Per usual and giving fair warning

School comes first as always. I try to do a page a day but I am frankly swamped with papers to write for instance and I feel foolish writing short stories instead of things that matter to my GPA so I will try to write a page tomorrow but no promises, the end of the semester is always busy.

The Cost of Reputation V

With the help of the witch casting a couple of direction finding spells and the thief climbing a couple of trees we finally reached the base of the tower after walking for several hours. That it had taken us several hours to walk about a mile wasn’t a promising start to our project. It meant that when we found the door open at the bottom of the tower I wasn’t reassured. Actually I think I would have liked it better if it had taken us a few more hours to break it. As it was this seemed too much like a trap. The others seemed to feel the same because we were all looking around suspiciously as we entered the darkened room at the base of the tower.

“Third floor right?” asked the witch, already heading for the badly lit star case. There wasn’t a single candle or torch in the whole room that I could see so all we had to see by was the light that came in from a few windows. It wasn’t a place I wanted to be after dark, my fighting abilities go down greatly when I can’t see.

The second floor was just as empty as the last one had been, and just as quiet. I was starting to feel spooky. A powerful wizard should be living here and you couldn’t tell me a powerful wizard wouldn’t stop us from stealing from him. At any second I expected stones from the walls to throw themselves at us or something of that sort. It didn’t happen, we made it to the staircase that went up to the third floor without incident. I think we all almost tiptoed up to the third floor and still there was nothing there.

“How am I supposed to steal nothing?” demanded the thief, it was just as she said that that a sound came from the stairs above us and a decrepit old man descended the stairs.

“Who’re you,” the man demanded, his voice cracking with age.

“You Doyle?” I asked, I was terrified but the other two were counting on me so I had to show a good face.

“That’s right, but I don’t know you kids.” It had been a long time I had been called a kid, I was at least thirty and the witch had to be about forty. The only one who could be called a kid realistically out of the group was the thief.

“We’re here to steal whatever’s on this floor so you hand it over and you don’t get hurt,” I ordered, drawing my sword. Usually I wouldn’t bully an old man but from all of the stories this guy wasn’t any old man so I didn’t feel bad.

“I don’t have nothing, not anywhere, ‘cept upstairs where I sleep. There I got a bed is all,” the old man said cackling. “You kids more adventurers after m’ treasure?”

“That’s right, so where is it?” asked the witch who was finally gathering up his courage.

“Don’t have it. Used to show it off lots,” the old man was still cackling at us. “It was magic, magic went away so did the treasure.”

“What magic went away?” I asked.

“Mine o’course, ‘m an old man now, don’t got magic anymore.”

“What about the maze wood?” asked the thief.

“Nothin’ to talk about, it’s all that’s left. You kids‘re on a fool’s errand, nothin’ here.” We searched the whole tower but came away with nothing. The great Doyle was nothing but an old man whose only belonging was a mattress on the floor. He laughed at us the whole time we were searching. Of course then we had to talk to the boss.

“Ya got nothing?” she demanded as we all stood in front of her.

“The wizard was too strong, he fought us off,” I told her, we had agreed on the lie before hand. It wouldn’t do us any good if it was found out when had done battle against a defenseless old man, and he deserved his continued reputation too, it was all he had left.

The Cost of Reputation IV

“Tower, wizards usually live in towers,” I commented. The other two looked glummer.

“I don’t think I’ll be going through with this job,” the witch said. “There were details that we weren’t told so I don’t see that we are responsible for completing this.”

“I agree,” said the thief.

“I’m going to finish the job,” I said. The other two looked at me like I was crazy but I held my ground. It wasn’t like I had a choice anyway; the job had to be done.

“How’re you going to finish the job without the two of us?” the witch asked.

“I don’t know, I haven’t gotten there yet. I’ll figure something out.”

“Maybe you don’t understand Doyle, he’s strong and he’s dangerous. He will kill you. Are you suicidal?” asked the witch.

“No but I have a job to do, death is one of the occupational hazards,” I admitted, “but it hasn’t happened yet and until it does I’ll keep doing the job.”

“You sure now how to make a quitter feel guilty,” the thief complained. The thief and the witch looked at one another and finally shrugged.

“I guess we’ll see this job through,” said the witch. “Until my life is actually in danger and then you’re on your own. You have a good name for keeping people you are protecting alive so I’ll trust you,” the witch said, standing up.

“Then I will stay too,” said the girl, also heading for the door. Once I was on my own I had time to reflect that they were staking their lives on only what they had heard about me. We had been traveling together for a single day, they weren’t betting their lives on what they knew, they were betting them on rumor. I tried to think of all of the rumors my agent had intentionally passed around about me and I was filled with guilt. If that was the sort of person they thought that I was then I would disappoint them.

The next couple of days of travel, this time to the west, gave me a chance to get to know my companions a little better. They were both good at what they did. The thief gave me a demonstration of her skill almost immediately when I found that some things were gone from my locked saddlebags. I confronted her about it and she just laughed and gave them back to me. The witch was trickier, like I said before, he didn’t feel magical but he would do things sometimes that would suggest a gift. Every time he did anything the air around him seemed to change. I’d never met anyone like that before. It did make me feel better to have people like them at my back though; it made me feel less like I had the whole burden of their lives on my shoulders, though of course they were still my responsibility.

Headwall’s Wood, when we finally reached it, wasn’t much to look at. It was a forest with a couple of old beat up houses around it and a tower standing in its center. We left our horses with an old man who didn’t look like he would steal them and headed towards the tower. We asked around about it but no one would tell us anything, or even look us in the eye when we mentioned it. That boded more ill then had they told us horror stories.

The forest was like a maze, we would think that we were heading in the right direction only to get totally turned around again. I considered tying a string to a tree and seeing if that helped but it seemed too late now. That would have been more practical had I thought about it as soon as we had entered the forest. I began to suspect that our repeated sidetracks were the first magical problem we would be forced to face when facing Doyle and that wasn’t much comfort. If he was strong enough to cast such a large maze spell then he could also probably attack us from this distance.

To be continued...

The Cost of Reputation III

“I wasn’t told details,” Hans told me. One look at the thief told me she was in the same boat as us; our bosses hadn’t been very open with details it would seem.

Our first day of travel was uneventful, if awkward. Conversation was pretty scarce around a bunch of people who had been thrown together by a job. I didn’t want to be the one who started any discussions; it would ruin my image to be talkative so I had to wait for the other two to decide they wanted to talk. The other two didn’t seem very talkative either, either that or they were maintaining an image just like I was.

“Don’t either of you get any ideas,” was the only thing the girl said the whole trip and that was towards the beginning. I guess she was aware of her position as a young woman traveling with two men.

“Do either of you know anything about this Headwall’s Wood,” I finally asked, as much to break the silence as to find out information.

“Not many people go near it these days,” the self proclaimed witch told me. Knocking around this world had given me some knowledge of magic and the feeling around the guy we were traveling with wasn’t much. I had been around major magic users and they had a feeling to them this guy didn’t have.

“Is there any reason to keep away from it?” I asked.

“I asked around and I heard that a really powerful wizard had settled in there. You probably wouldn’t have heard of him but he’s a big name with magic users. Doyle, I hope this job isn’t to do with Doyle.” The conviction in the man’s voice made me hope he was right. He didn’t seem like much of a magic person but he still felt like someone who had been through a lot and if he was scared of someone it would probably be a good man to be scared of.

“I have some sealed orders,” the thief commented all of a sudden. Both the witch and I looked at her in surprise. “If you like we could open them now and find out if this has to do with that Doyle or not.”

“Are we supposed to open them yet?” I asked.

“Not until Belvien,” the girl admitted. “But they won’t know.” It was tempting but if it got out I didn’t follow the boss’s instructions on a job I wouldn’t be able to ask half as much on my jobs.

“I’ll wait until the city,” I told my companions and we sank into silence again.

We were in the city by that night. Twenty miles isn’t all that far by horse. We found ourselves a hotel and the thief brought out the sealed instructions for our inspection. Both of them were sitting in my room, without me saying anything I seemed to have become the group leader. I wasn’t complaining about that though, I was the most professional of the group and I didn’t trust the two to make decisions that would become our type of work.

“In Headwall’s Wood there is a tower. You will proceed to this tower and enter it. There you will go to the third floor where there is an item that you are to acquire and return with,” I read out. “It says we have two weeks before we are given up for dead.”

“I don’t like the sound of that last part,” the thief commented. I didn’t say anything but I felt the same. Any job that ended with them making provisions for your death was bad news in my experience. I suppose a lot of bosses make allowances like that but not to your face usually.

To be continued...

The Cost of Reputation II

We showed ourselves into the boss’s library. The boss for this job bothers me, I know this isn’t her house, and she always wears a vale so we can’t see her face. Usually I wouldn’t take a job like this but I follow the all important mercenary code closely, enough money will buy a lot of unasked questions. For all I knew she was just a hired hand like I was. I wasn’t even sure what the job was going to be yet, like I said, money is the first thing that comes to count in this job. My reputation dictates that I not turn down a job just because it’s mysterious.

“There’s someone for ya to meet,” the boss said. “She’ll be yar partner.” I would have groaned if I was alone, it wouldn’t have been professional though. This wasn’t the first time on a job that my partner had been chosen but I liked it better when I could chose for myself.

It was a girl of about sixteen who stepped out of the side room and gave me a suspicious look. She didn’t look like anyone who could help with any of the sort of jobs that I was ever hired for but the code would dictate that I do whatever the boss said. She was dressed modestly, she looked so meek, I didn’t like the look of this job at all.

“I’m a thief,” said that modest girl bluntly. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t as proper as she looked. I should have known better then to judge by appearances after living this world for so long. It still made me suspect the nature of this job even more; a job that I would need a thief to go along with me wasn’t one that I would play a main part in. In jobs like this I was usually just the one who had to protect the thief so he could do whatever was needed. A theft in a dangerous house or part of the world probably, well this wasn’t the first job I had had of this sort.

We didn’t talk about what the job was, instead both the girl and I got a letter that we were told to open only after we left the house. We were also each given a bundle of money which sweetened my mood a lot. It was therefore in the comfort of my new room that I found out what I had signed on to do.

“You will meet your party at the west gate at noon on the twentieth. You will have provisions provided for you. You will proceed along the north road for twenty miles until you reach the city of Belvien where you will go west until you reach Headwall’s Wood. Your job during this time and the return trip will be to protect the members of your party and the goods.” That was all there was, still no details, and I didn’t like the look of the word goods, this job screamed danger to me but there was nothing I could do about that. The way it was written also worried me, it was obvious that that badly spoken boss hadn’t written such a formal letter. My suspicion that there were other people behind the scenes seemed to be confirmed. Having signed on to the job I couldn’t just back out now however, danger and duplicity was a part of the job after all. I had known that when I had become a mercenary.

On the appointed day I found the girl I had been introduced to by the boss waiting for me at the gate. There were also three laden horses waiting for us. Three horses and two of us that I had known of, the third quickly made his appearance. He was a middle aged man in flashy clothing and a small pack on his shoulders.

“Hello, I’m Hans; I’m the witch for this job.”

“This is a magic job?” I asked, growing three times more concerned about whether or not I was going to make it back to this city alive. Magic made everything more dangerous and unpredictable.

.
To be continued...

The Cost of Reputation

I jumped up the steps two at a time and reached the top just before my pursuers did. This town took a fairly aggressive stance on preventing trouble and I was already wanted in two cities. They had nothing on me in this city but they weren’t going to let that stop them from running me out of town. They would have to catch me first though. Not only would my employers be unhappy if I got evicted from town, my reputation would also be greatly diminished. As a mercenary my reputation was very important, it was how I got jobs and it determined my pay rate.

The city guards, in this city they called themselves police, were still hot on my trail as I rounded the corner, skidding on the smooth cobbles. I had two choices, I could continue to try to shake them or I could stop and fight them. Either way had its risks of failure and its chance of success. Fighting the guards would increase my reputation but it would also cement their wish to catch me, at the moment I hadn’t done anything so they might just give up. That was my hope anyway, so I just kept running. It didn’t look good to run from anyone but that was the smart way at the moment. The police would be after me soon enough, after I had done my job, they always were.

In the end it took diving through a house and hiding under a market stall to get away from the police. I had to bribe the stall keeper to not turn me over. That put a dent in my wallet but I was expecting to earn a lot. I never let my services get undervalued. I like to think that I’m not like the thugs you can hire in any alley of a city who will kill for a couple of bucks, I’m a skilled craftsman and I like to be paid as such. The people who hire me expect service and they get it.

I didn’t go back to my room; instead I found a new one. I never carried anything that I minded to lose with me on a job and if the police around here were any good at all they probably knew where I had been staying by now. Changing lodgings a lot is part of the job description. After I had gotten settled into my new room and bought the necessities I had left behind at my old place I set out to go talk with my boss.

I have an agent who takes care of a lot of my business transactions. He works on commission so if I don’t eat neither does he. I don’t trust my bargaining skills so I leave that up to the professional. He was waiting for me when I knocked on the back door of my employer’s house. The servants’ entrance, after all I was a hired hand.

“You’re late,” he hissed at me as we walked down the hall. Household servants moved out of our way as we passed, fear in their eyes, news gets around. My agent looked, if anything, scarier then I did. The reason that he was so good at his job was that he had made a lot of connections back when he had been a mercenary himself. He had a bad knee now and had been forced to retire but he had survived for years in this line of work so he could take care of himself still.

“Sorry,” I whispered back. “I had something to wrap up before coming to talk. I didn’t think the boss would be happy if I led the guard right to his house.”

“You’re supposed to be keeping your head down, what do the police want with you,” complained my agent.

“Nothing, you don’t have to worry, they’re just worried about my reputation. You know the one that you wanted me to cultivate so much,” I snapped back.

“Oh, yeah, that happens,” my agent admitted.

To be continued...

Speechless Fear II

“Hang on,” I told the boy, though in my native language so I’m sure he couldn’t understand me. The meaning on my words must have been obvious though because he clung to me even tighter then before, though that may have just been an instinct of self preservation.

My muscles were screaming by the time I was half of the distance I had to go. It grew harder and harder to weigh our lives against my overwhelming urge to just give up and sink under the river water. It was the boy’s mother standing on the riverbank, ringing her hands in anguish and still screaming that carried me on. I didn’t have the courage to die with that woman’s pain on my shoulders and so I continued swimming, mechanically. By now a large crowd had gathered around the river bank and they had all started screaming encouragement. It didn’t pass through my exhausted mind, as they pulled the boy and I back up onto the bank, but I did think later, if they had wanted to encourage me they could have helped me. Their cheers hadn’t done any good but I could have used them sending a fishing boat after me or something like that.

I lay on the grass gasping as people all around me pounded on my back and told me how amazing I was. I spoke a few words of my native language and they got the idea I was a foreigner which only toned down their enthusiasm slightly. The mother just kept holding the boy and sobbing into his hair which was too wet to notice the addition of some more water.

The reporters descended as I suppose could be expected with an event that had attracted this much attention. They found a translator to talk to me from the audience. He was a native but had a fairly masterful grasp of my language and wasn’t ashamed to speak to me in it. I envied him. I told him everything that had happened, and then filled them in on some more personal details that they wanted for their report. Reporters everywhere want to know how old you are, where you were born, when you moved to this place, what your job is, what your experience is in whatever it is you just did. I asked all of their questions and they went away but the man they had pulled forward to translate remained.

The boy’s mother came forward and thanked me profusely, that was awkward. She hugged me, and kissed my cheek, and told me that I would always be welcome at her house, that they would always be in my debt. The little boy came forward and thanked me as well, in a tired, warn out voice. It had been a long and eventful day for him and I got the feeling he still didn’t really understand much that had happened except that someone had told him that he should thank me.

Finally everyone started to drift away but the translator still remained next to me, telling people what it was that I was saying, mostly I was saying that they should stop thanking me that I hadn’t really done anything other then what I should have done. Being a fellow human shouldn’t deserve praise. After a while only he and I were left.

“You’re a very brave man,” the translator said, shaking my hand. He walked away before I could deny it. I knew better, I was a coward, even through all of that, even to cry out for a boat to help get us to shore, not once had I spoken any language but my own. I went home and read. It was a book in the local language; I didn’t have any problems with it. When a telemarketer called though I spoke in my native tongue and she hung up because she couldn’t talk to me. I am not a brave man.

Speechless Fear

I have been living in this country for three years and I am a coward. These thoughts might not seem connected but I assure you they are. I am a coward because I have yet to speak one word of the language of this country the whole time I have lived here, even though I know all about it by now. I still communicate with signs and signals and in my native language every time I have to speak at all. See what I mean, I am a coward.

I will write in this new language that everyone around me speaks. I can read it, and I do so, I can understand everything that the people around me are saying, I just won’t speak it myself. Sometimes I will say a word or two in private, mostly swear words when things go wrong, but I have yet to speak a word of it in public. It’s just too embarrassing, I look like a foreigner and that’s bad enough, it is even worse to speak and have everyone know just how stupid I sound in the language they are practically born speaking. I would rather be taken for some tourist then to admit that I still sound like such a stumbling fool after having lived in this country for three years. Like I said, I am a coward.

Of course then there’s the question of how I work. The answer is very simple; I work for a company that is based in my country and work purely from home. I mail in everything to them, computers make everything easier too. So you might ask why it is that I stay in another country, where I refuse to speak the language, rather then go back to where my job is and where I would feel more comfortable. That would be a cowards response and that’s what I am, so I couldn’t really say, any more then I could say what caused me to leave my country in the first place. I got the urge to see the world a little more so I packed my bags and moved but just as I moved on that whim I haven’t had the whim to move back yet.

I was walking along the street, on my way to nowhere in particular, when I saw a woman screaming and crying on the riverbank. I looked in the direction she was facing and saw a bobbing speck off in the distance. It took me a moment to realize it was a little boy who had drifted some distance from shore. There was no time for thinking then, my shoes were off in a second and I was in the river. That was a disgusting experience, though happily that wasn’t what was on my mind at the time, the river was not clean in any sense of the word. I was swimming through filth but that consideration would come later, after everything was over.

The boy had been dragged out a long distance by the current of the river but I reached him and he latched on to me. I had been afraid, like the coward I am, that he would be like all of those people I had heard about and drown his rescuer in his panic. He couldn’t have been more then four or five so even if he had panicked I probably could have handled it. I am a very good swimmer, though it sounds weak coming from my mouth. Swimming as far as I had already though I was getting tired, I was starting to realize the magnitude of what I had assigned myself by diving into the river. Now I had a return trip with a burden on my back, an ugly thought but I had no choice.

To be continued...

Hettie Cat

I am a cat, they call me Hettie. Life is pretty easy as a cat; we don’t have any of the concerns people have. I can pad through the garden and watch the birds fly, unreachable, overhead, while the people around me rush about trying to solve all of the world’s problems. They pay me a lot of attention, some of the time anyway. They play with me and ask me questions, but of course I can’t answer them because I don’t speak like they do. Sometimes I make it a point to mew in answer, or smile as only a cat can smile when they tell a joke to me.

I caught a mouse the other day and killed it. I had only started to play with it though when they took it away from me and complained about how disgusting it was. I don’t understand humans, I thought it looked tasty. They threw it in the trashcan, which has a closed lid so I can’t get in it no matter how hard I try. No matter how much I bash myself into it, it just won’t open. Perfectly good food gone to waste. It isn’t as if I go hungry, they feed me, all the while talking to me and expecting me to respond, as if them talking is more important then my food.

There are other cats in the house, little ones, most of them are grey since they are from the same litter but my favorite playmate is black all over. Sometimes I flirt with him but he doesn’t respond ever. Cold heartless cat, but so handsome I can’t help still liking him. One of his sisters is a snob and I don’t get along with her very well. She always has her tail high in the air and whenever I try to play with her she hisses at me. I tried to claw her the other day but she didn’t seem to care even about that.

I don’t always have kind feelings for the other cats, not even the handsome black. They don’t treat me like I am one of them and they get fed all of the good tasting cat food while they feed me bits of human food. When I try to eat the cat food they take it away from me and scold me. The humans have their favorites and I am not one of them, how else would you explain their strange behavior.

There is a string with a ball on the end tied to one of the doorknobs for us cats to play with. I can spend hours at it, which shows you how much free time we cats have. Well that and it’s good for practicing my hunting technique. I would argue that that ball on the string is the whole reason that I am good enough to catch a mouse. Again the humans complain at me. Do they really think that I am interested in the flashy box they keep trying to show me? I can watch the flashing box for a few minutes just because it flashes but after that I get bored.

Humans are truly odd; you would think that they would tell that cats and humans are different. Still they insist that I wear clothing like they do, that I eat the same food they do, and with the same strange tools they do to eat that food. They complain when I act like any of the other cats, as if somehow I’m different. They are always telling me I am a woman, what ever that means.

Alisa's Prey

Alisa watched her quarry from the bushes, she had been tracking him for the last hour but he still hadn’t relaxed his guard long enough for her to make her move. She was starting to wonder if he knew about her and was just toying with her. She would have to make up her mind soon whether she wanted to attack or give up.

Her query was on the march again so Alisa stole along the ditch, out of sight, after it. The man stopped to get a drink and Alisa stopped too, as her query stopped moving. She was using more energy then the man was because it was harder to move without being heard. She lay in the ditch, panting without trying to make too much noise. At least this was somewhat relaxing; if the man had been on his guard he would have noticed her heavy breathing. She wasn’t in very good shape and had never been very used to stealth. If she hadn’t set herself this mission she would never have even considered a guerilla warfare approach. It was very unnatural for her.

Her prey was on the move again and Alisa followed, she had come too far to chicken out. If she did now people would call her a coward and she would lose face. As the leader of her group she couldn’t afford to be labeled a coward no matter what. If people stopped respecting her they would stop following her orders, she would have to take the risk at this point and prey for victory. Her group was probably after other targets at the moment and while they could fail she couldn’t, such was the price of power.

Alisa started to wonder if the man ever got tired, most people would stop and rest, or sleep after walking for this long but not the one that she was following. She started to wonder if she should have attacked him while he had gotten a drink but her position hadn’t been to her advantage. She was going to have to make her move soon though, she couldn’t get a lot farther from camp or she wouldn’t make it back before nightfall.

Alisa picked up a stick to use as a club and finally emerged from the ditch, intentionally far behind from where the man was walking so he wouldn’t notice her. There was no one else around so in that she would be safe. Pretending to use to her make shift club as a walking stick she walked as quickly as she could so she would end up right behind him.

In one swift blow she knocked the man out with her club. Now that she had committed herself she gained confidence, she would have to move quickly but she was used to that. She tore his boots off of his feet and ran; he could continue his trip, wherever he was going, without them. His fate had been that of anyone she had seen with a foot about the same size as hers and a clean looking pair of boots. These would last her for at least a year.

Great and Simple Deeds III

I tossed one of the captain figures up in the air and caught him, not the one that looked slightly like me, the other one. The one who had been wearing the wrong uniform, the one who had lost, I used to feel sorry for him, now I felt sorry for me. He was still living in comfort back home and he had been given a chance to redeem his reputation in battle. The real loses had been taken by the winner, I was the one in semi self-imposed exile on the frontier. Back when I still heard the news of the world I used to hear his name every once in a while, he hadn’t even fallen into obscurity, I had though. I wondered if he ever thought about me, the man who had accepted his sword before the gates of his fort. I wondered if he ever thought about getting his revenge and almost wished that he did. Of course he wouldn’t do it though; it wouldn’t be gentlemanly to attack someone just because they defeated you in a battle. The war was over now, it had been for years, decades, most people had moved on.

I was just putting the finishing touches on an Indian scout when my neighbor drove up in his wagon. I didn’t give him the chance to knock on my door, I went outside to great him right away, and give him his money. You’d think that since I was hiring him he’d give me a little respect as his employer but there you’d be wrong.

“Never stops amazing me, the great captain of the war hiding from his creditors way out here. Kinda funny when you think about it, you needing a common soldier like me for everything.” I found myself wanting to punch the gloating man in front of me but I needed him. March an army hundreds of miles, underfed, through swamps and across rivers, take a fort manned by a superior force from the enemy, and end up a nobody. I tossed my money to my neighbor, helped him unload my stuff from his wagon, and closed my door on his still boasting face without saying a word.

I went to the box I kept my money in under my bed. It was tucked way back; I didn’t trust my neighbor to not outright steal from me if he knew where my money was. It was depressing to think of how much fuller that box would be if I hadn’t financed a lot of that final campaign on the fort with my own money. Of course if I hadn’t used my own money we wouldn’t have won but my patriotism had waned as the government had continued to ignore my requests for reimbursement. I also wouldn’t be living in this cabin and therefore wouldn’t have the box under my bed. I might have even had a real bank account, living up to my well born family standard rather then be the one they didn’t talk about. Alright so I hadn’t exactly spent my own money on that last expedition, I had spent other people’s money with the promise to pay it back. Not one night do I not regret that.

As the sun set I fell into bed. If I went to bed early then I wouldn’t eat dinner, thereby saving food, and I wouldn’t use up so many candles. I buy my candles from the neighbor’s wife. I think sometimes that I keep that family in work so much that they only pretend to farm. It can’t be helped though. Even if I save my money for the rest of my life I will never have enough to pay for the bills of a whole army. I wonder if when I die they will at least give me a burial with the honors I am due, I doubt it. I’ll probably be buried by the neighbor and his boy behind the cabin. What an appalling thought.

Great and Simple Deeds II

The neighbor lives about two miles away from where I live. He has a family, his wife sometimes sends the younger boy over with some soup for me. She says she feels bad for me living out on my own without anyone to see to me. I would never have imagined taking charity a while back, these days I’m grateful. I used to have money and an income, now I don’t have either. My pension isn’t a lot; a nation forgets its heroes fast when they go bankrupt, even the ones who go bankrupt for their country.

My neighbor’s house isn’t any nicer then mine but at least all of his family had coats to wear. It was his little boy who answered the door and then without asking me in turned to call his father to come. His mother was the one who asked me in while his father came from the other room. You might think that the husband of such an angelic woman would be someone I would get along with but there you’d be wrong. He and I don’t get along too well; he thinks I put on airs because of my past.

“Hello neighbor, I was wondering if you’d be going into town any time soon.”

“I might be, if you have anything you need to get for you.”

“I got a list here of things I’ll be needing. Of course I’ll pay you for your trouble,” I added. He nodded.

“I guess I’ll be heading into town later today then. I’ll drop your stuff off with the wagon tonight.”

“Much obliged.”

“Won’t you stop for something to eat?” asked my neighbors wife, already heading for a pot over the fire. I saw the look in my neighbor’s eye and was torn between upsetting him and eating some real food for a change.

“You’ll have to excuse me ma’am,” I said tipping my hat to her, remembering that I depended on my neighbor’s good will. “I should be going, ‘sides I already ate. I thank you kindly for your offer though.” Having made my excuses I absented myself from the house as quickly as I could. A fine state of affairs, I who had never fled before superior enemy forces forced to bow to the prejudices of an uneducated backwoods trapper. Money, and the lack thereof, changes everything.

Once I got home again I fried some of the morning’s mush in some of the pig fat, a far cry from what ever good food it had been the neighbor woman had had in that pot. When I had presented my idea to capture the fort before the politicians of our great nation I had been feasted, wined and dined. Back then I had worn my uniform, instead of turning it into a blanket to sleep under. I had had my best captain’s dress uniform and my frockcoat and my hat upon my head. I imagined walking in on all of those fancy parlors how I was looking now and imagined what all those pretty ladies who had flirted with me once would say. It was an entertaining thought; I could always use an entertaining thought. It made the mush go down easier.

I was making a set of toy wooden solders for the neighbor boy in my free time; I had a lot of free time. I thought of it as a way to pay back him and his mother for everything they did for me. I was whittling them out of little pieces of wood so they looked like the men of my regiment had, and then the others to look like how the other forces had, from the top of their fort. I was thinking maybe I would even make him a model of the fort, and then I would show him how my moment of glory had come, and then in a few years passed.

To be continued...

Great and Simple Deeds

I rolled out of bed and flinched as my bare feet hit the cold floor. Still wrapped in my blanket I found my way to the fireplace to light the fire. The kindling was getting low and I would have to go out and gather more sometime today. I watched the fire flare up like villages and cities of old had when they had been put to the torch. I put the kettle on.

While the kettle was coming up to a boil I dressed myself properly and threw my quilt back on the bed, it was made of ragged remains of uniforms. I hadn’t had any new cloth to use, coming right down to it I had never sewn a quilt before either, it’s not a very good quilt.

The kettle started to boil so I made my tea for breakfast and made a mush. That at least I had done for myself a lot in the past. Mush had been a common food in my army when it had lacked other food. We never did have a lot of food, half of the time I was feeding them out of my own pocket anyway. I wonder if they were at all grateful, then I wonder if they even knew, or if they did, did they care, I doubt it. I haven’t seen any of them for years, I wonder if they remember me. I led them through hell so they probably do; I wonder why none of them have come to kill me yet.

After I had eaten I had to get to the chores, there was the kindling to gather and I should go hunting. The pig I had slaughtered before the first snow was starting to get a little off tasting so I was hoping that I could bag a rabbit or something today. I was a crack shot at least, I had learned from some of the best riflemen there was after all, a long time ago. Most of them had marched with me. If I did meet with some game I was sure to have a good dinner, which was something.

I no longer had a coat so I wrapped myself in my quilt before going out. My coat had been sold in town a couple of years ago. It didn’t matter; I had walked through a lot worse with less protection, and led an army of men with me while I did it. At least I still had boots.

I didn’t manage to find any animal wandering around the frozen wastes that I now lived, so left over mush would have to do for dinner. Well I had gone hungry in the past; once money had started to get tight I had been forced to put everyone on half ration. Most of the men had been angry about that. As if it was my fault the government wasn’t giving me money for supplies. I had done everything I could for them. I think it had been hungry desperation that had driven us to march into that city against a superior force; it was either that or starve. I was facing starvation now again. I would have to walk over to the neighbor’s and ask him to go into town for me. I would have to pay him for his time of course, and give him money for the supplies, but I never went into town anymore.

I went back to my cabin and tried to clean myself up the best I could. If I was going to go see other people I wanted to look presentable anyway, though I could never look like I could back in the old days. I had once been grand looking; well it came of coming from a good family. I trimmed my beard the best I could by feel and combed back my hair with my fingers. It was too cold to wash my face, when I had led my army across that river in midwinter, that had been bad enough, I don’t want water frozen on my face ever again.

To be continued...

The Savannah Siege IV

We started retreating; I ran beside the men, I had no idea where my unit was by now. The bullets continued ever as we fled the scene of our defeat. Around the walls of the forts we had left the ditches chocked with the bodies of our comrades. I wondered how many of them were dead, how many of them were dying, and how many of them could be saved if we were able, but we weren’t.

Once we were well away we were called up into our units again, I found mine among the rest. A roll was called and a painful roll it was too. Not one unit didn’t have its losses and every name that went unanswered caused another pang in everyman’s heart. I heard a man standing near me comment that the whole affair had taken less then an hour, I couldn’t believe it but looking at the sun I realized he was speaking the truth.

After the painful duty of roll call was completed a new unpleasantness awaited us, a truce had been called and we were told to collect our bodies and wounded in that time. More then once in that time did I feel ill as I was called to carry the mangled remains of what had been men. The living ones were worse because most of them knew they were going to die and so did everyone else. My first battle field is something of nightmares to me even now.

Things had been tense before and now everything was ruined. When we returned to our siege there wasn’t a man among us who still had the heart for it. It was known even among the common soldiers like me and the unit I was with that our leaders were starting to fall out with one another. All of the men I heard complained about the Americans. Most of them said that we shouldn’t have been fighting this battle at all, that it had nothing for France in it. I was young still and so I wasn’t thinking about France so much even, I was thinking more of myself. I had joined the army after all to gain my freedom, having done that I didn’t see that any war really was of any benefit to me. I grew greatly homesick the next couple of days.

My wish was granted, D’Estaing got fed up with the Americans and decided to leave that cursed coast. Since I was under him, though as nothing but a drummer boy, I was also allowed to leave the American shore. I was crowded with many other men in my same position on a ship bound for the West Indies and home.

So now you write to me and ask me to join you in your cause to free this island from the unjust slavery that plagues us. You say it is time for Haiti to rise in Revolution just as America did. I agree with your cause with all of my heart and I will be praying for your success at every moment. However my military career that you mentioned in your letter as being so important is the one I just laid out for you. Unlike the unit that you were with in the American Revolution mine only suffered defeat in an inglorious fashion. I had all I could stomach of revolution long ago at that young age and therefore will never take place in another. I will stay in touch with you and send you any information that falls to my ears that will be of interest to you. In fighting however I will have no part.

The Savannah Siege III

As the actual battle drew closer we split into units but they weren’t really all that good planed ones. I’m no military thinker but I know that when the troops don’t like their officers, and everyone is just thrown together then things aren’t going to go too well. We were even thrown together with other soldiers from the colonies; we weren’t all from the same island anymore. All I could say is that at least we all spoke French. D’Estaing was our leader but there were a lot of men between me and him in this army, he was a great commander and I was a drummer.

We were supposed to attack the British fort before dawn, but nothing seemed to go right. We marched out alright but we almost instantly ran into problems. Our guide knew nothing about our route and our officer got really angry with him. That’s how I know; our officer swore something horrible, and loud enough that we could all hear him. We did finally get where we were supposed to but it was already dawn and we had lost any idea of surprise we could have had. The officer finally ordered me to drum us into battle around five thirty in the morning.

At the sounds of drums of course the British started to fire on us. At the first gun shot our guide, for all the use he was, fled. We had already heard some gun firing from somewhere, so I guess we weren’t the only one attacking. The officers led us in a battle cry to the King and then we were running, even me alongside the men. The British opened true fire then, with cannons and muskets and all. For a moment I wished that I had a gun like the men did so I could fight back. All I had was my drum so I drummed for all I was worth while the men around me started to fall.

I doubt I could start to describe the chaos that rained down among us. We were repelled once and D’Estaing got hurt in that first charge I heard later though I didn’t know it then. I didn’t know much at all, except the smell of blood and guns and the sounds of shouting. My drum was shot through, but I wasn’t hurt, it made the drum useless but I kept beating on it. I believe that drum getting in the way of the bullet was the only thing that saved me though I didn’t think on it then. We kept formation that first repulse from the fort but the second time we scattered.

I was pushed back with the rest of the men though I can say proudly that I never ran from the fight. I found myself in the marshes that were on the side of where the forts stood. I wasn’t the only one who found himself in that position. My shoes were stuck fast in the mud and it was only with great effort did I manage to pull myself up on the remains of my drum. Though I lost my shoes while doing it I got out of the mud. Many men remained stuck in the mud, some of them shot there where they couldn’t escape from the musket fire.

Without a gun and with no drum I could no longer be of any use to the battle and so I stood and watched the fighting as it went back and forth. For a moment I thought that we had won the battle, our flag was even raised on the parapet only then to fall again. That was a bitter disappointment, as the cup was dashed from our lips, it seemed as if everything was in vain after all.

The American reinforcements arrived, the ragged and undisciplined band that they were. Still they arrival was welcome until I realized that they too could not make it past the wall of the fort. The colors of one of their regiments was raised but like the French flag it was lowered just as quickly it seemed. I could see men in every uniform falling under the hail of bullets.

To be continued...

The Savannah Siege II

We were trying to get into position as best as we could. I couldn’t do a lot with the entrenchment, I was too small to do the work of the men but I did my share I think. We were also attacked a couple of times while we were entrenching ourselves. It made me mad to see how the enemy was fighting us while we were just digging in. We could have taken the city by now if we had wanted to, I knew that and I wasn’t anything but a drummer boy. The British were messing up our works wherever and whenever they could, and I couldn’t help wondering why we weren’t doing the same back at them.

One of these attacks by the British on our lines caused an unfortunate incident that I was involved in. We were all under a lot of stress, the British had attacked our lines only a few days before and we were all still tense after that. This time when the British attacked, our nerves already frayed, some of our troops started firing at everything that moved. It was already dark and that led to an unfortunate accident. When our troops, I mean the French troops were firing, there was no way for us to know where the American troops were. That went for them as well. It was only after five minutes or so of total confusion that everything was sorted out and I won’t lie, some men died that night from friendly fire and still others were injured. It was the first time that I was ever directly in the line of fire of battle. I wasn’t hurt, but I am not going to say I enjoyed it. I grew very scared but it was good preparation for what was to come. I can’t imagine what might have happened if I had gone into a true battle not having been under fire ever before. I think I would have died.

Some British forces going to relieve the fort were finally captured but it was done by the Americans, so those of us in the French camp couldn’t celebrate a lot. Still it was nice for something good to happen for a change. I don’t hear a lot of good things about the Americans from the others, I hear they eat horrible and are untrained. That might be so but they are good at tricks. That’s how they captured the British this time, Captain French and his men were captured by a much smaller American force and I have to admire them for that. I have been paying a lot of mind to how the Americans fight, it isn’t at all like how we are trained to fight, it’s trickier and more unpredictable.

We managed to get our cannons on land, most of the cannons belong to us French troops. The Americans don’t have enough ammunition even without us. I would be able to brag more if we had gotten the cannons ashore sooner. My unit is infantry so we didn’t have anything to do with the cannons but I could hear them blasting through the day and night. Not only that but I heard stories about them. I don’t think much of the men who deal with canons, they seem to get drunk more then our soldiers, I heard they weren’t aiming right because of rum.

A lot of our soldiers made cruel joke about what must be happening in the city because of our bombardment. Soldiers I found to be very casual about life, I not being a true soldier yet found them heartless. I knew there to be women and children in the city yet, none of them having been allowed to leave before we lay siege and our commanders refusing to allow them to leave now. Our cannons must have done horrible damage to the buildings and streets and the thought of women running to cellars to escape us wasn’t a pleasant thought to me, though many of the men around me didn’t seem to mind.

To be continued...

The Savannah Siege

It was Father who suggested that I join the regiment to go fight with the other French troops on the side of the American’s against the British. It was for my own good though, so I didn’t complain. Father has always been kind to me. I guess I should explain a little bit more though, so I will.

Father is one of the grand blanc plantation owners in Haiti where I was born. I was his son with a slave but he gave me everything that a son of a plantation owner should have. I got an education, though I wasn’t sent to France like some, you can probably tell that by the way I write. As I got older my freedom became the most pressing matter though. My Father would have freed me a long time ago except there was a problem, the large tax that is put on freeing slaves in Haiti. That’s why he told me to join a regiment going into foreign service. A slave can be freed without the tax if the slave has served in the army, so I joined the army and was freed.

My training was uneventful; there are a lot of us in Chasseurs-Volontaires de Saint-Domingue. It isn’t the start of my army life that I am going to write about, what I want to write about is what happened after, my first battle I mean. I am too young to be a proper soldier yet; I was made a drummer boy. I don’t always like this life after my comfortable life with Father but the promise of freedom at the end will get me through a lot.

I was with a part of the regiment that was sent to Savannah, the British had a place there that we were supposed to attack. There were five hundred of us or so, I mean people from Haiti. We tend to stick together, the other soldiers like it better that way, and so did we. The camp in Savannah was like no where else I have ever been. No one seemed to speak the same language though at least we didn’t have to deal with that so much. The main language in the camp was English, that’s what the commanders of our force spoke, but it was fine because the people we were with still spoke French. Around us though there were even Polish soldiers, it was a very strange camp for what for me was going to be a very strange experience.

None of us in the Fontages Legion had a lot of experience; we were a pretty new regiment so we knew they weren’t going to count on us a lot. They were going to give the big parts to the soldiers who knew what they were doing. I remember the men sitting around talking about it, I didn’t talk a lot because I was so much younger then most of them.

The battle didn’t start right off; I had never known that war took so long to get sorted out. Like I said, I got an education and in the history books they never mention the waiting around. I was about as far as anyone could get from knowing what was actually in the minds of our commanders, but I could listen to people talking about it. I heard that first we were waiting to give the British a chance to surrender, and from what the men said, a chance to fortify themselves better, the men weren’t happy about that. The British even got reinforcements through our line; the men really didn’t like that. They felt something should have been done when we had had the chance. Then our ships moved into position and started firing on the city but we still weren’t told to move.

The ships weren’t as useful as we had thought. It was great to see them firing on the city. I couldn’t help but think that if I was under that treatment I would be more eager to surrender, but the British didn’t show any sign of it. It was even worse one night because some of the gunners on the ships got drunk, or so I was told, and started firing into our lines. No one I knew got hurt, but people weren’t really pleased about it.

To be continued...

In Search of Comedy II

“But what do you have to persuade people of, isn’t it enough to write a funny book? I have never been persuaded of anything by your books, except that you are far too depressing and must think that the world is a horrible place.”

“The depth of our despair measures what capability and height of claim we have to hope. Thomas Carlyle,” Peloma told me.

“So what you are saying is that your horribly depressing books are preparing people for hope? I don’t know if I believe that one,” I told her.

“If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news? Dr. Robert Anthony.”

There was a screech of car wheels behind us and I looked around, the comedian that we had been watching had nearly had a car hit him but he was fine. Peloma gave me a look that said almost as clearly as if she had actually said it, see, that’s what happens to funny people. She turned and headed back for her apartment.

We didn’t bring up this conversation again and Peloma’s book was published in due course full of just as much gloom as always. It had a child deathbed scene in it that had every book club in the country talking about it being the tear jerker of the year. I read it and thought it was just more of the same. She still hadn’t changed her tune any.

Peloma’s next book was of more interest for me, it was about a clown, bad things kept happening to him but he still was able to continue making his jokes and making people laugh. In the end he died of course, I don’t remember any book by Peloma who didn’t have someone die, but he didn’t seem very upset about his death. No one really seemed upset about his death, he died it a good way, and happy, and at a very old age, and he had changed people’s lives. So I couldn’t change Peloma, I don’t think anyone can change her, but I guess what I said inspired her a bit. Now I just wish I could do something about her annoying habit of talking in quotes.