Purgatory's Shore

Book 1: Artillerymen

by Taylor Anderson

Genres: War & Military; Alternative History sci-fi; Military Sci-Fi

Synopsis

On their way to fight in the Mexican-American War, a group of American soldiers are swept away to a strange and deadly alternate Earth in this thrilling new adventure set in the world of the New York Times bestselling Destroyermen series.

The United States, 1847. A disparate group of young American soldiers are bound to join General Winfield Scott's campaign against Santa Anna at Veracruz during the Mexican-American War. They never arrive.

Or rather . . . they arrive somewhere else.

The untried, idealistic soldiers are mostly replacements, really; a handful of infantry, artillery, dragoons, and a few mounted riflemen with no unified command. And they've been shipwrecked on a terrible, different Earth full of monsters and unimaginable enemies.

Major Lewis Cayce, late of the 3rd US "Flying" Artillery, must unite these men to face their fears and myriad threats, armed with little more than flintlock muskets, a few pieces of artillery, and a worldview that spiritually and culturally rebels against virtually everything they encounter. It will take extraordinary leadership and a cadre of equally extraordinary men and women to mold frightened troops into an effective force, make friends with other peoples the evil Holy Dominion would eradicate, and reshape their "manifest destiny" into a cause they can all believe in and fight for.

For only together will they have any hope of survival.

Release date: September 21, 2021

Publisher: Ace

Print pages: 496

Sample

CHAPTER 1

APRIL 5, 1847

The world was shades of gray, reminding Captain Lewis Cayce—formerly of C Battery, 3rd United States Artillery Regiment—of different kinds of lead. The sea to the north of the Yucatán Peninsula was the blue-gray color of molten lead when it got too hot, and the sky had the chalky gray-white look of a corroded musket ball. The comparison struck Lewis Cayce as he leaned on the weathered windward rail of a wretched old barque-rigged whaler named Mary Riggs, wallowing down toward Vera Cruz, Mexico. There’d been more real lead in the air around him over the last year than he cared to remember, and a bloody-fingered surgeon had even plucked a particularly shiny wafer of it from his side after the Battle of Monterrey. Now that he was heading back to the fighting, to join General Winfield Scott’s push inland from Vera Cruz, he’d soon be exposed to a great deal more. Staring grimly across the choppy sea at three other ships straggling along in company, he decided the sea and sky were a portent.

Mary Riggs’s closest companion was USS Isidra, a neat little former Mexican side-wheel steamer captured at Frontera on the Grijalva River. She was crowded with regular infantry, officers’ horses and personal baggage, as well as most of the senior officers responsible for men on the other ships. USS Commissary was a government transport, loaded with munitions, supplies, and volunteer infantry. Xenophon had joined them en route and looked like another old whaler. Lewis suspected her cargo and circumstances were much the same as Mary Riggs’s.

Worn down by decades of yearslong voyages, storms, and hard use associated with her former occupation, Mary Riggs was destined for the breakers or abandonment when she was purchased cheaply by a group of New Orleans investors at the outbreak of war between Mexico and the United States. There was money to be made by a transport for hire to the army, and she was hastily reconfigured to carry horses. She’d done that several times already, but this time she’d been loaded with far too many, as well as a half dozen cannon, limbers, several caissons, and a pair of forge wagons—before being packed to the bulwarks with four hundred men. She reeked unimaginably, the stench of her earlier life almost—but not quite—overwhelmed by the new combination of the manure and sweat of terrified horses, 430 (counting the crew) unwashed bodies, stale tobacco smoke, and most crushing of all, the waste and vomit of too many passengers as unused to the sea as the horses. At least here, by the windward rail of the laboring ship, the air Lewis breathed was slightly fresher.

He wasn’t sick himself, being more accustomed to seafaring than most soldiers. He’d traveled up and down the East Coast several times in his career, and all the way to Europe with his former commander, Samuel Ringgold, a decade before. Perhaps a lifetime on horseback reinforced a certain resistance to the sickening motion of a ship as well. Besides, he’d already seen enough of this war, since its brutal beginning on the sandy, cordgrass plain of Palo Alto, that few things could turn his stomach anymore. But that was him. Most aboard the pitching vessel, leaning hard under a press of dingy canvas, were new recruits, and many were youngsters, as new to war as they were the sea, so he idly wondered why he had such a stretch of the coveted rail to himself. The fighting in Northern Mexico had hardened him in various ways, dulling what many old West Point classmates would’ve described as a general cheerfulness, but it hadn’t turned him aloof. Quite the contrary. Having watched a number of dear friends die (including Major Ringgold, whom he’d deeply respected) made him appreciate those who remained all the more. That’s what he thought, at least. But even he recognized those losses might’ve made him less anxious to make new friends, and it was possible that disposition was detectable by others.

Still, besides the fact his gold-edged shoulder boards and black knee boots were the only indication he was an officer (he didn’t even own a frock coat anymore and preferred the dark blue enlisted fatigue jacket above sky-blue trousers), he assumed his isolation was due to his being the most senior army officer aboard—while not technically having a command. Half the troops in Mary Riggs were artillerymen who, besides their dark blue wheel hats (standard issue for all branches), wore sky-blue uniforms with yellow trim. Many had stitched nonregulation red bands around their hats and stripes down their trouser legs, aping the now famous “flying” horse artillery Lewis had belonged to, but they were “foot” artillery, mostly trained on massive coast defense guns. Some with longer service were probably familiar with lightweight field artillery, but few would’ve practiced the tactics of rapid maneuver and concentration of fire that Major Ringgold pioneered and had proven so successful. Even more strangely from Lewis’s point of view, they may not even serve as artillerymen when they joined General Scott. Some might be sent as replacements to artillery units already in the field, but they’d all been equipped with .69 caliber Model 1816 muskets and more thoroughly trained as infantry.

Then there were the two hundred dragoons, armed with pistols and sabers and the odd-looking .52 caliber Model 1843 breechloading Hall carbines. Lewis was impressed by the volume of fire Halls could achieve, and even their short-range accuracy (much better than musketoons for mounted men), but they’d earned a reputation as troublesome, underpowered weapons. Men who carried them typically loved them or hated them—much like dragoons themselves were regarded by the rest of the army. They wore the same dark blue jackets as Lewis except theirs were trimmed with yellow instead of the horse artillery red Lewis still stubbornly wore. He didn’t command them either.

Unknown to him, the real reasons he remained alone with his thoughts had more to do with the intensity of his gray-eyed gaze and the scorn it focused on the ship full of officers a quarter mile away, as well as the unconsciously unhappy frown within the short brown beard on his face. He was physically intimidating as well: taller than average, with wide, strong shoulders straining the seams of his jacket. Yet despite all that, nothing travels faster than rumors and speculation among bored and miserable soldiers, and virtually every man aboard Mary Riggs already knew who he was and at least a version of what he’d seen. There were few veterans among them, and only a handful who’d already fought Mexicans. Some Noncommissioned Officers (NCOs) had campaigned against Seminoles in Florida, and a few older European immigrants might’ve faced (or fought for) Napoleon in their youth, but most of these men had been shopkeepers, farmers, recent immigrants, even quite literally gutter sweepings drawn to the regular army by enlistment bonuses when the current war began. All were volunteers, but unlike volunteer regiments specifically raised for the war, they weren’t dreamy-eyed patriots looking for honor or glory or entranced by some notion it was the “manifest destiny” of Americans to spread their enlightened ideals (and themselves) across a continent. Most were in it for regular meals.

That didn’t mean they’d be bad soldiers. The United States’ tiny standing army and increasingly professional officer corps had fought magnificently so far, but until recently it was composed of men with long service, even among the enlisted ranks, who probably had absorbed many of the ideals their country—native or adopted—was fighting for. These newer recruits, really part of “America” yet or not, were “regulars” now as well. And with all the hard training, sometimes seasoned with genuine abuse, their lot was no worse than that of soldiers in other armies of the world. Just as important, they hadn’t been forced to join. So most became good soldiers, proud of their regular status and loyal to one another—if not always yet the country they fought for. Some, especially foreigners, thought of themselves more as paid mercenaries than Americans, but that sometimes made them better soldiers, determined to prove they were Americans after all. In any event, as regulars, they were supposed to be professionals, and they were prepared to hold themselves to a higher standard than the short-term volunteer units they mocked. That made them . . . professionally curious . . . about what they were likely to face, so Captain Lewis Cayce had been the subject of much discussion among them—while his uninviting countenance made even the few junior officers aboard hesitant to approach him.

There were exceptions. One was another full-bearded man (though his whiskers were streaked with gray), who seemed acquainted with Cayce and stopped to speak from time to time but never lingered. He was just as tall, if not as heavily built, and would’ve passed for a civilian if not for his own battered wheel hat (with the folding neck flap removed) and sky-blue military vest he wore over a black-striped shirt. Dark corduroy trousers were tucked into the tops of brown knee boots similar to the black ones Lewis wore. Word was he and several more men aboard were Texas Rangers who, like Captain Cayce, had been in Northern Mexico with Zachary Taylor. Many wondered about their presence, since rumor had it General Scott didn’t like their bloodthirsty reputation.

Another exception was a young dragoon lieutenant who—after three days at sea—finally seemed to gather the courage to approach the brooding artilleryman.

“If I may be so bold, sir,” came a somewhat anxious voice, suddenly at Lewis’s side, “aren’t you excited to get back to the war?”

The words jolted Lewis from his dark reverie, and he looked momentarily stricken before turning, almost thankfully, to face his visitor. Dressed in the stylishly tight junior officer’s frock coat, he looked ridiculously thin and boyish, even with the pillow quilting under a single row of glistening buttons intended to make his chest look bigger. Wispy blond side whiskers had formed on his cheeks, a premature attempt to emulate those so many of the men sported, occasionally to outrageous excess. The youngster belatedly saluted. “Second Lieutenant Coryon Burton, sir. North Carolina. Class of ’forty-six.”

Lewis returned the salute, still leaning on the rail. “Captain Cayce,” he replied. “Of Tennessee, originally. Now just the army,” he added wryly. That was certainly true. A West Point Class of 1830 graduate, he’d been in the army almost half his thirty-eight years. Peacetime promotion came very slowly, and he’d still been a first lieutenant when the war began.

“Yes sir, I know,” the youth blurted. “All the fellows are talking about you.” His accent softened the words under the excited tone, and Lewis vaguely envied him that. His own birth accent had almost entirely vanished.

“All the fellows?” Lewis asked, amused, as Burton began to redden. “I wonder what they say.”

“Nothing bad,” the young dragoon quickly assured. “They, ah, that is to say, it seems to be the consensus that you’re a hero.”

Lewis grunted and glanced around. “Is it indeed? Ihaven’t told anyone so. I haven’t even spoken to any of them. Even the artillery lieutenants aboard.”

That had struck Lewis odd, that neither young artillery officer had presented himself out of courtesy. They weren’t required to, since he wasn’t their commander and they were all—essentially—just passengers on the same ship for now, but it wasn’t good manners.

“I . . . can’t speak for the others, sir, but . . .” Burton glanced meaningfully at the red trim on Lewis’s jacket. “Just as there is rivalry between dragoons and Mounted Rifles, there exists a certain friction between mounted and foot artillery. It might also be . . .” The boy flushed again. “I can say for myself that your glorious experiences in battle have given me much to think about. Much to look forward to,” he quickly added, “but also to question—whether I can perform as you did.”

Lewis shook his head. “I saw little glory in Mexico and I’m certainly no ‘hero.’ I might congratulate myself for my survival, but not any extraordinary deeds.”

“No more than anyone else who was there, is that it, Lewis?” came a growling voice on the other side of the dragoon lieutenant, who was startled to see the tall Ranger there.

“That’s Captain Giles Anson of the Texas Mounted Volunteers, also known as ‘Rangers’—among other things. Lieutenant Coryon Burton,” Lewis announced by way of introduction.

“At your service, sir!” Burton exclaimed.

Anson smiled and nodded, but looked intently back at Lewis. “Palo Alto an’ Resaca de la Palma were ‘glorious’ for us, I suppose.” He glanced back at Burton. “Maybe even miraculous, considering how inexperienced an’ outnumbered we were, an’ only Ringgold’s an’ Duncan’s artillery seemed to know what they were doin’. That miracle cost us Ringgold an’ some other fine fellas, but bought us a lightly contested advance—aside from skirmishin’, sickness, an’ accidents,” he inserted darkly, “all the way from Matamoros to Monterrey. Things were . . . different there, an’ everyone was called to be a hero in that fight.” He smiled oddly at Lewis. “Captain Cayce too.”

Lewis looked back out to sea. Isidra was steaming easily enough, and even Commissary appeared to ride comfortably, but Xenophon was wallowing and bashing her way along just as roughly as Mary Riggs.

Much of the Battle of Monterrey had been fought inthe city, house to house, rooftop to rooftop, even through the walls. Lewis had never seen anything like it. Never imagined something so brutal and desperate. His main contribution, after initially being attached to Duncan’s Battery of the 2nd US to support an assault on Fort Libertad atop “Independence Hill”—in which Anson also participated—was to push a section of guns right down the rubbled, corpse-strewn streets of the city.

“He was wounded there, you know,” Anson told Burton as if in confidence. “Me too, which is why we missed the more recent ‘glorious’ festivities at Buena Vista, or the Siege of Vera Cruz. Otherwise, we’d’ve been involved in one or the other.” He chuckled. “The ‘one’ for me, most likely, an’ ‘the other’ for Captain Cayce. General Taylor likes Texans better than General Scott, though ‘Old Fuss an’ Feathers’ is startin’ to learn he needs us after all. That’s fine,” he continued. “We need him too. Taylor’s had most of his army taken away, an’ there’ll be much more fightin’ on the road from Vera Cruz to the halls of the Montezuma.”

With that, he nodded a bow and strode down the leaning, bounding deck and squeezed through the miserable soldiers sitting on it, surrounding four other men dressed much like he was near the base of the main mast. Lewis didn’t know their names but had seen them all before. One was as massive and hairy as a bear, with a voice rather like one as well. Another was clearly Mexican himself, with a huge mustache and bristly black side whiskers. The last was a tall, slim youth, also apparently of Mexican descent, but with no facial hair and almost delicate features. He was always with Anson and served as his aide. There was even a slight resemblance. Lewis knew most of Anson’s family, including his wife, were murdered by marauding Mexican soldiers during Texas’s war for independence. Anson was with Sam Houston’s army at the time. Lewis had no close family and could only imagine how devastated the Ranger must’ve been. It certainly helped explain his implacable attitude toward the enemy. At least to a degree. Lewis suspected the boy was a surviving son or nephew.

“A hard man,” he murmured, watching Anson go. “But valuable in a fight.” He cleared his throat and tried to smile at Burton. “And though not the only man aboard ‘excited’ to go to war, perhaps the only one anxious to return to it.” His brow furrowed. “I don’t mean he’s looking forward to it; there’s a distinction. . . .” He shook his head and sighed. “Of some sort. I can’t really explain it. Captain Anson isn’t a cruel man, but he’s performed cruel deeds on occasion.” He cleared his throat and bestowed his first genuine smile on Burton. “He’s a Texan, after all. They have a more bitter history with Mexico—and President Santa Anna—than the rest of us. Don’t let it bother you,” he advised. “You’ll likely never see him again after we disembark at Vera Cruz.”

Coryon Burton’s boldness—and Anson’s departure—seemed to have encouraged others. Two more young men approached, both dressed like Burton, but looking a little ill under the slightly fuller side whiskers they’d accomplished. The first was presented as Second Lieutenant Justinian Olayne, R Company, 1st Artillery, and the second was Second Lieutenant Clifford Swain of the Mounted Rifles. Lewis was surprised to see the embroidered silver eagle on his stiffly stuffed wheel hat with an R on the shield.

“Are there many riflemen aboard, Lieutenant Swain?” Lewis asked. The Rifles were virtually indistinguishable from dragoons in dress, except for dark blue trousers with black seam stripes. Lewis hadn’t noticed them, and with virtually everyone abovedeck sitting now . . .

“Not many, sir. Most are in Isidra with the regular infantry—which is how we’ll serve, I understand,” he replied morosely. “There’s a painful shortage of American horses in Mexico, and since the Rifles already there lost most of theirs to a storm at sea, we’ll all be afoot when we get there.”

“And how many men are here?” Lewis pressed.

Swain gulped embarrassment. “Just twenty, sir, and only me for an officer. The spillovers from Isidra.”

“Very well.” Lewis looked at Olayne. “You have two companies of foot artillery and only one officer?”

“I do,” Olayne replied with a faint Irish accent. “But there’s three officers, sir, counting yourself.”

Lewis smiled. “Indeed. And the other?”

Olayne shook his head. “Down with the seasickness as bad as any aboard. I fear he’d drown himself if he had the strength to creep up on deck.”

Lewis forced himself not to laugh. It really wasn’t funny. He tilted his head toward the setting sun. “Well, perhaps he’ll survive another three days or so. We’ve made our turn west. Captain Holland tells me we should anchor off Vera Cruz by then. Personally, I suspect it’ll be the morning of the fourth day. Holland strikes me as the careful sort, uninclined to approach strange shores after dark, but . . .” He paused and pointed. “Look to the south, past the other ships. You can just barely see it when we crest the waves.”

The three young men waited, straining their eyes, and were finally rewarded with a view of a distant, hazy shoreline. “Is that Mexico?” Coryon Burton asked, slightly hushed.

Lewis had to remind himself that, officers or not, his companions were still basically just boys. Any land beyond their limited travels, particularly that of an enemy, would be strange and exotic. “Yes, in a sense, though that’s what they call the Yucatán, and it’s an independent republic.”

“Whose side are they on?” Burton asked.

“An interesting question,” Lewis hedged. “Before joining the Union—and the current war began—Texas used its little navy to help Yucatán break from Mexico, and the two republics were allies. But the indigenous Maya, with the assistance of the British—after the British helped Mexico against Yucatán and Texas—have rebelled, and Yucatán has requested Mexican aid to subdue the uprising.” He shook his head. “The British do love to stir the pot.”

“As does Mr. Polk,” Justinian Olayne agreed. Lewis frowned. He never discussed domestic politics and didn’t think professional officers should, whether they agreed with them or not. Olayne caught his look. “I only meant that it seems all political leaders appear to enjoy baiting the bear of war, only to scurry behind the soldier when the bear decides to bite.”

Lewis still frowned but couldn’t really argue with that. “In any event,” he said, “I don’t know whether we’d be welcome there or not.”

“I’ve seen Yucatán on a map!” Lieutenant Swain exclaimed excitedly, loosening the slight tension. “It pokes up into the Gulf, like Florida pokes downward!”

Lewis smiled, suddenly enjoying himself. He’d forgotten how much he’d missed simple, casual conversation. “Very much like that.” He tilted his head to the west again, only this time glancing that way as well. He was startled to see that, while the sky around the blurry sunset remained a milky, yellow gray, a stark, brooding darkness was growing in the south-southwest. There was also a distant sail. “Excuse me, gentlemen, I’ll be back.” He smirked. “Save my place by the rail, if you please.” Turning aft, he threaded his way between and around the uncomfortable forms cluttering the deck. Most wore everything they owned in the world: bulging knapsacks and blankets, coats rolled up inside, as well as their buff-strapped cartridge boxes and weapons, of course. Lewis noted the salt air was starting to redden their bright musket barrels. No one looked up as he passed, and he didn’t blame them. If they did, they’d have to “notice” him and stand and salute. Lewis pressed on, mindful of the occasional slick streak of vomit.

The state of the deck reflected no disgrace on Captain Eric Holland and his ship, or even the NCOs responsible for detailing parties to deal with the mess. Vomit was an endless, constant occurrence, impossible to stop and just as hopeless to keep up with. Lewis finally joined Mary Riggs’s thin, rather rough-looking commander standing by the helmsman at the wheel. Unlike most, Holland was clean-shaven and wore his hair long and unbound. The elements had made him look close to eighty, though as spry as he was, he couldn’t possibly be that old.

“Aye,” he said, noting Lewis’s arrival with something like approval. “I expected to see you soon enough.” He nodded out at the crowd of soldiers. “You’re the only one of that misbegotten lot aware of events around him.”

Lewis considered that unfair and inaccurate. He hadn’t been aware of much at all, shortly before. “There seems to be rough weather ahead,” he said. “And an unknown sail.”

Captain Holland nodded. “Aye. The lookouts’ve been cautioned against shoutin’ things out”—he grinned—“that might upset the passengers. God knows most’re unhappy enough already.” He gestured forward. “As to the first, I don’t expect a storm. The glass is actually risin’ ”—he pressed his forehead—“an’ I feel it in my head. There’s a southeasterly wind, sure—which is rarely a pleasant thing—but it serves our purpose an’ should push those ill-lookin’ clouds to the north an’ away.” He squinted. If anything, the dark smudge on the horizon had grown. “I’d generally think so at any rate, but the weather obeys no command, an’ damn few of the rules it makes for itself. All we can do is take our best guess,” he added with a little less certainty. “As for the sail?” He shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, though with the navy so active I doubt it’s hostile. There’s little we can do if it is. Only Isidra’s armed; a dozen twelve pounders if I’m not mistaken, an’ those only carronades.” No one would be fooled by the gunports painted on the sides of the old whalers. “She’d be better off usin’ her engine to run,” Holland continued, then chuckled darkly. “As for Mary Riggs, Xenophon, an’ Commissary . . . we might see the foe off with a broadside of puke.”

A sailor slid down a backstay from the maintop as nimble as an ape and hopped around the men to join them. He was barefoot, and Lewis sympathized with the extra care he took. “She’s British, Cap’n,” the man confided lowly. Holland relaxed, but his craggy brows knitted in anger. “We’re safe from her, at least—though if it were up to me, we’d be fightin’ England again instead of Mexico!” He cocked an eye at Lewis. “We nearly were, over Oregon, an’ like as not you’d prefer that as well. As for me . . . I was a bosun’s mate in USS Essex at Valparaiso, with Porter, God bless ’im. March twenty-eighth, thirty-two years past, last month. That was a foul, bloody day. God damn the British,” he seethed before glancing at the distant Isidra. “An’ goddamn carronades!”

Lewis touched the downward-pointing, almost useless brim of his 1839 pattern “wheel” hat. Infantry liked the round-topped, vaguely mushroom-shaped hats since they could rotate the flat brims around to the left to protect their faces from the vent jets of muskets beside them in line, but otherwise they wouldn’t even keep the sun out of your eyes—not even off your nose. Lewis’s nose had remained red and peeling ever since the hats were adopted. “Thank you for your courtesy, Captain Holland. I’ll take my leave.”

Holland nodded. “Aye. We may be as different as fish from fowl, but I know a man who takes pride in his work—whether he likes it or not. Such men deserve my respect.” He frowned, staring forward past Lewis, whom he’d essentially now dismissed from his mind. “Damned if that wicked line of clouds ain’t growin’,” he told the helmsman. “We’ll have to shorten sail before dark.”

Lewis left Captain Holland to run his ship and rejoined the lieutenants by the rail. The distant sail became a ship—clearly now flying the Union Jack—tacking south across their path. Lewis wasn’t a sailor, but knew the British captain would soon slant back to the north. He wouldn’t want to be much closer to shore, especially as the haze-filtered sun vanished on the horizon and the darkening sky turned ever more menacing. Dull ripples of lightning pulsed in the clouds. Signal flags flashed up the halyards on Isidra, likely the last they’d see that night, instructing all ships to maintain their heading but shorten sail. Sailors scampered up the shrouds to reef the canvas as Holland directed, voice surprisingly loud even without a speaking trumpet. Some of the soldiers on deck looked around with interest, watching the activity. Most merely sat, made insensible by misery.

“A hell of a way to go to war,” Lewis sympathized.

“I agree wholeheartedly with that!” said Olayne, gulping and looking little better than the men as he waved at the sea beyond the rail. “You don’t suppose it can get worse than this, do you?”

Lewis finally laughed. He couldn’t help it. “I’m sorry to tell you, but it certainly can. Much worse. This isn’t bad at all, now.”

“My God.”

They watched the strange ship for a while, making its oblique approach, commenting on its features. It was a tall three-master, black hulled with a broad yellow stripe down its side, much faster and more weatherly than Mary Riggs. There was no commissioning pennant, and Lewis suspected she’d been a frigate, sold out of service, now in her declining years as well. Sails flashed and turned as she heaved over and took the wind on her starboard beam, coming up and across ahead of them. Signal flags broke out in her mizzen top, streaming dull in the failing light, but Captain Holland saw them and cursed loud enough for all to hear. “She’s ‘carryin’ dispatches’—nice way to say ‘To hell with you. We won’t stop to speak.’ I’ll warrant she’s really takin’ European diplomats and moneymen, along with their squallin’ broods, away from the war an’ fever that comes to Vera Cruz in spring.” Derisive laughter met that opinion, though Lewis didn’t think that was funny either. Fever was no joke, and the army he’d been with in Northern Mexico had lost more men to disease than Mexican steel and lead. “Oh, isn’t that lovely!” Holland ranted even louder at an additional hoist. “They all wish us joy on our adventure in Mexico!”

Sailors, even some soldiers, braved the blowing spray and gathered in the bow to jeer as the British ship swept by in their path, hardly a cable away, but the wind was freshening and they’d never be heard.

“At least the men seem keen enough to take offense,” Burton observed.

“Those who can move,” Lewis agreed, his estimation of Holland rising. Unlike most, he knew the second signal merely warned of the weather and wished them good luck. But few things brought people together, Americans and foreigners alike, better than a jab at the British. Holland had seized the opportunity to take the men’s minds off their wretchedness and fear, and Lewis only wished he’d thought of something similar himself. It dawned on him then that he’d probably failed the men in other ways. What difference did it make that the junior officers hadn’t come to him sooner? Regardless of protocol, he should’ve gone to them and taken charge, forced them to organize diversions for their men, even if they’d only been make-work details. But just as the men had largely been in their own desolate, uncomfortable little worlds, so had he.

As Captain Anson said, Lewis had been wounded at Monterrey: a musket ball in his lower chest. Only distance, inferior Mexican gunpowder, or divine providence stopped the ball from passing through the ribs it broke and cracking his liver open. So sure it had and he would die, Lewis took mad chances, exposing himself stupidly until the end of the battle—and he discovered the wound wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. Thathad been part of the source of his “heroism,” as he prayed for another ball to give him a quick, clean death so he could avoid the lingering suffering he’d watched Major Ringgold endure. And in any event, he had to withstand it anyway. Relatively minor as it was, the wound turned septic due to all the filthy uniform fragments the ball carried under the skin, and Lewis nearly died. His chest still hurt, and the wound remained partially open, disgorging pus and rotten fibers of wool or cotton in addition to slivers of bone and tiny flakes of lead. Sometimes he wondered if it would ever heal—and if his mind had been damaged as badly.

In spite of the pain and certainty he’d die, he’d become the battle to a shocking degree, like the lightning in a storm, even loving it in some strange way as if only then and there had he achieved his destiny, no matter how brief it may be. He hadn’t become a berserker, mindlessly flailing about; if anything, he turned colder, more thoughtful, but instantly decisive and infinitely more lethal as he saw things more clearly than he ever had, directing his bleeding section of guns relentlessly forward, even replacing a fallen gunner and aiming one of the weapons himself, almost gleefully blasting down adobe walls and annihilating clots of troops that tried to assemble in his path. Soon, he had only enough bloody, exhausted men to crew a single gun, but he wouldn’t have stopped even then. Less than two blocks from the Central Plaza, a messenger—Captain Anson, in fact—grabbed him from behind, dodged his weak saber slash, and angrily told him there was a truce. To this day, Lewis wasn’t sure what he would’ve done if he hadn’t collapsed from loss of blood. Would he have kept pressing on? Would he have slashed at the Ranger again? He honestly didn’t know, and that even more than his fear of suffering had left him oddly ashamed and hesitant to go to battle again. Not out of fear of Mexican musket balls, but because of how much he liked it. Afraid he might prove himself as much a monster as he sometimes thought Captain Anson was. It had made him withdraw, kept him from asserting the leadership he should have over these unknowing, unsuspecting boys.

“You have musicians aboard, do you not?” he suddenly asked. The young officers looked at each other.

“Besides buglers? Fifers and drummers, of course. Two each for the artillery companies, and a trio of fifers for the dragoons.”

“None for the Rifles,” Lieutenant Swain lamented, “though one of the men has a fiddle.”

“But enough to provide some music for the men?” Lewis pressed.

Burton’s eyes widened. “Of course! That’s just the thing!”

“Ask Captain Holland’s permission,” Lewis cautioned. “He may have good reason to object. If not, assemble the musicians in the waist of the ship so those belowdecks can hear them as well. We’ll see if a little entertainment helps pass the time.”

The four ships churned on through the deepening gloom, and even as the wind began to rise and whip inconsistently and flickering, muttering clouds built in power and size, the martial skirl of fifes and thunder of drums seemed to challenge the natural powers as boldly—and feebly—as Homer’s Ulysses. Eventually, male voices rose in bawdy mockery as well, first in Mary Riggs, then Xenophon, whose people must’ve heard and been inspired. For what seemed a pathetically short time, in retrospect, the voyage turned less hellish for the sick, and the rest were distracted from their grinding fear or boredom. Lewis would also later reflect that the resultant animation might’ve saved many lives because men were more alert, more ready to move, when—now ignored by those who’d been in their power—the heavens or some other elemental force, perhaps even God Himself, somehow took offense.

“Stand by to wear ship! Quickly now, for your lives! We’re comin’ about!” Captain Holland roared through a japanned speaking trumpet, voice rising over and crushing the music and singing. “Down helm,” he cried to the helmsman, who, sensing his captain’s urgency, actually spun the wheel. “Helm’s alee!” he shouted as the ship heaved over to port and began a radical turn to starboard. Sailors slammed through the soldiers to perform their next tasks without commands, hauling in the main course sheet and easing the headsails, but Holland gave orders anyway. “Top men aloft! We’ll have the topsails off her, fast as you can! You soldiers, make way by the shrouds, goddamn you! Secure your gear. Secure yourselves!” He was barely ten paces from Lewis but pointed the trumpet directly at him, and their eyes met when he continued, “Get any man up from below who can move!”

---

—

LEWIS HAD NO idea what was amiss, but knew this was no joke. Worse, he couldn’t imagine why Holland would want more men on deck. The ship was well ballasted with horses, guns, and supplies, but if a blow was coming—the only possible explanation for these frantic preparations—why make Mary Riggs more top-heavy? The only answer was obvious. Holland thought the ship would founder. Pandemonium had erupted as sailors raced up the ratlines and soldiers loudly scurried to rails, the capstan, windlass—anything they could grasp. “Get your men up,” Lewis shouted at the lieutenants still standing by while he looked to the west. If they were turning away from it, that had to be the direction of the threat—where those malevolent clouds had been. At first he saw nothing in the near-total blackness, then jagged ribbons of lightning rushed all across the horizon, lacing through the sky like thousands of silvery capillaries on some monstrous, greenish-black eye. More lighting, almost blue, then yellow, pulsed inside the terrible cloud—and Lewis saw what so alarmed Captain Holland. The thing was close, impossibly so, implying a tremendous velocity—wind like they’d never seen—pushing a rain squall heavy enough to whiten the sea at its feet as it thundered down upon them.

“My God.” He turned to the lieutenants, still rooted. “Go! You haven’t a moment to lose—and don’t go below yourselves. Just shout down for everyone to come on deck, then report back here, understood?”

Justinian Olayne and Coryon Burton rushed into motion, but Clifford Swain hesitated. “Do you think we’re going to be drowned?” he cried.

“Of course not, here on deck,” Lewis lied, “but if the horses break loose, they’ll kill everyone below.” It was all he could think of to say. If the ship went down, everyone below would go with her. And he honestly doubted it would make much difference to those on deck. Few soldiers could swim—he couldn’t—and most had put all their heavy gear on when the alarm was sounded. They’d sink like stones. The ship’s fragile longboat wouldn’t carry many, and would never survive the destruction of the ship in any event. A few might cling to shattered debris. But Lewis’s last glimpse of land put it over ten miles away.

Swain stood still and Lewis patted his arm. There was nothing the boy could add to what others were already doing. “That’s all right. Stay here where Burton and Olayne can find you. I’ll be back after a word with the captain.” Lewis stepped toward the helm, noting that whatever troops hadn’t found part of the ship to grasp were now clinging to one another.

“Rise tacks and sheets!” bellowed Holland’s burly mate, Mr. Sessions, pacing forward.

“Let go and haul!” Holland shouted before turning to stare behind them as the wind came around on the starboard quarter. It was a fitful wind now, however, increasingly uncertain. He shook his head. “Ease the headsails to run with the wind and take in everything but the forecourse. Fast as you can, lads!”

A lightning-lit glance to the south showed Lewis that Commissary and Xenophon had both come about as well, but Isidra was steaming onward, sparks gushing from her single funnel past sails tightly furled to the yards, her captain apparently intent on taking the storm head-on, under power.

“What’ll happen?” Lewis shouted at Holland over the rising west wind when he thought he was close enough to be heard.

“Down now, damn you!” Holland roared into the rigging. A few men were still struggling to secure the flapping fore topsail. He looked at Lewis, eyes wide with more incredulity than fear.

“I’ve no idea!”

They both turned aft as the first blow struck in the form of hail the size of musket balls. Men screamed as hard, icy projectiles slashed them like double loads of canister from the sky. Lewis’s wool uniform, even his ridiculous wheel hat, afforded him some protection, but the sheer suddenness and violence of the assault stunned him, even as his hands and face felt like buzzards were brutally pecking and snatching great gobbets of flesh. It wasn’t quite that bad. Big as musket balls or not, the hailstones had little mass. They could cut but not kill. Most couldn’t, at least. Occasional giants the size of roundshot crashed into the deck, blasting apart in stinging, lacerating fragments. A few of those hit men, breaking bones and crushing skulls. Lewis peeked under the little visor that actually deflected a smaller pellet from his eye and saw Holland, bareheaded, standing grim and bloody at the wheel, the helmsman sprawled at his feet. “Hold on!” the man bellowed, just as rain and wind as dense and hard and solid as a wall of water slammed Mary Riggs.

Lewis had no time to grasp anything and was blown to the deck, where he slid and tumbled before fetching up against a skylight, the glass panes shattered. He raised his head against the battering rain to see men literally swept over the side, either by the thundering wind or the inches-deep sluice of water already roaring out the scuppers. They must’ve screamed, but he never heard them. He did hear a great snapping, crackling noise as backstays parted, timbers screeched, and all three of the ship’s towering masts crashed down forward, smashing screaming men under tons of wood, cordage, and canvas, breaking arms and heads with blocks, and snapping lines. How many men just died because I called them up from below? he thought. No more than will drown when the ship goes down, he realized. In an instant, Mary Riggs had been entirely dismasted, the entangling wreckage blown forward into the sea pulling her around broadside and helpless against the wind and ferocious deluge. She heaved hard over, and Lewis felt himself tumbling across the deck toward the sea.

Then, in a heartbeat, everything changed.

Lewis was no longer sliding, and the rain had stopped. Even the wind had dropped to nothing in the space of a breath. He couldn’t tell for certain, but didn’t believe he saw the sea below him anymore, and utter blackness yawned. It was as if some giant hand now held the ship immobile, poised to drop it in an infinite void. The same unnaturally turbulent sky still brooded overhead, but its violence had been arrested, and it was just as unnaturally still. Even the streaks of lightning had slowed to a glaring halt in the glowing, greenish heavens. That’s when Lewis noted another kind of glow, somewhat bluish, completely enveloping everything around him, even the ship itself. It was brightest on the ironwork and soldiers’ muskets, but brass and pewter buttons, beltplates—anything metal—seemed similarly affected. Like Saint Elmo’s fire, it had to be an electrical phenomenon. Lewis was fascinated by electricity—the Morse electrical telegraph was just one of many wondrous new applications—and knew enough about it to understand water conducted it, sometimes dangerously so. That could explain why everything glowed, he supposed. Nothing could explain . . . anything else, and most disconcertingly, how the rain just hung there in the air; large, densely spaced raindrops inexplicably suspended as if time itself had ground to a stop.

There was no sound, no . . . natural movement around the ship at all, for long, terrible moments. Somewhat to his surprise, however, Lewis found hecould still move, and he waved his hand in front of his face in wonder, half expecting the raindrops to scatter as he brushed them aside, but they only further wet his skin. His eyes focused on the jumble of wreckage around the stump of the mainmast and saw two of Anson’s Rangers, the giant holding the youth. The boy’s wheel hat had fallen away, and though the slick black hair it released wasn’t particularly long, the way it lay, the shape of the head, the neck, the large brown eyes staring at the raindrops with the same amazement Lewis felt, all suddenly convinced him that Anson’s son or nephew was really a daughter or niece.

That couldn’t have mattered less at the moment, because movement and sound aboard Mary Riggs had only been stilled by shock. The muffled shrieks of horses erupted from below, and men cried out in terror and agony as they tried to crawl from under fallen sails and spars—only to see the raindrops. They shouted anew with a wholly different kind of terror, and a growing agony Lewis shared. He remembered Holland’s comment about the barometer as an irresistible pressure began to build, mashing his eyes into his head and trying to crush his skull and chest. He vomited in standing water full of floating hail and tried to take a gasping breath, but his chest simply wouldn’t expand. All around him, men—and one now very frightened young woman—were doing the same. The screams abruptly tapered off as men and horses lost the air to voice them.

Then he was falling—or thought he was—and he scrabbled for a shattered section of the broken mizzen top as his vision began to darken from lack of air. His last conscious thought would’ve been focused entirely on that tangled heap of wreckage if his lungs hadn’t suddenly sucked in a gasping breath. Others did the same and the deck around him sounded with more panting, gasping, coughing, and moaning—before the terrible pressure reversed itself and a nauseating, agonizing, screeching sound quickly built. Rolling over on the deck, he wrapped his arms around his head to stifle it, but it only grew, like it was coming from inside his skull. His head began to feel like a shrieking kettle, and he imagined jets of steam roaring and squealing from his nose and ears as he clutched his head even tighter, afraid it would burst.

He was falling again, he was certain, just as the suspended raindrops thundered down in a final fury. The giant hand had released the ship to drop in to the void at last. Piercing screams of terror accompanied the fall; one was his, most likely. But there was a bottom to the void after all, and Mary Riggs abruptly met it with a stunning, jarring crash, half collapsing amid a thunderous roar of shattering timbers, screaming men, and shrieking horses. Before the wreck completely settled, cascading water, hailstones, debris, and other men swept Lewis along to resume his slide across the still-tilted deck. He went over the side with the rest, plummeting into darkness, and remembered nothing more.

 

CHAPTER 2

Captain Cayce! Captain Cayce! Oh, please wake up! We need you rather badly!”

Lewis’s mind rejected what he was hearing. It sounded like the young dragoon lieutenant. Coryon Burton, wasn’t it? Of North Carolina. Class of ’46. But that’s impossible. I’m dead. We’re all dead, swallowed by the void.

“He’s alive,” came another impossible voice—Giles Anson’s. “And none of his arms or legs seem broken. Probably bumped his head. Maybe he fell on it? Without a surgeon, who knows what’s wrong with him if he won’t wake up.”

“I can’t wake up,” Lewis managed to protest through painful lips. “None of us can.”

“Aye, he’s comin’ around,” came a gruff, slightly Scottish voice. “You, Private Willis, pour some water on his face. He probably can’t even open his eyes with all that dried blood gluin’ ’em shut.”

“But Sergeant McNabb!” objected a harsh, squeaky voice, apparently Private Willis, “we ain’t found any fresh water yet, an’ all I got’s in my canteen!”

“Do as ye’re told, damn ye! There’s plenty o’ water in the ship—if we can get to it before all the started butts leak it out.”

Lewis sensed movement beside him and a sudden coolness on his face. Gentle fingers massaged his eyes and he cracked one open. The sky was bright pink until he blinked several times to clear the blood. It looked perfectly ordinary then; bright blue with the sun creeping into view overhead. But that was the only thing right. The deck below him didn’t move because it wasn’t a deck and the sun was beginning to glare through tall, straight trees, many of which had their branches savagely ripped from the near side of their trunks. Colorful birds—Lewis assumed they were birds, though they were shaped very strangely—flitted through the trees, cawing raucously. Those of different species didn’t seem to get along very well, and there was constant skirmishing. That didn’t matter. Realistically, the only birds Lewis should’ve seen were gulls.

Giles Anson leaned into Lewis’s view, festooned with all the weapons he generally carried in the field. A pair of Colt Paterson revolvers were in belt holsters at his side, and a Model 1838 flintlock pistol was thrust into his belt. An 1817 flintlock rifle, a fine, .54 caliber weapon like Lieutenant Swain’s Mounted Rifles carried, was slung over one shoulder and a pair of tooled, privately made pommel holsters were draped over the other. Knowing the Ranger as he did, Lewis wasn’t surprised the man had immediately collected his weapons. Anson nodded with apparent relief and produced a genuine smile. “See there, Lewis? You canwake up.” A more customary ironic smile replaced the first one. “Might wish you hadn’t, though.”

Lewis groaned and picked clumps of dried blood from his eyelashes, still knitting the other eye closed, while a man behind helped raise him to a sitting position. He’d expected to find himself sitting on sand for some reason, but realized he was on a bed of dry, ferny-looking leaves with spines as rigid as pine needles. That didn’t make any sense. “I thought I was dead,” he confessed hoarsely, “but even in hell, I doubt I’d hurt this much.” His other eye clear, he gently probed his scalp under blood-matted hair. “And either I didn’t feel what hit me when we were wrecked—I assume we were wrecked?—or I did fall on my head.” He looked up at Anson and Burton. “But not in the water?”

“Give him a drink, ye fool,” came Sergeant McNabb’s voice. Lewis looked at him and beheld a virtual stereotype of his breed. Tough, craggy-faced, probably in his forties, McNabb wasn’t particularly imposing, but his rank in the regular foot artillery meant he’d been in long enough to develop sufficient skill, personality, and experience to deal with much larger men. Private Willis, also one of Lieutenant Olayne’s 1st Artillerymen, looked like he sounded: a short, wiry youngster, wearing a put-upon expression in addition to all his gear. Beyond them, and a cluster of other armed men (1816 muskets, bayonets, and short swords for the artillerymen, .54 caliber 1817s for the Rifles, and .52 caliber breechloading Hall carbines hanging from white leather straps and iron clips on the dragoons), stood a densely wooded forest of tall, straight-trunked trees. Lewis blinked. Private Willis handed over a gray, stamped-steel canteen.

Lewis took a small sip and nodded his thanks. “I have a glaringly obvious question, I suppose,” he managed with a firmer voice.