Story: "Daredevil - Part 2 - The Ball of Death"

Napoleon, a survivor from the Mutiny of the Bounty, and a demonic killer in the cobblestoned streets of Toulon, 1793.

This is Part 2 of the story.
If you haven't read Part 1 yet, please start there.

THE BALL OF DEATH

TOULON, NOVEMBER 1793

Narrow streets. Fountains trickling. A few tentative caws of seabirds, waking. Here and there a candle or a lanthorn in a window, but Toulon is still, mostly, asleep. Two men, dark-clad, barely visible in the black night and the thick fog, the night sky only slowly, slowly beginning to lighten, the sun still firmly below the horizon. The two men are carrying a bundle between them, downhill, towards the harbor.

Toulon harbor, one of the largest in Europe, is perfectly arranged to be defended from attackers. The large outer harbor gives way to a narrower inner basin, easily protected by artillery batteries. On the other hand, whoever controls the cannon has all the power. No enemy ships trapped in the inner harbor could survive long under the full, concentrated firepower of those guns.

At this moment, both the cannon and the tall ships, barely beginning to be outlined against the slowly lightening sky, belong to the same party — French Royalists, British, Spanish, Neapolitan, Piedmontese, the defenders of Toulon against the onslaught of the French Revolutionary Army — but Naboleone was set on changing that equation. He had quickly identified Toulon’s weak spot and focused all his attention on it: Point l’Eguillette. Whoever owned Fort Mulgrave, ‘Little Gibraltar’ on l’Eguillette, controlled both the inner basin and the outer harbor. Like a Chess Grand Master, Naboleone bent all his will on taking and holding this ‘center square’. And with the information he had gathered behind enemy lines, disguised as a Piedmontese dragoon, his plans for the final push were quickly firming up.

Which is not, however, in the forefront of Naboleone’s mind at this dark hour. Behind that broad, high forehead, his brain is consumed by one single-minded, paramount concern: dispose of the prostitute’s mangled body before he is caught, or all is lost.

Naboleone is taking up the rear, gripping the corpse’s ankles, as the British Sergeant, his key agent informer, Samuel Job Lamb, is leading, long arms in a firm hold on the dead woman. Her abbreviated — hand-less — arms and her head all dangling down, the whole horrible thing covered by a dark sheet. In the damp night, the fog, the cool-wet breeze from the sea, their clothes are clammy against their bodies, and the dark sheet is clinging to the outline of the corpse. Soon it will be light enough that any stray soldier or sailor walking the streets, chancing upon them, would instantly be able to tell what they are up to.

Naboleone recalls, vividly, the horror he felt when waking, with the slaughtered woman next to him in bed, blood everywhere.

Mon Dieu, how did I get in this situation?

No use thinking about it. Just a few more steps now and they will be by the quays and jetties of Toulon harbor. The dark water will swallow her up.

Then, suddenly, they are there, at the water’s edge, and lay their burden down.

“We need something to weigh her, so she will sink.” Lamb looks around. “Oh, this is perfect.”

In the dark, the spherical shape is nearly invisible.

Lamb bends down, lifts the heavy object and brings it over to the corpse.

It’s a cannonball, the size of a child’s head, perhaps fallen off a supply wagon, Naboleone reasons, on the way to one of the artillery batteries or to provision one of the ships in the harbor.

“Yes. Perfect.” He agrees.

“It’s as if the Devil himself saw to it.” Lamb’s voice is hushed. “Just what we need to sink her. We need it, and here it is. The Devil’s Shot. The Ball of Death.”

Devil? Naboleone gives a wry smile. There is no Devil. There is no God. This, he resolved, firmly, at the age of sixteen, at the Brienne military school, with its hypocritical monks and absurd, non-sensical doctrines force-fed daily to the young sheep. He, Naboleone di Buenaparte, is not a sheep.

A bit disappointing, really, that Samuel Job Lamb would make this superstitious reference to that cloven-hoofed, red-horned myth. Naboleone had hoped, believed even, that this tall, spare Sergeant with the perpetual cynical sneer on his lips and the narrow slitted eyes of a man who had seen much, would be, like himself, a wolf. Loup. Then again, with a name like Lamb. Agneau. A baby sheep, in fact. Eh bien, alors. Tant pis. Too bad.

“So, Lamb, you believe in Devil?”

“I believe this is the Devil’s world.” Lamb is bent over the corpse on the ground, speaking with his face turned away. “A hostile world. Well, not so much hostile, really, as indifferent. A single human life, what is it to the world? Each one of us, we’re each of us like a little ant. The world doesn’t even know we’re there, under the sole of its shoe, and when we’re stepped on, ground flat, the world still won’t know, wouldn’t care. That is what I believe.”

“Ah, here we not agree, you and I. Non. I believe in greatness of the man. In here,” Naboleone points to his broad forehead, “I have whole of the world. C’est vrais, the world he not know. But I know. I know whole of the world in here. So I am greater than the world. Non? And so, because I am greater, I can change the world. I can façonner … eh … shape … non … mouler … mold the world. Like so.” Naboleone claps his hands together, suddenly, the noise a violent attack on the pre-dawn silence, then imitates the motion of kneading clay into shape.

“Well, if that was only true.” Lamb has the heavy cannonball in a sling made of Naboleone’s bloodied nightshirt and is looping the arms of the shirt around the corpse’s ankles, fastening them into a strong sailor’s knot, an anchor hitch. “But I know differently. I know. I know the Devil is waiting for me.”

“Your God will not save you from this Devil?”

“God? No. God is cold perfection. By His measuring rod we always come up short. He has given us up. Cast us aside. This is the Devil’s world now. Has been for a long, long time. And the Devil will eat our souls, each and every one of us.”

“The Devil may eat you, Lamb. He will not eat me.”

Lamb is quiet, done talking, then straightens up.

“She’s ready.” Grabs her under the arms. “Heave ho. On three.”

They lift her one last time, swinging the load between them three times, as Lamb counts, “One … two …. THREE!”

then they ...

... let her go.

Even with the cannonball tied to her ankles, she seems so light, and she flies from their hands, into the dark, and the splash is muted, a single hollow gulp, as if she has executed a perfect jackknife dive into the depths of the harbor.

And with that, and just like that, she is gone.

* * *

“What’s going on here?”

Naboleone jumped at the heavy hand on his shoulder.

Turning, what he noticed first was the smell.

Overpowering. Sour red wine, garlic, gastric juices.

The man was drunk, swaying, grinning, his two front teeth so much larger than the rest, it was impossible to avoid the mental image of a rabbit. A large, bald, drunk rabbit. Lapin ivre. Intoxicated rabbit.

The Rabbit was wearing the uniform of the Neapolitan 12th regiment of dragoons, a regiment mostly made up of mercenaries. He did have a mercenary air about him. With his bald head — covered in a sheen of sweat even in the cool night — his flat, broken-and-reset nose, his thick shoulders, his hunched stance, he seemed to Naboleone somehow like a criminal, a brigand, a highwayman perhaps. A large, bald, drunk, robber-rabbit.

“Zajac, y’ole drunkard. Leave’m 'lone.” The voice was that of another man, approaching. This one was much older — too old for service, but in spite of that fact, also wearing the uniform of the Neapolitan dragoons — a sparse goatee decorating his weak, pointy chin, long stringy white hair hanging down from his red-plumed regimental shako. This one, Naboleone reflected, looked like an old goat. Bouc et Lapin. Goat and Rabbit.

“Oh, shuddup, Tarun,” the Rabbit, Zajac, said. “Hand me that flagon. The sun’s coming up and I’m not nearly drunk enough.”

The old Goat, Tarun, grinned and handed the flagon of red wine to the bald Rabbit, Zajac.

Three giggling women came out of the dark. One tall blonde, one medium-height brunette, one short redhead.

“Carlo!” the redhead squealed, running over to Naboleone, throwing her arms around his neck, hanging off him, shorter than him by half a foot, meaning that she was very short indeed, barely five feet. “Carlo, my beautiful Corsican. Come with us. We still have hours, hours, hours and hours, before morning reveille.”

She gave Naboleone an insistent kiss, tasting of red wine and something floral. He returned the kiss, then gently pushed her to arms length.

“Beatrice.” He smiled at her, then demonstratively yawned and stretched his arms in the air. “I am desolated, Mademoiselle, but I am much too tired.”

Oh, to speak French again, even if just to this Toulon whore, to feel the words come rolling over his tongue, not straight-jacketed by the horrible English language.

“I must, with great regret decline your most alluring offer, and retire to sleep the few remaining hours before the day is upon us.”

She pouted, then whirled on Lamb.

“You, lamb-man,” in broken English, “is it you have of the money?” With Lamb it was always best for the prostitutes to start the negotiation there, the presence or absence of coin, so no time was wasted. “Antoinette with the someone else this night, I know … know not who. So, what you say? You and me, non? Is it not you have use for some thing a little different?” She cocked her right hip out, blew him a kiss.

“Sorry, no money.” Lamb shrugged. “So tonight I don’t have to make the choice between the charms of cool Antoinette and fiery Beatrice. But I get paid in three days. Perhaps we can arrange for a full evening of sampling both dishes, the cool and the hot? Hmm? Settle the matter once and for all, yeah?”

Beatrice guffawed, a deep, almost mannish laugh emanating from her short, small frame.

The mention of Antoinette’s name caused a sinking feeling in Naboleone’s gut. But evidently, and luckily, Antoinette had not told anyone that ‘Carlo Ramolino’, he, Naboleone, was her customer of the night. He did not look over at Lamb, but was grateful for the other man’s inscrutable face and steady voice.

Esperanza, the brunette, was clinging to the old Goat, and Destine, the tall blonde, had herself wrapped around the bald Rabbit, whispering something in his ear that made him grin, brandishing those two large front teeth again.

“Let’s all head back to the inn,” Esperanza said, in English, which she spoke beautifully, with a charming Spanish accent. “These two fine gentlemen are staying at ‘Le Vieux Monde’, same as you, Carlo and Samuel.”

“Recent arrivals,” the Goat volunteered, also speaking English, crisply, with perhaps just a hint of something Germanic. “Our regiment has only yesterday landed.” He waved vaguely in the direction of one of the tall ships in the harbor. “Allow me to introduce myself and my buon amico. I am Karl Tarun, and this gentiluomo is Vincente Zajac. We are both with the 12th regiment of the Neapolitan dragoons, having joined that illustrious band of merry men six months ago due to a few unfortunate events that necessitated the sale of the only assets we retain in this vale of tears: our miserable souls and these vessels of clay, our bent and broken bodies. The Neapolitans were ready customers. We are at their service, body and soul, and they, in turn, decided to throw their lot in with this last remnant of Royal France, so now, my new friends, we are all at the service of Toulon and her besieged inhabitants.”

“Samuel Job Lamb. His Majesty King George’s 30th Regiment, called the ‘Old Three Ten’ and sometimes the ‘Yellow Bellies’ due to the yellow facings on our red coats, and not, to be sure, a reflection of our courage.” Lamb grinned. “The ‘HMS Robust’ landed us three months ago, back in August. We marched through vineyards to reach Toulon. Beautiful French girls handed us grapes. We were their heroes. Now we huddle here as the French Revolutionary Army artillery soften us up for the final battle.” He gave Naboleone a sly wink.

“Carlo Ramolino. Piedmont. Regiment Settimo, the 7th,” Naboleone concluded the introductions, accepted the flagon of wine from Zajac and swilled down a rather large mouthful. Sour as it was, the slug of red felt good, settling his heartbeat in anticipation of the warming and softening of the world that would follow as the alcohol made its way up from his stomach to his head.

Beatrice hooked her arm in his, as they began to make their way back to the inn.

“Carlo. Beautiful Carlo.” She snuggled closer, grabbed for the wine, took a deep draught. Pulling him down, speaking close to his ear. “I don’t believe you are so tired. No, I think you have much energy, Mon Cher. We must put it to good use, your energy. There is something, I think, that you must let go of tonight. I feel it. I can help you. Let Beatrice help you.”

Naboleone smiled down at her then. Yes, why not? With Beatrice in his bed, he could forget all about Antoinette, about blood, about carving off hands, about carrying a cold corpse in the night, about that final hollow gulp as the water swallowed her.

Couldn’t he?

* * *

Behind them, Lamb follows, alone.

All the others have a woman, but his is not here. She lays at the bottom of Toulon harbor, a cannonball weighing her down. Her water-dream is now and forever, as the Devil eats her soul in all eternity.

He puts his hands deep in his coat pockets. The silver-and-gold inlayed bracelet that bound his Antoinette is sharp-edged, hard and cold against his fingertips.

— END PART 2 - TO BE CONTINUED —

Click here to go to Part 3 of the story.