Fateful Lightning

by William R. Forstchen

  The Merki stood with arms raised, as if using a telescope as well, and then lowered it. Andrew felt a chill, as if a presence were trying to probe into his very thoughts. He remembered Yuri telling him that shield-bearers were capable of such things.

  Where was the shield-bearer? He looked at the others. There was no bronze symbol of office, yet there was the skull-and-horsetail standard of the Qar Qarth.

  Curious. Was that Vuka, or was this a trick, was the Qar Qarth elsewhere, maybe north at the forest? They had done the same thing on the Potomac, and it made him uneasy.

  He watched closely. Those around the leader were obviously talking, pointing, a command council, a lowering of a head, one kneeling down for a moment, the other putting a hand on his shoulder, the kneeler standing back up.

  Yet no shield-bearer, the one called Tamuka. Or was he on the other side of the ridge? The last of the riders mounted, turned, and disappeared over the other side of the slope. The one stood alone for a moment, then mounted. Andrew felt as if the Merki were somehow trying to look straight at him, to pierce into his soul. Foolish, but he sensed it nevertheless, and defiantly he stared straight back.

  “I’m waiting for you, you fucking son of a bitch,” Andrew whispered. Emil looked over at Andrew in surprise, having never heard Andrew use the foulest of soldier curses.

  The rider raised his arm, scimitar flashing out, and he pointed the blade straight at Andrew, then turned and rode off, a circle of sentry riders following after him.

  “What was that all about?” Emil whispered.

  “I’m not sure,” Andrew said, suddenly aware that his heart was racing.

  Emil pulled out his pocket watch and looked at it, stopping first to move it back an hour and a half to readjust it from old earth time to the time on this world. “I’ve got a meeting with my staff. I’ve got to go-”

  “Everything ready?”

  “Never be ready for what’s coming,” Emil said. “I want supplies for thirty thousand casualties, the doctors and nurses ready for them, and hospital trains to take the serious cases back to Roum. Hell, nearly three thousand of the boys in this army are on sick call as is, two hundred of them with typhoid, and there’s typhoid in the city as well. And you ask me if I’m ready.”

  Andrew held up his hand and smiled.

  “You know what I mean,” he said, “and damn it all, I keep telling you if we take thirty thousand casualties they’ll break through and it’ll be over anyhow.”

  “Well, damn me, that’s what I’m planning for. We had damn near that many at Gettysburg and we still won.”

  ‘And Lee lost around the same and lost,” Pat said. “Remember I was there too.”

  “You didn’t see the fighting the way we did,” Emil replied.

  “Didn’t see the fighting? I was on Seminary Ridge and then Cemetery Hill the whole three days, fired over a thousand rounds, and you tell me we didn’t see fighting?”

  “We both saw enough at Gettysburg,” Andrew said, holding up his hand for silence.

  “I’m still planning for thirty thousand,” Emil said and started out of the bastion.

  “Tell Kathleen I’ll be home around dark.”

  “She’s on night shift in the hospital,” Emil replied.

  “Oh,” and he struggled to control the disappointment in his voice.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll order her home.”

  Andrew looked around in embarrassment at the round of suppressed chuckles.

  “Rank does have its privilege,” Pat announced with a laugh, and he followed Emil out, eager to continue the well-worn argument of whether the 35th or 44th New York had been in the worst of it at Gettysburg, Antietam, Fredericksburg, or at whatever place they decided to argue about.

  Made aware of the time by Emil, Andrew looked back at the group.

  “Would you gentlemen excuse me,” he said, and he followed the two out, moving off to one side to avoid being pulled in by Emil to back up a point.

  Walking along the track that ran past the bastion, he paused to look back. The bridge was burning fiercely, oily smoke drifting straight up into the silent uncaring sky. He turned back and continued on, walking along the railroad ties. It triggered a flash memory of when he was still a boy. The first train into Maine had come through his town, the Irish work crews laying track, the old-fashioned Norris locomotive following behind the workers. He had scrambled up onto the track and then tried to walk from tie to tie, finding that they were set in such a way that his steps either had to be too long or too short. He had asked a rail layer why they were set that way and received what he guessed now must be the stock reply, that it was to keep damn fools like himself from walking on the track.

  He smiled at the memory, noticing that as before the ties were set in such a way that it was impossible to walk upon them and keep a normal stride. He finally left the railbed and stepped onto the platform of the old train station, which was now serving as headquarters. Atop the building flew the flags of the two republics. Slightly lower was the flag of the Army of the Republics, and alongside it the faded and stained flags of the 35th Maine, one the blue state flag of Maine, the other the Stars and Stripes, upon its shot-tom folds emblazoned in gold letters the name of every action the regiment had fought in. He stopped for a moment to look at them as they stirred with the passing of a light breeze, drifting in hot from the steppe. More than twenty actions in eight years. It was 1869 back home. He smiled, imagining all his old comrades back to civilian life by now, the war undoubtably won. By now they’d most likely have a statue up to the 35th someplace, grieving widows, parents, and orphans setting flowers before it on the Fourth of July.

  He did a quick calculation. Midsummer night here on Valdennia had passed several days back; it was getting near to the equivalent of July on this world. July in Maine, best time of the year, he thought with a sigh, but then except for mud season nearly every month could be called a best month back home. School would be out, a few students staying on; he’d have the summer off to write, to go up to his summer cottage near Waterville to fish and boat. The Fourth of July. He could imagine Lincoln back home by now in Illinois, practicing law again, the nation at peace. He looked back to the west, where a thin line of Merki pickets occupied the hills back beyond the river, sitting astride their mounts, watching, waiting.

  He sighed, knowing that he was stalling, and stepping up on to the platform, he acknowledged the salute of the sentry, dressed in the Union Army blue of the 35th. He scanned the boy’s face for a second. Not one of the old ones from home, which would have been an excuse to talk for another minute.

  “Where you from, son?” The boy looked at him quizzically. He asked the same question again in stumbling Latin.

  “Ah, Capri.”

  Andrew nodded, smiled, not wanting to get into the complexities of trying to speak in Latin, and went into the headquarters, the boy beaming nervously, delighted that the legendary Keane had spoken to him.

  He walked over to his office, which had once belonged to the stationmaster, and looked to the back door.

  “You can show them in,” he snapped. He went into his office, and with a dramatic flourish slammed the door shut behind him.

  He went behind his desk, piled high with the usual paperwork, and he silently cursed his adjutant, who should have taken care of it. There was a knock on the door.

  “Enter.”

  The door swung open, and John Mina stepped in, features drawn, pale, eyes hollow. Behind him Chuck entered the room, looking nervous, eyes lowered.

  “I’ve talked to each of you alone,” Andrew began, his voice cold. “I’ve also talked to the two other officers present, and several other witnesses.”

  John looked through Andrew as if he were somehow not there, his gaze fixed on the far wall.

  “There will be no court-martial of Captain Ferguson.”

  John’s gaze came back to focus, and he started to open his mouth.

  “No comment from either of you, dammit.”
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br />   They were silent.

  “I should bust you from lieutenant colonel all the way back to private, Mr. Ferguson.”

  Andrew stood up and approached Chuck, coming up to within inches of his face.

  “You’re a loose cannon. Just because you’re so goddam smart, you think you can run your own show whenever you disagree. Just how the hell am I to run an army with the likes of you?”

  Chuck was silent.

  “Answer me!”

  “I knew I was right,” Chuck whispered, shooting an angry glance over at John.

  “And you were, and I emphasize were, a lieutenant colonel, and General Mina is still General Mina and your superior officer. Do I make myself clear?”

  Chuck swallowed hard, saying nothing.

  “Get out of my office and wait for me.”

  Chuck, hand shaking, saluted, and walked out.

  Andrew went back and sat against the side of his desk.

  “He should be in the guardhouse,” said John Mina. “It’s somewhere around forty tons of powder gone so far, five hundred workers wasted for a month, and that other monstrosity he’s building, it’s eating up brass like mad. God damn him, he should—”

  “Calm down, John.”

  Andrew motioned for him to sit down. John hesitated and then stiffly walked over to the chair and slumped into it.

  “Chuck and your two aides said you tried to pull a revolver on him, that you threatened, and I quote, ‘to blow out his goddam brains and shoot his whore too.’ ”

  John nodded and lowered his head.

  “Strong language,” Andrew said quietly.

  “I blew my top. All these months I’ve been trying to keep things running, to sort out this insanity,” and he vaguely waved his hand toward the window and the rail yard outside.

  “I knew I was using you up, John,” Andrew said soothingly. “I think you’re a miracle worker, the best logistical chief I could ever have wanted. None of this would have been possible without your mind for organization. Without you, any hope I’d have for victory would be as worthless as a pile of horseshit.”

  “We could still use an extra five or six million rounds of ammunition, forty thousands rifles, an extra hundred field pieces.”

  “Shut up,” Andrew said quietly.

  John looked up at him.

  “We just happen to have over eighty thousand smoothbore and rifled muskets, well over three hundred and fifty field pieces, ten ironclads, and eighteen million rounds of small-arms ammunition. I’m looking at what you created for us, not what you think we should have had. John, that’s what’s driving you insane—you think about what we should have had on your checklist. I’m telling you, I look at you and see all that we do have, and by God I thank heaven that you joined the old 35th. Otherwise I think we’d all be dead by now.”

  John lowered his head. His shoulders started to shake, and tears dropped to the wooden floor.

  “I’m used up, I can’t take it anymore, I just can’t take it.”

  Andrew sat in silence, the only sound in the room the ticking of the clock and John’s quiet sobbing. He felt a terrible wave of guilt. John was right, he had been used up, the same way Andrew had used up so many others, to buy a minute of time, to plug a hole in the line, to build an army from scratch. In a perverse sort of way, he almost envied John. The man had finally let go. He came so dangerously close, the morning Hans died, Andrew thought, defeat staring him in the face, the end of my rope, Kal pulling me back from the edge of final despair, Kathleen keeping me anchored if only for another day, a week. And then it would be finally over. But in a way John’s job was finally done and he could let go of it all.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so ashamed. If I could find my gun,” John whispered, looking back up at Andrew, tears still streaming down his face. “I can’t find my gun, you know. I want to end it, but I can’t find my gun. I wish I was dead.”

  Andrew stepped up to John and squatted down in front of him.

  “Don’t. Never be ashamed. Never. You’ve done more than any man should be expected to do.”

  “And you?” John whispered.

  Andrew tried to smile.

  “I’m on the edge the same as you,” he said softly.

  John lowered his head, shaking.

  Andrew got back up and slipped to the back door of his office, stepped out for a moment, and then came back in to sit on the edge of his desk. John continued to cry softly.

  The door behind him finally opened, and Emil came in, breathless. He looked at John and then back at Andrew.

  “John’s not feeling well,” Andrew said softly, and the man looked up at Andrew and then at Emil.

  “Typhoid’s been going around. You might have a touch of it, from the looks of you,” Emil said, and John smiled weakly at the face-saving lie.

  “John, please listen to me,” Andrew said, and the broken man looked back up at him.

  “There’s all kinds of heroism in war, not just the type like Malady’s or Jack Petracci’s.” He almost went on to mention Vincent but didn’t. “I put you in the same book with those men.”

  John nodded.

  “I’m putting you in the hospital.”

  “Not to Roum,” John whispered. “I need to stay here. Don’t send me to the rear.”

  Andrew shook his head and smiled.

  “I wouldn’t think of it. I still need you, I want you close by. But I’m ordering you into the hospital for a week or so. I’ll look after your work. The toughest part is over with anyhow.”

  “That shortage of leather for cartridge boxes I was going to—”

  Andrew put up his hand and made a gentle hushing noise.

  “I’ll see to it. You go get some rest. If I have any questions I’ll drop in to see you. All right?”

  John nodded and stood back up.

  He tried to salute and started to shake again, eyes red with tears. Andrew stood up and clumsily embraced him, patting him on the back, then stood back, looking over at Emil.

  To Andrew’s surprise, John suddenly stood up straight, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his face.

  “Let’s go,” he whispered, and walked out the back door.

  Emil looked back at Andrew.

  “I’ll dose him with laudanum. It’ll keep him quiet.”

  “Can you do anything?”

  “You mean give him back to you ready to work? Like hell.”

  “I don’t mean that,” Andrew said wearily. “I just want him well.”

  “For now I just want him quiet, want to keep an eye on him so he won’t hurt himself. When there’s time…” He hesitated. “Later, I’ll start talking to him, see what comes out.”

  Andrew nodded sadly.

  “Take care of yourself, Andrew, or I’ll be seeing you like this as well,” Emil said and left the room. Andrew stepped over to the window and watched the two walk slowly back toward the hospital area, Emil putting his hand on John’s shoulder as if to steady him, John walking stiffly, far too erect, as if struggling for a final moment of control until he was safely inside the hospital.

  Andrew returned to his desk and pulled open a drawer. Picking up his old battered tin cup, he poured out a stiff dose of vodka and downed it, his eyes watering. He leaned back in his chair for a moment, looking at the clock. The room was deathly quiet, except for the ticking. The late-afternoon sun slanted in through the open window, which would be sandbagged over once the shooting started. Dust motes hung in the air, glowing red from the sunlight, drifting and swirling, and he watched them float.

  Why the hell had Emil had to say that? He had seen his worst fear played out before him, a final losing of all control, knowing Emil had not lied in telling him that he wasn’t far behind.

  There was no time for guilt, not now.

  He sighed and put the bottle and cup away.

  “Mr. Ferguson.”

  The door out into the waiting room swung open, and Chuck peeked in. “You call me, sir?”

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p; Andrew nodded. “Come in, close the door, and have a seat.”

  Chuck slipped into the room and sat down.

  “Is John all right?”

  Andrew didn’t reply.

  “I’m sorry, sir. It was kind of hard not to hear.”

  “He’s just tired, son. We’re all tired.”

  “I’m sorry,” Chuck sighed. “I mean, I know I went off half-cocked on the rockets and such. John kept saying no and telling you the same. I never wanted it to end like this.”

  “It’s not your fault. It was everything, everything else. A lesser man would have broken months ago. Don’t blame yourself.”

  “I can’t help it. Now I feel like it’s my fault.”

  “I know how you feel.”

  Chuck fell silent.

  “What’s going to happen now?” he finally asked nervously.

  “You’ve got me over a barrel, Mr. Ferguson. That damned mind of yours gave us railroads, aerosteamers, trained mechanics to make all our tools, and God knows what else. John was right, you know—you should be court-martialed, thrown in the guardhouse, and forgotten about.”

  He paused.

  “But damn you, I still need that mind of yours.”

  Chuck struggled to keep from smiling.

  “But so help me God,” Andrew snapped, his voice rising, “if you ever go outside channels again, I’ll personally see you hung from the nearest telegraph pole.”

  “Would you really, sir?” Chuck blurted out in astonishment.

  Andrew leaned back, a bit ashamed of his own theatrics.

  “No, I guess not. But I’ll find some way to keep you in line. I’ll post you to one side of wherever we are and have that daughter of Julius’s sent to the far side of the Roum Republic.”

  Chuck’s features became serious.

  “I swear it won’t happen again, sir.”

  “Right, then, we understand each other. Now go back to work.”

  Chuck breathed a noisy sigh of relief and stood back up.

  “Use whatever supplies you’ve got left, but no more. Even after the fighting starts, first priority for powder goes to small arms and artillery rounds, especially canister. That other mad project of yours stops the moment the brass runs out. Understood? And from now on, any projects you might cook up come to me first.”