Purgatory's Shore

by Taylor Anderson

  * * *

  Private Hannibal “Hanny” Cox had made a new friend on the way to Uxmal; a short, dark (compared to Hanny, anyway), and very black-haired young fellow about his own age named Apo Tuin. Neither knew much about the other because, even though they’d been working very hard to learn each other’s languages, they could barely communicate. But Hanny was a little bashful and didn’t have many friends in the 3rd Pennsylvania, and Apo, a grinning, gregarious sort, had seemed to sense that and quickly latched onto him as if determined to pull him out of his shell. He’d marched alongside him during the days, cheerfully pointing at trees and brush, rocks and small creatures, rattling on about them as much to the interest of the men around Hanny as to the gangly farm boy from Bucks County himself. Apo was impossible not to like and was essentially adopted by Hanny’s whole squad—which, by association, finally started to get to know Hanny better as well.

  Apo hadn’t been there when Hanny confronted Hahessy, having run to see his mother and sister in the city, but was clearly angry when he returned and learned about it. He was mad at Hanny’s comrades too, for not standing by him better, even giving their senior platoon sergeant named Visser a bitter tongue-lashing in his own language. Sergeant Visser, already armed with some Spanish, had picked up more of the local lingo than most and assured young Apo they’d all jumped in as fast as they could before the fracas was stopped. That appeased the fiery Uxmalo to a degree, but like Hanny, he hadn’t been interested in joining the debauchery that seemed to be escalating in the camp. Instead, the two of them went to a “service of thanksgiving” near the medical tents, where a number of the more pious soldiers from all branches had declared their intention to speak to anyone who wanted to listen.

  One of these was an otherwise dour young Scot from their own platoon called “Preacher Mac” McDonough. A staunch Calvinist, even he begrudgingly supported Reverend Harkin’s interpretation of their place and purpose in this world, concluding: “A better explanation for our situation isnae in the scriptures, but the same can be said o’ much we cannae be expected tae ken.”

  “Worlds, plural, are mentioned in Corinthians and the book of Hebrews,” someone argued.

  “It isnae the same,” McDonough objected impatiently. “What that means . . .” He sighed and shrugged, for once unwilling to quarrel. “One thing only is certain: it is the will o’ God that we’ve come wherever we are. How else could we be here an’ why? All we can do is have faith in His design an’ do our duty.”

  Another man stood to speak and Apo tugged Hanny’s sleeve. “Let’s eat,” he said, a simple enough phrase he’d learned right off. Hanny nodded and turned to walk with his friend. It was too hot by the fire illuminating the gathering in any event, and Hanny was hungry too. Tired as well. He hoped he could sleep through the growing ruckus in camp. Eyes adjusting slowly and moving carefully through the tents so he wouldn’t trip on stakes and ropes, Hanny suddenly saw three distinct shapes of men in the gloom, one hulking over the others, and heard a rough voice that chilled the marrow in his bones.

  “Faith, it’s young Hanny again, me lads! Look there, with his pet darkie Injin! Thought he’d got off without sewin’ me button, he did. Reckon it’s time to sort that out.”

  Fear lanced through Hanny as the shapes moved closer and resolved themselves into Sergeant Hahessy, of course, and what he now recognized as his chief minions. One, named Cole, wasn’t really much shorter than Hahessy, but he was skinny as a rail and always wore a malevolent sneer. The other was short and burly, but Hanny didn’t know his name. Both carried large, open jugs, and were grinning with a kind of wicked glee Hanny had never seen.

  He wanted to run but couldn’t. The fear almost paralyzed him, but that wasn’t why. Apo probably didn’t understand all that was said, but clearly understood what was happening, and he didn’t run. More than that, the . . . injustice of their predicament, that three drunken men, all larger than they were, could feel so casually free to terrorize them left him shaking more with fury than fear. Despite the terrible odds, running just wasn’t in him.

  “Got a floggin’ comin’ to him too, I recall,” the burly man with a jug reminded.

  “Aye, as it happens, he does,” Hahessy agreed in a mock-thoughtful tone, now towering right in front of Hanny.

  “I’ll flog ’em both!” said the tall Private Cole, bursting out laughing.

  “Now, now, none o’ that,” Hahessy said, gently scolding, staring hard at Hanny. “Ye heard Cap’n Cayce about the Articles. Ye’ll get yerself thrown outa the army, an’ this ain’t the time fer that. If the bugger just does as he’s told, I’ll still let it go with only”—he paused and grinned harshly—“we’ll call it ‘administrative punishment.’ ”

  Hanny balled his fists at his side and cleared his throat so his voice would be clear. “Never, Sergeant. You can go to the Devil. I know you, and I’ll report you if you don’t step aside—and apologize for what you called Apo.”

  Hahessy’s eyes, reflecting the light of the meeting fire where those gathered were reacting loudly to something the latest speaker said, went wide with surprise, fury, and hate, all mixed together. “The only report’ll be the findin’ of ye both dead as stones in the marnin’,” he hissed.

  The next instant was so full of motion, Hanny hardly caught it. Hahessy’s huge right hand left the white belt it was resting on and lashed out as quick as lightning, backhanding him hard enough to knock him off his feet and cause an explosion of sparks in his eyes. Apo crouched, ready to spring, a long, shiny dagger—maybe bronze—suddenly gleaming in his hand. Private Cole dropped his jug and yanked a bayonet from its sheath at his side. “Enough o’ this,” he hissed. “We was gonna stick ’em anyway.”

  Suddenly, Hahessy himself was on his back, slammed down from behind, breath knocked out, gasping for air. A man almost as big as he was loomed over him, boot on his chest and a long-barreled pistol aimed steady at his eye.

  “Easy there, son,” came a low, rumbling voice directed at Apo, and the Uxmalo slowly uncoiled as the two drunken henchmen tripped over tent ropes and scurried away on the ground. “You still alive, Private Cox?”

  Hanny’s spinning vision finally focused, and he recognized the big Ranger called “Boogerbear.” “Yes sir. I think so.”

  “I ain’t no ‘sir.’ Just a corp’ral.”

  “Then get yer damned bloody boot off me or I’ll have ye on a charge!” Sergeant Hahessy managed to wheeze.

  Boogerbear slowly shook his head. “Don’t think so. If ever-body don’t already know what kicked off that fuss earlier today, I do, an’ I got a idea what you was fixin’ to do here.” He pressed down harder on Hahessy’s chest. “I know your sort an’ I won’t have it, hear? Never did hold with fellas th’owin’ their weight around just ’cause they was big, an’ you didn’t even have the guts to do it alone. You ever want some exercise with a fella yer own size, I’ll be tickled to oblige. In the meantime, you leave these boys be.”

  “It’s none o’ yer concern. It’s a matter o’ discipline, an’ I’ll do as I see fit!” Hahessy hissed.

  “It is my concern, an’ if any harm comes to these fellas—outside the line o’ duty—I’ll kill you,” Boogerbear replied so calmly, so matter-of-fact, that it sent a chill through Hanny. “Killin’ raunchier critters than you has been my trade an’ pleasure fer years,” he added with the slightest shrug.

  The side of Boogerbear’s bearded face was lit up by a lurid, orange light that quickly brightened, and he looked up and peered off, away from the camp meeting fire. Giving Hahessy a final, brutal stomp, he said, “Git yerself out’a my sight. Cox, you an’ yer amigo run over there an’ fetch as many o’ them religious fellas as you can.” He paused. “Arm yerselves an’ meet me at the command tent.”

  * * *

  “Fire!” somebody shouted drunkenly. “Tent fire!”

  Sergeant James McNabb looked back at his six-man detail.
“Get a move on, lads,” he cried. They’d already seen the darting, twisting flames shooting up at the sky and snatched sloshing water buckets from where they’d been filled and placed by casks, scattered about just in case of this sort of thing. Most of the wedge-shaped canvas tents the army used were just that: plain, untreated canvas. They leaked in the rain until the fibers swelled, and then they’d keep sodden soldiers and their things from getting any wetter. Some men treated their tents with a mix of linseed oil and mineral spirits. That made them heavier and kept them a little tacky, but made them practically waterproof. They’d also burn like coal oil if they took a light. It didn’t much matter. Untreated canvas was almost as bad when it was dry. As tightly as the tents were pitched, one might ignite dozens when it burned.

  “Hurry, lads!” McNabb urged again. “There it is! There’s two afire, now! Get yer water on ’em!”

  Only one was really burning; the first had already been consumed, leaving only smoldering fragments of canvas around lightly charred, fallen poles. Two men tossed water on these, and the other closest tent, while the rest doused the one now involved. A naked man and woman squirted out the smoke-boiling flap and disappeared in the darkness.

  “You forgot your musket, you useless bastard!” One of McNabb’s artillerymen yelled, then knocked the tent over to help smother the flames and make it easier to stomp them out. “Oughta piss on it,” he grumbled.

  “Aye”—McNabb laughed—“we should!”

  “I’ll do it,” came a voice by the firepit, a man they hadn’t seen, who’d apparently just sat and watched. “Don’t like that bastard anyway. He stole the girl that went off with me!”

  “Who’s that?” McNabb roared, then recognition came. “Damn ye, Private Willis, what’re ye thinkin’? What’ll Captain Cayce think? Did ye burn these tents?”

  “Nah,” Willis grumped, swaying where he sat on the ground by a large painted jug. “Didn’t hardly notice till you showed up—though I reckon it did get brighter all of a sudden.” He shook his head. “I’s jus’ watchin’ this here pig cook. Me an’ Barca’s gonna eat eem all ourselfs!” He waved grandly at a darkened, skewered carcass, slung low over the coals in the fire pit. McNabb doubted it was really a pig, not with clawed toes on its feet, but it did otherwise look and smell like a roasting shoat. “Work harder’n anybody, we do,” Willis muttered darkly, “an’ nobody gives a damn! It’s all ‘Willis do this, Willis fetch that,’ an’ ‘Willis, make me a goddamn dress coat outa that there shredded napkin, if you please!’ ” He frowned. “Barca’s better at that sort o’ thing, but I do my best, by God—an’ next thing ya know, there’s these damn foreign wimmin swoopin’ in an’ stitchin’ and cuttin’ on my goddamn napkin! Cap’n Cayce’ll throw me back in a gun detachment where I’m bound to be killed er maimed by some big ole’ boundin’ roundshot. I dreamed it once!” He stared owlishly at McNabb. “He’ll prob’ly give me back to you, you damned, bloody-minded tyrant! I ain’t fit for such labor. Danger neither. I got a delicate compostituency!” He belched and poked the scorched meat with his finger.

  McNabb rolled his eyes. “Willis, Barca ain’t just a better orderly, he’s a better soldier, I hear. Why do ye think I gave ye to Captain Cayce? I didn’t know him then, an’ wanted rid o’ ye. I’m ashamed o’ meself now. But knowin’ ’im better, I reckon he’ll treat ye as well as ye treat him—an’ you’re no use under heaven to anyone else! So sober up, clean up, an’ get back to the headquarters tent where ye belong.”

  Willis poked the smoking, fat-spitting carcass again. “But what about my pig? It was near all me an’ Barca could get off them heathens for ourselves—after we laid in some other things for the derned officers.” He looked indignant. “Them damned infantry fellas thought we was back for more for us an’ near crushed us down in their rush fer the booze!” He grimaced. “Talked a girl away from them local sutlers too, though Barca said I oughtn’t. Didn’t last,” he added mournfully, nodding at the second burned tent. “Never lasts. She thought Private McIlveen was purtier than me.” He giggled, probably thinking about what happened to them and how much trouble McIlveen would be in.

  “We’ll get ye an’ yer bloody pig back—if ye share ’im with us,” McNabb told him. “We been a bit busy to see to ourselves as well.”

  Willis nodded reluctantly and let one of McNabb’s men stand him up. He looked around. “You ain’t seen Barca, have you? He went for somethin’. Salt, maybe.” He yelled out, “Where you at, Barca? We’re takin’ the pig!”

  Even over the rumble of revelry, one of the men thought he heard a groan nearby. “Have a look,” McNabb said. A moment later, a pair of artillerymen came dragging the young black man back near the fire pit. Barca was shaking his head and trying to walk.

  “An’ you tole me not to drink that octli juice!” Willis accused. “I been waitin’ all this time, an’ you’re laid out drunk a dozen paces off!”

  Barca managed to stand on his own and shrugged off the hands holding him. “I’m not drunk,” he retorted hotly. “I saw people trying to fire one of the tents, and someone struck me from behind!”

  “Knocked on the head, sure enough,” another man said, holding up a lantern and seeing matted blood in Barca’s hair.

  “Who fired the tents?” McNabb demanded.

  Barca looked at him. “Locals, Sergeant.”

  McNabb frowned. “But why?” He shook his head. “Never mind. They were likely drunk as well—or McIlveen had one o’ their sisters. Let’s get these two back.” He grinned. “An’ don’t forget the pig!”

  The blood and sweat on Barca’s dark face suddenly glowed, and they turned to see several more tents burst into flames at once.

  “Goddamn it,” McNabb shouted. “Leave the pig. Grab yer buckets an’ follow me. There’s another water butt this way.”

  The fire had spread to half a dozen more tents by the time they got there, with Barca and even Willis staggering behind. They all threw water on the fires, but it made little difference. Worse, nearly everyone on this end of camp must’ve been elsewhere, and there was no one to pitch in and help. “Get more water, fast as ye can. I’ll get some attention,” McNabb bellowed, unslinging the musket from his shoulder. Cocking the weapon, he pointed it up and pulled the trigger. It flashed and cracked. In the bright flare of the vent jet and muzzle flash, something on the ground drew his notice, and he took a few steps and stooped. Barca and Willis joined him to look at two dead infantrymen, their high collars and sky-blue jackets under their chins black and slick with blood. “Poor bastards. Somebody’s cut their throats for ’em,” McNabb muttered, standing and looking around. Without conscious thought, he pulled a paper cartridge from the black leather box at his side and tore off the end with his teeth. Priming the pan of his musket, he clapped the frizzen back in place and poured the rest of the gunpowder down the barrel before shoving the wadded-up paper, still wrapping the ball, into the muzzle. Even as he drew his rammer, he turned to Barca and Willis and asked, “Can the two o’ ye make it back to the command tent?”

  “I can,” Barca said.

  “Then go, run, tell Captain Beck we’re under attack an’ we’ll need to stand this drunken mob to.”

  Even as his eyes swept around the rest of the camp, another clump of tents went up, flames rolling and licking high in the night. Then came the screams, and several shots.

  “Agh!” cried one of the men returning with a bucket as he was thrown to the ground by one of the big, heavy-shafted arrows they’d already seen too many of. The man never made another sound, other than the noise of his feet drumming in the grass. The arrow had slammed straight through his heart.

  “Bloody hell!” shouted one of the other soldiers as they all dropped their buckets and took muskets off their shoulders. One fired at a flitting shadow.

  “Watch what yer shootin’ at, damn ye!” McNabb roared. “This ain’t the Uxmalos we been amongst for a week, nor them tha
t fed ye! This is their enemy too!” There were more screams of terrified women, drunken cries of alarm or outrage, then came the drums, calling the men to action. “Stay with us, an’ fetch that man’s weapon,” McNabb told Barca. “The alarm’s already out.”

  “What about me?” Willis almost squealed.

  “Ye’d be no use with a weapon even if ye’d thought to bring one. Fetch yer damn pig if ye like,” McNabb snapped, then relented. “Get McIlveen’s musket. It won’t be hurt, an’ he ain’t usin’ it.”

  * * *

  “The camp’s under attack!” Lara exclaimed, advancing beyond the corner of the long building for a better look.

  “It’s certainly burning,” Lewis agreed. “Now get back before someone sees you.”

  They were distracted by more unexpected fire when a ripple of startlingly bright flashes stabbed out in long, horizontal tongues of orange flame far out in the bay. Moments later came a rumbling, booming sound, like heavy, distant thunder. “Those are cannon, by God!” Lewis said. He’d know as well as anyone, but he also knew these had to be mounted on a ship. Could the Doms be here already? he wondered frantically. But the jets of flame were still far away, not directed at the city. It made no sense—until there were more flashes, stabbing back at the first.

  “That’s Captain Holland an’ Tiger,” Anson declared. “An’ somebody’s chased him here!”

  Lewis looked at Varaa, who was blinking her luminous blue eyes. “That, or the other way around,” she confirmed. “An encounter with Doms at sea would explain his tardy arrival.” She shook her head. “I doubt, however, that beyond their inspiration, Captain Holland’s difficulties are related to our own. He must fend for himself. As must we.” She gestured at a low stone wall separating the grounds of the Audience Hall from a cross street fronted by shops. Most had been lit when they entered the city, but all were now ominously dark. “We can use that wall to get to the front and perhaps see what awaits us.” Simply assuming agreement, she darted lightly across the opening, tail high behind her. Anson quickly followed, as did Lewis and Lara.