Overall the mood was good in the camp. Although most of the soldiers had never seen Bertha and her sisters in action, those who had, had an infectious sense of optimism.
We were about 3 days out from Sparta when our forward scouts found a small band of Spartan troops camped not far from the road ahead. The Spartan troop numbered less than a hundred, but there was no way we could pass them without them seeing (or certainly hearing – we made a LOT of noise) us.
I asked Pericles what he thought we should do.
“What should we do? We go forward. They either run or they fight.”
“But, if they fight, someone will get hurt. Some of our people too!”
Melite pulled me aside.
“Look, Robert, you’ve got an army. You’re marching to conquer a city. You’ve got to accept that people might, are going to, get hurt. If you can’t, let’s just turn around and go back.”
She softened. “We don’t have to do this you know. Not if you don’t want to. It’s not your responsibility. Not really. You don’t have to try and fix the whole world.”
“But I do! That’s the thing. I do have to fix the whole world.”
“If you want, we can just run away. You and me and Rose. We have plenty of money. We can live the life of rich widows, but you know, without the part where you die.”
“No, no we can’t. I have no choice. I have to fix the whole world.”
“Why?”
“Because I can. Because I can.”
“So, we go on to Sparta?”
“We go on to Sparta.”
We walked back to the others. “OK, let’s get moving! Pericles prepare the soldiers for combat. I want to put some folks with rockets and small explosives in front and on the flanks, if we can scare them off, that’s what I prefer.”
“And if we can’t?” Asked Pericles.
“We go through them.”
Pericles started shouting orders, setting soldiers in formation and making battle plans with his officers.
Soon we were under march again. The fighting portion of our army separating from, and marching out front of, the supply wagons.
It wasn’t long before the Spartan band came into view. A well-ordered group of soldiers standing in neat rows across the road in front of a small hill. Shields and spears glittering in the late afternoon sun.
Our soldiers pulled up about 50 yards away in their own neat (but not quite as neat) rows. The Spartans were badly outnumbered, but showed no signs of fear. I wasn’t even going to be in the fight, and I was terrified.
Still, there was no question that we would win. I just hoped to keep the body count (especially on our side) low.
At a signal from Pericles, our soldiers let off a barrage of rockets and firecrackers. The Spartans flinched, but didn’t break. And then they were advancing.
This is insanity! Why would they just march to their death like that?
Our soldiers held their line, awaiting the crash of the Spartan troops. And then the two lines met and fighting broke out, real warfare, fighting with spears and swords and shields. I saw one of our men fall to a Spartan spear thrust. But more Spartans were down. Then suddenly, almost as fast as it had started, they were retreating. They pulled back to their original position. Between our reformed lines, there were at least 10 dead men.
What now? Were they going to flee? Would they advance again? It was going to be a slaughter. Of the 10 dead, only one wore a Distillery uniform.
Suddenly, a lone horse appeared from around the hill behind the Spartans. He stopped, as if surprised, when he saw us and turned and disappeared behind the hill again. Tros laughed nervously.
Then the Spartans were advancing again! What?! Were they all crazy?!
I saw the horse appear once more from behind the hill, then another and another and suddenly there were dozens and then hundreds! Followed by foot troops!
It was a trick! An ambush! Tros grabbed Melite and me and pulled us back. I watched in horror as the Spartan army attacked our troops. I saw soldiers falling, dying. And more Spartans kept coming from behind the hill.
I needed to do something! Now!
I turned to run, but Tros held me tight. “Let me go!”
He looked at me for a moment the dropped his hand, a look of disgust on his face. “Take Melite to safety!” I shouted.
And I turned and ran.
The supply wagons blocked the road and I had to run through the brush.
I found Dikaiopolis and his supply wagon. Stuck behind other wagons. I climbed up onto the cart and ordered him to take the wagon through the brush to the battle.
The roads were terrible, but off road was even worse. Since the wagon was loaded with explosives, I expected each bump to be our last. Thankfully we’d packed everything well.
Finally the fighting came into sight. I grabbed a crow bar (my invention! Well, you understand.) and started opening the crates.
“If you’re looking for something particular, you know, they’re labeled.”
“Oh, right. Find the ones labeled HG!”
It seemed like it took forever, but we found it. I opened the first crate. “Get me a lit rope!”
He lit one from a fire pot he carried. I lit the small(ish) object in my hand and tossed it at the nearest group of Spartan soldiers.
Everybody flinched at the explosion, but the fighting continued. So, I lit and threw three more, before the Spartans saw what had happened. The area around each grenade was littered with body parts.
I kept lighting and throwing grenades, at any group of isolated Spartans. Dikaiopolis, too.
Between the two of us, we killed or wounded more than 100 soldiers before the Spartans retreated. As they turned to flee, our soldiers gave a huge shout of victory.
Pericles, came to hug me. “Why didn’t you tell me you had those?!”
“I didn’t think we would need them.”
He nodded. He didn’t say what he must have been thinking. What I was thinking. If I had armed our troops with grenades from the start, many of our soldiers would still be alive.
I promptly threw up on his sandals (which is to say his feet). He didn’t say anything.
We counted the dead. 63 Distillery soldiers dead, 145 wounded, of those 81 seriously enough to be unable to fight. We treated all the wounded as best we could. All wounds were cleaned with our antiseptic ointment and bandaged with sterile bandages.
The Spartan dead numbered more than 200. Many had been killed in the last moments of fighting just before the Spartan retreat. We also had captured some 75 Spartans too badly injured to flee. We treated them too.
We camped for the night.
“Are you ok?” Melite found me hidden among the supply wagons drinking from a jar of vodka mixed with fig juice.
“Yeah. Just a little in shock. I killed men today! And worse, I got our people killed! I’m not sure how to make sense of it all.”
She settled in and took my hand and a drink from my jar. “What is it you always tell me Yoghi Bear says?” Her tongue twisting around the unfamiliar (English?) words.
“What?”
“Prediction is hard, especially about the future.”
“Oh! Yogi Berra! Yogi Bear is a cartoon character!”
“What?”
“Nothing. Anyway, what’s the point?”
“The point is, when you are a leader, you try to see the future. And you make plans as best you can. But predictions are hard, especially about the future. You can’t get it right every time. Who could have known that the entire Spartan army was behind that hill? Tros didn’t see it. Dikaiopolis didn’t see it. Hell, even Pericles didn’t see it and he’s a fucking general! You do your best, but you’re going to make mistakes.”
“But this mistake killed people! What if I make more mistakes and kill more people?!”
“Honey, before today, you were just playing at world conqueror. You thought that the whole world was going to just surrender to you, because you could make lights and loud noises,
and because your banks and your trade networks and your inventions. You really must come from a different world, because here, men with power don’t surrender it if they don’t have to.
“Now you know. This isn’t play. The Spartans, and everyone else in the world, won’t give up without a fight. So, I’ll tell you again what I told you this afternoon. You don’t have to do this. We can give it all up and run off together. It really, really, isn’t your responsibility. The world was broken before you got here and it will, most likely, still be broken after you leave.”
“You’re right. I was just playing. I really thought it would be easy. But nothing has changed. I do still have to do it. What would I tell Rose? Your daddy had the power to free millions of slaves, but not the stomach.
“You remember those Superman stories I used to tell on the farm?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t make those up. I used to read them when I was a kid. And Superman would always put the bad guys in jail only to have the bad guys escape to wreak havoc on Metropolis again a few books later. I always thought it was selfish of Superman not to kill the bad guys. He endangered the whole city, just to keep his own hands clean.”
I held out my hands. “Well, my hands aren’t clean anymore. So, if I’m going to have the guilt, we might as well do some good. Out, out you damn spot you!”
“What?”
“Nothing.” But it wasn’t nothing. I’d (mis)quoted Shakespeare as a joke, but I did feel dirty. Not just my hands, everywhere, and I wondered if I would ever feel clean again.
We camped there a few days while we took care of our wounded and our dead. The Athenians cremated their dead and the Megarians buried theirs. There was some debate about what to do with the dead Spartans. Some people thought they should be left to rot, but eventually we buried them too.
For those first days, nobody talked much about what we would do next. We posted guards and sent riders for miles around and could find no sign of the Spartan army.
Maybe we never talked about what to do next. I can’t really recall a single meeting or conversation about it. It’s more like we decided by silent consensus.
But somehow, a few days later, we left the cooling cremation fires and the mounds of the new graves behind and headed to Sparta.
We were an entirely more somber group. Most of our army had never fought in a battle before. We had a few veterans among our citizen contingent and, of course, Pericles was a general, and Socrates had been a soldier. But the majority of our army were former slaves. And I, too, had almost never seen a dead body.
Not only were we a more somber group, we were a more cautions group. I’d handed out the remaining hand grenades and held a training session. We had about 150 grenades, and we created an ad hoc grenade squad of 30 soldiers. We had scouts and riders constantly checking the surrounding countryside as we marched.
But, three days later, we camped on the outskirts of Sparta, having arrived without other incident.
We pitched tents, built fires, posted guards and waited.
The next morning the Spartan army assembled in front of the city, a few hundred yards lay between us.
There must have been 10 or 15 thousand of them. Rank after rank of soldiers. Our own army was back up to full strength. As we had marched through Spartan territory, we had freed their slaves and some of those former slaves had put on the armor of our dead and wounded. They had no training, but at least they filled out the lines.
The Spartan king Archidamus rode out to shouting distance.
“Oh great lord Robert! Your magic is powerful! But your army is small and weak.”
“Dante, puts flatterers in the 9th circle of hell!”
“What? Fine, joke if you will. In these, your final moments. I don’t think even your power can defeat this mighty army of Sparta. These men fight today to defend their homes, their families and their city! They are Spartans!”
He started to turn back to his army.
“Is that it?” I shouted. And he stopped and turned to face me again.
“What more is there to say?”
“I don’t understand. You came out here just to boast? You don’t want to make a deal? See if we can’t settle this peacefully? Why the hell did you come out here at all?”
“Ok. If you return to Athens and abandon Megara we will let you leave unmolested. Happy?”
“I’m just happy that we’re talking. I have a counter-proposal. Surrender the city to us, free your slaves, join our union, allow us to open commercial and financial trade offices, and otherwise become part of our united Greece, and all your citizens will be spared. Nobody will be enslaved and your people will all be enriched.”
“I know how you enjoy your jokes before a battle, or should I say, before a theater performance. We will all die before bowing to you and your ‘union’.”
And he rode back to his army.
The moment I was dreading had arrived. And barely 10 minutes later, the Spartan army began its advance. My heart was pounding in my chest, my hands were sweating and I wanted to vomit. But now we had no choice. I had no choice. I nodded to Tros, who signaled to Dikaiopolis, who gave the order to the soldiers in charge of Bertha and her sisters. The tension in my head was incredible. I thought my head would literally explode. And then the roar and the thunder and the blood.
Bertha and her sisters roared. Three long cannons weighing 3000 pounds each and firing cannon balls that weighed 12 pounds. Each cannon was crewed by a team of 25 and could be fired in about 3 minutes. The balls ripped through the Spartan lines. We, god forgive us, fired low and the Spartans were so tightly packed we couldn’t miss. Each shot killed, 10, 20, 50 men. Before the Spartans had covered half the distance between us, hundreds lay dead. Then as they approached, closer, our grenade squad began their work. In less than half an hour, the battle was over.
A bloodbath as predicted.
The Spartans retreated to their city and sent a delegation with their offer of unconditional surrender. Archidamus was dead. Killed in the first moments of the battle (if you could call it that).
Tros and Fotis, heading groups of soldiers and priests respectively, took control of the city.
I surveyed the battle field. Craters and dead men. Craters filled with dead men. Blood everywhere. Wounded everywhere. Most of the wounded wouldn’t make it. Our medical personnel did what they could. But, nobody had ever even seen these kinds of wounds.
Melite silently took my hand and lead me away.
I’d like to say that that was the last of the blood. I’d like to say that after that, all the cities of the world willingly freed their slaves and joined our growing union. I’d even like to say that I changed my mind, that I no longer felt the compulsion to end slavery in the world at any cost.
But all that would be lies. You can read the history yourself. There was more blood to come. A lot more.
Chapter 27
The center of the Earth is molten iron. Its motion creates the Earth’s magnetic field (see section on magnetic field). Above the iron core is some hundreds of miles of solid rock, above the solid rock is some miles of molten rock, called magma, and above the magma is the solid crust. We live on the crust. The crust floats on the liquid magma and is comprised of some number of individual plates. Where these plates meet, one will go under the other. This subduction zone is where we find areas of instability in the crust, earthquakes, volcanos and mountains.
Book of Questionable Facts - 993
Once Sparta was under tight control, we returned to Megara.
So much to do. We invented the printing press with movable type. I had the advantage of having been born before the digital revolution. So, I’d actually seen metal type. When I was a kid, my father took me and my brother to a print shop. I’m not sure why, maybe he needed business cards. Anyway, the printer set our names in type and gave them to us. Slender slugs of dull silvery metal. I knew that the type was lead mixed with antimony to make it stronger. But, as usual, I had no idea what an
timony was. And of course, moveable type isn’t much good without a press and I really didn’t know what a press was exactly. And quick drying ink, and a thousand other things.
But our labs now employed over two thousand researchers and I could just go down and roughly describe something and given time they would figure it out. Or not.
We developed paper that way. “Ok. It’s made from wood. And the wood is ground fine and maybe mixed with some kind of acid or other chemicals, so that it breaks down the fibers or maybe it’s left to rot for a while. Then it’s mixed with water and dried on a screen. Or something like that.” And 6 or 8 months later – Paper!
We printed books, not just books of science, but books to improve literacy rates. I remembered how my nephew had been an indifferent reader because the stuff they wanted him to read wasn’t interesting to a 10 year old kid. My ex-wife took him on as a project. “It doesn’t matter what he reads, as long as he’s reading!” And she started sending him comic books, humor magazines, anything she thought would interest him. And it worked! He became an avid reader.
So, we began printing books of stories, mine (from my stolen horde of tales) and others. Just fun little books, cheap to make and easy to read. We even made improvements to the language. All Greeks wrote without spaces between the words or any kind of punctuation, so we fixed that.
And we built more cannons. We improved the accuracy and range by rifling the barrels. Now, we could concentrate fire on a specific spot on a wall and quickly bring it down.
And the army spread our cause. Most cities did capitulate without us firing a single shot, but not everybody. Some cities, either through stupidity, or arrogance or desperation fought and died.
I didn’t travel with the army any more. Too depressing. But in short order most of Greece was ours.
A New York Lawyer in the Court of Pericles Page 19