Robert Wilson - Julian Comstock - A Story of 22-nd Century America

I walked with Julian among the newly-arrived troops a few days after we landed. I had been assigned the rank of Colonel for the duration of my re-enlistment, mainly to justify my presence on Julian’s immediate staff; and I was just another faceless officer to most of these men, though several of them had read my Adventures of Captain Commongold and might have recognized my name had I announced it. Julian himself, of course, was famously recognizable by his rank, his youth, his yellow beard, and his immaculate uniform. Men saluted him or attempted to shake his hand as we walked down a rank of bunks that had been installed in an empty stable. Daylight came through a gap in the roof made by an artillery shell, and Julian stood in that shaft of cold illumination like a saint in a painting. He had mastered the art not only of appearing confident but of generating confidence, as if courage were heat and Julian was a hard-coal stove. It made his men better and more loyal soldiers, because they had come to believe in him as a military prodigy. I expect they would have tugged his beard for luck if that impertinence had been allowed.

I looked about the sea of faces surrounding him, hoping to catch sight of someone from our old Montreal regiment. Lymon Pugh would have been a welcome presence, but I didn’t see him. The only face I did recognize was, perhaps unfortunately, that of the larcenous Private Langers, who had not advanced in rank since our last meeting. When I approached him he turned his cadaverously thin body away and tried to escape; but the crowd was too thick for that maneuver to succeed.

“Private Langers!” I called out.

He stopped short and turned back. At first he was intimidated by my new rank and station, and tried to pretend I had mistaken him for someone else; but he relented at last and said, “Is that Sam Samson around somewhere? I hope not. You were always decent to me, Adam Hazzard, but that old man had me pummeled for being a crook—he seems to have no faith in me at all.”

“His name is Godwin now, not Samson, and he’s on Julian’s staff; but I doubt you have anything to fear from either one of them. Neither Sam nor Julian are disposed to hold grudges. I expect you’ll do fine, if you keep quiet and don’t shirk from battle. In any case you seem to be in excellent health.” Though his nose sat a little more crookedly than I remembered it. “Are you still selling battlefield trinkets?”

He blushed at the question and said, “None to sell right at the moment… don’t mean to rule anything out, of course…”

“I hope you don’t continue to rob the dead and swindle the living!”

“I’m a reformed man,” Private Langers said. “Not that I’m averse to a dollar here and there, honestly extracted.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” I said. “About being reformed, I mean. I’ll pass that on to Sam and Julian.”

“Thank you very kindly, but please don’t bother them on my behalf… I’d just as soon remain anonymous. Tell me, Adam—I mean, Colonel Hazzard—is it true what they say about this expedition?”

“Hard to say, since I don’t know who ‘they’ are, or what it is they’re supposed to be saying.”

“That we have a secret weapon to use against the Dutch—something deadly and Chinese and unexpected.”

I told him I knew nothing about it, if so; but I’m not sure he believed my disclaimers.

Later, in the command quarters we had established in upstairs chambers of the house of the former mayor of Striver, Julian was philosophical when I told him Private Langers was among us. “If Langers is a reformed man then my uncle is a Philosopher. But as long as Langers can carry a rifle he’s as good as the next soldier. I’m more interested in this notion of a secret Chinese weapon.”

“Is there such a thing?” I asked hopefully.

“No. Of course there isn’t. But it might be useful to morale if the army believes there is. Don’t spread that particular rumor, Adam… but don’t discourage it, if you hear it.”

The next day I walked through camp once more. I found Private Langers and a number of other infantrymen gambling at dice in an alley behind a looted tavern. They didn’t notice me, and I didn’t disturb them. Perhaps it didn’t matter if they wasted their money, I reasoned. They might be dead before much longer, and wouldn’t be able to collect their back pay, much less spend it sensibly.

Of course gambling is a sin as well as a vice. But they could make their own reckoning with Heaven. If a man arrived at the Last Judgment with bullet holes in him, acquired in the defense of his country, would he really be dismissed on account of a habit of dice or cards?

I didn’t think so. Julian had made at least that much of an Agnostic of me.

Next morning the troop-ships stopped arriving at Striver.

That was an ominous sign. The ships had been coming down the Narrows like clockwork prior to this time, bringing men and goods and articles of war; but we were still not up to the full strength allotted us in the general military planning. It wasn’t that the army already assembled was insignificant. The Navy had delivered two full divisions of three thousand men apiece, including a detachment of cavalry, along with their mounts; also a fully-equipped field hospital, and an artillery brigade with brand-new field-pieces and ample supplies of ammunition.

On paper it was a formidable force, although several hundred of those men were already suffering from complaints ranging from seasickness to contagious fevers, rendering them unsuited for battle. But we had hoped to face the enemy with ten thousand able-bodied soldiers altogether—because that was roughly the number of Dutch troops believed to be defending Goose Bay , a force that would be reinforced by rail very soon, if it hadn’t been already.

Julian spent most of the day at the docks, peering across the troubled waters of Lake Melville with the intensity of a sailor’s widow. I had gone out to summon him back to a hot dinner and a conference with his sub-commanders when a sail at last hove into view… but it was only the Basilisk, which had been across the lake at the town of Shesh , a smaller locality than Striver, now also in American hands. The Admiral came ashore in one of the Basilisk ’s boats and joined us for the evening meal.

I haven’t described Admiral Fairfield before. Suffice to say that he was even older than Sam Godwin, but active and alert, a veteran of many sea battles, and with the political indifference common among Navy men; for the Navy, unlike the two armies, was seldom called upon to settle arguments over the ascension to power of Commanders in Chief. The Navy, in short, never marched to New York City for the purpose of making kings. It simply fought the enemy at sea, and took pride in that tradition; and that was the way Admiral Fairfield liked it.

He wore a gray beard, its great length commensurate with his age and station, and tonight he frowned through his whiskers, even though the beefsteak set before him was excellent, the best the commissary could come up with.

“Where are my men?” was the first thing Julian asked of the Admiral, as soon as we were seated.

“The ships don’t come through the narrows,” the Admiral said bluntly.

“Do we still hold the Dutch forts?”

“Securely. Melville is an American lake now, as far as naval power goes. Something must be interfering with the transit between Newfoundland and Hamilton Inlet. For all I know there might have been an ambuscade at sea, or something of that nature. But the news hasn’t reached Rigolet or Eskimo Island , if so.”

“I’m not sure I can postpone the march to Goose Bay any longer. We lose out advantage, if we have any, with every hour that passes.”