Whilest so busily engaged in raising the sand and dust fortifications of Fort Slow-Polk, as we called it, or Fort Texas, as the officers called it, way out on Timmy's Promontory, General Lunarista's horsemen circled over yonder east, crossed the Cold Sea, and entered Texas. In so doing, them pesky Lunars cut off our supply road to the balloon flotilla moored at the masts of Archytas Crater, or Archie's Hole as we clept it. Archie's Hole lay to our south-east, conveniently located at the mouth of the narrows of Mare Frigoris. Taylor'd sent a few hundred men there with some cannon to put the Crater of Plato under blockade. Them pesky Lunars usually steamed trade - and now war supplies - from the fortified crater of Fracastorius on the Sea of Nectar through the little Sea of Plenty, north across the Sea of Tranquillity, north through the Sea of Serenity, through the Sleepy Lake to the Cold Sea. This may seem a long way, but it was a far shorter supply line than ours, steaming all the way up across the Gulf between Earth and Moon! On the one hand, now, both our balloons and their steamboats had to pass through our cannons at Archie's Hole. (The big steam balloons had to tether inside a crater on account of needing shelter from the Lunar wind, lest they be dashed against the rocks. Archie's Hole was our second balloon base, after Annex Agonies. It was the closest Texan crater to Fort Polk, so that fort protected it while it blockaded Plato's Crater. Closest to us at Fort Slow-Polk was old Timaeus Crater, whose walls were all crumbled down, except for Timmy's Promontory). On the other hand, Lunar horseman patrolled around the empty craters - Old Bond & the Barrows - on the road between Fort Slow-Polk and our supply balloons at Archie's Hole, which was only fortified along one side, with a single ditch cut in front of it, with six cannon, and a name - Fort Polk. It was no Fort McHenry.

General Lunarista and his Army of the Sea of Tranquility had marched up to the Crater of Plato and replaced the pretty faces of the lunaritas with the bores of Napoleonic cannon. A whole line of `em behind a stone wall called Fort Parades faced our Fort Slow- Polk. Thousands and thousands of moonmen-in-arms marched on the other side of the Cold Sea inlet.

So, to break the blockade Lunarista's cavalry had put on our fort, and maintain the blockade on his fort, Old Rough and Ready and Perfect Bliss rode off side by side, back to the balloons - although these knights did not ride off by themselves, neither. They took with them the long column of the 3rd Infantry, and also the 4th, too, each five hundred farmboys with shouldered telegraph-firelocks marching off into the rising dust. And, behind the Fourth marched the 5th, a column five men wide, one hundred long, followed by the 8th's column. By this time we of the 7th "Cotton Balers" had throats too dry with boot-dust to cheer any more. After the 8th, all of Ringgold's Flying Cannon creaked and wobbled by, their long wings folded on their rusty hinges, balloon silk folded away, followed by all the little Volta's Pile caissons for the electric bayonets, followed by several hundred mess wagons - mostly empty. We Cotton Balers remained, with two weeks' rations and a couple dozen camp-wives, including one certain cactus queen, seamstress, and snake-catcher.

Sarah kidded the men who got all quiet watching all our pals leave us alone to face the Army of the Sea of Tranquillity. She called to Major Brown, our commander, "Major! How `bout you lend me a horse and a saber for about an hour or so - I figure I'd go `cross over and whup them pesky Trankies all by myself!"

"No, Sarah," said the Major, smiling a little. "We need you right here, so the men don't feel too lonesome."

"Taylor took all the horses anyhow, Sarah," added Six-Fingers. "You just got to stay with us." (I didn't figure it yet, but that fellow had taken a liking to Sarah same as everybody. All his wives were far away, so he felt lonesome same as the rest of us.)

Of course, across the Mare Frigoris there were ten Mooner musketeers for every one of us, so we didn't feel to lonesome.

We remained to whack the dying mules and drag up another pile of dust to make the last wall of our six-sided fort, while skinny Lunar dogs sniffed everything. One dog ate my chess set and spat it up again, a checkers set.

Here we remained, the lonesome lucky 7th Infantry, and Company E of the 2nd Artillery, five hundred soldiers of Democracy and Progress, strong and proud to be the guardians at the back door of American Destiny, noble warriors and mule-whackers, tireless shovelers, blasphemers, and lunarita-ogglers, fistfighting for we were low on grog, and chewing our beef-flavored salt with old boot hardtack, and washing our grogless patriotic tongues with canteens full of crumbs and mud. The dire situation didn't bother me; neither did the rough-and-unready conditions, because, on the one hand, I felt sure that the much promised glory would shine warm and sweet at any moment; and on the other hand, Sarah was smitten with me and I was sure smitten with Sarah. The thoughts thrilled me; and sometimes when I was thinking about Sarah I'd get that warm and sweet feeling; and sometimes when I was wondering about this phenomena called glory I'd get all out of breathe and bug-eyed.

`Rah for Sarah! `Rah for glory! I lifted my shovel with pride.

My only complaint was that Lieutenant Borginnis - so called - wouldn't let me fish the Cold Sea. However, as the sky cooled from white to red to purple, and I saw the thousands and thousands of lights from Lunar camp fires spotting the plain, this Borginnis belabored of his own volition to complete Wall 6 under the darkling sky of the thirty-first of April, eighteen hundred and forty-six.

Go to the next chapter of Moonifest Destiny
Go to the table of contents for Moonifest Destiny
Go back to the Quanta home page