Raise the Red Flag by Eric Del Carlo

Author:Eric Del Carlo [Carlo, Eric Del]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: steampunk
ISBN: 978-1-64080-079-3
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2018-01-23T05:00:00+00:00

TEN.

HAMILTON HEARD the tantalizing gabble of broadcast words as someone haphazardly toured the frequencies of a crystal communications set. He had to get in there and listen to the Fleet transmission. It was imperative he find out if this revolution were real or not, and if so, on what scale it was being waged.

The colonel to which Ramona had referred was named Turnbull. Hamilton had learned this simply by asking one of the camp’s slovenly inhabitants. He’d also found out that there was indeed an electricity generator, a small one, supplying power to the colonel’s cabin, and that, yes, Turnbull kept a crystal in there. He liked to monitor it. The Colonial Underground had made use of the frequencies, again according to Ramona, employing a system of coded transmissions to pass about information. It was an idea Hamilton himself had once had, he recalled, but he’d been reluctant to pose it to anyone of greater authority in the Fleet lest the proposal be summarily slapped down because of his status as a jackyank.

All that bother about caste and station seemed fantastically petty now, Hamilton thought bitterly. Why should any British-born person care that his mother had given birth to him in a Boston hospital? That peculiar prejudice must have its root in idleness. The “Brits,” with their comfortable superiority in all things militaristic, technological, economical, and cultural, had somehow found time to nurture a trivial intolerance for fellow citizens who hadn’t drawn their first breaths on proper English soil.

Was that how these Colonists—these Americans—felt, with their own sense of oppression writ much larger? Did they hate the British for their smugness, as much as anything else? Not that Hamilton was feeling the least sympathy toward their cause. He had witnessed firsthand how cold-blooded and murderous they could be. Certainly he would never forget Berwyn Prichard dying in his arms from a knife wound inflicted by one of those people.

After sharing that kiss with J.C. inside the latrine, Hamilton had gathered his initial field intelligence and circled around to Colonel Turnbull’s hut. The kiss had been another sweet shock, a sexual and even romantic jolt. He desired J.C. more than he knew how to express, but his connection to J.C. ran deeper than the needs of the body, it seemed.

J.C. was helping him get away from this place. They were partnered up, working in concert. He wasn’t one of these rebels. He wasn’t looking to murder British citizens or—what was the ultimate goal of these revolutionaries?—take total control of the Colonies. Did these rebels think they would be a nation then? Misguided savages. It took strength of character to stand as a sovereign nation. It required tradition and moral fortitude. The Americas had none of these. This was still a youthful land, and a youth’s lot was to obey its elders.

But it was the kiss that rose up in his mind whenever he thought of J.C., blotting out all other considerations. It was now as though the man had been stamped into his being, his impression permanent.

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