Up Ship

Foreword

The further adventures of a number of heroes, from Drummer Boy to King, on Earth and in the Kingdom of Ellendale and, well, beyond.

Join the men of the various Commandos as they rescue abused children, break-up a counterfeiting ring, make it difficult to kill whales, and generally make a name for themselves, while crushing crime and/or evil wherever they encounter it.

Corporal Winn soon to be Lieutenant of the 24th Regiment of Foot.

Or the Naval midshipmen who will soon be captains and will lead the way into the skies. Their first ship will be HMS Eckener.

Will the Dodger find love?

Bucephalus will ride again, but this time he will carry young James of Cooper.

Most of these characters have appeared in previous stories of Ellendale: ‘An Owl on My Sceptre,’ and ‘The Royal Mail Delivers.’ It is not necessary to read those stories first, but a reader will have a better sense of the characters, and the nature of their worlds (yes…worlds — plural), if they do.

For those who mutter about the shortcomings of the younger generation, and the certain disaster facing civilization because of that youth: well, perhaps they should remember that David Glasgow Farragut, first admiral of the US Navy, entered combat at age eleven as his ship was shot to wreckage beneath his feet. Jean Nicholas Arthur Rimbaud ended his sensational literary career by the age of twenty-one. Horatio Nelson was promoted to Post Captain at the age of twenty-one. These are just a few.

Most of these pictures are my own or were found on the internet without citation or attribution. I believe them to be within the public domain. I generally attribute all works of art and those photos that do mention a source. I make no claim to ownership and there has been no financial exchange. I may have forgotten to attribute one of the space pictures, but they are all from the NASA site.

With thanks to Douglas for all of his advice and suggestions and work. There have been other suggestions that I’ve tried to incorporate. I know now, for example, that one wears ‘the kilt’ not ‘a kilt’. What sins of commission and omission remain are entirely my own.

The rain can come “siling down” in Yorkshire and so it can do so wherever a Yorkshireman might be found.

What is happening here, at its most basic, is that two 21st Century California teens, who happen to be lovers, are catapulted into a different world, in a different dimension, where they were born into incredible roles.

I’ve not really thought it necessary to say, in this tale of wizards, and familiars, and Elves, and Tommy Knockers, but apart from the occasional historical personage, such as Secretariat, whose name might pass through these pages, all of these folks are characters of my imagining and there is no resemblance to any person living or dead express or implied.

In an effort to be helpful, there is a cast of characters and a small glossary attached with this book.

Warning! Warning! There are teenagers in this story and, in the normal way of the world, some of them have sex. There is even sex between boys and girls. Should this seem to you offensive, or is against the law in your locality, you should — but probably won’t — close this site.

Chapter 1

“Sweetheart?” His Serene Highness Field Marshal the Earl Martial Sir Colin Spurgeon Knight Commander of the Star of Swords, Knight Commander of the Sword of Tizona, Personal Councilor, Prince Champion to HM the King, Master of the King’s Horse, Colonel-in-Chief of the Ancient and Honourable Company of Artillerists and Infernal Device Artificers, inquired of his boyfriend.

“Yes dear,” replied His Majesty King Justin III ap Henry VII Indomitable. He was King of Ellendale and the Elven Dominions beyond the Stars, Grand Commander and Cordon, Heavenly Magister, Sword of Justice.

The two eighteen year old boys were lounging on recliners next to the garden palace pool. They’d been swimming. They were both nude. They were also beautiful; they were lightly and evenly tanned; they possessed the athletic build of young men who had been active all their lives. They had been very much in love for almost five years. They had met in school in San Diego; then, neither knew their father, nor suspected that one was a king and the other a field marshal. They never suspected their future.

“We need a dirigible,” Colin continued.

“Why?” Justin wondered, stretching languorously in the warm afternoon. He reached for the champagne and topped off their flutes. He kissed Colin. They kissed for a few moments until some gentle clinking distracted them and they saw two young Bwca1 footmen setting out their lunch. The two footmen, Taras and Keisha, were nude and they were also handsome and in love with each other. So they always served at the garden pool at private times where nudity and beauty was the norm; in the usual manner they were invited to join the King and His Marshal for a very beautiful lunch. This lunch was beautiful gastronomically, as well as for the beauty of the diners.

But duty obtruded. After lunch, Thomas, now a warrant officer and longtime attendant to Colin, arrived with the Marshal’s uniform and Vyvyan, Principal Valet to HM the King, arrived with the King’s. Warrant Officer Thomas had a corporal and two troopers in attendance to carry all the various items of the Marshal’s uniform. Likewise, Vyvyan had an apprentice valet and two footmen to handle the King’s majesty. Needless to say, neither Thomas nor Vyvyan actually carried anything.

Then they were away, the King to a meeting of the Railroad Council and then the Government Council; the Marshal to a meeting to consider the ramifications of the Trollian application to place a regiment of light infantry in the King’s service as well as other matters military.

“Do you remember Simon?” Colin inquired later at tea, “the apprentice familiar that adopted Colonel DeLucca and his boys? He stopped by for a visit this afternoon. Seems the Colonel wants to set-up a permanent organization to rescue children in peril. I like it. What do you think?”

Justin nodded. “I think that’s a great idea. We’ve rescued some of our best people; Gary, and Lawrence and the liegemen. We’ve even turned around a few who looked to be going the other way at first. The Dodger is great with the horses. Great idea!

“You gonna use dirigibles for that?” Justin grinned.

“No, I don’t think so, at least not unless we want to make a splash,” Colin was being very serious as he tended to be when operations were being discussed.

“Speaking of splashes, didn’t you just love the to-do when your men returned the Raphael to Warsaw and the Klimt to the Steiner family?2 That was wonderful, even serious papers like The Guardian and The New York Times covered it extensively; every conspiracy enthusiast in the world is ecstatic. You have given them real facts to work with for a change. If only they knew. As it is, you’re the unknown hero of every conspiracy-o-phile in the world. Is that a word? I wonder?

“How did you do it, anyway? You never said.”

“Well, I grabbed a bright young cornet from the Guards Hussars, James Miles-Pemberton, and gave him an excellent sergeant and a squad from the 24th, that’s a Bwca regiment you may remember, with instructions to be inventive and to bring the plan to me for review before action. They infiltrated the Royal Castle in Warsaw and set the Raphael on an easel just inside the locked main entrance. We should have positioned a camera somehow. I bet the look on the poor guard’s face who unlocked the doors and first saw the Raphael was wondrous. And the Steiner family woke up to find the portrait of Trude Steiner in the living room watching them from an easel. Little miracles to distract the 21st Century.

“They’ll be busy for a while yet.”

“Which brings me back to dirigibles,” Justin twinkled at his love. “You never said.”

“Well I was thinking more along the lines of exploration and perhaps scheduled passenger service to major cities and certainly across oceans. There are nowhere near enough familiars to move all the people who’d like to move about on business or pleasure. The railroads have really benefitted everyone and I think these airships may, too. After all, we can’t get to Australia by rail.

“Just think about it. A ship of the air. Six, mebbe seven hundred feet long. Moving majestically through the sky. What a sight. What a statement.

“Remember, the zeppelin people started carrying passengers in 1911 and never had an injury until the Hindenburg in 1937. And they used hydrogen. We’ll use helium. It won’t explode. Much safer than airplanes.”

++++++++

The Viscount Sir Lawrence of Coronado, KH, PC, Physician Royal, was carefully chivying his lover, Humphrey Abstruse, PC, OGD, Steward to the King and Principal Royal Wizard, into his robes. The robes that the Wizards Guild Manual prescribed for a ‘formal royal occasion’. They were elaborate and fraught with opportunity for Humphrey to worry. And Humphrey, on his worst day, was a world class worrier.

The worry was wasted. Lawrence knew it would be. Tea with the King and his Marshal was relaxed and informal, as meetings with old friends so often are. The matter of business required only a few minutes discussion.

“I need a university complex,” Justin observed. “I think I mentioned this in the note, but Humphrey, I want you to get it started. You did a good job with the schools at the Summer Palace. This is much larger, but I can think of no one better qualified than you to start the project.”

Humphrey tried to control his joy and enthusiasm. He could already see himself in magnificent academic robes: ‘Chancellor of the College Royal’ had a certain ring to it.

“There will be military colleges attached. I want a huge field attached as I’m thinking of building a zeppelin,” Colin smiled.

“I want a medical college with a teaching hospital, as well as a college of music; I want to study aviation and the science of flight as well as the history of our worlds; this is to be an unparalleled center of learning and of all the arts and sciences. I want all of the contents of the Great Alexandrine Library in one place.3

“You’ll have our full support.” Justin smiled.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Lawrence offered with a smile as he knew that Humphrey was speechless.

++++++++

Corporal Winn and six troopers were working on the case of the SS sturmbahnfuhrer who had been hiding-out in Des Moines. Simon, a black and white cat, who also just happened to be an apprentice familiar, was with them; they were following a lead involving what was believed to be some missing bullion that was almost assuredly financing something that ought not be financed.

They were in a rural area where prosperity did not appear to be the norm. Corporal Winn believed they were within a quarter mile of the farm that bore the address they had obtained from the sturmbahnfuhrer’s office.

Hold Winners, Simon seemed to be whispering even telepathically when there was no sound anyway.

“Whip. Whip poor will,” Corporal Winn sang the whip-poor-will song to halt the advance of his men.

See that house just across the road there. There is something very wrong there and I feel we’d better check it out.

“But wot is it? We gotta job, ya know.” Winners whisper griped.

Dunno. I gotta get closer. I’m new to this too, ya know; I’m no Cameron4, sorry to say. The little cat disappeared into the gloom of the farm yard.

A barn owl sounded, seemingly in the distance; this owl, however, was calling Winners soldiers back to him. They took position in the ditch across the road from the farmhouse that had alarmed Simon.

Corporal Winn and his men were all Bwca and were all members of the 24th Regiment of Foot. They had been hand-picked for this assignment by Colonel DeLucca KT, and had also been rearmed. They no longer carried their long Enfield model rifles; now they each carried a long barreled Colt revolver of the type favored by the Colonel5, five of them were also equipped with pump action shotguns, loaded with alternating rounds of buck shot and slugs, and one of them carried an infantry model Krag-Jorgensen6. They had been extensively trained. This was the crew that had slipped unseen into the Royal Castle in central Warsaw to return a painting stolen years before by the nazis. Now, they only wore their red tunics on full dress occasions.

They waited still and in silence until Simon came bounding across the road just like any cat out and about on its evening rounds.

Here’s the deal. He didn’t have to whisper. There are five people in that house across the road and crimes against humanity are in progress. In the basement there’s a twelve year old boy whose been beaten regularly and is starved. His torture is getting worse and there’s more of it. It’s been really bad the last few months. He will soon die if it continues. In the attic, there’s a girl, fourteen, she’s better fed, and her beatings aren’t as severe or frequent as the boys’, but she’s also regularly raped by her father.

The other three are on the floor level. The parents are in the living room. They’re watching the television and are very drunk. In the kitchen, there’s the youngest. A boy of nine. He runs errands, bring them drinks, waits on ‘em, that sort of thing. He’s a good soul and tries to get food and drink to the other two when he can. He gets cuffed around, but won’t be seriously mistreated until his older brother dies. The man has created a religious haze in which his first son represents the devil and his daughter is the temptress Eve. Both are evil incarnate in his eyes and must be controlled at all times and punished regularly. He believes he is doing God’s work so there’s no talking to him. Right now he’s tryin’ to read the bible to his wife but he’s too drunk to make any sense at all an she’s tryin’ to watch the TV and is just as drunk anyway.

Corporal Winn digested this information. “Right. We can’t be ‘avin crimes like that. The King won’t ‘ave it. Shiner take the northwest corner of the farmhouse. Taffy take the southeast corner. Keep it covered. Nobody comes out but sojers.

“Tich and Dusty, on signal you go in the kitchen door. Control the boy. Cover the door to the basement.

“Charley an Smudger. Yer wif me an we goes through the front door. We secure the couple. Nobody gets up the stairs. Smudger, leave the long gun covered near the porch.

“When we’re all in place, Simon will tell me, the nightjar will call, an in we goes. Take yer posts.”

And seven virtually invisible shapes moved silently through the farm yard and took up their assigned positions.

They’re ready.

“Crick. Crick…Chi RRrrrrrr,” the nightjar sang.

This squad had easily and silently infiltrated a major cultural treasure, a palace in fact, in the heart of a major capital city. A palace containing priceless cultural and art treasures; a palace with layers of complex, state of the art, security measures in place. They had accomplished this without noise or detection. This dilapidated farmhouse posed neither challenge nor difficulty.

Tich opened the kitchen door quietly. A young boy looked up at him startled. Dusty moved quickly to a position where he could guard the basement door and the entrance to the dining room. Tich put his finger to his lips and whispered, “Shhhh. We’re ‘ere to ‘elp yers.” The boy began to cry; but he cried silently as he had learned to do, to avoid further punishment.

The front door offered no challenge and Charley butt stroked the man with his shotgun before he could put down his bible much less get off the sagging sofa. Charley was well trained. When rendering a suspect unconscious with a butt stroke, care must be taken to keep one hand on the stock of the shotgun to avoid breaking the stock at the receiver. Smudger heaved the drunken woman, she was so drunk she was scarcely aware, onto the floor and quickly tied her hands behind her back.

“All clear here.” Corporal Winn announced.

“Clear here,” Tich echoed from the kitchen.

Charley and Smudger heaved the unconscious man off the sofa onto the floor and tied his hands securely behind his back. Then they went up the stairs to locate and check on the girl.

In the kitchen, Dusty went down the basement steps to check on the prisoner held there while Tich continued to comfort the boy. They quickly reported that both prisoners needed medical attention, the sooner the better.

Corporal Winn’s military operation had gone off the rail before it had even started, he now had to improvise. Colonel DeLucca had warned all the men of the Special Commando that, “No plan will survive first contact with the enemy.”7 In this case, he had only begun to approach the start of the plan and everything went up in the air.

“Right! Smudger, get Taffy an Tich. Start up the road to the first objective. Be silent. Don’t be seen. I’ll send Simon along and follow ye as quick as I kin.

“Simon, I got three kids wot needs ‘ospital right now like. Then I gots two capital prisoners wot needs ter be in slam. How quick kin yer move the kids and get back?”

Shouldn’t take long. I’ll take ‘em to infirmary at base announce them as victims from ops and flash out before they starts on me with twenty questions. I’ll have the youngest one explain everything to the doc.

And with the usual snap-flash he and the three children were gone.

“Charley?”

“Corp?”

“I’m not leavin’ any one ‘ere to babysit these gawps. We got an ops to do. Needs an orficer for a trial. They’ll ‘ave to wait fer judgment. Tie ‘em up so they can do aught but breath.”

With the usual ado, Simon returned. They’re delivered.

“Good, get on up the road and meet up wif the lads. Locate the target and set up a perimeter. We’ll be right behind. Imshi!”

And Simon was gone again.

++++++++

Lieutenant Colonel Owen ap R Evans ST8 had not been surprised when he received a summons to luncheon with the King and Marshal Spurgeon, commander of the King’s Armies. He had commanded the 3rd Battalion of the 24th Regiment of Foot since its first mobilization prior to the Trollian War. His battalion had not been reduced at the end of the war and remained the only line regiment that was maintained at the three battalion level. He knew the King and the Marshal rather better than most field grade officers of the army.

He had been a dinner guest of the King and the Marshal when they first came to Ellendale; they were the Prince Royal and Colonel of the Ancient and Honourable Company of Artillerists and Infernal Device Artificers then. He had been depot commander at the Prince Royal’s palace at the time and this accident of assignment had given him his great chance.

Luncheon, for Colonel Evans had passed in a haze. He was to be the next Governor General of Australia with the local rank of major general. He would have a familiar. He could see himself with a field marshal’s baton. He would need a household. “Oh Good Lord,” he prayed.

++++++++

“Teddy,” Colonel DeLucca KT, inquired of his protégé.

Teddy had been a rent boy in San Diego. It would have been “Mister D” then, and he had hired Teddy for the night as he often did. This meant that Teddy got regular meals, a chance to shower, some necessities, and a good night’s sleep. There was also some cash. Not what his fees for the night would normally be, but there were no services to render for the night. He would be off the street and entirely safe for a few days. He was a guest in the fullest sense of the word.

Mister DeLucca was constantly striving to arrange safe places for the children of the street. There were so many.

But that was the night that the world changed. Gary Ashmore had come knocking on his door with a familiar and one of the King’s Liegemen. They had gone on to smash a child prostitution ring, freed many of the street children from a truly savage pimp; then they had gone on to serve the King in the Trollian War and the aftermath. They had a retirement home on what their old world called the French Riviera. Three younger street kids rescued from the Rajah lived with them. An apprentice familiar, Simon, had joined them there; but he also served with the Special Commando and frequently told Teddy and the others tales of their training and adventures.

“Are you still determined to be a sailor?” Colonel DeLucca continued. In the natural way, he had rather hoped that Teddy would go into the 5th Cavalry, the regiment that he had formed for the King and which had distinguished itself in the Trollian War and had become a “Royal” regiment in honour of that service.

“Yes, Père des Loupes,” Teddy smiled at the man he thought of as his father; the man who had certainly more than fulfilled that role in his life. The man he loved as a son loves his father. The man he loved without reservation. Only except not enough to join the 5th Cavalry.

“How about I put you in for the new naval academy that will open next year?”

“That would be great mon Père. Thank you. Mebbe Cody or Willy or Kyle will wanna go for a soldier.”

++++++++

Corporal Winn’s team had again established a perimeter on opposite corners of the shop building that Simon told them contained seven men. Four of them were melting gold and pouring it into coin molds and three of them were working on an industrial grade copier that was printing copies of their newsletter. There were a number of weapons on the premises and two of the men had holstered pistols on their belts.

Simon had silently coursed all around the building. The improvised foundry was in one room, the copier and related equipment in another. There was a house nearby, but no one was in it at the moment.

One of the men in the foundry announced that he needed to “take a dump” and was told to bring fresh beers back from the house. He got into the kitchen, turned the light on, and was cold-cocked quite professionally by Dusty. They didn’t want to rattle the men in the shop with gun shots, but they didn’t want the erstwhile foundry man to do any shouting either. Tich and Dusty bound and gagged him and resumed their positions.

Corporal Winn had a problem; he had orders to shut this operation down and in the normal course of events that’s precisely what he intended to do. But he wanted to do this without casualties, or even injuries, to his men. Minimum damage to the suspects would be nice, but was well down on his list of priorities. The molten gold was a problem. The suspects were melting gold ingots that weighed several pounds, into smaller gold coins. Apparently this would make it easier to convert the gold to cash. Pretty hard to take a bar of gold into Staples and buy printing supplies. Couldn’t just take it to the bank, either, there were all sorts of regulations, not to mention the nazi eagles stamped in the bars. So the suspects were making counterfeit Krugerrands which they were selling on-line. As crime went, it was pretty decent. The Krugerrand was a bullion coin, it had no collector’s value, and if the counterfeit coins weren’t authentic, they were 90% pure gold and weighed one ounce. No harm done. They even sold the coins at the market value of the gold. But these were just so many metaphysical subtleties to the Corporal. He had orders to close the operation and arrest the suspects and that was what was going to happen.

Corp?

“What.”

They’re coming to a stop for the night. They’re almost out of propane for the furnace so these are the last coins they’ll pour tonight.

“Good!

“Here’s the plan. When they shuts down the furnace, they’ll prolly stand around relaxin’ fer a bit. Mebbe the two in the printing room comes into the furnace room. Mebbe not. Onyway, on signal I want two flashbangs into the printing room, and two into the foundry. Then we goes in. Call out that we’re the police and they’re under arrest. Mebbe they’ll surrender. If they does, good, if not, take ‘em down.

“Simon, give us a signal when you think it’s best to go.”

It was only a moment, but it seemed a small eternity to the soldiers.

Go! Go! Go! Simon called to all of them.

There were a series of explosions as the flashbangs went off, stunning the suspects for a few precious seconds as the men of the Special Commando poured in. There were shouts of, “Police! Police!” Which might have been more effective if there hadn’t been other shouts to: “’Alt! ‘Alt! In the King’s name!”

One of the suspects just had to pull his pistol. He had no chance to take aim before Taffy leveled him with a single shot from his magnum that struck the suspect in the left shoulder putting him down and out.

Simon spent the next few minutes transporting all of the prisoners back to headquarters, including the two who had been slowly killing their children.

That done, they collected three of the four gold bars that hadn’t been smelted, but left the rest of the apparatus and the counterfeit coins, for the local authorities. Winn went to the telephone and dialed 9-1-1.

“Oi,” he told the operator. “Out ‘ere on Baxters street….”

Bradstreet Road!

“Bradstreet Road I means, there be prollems. There wuz this couple wot wuz killin’ their kids an there wuz counterfeit nazi’s just doon the road from them. Bye now.”

There was the usual snap flash. But Corporal Winn had hung the phone up properly, so no one heard. The authorities were left to puzzle over a hundred plus counterfeit gold coins, a bar of gold bullion wearing a nazi eagle, an undamaged computer, a smashed copy machine, a huge stack of nazi hate mail, and, separately just down the road, an empty farmhouse where it was obvious that someone had been tied to two different beds and badly mistreated.

++++++++

St George Kilverstone Davids was standing in the hall outside The Prince Ashmore’s breakfast nook, waiting for the prince to emerge. He was wearing his usual footman’s livery. He was going to make a request of the prince.

Gary emerged from breakfast. He had breakfasted alone as his lover, Sir James Wolsey, was in the capital involved with the university project. He noticed his footman, St George, as who could not, for the boy was radiantly beautiful. Somehow, though the livery for the footmen was purchased off the rack in approximate sizes, St George’s livery fit him as if it had been carefully tailored just for him.

St George smiled the smile that had routinely changed his world. It was the smile that demolished red tape and whisked an orphan, resident of an orphanage, into a plum job with the Post Office. “Highness-Gary,” his eyes twinkled as he used his special name for the prince. “Could I have a word?”

“Of course,” Gary grinned infectiously, for the ethereal beauty of the boy invariably brought out the best in him. Indeed, there was a great deal of the best in Gary to be brought out. In others as well, but Gary’s was a particularly good and generous soul.

Indeed, in the course of St George’s first job as a post office delivery boy, he delivered a telegram to Gary’s home. Without saying a word, with only a smile, he had so entranced Alain, the butler that he was taken to the kitchen and permitted to make all the sandwiches, and drink all the sparkling cider, that he wanted. The next day, he was offered his current job as a footman. And now he was ready to ask a favor. He was ready to move on.

“Gary-Highness?” His smile was one of cosmic perfection, the curve of the lips, the hint of a dimple, the suggestion of laugh lines. “Can I ask a favor?”

“Of course,” and Gary knew in his heart of hearts that, whatever the favor was, he would happily grant it if it was within his power.

“Next year will be the first class at the new naval academy. I’d like to go.”

“Well of course. What could be better? Let’s see, we’d better get a tutor to make sure you’re up to speed in all your subjects. And you’ll need an allowance while you’re at the academy, and this will be your official as well as your real home. You’ll be a credit to all of us! Yes.”

St George smiled his beatific smile, “Thank you Highness-Gary. I love you.”

Gary beamed at him lovingly. St George did not know it, he was oblivious to it, but his beauty was candescent.

NEXT CHAPTER