by Lou Cameron
“My men are good fighters, damn it,” Robles growled. “Children, children, don’t fight,” Captain Gringo said. “I see a flag over there, eleven o’clock behind that clump of reeds. Looks like the Venezuelan colors, for Pete’s sake!”
Robles spat and said, “They have no right to fight under Venezuela’s colors, the traitors!”
Gaston said, “This may be true, but here they come!” as, from the rebel lines, someone yelled, “Viva Victoria!” and the tree line exploded in white clad figures, charging with bayonetted rifles, repeaters, fired from the hip as they came. A bullet spanged off the log they were behind. Another took Major Robles in the shoulder and he spun away to land, cursing, in the mud. Captain Gringo gritted his teeth and said, “All right. We’ve had just about enough of this shit.”
He rose, bracing the Maxim on his hip as he opened up to cut a swathe of death and destruction at the level of the charging guerrilla’s white crotches. The other loyal Venezuelans didn’t have to be invited to join in. The man carrying the flag screamed, as Captain Gringo’s hosing lead shattered his flag staff, his left hip, and tore off his balls. A loyalist sharpshooter blew the side of an enemy bugler’s face off just as he left his horn to blow something that might have seemed important to him just before he died. The guerrillas were inspired, or maybe drunk. They charged long past common sense. So, when they faltered and began to move back, they were still in the open and it was just as easy to shoot a man running away from you as it was one coming at you. It was more fun, too. The loyalists leaped to their feet to chase the rebels, peppering them rudely and bayonetting any they caught up with. Captain Gringo ceased fire as he saw men on his side in the way. Major Robles had staggered to his feet, drawn his revolver, and was trying to stagger after them when Gaston grabbed him and asked, “Merde alors, where do you think you are goings my friend?”
Robles said, “I must lead my men, damn it!”
But Gaston sat him firmly on the log and insisted, “Your men are doing fine. Is this not so, Dick?”
Captain Gringo put the hot gun down and said, “Yeah, they’re kicking the shit out of them. I think I just jammed this gun. I have to get back and see how Bronson’s making out.”
Bronson and the others back at the barricade were making out just fine. As Captain Gringo got there he saw the empty river. Bronson laughed, slapped him on the back, and said, “They turned tail and ran for it! We beat them, Dick!”
Captain Gringo said, “Let’s not get sickening about it, kid. They’ve gone back to think things over with their flag ship and the rest of the fleet.”
Bronson sobered and said, “Jesus, do you think they’ll come back for another try?”
“I hope not. Now that they know we’re serious they won’t come in again with the band playing. The fat’s in the fire and they’ll figure on a no kidding landing under fire.”
“Jesus, Dick. How are we to stop them, if they try again?”
Captain Gringo’s voice was bleak as he replied, “We can’t. If that salvo of H.E. didn’t impress them, nothing we have left will. I don’t even have a full belt of machine gun ammo left.”
“Oboy. Maybe it’s time to get out of here, huh?”
“You get out of here if you want to. I never said I didn’t have any ammunition left!”
~*~
Out on H.M.S. Pandora the Welsh born Admiral Rice-Davis seemed to be doing a Highland Fling in his private quarters as Greystoke sat and watched, bemused. The rams and transports had returned to resume station outside the three mile limit and, thankfully, nobody had been killed in the surprising ambush by the obviously determined Americans. A few men had been lightly wounded by shell fragments. One of said shell fragments rested on Sir Reginald’s desk as he danced about in a rage, trying not to listen as Greystoke said, “It’s settled, Sir Reginald. I’ve explained why we can’t afford a war with the United States and it’s most obvious the Yanks have called our bluff. We’re going to have to negotiate our way out of this one. I’m sure Venezuela will give us a few token acres of jungle and all will be right with the world again. Stupid quarrel in the first place, but somebody at Whitehall will muck about with the maps at night after the brighter lads have gone home.”
Rice-Davis sputtered, “What, what, what, negotiate? Never! Won’t have it! Looks as if we’ve backed down from a perishing handful of marines!”
Greystoke pointed his chin at the shell fragment and said, “That is not a shard from any U.S. Naval ordinance. It’s a field artillery round. The Yanks have been buying those big 155s from the French and they’re very good guns. I’m frankly astounded they didn’t sink our shore party if it’s true they fire that many. I suppose they have orders to avoid a war, too. But if I were you, I’d take the hint.”
“What, what, what? Never, by Saint George and the Dragon! Just let my lads regather their wits and we’ll show the perishing Yanks who rules the waves! Moving in after ebb tide. Butt, stock, and bayonet. Only way to do it, what, what, what?”
Greystoke grimaced and asked, “Do you have anything to drink, Sir Reginald? It’s getting perishing hot as the sun rises.”
The older man blinked, nodded, and said, “Of course I have something to drink. Should have said so, if you were thirsty, what, what, what?”
He moved to a sideboard, took a bottle and glass tumbler from it, and put it on the desk near the shell fragment, saying, “Help yourself. As I was saying, we’ll let the tide turn, rearm the turrets, fire a few good ones into that bend from out here, with my serious guns, and—”
“Aren’t you drinking with me, Sir Reginald?”
“Eh, what, what, what? Sorry. Forget me flaming manners when I’m planning a battle.”
The crusty sea dog got his own glass and poured it half full of neat scotch before filling Greystoke’s. He noted the dismayed look on the spy master’s face and asked, “What, what, what, need a chaser? I’ll ring for the steward.”
But Greystoke smiled and said he liked his malt liquor like a man. So the older man looked mollified and began to sip his drink. Greystoke asked, “What’s that, out the porthole?” and, as he’d hoped, Admiral Rice-Davis lowered his glass and stared out the open port as Greystoke rose to stand beside him. Rice-Davis blinked and would have said another infuriating what, what, what, had not Greystoke shrugged and said, “Oh, stupid of me, just a gull, of course.”
“Gull? Of course you saw a gull. What else would you see out a porthole, perishing flying machine?” He drained his glass, slammed it down, and added, “Ridiculous new inventions. Balderdash. Submarines. Flying machines. Never happen, I tell you. Wouldn’t be natural.”
Greystoke sat down, crossed his legs, and sadly regarded the old man as he sipped his own drink. He said, “They do have submarines, and they say a lot of people are working on the flying machine. The coming century should be interesting for you Naval chaps, eh?”
“Balderdash. Battleships will always rule the waves, say I. Never saw the sense of converting to steam. Sail was good enough for Nelson, wasn’t it?”
“If you say so, Sir Reginald,” said Greystoke, with a yawn. The old man paced back and forth, frowned, and said, “I say, I seem to be coming down with that flaming ague again. Bit wonky in the knees all of a sudden.”
“Why don’t you sit down, sir? You do look a bit pale.”
Rice-Davis shook his head to clear it, staggered over to his bunk, and sat down heavily, muttering, “Can’t be ill now! Won’t have it. Must go back and finish off those cheeky Yanks.”
Greystoke lit a cigarette and took out his watch to consult it. The old man tried to rise, stared at him in wonder, and gasped, “I say, by George, you’d best ring for my orderly. I do believe I’m quite ill!”
Greystoke saw he could not rise to get to the bell button. So he blew a smoke ring and soothed, “Lie down and let it take effect, Sir Reginald. You’ll be more comfortable, that way.”
“What, what, what? Effect? What effect are you talking about?”
&nbs
p; “Oh, I just poisoned you, sir. It’s quite painless, and leaves no trace, either.”
The admiral gasped, tried to rise, and sank back, weakly, as he said, “I say, that was rather rude of you, Greystoke.”
Greystoke said, “Sorry. Had to be done. Queen and Country and all that rot.”
“By God, sir! I do believe you must be a foreign agent, what, what, what?”
Greystoke shook his head and said, “I assure you I’m a loyal British subject with the good of the Empire at heart, Sir Reginald.”
“Eh, loyal, say you? What do you think I am – a perishing wog?”
“Sir, I think you’re a true blue worthy British gentleman who’s seen his day. Unfortunately, there are a lot of you left, but most are no longer in a position to start a senseless war with the United States.”
“You bastard! You’d betray your Queen to the bloody Yanks?”
“No, Sir Reginald. But I assure you I’d murder Her Majesty for our country, if it meant saving us from a ghastly mistake. Like yourself, the Queen is old and out of date as the dodo bird. His Highness, Edward, will mount the throne as an old man, and hopefully die before he can get us into any more of these ‘By Jingo’ messes you old fools have mucked this century up with. Her grandson, George, will take over in the coming century as a modern monarch, a trained naval officer who doesn’t believe in fighting sail and pointless expeditions to places like Venezuela.”
The old man’s eyes were glazed and Graystoke felt sincerely sorry for him as he croaked, “But the Yanks, you can’t let the Yanks beat us ...”
“Nobody’s beating anybody, Sir Reginald. That’s why I can’t let you go back for another go at them. Both the Crown and Cleveland will leave the negotiating table with their honor satisfied. Prince Edward is popular in America* He even manages to get along with the French. Britain will be entering the coming century with both France and the United States on her side. A few square miles of jungle and an obsolete admiral seem a small price to pay, but I am truly sorry, Sir Reginald.”
The old man on the bunk didn’t answer, although his eyes were still open. Greystoke rose, gently closed the dead man’s eyes, and pushed the button near the door.
When the steward appeared, Greystoke said, “Admiral Rice-Davis seems to have had a stroke. You’d best get the ship’s surgeon. I’ll be on the bridge.”
He left the steward with the corpse and walked the short companionway to the bridge, where, of course, the other officers were waiting for new orders.
Greystoke said, “I’m afraid the admiral is indisposed, but just now he turned his command over to me.”
A rear admiral, almost as crusty-looking as the man he’d just poisoned, frowned and said, “Command over to you, Sir? Why, dash it all, you’re a civilian.”
“Let’s not talk dirty. When you check with Admiralty and Whitehall you’ll discover I hold flag rank and, if need be, I outrank an army general, too. My old school chum, Prince George, arranged this for me when I went to work for Intelligence. But I didn’t come here to talk about myself, gentlemen. I want this fleet out of Venezuelan waters and I want it now. Are there any questions?”
A younger officer of the newer breed nodded, knowingly, and said, “Ay, ay, sir. Trinidad or Guiana?” and Graystoke said, “Guiana, of course. That’s where this task force came from. So why don’t we just put it back where we found it?”
~*~
Considering how close the two sides had come to a formal declaration of war, once the more sensible civilian faction in London wrested control in the field from the jingoists, the crisis evaporated like spit on a hot stove. As the last smoke plumes of the British task force faded over the horizon the cable and telephone connections winked back on as if by magic. Greystoke’s field agents simply respliced them in the same secluded jungle nooks they’d cut them less than twenty-four hours before and, for the record, the breakdown in communications must have been caused by the recent rains and some unusual electrical anomaly of the iron rich soil. The Americans and other legations cut off from the outside world for a time accepted this. They were told to. London had cabled Washington that if the perishing matter was really that important it might be a good idea to have a gentleman’s agreement, so President Cleveland eagerly accepted third party arbitration, having saved his honor and political neck and pleasantly surprised his bluff had worked for some reason. The military attaches in Venezuela, of course, cabled Washington about their skirmish with the task force, but were advised to forget it. Nobody important had been hurt and officially it hadn’t happened.
Within twenty-four hours the Union Jack once more was flying just down the street from the U.S. Consulate and when asked by anyone rude enough to let his curiosity show, the British legation explained they’d been on a picnic in the woods. Trouble? What trouble? Whitehall hadn’t cabled them about any trouble. But then, of course, the wires had been out for a time, eh what?
In Caracas a relieved President Crespo received a hurried phone call from the Loyal Opposition and listened with a wry and understanding smile as a very rattled Cipriano Castro assured El Presidente of his continued support against imperialist aggression.
Loyalist police officials had informed Crespo of the rather messy murder of the shady El Sortilego. His funeral would have to be closed casket. They’d gathered most of him from the various nooks and crannies of his ransacked “Fortune Telling” establishment. But they had no idea just where his head had vanished. Cipriano Castro was said to be trying to raise a lot of money suddenly. He explained he had to pay off some gambling debts, fast.
In another part of town, Sir Basil Hakim was being very reasonable about extending the defeated rebel faction a bit more time. He was keeping a very low profile indeed, after receiving a very rude coded cable from his old drinking buddy, the Prince of Wales. As he waited for the amiable fat future king to cool off he was holed up with a six-foot Negress who offered a change of pace for the jaded little monster. Sometimes it could be amusing to be dominated and the grim sadistic black girl was an interesting switch after the twisted thrill of child molesting. He’d have her killed before he steamed off in his luxurious yacht, of course. It wouldn’t do for word to get around that the Merchant of Death enjoyed an occasional good cry in the arms of a brutal lover.
By this time, of course, Captain Gringo and Gaston were long gone from the scene. They’d lit out in the Dutchman’s spare power launch well before the cables could be respliced and hadn’t seen fit to bid formal farewell to the worried Lieutenant Bronson or anyone else who might be expected to arrest them. The Dutchman’s woman had told them they couldn’t use her man’s launch, of course, so they’d stolen it from the boat house during the siesta and now she was mad at them, too, one could assume. It didn’t matter. They hadn’t told anyone where they were headed.
Gaston was a bit surprised, when the sun came out late that afternoon as they were crossing yet another unmapped lagoon of the vast poorly mapped delta. Gaston turned from the firebox he’d just cast another stick of wood into and said to Captain Gringo, at the helm, “Forgive me, my old and lost, but unless I am wrong about the time and the natural movements of the sun, we seem to be heading south!”
“I know we’re headed south,” Captain Gringo said. “Everyone will be expecting us to run north. Back toward our usual haunts in Costa Rica.”
“I thought that made sense, too, Dick. We have been, how you say, busting the gut trying to reach the Caribbean since we stumbled into this thrice-accursed country.”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “Yeah, and a lot of people know it. It’s true we’re not wanted and have lots of buddies in Costa Rice, but Costa Rica is one hell of a ways off. We can’t go to sea in this wood burning little tub. Do you really want to hug the coast the whole length of Venezuela, Colombia, and Panama after smoking up the Royal Navy?”
“Mais non, the Colombians are after us, too. But, to the south, lies even more trouble, Dick. The next border we come to, that way, is British Guian
a!”
“Yeah, I noticed. Calm down, we’re not going to British Guiana. There’s another Venezuelan seaport on the delta’s south side. Curiapo, on the Boca Grande. The Brits bypassed it to make an end run for the main delta town back there, but they tell me lots of ships put in the Boca Grande. I figure it’s a day’s run, in a straight line. Take us a little longer, winding through all these bayous and lagoons, but what the hell’s your hurry? Give ’em time to calm down, right?”
Gaston thought, nodded, and said, “Oui. For a moment you had me worried. I thought we were chasing the Dutchman, to get our money for the arms he’s running to French Guiana.”
“We are,” said Captain Gringo, grimly. “It’s bad business to let guys screw you, and even if the Dutchman was on the level we can’t hang around back there in Tucupita until he gets back with our dinero.”
Gaston sighed and said, “Dick, listen to me. I have often told you I thought you were crazy, but this time I am trés serious! French Guiana is south of British Guiana. You just assured me we were not steaming into the jaws of the doubtless enraged British lion, hein?”
“Relax, damn it. We’ll be lucky if that old boiler holds together as far as the nearest seaport. I told you we’ll board a ship. There must be hundreds of coasting tramps running between this delta and French Guiana. We’ll steam right by the British colony, sitting in first class deck chairs as we toast the Queen.”
Gaston said, “Well, since you put it that way, I won’t have to shoot you and turn this craft around after all. Eh, bien, we can use the new papers they forged for us, non?”
“Now you’re talking crazy! If I know Bronson, he’ll put out an all-points bulletin on us as soon as he gets cabled confirmation of his suspicions. For old time’s sake he might give us a few days’ lead, but he has to make at least a half-ass stab at capturing me for Uncle Sam and the guy’s pretty good. He and the others know the names on those fake papers they gave us. So we’ll pull a switch and use our old ones. I never showed them to Smitty’s forgery team, so they don’t know about ’em.”