Assuming they aren't already.
I'm sure the British would love for the Caribbean/Carribean to become a British lake.
I'm sure the British would love for the Caribbean/Carribean to become a British lake.
They Call it Civilization!
- Thread starter Rex Britanniae
- Start date
Mark
Not really practical as its so close to such a powerful state, at least in the long run. Also Britain has much bigger fish to fry elsewhere. However definitely would be possible and useful militarily in the current conflict. To mutate a quote 'we have the men, money and ships so the yanks shall not have Guyanna'
.Steve
Thank you for all the comments.
I must say, there is great potential for a conflict in Cuba (obviously going to happen in one way or another, or else I wouldn't have a viewpoint character there). This could happen in a great variety of ways though.
Both the British and Americans have an interest in Cuba, yet it is secondary for now.
I must say, there is great potential for a conflict in Cuba (obviously going to happen in one way or another, or else I wouldn't have a viewpoint character there). This could happen in a great variety of ways though.
Both the British and Americans have an interest in Cuba, yet it is secondary for now.
It's 1.24am in Cambridge...
Damn, beaten by time zones yet again! I guess that means I can't post it for another 24 hours, just to make my statement true.
Thanks alot, perfectgeneral!
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Not fairDamn, beaten by time zones yet again! I guess that means I can't post it for another 24 hours, just to make my statement true.
Thanks alot, perfectgeneral!
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Not fair
Just kidding.
Jolly good story so far Rex, though I wonder how long till the British make a mistake? I wonder are they becoming too proud? Perhaps they shall become so full of themselves they will make a dire miscalculation?
Fort Assiniboine, Montana
October 17, 1896
Pershing hadn’t been this excited in many a year. An assault, a chase through a crowded (by Montana’s standards, anyway) street, another chase through thenarrow halls of a building, and finally bursting into a room and taking down one of the criminals he had been hunting. Alright, so he hadn’t been the one to shoot the bastard, but he had witnessed it…nearly. He was three men behind the fellow who’d fired the gun that hit the criminal in the leg. It had all gone so fast though, that he’d felt as if he’d been responsible. For now, in this boring town in the middle of a war that he didn’t feel like he’d ever see, that was enough action to satisfy Pershing.
Now came the tough part (as if the chase wasn’t trying enough!); Pershing and the men with him, all Negroes except for the unpredictable Lieutenant, Dale Viken, would need to get some answers out of this scum of the earth.
“Start talking, you rat!” Dale shouted, evidently angrier than he looked. The man was silent. This momentary calm gave Pershing a chance to examine the criminal. He was tall, with a puffy, red face and pinched, almost-slanted eyes. The man was white, and the palest shade of it (except his face, which was almost pink). His hair was messy, a dark-hue of brown, and he was wearing clothing that was perfectly suited to winter—a warm, fuzzy hat, a thick, wool coat, and long pants that went down to his feet. For the moment, he was gritting his teeth.
“I ain’t telling you American fuckers a damn thing!” Pershing stared him down for another second or two, both of them looking ready to pounce. But he wouldn’t do that. People are paid to pounce for me, he noted with satisfaction. He nodded to a Black Corporal nearby, who proceeded to kick the assailant in the stomach. Underneath his breath (though he probably intended for the military commander to hear it), he muttered an obscenity.
“This guy is pretty tough. Tie him up.” Nobody was going to get the best of John Pershing.
The man did not resist, but laughed. “Hehehe, you think I’ll tell you shit? You think I give a fuck what you do to me? Fuck off!”
“You know,” John commented sassily, “I’ve heard that people who curse a lot just do it because they have poor vocabularies.” The soldiers in the room smiled, but the still-unnamed attacker didn’t.
He just came back with another vulgar reply. “I’ll kill you, you piece of shit!” This time, the soldier fastening him to the chair punched him in the face without being prompted. Pershing didn’t mind a bit.
“Now I’m going to ask you a question, and I expect you to respond more kindly, okay?” His left eye shot up, practically daring the Canadian to try anything violent. “Go ahead,” a fake smile spread across his face, “I’m all ears, sir.” He emphasized the last word with mocking contempt.
Pershing ignored it. “So, Mr…”
“You can call me Steve, sir.” He still smiled.
“Ah, Steve, a fine name. So, Mr. Steve, where are you from.”
“The rainbow coming out of your ass, sir.” His smile grew ever-wider, but he never even noticed Pershing signal Viken to hurt the man again. The younger Lieutenant punched him in the side of the face.
“STOP DOING THAT! Don’t I get some kind of trial or something?”
“You aren’t even seeing the light of day again if you don’t give me some answers.” The man’s eyes darted from one person in the room to another, and to another and so on and so forth. He hoped to see a sympathetic face amongst them, but nobody looked to care for the lack of legal justice.
“Fine. I’ll sing.”
The room was filled with the smoke of lousy, second-rate cigarette smoke, all of it wafting up from the burning end of the criminal’s fag. Pershing thought it would calm it down, and it looked as if it was doing an admirable job in that regard.For the first time, the assailant, Steve, spoke without curses. “The name is Steve,” he reiterated. “I’m from a small town aboot-” he was a typical Canadian, “100 km to the North of this place.”
“What’s its name?”
“I ain’t telling you,”—it almost sounded like ‘telling ye’—“a damn thing about my town! I can’t trust you American bastards as far as I could throw you.”
“Alright,” Pershing said with a sigh, “why are you here?”
“I came out for a nice stroll, and thought I had a nice chance to kill off some of you bastards.”
“Steve, I’m getting sick of this. Answer truthfully, or else…” He let Steve’s imagination take charge from then on out and it didn’t seem as if the criminal cared for what he saw in his head.
“Fine; you shot Jim Orville.”
“Jim…Orville?”
“The kid in the woods; the one that nigger—I think his name was Gulter or Galetar or some shit like that—shot up for no reason.”
“Oh dear, you’re his father.”
He laughed. “Hell no! You think I’d tell you any of this if I was his father. That guy is bat-shit crazy, but he’s also my best friend. He came back to town one day with the story that some American soldier had shot his boy, and the whole town mourned. We’re not a large community, as you might guess. Everyone in that town loved the Orville kid like their own family. That being said, it wasn’t difficult getting together a posse of about seven able-bodied men, all from that town, some relatives, some family friends, eager to seek revenge and willing to go to great lengths to obtain it.”
Pershing had listened, so far, with a great deal of interest, and now he had a question. “How did you get inside the fort?”
“That’s a professional secret, buddy. Let’s just say that one of your guards is swimming in Canadian bills right now.” While he didn’t show it, the military commander was now infuriated, not so much with the Canadian Steve as with his own men. He would need to sort out that problem later.
“So, what is the identity of the father of Jim Orville, the man I assume to be the ringleader of this band of terrorists?”
“Ain’t no band of terrorists, sir. We’re just a group of men, seeking revenge for the cold-blooded killing of one of our own.”
“Whatever you call yourselves, answer the question?!”
“His name is Mark, Mark Orville.”
“Mark Orv-” the sound of a gunshot outside interrupted his thoughts, and when another one came, something had to be done. He sent two men downstairs and out the front door to handle whatever was going on out there. He decided not to resume talking until the men came back, but when he heard more rapid gunfire followed by a scream, he knew that this was a distraction. He just didn’t catch it quickly enough.
“Die you Hellpig!” screamed Steve who, though hands still tied together behind the chair, was able to lean forward and charge at the distracted Pershing. He actually managed to jump onto Pershing’s back. His hands were restrained, so he tried to hold on by biting the First Lieutenant’s right shoulder. The abnormally sharp teeth sank deep into the muscle on that part of his bodies, and an unmanly, shrill, yet wholly appropriate shriek erupted from the mouth of the victim.
His jaw wasn’t and couldn’t have been nearly strong enough to hold on for long on its own. He managed to bring Pershing half to the ground with him, but the military man shook him off. There followed a swift kick to the face, which succeeded in knocking the man, Steve (if that was even his real name), unconscious. The other men in the room rushed to subdue the already defeated terrorist, and then checked upon their wounded leader. Pershing sat down and unbuttoned the top part of his shirt, sliding it off over his shoulder to see the damage. He was bleeding, and actually looked back at the mouth of the man who had just bit him, half-expecting to see knives coming out of his mouth. There were no knives, but his teeth were sharper than anything normal, nonetheless.
“You alright, sir?” Viken asked, who, though occasionally inappropriate, had the ability to be serious as well.
“I’ll live.” He motioned with his eyes. “What about him? Is he still alive; I kicked him pretty hard.” One of the lower soldiers in the room stuck two fingers on his neck, checking for a pulse.
“Yeah, he’s alright sir, just unconscious. Was this whole thing a set-up?”
“I doubt it. I think we caught one of them off guard, and the others caught on quickly. You there,” he pointed to a large, muscular black Corporal, “can you carry this man to the infirmary?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Good. The rest of you, follow me. We’re checking out that distraction...”
October 17, 1896
Pershing hadn’t been this excited in many a year. An assault, a chase through a crowded (by Montana’s standards, anyway) street, another chase through thenarrow halls of a building, and finally bursting into a room and taking down one of the criminals he had been hunting. Alright, so he hadn’t been the one to shoot the bastard, but he had witnessed it…nearly. He was three men behind the fellow who’d fired the gun that hit the criminal in the leg. It had all gone so fast though, that he’d felt as if he’d been responsible. For now, in this boring town in the middle of a war that he didn’t feel like he’d ever see, that was enough action to satisfy Pershing.
Now came the tough part (as if the chase wasn’t trying enough!); Pershing and the men with him, all Negroes except for the unpredictable Lieutenant, Dale Viken, would need to get some answers out of this scum of the earth.
“Start talking, you rat!” Dale shouted, evidently angrier than he looked. The man was silent. This momentary calm gave Pershing a chance to examine the criminal. He was tall, with a puffy, red face and pinched, almost-slanted eyes. The man was white, and the palest shade of it (except his face, which was almost pink). His hair was messy, a dark-hue of brown, and he was wearing clothing that was perfectly suited to winter—a warm, fuzzy hat, a thick, wool coat, and long pants that went down to his feet. For the moment, he was gritting his teeth.
“I ain’t telling you American fuckers a damn thing!” Pershing stared him down for another second or two, both of them looking ready to pounce. But he wouldn’t do that. People are paid to pounce for me, he noted with satisfaction. He nodded to a Black Corporal nearby, who proceeded to kick the assailant in the stomach. Underneath his breath (though he probably intended for the military commander to hear it), he muttered an obscenity.
“This guy is pretty tough. Tie him up.” Nobody was going to get the best of John Pershing.
The man did not resist, but laughed. “Hehehe, you think I’ll tell you shit? You think I give a fuck what you do to me? Fuck off!”
“You know,” John commented sassily, “I’ve heard that people who curse a lot just do it because they have poor vocabularies.” The soldiers in the room smiled, but the still-unnamed attacker didn’t.
He just came back with another vulgar reply. “I’ll kill you, you piece of shit!” This time, the soldier fastening him to the chair punched him in the face without being prompted. Pershing didn’t mind a bit.
“Now I’m going to ask you a question, and I expect you to respond more kindly, okay?” His left eye shot up, practically daring the Canadian to try anything violent. “Go ahead,” a fake smile spread across his face, “I’m all ears, sir.” He emphasized the last word with mocking contempt.
Pershing ignored it. “So, Mr…”
“You can call me Steve, sir.” He still smiled.
“Ah, Steve, a fine name. So, Mr. Steve, where are you from.”
“The rainbow coming out of your ass, sir.” His smile grew ever-wider, but he never even noticed Pershing signal Viken to hurt the man again. The younger Lieutenant punched him in the side of the face.
“STOP DOING THAT! Don’t I get some kind of trial or something?”
“You aren’t even seeing the light of day again if you don’t give me some answers.” The man’s eyes darted from one person in the room to another, and to another and so on and so forth. He hoped to see a sympathetic face amongst them, but nobody looked to care for the lack of legal justice.
“Fine. I’ll sing.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The room was filled with the smoke of lousy, second-rate cigarette smoke, all of it wafting up from the burning end of the criminal’s fag. Pershing thought it would calm it down, and it looked as if it was doing an admirable job in that regard.For the first time, the assailant, Steve, spoke without curses. “The name is Steve,” he reiterated. “I’m from a small town aboot-” he was a typical Canadian, “100 km to the North of this place.”
“What’s its name?”
“I ain’t telling you,”—it almost sounded like ‘telling ye’—“a damn thing about my town! I can’t trust you American bastards as far as I could throw you.”
“Alright,” Pershing said with a sigh, “why are you here?”
“I came out for a nice stroll, and thought I had a nice chance to kill off some of you bastards.”
“Steve, I’m getting sick of this. Answer truthfully, or else…” He let Steve’s imagination take charge from then on out and it didn’t seem as if the criminal cared for what he saw in his head.
“Fine; you shot Jim Orville.”
“Jim…Orville?”
“The kid in the woods; the one that nigger—I think his name was Gulter or Galetar or some shit like that—shot up for no reason.”
“Oh dear, you’re his father.”
He laughed. “Hell no! You think I’d tell you any of this if I was his father. That guy is bat-shit crazy, but he’s also my best friend. He came back to town one day with the story that some American soldier had shot his boy, and the whole town mourned. We’re not a large community, as you might guess. Everyone in that town loved the Orville kid like their own family. That being said, it wasn’t difficult getting together a posse of about seven able-bodied men, all from that town, some relatives, some family friends, eager to seek revenge and willing to go to great lengths to obtain it.”
Pershing had listened, so far, with a great deal of interest, and now he had a question. “How did you get inside the fort?”
“That’s a professional secret, buddy. Let’s just say that one of your guards is swimming in Canadian bills right now.” While he didn’t show it, the military commander was now infuriated, not so much with the Canadian Steve as with his own men. He would need to sort out that problem later.
“So, what is the identity of the father of Jim Orville, the man I assume to be the ringleader of this band of terrorists?”
“Ain’t no band of terrorists, sir. We’re just a group of men, seeking revenge for the cold-blooded killing of one of our own.”
“Whatever you call yourselves, answer the question?!”
“His name is Mark, Mark Orville.”
“Mark Orv-” the sound of a gunshot outside interrupted his thoughts, and when another one came, something had to be done. He sent two men downstairs and out the front door to handle whatever was going on out there. He decided not to resume talking until the men came back, but when he heard more rapid gunfire followed by a scream, he knew that this was a distraction. He just didn’t catch it quickly enough.
“Die you Hellpig!” screamed Steve who, though hands still tied together behind the chair, was able to lean forward and charge at the distracted Pershing. He actually managed to jump onto Pershing’s back. His hands were restrained, so he tried to hold on by biting the First Lieutenant’s right shoulder. The abnormally sharp teeth sank deep into the muscle on that part of his bodies, and an unmanly, shrill, yet wholly appropriate shriek erupted from the mouth of the victim.
His jaw wasn’t and couldn’t have been nearly strong enough to hold on for long on its own. He managed to bring Pershing half to the ground with him, but the military man shook him off. There followed a swift kick to the face, which succeeded in knocking the man, Steve (if that was even his real name), unconscious. The other men in the room rushed to subdue the already defeated terrorist, and then checked upon their wounded leader. Pershing sat down and unbuttoned the top part of his shirt, sliding it off over his shoulder to see the damage. He was bleeding, and actually looked back at the mouth of the man who had just bit him, half-expecting to see knives coming out of his mouth. There were no knives, but his teeth were sharper than anything normal, nonetheless.
“You alright, sir?” Viken asked, who, though occasionally inappropriate, had the ability to be serious as well.
“I’ll live.” He motioned with his eyes. “What about him? Is he still alive; I kicked him pretty hard.” One of the lower soldiers in the room stuck two fingers on his neck, checking for a pulse.
“Yeah, he’s alright sir, just unconscious. Was this whole thing a set-up?”
“I doubt it. I think we caught one of them off guard, and the others caught on quickly. You there,” he pointed to a large, muscular black Corporal, “can you carry this man to the infirmary?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Good. The rest of you, follow me. We’re checking out that distraction...”
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By the way, I apologize if the paragraphs are divided oddly or improperly. This site mushes it all together every time I post it, and the problem is that it mushes them differently every single time. Thus, it is difficult to divide properly.
A Canadian. Giving distances in km. in 1896. Ha, he's obviously a French foreign agent.
Heck, even today a farmer is more likely to give you distances in miles.
Heck, even today a farmer is more likely to give you distances in miles.
Good point. However missed that totally.
Also he was remarkable informative for someone so hostile, unless lying through his teeth. Makes Mr Orville vulnerable to something nasty happening if the US forces get that far into Canada.
Steve
Curse you!
I was going to give it in miles, but figured that the metric system would be more appropriate. Oh well; at least I know for the future.
Nice update on the plains...was waiting to see what happened there.
Can't speak to the states but alot of western canada was settled on a township grid system...6 sections one mile square by 6 sections to the township...4 quarter sections per section. Homesteads were usually issued by the quarter section (160 acres).
Good job on the size of the pose...most of the Canadian prarie settlement is just starting to occur at this point.
Can't speak to the states but alot of western canada was settled on a township grid system...6 sections one mile square by 6 sections to the township...4 quarter sections per section. Homesteads were usually issued by the quarter section (160 acres).
Good job on the size of the pose...most of the Canadian prarie settlement is just starting to occur at this point.
Sahaba, Northern Sudan
October 20, 1896
“Hurry up boys, let’s get this thing moving. We’ve got a timetable to keep!” screamed Horatio Kitchener, feeling unheard despite his rank. He watched with all the pride of a master craftsmen as the soldiers of both the British and Egyptian Armies of Sudan worked together to build the railroad. This railroad would stretch as far as British rule did, hopefully reaching Khartoum some day. That, though, was another topic entirely.
The tracks did look beautiful, gleaming in the hot, mid-day sun. No one in the work force or out there for any other reason would have denied that this was one of the hottest days on record. As things were, most of the men went shirtless, the sun burning their red, sweaty backs. There was to be no rest for another half-hour, yet they were already looking anxious. He didn’t blame them one bit, and couldn’t help feeling a bit lazy, even hated, as he strolled along, inspecting the works, not lifting a finger. It wasn’t because he was lazy; on the contrary, he valued hard work. He just had other things to tend to.
Wasting no time, he pushed through a group of tan-skinned Egyptian and Sudanese laborers, hard at work, and made his way to a tent, door-flaps wide open. “Ah,” he couldn’t help but emit a sigh of relief at his entry into the cooler, shadier command tent. The man whom he approached, a kind sixty-five year old with white hair, a long, white beard, suspenders (despite the heat!) and a voice that sounded like a squawk. “Well, well, if it isn’t the Sirdar; how do you do, Mr. Kitchener?” His squeaky voice was almost comical, but Kitchener had gotten used to it.
“Fine; and you?”
“I’m a sixty-five year old man in the middle of nowhere with death just around the corner; I’ve been better.”
“Well, we’re certainly paying you enough, aren’t we?”
“Pay has nothing to do with it; I do this out of pride for the Empire.” He stroked his beard, reminiscing on earlier days, and then continued. “It’s all just to plant one more flag, to claim one more stretch o’ dirt and walk around it in the name o’ Good Queen Victoria.” He spoke almost sarcastically, but Kitchener knew that wasn’t intended. The man he spoke to now, a wily railroad engineer, was a true patriot.
“So, Mr. Hawthorne,” he was formal, “I must congratulate you on your planning thus far. A railway running from Egypt to Sudan will most certainly speed up and ease the problems of supply, and you’ve planned a damn-fine one.”
“Well, your soldiers are hard workers; much better at taking orders than the laborers we use back home. Your men are disciplined.”
“I do my best,” Kitchener said with a smile, taking justifiable pleasure in the efficiency of his own men. “Don’t forget that about two hundred of those hard workers out there are prisoners, and a bunch are just peasants or…I, uh, I think the term for them was fellahin.” Hawthorne just shrugged. “So, why is it you called me here today. It isn’t that I don’t enjoy a rest from the campaign, but I most certainly have a number of other pressing matters to attend to.”
“Well, it has to do with my services. My work with you thus far has been quite a pleasure, but as you know, there is a war going on.” That was perhaps the most tactless thing he had heard in weeks. Hawthorne, usually a delight to talk to, was not talking about his war; he was talking about the war in the Americas. However, phrasing it as he did, he made it sound as if Kitchener’s struggle was not real enough.
“Sir, I assume you speak of the war in Guyana,” he said icily.
“That I do, Mr. Kitchener.”
“And you rate that war to be one of…greater importance than this, the war which has already taken so many lives, and has been going on since the early ‘80s?”
“It is not that I rate that war to be any greater; the British government does, and Salisbury says he needs my talents elsewhere, namely in Guyana, where an expansion of the railroad network through dense jungles and over mountains requires a high degree of skill, experience, and patience. Salisbury says that he believes I have these things, as proven in my service to your army. Horatio,” he now spoke with glossy eyes and a saddened countenance, “they need me more than you do. Don’t make this difficult?”
“I understand that, Mr. Hawthorne.” He refused to recognize the emotional plea, and kept on talking business. “Who, then, will build my railroads? Sudan is even less civilized than Guyana, damn it!”
“I CAN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!” The tent quieted down. Most of the men who had been in it when the shouting started had left out of respect for the privacy of business, but now one in particular re-entered with a grim look on his face.
“Sir,” he interrupted, “we need you out here for…a moment.”
“This better be good,” he threatened, only too happy to have an excuse to take his eyes off the spry Hawthorne. The elderly man, for his part, looked down at the ground. It really wasn’t his fault, and Kitchener knew that, but he also didn’t know what to do about it. Damn that Salisbury, his war is screwing me over, he thought begrudgingly.
As soon as they were outside the tent, the bright sun beating down upon their heads and beads of sweat rolling down both their brows, the man, who held the rank of Assistant Adjutant-General spoke up. “Sir, we’ve spotted a group of Mahdists moving towards our position from the southeast. They’re on the horizon, but moving fast.”
“Damn it, these foes are tenacious. I think we’d have an easier time trying to eliminate every other army in the world.” The Adjutant was not moving, like a good servant, waiting for orders. “Very well then, we’ve no time to waist. Follow me, Finch.”
“It’s French, sir; John French.”
“Never you mind, just follow me.” Although he didn’t admit it, he was rather embarrassed at having momentarily forgotten the man’s name. He had been with him for quite a while, but he made a mental note to strive harder to remember it.
They made their way down the hill atop which sat the command tent, gathering officers as they went. When at last he reached the bottom he informed his officers of the danger. “Spread the word, tell the men to take up defensive positions. Have the prisoners and peasants pulled back to into the town,”—the railway line ran just east of it—“and have the men take shelter just behind the line.”
“Sir,” objected one lesser officer, a Major, “what if they destroy the line as they cross it? That’s probably what they come to do, isn’t it?”
“I’m counting on it, Major.” The man looked perplexed. “Lives are more important than a few miles of wood and iron.” That shut him up. Everyone departed for their sections and detachments, including the major, scratching his head. The only one that remained beside Kitchener was the obedient John French. “French, have a runner sent to Colonel Minnow at the northern end of the line. Tell him to ready his men for a flanking maneuver.”
“Sir,” he grimaced, knowing his news was not something his commander wanted to hear at the moment, yet needed to. “Colonel Minnow is gone. His detachment was shipped away to Alexandria, to be put on a ship for Guyana just yesterday. Don’t you remember?” The Sirdar was not amused, but had no time to complain.
“Get to whoever the hell is over there and give him the orders anyway, then.”
“Right sir.” He saluted, then dashed away. Kitchener, for his part, ran down to his men, giving his orders in person to those closest. They all looked in the direction of the attackers, quickly dropped their shovels and hammers, and took up a defensive line behind the tracks. Then, they waited; they weren’t listening for the sound of the enemies’ war cries so much as another, more glorious noise. Soon enough, it came.
From the back of the line, stationed strategically just in case of such an assault, came the words from one raspy-voiced young Cornish Artillery Captain, dragging out every word. “Arrrrtiiiileeeeryyyyy, OOOOOPEEEEEEEN FIIIIIIIIIIRE!” With all the sadistic satisfaction that belongs to a military commander getting what he wants, he saw the shells slam into the horde of mad cavalrymen rushing towards his position. It’s a good thing I had these here this time. This should be fun.
Not long after, there came another barrage, tearing huge holes in the lines of advancing Mohammedans. They were now close enough that he could hear them scream, that he could see their horses tumble or even, mercilessly, see them torn to shreds by the explosions. There would be no mercy. “Men, get ready; aim; fire!” The soldiers of the Egyptian-British Army of the Sudan held their guns to their shoulders and did as they were told.
One volley; that was all it took. They had suffered countless casualties from the artillery, technology they couldn’t hope to match without compromising their speed, yet one volley from the guns seemed to sound the death-knell on their hopes of a victory. The horses frantically turned around, urged on by their terrified riders. Some stumbled over each-other, and one or two who tried to keep going forward were summarily shot. It had been a valiant attempt; valiance, however, does not always win in the game of war.
The Sirdar was not amused. As a matter of fact, he was so mentally distracted by the fact that the “real war” was beginning to take things from him that he had left as soon as the enemy started turning around. Careless, yes; understandable, perhaps.
As he was walking back towards the tent, he heard a loud voice call out from behind him. “Is there anything I can do for you, sir?” He turned around to see John French standing there, saluting with a smile. He stood tall and erect, with wisps of a potential mustache on his upper-lip.
“Yes; stop scaring me like that,” he said, waving him away lazily. Disheartened, he slumped and plodded to another tent. Kitchener glared for a moment, not so much angry as bothered.
He re-entered the tent, but Hawthorne, the engineer, was already gone. “Sir, the artillery captain wishes to speak with you,” came John French’s voice once more, coming from the entrance to the tent.
“French…you’ll still be here tomorrow, won’t you?”
“Uh…yes…sir.”
“Good. That makes two of us.” He turned around to face his assistant. “Start lifting weights. You’ll need to be in top condition.”
“Why, sir?”
“Because at the rate things are going, by the time we reach Khartoum, we’ll be the only two soldiers who haven’t been transferred, but I still intend to take it.”
French started laughing as Kitchener pushed past him. He thinks I was joking.
October 20, 1896
“Hurry up boys, let’s get this thing moving. We’ve got a timetable to keep!” screamed Horatio Kitchener, feeling unheard despite his rank. He watched with all the pride of a master craftsmen as the soldiers of both the British and Egyptian Armies of Sudan worked together to build the railroad. This railroad would stretch as far as British rule did, hopefully reaching Khartoum some day. That, though, was another topic entirely.
The tracks did look beautiful, gleaming in the hot, mid-day sun. No one in the work force or out there for any other reason would have denied that this was one of the hottest days on record. As things were, most of the men went shirtless, the sun burning their red, sweaty backs. There was to be no rest for another half-hour, yet they were already looking anxious. He didn’t blame them one bit, and couldn’t help feeling a bit lazy, even hated, as he strolled along, inspecting the works, not lifting a finger. It wasn’t because he was lazy; on the contrary, he valued hard work. He just had other things to tend to.
Wasting no time, he pushed through a group of tan-skinned Egyptian and Sudanese laborers, hard at work, and made his way to a tent, door-flaps wide open. “Ah,” he couldn’t help but emit a sigh of relief at his entry into the cooler, shadier command tent. The man whom he approached, a kind sixty-five year old with white hair, a long, white beard, suspenders (despite the heat!) and a voice that sounded like a squawk. “Well, well, if it isn’t the Sirdar; how do you do, Mr. Kitchener?” His squeaky voice was almost comical, but Kitchener had gotten used to it.
“Fine; and you?”
“I’m a sixty-five year old man in the middle of nowhere with death just around the corner; I’ve been better.”
“Well, we’re certainly paying you enough, aren’t we?”
“Pay has nothing to do with it; I do this out of pride for the Empire.” He stroked his beard, reminiscing on earlier days, and then continued. “It’s all just to plant one more flag, to claim one more stretch o’ dirt and walk around it in the name o’ Good Queen Victoria.” He spoke almost sarcastically, but Kitchener knew that wasn’t intended. The man he spoke to now, a wily railroad engineer, was a true patriot.
“So, Mr. Hawthorne,” he was formal, “I must congratulate you on your planning thus far. A railway running from Egypt to Sudan will most certainly speed up and ease the problems of supply, and you’ve planned a damn-fine one.”
“Well, your soldiers are hard workers; much better at taking orders than the laborers we use back home. Your men are disciplined.”
“I do my best,” Kitchener said with a smile, taking justifiable pleasure in the efficiency of his own men. “Don’t forget that about two hundred of those hard workers out there are prisoners, and a bunch are just peasants or…I, uh, I think the term for them was fellahin.” Hawthorne just shrugged. “So, why is it you called me here today. It isn’t that I don’t enjoy a rest from the campaign, but I most certainly have a number of other pressing matters to attend to.”
“Well, it has to do with my services. My work with you thus far has been quite a pleasure, but as you know, there is a war going on.” That was perhaps the most tactless thing he had heard in weeks. Hawthorne, usually a delight to talk to, was not talking about his war; he was talking about the war in the Americas. However, phrasing it as he did, he made it sound as if Kitchener’s struggle was not real enough.
“Sir, I assume you speak of the war in Guyana,” he said icily.
“That I do, Mr. Kitchener.”
“And you rate that war to be one of…greater importance than this, the war which has already taken so many lives, and has been going on since the early ‘80s?”
“It is not that I rate that war to be any greater; the British government does, and Salisbury says he needs my talents elsewhere, namely in Guyana, where an expansion of the railroad network through dense jungles and over mountains requires a high degree of skill, experience, and patience. Salisbury says that he believes I have these things, as proven in my service to your army. Horatio,” he now spoke with glossy eyes and a saddened countenance, “they need me more than you do. Don’t make this difficult?”
“I understand that, Mr. Hawthorne.” He refused to recognize the emotional plea, and kept on talking business. “Who, then, will build my railroads? Sudan is even less civilized than Guyana, damn it!”
“I CAN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!” The tent quieted down. Most of the men who had been in it when the shouting started had left out of respect for the privacy of business, but now one in particular re-entered with a grim look on his face.
“Sir,” he interrupted, “we need you out here for…a moment.”
“This better be good,” he threatened, only too happy to have an excuse to take his eyes off the spry Hawthorne. The elderly man, for his part, looked down at the ground. It really wasn’t his fault, and Kitchener knew that, but he also didn’t know what to do about it. Damn that Salisbury, his war is screwing me over, he thought begrudgingly.
As soon as they were outside the tent, the bright sun beating down upon their heads and beads of sweat rolling down both their brows, the man, who held the rank of Assistant Adjutant-General spoke up. “Sir, we’ve spotted a group of Mahdists moving towards our position from the southeast. They’re on the horizon, but moving fast.”
“Damn it, these foes are tenacious. I think we’d have an easier time trying to eliminate every other army in the world.” The Adjutant was not moving, like a good servant, waiting for orders. “Very well then, we’ve no time to waist. Follow me, Finch.”
“It’s French, sir; John French.”
“Never you mind, just follow me.” Although he didn’t admit it, he was rather embarrassed at having momentarily forgotten the man’s name. He had been with him for quite a while, but he made a mental note to strive harder to remember it.
They made their way down the hill atop which sat the command tent, gathering officers as they went. When at last he reached the bottom he informed his officers of the danger. “Spread the word, tell the men to take up defensive positions. Have the prisoners and peasants pulled back to into the town,”—the railway line ran just east of it—“and have the men take shelter just behind the line.”
“Sir,” objected one lesser officer, a Major, “what if they destroy the line as they cross it? That’s probably what they come to do, isn’t it?”
“I’m counting on it, Major.” The man looked perplexed. “Lives are more important than a few miles of wood and iron.” That shut him up. Everyone departed for their sections and detachments, including the major, scratching his head. The only one that remained beside Kitchener was the obedient John French. “French, have a runner sent to Colonel Minnow at the northern end of the line. Tell him to ready his men for a flanking maneuver.”
“Sir,” he grimaced, knowing his news was not something his commander wanted to hear at the moment, yet needed to. “Colonel Minnow is gone. His detachment was shipped away to Alexandria, to be put on a ship for Guyana just yesterday. Don’t you remember?” The Sirdar was not amused, but had no time to complain.
“Get to whoever the hell is over there and give him the orders anyway, then.”
“Right sir.” He saluted, then dashed away. Kitchener, for his part, ran down to his men, giving his orders in person to those closest. They all looked in the direction of the attackers, quickly dropped their shovels and hammers, and took up a defensive line behind the tracks. Then, they waited; they weren’t listening for the sound of the enemies’ war cries so much as another, more glorious noise. Soon enough, it came.
From the back of the line, stationed strategically just in case of such an assault, came the words from one raspy-voiced young Cornish Artillery Captain, dragging out every word. “Arrrrtiiiileeeeryyyyy, OOOOOPEEEEEEEN FIIIIIIIIIIRE!” With all the sadistic satisfaction that belongs to a military commander getting what he wants, he saw the shells slam into the horde of mad cavalrymen rushing towards his position. It’s a good thing I had these here this time. This should be fun.
Not long after, there came another barrage, tearing huge holes in the lines of advancing Mohammedans. They were now close enough that he could hear them scream, that he could see their horses tumble or even, mercilessly, see them torn to shreds by the explosions. There would be no mercy. “Men, get ready; aim; fire!” The soldiers of the Egyptian-British Army of the Sudan held their guns to their shoulders and did as they were told.
One volley; that was all it took. They had suffered countless casualties from the artillery, technology they couldn’t hope to match without compromising their speed, yet one volley from the guns seemed to sound the death-knell on their hopes of a victory. The horses frantically turned around, urged on by their terrified riders. Some stumbled over each-other, and one or two who tried to keep going forward were summarily shot. It had been a valiant attempt; valiance, however, does not always win in the game of war.
The Sirdar was not amused. As a matter of fact, he was so mentally distracted by the fact that the “real war” was beginning to take things from him that he had left as soon as the enemy started turning around. Careless, yes; understandable, perhaps.
As he was walking back towards the tent, he heard a loud voice call out from behind him. “Is there anything I can do for you, sir?” He turned around to see John French standing there, saluting with a smile. He stood tall and erect, with wisps of a potential mustache on his upper-lip.
“Yes; stop scaring me like that,” he said, waving him away lazily. Disheartened, he slumped and plodded to another tent. Kitchener glared for a moment, not so much angry as bothered.
He re-entered the tent, but Hawthorne, the engineer, was already gone. “Sir, the artillery captain wishes to speak with you,” came John French’s voice once more, coming from the entrance to the tent.
“French…you’ll still be here tomorrow, won’t you?”
“Uh…yes…sir.”
“Good. That makes two of us.” He turned around to face his assistant. “Start lifting weights. You’ll need to be in top condition.”
“Why, sir?”
“Because at the rate things are going, by the time we reach Khartoum, we’ll be the only two soldiers who haven’t been transferred, but I still intend to take it.”
French started laughing as Kitchener pushed past him. He thinks I was joking.
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Rex
Good story but I rather doubt that Britain would seriously consider a railway for the fighting in Guyana. Just about everything of importance, in both Guyana and Venezuela is most easily accessed by sea. Railways are slow and expensive to build and as the chapter shows need a lot of labour. Don't think there's going to be a lot there in the jungles of S America.
As such I could see Kitchener's army drained of troops, especially given the need to protect Canada against the obviously coming US assualt, but not a railway in Guyana.
Steve
Good story but I rather doubt that Britain would seriously consider a railway for the fighting in Guyana. Just about everything of importance, in both Guyana and Venezuela is most easily accessed by sea. Railways are slow and expensive to build and as the chapter shows need a lot of labour. Don't think there's going to be a lot there in the jungles of S America.
As such I could see Kitchener's army drained of troops, especially given the need to protect Canada against the obviously coming US assualt, but not a railway in Guyana.
Steve