Union Forever

by William R. Forstchen

  Hulagar paused for a moment.

  "We go back to Suzdal."

  "Why there?"

  "Have you forgotten you left Hamilcar and four thousand of your men there?"

  Tobias hesitated.

  "We can't refit there."

  "That ship is slow. We can gain a day on her going back. Repair your ship."

  Without waiting for a response, Hulagar turned away with a snort of disgust and walked away, head lowered to clear the cramped deck.

  "He is panicking," Tamuka whispered in Merki, coming up beside his comrade.

  "The ship is big."

  "We are throwing away a victory here. At such a moment we should charge in, ram it as he rammed the other ship."

  "He knows this fighting at sea better than we," Hulagar said coldly. "We must trust his judgment."

  "He is a coward."

  "The Vushka will be in Suzdal, and what is left of the Yankees will be outside. We can take his factories by land. All we need is for this vessel to guard the river for three or four days and the issue will be decided."

  "I hope you are right in this," Tamuka whispered.

  Hulagar looked over at the shield-bearer, and from the comer of his eye saw Vuka gazing at him warily. He had wanted to put Vuka on one of the galleys for this fight, but Tamuka had argued that the heat of action would be with the Ogunquit. That had been a tragic mistake. From the looks of the battle at least one of the problems facing the horde could have been solved right here. If Tamuka did not decide this thing soon, honor or not, he would finish it for the good of the horde.

  "He's running from a goddam Quaker ship," Andrew gasped.

  From across the open water, the sound of battle was dropping away to be replaced by wild cheers. Behind the Ogunquit, five ironclads and a small knot of galleys were breaking away and heading westward.

  Exhausted, Andrew lay back on the grating and looked over at Bullfinch.

  "How is he?"

  "He'll live," Emil whispered.

  Andrew pointed to his eyes.

  "I don't know."

  "I'll be all right, sir," Bullfinch gasped.

  "Sure you will, son."

  "You'd damn well better," Emil said. "You almost killed both of us getting out of that ship."

  "The Suzdal's gone?"

  "Went down fighting," Andrew said. "When we launch the new one, you're the admiral."

  "Thank you, sir," he whispered and then lay back.

  The ocean was awash with wreckage. Wounded ships dragged past, riding low in the water, cutting in for shore before they sank. Cries filled the air, men screaming for help, floundering in the water.

  Along the shore there seemed to be thousands of men, many of them in the water, helping to pull in others.

  "I still don't know if we've really won or not," Andrew sighed. "It's going to be hell sorting this out, and Tobias still holds Suzdal. We're going to have to salvage what we can and press on in."

  He looked over at the Quaker ship, which was now slowly bearing down.

  "I did a pretty damn good job of it, didn't I?" Ferguson announced.

  The vessel looked huge, more than two hundred feet in length. Across the bow there was a massive blockhouse, with two logs sticking out. In the middle of the contraption the Republic of Rus chugged painfully along, its one gun port marking the center of the vessel.

  "Some rafts we were using for hauling firewood strapped alongside, a lot of canvas, logs for guns, a couple of barrels of tar for paint, and there it is," Ferguson laughed.

  "We fooled him once with it, but I doubt if it'll work again," Andrew said quietly. "That's going to be the problem. We've still got to get the Ogunquit. If not, he can still hold Suzdal for ransom."

  "Let's find out what we have left first," Emil said.

  "It doesn't look like much," Andrew whispered, feeling dejected.

  "I do know one thing," Emil said. "You certainly got cured of your seasickness awful damn quick."

  Surprised, Andrew looked over at the doctor.

  "Terror, doctor," Andrew whispered. "Pure stark terror."

  Chapter Eighteen

  The burning ironclad cast a lurid light across the now calm waters of the Inland Sea. Its gun deck burst asunder, and a mushroom cloud of fire and smoke shot up into the evening sky. The deep throaty growl of the exploding magazine rolled across the ocean, striking against the shore, causing the thousands of men on the beach to look up, pointing at the closing chapter of the battle, as the ship settled back down and with a hissing of smoke finally settled beneath the wreckage strewn waters.

  In the dying light Andrew looked down the length of the beach.

  Soldiers of the Republic, Roum sailors, and Cartha warriors were all intermingled, numbed by all that they had done to each other through that terrible morning and afternoon.

  Andrew looked over his shoulder and saw a line of Carthas, digging with boards, shards of metal, and some with their bare hands, scooping out a long trench. Those they meant to bury seemed to stretch out across the beach forever. Already there was that faint lingering smell in the air, which he felt was somehow part and parcel of his life, the sickly-sweet cloying stench of a battlefield.

  Two Roum sailors came up out of the water, dragging a body, its features blue, hands upstretched as if somehow in his last seconds the man had desperately tried to reach out, to claw his soul back into his drowning body.

  "Any figures yet?" Andrew said, looking over at Mina. Somehow his chief of logistics had come through the fight aboard the ironclad Gettysburg without a scratch, even though the ship had been holed twice when it had lain alongside a Cartha ship and traded broadsides at pistol-shot range, knocking its opponent out of the fight.

  "There are still hundreds of men out in the water," John replied, pointing to where half a dozen captured Cartha ships were slowly cruising back and forth, looking for survivors. "We've got over six hundred dead on the beach, and five hundred or so wounded. The 3rd Novrod took it really bad—two of their galleys got raked by canister from a gunboat, and they went down a couple of miles out. The 35th and our gunners aboard the ironclads got hit hard as well. We lost over thirty of the old boys from the regiment, along with at least six of the men from the 44th serving as gun commanders."

  "God, more of them gone," Andrew whispered. He dreaded the moment when he'd have to run down the list and check yet more names off the regimental roster. It would mean that half of the men who had come through with him were dead in just three years.

  "A couple of hours back I'd have thought half the army was drowned," Andrew said, letting a slight note of optimism creep into his voice.

  "You know, the son of a bitch had the battle won," John said. "Those two heavy weapons were smashing us to pieces, and then he ran away."

  "There's something terrible locked inside that man," Vincent interjected. "When I talked to him I could sense it. He has a remarkable cunning, but inside him his fears are eating him alive. I guess they got him this time too."

  His fears, Andrew thought. Were battles like this simply a matter of perception? Was victory at times merely a matter of one side becoming convinced it would win, and the other not? After a galley had fished him and the other survivors of the Suzdal on board he had stood upon the deck of the ship looking out upon the insane confusion of over two hundred ships locked together in battle. It was impossible to decipher what had occurred. In some ways the fight had been like the Wilderness, when the Army of the Potomac had smashed into Lee's forces in a mad tangle of forest all ablazing and slugged it out for two days. It had seemed like a defeat then, and yet Grant had simply refused to call it such and kept on going.

  "Still, the galley fight went our way," Marcus said, grimacing as he adjusted his arm, which was bound tight with a blood-soaked bandage. "Between the corvuses and our gunfire we tore them apart. I never dreamed I'd see the day that we'd drive the damn Carthas from the waves."

  Marcus looked over at Andrew, and he sensed that in this fight the R
oum consul and his people were now firmly bound to the Rus. At least the battle had done that. Looking back across the beach, he saw that the Rus soldiers and the former slaves of Roum, who throughout the long month of building and training had kept apart, were now sharing whatever they had, working side by side, the barrier of language no longer a problem.

  "If we still stand any chance of ever saving our city," Andrew replied, "it's because of your help."

  Smiling, Marcus patted Andrew on the shoulder.

  "What next then?"

  "What did he get away with?" Andrew asked, looking back over at John.

  "It's hard to get a clear picture. We know for certain that the Ogunquit made off at good steam. Five of his gunboats withdrew with him as well, though one was definitely in serious trouble, lagging far behind. The estimate runs that fifteen, maybe upward of thirty galleys got out as well. We've got six thousand, maybe up to ten thousand, Cartha prisoners along this beach."

  Andrew paused and looked over at several Cartha wounded lying not thirty feet away, one of their comrades sitting beside them, gently trying to feed a man who was horribly burned.

  "Any problems with the prisoners?"

  "I've heard of a couple of incidents. The fight seems out of them, though. Some are just wandering off into the hills. The rest are just staying put for now."

  "Do we have a regiment that's fairly well intact?"

  "The 2nd Kevan barely took a scratch and are beached a couple of hundred yards away."

  "Detail them off as guards."

  "Vincent, did you find any of their commanders and someone who can speak Rus?"

  Vincent nodded to four men who stood off to one side, a single sentry behind them. Andrew could sense the coldness in Vincent. Something had definitely gone wrong with him. Marcus had even taken a moment to tell him how the boy seemed to go berserk in battle and nearly had to be restrained from killing some men who had already given up.

  "Have you talked to them?" Andrew asked.

  "Only as you ordered me to, sir," Vincent said coldly.

  "Well, come over with me."

  Andrew and his staff went over to the four prisoners. The men looked exhausted, defeated, yet he could still sense a cold pride in them as they stared at him with dark eyes, their black beards -giving them a bearlike look.

  "Which among you speaks Rus?" Andrew asked.

  One of the men stepped forward.

  "Your name?"

  "Baca, commander of ten galleys."

  "You fought well, Baca. I salute you for your courage."

  Baca looked at Andrew suspiciously.

  "Yet still we lost," he finally replied.

  "There is no shame in that. It was your commander if anyone who lost, not men such as you who fought with bravery."

  Baca stared at Andrew as if tempted to say something and then shook his head.

  "Are you Keane?"

  "I am Colonel Andrew Keane."

  "Why do you wish to speak to us?"

  "I want you to translate what I say to your comrades, and they can then speak to the rest of your people.

  Baca nodded.

  "First, is your high commander among this group?"

  Baca shook his head.

  "Hamilcar is not here. Draxus, who commanded our galleys, is said to have killed himself rather than be taken."

  "I am sorry that he did that," Andrew said. "I would have treated with him as I now do you."

  "And how will that be?"

  "For now we will keep you and your comrades here on the beach. I will be posting guards over you. Tell your people it would be foolishness to try to fight again. I don't want to see another Cartha killed, let alone my own people. Tell your men as well that if they want to escape into the hills they are free to try. But there is little food up there.

  "There are some scattered Rus villages, but those people will be armed and would fight if your men attempt to harm them or take their food. I can assure you things will go poorly for anyone who tries."

  Baca nodded in reply.

  "What do you plan then to do with us?"

  "For right now, we will try to feed you and help your wounded. I'm leaving my best surgeon behind. He's already been ordered to help your people and mine together, the most seriously injured to be looked at first regardless of where they come from. If you could detail off any of your people who have experience treating wounded to help him, I'd certainly appreciate it."

  "Sir?"

  "What is it, John?" Andrew asked quietly.

  "Sir, we've lost most of our food in the fight. I left some stockpiled back at our last anchorage, enough for six days, but the rest was aboard the ships. We've barely got enough to see us through the next ten days."

  "Then we'll all go a little bit hungry," Andrew replied with an even smile, "but I'll be damned if I'm going to starve helpless prisoners."

  "Are you toying with us? Is this some trick?" Baca asked coldly.

  "You can believe that if you want," Andrew replied, letting a slight tone of being hurt creep into his voice, "but the proof will be that in spite of what my master of provisions says, I'm not going to let your people starve out here. Now translate that."

  Baca spoke hurriedly to his comrades. Andrew quietly looked over at a Rus sailor who had stood to one side of the group as if casually watching the actions of his commanders. The sailor nodded almost imperceptibly.

  Baca was not altering what had been said.

  The other three looked over at Andrew with obvious surprise, and one of them spoke sharply to Baca.

  "What will you do with us later?"

  "As long as this war is on, I regret to tell you that you will be prisoners. You will be treated honorably. I will allow those of you who are noble to keep your swords or whatever badges of office you hold. If the war should continue for a long time, we will move you inland. I will ask that your men help us with the harvest—I think that is only fair, since we are feeding you. We'll find some villages for you to settle in. As long as you obey our laws, no one will be locked up.

  "Once the war is over, all of you will be free to go wherever you want. You may return to your homes, or if you want you may stay here."

  He paused for a moment as if to add emphasis.

  "Or, if you wish, you may even return home, get your families and friends, and come back here, where we will give you land and you will be safe from the slaughter pits of the Merki."

  "Are you speaking the truth?" Baca asked in open surprise.

  "There is no way to prove it to you now—that will only happen over time—but I swear to you, upon my honor, that what I have just said will be honored, may your gods and mine strike me down if I ever break that word. Now tell your friends what I have said."

  Baca spoke hurriedly, and Andrew looked back over at Marcus, who had been listening to Vincent's translation of the conversation.

  "After what they did to my city," Marcus growled, "I still think the lot of them should be sent back to Roum to repair the damage and then kept in slavery forever."

  "I thought you banned slavery," Andrew said in Latin.

  Marcus grumbled, shaking his head.

  "Then prisoners of war."

  "Marcus, we've got a chance here. These Carthas are innocent of what has happened," and as he spoke he looked over sharply at Vincent. "They were trapped into this fight by the Merki and Cromwell, who gave them the weapons. Maybe they would have done the same thing even if they were on their own, maybe not. But where I come from, when the battle's finished you treat your opponent with some form of Christian charity. Ask any of the men from the 35th and they'll tell you."

  Andrew looked back at Vincent, who lowered his eyes in obvious shame.

  Whatever had happened inside that boy, he had to somehow pull him back from it. But he knew the hard part would be the sense of inner loathing for having abandoned the standards that he had been raised with, and that had formed him into a man who dwelled on such moral questions, which all too many never even
bothered with.

  "We have but one question," Baca said, interrupting Andrew's thoughts.

  Andrew looked back at the barrel-chested Cartha, whose black beard set in thick curls swept down nearly to his waist.

  "You are wondering why?" Andrew replied.

  "If the battle had turned the other way, we would have taken you into slavery."

  "To bring us back to the Merki, whom you are forced to serve."

  Baca lowered his head and said nothing.

  "We are not your enemies," Andrew said heatedly. "We fought and you were defeated, and as far as I am concerned that is the end of it. But take a look back out over that ocean," and he pointed out to sea.

  "Who got killed out there today? Human beings slaughtering each other. You also smashed much of the wealth and machines we have labored so hard to build.

  "It is the hordes that are the real enemy, not you, and not I or Marcus and his Roum.

  "Do you know that we smashed the Tugars, set our people free from them, and ended the slaughter pits?"

  Baca nodded. "But that was different. You surprised your Tugars. From that the Merki knew what to do. We thought of doing the same ourselves, but before we could even begin to act, half an umen of the horde was in our city. Then that Cromwell came and the machines began to be built. The Merki promised us exemption from the pits in exchange for a victory against you."

  Baca paused for a moment.

  "That is why I still pray to Baalk for Cromwell to win," and his voice was defiant. "For if we lose, the Merki will turn their fury against our people."

  "And better that the Rus and Roum feed the pits than Carthas," Andrew said coldly.

  "If it were we who had defeated the Tugars and you were trapped thus, would you not consider the same?"

  Andrew was ready to make a quick reply, but inside he knew he was not sure. What if they held Kathleen, and all those he knew—could he honestly say that he would personally refuse to help see others slaughtered rather than himself?

  "I honestly can't tell you what I would do," Andrew replied quietly.

  A sad smile crossed Baca's features.

  "Perhaps now you understand why we fought."