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Commander Cantrell in the West Indies(230)

By:Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon






Heading down the slope that would ultimately bring him to the western outskirts of Oranjestad’s tent city, Mike finally reached what he’d been striving toward since the attack had begun almost half an hour ago: the groomed ghut his workers used as both a run-off sluice for their construction camp, and a wide and direct porter’s trail when it was dry. It was hardly an ideal arrangement—almost nothing in the seventeenth century Caribbean seemed to be—but it was a less treacherous path when moving heavy, cumbersome, and yet fragile equipment.

But that wasn’t the reason Mike had made for it in the middle of what seemed to be a widespread sneak attack. Instead, he had been told by some of his African workers—well, New World-born cimarrons, according to them—that the Kalinago would not suspect a ghut to be usable as a trail. The Kalinago were the masters of these islands; they were intimately familiar with how to look at a patch of jungle or the side of an overgrown mountain and predict where the streams and run-offs, or ghuts, would be, as well as the game trails, the rocky versus loamy slopes, and the rough gradient of them all.

However, the notion of a ghut being widened, groomed, and used as a trail would not be a part of their compendium of natural clues. In fact, quite the contrary, since the courses of most ghuts were narrow, rocky, and treacherous. Accordingly, Mike had reasoned it was likely to be the safest path down the western side of the mountain. And from the look of it, he’d been right.

He hadn’t been the only person who’d reasoned this out, apparently. Approximately fifty yards farther down the ghut, he caught sight of two figures making their way swiftly downward, one a broadly built white man, the other a lithe and muscular black man. Not daring to shout, Michael doubled his already headlong pace, and before long, the other two, hearing the noise, turned toward him, weapons ready.

Mike waved a greeting, got a wave in return and the two waited, crouching cautiously. They rose when he approached, and Mike couldn’t help but smile. “Good to see you made it out, Bert, Kwesi.”

Bert Kortenaer took his left hand off his musket’s forestock and shook Mike’s hand. “And good to see you, too, Mike. I confess, I feared you might be one of the first killed.”

“Huh. Let’s get going while I learn why you were in such a rush to see me hustled to my eternal reward.”

“Now, Mike—” started Bert.

“He only means, Michael, that we knew you were restringing wires on the fourth array, today.” Kwesi frowned, moving swiftly, steadying his progress with his left hand, his wood axe ready in his right. “How did you get here so quickly? I mean no disrespect, Michael, but you are more of a thinker than a runner.”

Michael considered his medium build and less than flat stomach. “I don’t know how much of a thinker I am, but you’re right that I’m no runner. Never was. But today, it wasn’t my head or my feet that saved me.”

“No?” asked Bert. “Then what was it.”

“Luck. In my case, dumb luck. Literally. I was halfway to array four when I realized I’d forgotten my toolkit back at my tent near array seven. I didn’t make it back down yesterday, so decided to stay overnight on the slopes. I was just picking up the tools when I heard the first gunshots.”

Kwesi seemed to shiver. “What is happening, Michael? We have seen both Kalinago and white men attacking workers. Together. The white men are French, Mr. Kortenaer says. What are they doing here?”

Mike almost twisted his ankle between a stray root-end and a boulder that had been too large to lift out of the ghut. “Trying to destroy our radio, from the looks of it. They’ve been cutting wires as they go, and if they hadn’t stopped to do that, they might have overrun us all before we get to town. Which we need to do as quickly as possible.”

“To push them off The Quill?”

Mike stared at Bert. “To keep them from rolling Oranjestad into the sea. When I came to the clear ridge-line near array eight, I got a chance to look down the eastern slopes.” Remembering the sight made Mike shiver slightly. “I didn’t know what I was seeing at first. It looked like the ground between the trees was rippling. Then I realized: all those were men, moving up the slopes from wherever they landed on the windward side of the island. Which is why they must be here to knock out the radio. They came ashore where we couldn’t see, where Oranjestad would not have any eyes or ears.”

“There are some farmers near the eastern shore,” Kwesi said grimly. “It’s where I must work when I am not working for you, Michael.”