The San Sebastian Chronicles, Part XV
To the stockade!
It was a short ride to the front and my first stop was at the captain’s office, a room of a farmhouse near the front that he shared with his lieutenant and an Obersergente. The battalion’s command was scattered throughout the rest of the house, along with small signals and logistics detachments. The staff scurried about hurriedly, most likely still sorting out this whole business with the Order and the switching of sides.
I kept my eyes down. I didn’t want to be drawn in. Considering all the hubbub, I was not entirely surprised there to find that my proposal regarding Johnny was readily accepted. The captain had brusquely nodded and waved me off, and his adjutant prepared an order that I essentially dictated to him. Who had time to worry about foreign volunteers when the fate of the country hung in the balance? Come to think of it, I began to hope that they hadn’t already been tried and shot.
Continued from…
It was a longish walk to the stockade considering the tasks at hand so I surreptitiously hitched a ride on the back a passing supply wagon full of oats for horses hauling other supply wagons. I wondered how much oats actually grew in San Sebastian. Was it enough to sustain our horses? How many horses did we have? How were we still able to trade for such supplies, which were in such dire need by both our allies and enemies?
I felt a bit of worry on the back of that wagon though for all I could see supplies abounded. I also felt a bit stupid for not considering our little country’s precarious position before. I consoled myself by concluding (or hoping) that those farther up the chain of command than I knew of and were addressing such risks, or that our little state would simply be ignored. It did seem quiet on the front today after all.
I arrived at the stockade with my order in hand. “Johnny!” I yelled out. “I’ve come for you. Johnny!”
As I arrived at Bincento’s guard shack, Johnny finally spied me and hustled over to the fence. Bincento arrived too.
“Well, it’s about damn time, sargentay, we here are all gettin’ damn worried that the firing squadisdrawin’straws.”
“Fear no more, Johnny, I have sprung you. I have the order here.”
“Let me see it,” said Bincento. I handed it to him. He duly reviewed it.
“I’ve gotten your release on one condition. You have to accompany me on a journey,” I said. Johnny squinted at me. “As a stretcher bearer.”
“A stretcher bearer?!”
Bincento nodded and handed the order back to me, “Yes, it says so here. I will get your things, American.”
“Well, what the hell does that mean then sargentay are we going overthetoporwhatnow?
I stepped closer to the fence as Bincento went off. “No, nothing like that. This is a light duty. We simply have to march up to a monastery up in the hills over there,” I pointed west, “and I have to do a few things, and then we march back. Just a long walk, really. You will not even have a stretcher. That was just the only duty I could get you released for.”
“No fightin’ then?”
“No. No fighting at all. Just walking. You can’t be armed, of course.”
“Well, I don’t like that.”
“They don’t tend to give rifles to mutineers, Johnny.”
“Now listen, I ain’t no — ”
“It doesn’t matter now. You’re out! And we’ll have an adventure and when you get back you can join the fight for San Sebastian, I’m sure of it.”
“Well, I don’t know about that either.”
I looked around and leaned in. “Then I will tell you this. We will be hiking through sparsely populated mountains. Now, I had to vouch for your return, but if we were to encounter, say, a rushing river or an enemy patrol, and our stretcher-bearer, unused to mountain terrain, were to get swept away in the river or if we were to get scattered by enemy fire, then who is to say what happened to you? You understand?”
Johnny crossed his arms. “Yeah. Yeah, I got you there. I mean, I’m not keen on running off in damn mountains in a war zone neither. But it beats sittin’ here. I think you’re needing me too, though, and you don’t want me runnin’ off to nowhere no matter whatchasayhere.”
“That’s true, Johnny. I need you. I need you to haul gear. And I need you too as another hand in case we do find any trouble. When no one is looking, I will get you a rifle. If you promise me not to escape with it. Because if they find you armed that will get me shot in addition to you. And no more mutinies!”
Johnny tapped his foot and looked around. “One condition, sarge.”
“What is it?”
“My friend Gus has got to come too,” he said before turning over his shoulder and waving, “Gus! Come on over here.”
With that, I saw quite a sight. A young man, not much older than me, with blond hair close-cropped on the sides and slicked back over the top. He sported a pencil mustache. Fit. And unmistakably English in a school tie and the kind of tweedy wool getup the British wear when hunting grouse and partridges. Besides the thin cookie duster, he was clean shaven. His boots were as gleaming as his teeth. He approached the fence.
“Greetings, gentlemen,” said Gus, hands on their opposite elbow behind his back.
Johnny opened his hand at me. “Gus, this is the sergente I was telling you about earlier.”
Gus smiled and nodded. “Hauptsergente, I can tell. It is quite the pleasure to meet you, let me assure you. Forgive me for not extending my hand, but I am a bit allergic to barbed wire.”
“Johnny, I’m not sure — ”
“No Gus, no go, sarge. That’s the end of it. He and I have been talking and we got a sure fire way out of here anyway, so — ”
“He’s kidding,” Gus said as he put his hand in front of the American. “Oh Johnny. You and your high-jinks. No, no one is planning any sort of escape, Hauptsergente. Just pining for freedom, as any red-blooded soldier would do.”
“Who are you?”
“Ah, yes, William Augustus Fitz-William Sloane-Fox.”
“Pleasure to meet — ”
“Lord Hinchingbrooke, son of the Sixth Earl of Shaftesbury… and a few other things I won’t bore you with. But I insist you call me Gus.”
Johnny slowly nodded to me as if he’d played the two of spades on top of my ace of clubs on a first hand.
I now crossed my arms. “And you are a volunteer for San Sebastian as well?”
“Yes, well, I was, I suppose. Willing to be again!”
“Well, your lordship, title or no, I can’t be responsible for you.”
“I’ll vouch for him,” Johnny said. “Gus here is first rate. And we got plans for after the war. Plans in America, regarding land development.”
“Yes, I’m sure you do.” I squinted at the Englishman and Johnny.
“I might add, Hauptsergente,” Gus said, “that I can make myself most useful to you if you could spring me from this brig. I do not mean to boast, but on my travels I have scaled Mounts Damavand in Persia and Kilimanjaro in Africa, not to mention the Namcha Barwa, the Nanga Parbat, and the Jengish Chokusu, among the highest Himalayan peaks of Asia, all of which I have either scaled or explored extensively. So my mountaineering will not slow you down and may speed you up. And I can coach Johnny here on the subject. I am also handy with a shotgun, a rifle, and pistols, revolvers and automatics. And I speak German, Italian, and, I think you will find, a good deal of Sebastianese, in addition to, of course, French, as well as Slovenian, Russian, and Czech, a least enough to keep us from getting set up in front of our backs by any of the old Habsburgers.”
I had not nod at his purported skills but would not be too eager. “That is all well and good, Lord Gus, but this is really only a stroll up a mountain road. I don’t really have a need for a — ”
“I will also promise to you that I will serve the army of San Sebastian on my return. I have reconsidered our ill advised mutiny, and — ”
“I — ”
“Also, it might be mentioned too, Hauptsergente, that I have banks accounts at Baring’s in London and in Geneva at Bank Lombard Odier. I pray you will not make me beg, Hauptsergente, for my station won’t allow it, but like any ordinary mortal, I would prefer not to be shot by a firing squad in a country so far from my home, let alone as a knight-errant utterly failed in his quest par excellence, the defense of the tiny nation of San Sebastian.”
I frowned at his speech. “If your quest was to defend us, why did you mutiny?”
“Well, to be frank, I don’t know what damned side anyone is on anymore, Hauptsergente.”
I could not argue with him there.
He went on, “But I do know I want out of here, and Johnny seems like the sort of honest chap that either of us would like ‘round our shoulder.”
I tongued my teeth and considered things. I was not sure of this Englishman’s provenance. But he seemed earnest, and he got me Johnny on good terms, as well as a second rifleman if needed. If, that is, they didn’t both run off at the first opportunity, leaving me and Desotto stranded, tied up, or shot.
Finally, I sighed. “Very well. But I want to be unambiguous in my declination of any money from you, Lord Gus. That could be construed as a bribe and could get us both shot. If you betray me, I will denounce you as an extorter and briber and my word as a Sebastiano Hauptsergente will be believed over that of an English itinerant noble and failed mutineer. Bincento will know when we leave and when you are to be back and you will be found if you run away, with consequences most dire. You understand? Same for you, Johnny.”
They both nodded.
“Alright, then I think we will have a splendid journey. The weather is sublime and we will be well stocked with liquor and tobacco. We can even fish on the way. And hunt. Perhaps for Austrians!”
“Well that sounds just about alright to me.”
“Absolutely brilliant. An adventure then.”
Bincento had just returned with a duffel bag for the American.
“Binnie,” I said, thumbing at Gus.
“Yes?”
“Him too.”
Continued…
