of provisioning, none.”

  “And O’Neill and his regiment?”

  O’Rourke nodded; he saw Isabella’s logic now. “One incident after another. He’s been hard- and high-handed from the start, right down to this very day.”

  Hugh nodded back. “Precisely. So if Isabella had to depend on mercenaries—and in particular, us Wild Geese—to protect her realm, she needed at least one loyal leader that enjoyed the trust of the locals and was not wholly subject to the manipulations of Madrid, nor the intrigues of her sworn enemies.”

  “In other words, she needed you. And us. Well, now I understand the past a little better, but I’m still in the dark regarding the present.” O’Rourke lifted his mug. “So tell me, why skulk back into camp? And why not one word of what you’re planning next? What’s afoot?”

  Hugh leaned forward. “For the nonce, O’Rourke, this is just between us.”

  “As always.”

  “Then here it is. I’ve hired on with the French. With Turenne. To work with an up-timer. To go to the New World. To take Trinidad from the Spanish crown. To sell it to the French. Because they want the oil.”

  O’Rourke put down his mug, which had been suspended midair during Hugh’s brief, bulleted explanation. “You’re serious.”

  Hugh nodded.

  “And what do you get out of it?”

  “We—all of us—get money, maybe enough to keep our men and their families in food long enough to find a more permanent billet.”

  “You mean the French would pay for our costs up here? They’d send ecus over the border to Isabella?”

  “To Fernando,” Hugh corrected. “And yes, that’s the general idea. Subsistence costs only, of course. And some of the men—a few hundred maybe—would have to come down to France. Doing farm work for a few months, to help pay their keep. And then to travel—to serve—with me.”

  O’Rourke’s response was a long, astonished whistle—which he abruptly ended when he noticed the puzzled stares of the orderlies, who then became conspicuously refocused upon their work.

  O’Donnell was smiling. “You’ve a great future as a confidential agent, O’Rourke. A veritable master of undercover work.”

  “Funny you should mention undercover work, m’lord. Years ago, when I was courting Maureen Hennessy on the sly—”

  “Spare me the tawdry details, reprobate. Now, about getting a few companies of the regiment over to France: here’s the hitch—”

  “There’s just one?”

  “Very well: here’s the first hitch in that project: the companies joining me in Amiens must transfer over the border in one group.”

  “But the archduchess is seeing to that, no?”

  “She’s seeing to each unit’s release from service, yes. Moving ourselves and our gear: that has to be up to us. And we have to make the transfer without any Spanish-owned equippage.”

  “Well, that will make the regiment look like the beggar’s army on parade, but I can put a good face on it. We’ve enough of our own equipment that if we spread it out one weapon per man, there’d only be a few empty hands. And we’ll keep those few in the middle of the formations. Also, we can march the swords and pieces separately to make it all look intentional—if absurd.”

  “Good. Then there’s the approach to the border.”

  “The French know we’re coming, right?”

  “Yes, but the lads need to understand their weapons will have to go into French hands during the march to Amiens. And they won’t like it.”

  “They don’t have to,” grumbled O’Rourke.

  “That’s the tick, O’Rourke: I’m sure there’ll be no problems with you in charge of—”

  But O’Rourke leaned far back. “In charge? Me? Not by Christ Almighty’s toenails, m’lord.”

  “Who better to be in charge?”

  “Someone who’ll be with the regiment, sir.”

  “And so you shall be.�
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  “With respect, I shan’t. I’ll be with you.”

  “With me? Now see here, O’Rourke—”

  “ ‘O’Rourke’ me no ‘O’Rourkes,’ Hugh O’Donnell. You’ll not be leaving me in France to tend a bunch of turnip-pullers while you sail into high seas and perdition.”

  “Sergeant O’Rourke, you are a man I can trust and a man who enjoys the respect of the entire regiment. You will see our men safely over the border, and then through their stay in France.”

  “With respect, sir, I will not. There’s many as can baby-sit them better than I. Shane Connal is the one you’ve been grooming for this kind of work. Most of the men will hear and heed his voice almost as if it were your own. And m’lord, if fair speech is required in dealing with our French hosts, then let’s speak plain and admit I’m not the man for that. But Shane’s got your way with words and manners—and he’ll oversee a just and proper succession of your title here, should something ill befall us out there.”

  Hugh considered the arguments. “You rehearsed that speech earlier, didn’t you, O’Rourke?”

  “I thought I might have occasion for words such as those, m’lord. I figured a man of genius like yourself often lacks a bit in the common sense department; he might leave his right hand at home if the right hand wasn’t determined to stay attached all by itself.”

  Hugh smiled. “You’re a pain in my neck, O’Rourke.”

  “And other parts of the body as well, I’d wager.”

  “Another bet you’d win. Now, for our trip to the New World, we’ll need about a half of a company for the landing and defense—as well as repelling pirates, if we’re unlucky. Recommendations?”

  “I’ve been thinking about just that, m’lord, and the men that seem best suited to those purposes—”

  O’Donnell clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I trust you, O’Rourke—in all things. Go get your list—and while you’re at it, fetch Shane Connal from the blockhouse, as well. Let’s not keep him in the dark on this any longer.”

  O’Rourke rose quickly. “In a trice, m’lord.” And he was out the tent flap in a rush.