Chapter 8
There was a minor roar of drunken laughter from where the freed slaves were celebrating their new found freedom. They had been shocked when Sid had delivered watered wine and beer for them to drink as part of their festivities. Barson was seated next to Sid drinking a mug of watered wine. Curious, Barson said, "It sounds like they are barely watering the wine. From my experience, that is a sure recipe for disaster."
"They needed it," Sid answered while nudging a log in the fire so that it would burn more evenly. He looked up at the sky missing the moon of earth. At least the stars were bright.
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing tells a man that he's free like the chance to make an ass out of himself," Sid answered. It would be a painful lesson, particularly when they would get up in the morning with headaches.
Barson laughed his agreement. He shook his head and said, "That's too true."
A scream shattered the low the murmur of drunken sounds. It was the kind of sound made by a man being forced to do something that he didn't want. Sid shook his head and said, "The retribution has begun."
"Aren't you going to stop it?"
"Nope," Sid answered feeling sick to his stomach. From his readings, he knew that the slave rebellions in Haiti were bloody violent uprisings. He was sure that no one would be killed although a few of the overseers may wish they had been.
Olaf, looking upset, stepped over to the fire and pointed over to the area where the free men were partying. He said, "They're doing things to the overseers."
"I'm sure they are," Sid said.
"Aren't you going to stop it?"
"Nope," Sid answered. He looked at the two young men and said, "If anyone is to stop it, it needs to be the men and women who were freed today. If we do it, then just how free are they? In two days we will be gone and they will be left to rule themselves."
"I suppose you're right," Olaf said with a frown. He didn't want to think about what was happening a hundred paces away. He threw a small stick into the fire and said, "I don't like it."
"Neither do I," Sid said. He stood and started pacing while thinking about what was going on in the temporary camp of the freed people. As horrible as the actions taking place were, Sid could understand why they were occurring. It was human nature to want to punish those who had stripped them of every human dignity. He paused and said, "It would be wrong to think that things of similar horror haven't happened to each and everyone of the former slaves. I'm sure the women have been raped. It wouldn't surprise me if a few of the men haven't been raped as well."
Olaf stared at the fire without saying a word. Barson shook his head and said, "Aren't we supposed to be the good guys?"
"We are the good guys," Sid said. He walked over to where he had a cup of watered wine and picked it up. After taking a sip, he said, "We are fighting slavery and trying to rebuild communities. I think part of rebuilding a community is allowing past injustices to be resolved so that they don't eat the community away from inside. I'll admit that what is going on over there isn't the solution that I would like, but my hope is that the injustices will be resolved as quickly as possible."
"Expedience?" Barson asked.
"Perhaps," Sid admitted. He took his seat and stared at the fire. Another scream sounded from the area. He sighed and said, "It will be hard to sleep tonight."
"Should have set up camp further away," Olaf commented. It was hard for him to remain down for long. He grinned after a moment and said, "I guess that is what we are supposed to do. Learn from experience."
Barson looked over at the other young man and said, "You seem to be enjoying this adventure."
"You bet. I'm seeing new sights and meeting new people. Seeing all them folks freed today made me feel real good," Olaf said gesturing towards the celebration. He said, "I was really furious when we went into that town the other day and saw all those folks who had been killed. Freeing these people makes me feel better about myself. I'm doing something good."
Nodding his head in agreement, Barson said, "What I saw in town was disgusting. I'd have to say that raping a murderer seems a minor punishment compared to the crime."
"Most of those slaves were probably taken in a raid like what occurred in that town. They watched their mothers, fathers, and children get killed. Afterwards, they were abused, beaten, raped, and treated like animals. I'm sure that the overseers are in for a rough time, but it will pale in comparison to what those men and women suffered," Sid said. The reminder of what they had seen the other day was important. Olaf had made an important point about learning from experience. In the future they would have to camp further from where the freed men and women were celebrating.
Listening to the noise of the freed men and women celebrating kept Sid from sleeping. It wasn't that the noise was loud, but the occasional sounds of men being abused bothered him. It was the middle of the night when he gave up trying to sleep and went to check the guards. Walking around the periphery of the camp, he stopped at each guard position pleased to find that all were awake and alert. By the time he had finished with checking every guard post, the sounds of celebration had died down to be replaced by the low murmur of men and women telling their individual tales of woe.
He walked over to the camp set up by the freed slaves to see what was going on. Before reaching them, he paused to listen to the conversation around the fire. One of the men said, "I remember the first few days after I was taken. I feel asleep every night shaking and crying like that bastard over there. I don't feel sorry for him. He knows that his hell is only going to last thirty-five years. I had to accept that my hell was never going to end."
"You had given up hope?" asked one of the women surprised by the admission.
"I didn't give up anything. It was beaten out of me," the man snarled. He had the scars on his back to prove his claim. His comment was greeted with lots of knowing nods and supporting statements from others around the fire.
"What do you think of that Sid Jones fellow?"
"I don't know."
"He seems like an honest fellow to me."
"Yeah, too honest. I was sure that he was going to be over here telling us to stop what we were doing, but he left us alone."
"It wasn't his place to tell us what to do. He said that we were free and he's treated us that way."
"I don't know about the rest of you, but tonight is the last time I'm getting drunk like this. Tomorrow, I'm going to find me a good house and tend the fields. I want to get back to the simple life that I used to have. All I want is to be left alone."
Sid grinned at the last statement. He couldn't tell who was saying what, but it was more important to know that they had calmed down a little and were beginning to think about how to rebuild their lives. Part of that was taking responsibility for their actions.
"That fellow over there won't be worth anything tomorrow. I never was after a reaming like that," said a man. He shivered at the memories of the things that had been done to him.
"Shit, I got raped every night and was expected to work the next day. He'll work or I'll whip his ass," said a woman with a barely constrained fury.
"Claire, I don't want to become like them."
"Right. I don't want to be like the thing I've hated so much."
"I know what you mean," another man said. He sighed and said, "We're going to have to set up a local militia. Anyone that tries to make me a slave again is going to die."
"Here, here!"
"Do you think there is an inn here? I'd like to get back to running an inn."
"I'm sure there is."
Sid slipped away and returned to camp feeling much better about things. There would be further abuses of the indentured servants, but he suspected that they wouldn't be nearly as bad. They might hate the overseers, but their desire to have a normal life burned brighter than the desire for revenge.
It was early when Sid woke. He stepped out of his tent hoping to have an uninterrupted trip to the latrine. Instead, he found a scout waiting for him. The man looked like he had traveled through the night. Pausing, Sid asked, "What are you doing here?"
"I came to give a report of what we've observed," the scout answered.
"Okay. Talk," Sid said glancing over at the latrine and wishing he had a chance to relieve his bladder.
"We've been following the slavers like you ordered. It's not pretty."
"What do you mean?"
"They are marching at a quick pace during the day and abusing the prisoners at night. Anyone who falls behind is killed. You can follow them by the bodies they are leaving behind."
"How many people are involved?" Sid asked thinking about the conversations he had overheard the previous night.
"There are at least a thousand captives. They are being watched by about seventy men."
"How are so few men controlling that many people?" Sid asked. He would have expected closer to a hundred men.
"They have the captives tied together by a rope around their necks in strings of fifty. There are less than two hands of space between them. If one person falls, it chokes the others in the line. Each of them has their arms tied together behind their back and hobbles on their feet. Anyone who moves slow gets the whip."
"How many people are watching each string of captives?" Sid asked.
"Two and, sometimes, three. The strings with the stronger individuals have three men watching them at all times. They use the whip almost continuously."
Nodding, Sid asked, "What about scouts?"
"A handful of men are riding ahead at any given time. They don't post guards at night other than to watch the captives. The further away they get from here, the sloppier their operation gets. It is as though they know that the locals will support them if they need it. In fact, the locals are having their slaves bury the bodies they are leaving behind."
"How far ahead of us are they?"
"Five days at a standard march. There's no way to catch up to them and the area is getting more difficult for our scouts," the scout answered. He shifted and said, "I told the other two scouts to watch for another day and then to return here."
"It sounds to me like they've taken a lot of territory," Sid said.
"Yeah, I don't know how they did it."
Masterson had been standing to the side listening to the briefing. He interrupted, "I can answer that question."
"You can?" Sid asked turning to face his strategist.
"I interrogated the slave owners last night."
"What did you learn?"
"Well, it seems that this entire thing is a business run by a single individual. In most of the major cities within the boundaries where the slavers operate there are places that are called slave shops. For two hundred conches, a man can go into a slave shop and order a fully functional plantation complete with a hundred slaves. Each additional slave is a conch. They are offering all kinds of slave- based businesses. For fifty conches, one can order a whore house complete with ten female slaves," Masterson said. He had to admit that even he was shocked at the scale of the operation.
"For two hundred conches they can get a fully functional plantation?" Sid asked incredulously.
"Yeah, that's what the two owners paid for these two places."
Knowing that he had Sid's full attention, Masterson said, "Here's how I figure it works. First, a couple of guys order a plantation. The slavers set up four plantations in an area where they have already raided for slaves and hand them over to the customers. The plantation doesn't cost them a pinch. The money the farmers pay for the place more than covers the cost of the raid. After that, the slavers go to the next town and take over the entire population along with any homesteads that are along the way. In the process, they get over a thousand slaves. After the raid, they rush back to a major city with their thousand slaves. They sell them at half a conch each to a distributor. They've come out ahead by at least five hundred conches."
"That's horrible," Sid said. The amount of money involved was mind-boggling. A horse cost a conch. A single family homestead that was already settled could cost five conches.
"Oh, it gets worse. It appears that the men on the slave party can earn enough to purchase a plantation after three or four raids. Each raid helps establish another handful of individuals with sufficient wealth to become customers."
"How about the overseers? Where do they fit in?" Sid asked.
"That's an interesting question," Masterson answered. After a moment of quiet, he said, "They are the poor from the large cities that are under the control of the slavers. Untrained in weapons, all they can basically use is the whip and the club. That means that they can't serve as slavers. There are at least ten cities with populations over twenty thousand. Their work was displaced by the slaves so they took up being overseers."
Sid shook his head at the thought of what was happening. As poor men they would have been desperate to find some class of people who would be below them socially. Curious, he asked, "What is the guy in charge doing with all of that money?"
"He's building an army," answered Masterson.
"This is organized crime on a scale that is unimaginable," Sid said. He wondered how large of an army the head slaver was putting together.
"Some sick mind came up with it," Masterson said.
The scout said, "When you get about three days from here, every place that you see has slaves working in the fields. There aren't that many farms, but there are a lot of fields being worked. I'd say that each place is the result of taking over fifty farmsteads."
Listening to the report, Sid was bothered but he didn't know what it was that bothered him. Thinking it over, he realized that the slavers were taking over property at an incredible rate. Frowning, he figured that they had to be raiding towns at the rate of one every five or six days. He looked over at Masterson and asked, "What do you make of that?"
"They've been busy," he answered with a shrug of his shoulders.
"No. They are busy," Sid said realizing that they were due for another group of slavers headed for the next town. They would take over the properties left behind in the town that they had raided a couple of day ago. After that, they would then move onto the next town for the next batch of slaves. Looking around, he said, "We're in big trouble!"
"Why?"
"Think about it," Sid said with his eyes flashing. Seeing that Masterson was missing the point, he said, "All of the farmsteads around here have all been given away. Three or four days ago, slavers were here. They are due back any time now to raid further down the road."
"Damn! You're right," Masterson exclaimed.
Sid looked around for a second and spotted one of the veterans. Gesturing to the man, he said, "Double the guard and send out the scouts. We're expecting trouble."
"Yes, sir," the veteran replied. He ran off to execute his orders.
Thinking about what Sid had observed, Masterson realized that they were going to have to prepare for a battle. Mentally, he worked out the numbers. There would be four hundred slaves, four families of owners, forty overseers, and seventy-five or more raiders. In short, they would be facing a force that was larger than their own. Turning to Sid, he said, "Where's the map? We've got to plan our next engagement."
"Hold on while I get the map."
"Right," Masterson said. He couldn't believe that Sid had put the pieces together before he had. He wished that he had taken the time to scout the area ahead so that he'd be better prepared for an engagement.
Sid rushed into his tent and went through his pack searching for his map. It took him a long fifteen seconds to find it. He grabbed it and headed out of his tent. Masterson joined him in the short dash to a small table that they had liberated from the farm house. Spreading the map on the table, Sid looked for their current location. Pointing to a spot on the map, he said, "We are here."
Masterson studied the map for a long minute. His mind was racing as he considered plan after plan. Gesturing to the scout, he said, "Point out the farms that are being occupied."
"Farms about a quarter of a day's walk, from here on forward," the scout said as he pointed to locations on the map that ran along the road.
"We need Connor and Peterson," Masterson said. He chewed on his lower lip while studying the map.
Sid turned and shouted, "Connor! Peterson!"
It didn't matter if either man actually heard him shout, they would get the word that Sid wanted them. Masterson was busy talking to the scout and pointing out features of the map. The scout paid close attention. Sid interrupted and said, "Once we engage the slavers, then we can move a ways up the road before heading into the countryside."
"Not if they are filling those farms with slave labor as they travel," Masterson said. He pointed out four locations about a day's march further up the road and said, "I want to hit these places as soon as possible. They will act like a firebreak for the next set of slavers. They'll be busy trying to figure out if it was a slave rebellion or something. We'll hit them while they are investigating."
"That will have to wait until after we deal with the slavers that are on the way here," Sid said.
"We'll have to fight here," Masterson said having already decided the matter before even looking at the map.
"Why here?"
"We don't have enough time to take out the farms further up the road. If we are right, the slavers will be here sometime this afternoon. They'll be expecting to spend the night here before heading onto the town. We had better be prepared to host them," Masterson said with a smile.
Sid frowned while he considered what Masterson said. Curious, he asked, "Is there any chance that our captives know about this?"
"Oh, I'm sure that they know all about it. I would bet that they are thinking they will get rescued anytime now," Masterson said. He gave Sid a grin that wasn't exactly friendly and said, "I'll be talking to them both some more this morning."
Connor arrived and asked, "What's up?"
"We are to get ready for battle," Sid answered. He glanced at Masterson and said, "We're expecting some slavers this afternoon or tomorrow."
"I'll get the men ready," Connor said with a frown.
"In the worst case, get the camp packed and the men out of sight. We'll abandon this area if we aren't ready to engage the slavers when they arrive," Sid said.
Connor nodded his agreement with the orders and said, "Okay."
Masterson said, "I'll come up with something in time to take them on."
"We'll play it safe," Sid replied looking at Masterson. He added, "We aren't going to lose half our men because we rushed into a battle when a strategic retreat would have been better."
"I..."
"We need more intelligence. Talk to the prisoners," Sid said. He frowned and added, "I'll talk to the folks we freed yesterday. They need to know what is happening."
Connor frowned and said, "I wonder why they didn't warn us."
"Probably didn't realize that we didn't know," Sid said. He wanted to hit himself for not taking the chance to get more information out of them before sending them on their way.
Peterson, looking excited, ran over and said, "I was across the road at the other place checking out the supplies. One of the men told me that more slavers are expected this afternoon."
"We just came to that conclusion," Sid said thinking that they at least had the beginnings of a timetable.
"What do you want us to do?"
"You need to get the camp ready to move," Connor said.
"What will you be doing while I'm doing that?" Peterson asked.
"I'll be getting the men together in preparation for a battle," Connor answered with a sigh. He looked over at Masterson deciding that this was one occasion where last minute actions weren't the man's fault.
"I'll be figuring out how we can fight them," Masterson answered bending over the map. He was going to have to put together a completely different strategy for the campaign based on what he had learned.
"I'll be getting the word out to the men and women we freed," Sid
said knowing that it was unlikely that it was necessary. Of course, the
first thing he was going to do was get over to the latrine but he
wasn't going to announce that to the whole camp.