Chapter 21
Murphy’s Law of Combat #42
“Always dress so as to be overlooked by both friend and foe.”
As Melissa watched, he took out one of the clear bags and removed a black oblong thing the size and shape of a large biscuit. A glow appeared with a chiming sound. The black box shone a light on his face. Another flashlight?
Melissa sat up, apprehensive. Why were all his daunting instruments black?
He waited, then fingered the device and waited some more. After a moment he held the box out to her. She hesitated but took it gingerly at his insistence. It weighed little but felt solid. One flat side shone as bright as his flashlight. She was bewildered by all the letters and drawings on the lit face of the box. Melissa looked at the captain, unsure what to do.
He touched the surface of the light.
She blinked. There was a picture, like the license card he had shown her, but bigger, shining in the darkness. Bright with color, the image of the captain stood smiling with his arm around a woman whose head came to his shoulder height, making her very tall indeed.
In the picture, the two of them were near the ocean—in public. Melissa could see other people and umbrellas behind them. What shocked her, made her face heat, was that both the captain and the woman Claire were wearing trouser-looking things that ended higher than mid-thigh! The woman’s top had no sleeves and failed to completely cover her midriff. She could actually see Claire’s navel in the picture. She was not wearing stays. The captain stood next to her bare chested.
Melissa felt herself grow lightheaded. What kind of relationship did he have with this Claire that he could hold her in public in such a state of undress? What kind of society could create such wonders as this box and tolerate such immodesty?
The captain must have seen her confusion in the firelight because he leaned over and said, “Here” then brushed his finger across the picture. Suddenly another picture appeared. The two were at a table with glasses and plates, obviously an outdoor meal under a blue umbrella. Claire, a wide smile on her face—she had lip rouge on! —waved as the captain held her close.
The realism and clarity were breathtaking and frightening. “This must be a rare device.” Her voice broke. “How did you come by it?”
The captain smiled, his teeth reflecting white in the dark. “This, rare? No, most everybody has one.”
Melissa’s mouth dropped open, but no words came. Everyone possessed such wonders? She looked again at the picture and studied the one thing she could relate to: the woman shown there.
Her short hair fell around her oval face. No curls whatsoever. It made for an oddly attractive, but barmy hairstyle for a woman. Certainly, such a bold female would prove an infinite fascination for any man. The captain appeared happy to be with her.
Tentatively, Melissa brushed the picture as the captain had and another picture appeared. Now, the captain stood strapped in a metal frame under a canopy of translucent material dyed in Harlequin colors. In the sky behind him, high up, there hung the clear image of a man riding a triangular wing of similar color. It was a thin, frail-looking contraption. She gasped. “There is a man flying!”
The captain nodded. “Yeah. It’s called hang-gliding. I took Claire up that day. I enjoy the sport.”
Melissa stared at the picture. “Ye can fly?” He nodded. “Ye can fly.” Stunned, she handed the box back to the captain without looking at more pictures. Half-naked people and flying machines. All future classes, high and low, enjoyed such a wealth of mechanicals?
A legion of questions raced pell-mell through her mind, crowding out any rational thought. She plucked one at random and mumbled, “How are those pictures created?”
“Like this.” He lit his cylinder flashlight and pointed the beam up at the ceiling, illuminating the entire room. As she blinked at the light, the captain held the black box out between them. He fingered something on the box again and another bright light flashed. He turned the lit window for her to see.
She stared at her image, astounded, and horrified. In stark relief, there were her own features, as if in a mirror. Her hair was a robin’s nest, and the bandage about her head looked like she’d rolled in dirt and blood. The captain’s ‘thermal’ shirt displayed similar smudges. The picture captured the brown-green color around her bruised temple in exacting detail. The bright light paled her features a ghostly white. She failed in every comparison to the half-naked Claire.
She thrust the instrument in his face, shaking it impatiently for him to take it, so he wouldn’t know she was trembling. “I appear the doitit coo with a half-mad gaze and grimy cheeks.”
“You do not.” He teasingly took several more pictures of her in quick succession.
At her angry glare, he grinned, but then shrugged. “They’re just pictures. I can erase them.” He frowned at the thought and pushed a button. Another chime sounded and the light went out. “Or we can just wait until the battery runs out, and then everything will be lost anyway.”
Melissa started, a panic seizing her. “What will be lost?”
“The pictures.”
“Nothing else?”
“What, you mean like a piece of your soul?” There was a derisive edge to his question.
She pursed her lips. “How should I ken? It’s yer oh-so-clever picture box.” When he didn’t respond, she snapped, “What is that thing?”
“A cell phone.”
Melissa wanted to scream. “Made of plastic, I suppose.”
“The case is.”
She should know better than to ask questions by now. More magic and meaningless words. Instead, she spoke in as disinterested a tone as she could manage, which meant an English accent. “Claire is a beauty. And she is to be a university professor. I can hardly comprehend your world, Captain, but I can now see how strange and primitive my time must seem to you.”
“Rig.”
“Do you think she is missing you now?”
“No. It was just a few days’ summer diversion.”
“What?”
“I filled her free time, and we had fun. No harm, no foul but I doubt she’s pining for me.”
“Captain, I didn’t—”
“Don’t worry about it. Most women need men only when we’re useful.”
“Pardon?”
“Like your grandmother is using me.”
“Captain, I am sure—”
“There’s a ‘gentleman’ for every occasion, some schmuck like me ready to rescue a woman from any perceived danger, or just help her avoid the smallest social inconvenience. You know, getting a cape muddy to save a lady’s shoes.”
Melissa could not credit his words. “Captain, you cannot honestly think that.”
“I can. My mother gave me my first lesson. She needed me to fix things, but then she hated me for it. I’m persona non gratis because she never asked for help. Right. Did she then find a good guy after I left? Nope, another creep. I’ve had many lessons since then.”
“Surely you know women who are honorable and upstanding?”
“I do, mostly in the Army but with so many women having such expectations of men, it is hard to tell which is which at times.”
When Melissa remained silent, unable to formulate a response, he continued.
“While I was still at home, my first date was with a girl named Susan who was part of our gang. While we were all watching a school basketball game, she asked me out. Why? To avoid having to say ‘no’ to another, less understanding guy, a creep. She asked me to lie about when we had arranged the date so she could say no to him with my support.”
The captain turned out the flashlight and the world turned dark again. “I lied like a good gentleman, when I knew she didn’t want to go out with me, the farmboy.” He almost growled the last two words.
“Women seem to be able to pick me out of a crowd.” He made a snorting sound. “Your grandmother picked me out of thin air two hundred years away, for cryin’ out loud. I must radiate a ‘fix it’ aura.”
‘Captain, really—”
“You know the men I’m talking about, your gentlemen who willingly put themselves in harm’s way to save the damsel and are pleasant about it. From your expectations of me, I’m sure you have them in this time. They exist to solve all a girl’s problems because that’s what a goodman is supposed to do.”
The captain paused, and then sighed. “What a crock. When the sucker’s chosen and we’ve done our duty, then it’s adios.”
“And this is what men in your time think of women?” Melissa said. “Is this what you think of me?” She didn’t hide the anger in her voice. His family experiences were so heartbreaking, and yet his views of women sat like stinging nettle in the pit of her stomach. He knew such accomplished women as Claire, but still viewed women as so self-serving?
There was a prolonged silence in the darkness, until she made fists, sure he wanted to say ‘yes,’ when he sighed. “No, no I don’t.”
“And why ever not? I am a woman needing your help, expecting you to be pleasant.”
He chuckled. “True, but you didn’t ask a man to find your friend Emily, you went yourself. Because, from the beginning, you didn’t wait around for my help, you took care of things. Hey, you saved my life.”
“Oh.” Melissa relaxed, but had no more words. Instead, she curled up in the sleeping bag and covered her head.
After a while, the captain said in a contemplative voice, “Don’t worry about it, Mel. I’ll be gone soon enough. I must have the word ‘sucker’ pasted across my forehead, my need to save everyone glowing for every woman to see— apparently across the centuries.”
Melissa wished this conversation had never occurred. She wanted his approval, companionship, but who was he to judge all of womankind? He grew up among the lower classes after all. That might explain such shoogly notions.
She licked her chapped lips. Still, she could not deny his abilities or his intelligence. His world left her stupefied. She felt tears come and gritted her teeth. His companions were half-naked university women and men who flew through the air. She felt the two centuries separating them like a great black chasm yawning in the cabin between them.
Melissa closed her eyes. Why had her grandmother done such a thing? Not for the first time, she wondered how Nana had accomplished it, what magic had brought him. She could not imagine why the captain and his fantastical age also did not know how it was accomplished. Neither answer explained why her heart felt like it would splinter.
~ ~ ~
“Damn it to hell.” Rig stared at the lighted dial of his watch in the total black of the cabin. They’d slept until eleven p.m. He flipped on the flashlight and began dressing. The horses’ restless nickering and stamping had woken him. As he tied one boot, he reviewed what needed to be done, and where they needed to go tonight. He glanced over at Mel. All he saw was his sleeping bag twist and contort on the floor.
“Mel, we have to get moving.”
A muffled voice came from the bag. “Aye, ye are not the only one who heard the horses. I’m dressing.”
Rig frowned at the wiggling bag and began to pack, with only one boot on. His splint-rigid leg placed his right foot just out of reach.
He still didn’t know why he’d said the things he had last night. Her questions seemed to flip a switch. He’d never talked about his mother, or his experiences with women, even though they had defined his life in too many ways.
His own rage and cynicism when saying such thoughts aloud surprised him. He’d believed he was over it. He knew his feelings had alienated Mel. But wasn’t that always the way? Men were always offending women by simply telling them how they felt. And men always felt this shitty about it once they had. It was just one more catch-22 when dealing with women, one more reason for a man to remain silent. His clenched his jaw, his leg burned. He tried to ignore it as he tied the blankets to his rucksack.
Mel emerged from the sleeping bag and stuffed it into its duffle, packed it away, and then helped him fold the tarps. He sat on his pack and held out his boot. “Can you help me here?” After what he’d said last night, Mel couldn’t miss the irony.
She stood in front of him and gazed at the boot for a moment, lost in thought, mouth pursed. Then she frowned and nodded. Without a word, she knelt and pushed it over his foot, quickly lacing it up tight. Standing, she said, “We need to give the horses water. They also need to feed.”
“We don’t have time, and we don’t have the feed.”
She eyed him and the grass outside in the flashlight. With a resigned expression, she walked over to the horses. “Then come help me with the saddles.”
Rig cut off a sarcastic, “Yes, ma’m.”
It was after midnight when they mounted. He set the night goggles on his head after reading the battery level. One power bar showed. He scanned the area with the goggles then turned them off and lit the flashlight again. He circled Chief to face Mel. The beast immediately tried to graze, yanking the reins out of his hand. Rig grabbed them up with some effort, mumbling a few choice words. To Mel he said, “We have to make it to Cacabellos and across the Cúa before sundown. If the French get there first, we’re in deep sh— trouble.”
Mel didn’t say anything, which annoyed him. “Can the horses do thirty miles in say twelve hours travel?”
“Aye, if we water them well and don’t run them long.”
Her whole manner was withdrawn, rather than the feisty presence he’d come to appreciate. “Look, Mel, about—” Her walled-off expression stopped him. What could he say, what should he say? And would it matter in the end? They were close to the British and he’d be leaving once she was safe. He hoped.
He handed the jar of Vaseline to her. She eyed him but took the jar, applying the gel to her face, and then handed it back. She had her scarf wrapped around her neck and her gloves were back on when he’d finished covering his face.
He put the flashlight away and turned the goggles on again, for the last time. He leaned over and grabbed her reins. “Okay, tallyho” and off they moved into the black night.
They climbed, the wind blowing ice and snow. After several miles, Rig found the main road and angled toward the west, the road to Cacabellos.They followed the dirt highway because the ground farther out was becoming too difficult.
His night vision goggles revealed green, glowing ridges of rock rising up to block any other path. A freezing wind came up, making his face ache.
Then he saw soldiers marching west on the road, several holding large lamps. In their wavering light Rig could tell they were French.
After a hundred infantrymen had marched past, Rig waited in the trees, meters from the highway before risking returning to it. Not long after, they heard the pop-pop of gunfire. Rig had a hard time believing the French and British would bother fighting in the dark and cold, but the sounds indicated a general firefight in progress. Rig crested a hill, the battlefield coming into view seven hundred meters away. A burning barn lit up the snow-covered landscape, silhouetting large numbers of men scattered across both sides of the road. Flashes of gunfire sparkled, defining the front lines on both sides. He scanned the area. Mel and he were obviously on the French side of the engagement and needed to circumvent the whole mess.
Rig didn’t want either side to discover them. The land bottlenecked at this point, which was obviously why the British were carrying out a delaying action here.
Mel drew her horse up next to his. He nodded at the skirmish. “We’re going to have to skirt the fighting as quietly as possible. Hopefully, the light from the fires won’t extend beyond the edge of the woods.” He pointed to the tree line that followed a streambed at the edge of the fields.
Rig led them slowly forward, then the night vision goggles went out. “Shit.” No power left. They were so much junk now.
The burning barn still cast enough light in the trees to thread their way between them, and clearing the woods, they struck out cross country. The Rio Cúa curved north, steep cliffs marking its path. Rig packed the GN goggles and pulled out his inferred scope. One-eyed, he followed a trail paralleling the road to Cacabellos.
The trail meandered across a gentle descent into a wide valley, bordered by the river to the north and mountains to the south and east, the ones they’d just crossed. In the dawning dimness, Rig could see farms here and there, trees scattered on the valley floor. The road they shadowed was dotted with retreating figures in red. Good. They weren’t French.
Mel said the horses must feed and rest, so in the cover of some scrub pines next to a small stream, they stopped. Around it was grass free of snow. As the frigid wind hissed through the trees, they let the horses graze. The bitter cold kept them from resting themselves.
Mel didn’t say a word, even when he handed her hot tea and the last of the dried apricots. She sat on a large granite rock and stared at nothing. He made sure she had both the horse pistol in the saddle holster and the smaller one in her skirt pocket. He checked his weapons, what power was left on the thermal scope, attached it to the rifle, and then reviewed his notes.
He finally approached her and quietly spoke her name. She glanced up, and with a soul-deep weariness he hadn’t seen before, nodded. Without a word, she rose to claim her mount.
One-handed, she swung into the saddle without his help. He had to work at it. He wasn’t a horseman, and his braced leg was awkward, but splint was the only thing keeping him upright. He walked Chief over to her, now with enough morning light that he wouldn’t need to lead her horse. She kneaded the reins in her gloved hands pensively as he studied the horizon to the west.
Rig turned to her. “Mel.” She raised her head, her green-gray eyes pale against the dark circles underneath them. Her expression held him and again her presence poured through him, the queenly vision he’d had the first night. More compelling now, deeper, her beauty and dignity made him shiver. He suddenly felt totally inadequate for her needs, her desires. She seemed larger than life, a period heroine, greater than any measly effort of his to comfort her.
“Mel, look—”
“Yes, Captain, I grasp your sentiments and the great distance between your time and mine. No need to feed the fire.”
“It’s my general experience with women, not you.” Rig stopped, trying to think of something reassuring to say. “I’m glad it’s you I am traveling with.”
“Ye mean besides me being indispensable for your returning home?”
Stung by her words, Rig scowled and turned away. He hadn’t been thinking of her as his ticket home when he’d spoken, but she would believe otherwise? That would always be between them. He set off toward the west without checking to see if she followed.
It was after one o’clock in the afternoon when they spied Cacabellos. The high road from Bembibre crossed a stone bridge over a deep cut where the churning Cúa River separated the valley from the hilltop town. Dozens of houses squatted on the slopes above the river, their white walls bright when the afternoon sun peeked through the clouds.
Vineyards covered the far banks and surrounding hills like ribbed quilts. A perfect place for a protracted defense. He hoped there wouldn’t be many troops when they tried to cross the bridge.
As they topped a rise, a kilometer or two from the bridge, the flat valley floor spread out before them. Down the road from the town, a line of cavalry slowly retreated toward the bridge, their carbines throwing up clouds of smoke as a huge number of horsemen flooded the far end of the valley, pushing at the outnumbered skirmish line. Dozens of men in red and black uniforms ran for the bridge, protected by the British cavalry in blue. Other dark-clad British infantry fanned out into the vineyards and the small woods flanking the road just before the bridge
The French cavalry covering the end of the valley were all dressed in green and white. Their brass helmets flashed in the sun. . He wished the French and British would decide on what color uniforms to wear.
Rig frowned. A mile of open fields lay between them and the bridge. They didn’t have much time. British artillery began thundering from the town. He reached down for his boot knife, thinking about cutting part of the only white material they had for a white flag, Mel’s petticoat.
“Captain!”
Rig turned to Mel and over her shoulder he saw at least twenty more French horsemen spill out of the trees behind them, more than a kilometer away. The group stopped when they saw him and Mel out in the open. Men yelled, indistinct barks from so far away. Abruptly, the entire force jumped into a gallop straight for them.
“Damn it! Mel, the bridge. Don’t stop for anything.” Rig slapped Mel’s horse and then kicked the gray’s sides.
The tired horses gained speed slowly, only flattening out into a full gallop when their pursuers had closed the gap to less than three hundred meters. Rig veered toward the bridge, aiming to get behind the now quickly retreating British. He held on to Chief’s mane, afraid he’d bounce out of the saddle at any moment. Suddenly, one of the British skirmishers called out and fire at them.
Rig shouted, “Why are they shooting at us?”
Mel’s horse had come abreast of him. “We’re riding French horses,” she yelled back.
They galloped on, pushing their mounts. More shots whizzed by. The mounted British troopers were now in a line firing at their French pursuers and them too. Looking at the skirmishers’ horses, he saw the British horses had their tails bobbed, cut to knobby little tuffs. Chief’s long tail flew behind him like a flag.
A British bullet grazed his gloved hand. Crap.
The British troopers facing the horde of French cavalry far down the road to their right turned to run. It was a frightening sight. More than a thousand French horsemen surged across the fields, brass helmets bobbing above green floodwaters, the thunder of thousands of hooves a roar above the gunfire.
More British horsemen were now shooting at the two of them, only a few hundred meters ahead. The French behind them were close enough for Rig to see their faces. The bridge was still hundreds of meters away. Rig and Mel exchanged glances and put their heels to the horses. It was going to be close. If they didn’t get shot first.