Liberating Atlantis by Harry Turtledove

Author:Harry Turtledove
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Alternative History, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780451463203
Publisher: Penguin Group USA
Published: 2010-12-07T08:18:31+00:00

Eight shots in one weapon were wonderful. Reloading the pistol after firing eight shots at the Atlantean infantry was a son of a bitch bastard, as Frederick Radcliff discovered to his sorrow. Put a bullet in each chamber. Measure a charge of black powder and stuff each charge into a chamber without spilling it. Fix a percussion cap for each chamber. Do all that while your hands trembled because you’d just come as near as dammit to getting killed.

Doing it seemed to take about a year. But Frederick methodically went on. He couldn’t afford to stay unarmed. Seven more bullets for the white men—some of them would probably hit, anyhow. One more bullet for himself, just in case.

They’d got over the wall. He hadn’t dreamt they could do that. He’d also assumed that, if the white soldiers did get over the wall, the battle was as good as lost. But it turned out not to be. The Negroes and copperskins he led didn’t flinch, even from the soldiers’ most savage bayonet work. They rushed toward the white men in gray, not away from them. They might be less skilled with the bayonet themselves, but they were every bit as plucky.

And they turned the wall to an advantage. They pinned the soldiers who’d got over against it and started killing them there. It was madness. It was mayhem. Neither side asked for quarter, and neither side offered it. For longer than Frederick thought possible, neither side gave ground, either.

A white man’s voice, furious and astonished, rose above the din of shrieks and gunfire: “You nigger assholes can’t do this!”

“Hell we can’t!” Frederick shouted back. He had no idea whether the soldier heard him. He’d finally got that damned eight-shooter reloaded. As he raised it, he breathed a small prayer that it wouldn’t explode in his hand. If you didn’t do a good enough job cleaning off excess powder, more than one chamber would fire when you pulled the trigger. Only one bullet could get out, of course. The rest . . . the rest would probably blow off the hand that held the revolver.

More whites scrambled up over the wall to try to help their comrades. Frederick fired at one of them. The man clutched his ribs and tumbled back on the far side of the stone fence. Only after that did Frederick realize the gun had hurt the enemy, not him.

Then—and the thought within him warred between all at once and at last!—more Atlantean soldiers were climbing over the fence to get away than to come to their friends’ rescue. “We licked ’em!” Lorenzo cried exultantly. He asked, “Shall we go after ’em?”

“If we do, their cannon will murder us.” Frederick unbent enough to follow that with a question of his own: “Or do you think I’m wrong?”

“Nooo.” The way Lorenzo stretched the word showed his reluctance. But he didn’t try to talk Frederick out of the decision. He might not like it, but he saw it was right. A

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