Opening Atlantis (29 page)

“We can fight. We can win,” Red Rodney insisted. “Plenty of forts inside Avalon. There's the one across the mouth of the bay, too. Put those together with the galley, and the bastards can't get in. So what'll they do? They'll hang around for a while, and then they'll give it up and go home, that's what!”

His own crewmen cheered. So did the new fish, if less enthusiastically. He went on telling them what a slaughter they'd visit on the enemy. He also warned them what the invaders would do if they won. He wasn't subtle, and he was graphic. He believed what he was saying, too. By the time he got done, he had them believing it with him. They streamed along the muddy, crooked streets of Avalon, ready to give their all for the right to go on freebooting.

“Good speech, skipper,” Ben Jackson said. “I wouldn't've believed anything this side of rum could make those wharf rats hot to fight.”

“Put a cannon ball through my mizzen if that's not a bloody good notion,” Radcliffe said. If Avalon had plenty of any one thing, it was rum. He arranged to serve it out to the defenders. Maybe Dutch courage would help them fight Dutchmen.

After he'd done all he could outside, he went into Black Hand Fort. Jenny was half glad to see him, half afraid Avalon would fall in the next fifteen minutes—about what he'd expected. Half an hour alone with her in the bedroom and she was all glad to see him…or she pretended to be, which served well enough for now.

But that half hour, and the rest of the time since he and his crewmen came off the
Black Hand
, gave Ethel the chance to find out what was going on. By the time Red Rodney spoke with his daughter, she knew as much as he did—maybe more. “You lost,” she said, nothing but scorn in her voice. “Even with the fireships, you lost. How
could
you?”

“Not all my fault.” Only later did Rodney wonder why he had to justify himself to an eleven-year-old. “I was hoping we could make them turn around, but they wouldn't do it, damn their black souls to hell. They've got a Radcliff in charge of them, too, even if he clips his name.”

“He'll clip your neck if he gets the chance,” Ethel said. “I knew you should have taken me with you.”

“And what could you have done that I didn't, your Worship?” Red Rodney demanded.

“Made sure I killed Will Radcliff, that's what,” his daughter replied.

“How, pray tell?”

“Chainshot, barshot, red-hot shot—whatever it took to sink his ship.” Ethel had all the Radcliffe stubbornness. Sense? Maybe not. Red-hot shot was almost as dangerous to the ship firing it as it was to the one on the receiving end. You had to be desperate even to think about using it…unless you were eleven. Red Rodney hadn't been desperate enough. All things considered, maybe he should have been.

“So that's Avalon Bay.” William Radcliff raised a spyglass to his eye for a closer look. The image was upside down, which didn't bother him, and fringed in red and purple, which did. It seemed much closer than it had to the naked eye, and that was what he really wanted.

Elijah Walton had a spyglass, too. “Not a bad harbor,” he said grudgingly.

“No, not a bad one,” Radcliff agreed dryly. It was the best harbor he'd ever seen, and he'd seen harbors from Valparaiso to Stamboul. “It's the people holding it now who are bad.”

Those people had long guns in the fortress north of the town, guns that outranged anything the fleet carried. And a fortress didn't have to worry about firing red-hot shot the way a ship did. They wouldn't set a fortress of earth and brick on fire the way they would a ship's seasoned timbers.

The northern approach, then, looked bad. So did forcing the channel. His spyglass showed him the galleys patrolling it. Upside down, they looked as if they were about to fall into the sky and spill out all their rowers. He only wished looks didn't deceive here.

Another fortress at the northern edge of Avalon proper also guarded the channel into the bay. The town itself had a sea wall to keep invaders from swarming straight ashore. William didn't think the guns on the sea wall were anywhere close to being as formidable as the ones in the fortresses.

Inside Avalon, forts topped half a dozen hills. He didn't think they mounted big guns, either. Why would they? Little guns throwing canister would be all they needed to hold off attackers.

“What is your plan, Admiral?” Walton asked. Radcliff understood what the Englishman wasn't saying, too.
If this goes wrong, it's all your fault
—that was what he really meant.

Instead of answering directly, William turned to the signal officer. “Run up
marine commanders repair aboard,
” he said.

“
Marine commanders repair aboard,
” the lieutenant repeated. He waited for Radcliff's confirming nod before adding, “Aye aye, sir.”

“Do you think you can get marines over the sea wall?” Walton asked. “Most of it is just a palisade, but even so….”

“I aim to discuss the possibilities with the men who needs must do the actual fighting,” William replied. The Englishman fumed, but William didn't worry about that. Walton wasn't going anywhere, not now.

Every ship in the fleet carried marines. They were the marksmen in the fighting tops, and they went ashore when there was need of that. Radcliff wasn't sure how many Dutch marines spoke English, but he didn't worry about that, either. Some of them would, and they could translate for their comrades.

Marcus Radcliffe came up over the
Royal Sovereign
's rail after most of the other marine officers. As usual, he wore nothing resembling a uniform: only homespun wool trousers and a linen shirt. His sole ornament was a tail plume from an oil thrush thrust under the band on his colorless, floppy hat. But none of the true marines, with their fancy uniforms and accoutrements, seemed inclined to mock the leathery backwoodsman.

“If we land your combined forces south of the town, can you march up, march in, and take it?” William asked.

His distant cousin gave back a question of his own before anyone else could speak: “What'll you be doing in the meantime?”

“Cannonading,” William replied.

Marcus Radcliffe considered that, then nodded. “Well, fair enough. If you knock down some of the sea wall, will you send in sailors to give us a hand?”

It was William's turn to hesitate. He was a seaman, first, last, and always. Sending in landing parties of sailors would mean coming very close—dangerously close—to shore-based defenders. In the end, though, he also found himself nodding. “If we possibly can. I understand that the distraction may help you.”

Another marine officer said, “We ought to take a couple of four-pounders off one of our brigs and see if we can drag them up to their palisade down there. They'll give us the kind of door-knocker we need.”

“Good,” William Radcliff said. “Do it.”

The marine blinked. “Just like that?”

“Just like that,” Radcliff told him. “It sounds like a good idea. The worst that can happen is, the guns get left behind. If they do, you're no worse off than if you hadn't brought them. So give it a try.”

“By God, sir, I wish every captain were like you,” the marine said. “Too many of those buggers can't make up their minds, or else they haven't got any minds to make up.”

“You don't know my coz.” Marcus Radcliffe sounded sly. “He's always sure. He's not always right, but he's always sure.” He got the laugh he must have hoped for, then went on, “If not for him, we wouldn't be here now, and the pirates wouldn't be in the mess they're in.”

“For which I thank you. But, by the same token, we also wouldn't be in the mess
we're
in,” William said dryly. “We have to beat them. We have to take Avalon away from them. If we do that, we redeem ourselves. If they hold us, they redeem themselves. How can it get any simpler?”

Nobody said anything. Maybe he'd made it as clear as he hoped. Maybe the men were even simpler than the situation. They were marines, after all, and the bullocks did not have a reputation for wit. They were human roundshot: you pointed them at a target, and you used them to smash it flat.

“Looting should be good,” one of them remarked. “The corsairs have stashed their booty in Avalon for years now.”

That might have inspired them more than anything William said. He didn't mind. As long as something did, he was content.

R
ed Rodney Radcliffe woke with a warm, bare thigh draped over his and with the sound of thunder in his ears. He was used to the one or the other; both together were something new. He needed a moment to remember he wasn't at sea and another to remember he wasn't in a brothel in some distant port. This was Avalon. This was Jenny.

And this was a fine, clear morning, with sunbeams sliding between the slats of the shutters on his bedchamber window. Which meant that wasn't thunder. Which meant…

Full memory returned. Red Rodney spilled Jenny off him and sprang out of bed, swearing horribly. His lady love let out a most unladylike squawk. He was pulling up his breeches when somebody pounded on the door. Jenny squawked again. “They're bombarding us!” Ben Jackson shouted through the planks.

“I know. I hear. I'm coming, dammit.” Radcliffe needed only two strides to get to the door. That gave Jenny just time enough—or maybe almost time enough; Red Rodney didn't look back—to cover herself before he threw it open.

He rushed to Black Hand Fort's palisade. No, that wasn't thunder. That was his cousin's fleet hammering at the sea wall and the closer forts with all the guns the ships carried. Black Hand Fort was safe enough; lying near the bayside, it was beyond the reach of even bow chasers. But the closer forts were taking a pounding, and so were all the shops and dives and houses between them.

And so was the wall. It had been built to hold invaders out, but no one had imagined an onslaught like this when it went up. Even the hard-bitten Jackson sounded uncertain when he asked, “Can we keep 'em from breaking in?”

“We'd better,” Red Rodney answered, which was nothing less than the truth. He looked around. Someone he would have expected to watch the fireworks with him wasn't here. Not Jenny—she'd still be cowering under the coverlets. But…“Where's Ethel?”

His first mate hesitated again, which was most unlike him. “Well…” he began.

“Well, what? Out with it, damn you.” Rodney's voice took on a rumble more ominous than the cannonading—or so he intended, anyhow.

“Well, skipper, when the shooting started, she ran down toward the sea wall, to lend a hand where she could.” Ben Jackson got it out in an unhappy rush.

“She—?” Radcliffe clapped a hand to his forehead. “Why the devil didn't you stop her?”

“On account of she was gone before I could,” Jackson answered. “Christ, don't you think I would have?”

“Well, yes,” Radcliffe admitted. A roundshot hit something made of stone, flew high in the air, and then crashed down again. A plume of smoke rose inside Avalon. The bombardment had started at least one fire, anyhow. “God damn William Radcliff to hell and gone!” Red Rodney shouted.

“Yes, skipper.” Jackson hesitated again, then asked, “What do we do?”

Rodney Radcliffe didn't hesitate. That was one of the reasons he was the captain and Ben Jackson the mate. “I'll take most of the men down by the sea wall. If they send boats against us, we'll make 'em sorry—see if we don't. You hold here with the rest, just in case some of our so-called friends think to get gay while everything's topsy-turvy.”

The mate nodded. “I'll do it.” As long as he had his orders, or as long as the task in front of him was too obvious to require them, Jackson was as good as any man unhanged. Red Rodney laughed harshly. What happened over the next few hours would tell if they stayed that way.

Armed with muskets and cutlasses and pistols and pikes and hatchets and anything else they could lay their hands on, the corsairs from Black Hand Fort rushed west through Avalon's crowded, chaos-filled streets. They had to fight their way through every now and again. Most of the people under bombardment were sensibly fleeing east, out of range. Some of them were armed, too. If they lacked the mother wit to step aside, they paid the price for stupidity.

What had to be a forty-two-pound ball smashed into a grogshop not fifty feet from Red Rodney. The dive was there—and then it wasn't. It turned to rubble before his eyes. A spinning roof tile caught one of his men in the belly. The pirate went down, and he didn't get up again.

They had to brave more roundshot of all sizes as they neared the sea wall. One ball plowed a bloody track through the freebooters, killing three men and maiming two more before mere flesh could halt its progress. Radcliffe left the shrieking, wounded men where they lay and hurried on.

Another fire had started by the time he got close to the wall—started and showed every sign of spreading. It might wreck Avalon even if the attackers didn't get into the town. Rodney swore some more. At the moment, that was all he could do. He hoped he would be able to go on doing it. A cannon ball tore the head off a man only a couple of paces behind him. The spouting corpse ran on for several strides before crumpling in a muddy puddle.

Up to the wall at last. Where was Ethel? Anywhere close by? Radcliffe looked this way and that. He didn't see her anywhere. A big roundshot—it had to be another forty-two-pounder—flew only a few feet over his head and crashed down somewhere behind him in Avalon. Were it lower…He shuddered. It wouldn't have had to hit him to kill. Sometimes the wind of a cannon ball's passage was enough.

“Give it back to 'em!” That high, shrill voice could only belong to Ethel.

Rodney hurried south along the sea wall.
There
she was, and damned if she wasn't commanding a six-pounder's crew as if she'd been doing it for years. The cutthroats obeyed her, too. Maybe they knew whose daughter she was. Maybe they just knew they needed someone to keep them firing fast.

Smack!
That was the sound of Red Rodney's open palm landing on Ethel's backside. She squalled like a cat with its tail caught in a door and leapt into the air. Murder blazed in her eyes. “Who—?” she shouted. Then she saw her father, and the fury faded. “Oh. You. I might have known.”

“Yes. You might have, by Jesus. You might have known to stay in the castle, where you'd be safe.”

“If they get over the walls, no one is safe,” Ethel answered, and shouted for her crew—and it
was
her crew—to run out the gun and fire it. Red Rodney muttered under his breath. The worst of it was, he couldn't even tell her she was wrong.

Marcus Radcliffe came back to William Radcliff and asked, “Are you all right, coz?”

“Yes, dammit. This is the third time you've asked me,” William said in some irritation. “I am neither woman nor child. I can keep up.”

“You're neither backwoodsman nor marine, either,” Marcus pointed out. “You know how to tell other people what to do. I don't know how you are at doing things on your own hook.”

“I cope,” William said. His foot skidded in a patch of mud. He flailed his arms for balance, but he didn't fall. Several marines were already muddy. So were a couple of Marcus Radcliffe's rustics. William hadn't fallen…yet.

Swearing, sweating marines dragged a four-pounder through the woods south of Avalon. The gun's carriage, made for the deck of a ship, was less than ideal for rough, muddy ground. Somehow, though, the bullocks hauling it had managed to keep up with the rest of the landing party. They would take out their anger on the palisade—and on the men atop it.

William hoped not many men would be atop it. With luck, the cannonading from the fleet would draw all the corsairs to the sea wall. Then the marines could just walk into Avalon. That would be wonderful—if it worked.

Marcus Radcliffe plainly thought William odd if not daft for joining the landing party. But the decision would come here. One way or the other, it would. William wanted to be in place to see it. The fleet could go on without him for a while. He was sure Elijah Walton and Piet Kieft would be just as happy to go on without him.

Had he been in charge of Avalon, he would have cleared the woods farther from the palisade. The landing party could approach almost to within musket shot of the works without being noticed. Were they all backwoodsmen like Marcus' recruits, they might have got closer yet, but even the red-coated marines could hide behind tree trunks and in the midst of fern thickets.

And hide most of them did, while the gun crew aimed the four-pounder at the long wall ahead. The gun was of brightly polished brass; William could only marvel that no one in the town noticed it till it was almost ready to fire. The diversion from the sea must have done all he wanted and more.

A startled shout rose from the palisade just as the marine lieutenant in charge of the piece said, “You may fire now, Sergeant.”

Boom!
The ball wasn't even as big as William's fist. But it was plenty big enough to smash one of the upright trunks ahead when it thudded home. The marines in the gun crew got to work reloading. “Give them a volley!” Marcus Radcliffe bellowed. Muskets and rifles thundered. A couple of men on the palisade went down.

“Charge!” yelled a captain in a red coat. Marines and backwoodsmen—and William Radcliff—rushed the palisade. They all screamed like wild Terranovans. Maybe that would scare the freebooters. Maybe it would lift their own spirits. William could hope so.

He knew how to shoot and load a musket. He had a rapier on his hip, not a cutlass. He also carried a loaded pistol in his boot. He hadn't done a lot of fighting, but he thought—he hoped—he knew how.

Some of the marines hauled scaling ladders forward. They'd blasphemously lugged those through the woods along with the cannon.
Boom!…Crash!
The cannon smote the palisade again. One way or another, the landing party was determined to break into Avalon.

Only a couple of shots came from the enemy. Not many corsairs stood on the palisade, and some of the ones who did promptly fled when they saw marines bearing down on them. Radcliff might have done the same thing. They had a chance to save themselves. If they stayed on the palisade, they were bound to be butchered—they didn't have enough men to keep the bullocks and backwoodsmen from getting up there with them.

“Ladders high!” an officer shouted. There wasn't even a ditch outside the palisade to make things harder for the attackers. No one in Avalon really seemed to have believed attack could come from this quarter.

Believe or not, here it was. A pirate shot down at a climbing marine. The ball hit the red-coated Englishman in the face. As he fell, he brought down two other men below him. But others took their places. Marines were as stolid as men could be in the face of death or maiming.

William didn't mind letting a good many of them precede him up onto the palisade. They were younger and stronger and better trained than he was. But he swarmed up a ladder himself. He hadn't come this far only to watch. He aimed to fight, too.

He almost didn't get the chance. A bullet cracked past his head as he hurried toward the closest stairway down into Avalon. Marcus Radcliffe was a few feet behind him. The backwoodsman chuckled. “Nothing like it when they shoot at you and miss, is there?”

“Better that than their shooting and hitting,” William agreed.

Marines formed lines and advanced through the streets. Some people fled before them, screaming in fear. Others charged at them with whatever weapons came to hand. Marcus' backwoodsmen shot down several of those before they got close. The leathery, nondescript Atlanteans carried rifles accurate to a much greater distance than the usual smoothbore musket. The marines took little damage from the pirates who closed. The pirates fought as individuals, the marines as a team. They killed methodically, without much malice and without much waste motion.

Following their lethal line, William Radcliff didn't think he'd have to do much himself. But a man with a cutlass lurched out of a grogshop, stared blearily, and rushed him. William fired his pistol at point-blank range—and missed. He threw the pistol at the corsair's head. It struck the man a glancing blow, and gave Radcliff the chance to draw his own rapier.

The first stroke from the cutlass almost broke his blade and almost knocked the long, thin, straight sword from his hand. His own first thrust almost spitted the pirate, who sprang back just in time. But the freebooter's foot went out from under him in the mud. As the fellow staggered, William skewered him.

The pirate howled like a hound. He didn't crumple, though, the way William hoped he would. He kept right on fighting.

“Stick him again!” Marcus shouted. “People aren't as easy to kill as you'd think.”

How do you know?
William wondered. But that was a question for another time. His next thrust caught the corsair in the throat. Blood rivered out. The man gobbled something and finally fell.

“That's the way, coz!” Marcus said. “Let's go on and finish the job.”

William brandished the blood-dripping rapier. “Yes, by God! Let's!”

“You see?” Red Rodney shouted. “They haven't the stomach for landing!” With all the freebooters on the sea wall, he wouldn't have wanted to land there, either.

Whether the enemy wanted to land or not, though, they went right on cannonading Avalon. Every so often, a roundshot would tear a bloody slice out of the corsairs or knock over some of the palisade, which caused more casualties.