Requiem aeternam - 6 - Temeraire fan fiction

Four months earlier:

Laurence watched his and Granby’s dragons fly away, completely devoid of their usual furious quarrelling over whatever they did not agree on at the moment. Temeraire would take a stance based on what he felt was right, despite whatever the rest of the world had already settled for since time immemorial, while Iskierka would do whatever was in her best interest, often either ignoring or manipulating others in the process of getting what she wanted. Both recalcitrant, yet in such completely different ways. If they would ever agree on something, nobody could stop them. Except they never did.

Not having the faintest clue what had happened to get either of them so cooperative all of the sudden, Laurence pushed the matter to a corner of his mind and settled on a much more important matter: disciplining the hundred terrible sailors who had ended up under his command.

“We know one of you stole a slab of gold from the temple. The priest is highly displeased, and asks it returned immediately.”
Nobody in the crowd of sailors assembled before him in the courtyard spoke a word.

“This crime is dishonourable, in that you stole from our host. This crime is imbecilic, as there is no way you can take that gold with you on a dragon without one of us noticing.” He paused.

“This crime is treason! It is treason, because we are on a diplomatic mission! The Inca are not our allies! They are about to become our enemies! The only one who can prevent that from happening, is standing next to me.” He pointed to Granby, standing very uncomfortable in the centre of attention. He wore a new coat bought from the Inca, which Iskierka had started to cover in gold and jewels almost as soon as she had made friends with their empress.

Laurence paced over the podium, improvised by pushing several low tables together. It protested loudly as he stamped on the floor. “This man, standing right next to me, is about to go into a commitment that will change the course of his life. He will sacrifice his career, go live in a foreign country without knowing its history, and attempt to lead it into an alliance against Napoleon Bonaparte. He will sacrifice his hopes of returning home, instead marrying a foreign woman with whom he has nothing in common.”

“Except the way he gazes at Higgins!” said someone in the back, referring to a particularly handsome shipmate, who had indeed drawn a lot of attention from the Inca females.

This was a mild joke, the subject not that uncommon, if spoken in informal company. Among military men, it was mostly frowned upon, but sniggered at when officers where away. In a formal assembly, punishment and withdrawal of rum rations was in order. In a formal reprimand such as this one, flogging and demotion was more likely. But Laurence, having the prior knowledge of the all-too disturbing truth of the bold sailor’s notion was enraged. He could not spot the original teller of the joke, but when one of the other men dared to giggle out loud he wasted no time and shot the man in the left arm. The gunshot and his yelp of pain effectively distracted the attention from poor Granby, who was turning as red as the spicy peppers which grew in this country.

He put the gun down, and retrieved a second one from a big basket standing by his side. “I have a hundred pistols in here, all loaded. One for each of you, each bullet going to the next one who dares to interrupt my reprimand and dishonour a crew member. Next time, I will not miss the heart.” There were only five guns in the basket, no others had been found on the South American continent, with owners willing to part from them. The bottom was filled with cloth to create the illusion that might sustain discipline throughout the ordeal, which was going to last a while, as it now seemed.

“Mr. Clayton, you may cover your injury with your neckcloth.” None of them had neckcloths, most nothing akin to a uniform, but Laurence was not in the mood for forgiveness, so the wounded man who was quickly growing pale had to stop the blood from flowing with his other hand.

“You will now stand in a grid of ten men squared, all facing my way.” They quickly obeyed him, but positioned the wounded Clayton in the middle. “Salute me. Put your feet together, raise your arm and put your flattened hand to the side of your head. Salute, and think of God, your king and your country.”

All of the men did it, even if it was not even close to a proper salute, which ought to be done in perfect unison. When the first sailor dropped his hand, Laurence unleashed his deadly gaze on him and reached for the gun basket in case the sailor should miss the hint, which he did not. Laurence drew the connection in his mind to Temeraire sometimes opening his mouth in battle as if he was about to roar, to scare dragons away, but that side thought never reached his face.

Another lowered his hand, but he only needed Laurence’s gaze to put him straight. After a few minutes all the men understood that this would take a long time, and contemplated.

The evening lingered on, the sun started to set. Clayton fainted from blood loss, but nobody dared to make a move to aid him. When twilight turned into darkness, Incan servants started lighting torches around them.

Laurence kept his eyes at the men, looking for any disturbance, but his thoughts wandered off. Granby had retreated to a corner, also standing but trying very hard not to draw any attention. Laurence pitied him, even if he could not understand the logic behind the man’s inversion. Psychology was not something he was interested in, even Temeraire had never wanted a book about the subject.

When torches started burning out the Inca brought others, and kept replacing them as Laurence had asked, instead of extinguishing them for the night like they usually did.

The night went on. One of the men fell over as he had managed to fall asleep during the ordeal. Their remorseless drilling sergeant fired a bullet into the ground not ten inches from his head, and all the men woke up from their individual strings of thoughts and tried thinking of their king and country as hard as they could.

After what seemed an endless night, the sky behind the mountains on their east turned pallid and stars began to fade.  Laurence had barely managed to keep his concentration throughout the hours, but he hoped that it had been worth it.

Twenty-one Incan warriors unexpectedly entered the courtyard, in two rows with a higher-ranked individual in the lead.

“What can I do for you gentlemen? You will have the courtyard back once the sun is up, we have been drilling our soldiers a bit.” said Laurence in English, hoping that one of the soldiers understood their language besides Quechua. It appeared they did not, as they kept heading for the centre, where Laurence and the sailors were located.

Suspicion was added to Laurence’s mixture of emotions, and he called Granby with him, as two captain could establish a bigger sense of authority for those ignorant of their ranks, or so he thought. Granby had fallen asleep leaning to the wall, but woke up yawning and quickly went for Laurence when he heard the command even from his dreams. His pace quickened when another twenty-one Inca entered the courtyard from a different door. More were coming.

“At ease, men. We do not want to cause any trouble.” The sailors thankfully dropped their arms from the salute, and robbed their sore muscles. Some even sat down on the ground to give their legs some rest.

Five more groups of Inca had arrived. They were now in the majority, and the British had no weapons besides the four loaded guns still in the basket, and the two swords of Granby and Laurence.

Without any conversation, or commands among the Inca, they attacked. The first group stabbed their spears into the tired sailors, who had no chance of survival. Laurence grabbed the pistols from the baskets and shot at the Incan superiors, hitting three out of four with his guns. Not taking the time to reload, he drew his sword and fended off the Inca, trying to keep them off the sailors who were unarmed. But he and Granby were just as tired, having stood all night long as well.

One of the attackers grabbed his spear with two hands close to the middle and swung the blunt end at the side of Granby’s head, who dropped down instantly. The Inca then stabbed the sharp end in Granby’s chest in a swift and fluid motion, and ended the life in him.
The great feeling of distress from the death of a dear friend gave Laurence new energy. He angrily stabbed an unfortunate Inca at the heart, driving his Chinese sword in all the way to the crossguard. It came out smoothly, but the warrior fell on him, drooling slippery blood all over his coat. Gunshots were heard, but none in his direction.

He cut more men down. Spears were hard to dodge but not very manoeuvrable, and it did not take an excellent swordsmen to push the tip aside and then leap forward and stabbing the attacker in the gut, or slicing open some other part of his body. As the number of sailors still alive kept dwindling down, Laurence got more opponents, and his battle got harder
.
A loud bang and a sudden sharp pain in the head ended Laurence’s violent adventure. The Inca who had fired the gun was still surprised from the sound of the device, not having used it that often. Nonetheless the bullet had hit Laurence in the side of the head, below and behind the ear, at the base of his skull, making him stumble and then fall, and when he hit his head against the wall the world instantly went black for him.