Casca 52- the Rough Rider

by Tony Roberts

  Ritchie smiled thinly. “One way of putting it.” He nodded at the balding, bespectacled man stood to one side. “Adkins here is a clerk to the court and he will record all that is said here for the benefit of the court martial. There will be three officers present to determine whether you are guilty of the charges and what punishment you will receive.”

  “When will the hearing take place sir?”

  “Three or four weeks. They are busy and there needs to be time to prepare the case and examine the evidence.”

  Casey grunted. “I see. Well, there ain’t much to be said in my defense. I took the group to Sevilla and was informed there of an attack upon a young woman by one of her neighbors, and decided to take action.”

  “By deserting your post and getting mixed up in a situation that was none of your business, and involving the American military in a private matter? Long, this is not a free-for-all for you to take whatever action you feel is right. This was a civilian matter.” Ritchie sighed and shook his head. “The only point in your favor is that you returned, but with your uniform in a bloody mess. It looks as if you carried out your act of vengeance.”

  “No comment, sir.”

  “I see. Well, we are having to carry out an enquiry in Sevilla to gather the evidence and discover if you actually killed anyone there. If you did, then things will look worse. Killing a civilian carries a heavier penalty.”

  “Heavier penalty. You mean, firing squad.”

  “I’m hoping that there will be no further evidence against you.”

  With that Casey was returned to the pen. There were some real bad examples of humanity there, mostly a small group of bad types who had joined the army to escape civil justice, thinking they could wipe the slate clean and start afresh. Trouble was, they found it too hard to resist reverting to type and had carried out acts of indiscipline, robbing from the civilians and beating up a couple to steal from them. One had even raped a young woman.

  These types kept to themselves but intimidated the rest in order to get the best sleeping places and food, and even threatened the others with actual harm unless they did what they were told, and gave them what they wanted.

  One tried to terrorize Casey the following day, seeing a ‘new boy’ and thinking he was easy prey. “Hey, you, ugly, I want that bowl of stew you got. Hand it over.”

  “Fuck off,” Casey said, spooning some more of his broth.

  The man leaned over him, his lower jaw jutting out, his small eyes boring into Casey’s face. “I said hand it over, bud, now!”

  Casey swallowed the spoonful, put the bowl down on his bedside table and stood up. He looked at the rest of the assembled inmates, all of whom were looking in their direction. Many were wondering if the new man, Scar-face, would follow what had happened to them all, or stand up to the bully. The bully’s comrades were grinning, gathered at the far end of the shed. They were sure their buddy would teach the scarred newcomer a lesson.

  Casey was only interested in the man before him. “So you gonna try to take it from me, pal?”

  The man sneered and looked at his cohorts. “This guy’s gonna be sorry,” he said and swung suddenly, hoping to catch the scarred man by surprise. To his shock and alarm, his arm was caught in a firm grip; a grip he had never before experienced. Worse, his punch was harder and faster and before the man knew it, he was on his ass on the floor, nursing an aching jaw.

  The other rough-types slowly got up, furious looks on their faces. They weren’t going to stand for one of their group being whipped in front of everyone. Else their own credibility would be called into question and who knew where that would end?

  The man who’d been dumped on the floorboards growled and scrambled to his feet, only to be met by a blinding flurry of punches that had him doubled up with his guts trying to empty, and a piledriver that sent him over Casey’s bed to lie out cold on the floor on the other side.

  “Okay you, time to be taught a lesson,” the leader of the group promised, picking up a length of wood he’d gathered from somewhere and used it to enforce his rule.

  Four of them came for Casey but the eternal mercenary knew what he had to do. Centuries of fighting, fair and dirty, with fists, legs, knees, heads and every other part of the body, had taught him how to deal with this situation.

  Shiu Lao Tze, the Chinese sage he’d met and spent time with all that time ago in the days of old Rome, had taught him some moves of unarmed combat, so Casey was pretty sure he could cope. The rest were keeping well back, watching with fascination as the tableau unfolded before them.

  The leader was at the rear, keeping a wary eye on matters, for the way his buddy had been dealt with was something he’d not seen before. If the three others couldn’t deal with him, then there was always the wood batten and he’d hurt people before with it.

  Casey stayed off the bed; it had no firm foundation and moved too much for him to gain any proper purchase for using his legs. One tried to clamber over at him and Casey grabbed him by the right wrist and throat and hurled him over his head to crash loudly somewhere behind him. He wasn’t looking for the second man was on him, fists flailing. A duck under the right, a quick thrust up with his own right under the jaw and the man was gasping in pain, staggering back.

  The third pulled this one aside and came at Casey, swearing loudly. A block with the left arm, a punch to his neck that stunned the man, and Casey then picked him up, spun him around so he was facing head-down, and send him hard onto the planks which shook with the effort.

  With his men all out of the fight, the leader came at him with the batten scything through the air. Casey wasn’t going to stand there and risk being brained, so he dodged aside, colliding with the next bed which had been evacuated, then using the bed to come at the man from his left. The batten was low and Casey’s right hand took hold of the wrist holding the piece of wood and immobilized it. Casey’s left hand closed around the man’s throat and lifted him off his feet. “Now shithead,” the scarred warrior hissed into the man’s face, “time I taught you a lesson.”

  A drop onto his knee and the bully lost interest in anything other than his crushed balls. Casey hit him hard, twice, in the face and the man crashed out on the floor, his face a mask of blood. He stood over the downed and bleeding man, and wiped his hands together. Then the door burst open and in came armed army police. Belatedly, Casey thought.

  He never got to finish his broth after all, but ended up manacled in front of a provost captain with a high degree of self-importance and the following of rules to the letter. “So, Long, not content in being guilty of breaking discipline, you now get involved in a fracas in the holding barracks?”

  “Case of defending myself, Captain.”

  “Don’t answer back.”

  “You asked me a question, Captain, I thought it good manners...”

  “Silence! Damned impertinent. That’s going to be extra punishment for you, mark my words.”

  “In addition to the firing squad, Captain? My, I’m worried.”

  The captain’s face tightened. “Alright, smart-ass. Solitary for you. Take him away!”

  So Casey ended up in a small wooden cage with enough space for him to sit with his back against one side, his feet resting against the opposite one and his shoulders brushing the two sides. Two men stood nearby on guard, just in case the prisoner broke open the stoutly built cage and made a break for freedom. Somewhere.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The news that came to him over the next couple of days, passed in either overhearing conversation from guards or one of them actually telling him, was that the Spanish navy in Santiago had tried to make a run for it and had been sunk or forced to run aground. That was the final straw for the Spanish commander who agreed to give up the city on condition that the word ‘surrender’ was not used. So they came up with ‘capitulation’ instead.

  Casey smiled cynically. Just to save face. Shit. Either way, no matter how one described it, the Spanish had given up and now the Americans w
ere in command of the south and east of Cuba and the position of the Havana-based governor and his loyal troops was impossible. They would soon also – capitulate – Casey thought the word over slowly.

  He was allowed out to exercise twice a day, but with his hands manacled behind his back and at gunpoint. Nobody was taking any chances.

  The big surprise to him was when he was summoned to the Court Martial. Three men sat behind the desk, looking sternly at him, while he stood silently with his hands manacled behind him, two guards with him at all times. He was charged with desertion and the killing of two members of the Cuban irregulars. But he was then taken by surprise when the man chairing the hearing, a Major, picked up a sheet of paper.

  “Now,” he cleared his throat carefully, “as to the charges of killing, I have here two separate testimonies from the villagers of Sevilla, from the families of women who have, allegedly, been violated by certain members of their own community, who appear to have been the two whom you, ah, shot.”

  Casey looked at the major in amazement. It seemed Maria and Conchita had made their feelings known and their families backed them. Good on them.

  “Therefore, Long, the charges of killing will be waived in the spirit of the new co-operation between the occupying forces of the United States of America and the people of Cuba.” He put down the papers, and leaned forward, his expression still severe. “But this still leaves the question of your desertion from your duties, even if it does mean you carried out an act of justifiable homicide.” He looked at his two associates. “It is the decision of this court to therefore sentence you to three years of hard labor at a place yet to be determined, and at the end of which you will be summarily dismissed from the service.”

  Three years! Casey grimaced. Damn that. He was relieved not to have been sentenced to death, but a damned three years of breaking stones in some god-awful place that no sane person would even consider going to? No way. He would escape. Somehow.

  There was little chance of escaping on the journey back to Florida, for he was tied and under guard and then chained to the metal wall of the hold along with the other detainees and the sick. It wasn’t the most pleasant of journeys and he scowled at anyone who got too near him. He was left alone for the voyage which he was glad for.

  Tampa had a railroad station and he was pushed onto one of the cattle cars of a particularly long train of raw materials and some convicts heading west. Through the slats he could see out, on either side, and it made him yearn to be out there. Again, he was chained to the side, but this time it was of wood rather than metal, and was therefore weaker. He had hope in his heart that his strength might prevail.

  In the car with him were two others, two men heading, like him, for a future of hard labor. Somewhere in Nevada, or so he’d heard. A wilderness, with desert and a declining population and mining towns withering away. Their railroad route would go through a torturous path until it ended up near Reno.

  The two others were uncommunicative and hated one another and were tethered on opposite sides of the car, spending most of their time glaring at one another. Casey tired of the atmosphere soon enough. He began to tug at the bolt that secured him to the plank slat down the center of the car’s side. He’d been secured there in a hurry because of the other two. They were career criminals, apparently, so the guard had joked, and were as much a danger to anyone else. Therefore Casey had been fixed to the furthest point from either, hence the insecure-looking bolt to the plank.

  He tugged on the chain, straining at it, putting his feet on the slat either side of the bolt, lying on his back, and hauling with all his might. The two others sneered and laughed at his efforts. “Hell, you want to break free? You ain’t gonna get far even if you do,” one declared. “I’ll just holler and get the guards to chase you and shoot you.”

  “What the hell for? We’re in the same fix,” Casey replied, sweating under the strain of pulling the chain. He felt it was getting looser, and it was encouraging him.

  “Shit, I just want to see you shot,” the man chuckled. “I ain’t gonna ever get away from my sentence, so the more I can see shot, the better. And that means you, shithead. I hate your guts.”

  “What the hell for?” Casey sat up, puzzled. “What have I ever done to you?”

  “Don’t need a reason to hate someone,” the criminal grinned. “I just do and you’re a smartass so I hate you for that. You got a dumbass scar on your face so I hate that, too.”

  “And you?” Casey turned to speak to the other, a man with a dark complexion and a sullen look to his face. “What’s your thinking?”

  “I hate him,” the other nodded at the first. “He raped my sister. I’ll cut his dick and balls off.”

  “Fucking try, boy-lover,” the first snapped. “She deserved it, looking at me like that.”

  “She couldn’t believe what an ugly shit you was,” the dark man growled. “What dog shot you out at birth?”

  “I’ll cut your throat, ass-fucker!”

  “Oh, shut up, the pair of you,” Casey shouted, fed up with the two. He resumed pulling at the chain, straining, shaking with the effort. He was immensely strong, his muscles and sinews transmitting the force and effort through his arms to the chain and the single bolt that had been screwed into the plank was having to cope with his entire strength.

  “I’ll kill you, too!” the dark-complexioned man promised Casey. “As soon as I can get free!”

  Casey ignored the two as much as he could; they were both crazy as far as he could see, trapped in their mindless world of hate and not caring for any of their fellow men. Best the world was free of such scum. It enraged him that he was put here with them. It helped his efforts to break free, and with a splintering crack the batten that the bolt was fixed to split and he fell onto his back across the car’s floor, finally free of the fixing.

  He got up, flexing his arms, and slowly drew the chain in. He was still manacled to that, but he’d find a way to break the iron. One way or another. The chain was maybe three feet long. Not long but long enough. He stood over the most vociferous of the two, glaring down at him. “Kill me would you? Tell the guards I escaped, would you?”

  “Yeah, what of it?”

  Casey laughed and lunged, wrapping his chain around the man’s neck and pulling hard. It took a couple of minutes but he finally did it and he walked away from the corpse over to the other. “Now for you.”

  The other man swore and cursed and flailed his legs in desperation but Casey wasn’t going to allow himself to be caught easily like that, and before long there were two dead prisoners in the small wagon.

  Now to get out. He peered out through the slats. Open countryside flowed past, flat plains, scrubland, rocks. Nobody and nothing in sight. He eyed the door. That was the weak point, opposite where he had been fixed. He kicked hard at the frame, just where the padlocked clasp was. Another hard kick. The wood wouldn’t take this kind of punishment for long. This was the reason they’d been chained up, to stay away from the door. Another hard kick and the wood split, going down the length of the grain. Yep.

  One more and the door broke open, so Casey had to quickly pull it closed in case someone noticed and got the train to stop. Now he stood next to the door, holding it partly open, peering ahead. Best place to jump would be on a bend that curved away from this side of the train.

  The puffing of the locomotive continued, and he was reassured that the train wasn’t slowing or stopping. Of course, jumping off would bring with it its own danger, and injury would be certain, but he wanted to be free. So he watched and waited.

  Finally a slight bend came, and with it a rocky gorge that the train would pass over. Below was a river, a small one, so he reckoned his fall would be ended relatively softly, but appearances may be deceptive, for they probably were rocks down there. It wasn’t too far but far enough to give him bad cuts, broken bones and probably unconsciousness.

  Nothing else for it. He braced himself, bent his legs, wiped his mind of the sniveling
protests that it didn’t want to get hurt, and launched himself off the train. He hit the side of the embankment just before it dropped down to the gorge, and he passed through thin air and landed on an outcrop with an agonizing impact.

  Another bounce and he knew this one, from the amount of time he was airborne, was going to be bad. Impact.

  Blackness.

  ____

  The pain of coming around was always unpleasant. He guessed a mortal would have been killed by the fall, but he, no, he would continue. His body was on fire, almost a numbing agony. It was darker than he recalled, and a quick peer up at the sky confirmed it was almost night. He must have been out for a few hours. No sound of a train, no shouts of anyone. Nope, he had gotten away.

  Still chained and manacled, though. He kneeled up. He was on the riverbank, and had landed on a rock spur and slipped off to lie in a heap on the bank. There were traces of blood and scrapes on the rock to indicate that all too clearly. He remained kneeling, fighting the waves of nausea that washed over him, trying not to throw up.

  So, what was damaged? He slowly looked over his bruised and battered body. Arm. Definitely. His right arm had absorbed a lot of the impact. That would take time to heal properly, and for the moment was useless. Broken bones and ripped flesh. It was re-knitting and healing fast, he could see, but still it was a messy sight. The clothing was ripped to hell. One good thing, the right manacle around his wrist was bent and maybe he could wriggle his wrist free once his arm was stronger.

  Shoulder. That was hurting bad, too. Ribs, hip. Seems he landed on his right side. Legs were alright. He’d gone down shoulder first, by all accounts. Hell, it hurt!

  He got to his feet and looked along the river. He might as well forge upriver, and maybe come to some shack or hut or even settlement. Although a settlement might not be the best yet, given someone would question why he was in rags and wearing manacles. Escaped convict would then pop into their head and that would be it.

  He staggered off into the gathering dark and walked for a little distance before stopping, due to the pain and the dark. This time when he lay down he made sure he was on his left side and he passed out once more.