Harry Turtledove - Opening Atlantis

And this was a fine, clear morning, with sunbeams sliding between the slats of the shutters on his bedchamber window. Which meant that wasn't thunder. Which meant…

Full memory returned. Red Rodney spilled Jenny off him and sprang out of bed, swearing horribly. His lady love let out a most unladylike squawk. He was pulling up his breeches when somebody pounded on the door. Jenny squawked again. "They're bombarding us!" Ben Jackson shouted through the planks.

"I know. I hear. I'm coming, dammit." Radcliffe needed only two strides to get to the door. That gave Jenny just time enough-or maybe almost time enough; Red Rodney didn't look back-to cover herself before he threw it open.

He rushed to Black Hand Fort's palisade. No, that wasn't thunder. That was his cousin's fleet hammering at the sea wall and the closer forts with all the guns the ships carried. Black Hand Fort was safe enough; lying near the bayside, it was beyond the reach of even bow chasers. But the closer forts were taking a pounding, and so were all the shops and dives and houses between them.

And so was the wall. It had been built to hold invaders out, but no one had imagined an onslaught like this when it went up. Even the hard-bitten Jackson sounded uncertain when he asked, "Can we keep 'em from breaking in?"

"We'd better," Red Rodney answered, which was nothing less than the truth. He looked around. Someone he would have expected to watch the fireworks with him wasn't here. Not Jenny-she'd still be cowering under the coverlets. But…"Where's Ethel?"

His first mate hesitated again, which was most unlike him. "Well…" he began.

"Well, what? Out with it, damn you." Rodney's voice took on a rumble more ominous than the cannonading-or so he intended, anyhow.

"Well, skipper, when the shooting started, she ran down toward the sea wall, to lend a hand where she could." Ben Jackson got it out in an unhappy rush.

"She-?" Radcliffe clapped a hand to his forehead. "Why the devil didn't you stop her?"

"On account of she was gone before I could," Jackson answered. "Christ, don't you think I would have?"

"Well, yes," Radcliffe admitted. A roundshot hit something made of stone, flew high in the air, and then crashed down again. A plume of smoke rose inside Avalon. The bombardment had started at least one fire, anyhow. "God damn William Radcliff to hell and gone!" Red Rodney shouted.

"Yes, skipper." Jackson hesitated again, then asked, "What do we do?"

Rodney Radcliffe didn't hesitate. That was one of the reasons he was the captain and Ben Jackson the mate. "I'll take most of the men down by the sea wall. If they send boats against us, we'll make 'em sorry-see if we don't. You hold here with the rest, just in case some of our so-called friends think to get gay while everything's topsy-turvy."

The mate nodded. "I'll do it." As long as he had his orders, or as long as the task in front of him was too obvious to require them, Jackson was as good as any man unhanged. Red Rodney laughed harshly. What happened over the next few hours would tell if they stayed that way.

Armed with muskets and cutlasses and pistols and pikes and hatchets and anything else they could lay their hands on, the corsairs from Black Hand Fort rushed west through Avalon's crowded, chaos-filled streets. They had to fight their way through every now and again. Most of the people under bombardment were sensibly fleeing east, out of range. Some of them were armed, too. If they lacked the mother wit to step aside, they paid the price for stupidity.

What had to be a forty-two-pound ball smashed into a grogshop not fifty feet from Red Rodney. The dive was there-and then it wasn't. It turned to rubble before his eyes. A spinning roof tile caught one of his men in the belly. The pirate went down, and he didn't get up again.

They had to brave more roundshot of all sizes as they neared the sea wall. One ball plowed a bloody track through the freebooters, killing three men and maiming two more before mere flesh could halt its progress. Radcliffe left the shrieking, wounded men where they lay and hurried on.

Another fire had started by the time he got close to the wall-started and showed every sign of spreading. It might wreck Avalon even if the attackers didn't get into the town. Rodney swore some more. At the moment, that was all he could do. He hoped he would be able to go on doing it. A cannon ball tore the head off a man only a couple of paces behind him. The spouting corpse ran on for several strides before crumpling in a muddy puddle.

Up to the wall at last. Where was Ethel? Anywhere close by? Radcliffe looked this way and that. He didn't see her anywhere. A big roundshot-it had to be another forty-two-pounder-flew only a few feet over his head and crashed down somewhere behind him in Avalon. Were it lower…He shuddered. It wouldn't have had to hit him to kill. Sometimes the wind of a cannon ball's passage was enough.

"Give it back to 'em!" That high, shrill voice could only belong to Ethel.

Rodney hurried south along the sea wall. There she was, and damned if she wasn't commanding a six-pounder's crew as if she'd been doing it for years. The cutthroats obeyed her, too. Maybe they knew whose daughter she was. Maybe they just knew they needed someone to keep them firing fast.

Smack! That was the sound of Red Rodney's open palm landing on Ethel's backside. She squalled like a cat with its tail caught in a door and leapt into the air. Murder blazed in her eyes. "Who-?" she shouted. Then she saw her father, and the fury faded. "Oh. You. I might have known."

"Yes. You might have, by Jesus. You might have known to stay in the castle, where you'd be safe."

"If they get over the walls, no one is safe," Ethel answered, and shouted for her crew-and it was her crew-to run out the gun and fire it. Red Rodney muttered under his breath. The worst of it was, he couldn't even tell her she was wrong.

Marcus Radcliffe came back to William Radcliff and asked, "Are you all right, coz?"

"Yes, dammit. This is the third time you've asked me," William said in some irritation. "I am neither woman nor child. I can keep up."

"You're neither backwoodsman nor marine, either," Marcus pointed out. "You know how to tell other people what to do. I don't know how you are at doing things on your own hook."

"I cope," William said. His foot skidded in a patch of mud. He flailed his arms for balance, but he didn't fall. Several marines were already muddy. So were a couple of Marcus Radcliffe's rustics. William hadn't fallen…yet.

Swearing, sweating marines dragged a four-pounder through the woods south of Avalon. The gun's carriage, made for the deck of a ship, was less than ideal for rough, muddy ground. Somehow, though, the bullocks hauling it had managed to keep up with the rest of the landing party. They would take out their anger on the palisade-and on the men atop it.

William hoped not many men would be atop it. With luck, the cannonading from the fleet would draw all the corsairs to the sea wall. Then the marines could just walk into Avalon. That would be wonderful-if it worked.

Marcus Radcliffe plainly thought William odd if not daft for joining the landing party. But the decision would come here. One way or the other, it would. William wanted to be in place to see it. The fleet could go on without him for a while. He was sure Elijah Walton and Piet Kieft would be just as happy to go on without him.

Had he been in charge of Avalon, he would have cleared the woods farther from the palisade. The landing party could approach almost to within musket shot of the works without being noticed. Were they all backwoodsmen like Marcus' recruits, they might have got closer yet, but even the red-coated marines could hide behind tree trunks and in the midst of fern thickets.

And hide most of them did, while the gun crew aimed the four-pounder at the long wall ahead. The gun was of brightly polished brass; William could only marvel that no one in the town noticed it till it was almost ready to fire. The diversion from the sea must have done all he wanted and more.