Chapter 2 of Boudica and The Butcher by Jaycee Woods
STATUS: First pass edit completed.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: As a draft this version is not perfected. Metaphorically speaking, the draft remains a corpus of meat and bone without skin. Yet I am putting it out for preview and comment anyway as aversion therapy for future publishing fright. Comments welcome. Thanks, Jaycee.
Antigone struggled to open her eyes. She thought she had but only saw darkness. There were neither stars above nor the feeling of a breeze, so she reasoned that she lay inside instead of on the battlefield. Her last memory? Combat raging around her crumpled body. Her head ached.
She tried to remember what happened as her pulse thumped in her ears. Muffled voices and activity could be heard nearby, but she could not understand what those sounds meant. Antigone reached up to her throbbing head. She felt a cloth, maybe a bandage. Dried blood matted her hair around the dry bandage.
Her sergeant had ordered them to charge into the advancing Union line. Her whole squad lacked ammunition. Several of her comrades turned to run in panic only to be shot in the back by the advancing enemy. Antigone had no bayonet, so she charged raising her empty rifle like a club.
Jumping over the dead bodies of her former comrades, she advanced as others fell around her. Dead ahead the dark silhouette of a giant grew before her as he directed the Union troops to flank then encircle the rebel charge. Following her training, she screamed her battle yell to maintain her momentum as her mind screamed for her to flee.
Antigone ran straight at the giant as if drawn to him by magnetism. Within striking distance of the fiend who towered over her, she moved to strike down upon him with her rifle butt. His left hand grabbed her weapon in midair before her strike had gained sufficient momentum. She gasped breathless as his knee drove into her gut. Involuntarily, her body bent as the giant’s right hand struck down on her bare skull with the hilt of his blade.
She collapsed as a blinding light filled her vision before the blackness on the periphery of her vision grew as the light narrowed into a smaller and smaller circle. Her empty stomach flipped and flopped with threats of an eruption.
Finding herself laying on the ground as the battle spun around her, she watched the giant brutally slice through her comrades. She could not understand why her arms and legs no longer obeyed her command to rise. The din of battle had been replaced by ringing in her ears. As her blood dripped into her eye, the battle in which she had become an observer instead of a participant took on a dark red hue. Exhaustion consumed her body as the battle shrunk to a small point before winking out of her awareness.
Back to the present, she remained with her eyes open in the dark. Underneath, her fingers did not feel earth nor bedding, but fur. That made no sense to her as it was soft, warm, sensuous. Despite the mild ringing in her ears, she detected approaching muffled footsteps distinct from the other meaningless sounds.
After the sound of moving canvas, an unexpected light blinded her. Antigone shut her eyes before narrowly opening them so her eyes might adjust. A lantern hung at the side of a silhouette of the giant. Unarmed, she shrunk into the furs in a vain attempt to hide herself from her enemy.
“Finally awake, lazy bones,” the giant’s bass voice observed. “You are fine to move gingerly. The x-rays showed no fractures; your spine and neck were undamaged. When you were napping like a vacationer, my prick tests on your extremities demonstrated responsiveness so your nerves and muscles should be functioning.”
He put the lamp on a table within the large tent. In his green camo pants, he squatted beside her. Without warning or requesting permission, his fingers forced open her eyelids widely so he could examine the response of her pupils.
She observed that he was not actually a giant, but a tall man with the piercing gray eyes of an angel. She could not read his dog tags as they were tucked into his olive t-shirt. Without a word, he began taking her pulse. His large, rough, strong hands wordlessly communicated that any effort of resistance by her would be futile.
He rose to stalk about the tent. His stretching as he stepped made Antigone aware of his well-muscled body. In an unarmed contest of strength between them, she recognized that she had no chance even if she had been uninjured. Maybe she had no fractures as he had said, but her headache throbbed.
“Who are you? Why am I here?” Antigone demanded as she regarded him with fear. Slowly she sat up in the furs so she would feel less vulnerable.
“I captured you, rebel scum. Now you are my prisoner,” he explained.
Antigone’s eyes widened with terror on hearing those words. “Please don’t hurt me…,” she begged.
“I have already hurt you,” he informed her as he poked her bandaged head. She winced in pain but refrained from angering him by objecting. He continued, “I also saved you. Now, sit still while I clean and rebandage your head.”
Antigone sat still, not resisting, but trying to mask her fear of him. “O-okay.”
As he approached her, he asked, “Are you going to cooperate, or will you be displeasing?”
Antigone looked at him with a blank expression. His odd question confused her. She looked down as she decided to placate him. She stammered, “I…I will cooperate…please be careful with my injury.”
He squatted down close to her as she sat on the furs. She noted how much larger he was. She felt small and vulnerable. He directed, “If you will sit still, then I will be careful. I am glad that you want to cooperate. Do you know what will happen to you if you displease me?”
Antigone nodded, fear present in her eyes again as she imagined what might happen to captives who disobeyed or did something wrong, “Ye…yes.”
He smiled knowingly as he replied, “I doubt you understand the details. At the moment, as you are an injured woman, I have claimed you as my personal prisoner.”
He stopped as he considered his strategy as he needed to get information from her about her rebel camp. He estimated that she had only been conscious for a few minutes, certainly less than half an hour. In her eyes, he could see that she remained disoriented by both her injury and new circumstances. He decided to take advantage of this to be crueler without being fully truthful, which this rebel did not deserve truth.
“Should you displease me, then you become a general prisoner of the Union army. Do you know what we do to female rebel prisoners?” he led.
Antigone looked at him with dread, “I…I…no..no, please not that.” A tear fell down her face, “Please, I’ll do whatever you want, I swear it…just please spare me from…tha…that.”
He decided to embellish for effect by speaking her likely nightmares, “When you are turned over to the camp, you will be kept naked for the pleasure of the guards, who are men horribly disabled and disfigured in fighting rebels in the war.” He moved closer as he loomed over her. “These poor men almost look like monsters now. They will take their turns attempting to impregnate you to create a new loyal citizen for the Union. After birth, your child will be taken away to be raised to hate the rebels by a family harmed by the war.”
Tears started falling as she listened in horror, “Those poor, poor men.” Her face paled with fright and worry. Her body shook, “Plea…please…spare me from that.” She looked directly into his stern gray eyes, “Please…I won’t disobey…I…I…promise.”
Accepting that he had manipulated her into a compliant attitude, he pivoted to offering her a sliver of hope, “I am an officer. With me your servitude would be relatively easy. As easy as it can be for a female slave marching with the army.”
His use of the word ‘slave’ shocked her, but she reminded herself that she had heard the rumors about the fate of captured female rebels in the hands of the barbaric Union soldiers. Antigone took a little relief from his less intimidating tone, “So…you won’t send me to that terrible place…right?” She looked at him with a little hope, “Right??”
“Do you promise to be obedient? Will you swear your loyalty to me instead of the rebels?” he asked.
Antigone nodded, fear in her eyes still, “I swear to be loyal and faithful to yo…you sir.. (gulp) what is your name? Sir.”
He corrected, “As you are only a slave, you will call me master.”
Antigone stammered, “Mas…mas…master.” She gulped at the realization, “Right.” She looked down to the floor, ashamed by her situation. “What a humiliation,” she looked at him again, begging for forgiveness, “Please, master…forgive me. My name is Antig…”
He interrupted, “Slave girl, you have no name as I have yet to give you a name. You have nothing. All of you is mine.”
The slave girl was shocked and disoriented to no longer be Antigone. Everything she had been was gone. She nodded, “I understand, master.” She gulped, “I…I am nothing but your…your slave.” She tried unsuccessfully to stop crying but kept shedding tears as she felt shame.
Observing that his manipulation had the desired effect, he decided to pivot again to position her for a confession, “I have friends who were killed by rebels. You would do well to make me forget you were a rebel. Otherwise, every time one of my friends dies, I might beat you without mercy to vent my hatred of killer rebels.”
His slave looked at him with a worried face. She feared what he might do if she displeased him, “Master…please…I will do you every favor you might ask…anything.” She looked at him with a pleading look, hoping he would not hurt her, “Please…spare me.”
His face did not betray his satisfaction as he pushed forward, “Tell me about your former rebel friends. Where are they? Prove your loyalty and obedience to me so you don’t displease me.”
She whispered, “Yes, master…the rebels…they are in an abandoned mill close to a river that flows by my hometown. It is on the edge of the town…but please master…can I ask you something as well, master??”
“What?” he asked, giving her permission.
His slave whispered, “Can you give me a name, master?”
He gently petted her hair to grant her some positive conditioning before he answered, “You will have to earn a name by pleasing me. Or maybe I will give you a punishment name if you are lazy or sloppy.”
Dropping her head in disappointment, his slave said, “I understand, master.” She looked up at him a bit worried, “Can…can I prove my loyalty now, master?”
“Tell me more about the rebels at the mill,” he directed.
His slave whispered, “They are about 200 people, mostly men. They are from my town and neighboring settlements. Master, I can even go with you and try to convince them to surrender. Would you…want me to do that, master?”
“Their surrender is not necessary. We will kill the men and enslave the women,” he instructed her.
A tear fell from her eye, “Master…please…please have mercy on them, they only fought for what they believed in. For a better life.” Her body shook from realizing the fate of everyone she knew.
His eyes animated with fire as he yelled, “Look at this war. Look at the death and destruction. See the orphans. Did their ideals create a better life for anyone?”
His slave looked down to the floor ashamed of defending those ideas, even though it had been all she had known all her life. “I…I understand master; they only lead to death and destruction.”
In rage, he continued, “Those ideas started this war. I will give the rebels war in the full measure until they no longer want war ever again. The rebels through their war have made me death.”
His slave looked up at him still ashamed but now also in horror. “Master…I am sorry for your transformation…I understand that it is my own fault for defending those…those…ideas,” she gulped.
For a moment, he forgot her as he stood and began to pace, “I shall kill the rebel men and enslave their women until they all renounce war.” His face was terrifying as if it has seen too much death. Turning back to her, he demanded, “Do you renounce war?”
His slave whispered in a trembling voice, “Yes, master. I renounce war…I understand that the suffering and death it brought…was something that I never really…,” a tear fell down her cheek, “really took into consideration…master, I am sorry for my past, your words opened my eyes about how…wrong my ideals were.” Her eyes filled with tears.
He noted that her answers confirmed what had been learned from Asclepia and the other captives. Tak, who his men called Chief, had already been dispatched to scout the mill location. Cyrus busied himself preparing plans for an assault as he awaited further intel. The slave obeyed readily so he could relieve the psychological pressure on her in light of her head wound.
“Sit still, slave,” he commanded. Without explanation, he began removing her bandage. Seeing no fresh bleeding satisfied him with the wound’s progress as she had not pulled a stitch. Retrieving a bowl, cloth, and his canteen, he filled the bowl with water. Wetting the cloth, he began to clean the blood from her hair.
She winced. He directed, “Hush. Stop fussing. This can’t hurt as much as getting hit.” With his slave quieted, he finished washing the blood from her hair before proceeding to wash her face, neck, and chest.
His slave looked directly into his eyes, her face now cleaned, and a small smile appeared before she said, “Thank you, master.” Her voice trembled with a mix of different emotions sadness, relief, and gratitude.
Sternly, he commented, “You cannot be too bloody, or you may attract wild animals to attack us. You rebels have turned peaceful men into animals and now nature again stalks us as potential meat for predators. That is what those rebel ideas have created…a world in which men have reverted to tooth and claw.”
His slave nodded in acceptance of his words. She looked at him, then looked back down to the floor. “I…I am very sorry for what this war has done to you…and…to…to the poor men you mentioned.”
“If necessary, I will kill every male rebel and enslave every one of their women to end this war. Our people must be freed from the oppression of this rebel caused war,” he reminded her. She looked up at him attentively to assuage his anger.
After a moment of thought, under his breath, an idea escaped his lips as a whisper, “Perhaps, it may not be necessary.”
Looking down again, she remained silent for a moment. She then looked at him again as with a trembling voice she asked him, “Master…do…do you hate me??”
“Are you now a rebel? Do you make war on me? Do you still hold to the ideas destroying the world? Or are you my obedient slave girl who only desires to please me?” he asked.
His slave’s eyes filled with tears on receiving that response. She then bowed her head in shame for a moment. She was afraid to answer the question. After a moment of hesitation, she looked at him with pleading eyes and whispered, “I…I wish to be your obedient slave girl, master…I no longer wish to hold into those…those thoughts…(gulp) I don’t wish to make you unhappy…not after treating me well despite my past…even after I was your enemy.”
“This war has decimated the population several times over. My blood lust for killing rebel men has contributed to that consequence. After the war, our land needs to be repopulated,” he reported. He searched her eyes for evidence of deception. “Should I keep you? Will you give me children to save our civilization from collapse?”
His slave’s eyes went wide. A mix of emotions on her face: fear, surprise, relief. Her face turned a slight tint of red. “Me…(gulp) give you children to save your people? Master…I…I…yes. If that is your command.”
He examined her critically before asking, “How old are you? You look young?”
“I am seventeen, master. Is…is that too young? Am I…am I not ready to…to…be a mother, master?” she stammered.
“In the old days before the war, you would be too young until you were legally liable. The rebels’ war has destroyed such optional considerations. Biologically, you are old enough to produce children. However, you are underfed. I would want to improve your health before impregnating you. Better for the child, and your value as my property,” he judged.
His slave’s eyes filled with surprise, fear, nervousness, joy, anxiousness; all mixed with each other. “Mas…master…(gulp) you are going to wait until I am healthier?” She shook her head happily. “O…okay, master…thank you…for being so patient…for…for not doing it right from the start.” Her eyes remained wide.
“My children shall be healthy, and you will be healthy, so they are well fed at your breast,” he instructed.
His slave blushed from all the emotions running through her mind. “Tha…thank you, master.” She thought about how it would be to give him a child. As a soldier, she never thought about children, so this new idea fed uncertainty that bred fear in her mind.
“Have you had a child before?” he asked.
She shook her head, “No, master…I mean…I…(gulp) I’m still a maiden.”
“What do you know about taking care of a baby?” he queried.
She thought before answering, “A little. I don’t know much, master…never had the opportunity to…but…I could learn…I can learn the ways you would want a baby to be taken care of…I…(gulp) I want to please you master…to please…the father of my children.”
“Slaves can be trained. I can pay for you to learn to properly care for children. Such training will increase your value to me,” he observed.
His slave looked at him with a happy expression. “Thank you, master…I want to increase my value in your eyes…I want to learn about how to take care of children for when the moment arrives…I want to please you in every way possible, master.” She shed a small tear as she recognized the truth in her words.
He eyed her suspiciously before asking, “Do you know what happens to a slave girl should she kill her master?”
His slave whispered, “Execution.” She shook her head in fear, “I would never want to harm you, master!”
He recounted, “Such a slave girl is slowly tortured to death before being fed to pigs so they may shit her out as waste.”
His slave whispered, “Tha…thank you for teaching me the rules, master…(gulp) I…I would never want to suffer such a fate.” She shivered a little as she imagined it.
He reenforced the lesson, “Do you know what happens to a slave girl when her master dies under mysterious circumstances?”
His slave’s eyes filled with fear. A few tears shed from them. “I…I…,” she began fearful of having to answer that, but she did not want to be punished either, “So…yes, master, I know.” She did not know the details, only that it was certain to be horrible.
“She will be alive when she joins him on his funeral pyre,” he advised. “You have reason to endeavor earnestly for my good health. Although in this world, I am most likely to die an unmysterious death in battle fighting rebels.”
She gulped in fear, “A…am I safe then master? I don’t want to be burned alive!”
“I am in good health, and you will devotedly see that I remain so,” he reassured her.
Her eyes filled with a small amount of hope, and a bit of relief. “Yes, ma…master, I will be loyal and protect your health…I…I promise that.”
Changing the subject, he advised her, “Understand that you are not my only slave. At home, behind the lines, I have several slaves raising my children by them. I do not yet have a favorite slave.” He said this understanding its effect upon a woman by setting her in competition with other women to become his preferred.
His slave looked at him with a mix of emotions again. “Master…what happens…whenever a slave is your…favorite one?? What…what happens?”
“She would be first girl with power over my other slaves. Her children may be favored; although I would try not to do so. I would likely spend more time with her, and she might share my bed more often,” he teased.
His slave blushed even more at his words, an innocent look in her eyes. “Master…you said it’s me and some slaves that serve you? I mean…,” she looked down in fear and hope, “I…I am no one special to you, right master??”
He agreed, “Not special. You are only a new slave. I have not even given you a name.”
She nodded in acceptance of her low position, “Yes, master.” She looked down to the floor. She looked disappointed to not be special to him, but she quickly shook her head. She did not want to be ungrateful to the man who saved her life, her master.
“Do you wish to become special to me? Do you wish to be my favorite? Do you wish to be first girl with power over my other female slaves?” he teased.
A small smile appeared on her face as she nodded, “Yes, master. I wish that very much…I don’t want to be just a toy or pet slave…I want to be someone meaningful to you, master.” Her voice trembled with fear but sounded also enthusiastic.
He instructed, “Understand that intelligence and obedience are your path to win my favor. I want intelligent children. Are you intelligent?”
Her eyes opened wide to his question. “Yes, master. I have always been a smart girl, top of many classes at school. I know many things that I think you would enjoy my knowing about.” She had forgotten her shyness and fear now, and she stared directly at him with a confident look.
“For now, you will be silent until I give you permission to speak. Remove your clothes so I may burn them,” he directed.
His slave began to take off her bloody uniform slowly. Regret filled her as she realized she had been wearing the uniform of her master’s enemy. Despite her eagerness to remove this symbol of her past as his enemy, she tried to do it with the most delicate movement possible, not to please him but because she remained shy. In her shame, she did not want to reveal her starved thin body to him.
She balled up her uniform as she pulled it to the side. She kneeled on the furs, head down, in only her soiled bra and panties. The boniness of her ribs and lack of a feminine curve to her hips disturbed her as she felt his eyes on her emaciated body.
“Slave, must a command be repeated? You have not finished,” he asserted.
She understood. By trying to preserve a bit of modesty, she had been disobedient and now risked displeasing her master. Silently, she continued by removing her bra and panties. Balling them up with the kindling that had been her uniform, she had nothing but what her master would give her. She knelt naked, head down, before her master. No other man had seen her before, but now it was his right.
He directed, “In the corner of my tent is a clay pot, relieve yourself in it now. There is straw to clean yourself next to the pot.”
His slave looked at him surprised at his command, but she did not hesitate. Rising she walked over to the clay pot, doing as he commanded. She took a little bit of time to relieve herself. After cleaning herself she looked at him, “Am…am I done now, master?”
“Speaking without permission will earn you a beating. Nod if you have learned your lesson without me whipping you,” he answered.
His slave nodded without speaking, wanting to avoid any mistake she could make.
He informed her, “Because of your head wound, you will not yet be fed so you don’t become nauseous.” She felt as if he were examining her with his gaze. “Crawl to the furs next to my bed and sleep there. If you move from there without permission, I will torture you to death as a rebel spy.”
She looked at him with a little bit of fear realizing how bad it could become if she made a mistake. She nodded and crawled back to the furs as he had commanded.
“I will return after I give directions for the attack on the mill where the rebels hide. You have permission to answer my questions. Do you know what the rebels call me? If so what?” he asked.
His slave looked up at him with her eyes already trying to guess the answer. “Ma…master, I don’t know the answer.”
“They call me The Butcher,” he replied.
Her eyes widen in fear as she then knew that he was truly the hand of death. She did her best to calm herself, looking him in the eyes. “Master…I…I want to ask you something.”
“No. I don’t give you permission to speak as the business of death demands my attention,” he answered.
His slave felt a tear fall from her eyes once again. Silently she thought to herself in acceptance, ‘Okay, master. I obey.’ Her sadness could be heard in her involuntary whimper due to not being allowed to ask what she had in mind.
He took the lantern from the table as he moved to leave. Alone in the dark, she cried into the furs until she fell asleep.
Leaving the tent, he turned off the lantern to maintain light discipline. Under the light of the moon, he made his way through the camp, saluting in reply to the soldiers he passed by. As he approached the meeting tent, a sentry stepped aside for him to enter.
Inside the illuminated tent, an older man in military fatigues worked over a map on a table. Looking up the older man asked, “Gideon, how is your patient?”
“She is not dead yet, but she is awake, Cyrus. During interrogation, she had no more intelligence than we already gathered, so it will be unnecessary to turn her over to G-2,” Gideon replied.
Cyrus smiled, “You have never saved one with a head injury before. Your skills must be improving.”
Shrugging, Gideon answered, “Perhaps, I did not really hit her that hard. However, she is disoriented and light sensitive. By the way she grimaces, she has a headache. I am withholding food until she shows more progress. However, she is only a slave; I left the important work for you to do.”
Cyrus turned to his planning on the table, “Tak has not returned yet with a scouting report. However, based on this old map and the intel from the new slaves, I have a pretty good idea of where they are, how to get there, and major topography,” Cyrus reported to his commander.
“Great, so we will just rain artillery, send in the Blackhawks to shred their defenses, surround them with tanks, then troops under the protection of some Warthogs can mop up,” Gideon joked with a twinkle in his eyes.
“Droll. This isn’t the war of your youth. I am pulling in a company from our southern flank to be a perimeter rear guard. After Tak returns, I was planning to send a squad forward to monitor the mill and rebel movements around this base. Our strike force will attack tomorrow night if nothing changes. Eventually, it will be a bloody hand-to-hand affair as these rebels won’t be able to put up much of a gun fight. We will channel them away from the mill with a hope of escape into a nearby surrounded killing field. Standard rules of engagement, kill the men and enslave the women. No reports of children at this base,” Cyrus informed.
“Sound plan. I understand that eventually the rebels will close, but let’s take advantage of our ammo while we can to thin their ranks during their charge. Any casualty estimates?” Gideon asked.
“None worth a damn until Tak reports. However, our politicians have tied our hands. We don’t have the privilege of staying out of range, so there will be some. I just hope those damn Canadians haven’t resupplied these rebels yet.” Cyrus reported.
“Objection noted, Colonel. Four years of being crippled by the politicians while the real soldiers overseas protect the world and our frontiers from the world. When we joined the Guard, we were supposed to be weekend warriors, not fighting a civil war at home.” Gideon conceded.
“If I only had the materials, I could make us some more effective weapons. Something with a big boom,” Cyrus offered.
Putting his hand on Cyrus’ shoulder, Gideon consoled, “I know, professor. That is part of my long-term plan. We will find what you need so you can play mad scientist. I still have G-1 looking for your former students to give you a hand.”
Sitting at the table, Gideon continued, “At least, our meddlesome politicians stopped us from turning our own country into Laos, full of hidden unexploded ordinance from someone else’s war that would continue to kill for more than half a century. They still find unexploded bombs in DC from WWI training and in Virginia from the first civil war. Maybe our politicians were wise to tie our hands from all the endless destruction that we could have done to ourselves.”
Cyrus corrected, “Our politicians could not be convicted in court of having ever been wise. A happy accident with a terrible cost of its own as this war does not end.”
Unable to disagree, Gideon attempted to point out a silver lining, “At least, Senator Sherman understands and provides us some political top cover, but Gen. Broderick’s encumbrances are still our problem to fix.” He paused for a moment before adding, “Sherman told me that I am not allowed to kill Broderick, who never gets close enough to the rebels for them to do the job. Broderick ran yellow from the Ohio Guard base at Port Clinton when the war started. He has been sitting on his ass in Marion ever since.”
A nude pregnant woman entered the tent. She carried a tray with a water pitcher, glasses, and assorted fruit. Quietly she poured the men water. Cyrus gently caressed her belly causing her to smile happily. After putting the fruit near the map on the table, she kneeled beside Cyrus then rested her head against his thigh.
As he gently petted the pregnant slave’s hair, Cyrus asked Gideon, “And that is what our men bleed for now? Territory that Broderick surrendered without a fight four years ago.”
Gideon agreed, “True. He feared being caught in a rebel vice between Sandusky and Toledo. He lacked the courage to attack Sandusky and hold its port. Worse, he failed to destroy the CSX rail along I-90; not so much as blowing the bridges on the Sandusky River north of Fremont, which would have hamstrung rail traffic between eastern and western rebel cities in the Great Lakes region.”
“That was then. We don’t have the explosives with us now to take out those bridges. I could easily make them if I had the materials, but it would be easier to squeeze a booger out of Lincoln’s nose on a penny than get what I need through Broderick’s command,” Cyrus cursed.
“Tell Tak the things his scouts should be looking for. Ask G-4 to put feelers out on the black market for that stuff. I am going to need a big boom, but I don’t know when yet,” Gideon directed.
Cyrus nodded as he bit into an apple. As Cyrus chewed, he fed the pregnant slave apple from his hand, which she gratefully ate.
Observing Cyrus’ care of his slave, an old thought returned to Gideon sparking him to ask, “What if we offered some of the male rebels a choice between slavery and death? They might prove useful.”
Cyrus laughed as he asked, “What kind of man would accept slavery over death? Besides we would have to feed those starved fools.”
“True. Both good points. I am just brainstorming. Checking my assumptions. Could we use them to end the war faster?” Gideon asked.
Cyrus shook his head, “I tell you what. You think about how you might use them. I will think about how to implement your hairbrained idea. There are practical matters to consider…capture, feeding, security, and more. Tomorrow’s battle is too soon to try, but maybe the next if we have thought through the problems.”
Gideon nodded in agreement before asking, “Is there anything else for you to report?”
Cyrus pointed at a pile of papers on the table as he reported, “No, the details are there.”
To the slave, Gideon teased, “Olga, do not keep my XO up all night playing with you. As he will need his sleep.”
Olga blushed as she lowered her head, “Yes, master.”
To Cyrus, Gideon ordered, “Go delegate those tasks to the section chiefs. You can’t do more until Tak returns. A sentry will notify you if that happens sooner rather than later. So, take Olga back to your quarters and enjoy your evening.”
Olga asked Gideon, “Is there anything master requires first beyond the water and fruit?”
Reading the papers, Gideon waved his hand in dismissal, “No, just take care of your master and return him to me in the morning well rested.”
Cyrus got up. Slapping Gideon on the back, Cyrus said, “Do not stay up too late my friend as tomorrow you will want to fight.”
As Cyrus left the tent, pregnant Olga followed obediently two steps behind.
Rubbing his eyes in exhaustion, Gideon mused that Cyrus seemed different since Olga had become pregnant but concluded that it was nothing negative so he would focus back on Cyrus’ notes related to the planned attack at the mill.
Hours later after studying the notes and map, Gideon retrieved another map, which provided a broader view of the lake shore area of northern Ohio. He considered Broderick’s folly during the retreat from Port Clinton. Four years of civil war had left the Union’s material resources depleted. The lack of international trade was slowly strangling both the Union and the rebels. While the rebels controlled the ports, the Union controlled the commodities worth trading. Each day both sides became weaker.
The port at Sandusky was small but would have had access to the Atlantic through the St. Lawrence. However, Broderick had not seized the opportunity four years ago. Gideon wondered what if he tried to take it now. That was beyond his orders from Broderick, which was simply to clear rebels from the sector north of Marion. Without pushing through to Lake Erie to cut I-90 and the lakeshore rail traffic, this mission north of Marion was marginal, the acquisition of some additional rural counties cutting some food sources to the rebel cities, which would be replaced by food via rail from other rebel cities.
Gideon slammed his fist on the table in frustration. Senator Sherman had not brought him from western Pennsylvania to Ohio just to make marginal gains. Gideon felt like he was getting subordinated to Broderick’s cowardice. This move north of Marion was because Broderick was afraid of confronting the rebel stronghold at Columbus. Broderick would not move forward to go on offense. Gideon reminded himself that he was not allowed to simply kill Broderick despite the aid and comfort Broderick’s ineffectiveness gave the rebels.
However, retaking this sector north of Marion would reverse some of Broderick’s failures. From the map, Sandusky teased Gideon. He was sure that he could defend Sandusky from attacks by Toledo. However, cutting I-90 and the lake shore rail would invite expeditions from both Detroit and Cleveland with the rail offering rebels rapid reinforcement and resupply on relatively short supply lines. If resupplied via the lake, maybe he could hold Sandusky with a division, but Gideon only commanded a brigade, while Broderick commanded the division.
As he thought, Gideon’s eyes drifted east on the map towards Cleveland. He noted that the name Cleveland had been crossed out on the map, above it was written ‘Pilgerruh.’ He remembered a rumor about the rebel government in Cleveland renaming the city after some Indian thing. It was like one of those fooled land acknowledgments that activist professors shrieked about when he and Cyrus had been professors together at James Wilson College. Gideon wondered what kind of fools wasted time on such performative gestures during a civil war when men were dying.
Exhausted, Gideon turned off the lantern. He resolved to rest his head on the table for a few minutes, then fell asleep.
Jaycee Woods 