The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [51]
“Damned if we couldn't.” Oglethorpe grinned. “And you nearly missed us again.”
“Oh?”
Oglethorpe outlined the plan.
“Margrave, I've got nigh two thousand men behind me— stragglers from Virginia and both Carolinas, a good number of Cherokees, and even some Oconees who have broken with the Coweta empire. Are you sure you wouldn't just rather hold this fort?”
“I'm sure. Mar was a fool. A real general, with all the alchemical weapons the Russians have on hand, could reduce Montgomery in seconds. We can't sit in one place—we have to move, strike, and retreat. We have to worry them like a pack of wolves worries a buffalo herd. The only reason Nairne held up here was because of his civilian charges, and he was preparing to march again when Mar caught him.” Oglethorpe wondered if he could have made that decision a few days ago. With his plantation drifting smoke, it was easy.
Things were looking better, but they had to have the Swedish king, his ships, and his men. Which meant they needed to go, fast.
“Come on across,” Oglethorpe told Martin. “We've plans to make.”
Oglethorpe left the next morning, boarding a hundred men into his amphibian ship. The great exodus was already beginning, Nairne and Martin at the head of four thousand troops and five thousand invalids, women, and children. Of course, of that four thousand, nearly half were Negroes, many of whom had never held a gun before, most of whom still did not. Despite his confident talk, Oglethorpe did not think the freedmen could be trusted with arms. But they could dig trenches, build redoubts, and cook meals. A few could be armed.
Montgomery was a column of flame and smoke.
“General, it's time y’ came on board, ain't it?”
Oglethorpe glanced over at MacKay, whose head stuck up out of the amphibian they had named Azilia's Hammer.
“I shall,” he said, trying to think of a reason to put it off. But he needed to do this. Even mounted, they could never follow the marsh-edged Altamaha as fast as the ship could sail down it. And speed was their chiefest need. “Make way.”
Oglethorpe stepped tentatively onto the metal back of the artifice, then, determined to appear bold and unconcerned, went down the small wooden ladder.
Inside, the amphibian positively reeked of men and oil. Mostly it smelled like the sulfur his men had used to clean the Russians out. And it was close inside, terribly so. The bridge was the size of a rowboat, and four people were already crowded into it. A wooden bulkhead cut them off from the rest of the ship, so the effect was that Oglethorpe felt he had been stuffed into a small box.
Panic squeezed his lungs, but he forced himself to breathe. He had never liked small spaces. Never. He'd been trapped in a pantry once by one of his cousins, and had not been discovered for hours. When they found him, he had beaten his hands bloody.
He concentrated on other things. The most obvious were the windows. Plates of alchemical glass—really a sort of transparent metal—were bolted into the ship's frame, so he could see the yellowish blue murk of the Altamaha's water, though such was the nature of the stuff that no one outside could see in. The occasional silver glimmer of fish flashed there, but otherwise there wasn't much to see. In fact, the obfuscating water did nothing to lessen his discomfort. No, rather, it heightened it, for he was a poor swimmer, and the thought of water pressing in on him from all directions was unpleasant.
“How does it work?” he asked MacKay.
MacKay indicated a wheel, smaller but not otherwise vastly different from any other ship's wheel. “This goes back to the rudder,” he said. “And this makes her go.” He indicated a long lever with several notched settings.
“How? How does it go?”
“There are wheels on the side, as you've seen, with paddles attached.”
“Yes. What turns the wheels?”
“A demon, sir.”
“Yes, yes, but how?”
“I do not know.