Raise the Red Flag

by Eric Del Carlo

  Well, the hell with it, he thought as he looked around for the discarded articles of his clothing. At least he would escape this plight. He hadn’t been looking forward to facing that interrogator.

  Ramsay reached out and touched Hamilton’s cheek, fingertips grazing. “Hey. You didn’t splash yet, did you. Why don’t you plug my ass? Here”—he swiped something off Hamilton’s chin, grinning with postcoital contentment—“I’ll oil up with this.”

  Some of Ramsay’s semen had escaped Hamilton’s mouth. Turning about, Ramsay put a hand to the wall. He reached behind and daubed his glistening fingertips around his crinkly netherhole. Hamilton’s cock, which had started to dejectedly wilt, surged anew, becoming fiercely hard again. Stunned at this sudden reversal of events, he moved eagerly forward to where Ramsay leaned on the wall, his shapely ass thrust out.

  How beautiful, Hamilton thought as he set his spit-slick cockhead to the offered opening. Ramsay’s ring distended around Hamilton’s ingressing shaft. He sank himself inside inch by inch, savoring the tight enclosing warmth. He disappeared between the lush halves of those taut buttocks, until his balls were flush against the ripe backside.

  He couldn’t bask in the moment forever, of course. In fact, this wasn’t a time even to tarry. He planted his bare heels on the floorboards, gripped Ramsay about the waist, and proceeded to ream his ass with speedy gusto.

  His body remembered the rhythm, the penetrative angle, from his night with Percy. As intimate as the fellatio of a short while ago had felt, this connectivity was the true vulnerable attachment made between male sexual partners. An anal infiltration was a matter of delicate trust, even if the two parties were, essentially, adversaries, like he and Ramsay were. Hamilton was probing the man to his most sensitive depths, feeling the sweet primordial squeeze of unprotected innards.

  The pleasure was intense, almost painfully so, especially after the shriveling disappointment of a few moments ago. The new surge of excitement churned within him. He thrust harder and faster into Ramsay’s hole. But, although the act was fantastically pleasing, somehow he couldn’t quite locate the mechanisms of climax. He remained in a state of heightened arousal, his cock rampant, his needs jittering, but his final crisis eluded him, as though a maddening joke were being played on him.

  Then the thought struck him: this was not Jonny. And with that came a memory, something Jonny himself had shared with him regarding his necessary dalliance with Gus back at the rebel camp. Jonny had said he’d needed to picture Hamilton in order to come.

  So Hamilton did that. He imagined he was plowing his way into Jonny Callahan’s ass, feeling the tight grasp of that sweet flexing channel. And that did it. With a strangled cry, the ultimate rapture at last tore through Hamilton, and his cum spewed deep inside Ramsay. Every orgasmic wrench took him to a new plane of carnal joy. But it was Jonny who accompanied him at each stage. Jonny, who he loved.

  He staggered back, disengaging from Ramsay. He felt dizzy and tired. The passing exhilaration left him aglow. He reached down for his clothes. Ramsay, still naked, picked up his liquor bottle and took a hefty swig. Hamilton hurriedly dressed.

  “You’ll take me to the crystal set?” he asked, quite prepared to take serious action if this man tried to renege now. In fact, he wouldn’t have balked at breaking Ramsay’s neck, using the key, and taking his chances from there.

  Ramsay laughed but not disdainfully. He said, “You were serious about the communications, then?”

  “Absolutely. Did you lie to me about any of it?”

  “No. I will take you out of here and to the set. Wait… are you actually what you said you were? A Fleet captain?” Surprise shone in the amber eyes.

  “I am. And now you know what it’s like to be fucked by a jackyank. Consider yourself privileged. Put on your clothes. I don’t have any further time to waste.”

  Ramsay saluted him with the bottle and got dressed.

  FIFTEEN.

  JONNY HAD got hold of a pair of dice and had turned this part of the underground hospital into a gambling den. He was showing a tidy profit on the rolls of the cubes. He was also taking bets on the intervals between bombardments from above. Somebody had a pocket watch and duly counted off the seconds from one heavy, dull explosion on the surface to the next.

  His ribs, he’d found, were taped up tightly. When he had first woken and sat up on his bunk, he had felt incredibly frail, like he would snap in two on his right side if he moved wrong. The pain was there, but it was dulled, not by morphine now, which thankfully had mostly worn off, but by the natural recuperation of the body. There were bandages around his eyes, but nothing over the eyes themselves. He was able to stand, and that felt good. He didn’t want to fall back into a state of lethargy, so he had started up this small-time gambling syndicate to occupy himself.

  Other of the wounded here were also eager for something to do. They were hurt and frightened, and the base thrill of chance and risk seemed a perfect distraction. If they didn’t have money on their persons, and many didn’t, Jonny was graciously accepting IOUs, though he didn’t imagine he would ever collect on them.

  So it was that when Hamilton returned, Jonny passed the dice to someone else, and the gaming continued without noticeable pause.

  Hamilton appeared in the entrance of the improvised recovery room. A look of dismay overcame his worn and weary features as he saw Jonny come toward him.

  “Why are you out of bed?” Hamilton demanded.

  They must have cut away his shirt to get to his injured rib cage. His somewhat scrawny torso was bare. He delicately patted his right side. “I’m fine. I remember you leaving earlier. Where did you go? What did you find?” Because plainly Hamilton had encountered something dire out there. His face was branded with it.

  “Not here,” he murmured.

  Hamilton’s haunted eyes troubled Jonny. He had no idea how long Hamilton had been absent. He did recall their parting, and the words Hamilton had spoken, the ones Jonny wanted so badly to reciprocate. When a man said I love you, he needed and deserved to hear those same words said back to him, especially when the sentiment was true on both ends.

  They slipped out of the grotto-like room. The unfinished tunnels around them were strung with electrical lights. Medical personnel and volunteer helpers were moving about, seeing to the immediate needs of the injured being brought down on stretchers.

  Hamilton led them to an isolated niche. He smelled of smoke and sweat. As he leaned with obvious fatigue against the wall, Jonny reached a hand toward him. Hamilton flinched.

  “What the hell happened?” Jonny asked.

  A strange, almost unnerving smile twitched to life on Hamilton’s face. “Well,” he sighed, “for one thing, I had sex with another man.”

  “You what?” Jonny’s voice was sharp enough to make an echo.

  Hamilton’s expression crumpled into one of terrible contrition. “I’m sorry. So damned sorry….”

  Jonny took Hamilton’s shoulders, feeling how he trembled. “Look,” he said, thinking quickly, “I’m sure you had a reason for doing so. I’m not the jealous kind. I think we can just forget about that—whatever it was—for now. That’s not the big news you brought back, though?”

  “No. It’s not.” Hamilton gathered himself visibly, like a pugilist rousing himself late in a fight for another round. “I fell in for a time with a group of loyalists. American natives who support the Crown, who are willing to fight against the revolution. They had a crystal set. I was able to… arrange”—his eyes flicked away, then came back—“access to it. I made contact with the Fleet and reported the loss of the Indomitable. Once the local command was satisfied as to my identity, I was told to present myself at a pickup point in the city. I was also given my orders. They would put me immediately in charge of a ship, a GB-167, Ivory Tiger class, whose captain had been killed. They informed me what would be expected of my new ship once we were underway.”

  Here it was, thought Jonny. Whatever awful thing had so stunne
d this man. “What do they want you to do?” he asked.

  “Chicago,” Hamilton said, the word catching briefly in his throat, “is to be leveled.”

  Jonny recalled the bets he’d taken just a short while ago, people guessing at the length of lapses between barrages. Everyone had gotten into the cheeky spirit of it. It was a bit like laughing in the face of death. Some among the wounded were bona fide revolutionaries, but most Jonny had interacted with were just regular citizens. They’d been hurt in explosions, in fires. They’d had ceilings collapse on them. Chicago was definitely taking a pounding, but Jonny had never doubted it would ultimately survive. Really, it was simply unimaginable that an entire city could be destroyed.

  “Leveled?” Jonny asked, in horror. “As in…?”

  “As in razed. Obliterated. Enough firepower is to be let loose upon this metropolis to leave no structure standing and no person alive. This isn’t the only city so targeted. I was told the same program would be pursued in Pittsburgh and Trenton. Charleston in South Carolina. A few other places, where the fighting is strong. It is not, I gathered, a militarily strategic operation. It is more symbolic. This is the might of the Crown. This is the strength of the Fleet. The revolution is hopeless. Worse than hopeless. It will bring unprecedented destruction down on the heads of those who have dared to act against the British. Individual innocence, it has apparently been decided at American Operations Headquarters, is meaningless. Great swaths of Colonists—of Americans—must perish for the sin of rebellion.”

  The words were too much for Hamilton. He was a man past his breaking point, Jonny saw, functioning only by dint of a few last flickering impulses. He didn’t sob, but tears flowed from his eyes, leaving tracks on his soot-baked face.

  The ghastliness of the proposed atrocity didn’t escape Jonny, but he nonetheless looked around at the tunnels. This seemed to be fairly deep underground. Maybe by moving farther away from the steps that led to the surface, the coming bombardment could be weathered by those down here.

  He held Hamilton while he silently cried. Tiny shudders shook him, as though he were receiving little jolts of electricity.

  “What time does this assault happen?” Jonny asked.

  Tears still oozing down his cheeks, Hamilton spoke in a perfectly level tone, which was rather disconcerting. “Resupplying airships are on the way. The ones currently over this city are almost out of ordnance. Once they get their heavy guns reloaded, the final cannonade will commence.”

  “And you?” Jonny asked. “Where will you be? Aboard your new command?”

  Hamilton went stiff. He stepped back abruptly from Jonny’s arms. “Are you mad? I shall have nothing to do with this… this abomination! This is no fit undertaking for an honorable soldier. My pickup appointment is impending. However, Fleet Command knows I survived the Indomitable’s destruction. If I fail to present myself, I will have nothing more to look forward to than a court-martial. Likely worse.”

  Jonny shook his head. “Where does that leave you, Hamilton?”

  Hamilton let out a long breath. His eyes glazed, then came slowly back into focus, with a small hard glint of determination in them. “I believe that leaves me in a position I could never have imagined for myself. At crossed purposes with my own Fleet. This onslaught can’t be allowed to happen. In war we do not butcher the innocent. Even in the thick of revolution, that tenet is inviolable.”

  The words had the ring of genuine nobility to Jonny’s ears. He knew then that he didn’t just love Hamilton. He admired him. Granted, his stuffy manners could be a bit much, but there was undeniable integrity in the man. How easy it would have been for some other—some lesser—individual to simply go back among his fellows and resume his duties, no matter how distasteful. But Hamilton was willing to basically throw his career away on a principle.

  But Jonny realized that the practical side of his last question remained unanswered. He fixed Hamilton with a keen gaze and repeated, “Where does that leave you, though? I mean, what are you going to do?”

  Hamilton conjured a wry smile from somewhere. He said, “Do? I’ll do what a soldier should do. Fight back against the wicked.”

  He stepped out of the niche. Jonny realized the surface impacts had virtually ceased. Those ships up there really must be out of shells for their guns.

  Hamilton looked up and down the tunnel. A new energy appeared to be burning through his weariness. He said, “I need to make contact with the local Colonial Underground. It’s possible we can defeat the airships.”

  IT WASN’T betrayal on his part. Hamilton could not allow himself to open up that line of thinking, not even a crack. There was treachery afoot here, to be sure, but it was the treason of those at the American Operations Headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. They had violated the military code by issuing this profane order for such a wanton massacre of civilian populations.

  Ramsay had gotten him to the crystal set, and Ramsay had slipped him out of the loyalist encampment. Hamilton had successfully used his body—had used sex itself—to get what he wanted from that man. There was a whorishness about all that, but he didn’t have time to be squeamish now. He had fairly blurted the thing out to Jonny, unwilling and unable to keep it to himself. He had been greatly relieved when the younger man, so worldly, had virtually dismissed the news as irrelevant.

  Hamilton knew he would never get over the horror he had experienced upon hearing that dispassionate voice over the set, relaying his orders. Apparently precautions were no longer being taken with regard to information conveyed by crystal. At first his spirit had surged at the news: he was to have command of a new ship! A GB-167 wasn’t as grand as a GB-254, of course, but the notion of being slotted back into a captaincy so quickly filled him with hope that somehow everything would return to normal. Somehow he would keep Jonny in his life, yet still manage to hold his rank and all his privileges in the Royal Airborne Fleet, to which he’d dedicated so much of his life.

  But the revolution had changed everything. The red flag had gone up, and the world—or the Colonies, anyway—had been altered forever.

  He could have gone directly from the loyalist camp to the site designated as his pickup point. Instead, he had made his way unerringly back to these tunnels, which were evidently still undiscovered by the loyalists. He was delighted to find Jonny in such an able condition.

  But Hamilton’s next step would constitute betrayal from an official standpoint. He intended to help the rebels bring down the British airships. Those birds simply could not be allowed to restock their ammunition and rain a final death down on this city. Certainly Chicago must be rife with revolutionaries, but there were far too many innocents as well on these streets, in these homes. They didn’t deserve to die. If Hamilton let that happen, the blood would be on his hands too.

  Jonny helped him find members of the Colonial Underground amongst the wounded. He located those in a condition to hear and speak, to understand what Hamilton told them about the coming offensive.

  “And who are you to know all this?” asked a woman of middle years whose arm was bandaged up to her shoulder. Her dark hair was further darkened with soot, and half her head had been singed. But her eyes shone with cunning, and her rather full face had the countenance of command. It occurred to Hamilton that the British military branches were likely missing out on a fine field of recruits and officers by not allowing females into the ranks.

  They had gathered at the woman’s bunk in a corner of the cavernous recovery area. Elsewhere a dicing game was evidently in progress, with much ballyhooing, which left their group in relative privacy. The woman had a pair of lieutenants by her sides.

  Hamilton hesitated only a moment. Here was his moment of personal risk, but it was also the best chance he had of making a convincing impression. He said, “I am Captain Arkwright, late of Her Majesty’s Fleet. I lost my ship at the start of this conflict and have been earthbound since.”

  The two male lieutenants started, but the woman raised her good hand in an a
uthoritative gesture. They made no further move. Hamilton no longer had his pistols. He had walked Chicago’s streets unarmed. Not that a handgun would have done much to save him from the dropping of a random artillery shell.

  “Late of the Fleet, Captain?” said the woman. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that I have deliberately missed my chance to rejoin my onetime fellows.” And indeed the time for the pickup had now passed.

  “So, you support our cause?”

  “No.” The woman was too shrewd to lie to, Hamilton had decided at the start of this meeting.

  “No? Then… why?”

  “I cannot stand by while the Fleet commits a crime of warfare. The Fleet I knew was honorable, illustrious, steeped in the best military traditions. As a captain, I conducted myself and my ship with integrity. Without a ship I find I must continue in that fashion. I fight against this imminent atrocity, nothing more. I don’t pretend to understand your revolution. I don’t sympathize with your cause. But the innocent must not be slaughtered.”

  It was, he thought, a pretty little speech, all the more so because of its naked sincerity. He wasn’t certain he could summon a duplicitous front just now, anyway. This ordeal had nearly depleted him, but he was still managing to perform somehow. And his work wasn’t done.

  “Why should we trust you?” the woman asked.

  “Because you have nothing to lose by doing so.”

  She didn’t linger over her internal deliberations. Neither did she look to the man on either side of her for consultation. She was a decisive individual unto herself. Hamilton wondered if she held some serious rank within the ramshackle disciplinary structure of the revolutionaries.

  In a forthright tone she said, “What can you possibly tell us that would help us fight the airships from the ground?”