Tale of the Thunderbolt (32 page)

“How soon?” Valentine asked, grateful that Cercado was keeping his voice down.

“Impossible to say. You must travel faster once you make the turn for the coast. They may move to anticipate you.”

Valentine looked into the fire. There had been delays almost from the first minute — how many were due to his faulty planning? How many to bad execution? His quick raid into the Kurian Zone, to test the quickwood weapons and get more arms for the Haitians, had succeeded in the first task: he had seen how effective the wood was with his own eyes. The second, while not being a total failure, had come far short of expectations. And now it looked as if the column would be swallowed entirely.

“You've done all we asked superbly, Cercado. We're almost to the road to the sea. You and your family members should slip away now and go back to your mountains. Take whatever weapons you wish, even some of those from the
Thunderbolt.
It is the least we can do for you.”

“Captain, Santo Domingo has not seen the like of this in many years. Such a rising will come to a bad end, or a good one. Either way, it will be the subject for tales and songs that the peons of this island will tell long after I die, even should God grant me a life a hundred years long. What man, if he is a man, would not want to be a part of it? Even now, the poor peons on the road call you Revenant
.
They say that a Reaper had you in its arms, but before it could bite you, you bit it, killing it. They say when you are wounded, you cut the body parts from your enemies and meld them with your own. Such tales are told of you — it curls the hair on my toes.

“I will tell you something else. The smokes you saw on the horizon today, they are not just Jacques's riders — they are the peons fighting on their own, or the Whisperers burning and saving us the trouble of doing it. The countryside has risen. They've borne evil after evil too long. The men are sending their women and children to you for safety while they take to the hills.”

“I thought it odd that there were so many women among them, my David,” Ahn-Kha said.

“This has been a long time coming,” Cercado continued, scratching his hairy potbelly and puffing away on the cigar. “The Domingan rulers left a hollow egg when they called away so many to fight against Kurian Haiti. It only took your footsteps to break the shell. Who knows, maybe in other parts of the island, as they gather men to crush you, other peons can take their chances. At the very least, the trade in sugar and rubber to their brothers in the north will be reduced for some time. Both require many men. If the Kurians kill those who rise, who will take their place in the cane fields and tapping rubber trees?”

“We're already overdue at the coast,” Valentine said. “We should have been there today. At this rate, we will be two more days on the road.”

“Do we dare travel at night?” Ahn-Kha said. “A final sprint, tonight and tomorrow, and the devils get the hind end?”

“Devil take the hindmost is how we usually say it, old horse,” Valentine corrected. He pictured the island in his mind, the various forces moving. “We'll get to the coast, all right.”

He rose from the fire and went to find Post.

 

In the end, the Grogs' skill as pig-hunters saved the column. The stations along the road relied on pig flesh to feed their soldiers, and to a lesser extent the workers, and as Valentine's columns approached, they emptied their pigpens and drove the pigs into the brush. The Grogs had noses to rival Valentine's own, and they tracked the future chops and sidemeat to their hiding places. The dust-raising column developed a system in which the front end would take the meat and begin boiling it or roasting it, and by the time the tail of the column passed the fires, the meat was ready to be eaten at the next rest-halt by those hundreds upon hundreds bringing up the rear.

Men, some of them armed, began to join the column from east, west, and north, telling tales of horsemen closing on the column from the barren stretches in the more arid regions of the island neighboring the well-watered river valley. More formations followed, bearing artillery and armed vehicles according to some of the tales. Valentine put Monte-Cristi in charge of adding the best-armed and healthiest of them to his own units, though there wasn't time for anything other than teaching them the system of moving for an hour, and then resting for ten minutes. Valentine was grateful for the additions; Post had gone pell-mell to the coast with the
Thunderbolt
's marines and sailors in the battle-truck to prepare for the column's arrival.

By midday they turned south for the coast, moving on a smaller, less-used road. Valentine hoped that the change in direction would throw off any designs for the column's destruction.

He managed to get his charges a few miles south of the old highway by moving on into the evening. When he finally called for a halt, the men dropped in their tracks under the bright Caribbean stars. Few of his soldiers rode; Valentine had turned space in the trucks over to the ill, weak, and pregnant of the column. Even so, there were those who turned off the road throughout the day to rest in the shade, and they would probably never catch up now. Smaller bands of Santo Domingan horsemen had appeared as it got dark atop the distant hilltops, marking his turn to the coast.

He found Monte-Cristi in the center of a circle of his chieftans.

“Ever fought a rear-guard action, Jacques?” Valentine asked.

Cristi's eyes lit up. “My men have performed many an ambush. We run all the better afterwards, knowing we've hurt them.”

Valentine smelled the pork being roasted by Monte-Cristi's cook, his mouth watering, but he ignored his hunger. This was the final sprint, and there was too much to do.

“Just hit them fast, and keep moving for the coast. I'm afraid they've guessed we've changed direction, and they might try to cut us off from the bay. We have to beat them to it.”

“We could, if we could empty the trucks of everything but the supplies. My men could march through the night.”

Valentine looked out at the sea of Santo Domingans sheltering behind the pickets. “A lot of these people can't. They joined us out of belief in some stories we spread.”

“You did not ask them to come. They must accept the fortunes of war. Not one in five of them will fit on your ship even if they do make it to the bay. They will be no worse off than if we had never come here. Otherwise, you will be asking my men to die for nothing.”

“You've seen how things are run here, Jacques. They've thrown in with us. We're their only chance.”

“They knew the risks when they ran away.”

“But that's just it, they haven't run away. They've run toward something, the chance at a free life. I would no more leave them behind than you'd leave those men you were stuck in the cave with.”

“I will tell you something, Captain. There were times — yes, there were many times, in that hole, after it was sealed, that I would have turned them all over to the Kurians for fresh air, sun, and a real meal. I . . . I prayed for the chance.”

Valentine made a show of fishing around in his bag for a strip of dried beef, so that he would not see the tears on Monte-Cristi's face. “The important thing is that when you had a real chance to give up, you didn't. How many of the legends on this island had the same doubts? Louverture, Pablo Duarte, I'm certain they had their moments when they questioned themselves.” Valentine did not add that he had learned long ago that the only way he could live with himself was if he acted according to conscience, rather than orders or even military necessity. Usually his conscience and his duty asked the same things from him, but on the few occasions where their needs had diverged, duty lost.

The moon rose, and the drivers loaded their vehicles once more with those who had to ride.

Monte-Cristi handed Valentine his horse's reins. “Ride today, Captain. I'll be afoot with my men in the rear. It will do everyone good to be able to see you. His name is Luc, and like me he is a defector from the Kurians; he is strong enough to bear even your oversize friend on these mountains. Take care of him should I . . . should I fall.”

Valentine read the expression in Monte-Cristi's face, and nodded dumbly. He cinched the saddle on the speckled gray gelding. He slung his submachine gun, grabbed a handful of mane, and mounted. Luc heaved a sigh and pawed at the earth, eager to be off.

“Any sign of our pursuers?”

Monte-Cristi shook his head. “No. For now they just watch.”

“Build up the fires as we go. I want them to burn for a few more hours at least. Take care of yourself. Dinner tonight with me on the ship?”

“I look forward to it.”

“Let's get everyone moving. Quietly.”

Valentine rode at the head of the column, just behind the rear guard. He had contracted the mass of soldiers and civilians as much as possible, but the troops at his disposal could hardly watch the front and flanks, let alone defend them with so many men detached for the rear guard.

They made good time despite the dark. When his sensitive nose picked up the smell of the sea, Valentine's heart leapt. He began to trot his horse up and down the column, urging the weary walkers on as best as he could.

Everyone seemed to sense that it was time for the last sprint. The Grogs at the head of the column scouted, and helped the pioneers with the worst parts of the road by cutting down trees into washouts so the trucks could cross. Valentine followed with a vanguard of armed men watching at all times as the others worked. He needed at least a small group of disciplined men to be ready for any emergency. Then came the overloaded trucks, the valves on the aged engines clattering in complaint. A few men traveled to either side of the road, visible through the scarcer vegetation in this more arid region of the island. Interspersed with the trucks, ready to give a shove, came the masses of Santo Domingans with their children and bundles in tow, hardly a goat remaining. Somewhere behind, more refugees followed, covered by Monte-Cristi's rear guard, composed of his most reliable men with the best weapons.

Valentine had enough on his mind, worrying about how he would find space, not to mention food, for perhaps two thousand extra mouths on the ride home without the Kurians intervening.

Which of course they did, just short of his goal.

A Grog shrieked a warning, and the dark of the road ahead burst into muzzle flashes. An automatic weapon swept the road, scattering both his men and the formation of pioneers. The Kurian soldiers were dispersed on the crest of a hill ahead.

Valentine could see the vast night out there, between the folds of the earth, and cursed.
Stopped!

The Grogs came stumbling back, one wounded. Valentine got off Monte-Cristi's horse, led it into a gulley sheltering his soldiers.

“They must have just beaten us there, my David,” Ahn-Kha said. “They are not dug in — they stand behind rocks and trees, or lie on the ground. It is just a screen, I think.”

“But it's a well-placed screen, and we're the bugs.”

“If the pioneers charge too — ”

“There'll be that many more dead men. Any idea where their flank is?”

“No.”

“Another hour, and I bet they have twice as many men. Give me your rifle. If we can at least get the automatic weapon . . .”

Ahn-Kha took his submachine gun. “Give the word, and we will go, my David.”

Valentine's own men began shooting back at the soldiers ahead, and a slow, popping firefight took place and grew as both sides' soldiers gathered at the gunfire. Neither side seemed to have ammunition to waste; with no targets, the automatic weapon was silent.

“Ahn-Kha, I have a great favor to ask,” Valentine said, adjusting the slide on the gun's rear sight.

“I know, my David. I will break for those rocks.”

Ahn-Kha ran forward in the low, loping run of the Grogs, using his hands and feet. The machine gun fired, and Valentine's Cat eyes picked up the source. He placed the flange of the front sight on what he hoped was a head. He squeezed, and the heavy Grog-gun kicked out its .50-caliber shell. He slid back into the gulley.

“You got him,” the Haitian at his right said, lifting his head.

“Keep — ,” Valentine began. Valentine saw the man's hair rustle as if a brush had been run upward through it, and he slumped. Valentine slid over to the corpse, and passed the rifle to a sheltering pioneer.

Valentine heard a whistling sound; then an explosion lit the night at the crest of the enemy hillside. He slid sideways for a better view and was rewarded by the sight of a second shell bursting on the crest, right in the middle of the road where the machine gun had been placed.

Naval gunfire, by God!

“My David, it's the
Thunderbolt,
” Ahn-Kha shouted from his hiding place ahead. The sky began to turn orange, and somewhere in the distance, a rooster crowed. He heard shooting far behind; the rear guard was contesting the road with their pursuers.

Valentine took to his horse. They would not be ringed in.

“Over the hill and to the sea, men. To the sea!” he shouted.
“Sur la mer!”
the hills echoed. Valentine handed the Grog-gun to one of Ahn-Kha's warriors.

The Golden One let loose with a battle bellow, a blood-freezing sound. His Grogs answered, and went up and over the edge of the gully, their shotguns and rifles flaring in the half-light. There were no bayonets to glint in the rising sun, but the ivory in their oversize teeth shone.

The trucks gunned their engines and kicked up gravel from the road. Valentine passed Ahn-Kha. His friend sprayed the roadblock ahead with bullets from the PPD. The charging Grogs to either side made for an odd sight, going forward with two legs and an arm, almost like horses cantering. Valentine considered drawing his blade for effect, but the Haitians and Grogs needed no urging. He pulled his Colt automatic instead and briefly wondered how he would work the slide and keep atop of the galloping horse. . . .