Grantville Gazette 36

Chapter Twenty-Four: Aftermath

Captured Oriental Junk, South Coast of Mauritius

Pam watched while the sailors cleaned the blood from the decks of their prize. The flickering light of the torches made their shadows leap and dance, lending the scene an eerie, otherworldly quality. An hour had passed since their success in capturing the junk, its original, presumably Chinese, merchants having perished at the hands of an organized gang of what she thought must be Arab pirates. She based that guess on their clothing and behavior, but most of the denizens of the seventeenth-century Indian Ocean were still a mystery to her. She had a hunch that she would be learning a lot more about this part of the world in the days to come and, based on what she had experienced so far, doubted it would be pleasant.

Just twenty minutes ago she had watched her men cut down the severed heads of the junk's former owners from where they had been hung as trophies, a gruesome display courtesy of the pirates of the Indian Ocean. It was a grisly task. Pam felt pity that they had died in such a horrible way. She had asked that they be wrapped in a sack and given a Christian burial at sea. No one had any idea what their religion in life might have been, so Lutheran would have to do. Having borne witness to that brief but dignified ritual, she now waited to be returned to their beach refuge.

The uncomfortable feeling that none of this was real that sometimes swept over her came again. She felt as if she had wandered into some live-action period drama, a terrible tale of fighting seamen and ruthless brigands of days gone by and that any minute the lights would come up and the actors would shed their costumes. She closed her eyes hard for a moment, wishing with all her might that she would wake up back in the future age she had been born in. But when she opened her eyes, she was still there on the blood-splattered deck. Damn! Forcing herself to stay calm and make the panic subside she thought This is not "days gone by." This is now days! These are new days, these are my days and I must live them, like it or not! Gritting her teeth, she felt her head begin to clear. The scene came back into focus. Although lacking somewhat in sophistication, the current age certainly brimmed with action.

A watch of what she thought of as "the Marines," under the command of LojtnantLundkvist was assembling on deck. All the sailors could fight, and fight well as she had seen, but these men specialized in it. They would stay aboard to guard their new ship, a bizarre and brightly-painted three-masted vessel that dwarfed lost Redbird in size and complexity, while the rest of the tired crew and Pam's personal staff returned to the beach camp. There was a lot of clean up left to do, but once the gory decks had been swabbed, the rest could wait for morning. The slain pirates were to be thrown as they were into the sea with no wrapping or ceremony.

"Those poor Chinamen are one thing but these lot don't deserve any better," the bosun said, his voice surprisingly cold. "Let the crabs have them, the murdering sons of dogs."

Pam nodded, trying not to look at the sheet-wrapped body of their friend Fritjof lying nearby. Fritjof and the bosun had been close, sailing together for many long years. The injured look on the normally gruff but cheerful bosun's face was enough to make Pam cry. She briefly considered weeping again, but the tears wouldn't come. She was all cried out for this night. Maybe in the morning. Meanwhile, dark thoughts like "I've killed men with my own hands!" and "More good men have died for my cause!" tried to push themselves into her consciousness, but she was too tired and ignored them until their shrill accusations fell away. She knew they would return, demanding to be heard in the early hours of the morning when she would stare at the shadow-filled ceiling of her hut and remember. But not just now.

Looking around the deck, she saw that not all the men's faces were grim. Some were beginning to admire their prize and clap each other on their backs in celebration of a hard-fought victory. Pam made herself smile for them. She knew that for some reason they looked to her, so she allowed herself to share some of their pleasure. They had won, they had a ship, it was foreign and weird but definitely seaworthy. Now they were free and able to take action! Pam turned her gaze away from the orange glow of the torch-lit deck to peer at the dark mass of the coastline. Her colonists were out there, somewhere, and they were certainly in trouble.

"We'll come for you," she spoke into the night in a voice beneath a whisper. "We're ready now, hold on!"

A few minutes later Pam sat in the back of the pinnace as the exhausted sailors rowed through the tranquility of a wind-less night. She was heading back to the simple comforts of her bamboo hut with her most trusted friends, Gerbald and Dore, as well as young Pers, injured Rask and the earthly remains of Mard and Fritjof. Mard had been a shy fellow. Pam hadn't gotten to know him very well but she recalled that he had always spoken gently to Pers, even when the lad was being a teen-age idiot, and so she thought highly of the man for that. She would miss his face, and dear old Fritjof's. Their places would be empty at breakfast. These fallen heroes would be given a proper burial on the grassy mound beside the first mate in the morning.

Dore turned to see Pam looking at the shrouded corpses with an expression that held all the world's cares. She reached for Pam's hand and squeezed it. Pam returned the squeeze gratefully and the two of them looked back at their captured ship. The vivid colors of her lacquered woodwork and fanciful carvings in the flickering torchlight made her seem like something come sailing out of a dream, a phantasmagorical craft from beyond the edge of the world.

"What a day." Pam said, while Dore solemnly nodded in agreement.