Captain Nemo

by Kevin J. Anderson

  To Nemo, being near Caroline was like playing with fire, and he found it impossible to drive her from his thoughts. The sea passage to Zanzibar and the balloon journey across Africa held memories even more joyful than his carefree childhood on the Loire. And the voyage home had been heaven.

  But now Caroline would be right here. In Paris. Close. Too close. It was going to be a very long year. . . .

  Once back in France, Nemo had grown restless. He often walked the streets before dawn, wide awake with memories and dreams, trying not to think of Caroline. At twenty-six, he should have been at the height of his ambitions. Yet he found his civilized life dreary, without adventure or goals.

  In the early morning he enjoyed watching shopkeepers crank out their awnings, fish sellers set up their stalls with baskets of herring, mussels, and trout. He stopped in front of Caroline’s new offices, just staring, thinking about her. So early in the day, he knew she couldn’t see him. . . .

  The previous night, as on so many long nights, Nemo had joined Jules Verne for a light dinner, sitting at a cafe table not far from where literary students argued about symbolism and meter in the poetry of Racine.

  Nemo found the intelligentsia dull and unimaginative. When they discussed current events, their focus remained on naive politics, with no mention whatsoever of scientific breakthroughs or new exploration. But, while Nemo talked to Verne about the loss of his boyhood contentment and sense of wonder, his friend’s attention was obviously drawn toward the artistic debate.

  Dr. Samuel Fergusson had received a hero’s welcome upon returning to England. Despite his protests, the Royal Geographical Society had granted the Englishman all the credit for the expedition, citing Nemo and Caroline only as “assistants” or “traveling companions.”

  When Nemo had told his story to Verne, drinking a pot of dark coffee while his redheaded friend toyed with a glass of cheap Bordeaux, Verne grew uncomfortable each time Caroline was mentioned. The writer had never gotten over his attachment to the merchant’s daughter either. . . .

  Now, as Paris awoke in the early hours, Nemo turned away from Caroline’s still-empty offices and strolled along the riverfront, across a stone bridge, and then down winding streets to his own apartment. He had a long workday ahead of him, and tomorrow, and the day after.

  During his absence, another engineer had been assigned to rebuild the Nantes shipyards, and the refurbishing there was already under way. And then, hearing of Nemo’s balloon exploits, Napoleon III had decided the adventurous young man’s imagination and prowess were too substantial to be wasted on Parisian sewer systems. For that, at least, Nemo was thankful. So, while he toiled at restoring bridges and fountains to increase the emperor’s glory and keep the public happy, Nemo hoped for something more interesting to do. His long, long wait for Caroline seemed to drag on forever.

  II

  When war broke out in early 1854, it seemed like a godsend to him.

  The Crimean War brought together the unlikely allies of France, Britain, Sardinia, and Turkey against Russian expansion. The weak and crumbling Ottoman Empire could not hope to stand against the “Iron Tsar” Nicholas I, whose armies were pushing to the Black Sea. Turkey had no choice but to ally herself with Britain, and France’s Emperor Napoleon III entered the fray by citing a divine obligation to protect Catholic holy places in Turkish-controlled Palestine. If the Ottoman Empire fell to Russia, then all Christian shrines would be controlled by the Eastern Orthodox church, which simply could not be allowed.

  France called for patriotic fighters to join the forces laying siege to Sevastopol on the Black Sea. All the armies fighting together under the “concert of Europe” needed brilliant and imaginative battlefield engineers.

  Men like Nemo.

  Knowing he would never be used as a mere footsoldier, cavalryman, or cannon-loader, Nemo accepted a commission for military service in the Crimea. He had lived most of his life without fine things, and so he packed a small valise with only a few possessions. He was going off to war and did not want to be encumbered. He carried a recommendation from Emperor Napoleon himself, but volunteering was primarily an excuse to see exotic landscapes again—as well as to be distracted from Caroline for a year. When he came back from service, they could finally be together. . . .

  Escorted by her carriage driver, Caroline Hatteras came to the bustling, smoky train station to see him off. She stood in full dark skirts, her waist cinched tight with whalebone stays, her high collar buttoned properly, just as a married woman’s should be. To a casual observer, she seemed cool and aloof, unaffected by the crowds and excitement all around her. But when she saw Nemo standing there, her eyes lit with an inner fire.

  He had gone to her again the night before, surprising her in the dark stillness so absolute it reminded him of when he and Jules Verne had slipped out to L’Homme aux Trois Malices for a celebratory drink before shipping out with Captain Grant. Nemo and Verne had stood below young Caroline’s window and said their goodbyes.

  This time, Nemo had given her another farewell but, oh, so much sweeter, so much more painful than that other one. He had tapped on her door, standing in the shadows in the silent streets. He’d seen her astonished expression and sudden welcome as she whisked him into her home, long after midnight.

  Caroline begged him not to go off to war, but Nemo knew he could never resist the temptation of her. Every secret meeting, every stolen kiss would grow easier, and they would grow careless. Someone would see, and disaster would follow.

  And so they had made love one more time, bathed in the yellow-orange glow from a single oil lamp. They had room, and clean sheets rather than a crowded bunk on a British ship. Nemo wanted to stay in her arms forever. But instead, he had departed before dawn, to prepare for the train.

  Now, in this crowd where emotion hung as thick as a spring fog, Nemo just wanted to hold her, to smell her hair and feel her lips against his. But he could not. Not here . . . not for another year. Not until he returned from the Crimea.

  Beside them, the locomotive hissed and snorted while its boilers built up steam for departure from the Paris railyards. The sulfur smell of coal smoke and thick grease lingered close to the tracks.

  French volunteer soldiers kissed their sweethearts, accepted bouquets, took hair ribbons as mementos. Nemo felt pain at remembering how Caroline had given the same sort of gift to two young men anxious to set off to sea.

  Now, without any conception of the horrors of war, these eager soldiers crowded onto a train that would take them to eastern Europe, where they would board a ship to take them to the Black Sea. They cheered and teased each other about going off to fight for their country.

  But Nemo had seen men slain by the violence of other men, and he was not so anxious to reach the battlefields.

  Amidst cheering and clasped hands and tearful goodbyes, Caroline stood stiffly, keeping her promise to Nemo and not showing her feelings here, especially not in such a crowd. Instead, the two had to embrace with their eyes alone. But they communicated greater love with their soulful expressions than did any of the moonstruck couples in the train station, even without kisses or passionate words. Caroline’s simple smile spoke more eloquently to Nemo than any love letter, any vows.

  “Don’t worry about me, Caroline,” he said. “I am an engineer. I will make life more tolerable for our soldiers, and I will stay far from the fighting.”

  She gave him a wan smile. “Somehow, André, I cannot imagine you staying far from anything—but you must promise me that you will return.”

  “There is nothing I want more. Nothing . . . other than for time to pass more quickly. After a year, we can both be happy. I have waited all my life for you, but these last months will seem the longest.”

  “André, I will count the days.” Her sigh turned into a smile. “Alas, I wore no colorful hair ribbons to give you this time.”

  “No need. I have more thoughts of you than I can possibly revisit in twelve months.”

  Nemo was the la
st man to board the car. Though her carriage driver waited impatiently, Caroline refused to move until the train was long gone. . . .

  * * *

  Nemo rode with a motley crew of soldiers on the troop train across Europe, then aboard a fast ship through the Mediterranean and the Bosporus Straits into the Black Sea, where battles raged on the Crimean peninsula.

  The strategic deep channel in front of the Sevastopol naval base had been used for centuries, first by the Tatars and then the Ottoman Empire. The Russian military had sought refuge in the walled city after sweeping through the Ukraine, taking over Moldavia and Bessarabia, before attempting to conquer the Crimean peninsula. Now, allied troops laid siege to the huge fortress city of tan and gray stones, and the Russians had been unable to break out for months.

  After he disembarked on the dock, Nemo looked up at the prisonlike edifice, knowing the Tsar’s soldiers must be starving inside. However, when he saw the deplorable condition of the European troops besieging the walled city, he doubted they were faring much better.

  Cholera had raged through the allied camps as the French, British, and Sardinian soldiers outside Sevastopol coped with the changing weather. They’d already been through a damp spring and a hot summer and had no extra uniforms or supplies. As autumn chilled the air, the men could only dread the worse weather ahead. Napoleon Bonaparte’s troops had been defeated by a Russian winter in 1812. Nemo hoped Crimea would not prove to be a similar debacle for France.

  Nemo strode toward the tent headquarters, surveying the dry, hilly land. Using his written orders and a letter of introduction from Emperor Napoleon III, he met with the French troop commanders. Veterans of the Napoleonic Wars, they were doddering old men who spent more time bragging about the events of their youth than they did running the occupation forces on the Black Sea.

  On his own initiative, Nemo studied the army encampments, sitting up late at night in his small white tent. He looked over terrain maps by the light of an oil lamp, determining how best to exploit the resources at hand, using only the few tools the army had given him.

  Disregarding the war, the Crimean locals continued to take fishing boats out onto the Black Sea each morning and returned to port with full nets. The army purchased most of the fish (or commandeered it—Nemo didn’t know which). Old women and their daughters worked on the rocky beaches, filling bottles and tubs with Black Sea water, which they left out in the sun to evaporate; later, they would use the sea salt for preserving fish.

  Rolling hills covered with brown grasses and low trees encircled Sevastopol. The scenery reminded Nemo of parts of Africa he had seen from the balloon. Farther along the southeastern coast, the rugged Crimean Mountains rose high, a bastion against any forces of the Tsar that might come to rescue the Russians.

  In peaceful times, the land was used for growing wine grapes, herbs, and a variety of plants harvested for their essential oils. The countryside looked like a gentle place to live. Unfortunately, the Crimea’s strategic importance had made it a battleground, again and again, for centuries.

  Nemo’s job was to embroider the hills with lines of trenches for the allied forces, so that the soldiers could take shelter while keeping the Russians bottled within the city. He oversaw the digging of ditches and the building of barricades using rocks scavenged from destroyed villages outside the fortress. British cannons were hauled up and installed in place, surrounded by cushioning dirt berms, woven grass mats, and wicker supports. Wooden stools sat beside each gunnery emplacement so the cannoneers could tend their weapons for the daily bombardment of Sevastopol.

  Month after month the siege had continued, and still the Russians did not yield. Though the Tsar’s invaders retained an enormous fighting force and many weapons, they were still trapped. Turkish and British armies blocked access from the north so that no Russian reinforcements could arrive. The siege went on.

  Nemo devoted himself to designing sanitary facilities, draining standing pools, and improving latrines to check the spread of cholera—though the bureaucratic confusion and the lack of cooperation between allied military groups was maddening. He often had a difficult time obtaining supplies and men for his engineering projects, though everyone could see the efforts would benefit all soldiers.

  The British and French forces were woefully underequipped, their uniforms not designed for the Crimean climate. Their boots did not fit, their weapons often did not fire, and medical supplies were inappropriate or nonexistent. Most of the budgetary resources had been diverted to developing unusual advancements. The British regiments used new breech-loading rifles, supposedly far superior to the traditional muzzle-loading guns that armies had used for centuries. British riflemen could fire more rapidly, though with more frequent muzzle explosions and misfires.

  Explosive land mines—another innovation for the Crimean War—were planted beneath the ground and detonated with each Russian foray. The terror of these mines worsened when the allies could not remember precisely where they had been planted. Killing indiscriminately, the explosions took as great a toll on allied troops as they did against the enemy.

  Correspondents from European newspapers made use of hastily laid telegraph lines, reporting daily events with unprecedented speed to readers of their periodicals. Never before had the public experienced a distant war as it actually happened. Armed with new camera equipment, intrepid photographers set up tripods and used bottles of chemicals, glass plates, and cumbersome light boxes to record visual images of the events. Photographs provided a starker realism than battlefield sketches, causing quite a sensation back in the civilized areas of Britain and France.

  Nemo, though, was more concerned with setting up siege walls and defensive apparatus. He used pulleys and wooden crossbeams and adapted good old medieval technology to help in the war effort.

  He already longed to go home to Caroline.

  One morning, after the dawn fog had lifted over the battered siege ground, Nemo completed the intricate scaffolding for an observation tower atop a grassy hill. From this vantage, he saw a group of Turkish troops riding past for the regular exchange of soldiers. French troops moved into the front positions where Sardinians had camped, while British infantry moved to the fields that had held Turks. Though the number of fighters didn’t change, the constant rotation of army encampments created a confusing hive of activity that accomplished no purpose. Was it part of a plot calculated to confuse the Russians inside the fortress, or just military incompetence caused by conflicting commands?

  Unlike the battered and poorly supplied Europeans, these oncoming Turkish warriors looked dashing in fine uniforms of bright silk. Though their weapons were more primitive than breech-loading rifles and long-range cannons, their eyes held a hard glint, and their stance was determined. Most of the Turkish soldiers Nemo had seen were dedicated fighters, vigorous to protect the Crimea.

  But these men were harder, both pompous and dangerous. The horsemen paused to stare at Nemo’s crude construction. Wearing loose outfits, sashes, and turbans, they sat astride sleek brown horses, surveying the quiet battlefield . . . and at the same time somehow assessing him. Nemo stared back.

  The broad-shouldered man at their lead had a long face, a neatly trimmed beard that etched out a silhouette of his pointed chin, and long eyebrows that curled like insect antennae. A green silk turban covered his head, adorned with an emerald the size of a walnut. He rode proudly on the largest stallion, which pranced about as if charged with energy.

  Nemo could tell from the man’s embroidered clothing and stiff bearing that he was an important man, a caliph or military leader in charge of Turkish troops. When the caliph rode up to the scaffolding, Nemo stopped what he was doing, set aside his blueprint sketches, and waited.

  The caliph’s stallion snorted and shifted on its hooves. The man’s eyes flashed with black fire, as if his head could not contain the ambitious thoughts in his mind. A long scar shaped like a lightning bolt marred the tan skin of his left cheek. He stared at Nemo in silence f
or a long moment, and the engineer wondered if the caliph could speak English. In his time on the Crimea, Nemo had spent enough time in Turkish camps to pick up a few words of the language.

  The caliph nodded at the jury-rigged siege tower and said in accented but clear French, and then again in English: “Good work. Very good work indeed, Engineer. I have been watching you.”

  Then the caliph yanked his horse’s head around and dug in his heels. He and his troops rode off down the hill toward the army encampments around the walls of Sevastopol.

  III

  By late October, 1854, the siege showed few signs of letting up. The Russians trapped inside the Sevastopol fortress had lit fires and burned down buildings. At night, occasional deserters slipped out and fled alone across the countryside.

  Supplies began running out for the British and French forces as well. When a Sardinian cargo ship arrived, the food and clothing were rapidly distributed—and came up far short. Spotters stood on the beaches, looking across the Black Sea in vain for other sails.

  In hill camps, the Turkish warriors kept to themselves, separated by culture and language . . . as well as the knowledge that, though this war was supposedly being fought on their behalf, theirs was the weakest army here.

  After centuries of greatness, the Ottoman Empire had recently been led by several generations of self-absorbed sultans whose vision rarely strayed beyond the palace boundaries. Regardless of the religious or patriotic overtones imparted by other European leaders, the Turkish lands were seen as lush prizes in an Imperial game. Though claiming altruistic motives, the leaders of Europe had their eyes on the riches of the Black Sea region. Nemo’s quiet engineering work had improved the lives and strategic positions of the allied armies. His ingenuity became so well known among the troops that he was recognized in any camp. Many soldiers wanted to hear about his balloon trip across Africa, or about being marooned on a desert island, or about fighting against pirates in the South China Sea. Others just wanted Nemo’s best guess as to when they would all be going home.