The Continental

by Tony Roberts

  “No sport,” Casca said grimly. “Only death.”

  Both raised their blades once more and resumed the fight. Sir Richard was the better swordsman but Casca had size, strength and stamina on his side. Brute force versus finesse. Casca felt Sir Richard’s blade slice through his upper sleeve, burning a cut along the flesh there, but he was already striking back. His blade ripped through the baronet’s shirt, tearing the cotton asunder and slicing through flesh. Sir Richard cried out and staggered back, his shirt staining red.

  Casca closed in, sheer determination on his face. Sir Richard gritted his teeth in pain and met the next blow, and then sent a backhanded blow slashing across Casca’s gut, the shock of the blow jarring his arm.

  Casca stood stupefied, his stomach on fire. It was to a normal man a killing blow, but to Casca it would merely incapacitate. He clutched his stomach and stepped backwards. Nobody had ever done that to him before. The baronet advanced, eyes full of intent. As the pain swelled in Casca’s body, he straightened, recalling a move he’d read once in a book by Joseph Swetnam on fencing. Thrust above the cut.

  As Sir Richard struck for Casca again, intending to finish him off, Casca twisted sideways, crying out in pain, and the Englishman’s blade passed narrowly wide an inch from his chest. As it did so, Casca’s own blade was thrust forward and sank into Sir Richard’s chest, Casca’s strength driving it in almost through to his back.

  Casca jerked the blade free and stood there, still holding his stomach, trying not to pass out with the pain. Sir Richard slowly doubled up, dropping his sword, and fell to his knees. Casca staggered over to him and stood above the stricken man. “It’s over, you bastard,” the Eternal Mercenary breathed.

  Sir Richard looked up, his face twisted in pain. “You may have won today, but my name lives on. My son will inherit the title and estate, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “I don’t care a damn about that. I don’t care a damn about you or your title, don’t you understand?”

  Sir Richard coughed, smiled ironically, and then fell forward onto the churned up earth of the redoubt. Casca allowed his blade to fall and he remained stood over the prone figure of a man who had made his life hell for years.

  Footsteps came to him and he turned to see a knot of soldiers run into the redoubt, led by Corporal McGinnes. McGinnes took one look at the scene and his face tightened. “You killed the Major,” he snarled. With that he raised his musket.

  “It was between the two of us, Corporal. No need to take any further action.”

  “Not on your life, rebel!” the Devonian declared and pulled the trigger.

  There was flash, crack and a puff of smoke. A huge blow flung Casca off his feet and pitched him against the earthworks. He lay there staring up at the sky, his body unable to move. What would happen to his body after he passed out? Would the British bury him? He hoped not – he had no wish to come round incarcerated in a pit of the dead.

  His vision faded and darkness claimed him.

  EPILOGUE

  The ship was packed with soldiers and civilians wanting to return to Britain, not wishing to remain part of the new United States. New York was the last place the British were leaving, and now their last regiments were marching onto the final few ships in the harbor, leaving the colonies. The peace treaty had given the thirteen states their independence and from now on they would go their separate ways.

  People thronged the harbor side, many glad to see the back of their former friends, neighbors and adversaries, but others regretting the end of things. Amongst these latter people were a small group of people on the jetty, standing alongside one of the warships.

  Casca embraced Rose. Rose, her face running with tears, smiled bravely through them and held him tight for a moment, then released him. “I don’t know what sort of life I’ll have over in England, and I think I’ll be treated as a common outsider,” she said.

  “You have to be strong for your son,” Casca said, looking down at the smartly dressed five year old boy. The Baronet of Sandwell, Cass Eley. His dark hair and blue eyes were quite a contrast to one another. He could well end up as a striking young man. “You’ll be a good boy for your mother, won’t you, Cass?”

  “Yes, sir,” the boy answered in a flawless English accent.

  Casca winced. His tutoring had already ensured he’d sound the part of a noble.

  Next to him Claire bent down and tousled the boy’s hair. “Now ye’ll not do any harm to any good Irishman, will ye?”

  “No, ma’am. I shall be fair and just.”

  Katherine Maplin smiled. She was just as sad to see her daughter and grandson depart. Casca stepped back and knew that he’d probably never see the two again. In the two years since Yorktown plenty had happened to him. He’d not been buried with the dead, thankfully, but had been placed in a line with the other ‘fallen’ outside the city, awaiting burial. He’d come round at night and had slipped away before anyone had noticed him risen from the dead.

  Thereafter it had been easy for him to rejoin the army, using the pretext of having been knocked unconscious by the explosion and had been the only survivor. He’d watched the formal surrender of the British garrison and then had been part of the army that had remained there for the winter until it had become clear that the victory there had been the final nail in the coffin. Britain had seen the sense of giving it up and during that time Casca had finally resigned from the army and returned to Philadelphia.

  It was there that he found employment in the Maplin household – or was it the Lowe household? Lowe had died with no issue and so his will had named Katherine as his beneficiary, and she had inherited his property amongst other things. Katherine, still mourning the death of James, had readily taken him in as a handyman, and Casca had been grateful. He’d learned, much to his surprise, that Sir Richard had been wrong about the Maplin inheritance in one big way; the fortune of Maplin’s business had not fallen to Rose, as he’d thought, but to Katherine, since she was still legally married to Ebenezer and was therefore his widow. So Katherine had inherited two estates in quick succession.

  Sir Richard’s part in the deaths of both men were dealt with differently; nobody doubted Sir Richard had killed Lowe – there had been enough witnesses at the duel – but it was left as a matter of honor, and Lowe was remembered as a gallant man who had died for his beliefs and reputation. The fact a British officer had killed him added to Lowe’s reputation and he was hailed as a hero. None of this helped Katherine’s sense of bereavement of course, but the fact both her former lover’s and her estranged husband’s fortunes were coming to her helped ease the financial worries.

  And that was another issue; what of her new found fortune? Much of it was British made, the munitions Maplin and Sir Richard has arranged to supply the British army was a sore point with the American legal people, but the fact Katherine had been the mistress of a now dead American hero smoothed the way – public opinion in Philadelphia swayed the attorneys and there were in the end no objections to the money coming to her, even if some regarded it as dirty or even blood money. Katherine had insisted that the firm of Maplins would stop trading in munitions and return to trade. She would even trade with Britain, now that the peace treaty had been signed. After all, trade was what made the world go round.

  The matter of Ebenezer’s death at the hands of Sir Richard was hushed up. It wouldn’t do good to rake all that up, even though Casca and Katherine – and Claire – knew Ebenezer had been cold bloodedly murdered for financial gain. Sir Richard’s financial problems had come to the surface thanks to his will. A British solicitor had crossed the Atlantic after the end of hostilities to formally transfer the title to Cass Eley, and to relay the full terms of the last will and testament of the late Sir Richard Eley to Rose, widow of the said late Sir Richard Eley.

  Casca, Katherine and Claire had all been there in the study when the solicitor had read the will out, and all had become clear as to why Sir Richard had done what he’d done. Marr
ying Rose for the fortune he thought would come to her from her father, murdering Ebenezer to ensure it did.

  The debts at Sandwell Manor were substantial, and Rose had despaired of finding the funds necessary to pay off her creditors and to maintain the property and people who worked there, but Katherine had stepped in and negotiated with the solicitor as to a financial rescue package. The debts would be paid off, and a bi-annual payment sent to the account of Sandwell’s bankers, Goose and Crudwell (Casca smirked at the name), to ensure the wages would be met so that the manor was kept going.

  So oddly, in a roundabout way, Sir Richard’s schemes had worked out after all, but not before people had died.

  That left the matter of the title. Cass, a minor, was too young to take up the responsibility until he was eighteen, so Rose had decided, with a heavy heart, that her child needed every help possible and agreed to travel to Sandwell Manor to live there with Cass. Cass needed to manage the family affairs once he was old enough, and Rose hoped that under her tutorship he may well end up being a better man than his father.

  Cass had then started receiving tutorship from a couple of British teachers still in America. New York was a fair distance but they came readily enough once they were told they could stay at Lowe’s residence and their wages paid for. The Sandwell estate would make enough money from rents to pay for the boy’s education.

  Casca thought it was the best outcome. As for him, he would remain with Katherine – and he’d finally charmed her enough and she’d gotten over Lowe’s death to take him to her bed – until it was time for him to quit and go elsewhere. That was his burden; immortality may well be something mortals aspired to attain, but it was a pain in the ass. You couldn’t have a normal relationship, and had to keep on moving from place to place once people began to look at you in that odd way he’d gotten to know all too well. Suspicions and fear would always win, and Casca knew to his bitter cost that it was best to go before that happened.

  Katherine was a fine woman but there was no way he could stay with her for more than five years. After that he’d have to go. So he’d refused her offer of marriage or even a stake in Maplin’s business. For him, he knew one day it would be another war somewhere. He’d won this one, and was satisfied that it was another worthwhile campaign. Plenty had died proving it, but self-determination had won out over imperial designs. He just hoped the new nation would do the right thing.

  Washington had been a regular visitor to the Lowe household, and Casca thought maybe Katherine would be looked after alright after all once he went. With a man like George Washington as your friend, a woman would never go short of company and help.

  And Claire Kelly? Enigmatic still, the Irishwoman refused to reveal what her plans were for the future. She certainly would be sent on more jobs far and wide by her paymasters, and maybe she’d go to Britain. She’d already promised to visit Rose and Cass at Sandwell, even though the ‘posh’ social circles turned her stomach. As long as none of those Upper Class Twits, as she put it, were visiting at the same time, she’d be happy to see the two.

  Rose gave the three a last tearful farewell hug and kiss, then turned and led her son up the gangplank onto the deck of the ship. The cold November wind tugged at her skirt and hat, and she shivered and huddled deeper into the collar of her winter coat. The two tutors they’d hired were already on board and would be retained for Cass’s education at Sandwell.

  Ah, so there she goes,” Claire sighed, shivering as a blast of frigid air cut across them as the ship cast off, the people on deck waving their farewells to America.

  “My daughter,” Katherine said in a small, sad voice. “And grandson.”

  “We know it’s for the best, Katherine,” Casca said, “and who knows, maybe one day you’ll see them again? Fancy a visit to Britain?”

  “Britain?” Katherine said in surprise. She kept on waving, the tears in her eyes blinding her so she didn’t know if Rose and Cass were still waving back. “Me go over there?”

  “Why not?” Casca said, watching as the ship passed into the sound and headed for the ocean. They turned away, Casca’s arms linked in both women’s. He felt a very lucky man. “You ought to go – it can be quite a lovely place.”

  “Have you been there?”

  “Of course. I’m a widely traveled man you know.”

  Both women snorted. Casca insisted he was, and began telling them of the countryside of Britain as they walked away from the cold empty harbor of New York.

  Continuing Casca’s adventures, book 39 The Crusader

  When a Crusade is called by the Pope to regain Jerusalem for Christianity, Casca finds himself drawn into the campaign thanks to him agreeing to assist a helpless French noblewoman.

  What Casca is initially unaware of, however, is that the noblewoman, Giselle de Doumanche, is carrying an ancient relic that she dare not reveal for fear of it being destroyed by some of those on crusade.

  To make matters worse the crusade attracts the attention of the Brotherhood of the Lamb and eventually Casca has to confront his arch enemies who are sworn to inflict on him every punishment they possibly can.

  But Casca knows a secret that could possibly tear the Brotherhood apart, a secret he planted under the floor of a church in Antioch centuries before, and Antioch is on the direct route the crusaders will take on their quest to the Holy City.

  For more information on the entire Casca series see www.casca.net

  The Barry Sadler website www.barrysadler.com

  THE CASCA SERIES IN EBOOKS

  By Barry Sadler

  Casca 1: The Eternal Mercenary

  Casca 2: God of Death

  Casca 3: The Warlord

  Casca 4: Panzer Soldier

  Casca 5: The Barbarian

  Casca 6: The Persian

  Casca 7: The Damned

  Casca 8: Soldier of Fortune

  Casca 9: The Sentinel

  Casca 10: The Conquistador

  Casca 11: The Legionnaire

  Casca 12: The African Mercenary

  Casca 13: The Assassin

  Casca 14: The Phoenix

  Casca 15: The Pirate

  Casca 16: Desert Mercenary

  Casca 17: The Warrior

  Casca 18: The Cursed

  Casca 19: The Samurai

  Casca 20: Soldier of Gideon

  Casca 21: The Trench Soldier

  Casca 22: The Mongol

  By Tony Roberts

  Casca 25: Halls of Montezuma

  Casca 26: Johnny Reb

  Casca 27: The Confederate

  Casca 28: The Avenger

  Casca 30: Napoleon’s Soldier

  Casca 31: The Conqueror

  Casca 32: The Anzac

  Casca 34: Devil’s Horseman

  Casca 35: Sword of the Brotherhood

  Casca 36: The Minuteman

  Casca 37: Roman Mercenary

  Casca 38: The Continental

  Casca 39: The Crusader

  Casca 40: Blitzkrieg

  Casca 41: The Longbowman