Unfortunately, not all the casualties were on the enemy side. Aubrac lay dead, two of Yablonowski’s men were bleeding, Roche was clutching his previously broken ribs, and Woodgerd had a gash on his left arm.
Yablonowski’s soldiers were like lions unleashed. At first they used bayonets and machetes furiously upon their former captors, all the while issuing piercing war cries. Their transformation from prisoners to avengers was instantaneous and stunning—Laurent was run down and hacked apart in seconds by two of our soldiers. Once the initial melee was over, Yablonowski got the rest of his men methodically loading and firing their muskets at the fleeing figures in the dark.
While that very useful diversion was raging on around us, I yelled for Woodgerd to carry out the original plan of attack and meet up later at the aerial warship barn. We thus separated into our two components, minus Yablonowski’s musket men, who were otherwise well occupied under the command of a corporal. The sergeant went off with Woodgerd and Rork, north through the compound toward the livestock barn to rescue Vanderburg.
I took Roche, Cynda, Dan, Corny, and Absalom, into Sokolov’s nearby dwelling to find Luke. But neither the boy nor the Russian lunatic was there.
34
Chaos in the Dark
Forteresse des Nyajs
Montay San, Northern Haiti
Wednesday, 5 September 1888
10:13 p.m.
If Luke wasn’t in the bungalow, I reasoned he must be with Vanderburg. Leaving Roche to paw through the scientist’s papers, I ran north through the inner compound. The rest followed and we headed past the east side of the massive central building. Light showed through the cracks in the planking, providing a minimum of ambient illumination in the compound. Moving around the generator shed, I made my way toward Woodgerd’s position, where I heard rifles and pistols firing.
The Hotchkiss gun on that side of the fort opened up, a steady pounding sound like someone hammering on metal. The shots were landing somewhere ahead of me at first, then suddenly the shells thudded into the shed close behind. The gunner had shifted target and was aiming for my movement in the dark. I shouted for Cynda and the others to take cover and not advance, as I rushed across the open to an entryway in the inner wall.
Getting down on the ground, I peeked my head around the end of the wall, and looked to the east. In the background was Montay San and the observation point we’d used—all of it inky black in the night. The high outer wall was more discernible, topped by the pounding explosions and staccato flashes of the Hotchkiss gun on the guard platform. I shielded my eyes from the flash to maintain my night vision and continued to search for Woodgerd and his men. Closer in, the livestock barn’s paddock fence was only feet away, but that gun was now sweeping the area randomly, each shell slamming into the dirt or wood and bursting into a shower of debris that rained down.
Boom . . . boom . . . boom . . . boom . . . methodical death spit out from the mechanically-driven gun. It wasn’t the firecracker sound of a Gatling, but the deeper report of an artillery piece. Between the incessant thumping sound and the sight of it hitting a target, a Hotchkiss was a frightening weapon to behold. One could easily see what it would do to a man—instantly eviscerate him.
Finally, I spied Woodgerd crouched by the corner of the paddock fence, centering his Lebel rifle on the man firing the Hotchkiss. In the lull while the gunner was reloading the Hotchkiss, I heard Woodgerd mutter what sounded like “Zwani Marg shi!”
Again the bedlam of noise and flashes erupted from the guard tower. I couldn’t hear the Lebel fire, but I saw the recoil as he fired three rapid shots. The thundering Hotchkiss stopped, an eerie void of sound. I ran forward and slid next to Woodgerd.
“Good shooting, Michael,” I gasped. “What the hell was that you said to him?”
“Pashto curse: ‘Die at a young age!’ He deserved it.”
“Were you able to find Luke?”
He turned to me, his angry face inches away. “Oh yeah, I found the worthless bastard, over in the barn. I told him we were here to rescue him. He squealed some nonsense at me, then lit out for the gun.” Woodgerd pointed to the guard tower with the Hotchkiss and shook his head. “I was still yelling for him to come down, even though I saw him loading it. Should’ve killed him then, when I had a clear shot.”
His voice hardened. “But I waited too damned long. The worthless little sonovabitch got it working. Killed Yablonowski before I finally stopped him.”
There was no time for questions or regrets.
“Rork—where’s Rork?”
“Still with the old man, I think. In the livestock barn. Come on, follow me.”
The other gunfire behind us was slowing, more sporadic. The Bizangos were regrouping in the southern half of the compound. We crossed the paddock and entered the barn. Vladimir Noel Yablonowski’s body sprawled across the doorway. It was mangled into an inhuman mass of bloody meat by the Hotchkiss’s thirty-seven millimeter rounds. For several seconds I stood there, overcome by a wave of grief at the horrific death of such a good man.
“Vanderburg’s dead an’ gone, sir.”
Rork’s voice brought me back. He was kneeling next to another figure in the far corner. Vanderburg. The old man was laid out in the hay, hands folded on his chest and seemingly asleep in the dim light of a lantern.
“No wounds. Methinks he died yesterday—it’s smellin’ none too fresh. Maybe the old sod’s heart gave out. Or maybe poisonin’ did him in, but there’s no way to tell fer sure. You know about the kid?”
“Yes.” I put a hand on Woodgerd’s shoulder. “No blame there, Michael.”
“Yeah, thanks,” he muttered. “I gave him a chance. He took it to kill Yablonowski.”
“So what now, sir?” asked Rork. “Them Bizango buggers’ll be counterattackin’ soon enough. Once they open up with those other Hotchkisses, this whole place’ll be a killin’ ground.”
“You’re right. No time to waste. Michael, we stay with the original plan? How many have we got left now—eight? Without the cargo, I think we can do that. Or do you have another idea?”
“It’s gotta be the original plan now, Peter. It’ll be dicey, but the jungle’ll be crawling with these bastards out to get a blanc. There’s just too many of them—we’d never make it all the way to Cap Haitien.”
The original plan, hatched by Woodgerd, Rork, and me in the dark the previous night, hadn’t been divulged to the others, lest they be frightened. In truth, I hadn’t really expected it to unfold anyway—too far-fetched and too many people. So I had a secondary plan: flee on foot cross-country to a stream to the east, away from the path back toward Cap Haitien, then float down current to the coast. That was the plan I told the others. But conditions had drastically changed. Now we had a small window of opportunity that might make the original plan work, if we seized it immediately.
“All right, Rork, round up everyone and get them to the northern end of the airship building. We’ve got to pull the damn thing out of there.”
“No, we don’t,” said Woodgerd. “Sokolov’s got it pulled out already. I saw Danzig and Dru over there when we got here. They’ve got the motor running and it’ll be lifting up any minute now.”
“Good God!” I was already running out the door. “Then move!”
As I made it back inside the inner wall a volley of Lebels roared from the southern end of the fort. Regrouped, the Bizangos were attacking in force. Scattered shots sounded in reply. From the northern wall, I registered sporadic rifle fire. Were they attacking from there also?
Above me I saw the monster ship floating above the rail cars, utterly gigantic this close up. Illuminated by lanterns inside the building, the Cyrillic writing ominously reflected the light. The hull dangling beneath it was only two feet off the ground. The thing was straining against its lines, wanting to swing downwind off a hawser from its bow to a mooring post at the northern e
nd of the rail tracks—as a ship swings to an anchor. As I watched, it was released from the cars. Its bow immediately pointed to windward, held only by that hawser. The madman was about to fly it away.
Sokolov and two other whites, the Prussian von Danzig and the Frenchman Dru, were next to the hull. Holding long guns at the ready, they directed men lugging small heavy items toward the hull.
To my left I could see Cynda, Absalom, and Roche running toward us and a mass of movement in the darkness behind them, apparently the Bizangos charging. Corny and Dan were to my right, falling back while engaging the guard posts along the northern wall with rifle fire. Everyone was converging on my position.
Woodgerd yelled to Rork and me, “Attack Sokolov now! He’s loading the bombs!”
The range was a mere thirty yards and the three of us fired repeatedly at Sokolov and his two cohorts. Dru and Danzig each got off a blast—their long guns were shotguns—but fired high. Wearing white suits, they made perfect silhouettes in the dim light and all three of them went down when we fired. The laborers dropped their loads and ran to the western wall. We approached at a run as Danzig got up on one elbow. Woodgerd shot him again. Twenty feet away, a bloody Sokolov was trying to crawl away. Woodgerd spun toward him and raised his rifle.
“No!” shouted Roche. “I want him alive!”
I will never forget what happened next. Woodgerd nodded to Roche and, with absolute chaos swirling around him, calmly walked over to the cringing Sokolov and leaned down. I was close enough to hear him say, “Khudai de wakhela!”
I later learned it to be a Pashto phrase: God take you away! Then my friend turned his back on the Russian and shot a Bizango advancing from the northern wall.
I lost track of Roche and Sokolov when a scream suddenly pierced the air.
“Oh, God—Luke! My baby! My Luke!”
Cynda was over by the livestock barn, collapsed onto the ground, sobbing and wailing incoherently. Her hand stretched out toward the guard tower, where her son lay draped over the edge. Absalom was trying to drag her toward us.
“Corny, go help Ab get her over here,” I ordered. “Dan, get in the damn thing and check the helm controls.”
Corny ran over to Cynda, but Dan raised a hand in protest. “Peter, you know my calculations were for sea level! We’re three thousand feet up and I don’t know what the displacement will . . .”
“Just shut up and try!”
The abject terror in my voice must have impressed him, for he jumped up and clambered inside the hull. Seconds later I saw him fiddling with controls at the helm.
Rork and Woodgerd were inside too, unloading the bombs that had been put aboard. They weren’t iron-bound, as I’d expected, but three-foot-long cylinders, and leather not silk, like artillery powder charges.
“Incendiaries, Rork—so lay ’em down gently! ” cautioned Woodgerd.
Sokolov’s men were emboldened by the lack of return fire and began charging, led by a frightening vision—a muscular African figure in a gray mask. The mask had large holes for the eyes, a grim mouth, and was topped with massive bull’s horns. This was above a black leather chest plate and leggings covered with chalk dust and blood. A similarly attired man was behind him. Both waved cane knives and revolvers, exhorting with animal roars for their men to kill the last of us.
Rork and Woodgerd completed the job and stood beside me.
“Ah, I’ve been wonderin’ where those two were,” said Woodgerd. “Boys, meet the bourreaux captains—Bois and Joseph. Looks like they got into their full dress mess for this shindig.”
Woodgerd immediately started methodically shooting—felling one of the bizarrely clad captains. Rork dashed over to Danzig’s body and returned as several Bizango rounds hit the hull behind us.
“Wanna use yer own shotgun on ’em?” Rork asked as he handed me my Spencer shotgun and Merwin-Hulbert pistol. “Seems them Bizango buggers gave our personal weapons to that Froggie wanker an’ the kraut-eater. That was a bit o’ a waste, warn’t it? Aye, an’ now methinks givin’ ’em a little taste o’ American lead’ll be right proper!”
Right proper, indeed—the shotguns were the perfect weapon for that massed target crossing an open yard. Rork and I knelt down and began firing, he taking the left side and I the right. The front rank of seven or eight went down, dead or wounded, but it didn’t deter the mob. I suddenly realized they were crazed or drunk on something. Screaming epithets in their lingo, they kept coming.
“Bloody friggin’ hell an’ damnation!” growled Rork as his shotgun clicked empty. I fired my last shotgun shell while Rork emptied his Colt revolver at the nearest enemy.
I scanned to my left, searching for Cynda. They’d made it to the aerial ship. Corny was throwing her up and into the hull like a sack of potatoes, Absalom was already inside, pulling them both in. My mind registered that Woodgerd had stopped firing. I looked but he wasn’t there. Was he wounded or dead? No, I saw him vaulting the low inner wall, heading for the guard tower on the northwest side of the outer wall.
I only had the six rounds in my pistol left. At least twenty Bizangos were seventy feet away and closing rapidly. Not enough ammunition. Everybody was out. Not enough time to find more.
There were six of us there, frozen in a tableau of horror, all eyes on the advancing horde. The pistol felt heavier than ever before. One round for each of us—to spare us the certain agony planned for us that would arrive in a few seconds. I wasn’t going to let that happen. Cynda would have to be the first. My hand holding the Merwin-Hulbert was shaking as I glanced one last time at the Bizangos.
35
Night into Day
Forteresse des Nyajs
Montay San, Northern Haiti
Wednesday, 5 September 1888
10:19 p.m.
From the western side of the compound I heard strange shouts, punctuated by shots.
“Pyos!” . . . bang . . . “Pyos!” . . . bang . . . “Tyoya mat!” . . . bang.
Corny heard it too. “Russian cursing. Well I’ll be damned.” He raised a finger toward the barn and shook his head. “Look at that!”
It was Roche. He was coming from a wagon at the northwest corner of the airship barn. Quickly back stepping at an even pace, a valise slung over his left shoulder and rifle butted into his right, he methodically swiveled and fired at Bizango targets while making his way in our direction. He’d hit Sokolov’s men from their western flank unexpectedly, forcing them back away from the airship hull. A temporary respite.
Suddenly I felt arms beneath my shoulders, then saw a right hand reach around my chest and grab a spiked appendage coming from the left side. Rork lifted me up, grunting with the effort. “Get in the bloody friggin’ boat, ya daft sonovabitch! Now’s no time to be standin’ about.”
My feet dangled in air for an instant, then I was bodily slammed down in the bilge of the airship’s hull. “Damnation, laddie, yer gettin’ heavier by the day!”
Cynda was in the bilge too, and reached for me, her face contorted in anguish, but I had no time to console her, for all hell was breaking loose. Dull knocks rattled on the hull and holes appeared everywhere. One round missed Cynda’s face by inches. Forward of me, Dan was pulling and pushing some levers and Rork was swearing in Gaelic as he cast off the hawser. The ship at once lost height and bounced roughly along the ground, going astern until Dan moved the throttle forward and the propeller’s thrust stopped our sternway.
The ship gathered steerageway forward and we crossed the open yard again until the forward hull—only a few feet aft of the crucial propeller—smacked into the northeast corner of the inner wall, knocking everyone inside off their feet. Dan, swearing a blue streak, leaped up and slacked off on the throttle. The bow fell off from the wind, the aerial ship drifting west once more across the rail tracks.
While this was going on, Roche was trying to stay immediately below us. He was
still firing to the south, where the enemy had now taken cover. Corny and Absalom yelled at him to get aboard. Leaning their bodies halfway over the gunwale they clasped his hands at the last minute, straining to hold him as Dan got us higher.
The Bizangos took advantage of our lack of return fire and made a final rush, a dozen of them running across the intervening fifty feet, obviously hoping to bayonet Roche as he struggled aboard with a gasp of pain. I remembered the six rounds in my pistol and shot them into the crowd, but they kept coming as our leeway drifted us across the northwest inner wall.
I could see that our stern was going to crash into the fort’s large cistern tower, located between the northwest inner and outer walls. Rork saw it too and dumped bags of ballast sand overboard. Dan frantically opened the throttle again and tried to correct the course. We slowly lifted up, but it was too late and our stern hit at the battery mount, swinging the bow around to the northwest.
A throaty cheer went up from the Bizangos, still led by the last horned bourreau, as they jumped over the inner wall—they wanted blood and were about to get it. It was then that the northwest Hotchkiss opened fire from its guard platform, sweeping the ground just below us, missing the bottom of the ship by just a few feet, and cutting into the last of the mob.
Woodgerd. In the pandemonium, I’d forgotten him. He’d stayed on the ground to fight a rear guard so we could escape.
The hull’s cockpit was directly over him now—not more than ten feet above—and I watched as he systematically fired four or five round bursts, reloaded, and fired again, hunched over the barrel’s gunsights, grimly traversing back and forth. The gun was so loud he couldn’t hear our cries to him.
“Rork, lower that line to him!” I pointed to a line by his foot. He coiled it and slung it down to Woodgerd. The ship was past the platform now and the line was running alongside him, about to run out, but he still didn’t notice. My shoe snagged on a wrench in the bilge. I picked it up and threw it at Woodgerd, striking him on the shoulder. He looked up, furious, then saw everyone pointing at the last few feet of line near him and nodded. Knocking the Hotchkiss over the side of the tower, he wrapped the line around his fists and held them up in the air.
Honor Bound Page 28
