Raise the Red Flag

by Eric Del Carlo

  He wondered: Was he running away now, with Hamilton? Or were they in fact running toward something?

  The commotion around him had quieted. So had the movement of the seesaw—no, barrow. Hamilton had put him in a wheelbarrow.

  “I’ve found help. We’re going to lift you now onto a stretcher. Ready? One, two….”

  On three, he was lifted, and the dull but potent pain abruptly sharpened, focusing on his right side, his ribs. Something stabbed him there. He sucked in air through clenched teeth, which made him hurt worse. He tried to open his eyes. It had seemed best to keep them shut through this ordeal. The blackness, apparently, was his friend. But now he wanted to see.

  But his eyes wouldn’t open. Or if they had opened, they brought him no vision. Panic of a whole different magnitude surged up in him. Coldness prickled every inch of his flesh. Fear plucked at his heart. He remembered the glass flying at him, shards broken off from the windscreen.

  Christ… was he blind?

  “Grab his hands!” This was a different voice, not Hamilton’s. This escalated Jonny’s terror. He tried to thrash on the softer thing he’d been laid on, but that proved immediately untenable as even the start of any violent movement brightened the pain in his side to a white-hot intensity. That single burst of pain almost tipped him back into unconsciousness. But he held on, desperate to know the state of his sight.

  “Muh—muh… my… eyezzzzz….”

  Hands had seized his hands, the grip strong but somehow gentle. Hamilton’s voice was close, his face near. Jonny realized with a surprise that he recognized the smell of the man. That seemed amazing, on some abstract plane of understanding. He already knew Hamilton’s scent.

  Hamilton said, again in his reassuring tone, “There are glass shards around your eyes, J.C., but none in them that I could see. I laid a strip of cloth over them. Don’t touch your eyes. Please, just lie still and let these people do their work. They’re a medical team. They are going to help us.”

  The other voice spoke again, too low for Jonny to catch.

  Hamilton continued, “You’re going to get an injection. It will ease the pain, and you’ll sleep more, my weary boy.”

  Fingertips touched Jonny’s cheek softly. He felt a brief pricking on one of his arms. Then the world filled with a new, kinder, more velvety blackness, and Jonny slipped obediently down into it, wishing Hamilton had kissed his cheek instead.

  HE MISSED the Green Fairy. This was not she, but it felt a distant relation, a second cousin once removed. Where absinthe took what was in your mind and drew it out into the light in wondrous and grotesque ways, this stuff—morphine, presumably—simply flattened the brain, taking with it all anguish and urgency.

  So Jonny went to a place where nothing hurt and nothing mattered. And stayed there. A few colors flashed, alternating stripes of hard primary hues, but none of it was especially entertaining. He had never had this drug before. He’d known people who used it recreationally and regularly, but his experience left him no closer to understanding why, unless it was from a need for absolute escape.

  Though he was glad for the end to his pain, nothing else about the episode was enjoyable. His emergence from his insensate state was turbid and frustratingly slow. Bits of his mind would spark to life, and thoughts would begin to jump friskily, and then the grimy tide would come in again, and he would lose the hint of consciousness. During those periods he knew he wanted to be awake. There had to be more to existence than just this interminable soft black.

  But as maddeningly sluggish as his return to life was, it eventually came about, and when it did, he became aware enough to feel the fear again. His eyes. Glass, Hamilton had said. Was he going to awaken to a world of sight or a lifetime of darkness?

  He felt his eyelids peel gummily apart. For a moment there seemed nothing to see, but then gray seeped in, and gray, while not the most arousing color, was at least evidence—he hoped!—of his eyes registering the visual reality around him.

  Careful not to move otherwise, he found the muscles that moved his neck and gradually turned his head. The gray shifted, showing a first nuance. He blinked. The focus increased. His sight took on texture. It was sight, he was sure. He was seeing.

  He was in some enclosed space. Okay. He was somewhere, then. Where was Hamilton? He would be somewhere too, Jonny dully reasoned. He felt nauseated. The pain didn’t return with his rising consciousness, or at least it wasn’t the pervasive hurt he’d felt earlier. His side ached. That was okay. It wasn’t the same piercing pain as before, though maybe that was just because he was lying still.

  He wasn’t alone in here, not by any means. He heard the creak of wood, bodies shifting, groans. And there was a smell to the place, a rank human odor. The area had a strange subterranean feel to it. His senses were coming back, the haze of the morphine receding.

  He’d gotten his head turned all the way to one side. He turned it all the way back. He was in a bunk bed, he realized, something rickety. The room was crowded with injured, with bandaged bodies. But all were in beds—or makeshift beds, anyway. He wasn’t so dumb as to try to sit up, but he took a slow inventory of himself. All his limbs were attached. He could wiggle toes and fingers, flex knees and elbows. He drew a cautious deep breath and felt a tightness on his right side, but the pain was controlled, even with the drug losing its grip on him. The hurt he felt he could manage. It was better than returning to the dark.

  “Hummuluh…,” he croaked with a dry throat. He tried harder. “Hammuluhn. Hammultuhn!”

  He appeared swiftly. Others were also calling names from their beds, adding to the murmurous clamor of the injured. But here was Hamilton, kneeling by the lowest bunk where Jonny lay.

  “Are… you… okayyyyyy?”

  Hamilton gently pressed one of his hands between his two. His eyes glimmered. “Shut up about me,” Hamilton said, voice choked. “They patched your ribs, removed the glass from around your eyes. But—are you okay? I mean, can you see? Can you—”

  “I… see. M’phine wearin’ off. No! Don’ want any more. Want to say… want to tell you….” It was what he’d regretted not saying when he had seen Hamilton fly out of the car through the windscreen. Goddammit, he was going to say it now. He struggled to form the words, but Hamilton spoke over his efforts.

  “This is an improvised hospital. It’s in a series of underground chambers. The doctors are treating whoever shows up. Chicago is in chaos. The war’s in full swing.” Hamilton’s strained, worn face peered down at Jonny. He whispered, “I’m trying to find a British ground unit. It’s useless—and risky—to try to signal a ship in the air. I’m so glad your eyes are all right. I had visions of leading you around for the rest of my life on my arm, which I damned well would have done. I love you, Jonny. I love you. You’ll sleep more. You need to. I’ll be back. I’ll get us out of this. I swear I will.”

  This time he bent down, and Jonny felt his lips against his own. And he realized he would indeed sleep again, true sleep, not drug-induced oblivion, and into that sleep, which was rising suddenly over him before he could speak further, he would take Hamilton’s words. Hamilton’s lovely words.

  FOURTEEN.

  HAMILTON CLIMBED the steps, maneuvering around the litter-bearers and trying not to look at the punctured and agonized bodies being borne below for treatment. The underground hospital was a haven. Hamilton had gathered that those caverns down there were the first stages of a subterranean railway system, which would web this entire metropolis, below street level. It seemed an improbable project, and he was surprised he’d heard nothing about it before this. Then again, it was scarcely possible to keep up with every municipal engineering effort in the Colonies or elsewhere, particularly spurred on as such audacious undertakings were by the implacable advancements of technology.

  He would not have left Jonny Callahan in a hospital on the surface, not in the midst of this bloody war zone.

  He reached the top of the stone-cut steps. The quarters for the workers who lab
ored below had been converted into triage and recovery rooms. The few dozen medical personnel who had somehow come together for this humanitarian endeavor were treating the wounded as swiftly and efficiently as battlefield doctors. Hamilton was very impressed with their skill and dedication.

  Not all these Colonials were marauders and opportunists then, as one might have thought after that ordeal along the planked highway. Neither were they all violent revolutionaries. That was plain after he had found a team gathering injured from the streets.

  It still seemed vastly unlikely that he had escaped the mass cataclysm on the highway virtually unscathed, while Jonny had suffered much more serious injuries. Hamilton after all was the one who had been catapulted through the car’s windscreen, sent soaring through the air to land on earth half-a-dozen yards or so from the scene of the crash. Granted, he’d had his head tucked into his shoulders and his body curled just so when he went through the glass, thus not even catching the edges of the car’s front window frame; and granted, he had hit the ground in a patch of mud and skidded some distance before coming to rest in a bed of grass. But still.

  He didn’t remember now even pausing to assess his own injuries after coming to a halt. He had gotten to his feet with all the grace of a newborn gazelle and gone stumbling back to the car. There he had found Jonny, body mashed against the steering wheel, which had broken apart under his impact. His head lay at an odd angle, and his eyes were closed. Naked shrieking horror had welled up in Hamilton, but he had approached the scene with a military professionalism. He had dealt with crises before. He had even occasionally handled his own men who had been wounded on duty, though this was often due to some shipboard mishap rather than in combat.

  Glass from the shattered windscreen had sprayed back into Jonny’s face. The shards stood out around his eyes, leaking trails of blood. But it was the twisted angle of his head that most terrified Hamilton. He reached across the seats and touched Jonny’s carotid. The thump of circulating blood was there against his fingertips. Hamilton permitted himself a single quiet cry of joy. Then he set about prying his friend out of the wrecked electricar.

  What followed qualified as an odyssey, an ordeal, something so arduous as to be almost mythological. Carrying Jonny, then commandeering—after a couple of pistol shots—that barrow; their trek into the city along a farm road, which led to a paved street, then into the city proper where all was bedlam. Along the way he found a blanket for Jonny, who appeared to have gone into shock. He’d already torn a strip from his own shirt and laid it across Jonny’s eyes. Above them, Hamilton had seen the British airships, reflexively identifying each class of vessel, knowing to a man how many personnel were aboard and what armaments each craft bore.

  A great part of the chaos on the ground was due to the aggression from the aircraft above, which, in every direction Hamilton could see within Chicago’s borders, were firing on surface positions, both with mounted repeaters and the artillery of the larger craft. Buildings burned. The streets swarmed with fleeing civilians. But were they all civilians? There was no saying. The Colonial Underground wore no uniforms. While Hamilton saw a few clutches of armed people, some even firing up into the sky with inadequate weapons, he never once saw the red-handed flag. In battle the British Royal branches always displayed the venerable Union Jack. It would be unthinkable not to do so.

  But for all the tribulation and horror of that journey into Chicago’s roiling depths, Hamilton had never hesitated in his determination to deliver Jonny into the hands of medical aid. He had never once thought their quest hopeless, hadn’t ever considered Jonny a burden. If need be, he would perform the whole excursion over again, starting right this moment.

  Looking out from the top of the steps, he saw Chicago lit up in hellish undulating hues. Near and far, great tongues of flame licked the night sky. It wasn’t all inferno, but there was no point of the compass where something wasn’t burning. The air spun with smoke and airborne ash.

  He got out of the way of another pair of medical personnel in blood-spattered clothing, carrying a laden stretcher. He stepped out beneath the smudgy night sky. No stars visible. The moon a mere ghost’s suggestion. But the sky was hardly empty. The Royal Airborne Fleet—or a sampling of it, at least—sailed over the city.

  His people were up there, maddeningly out of reach. He imagined them in their stiff, clean uniforms, so capable, so efficient. The captain giving his orders and the bridge crew setting them into motion. Vessels full of able-bodied sailors, each dedicated to the chain of command.

  But he thought also of the QD-108, that bloodthirsty little ship strafing the highway, evidently perfectly willing to sacrifice any number of innocent or semi-innocent civilians in pursuit of a single quarry—that stripped-down car and the two men within, responsible for who knew what.

  Were all those ships up there right now acting in an accountable, militarily lawful manner, obeying all the rules of engagement? Hamilton had no way of knowing. Certainly they were pouring a lot of ordnance onto Chicago. He felt the thuds of distant explosions through the soles of his shoes.

  But the battle wasn’t strictly one-sided, he saw. Somehow the revolutionaries managed to fight back, at least a little. A few miles off, near the river where the city’s tallest buildings stood, a dirigible was afire. It turned in a slow stately manner as orange flames streamed up its sides. A clutch of personal canopies opened beneath it as some lucky crew members escaped, but within seconds the whole craft erupted. Hamilton winced at the sight and sound, the horrible fiery crumpling of the vessel as it surrendered the skies and plummeted toward the vulgar earth.

  It made his heart ache for the Indomitable.

  Before he set out again into the streets, this time alone, he prepared himself. Going through the glass, he had picked up only a few minor abrasions, a spot of luck, which, again, seemed almost miraculous. He had treated these himself from the medical supplies below.

  He made sure his two pistols were fully loaded. One he kept in his hand now, in case any rebels got between him and the British ground forces he hoped to reach. There simply had to be a military presence on the ground. Every city had a garrison.

  He had told Jonny he loved him. He’d done it. His pulse sped at the memory. Never before in his life had he spoken such words to a man. Never had he possessed such feelings. He would go out and make contact with a British unit, establish his identity, then come back and collect Jonny.

  After that…? Well, Jonny would convalesce somewhere safe and clean, and Hamilton would see him regularly. And after that… after that…?

  Hamilton didn’t know. But his future was with the winsome, tenacious Jonny Callahan. Of that Hamilton Arkwright had no doubt.

  Teeth tightening into a determined grimace, he stole away from the underground entrance and slipped out onto the apocalyptic streets of Chicago.

  IT WAS a tour through Dante’s vision of perdition. He moved on foot, deeper into the city. Rubble was strewn into the streets. Houses stood charred or half-demolished or actively burning. Heat rolled across the pavement in sickening waves. He wiped soot from his sweaty forehead, keeping the pistol at the ready. The night rang with erratic gunshots.

  There was death in these streets. He saw corpses. He heard the pitiful cries of wounded underneath hopeless heaps of debris. The air grew thicker with smoke. His raw lungs strained, and his eyes smarted and streamed.

  Still he held to the belief that the Fleet above was doing its duty. They were firing on authentic enemy positions. The Colonial Underground was wily and elusive. They must be fanned out all across this metropolis, necessitating this widespread bombardment.

  He avoided contact with anyone. Many people panicked, dashing this way and that, shrieking with fear. He didn’t let himself guess the number of dead. He did, however, allow himself to imagine that Chicago might be some kind of aberration, where the fighting was worst in the Colonies, where the cost of this revolution was most lethal. Surely elsewhere things were proceeding in a more or
derly manner, the enemy being subdued without all this extravagance. He hoped fervently it were so.

  If it were like this everywhere in the Colonies, there would be no America left when the fighting was done….

  He suppressed that thought and concentrated on his immediate mission with his clear officer’s thinking, just as he’d been trained to do. Moving cautiously along a new block, mindful of the movements of the craft overhead, he heard the whine of an approaching engine on the ground. He’d seen precious few vehicles in the streets, other than those riddled with bullet holes or ragged wrecks torn to scrap by exploding artillery shells.

  A car swung into view, strong headlamps cutting through the murk. Hamilton had already hidden behind a partially collapsed wall, but excitement surged in him as he peeked cautiously out at the vehicle. He lunged to his feet and waved furiously before it could pass.

  Brakes engaged and the fast-moving electricar skidded a little as it halted. All night he had looked for the Colonial Underground’s flag with the red hand and hadn’t seen it displayed anywhere. Now, here, a different flag was proudly flourished. It was a welcome sight. Mounted on the bonnet of the sturdy-looking vehicle was a heart-stirring standard, the banner of his nation. The Union Jack.

  Relief shuddered through Hamilton as he stepped out into the littered street. Four men sat in the broad open-air car. Each also sported an armband embellished with the English flag. All four were armed, including the driver, whose chest was crisscrossed with bandoliers. They had soot-streaked faces and beheld Hamilton with hard flinty eyes.