by Tony Roberts
This is a book of fiction. All the names, characters and events portrayed in this book are Fictional and any resemblance to real people and incidents are purely coincidental.
CASCA: #25 Halls of Montezuma
Casca Ebooks are published by arrangement with the copyright holder
Copyright © 2006 by Tony Roberts
Cover: James Walker 1858
Cover design by Dynamic Arts
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Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
EPILOGUE
Continuing Casca’s adventures, book 26 Johnny Reb
PROLOGUE
The screams of the wounded filled the air as Case Lonnergan skidded for cover behind the body of a fallen marine. Bullets struck the ground and a few yards away the dirt and parched grass erupted as a cannonball smashed into the earth and bounced up and away. Case cursed and groveled in the dirt, eyes scanning for any way up the sheer face of the stone wall of the Castle of Chapultepec.
Nothing.
The men around him were trying to make themselves non-existent, hoping to avoid the fusillade of shots raining down on them from the fortress above as the Mexicans strove to kill as many of the attackers as possible. Around Case a crowd of marines huddled in the lee of the pathetic cover that offered itself.
More shots spattered down and another marine grunted and flopped back, his arms outspread and his eyes open to the sky. Case spat out some earth that had found its way into his mouth. As the spit hit the ground his eyes were drawn to the sun glinting off the dead man’s brass buckle. His eyes moved to the uniform, the one thing all warriors share, seeing with envy the ragged hole in it that had oozed the man’s ebbing life. Marine blues. The shelling roared on and bullets whined close. His mind drifted for a moment to the time he had shared drinks with the warriors who made up the first draft of the Marines in Philadelphia decades ago, back in the old Tun Tavern. A drink, now that’s what I need!
A bullet smashed inches from his head awakening him from his memories, the sting of the gravel smarting as he brushed it off his cheek with his sleeve. He reached over and closed the eyes of the dead marine.
Dumb stupid situation to be in, he thought furiously. No cover, no support and a supply mess-up that leaves us poor infantry here exposed with no way to climb that wall!
He looked to his right where one marine was covering his head with his hands. Some protection against a bullet. “Still think you did the right thing in leaving the water?” he shouted above the din of shots.
The marine grimaced and gritted his teeth. “Give me a chance to get at those sons of bitches and I’ll show you the right thing!”
Case grunted in reply and rolled the other way. A bullet whined close by and ricocheted off a stone. He checked his rifle and found it to be loaded. He must’ve done that without thinking when the attack began. Still, what the hell could he do with one shot when the defenders must number a couple of hundred? And he’d have to climb that damned wall somehow. Where were the ladders? Any time now he’d be hit and then he’d have some explaining to do if he healed too quickly. He cursed again and wondered how the devil he’d come to be in this place, when he’d merely tried to get away from one lot of trouble. He’d jumped out of the pan into the fire!
It had all began a few years back when he’d been hunted in South Africa, after killing a few British soldiers…… he remembered how he’d had to run from the vengeful arm of British justice, and ended up in Cape Town…. Yes, that was the start of it that dark night as he made his way to what he thought was a safer life……
He remembered how the smell of tar, hemp, tobacco and salt filled his nostrils, and made him recall the many times he, Casca Rufio Longinus, to give him his original name, had sailed the world’s oceans and seas. He had lived for eighteen centuries now, and the sea was no stranger to him, even though he was not a natural sailor. What was natural to a man cursed to live until the Second Coming? He would have to once again take to the sea and travel away.
Casca had reached the gangplank and had stared up. Lights had been on in a few portholes and one had shone from the deck, but nobody had seemed to be moving about, so he had taken a deep breath and scuttled up onto the deck, scanning swiftly left and right before he’d ducked into an open hatchway and vanished from sight.
CHAPTER ONE
Philadelphia brought back a rush of memories to Casca as he stood on the corner of Water Street and Tun Alley. He’d been here way back in 1775 when all hell was breaking loose and the colonists were starting to throw off British rule. The month and year rushed into his head, unbidden…. November 1775… hell yes, Case remembered, a half smile playing across his face, the birthplace of the Marines… his mind wandered back to that time…..
“....what a brilliant prospect does this event present to every lad of spirit who is inclined to try his fortune in this highly renowned Corps, the Continental Marines. When every thing that swims the seas must be a prize!”
Captain Samuel Nicholas, a newly commissioned captain in the fledgling Continental Naval Service armed with an executive order signed by John Hancock, President of the Second Continental Congress of the United Thirteen Colonies of North America was tasked with the recruitment and training of two battalions of Continental Marines to serve aboard ship in the looming conflict with Great Britain. Exhorting the crowd of potential recruits he was helped by the free flowing beer and jubilant atmosphere of the Tun Tavern. War fever was catching even for this Quaker Philadelphian. Standing on the bar Nicholas shouted above the din of the carnival like crowd.
“Lads, lads... a moment more please. Thousands are at this moment endeavoring to get on board privateers where they will serve without pay or reward of any kind whatsoever. What an enviable station then must the Continental Marine hold ---who with far superior advantages to these, the additional benefit of liberal pay, and plenty of the best provisions, with a good and well-appointed ship under him, the pride and glory of the Continental Navy; surely every man of spirit must blush to remain home in inactivity and indolence when his country needs his assistance.”
This was met by a flurry of raucous applause and several “here, here’s” and “bravos”. The beer flowed and the drummer that had marched through the streets attracting this newest crowd of recruits began a very spirited marching cadence. Nicholas tried to hush the crowd by waving his arms downward.
“Yo
u’ll find yourself in the midst of honor and glory, surrounded by a set of fine fellows, strangers to fear and who strike terror through the hearts of their enemies wherever they go! Lose no time, then my fine fellows. Embrace the glorious opportunity that awaits you. Long live the United States and success to the Marines! Now go see Captain Mullan and collect your enlistment bonus….”
“Case, you Irish bastard! You never looked better,” said Michael Jender, the head bar-keep at the Tun Tavern. Case resisted the impulse to deny he was Irish, and smiled instead.
Smiling only emphasized the long scar on his face that he knew made him look menacing. Case easily befriended the genial host knowing the tavern was the place to get in on all the action in Philadelphia. After all, Ben Franklin started his militia here and went off to fight the French and their Indian allies. Tales circulated about the Free Masons starting their cult like organization at the Tun. He abhorred that kind of blind allegiance though that was a newly formed belief. I had it once under the Eagles of the 10th Legion…
So Case had yet again gone to war, fighting for a new country in a struggle against the Imperial rule of a country far away. His mind came back to the present.
Now, with hardly a penny to his name, he was once more in the country he’d helped to create way back then, and he felt odd that so much had changed in the sixty years or so since he’d last been there. People were flooding in to the United States and at present most of them seemed to be Irish or German. The Customs in New York were having trouble keeping pace with the immigration and the queues just got longer and longer.
He’d arrived a few days back in New York aboard the Oswego, a ship that had sailed from the British port of Liverpool, and were impatient to enter the country they all wished to settle in. Many of them were Irish, or had papers announcing the fact. Included in these was Casca, a big, muscular clean-shaven man with a scar down the side of his face. His papers said he was one Case Rafferty Lonnergan, an Irishman emigrating from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Well, that’s what Casca had asked for and paid for in Paris after he’d got there from Le Havre. He’d worked his way on the Girondins des Bordeaux after announcing he was seeking refuge to the skipper, and the Frenchman who had no love for the British, had readily agreed to allow the tough stowaway to work his way to France.
He’d got through customs without a hitch, thanks to the papers he’d spent so much for, and now he stood in front of the Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, his cap perched on his head and his bulky clothing keeping him warm in the September air. Casca wondered too about what life he would now have. Soldiering was his life, he knew how to fight, but as with all things too much made one tired of it, and he dearly wished to settle down for a while and rest his soul.
Being away from conflicts was the best thing for that, and Europe right now wasn’t the best place to be if you wished to avoid war. They were busy scrambling for a piece of the world and gobbling it up. Britain, France, Holland; they were enlarging their overseas colonies having tired of beating each other up. Now they vied with each other in how many different parts of the world they owned, rather than how many of each other they could kill.
He wanted none of that. He had, however, had to go to Britain first in order to sail to New York. His papers professed he was Irish, so a French contraband smuggler had carried him to Queenstown on the west coast of Ireland where he had slipped ashore and made his way to Belfast by foot and cart. Once there he had become just one of thousands of Irish people wishing to emigrate to America, and had easily crossed the Irish Sea to Liverpool and took a ship to New York.
So now he was here, in Philadelphia. He’d befriended an Irish family on the way over from Liverpool, a mother and four children, and out of a sense of loneliness, probably on both sides, they’d struck up a kind of comradeship. She had no husband with her, and so far she’d said nothing on the matter. The four children, three girls and a boy, were very spirited and the woman had more than her hands full making sure they didn’t get up to any mischief.
The woman, Mary McGuire, had told him they were on their way to a farm in Virginia where some old friends of theirs had settled down a few years back. Case had little money to speak of, apart from a few paltry coins, and virtually no possessions apart from what he was wearing, so he had decided to tag along at least as far as Philadelphia where they had booked passage on a coastal steamer from New York. The McGuires were waiting there for a friend to arrive and take them to Virginia, so they had a few days to spend in the city. Casca – or Case as he now had to call himself – wondered where fate would take him.
He looked at the tavern and smiled in fond memory. He’d fought at Bunker Hill and afterwards the country buzzed with excitement and revolt. He’d been in this place in November when the owner of the tavern, one Robert Mullan, had been commissioned by Congress to raise a force of Marines. He’d toasted the success of the newly formed battalions and had spoken to the new commander, Samuel Nicholas.
He sighed and turned about and looked down Water Street. The road was wide and rutted and the sidewalks filthy. The houses here were a mixture of wood and stone, some of them had survived the time of the Revolutionary War, but the newer ones were all of stone or brick.
The neighborhood was a touch rough, which was only to be expected being this close to the waterfront and Case kept an eye on groups of people standing on corners watching the passers-by closely. Vermin were vermin no matter where you were in the world, and Case could spot them a mile off. He decided to return to the Poor House he was staying in for a few days with the McGuires. When they left he’d have to find some job and get his life back on track. There were times he hated not being in some army; at least there you had a roof, food and a purpose. Being unemployed really ate at him.
The place was close to Duke Street and he was crossing the street when he heard one of the McGuires call out to him, her voice strained. He turned round and saw a narrow alley one street down from where he’d come out. The five McGuires were in a huddle, faces strained. Case could see that a group of men had intercepted them and were trying to persuade them to follow them. Case came up and stopped.
“Look it’s a clean place and cheap,” one man, a tall, thin dark complexioned rat-faced individual was saying in a soothing voice to Mary. The four children held onto each other or Mary’s skirt. The youngest was only nine or ten, the oldest seventeen.
“No thank you sir,” Mary replied forcefully, “we’re staying at O’Rourke’s place in the next street.”
“O’Rourke’s?” Rat-face sneered. “Infested with rats and cockroaches! Young ladies like yourselves need a clean safe place. There are some men of dubious morality in O’Rourke’s too, from what I hear.”
“Leave the women be,” Case intervened, “you heard them; they are staying at O’Rourke’s.”
“What’s it to you?” Rat-face growled, his mouth turning down. He gestured to his three associates who converged on Case. They had the look of hired thugs and all were scruffy, unshaven and had the stamp of brutality on their faces.
Case nodded towards the women and the boy. “And you would have a good future for these good people? Serving the men of Philadelphia at night?”
“Right,” Rat-face spat, “you asked for it, nosey people like you interfere too much for your own good.”
The family huddled together, shock on their faces, as the three thugs brought out clubs from under their jackets and raised them to strike down Case. He’d been in many brawls before and one golden rule he had learned was never to give the other guys an even chance. Even as they raised their clubs, his boot was swinging up to smash into the first’s groin. The man shrieked in agony and doubled up but Case was already moving sideways as the other two struck their blows. One missed but the second smashed into Case’s shoulder, the noise of the blow filling the street.
Agony exploded through his shoulder and Case roared in pain and rage, smashing his forehead into the second man’s nose, flattening it against his
face. The thug gave out a strangled cry and staggered back, clutching his shattered nose, blood pouring through his fingers. Case swung round awkwardly, realizing his shoulder was in a bad way, and faced the last thug who was raising his arm for another blow. One of the women screamed but Case couldn’t see what was going on as he had his hands full with the hired muscle in front of him.
The club swung down but Case grabbed the wrist of the man and continued pulling down, upsetting the thug’s balance. He couldn’t use his damaged left arm but he released the man’s wrist and rammed his fist into the man’s neck, stunning him. He pulled the dazed man up by his collar and wound back his one good arm before sending in a pile driver of a blow right into the ribcage, under the heart. The man gasped and his eyes glazed over before he fell back onto the dry mud street, out for the count.
Case remembered the scream and turned to see Rat-face tugging on the seventeen year old’s sleeve, trying to pull her into an alleyway. The mother had turned on him, enraged, and was beating him over the head with a thick book, causing Rat-face to take evasive action. He scuttled off, followed by the man who had been kicked in the balls.
The mother comforted the seventeen year old while Case examined the two men still at the scene; one was out cold while the other was knelt in the road trying to stem the blood flowing through his fingers. The pain in his shoulder intensified and he clutched at it, screwing his face in agony. For all he knew the damned bone was broken. Not that it really mattered, thanks to the Curse it would re-knit and heal overnight and he’d be as good as new. “Everyone ok?” he asked in a tight voice.
“Yes, praise the Lord,” Mary replied, guiding her daughter back to the other offspring. “But not these two souls,” she added, eyeing the duo. She tutted and went to assist the bleeding man. Case put out his one good arm. “Careful, ma’am, he’s not a man to trust.”
“Oh, away with ye!” she scolded, “can’t ye see he’s in need of help? No matter he tried to hurt us just now, the Lord would not turn his back even on a sinner like this one!” She waved the black book in one hand and Case could see that this was a particularly heavy bible.