Three months was quite a long time.
In an age where smartphones, television, and the internet had not been invented, that span felt especially long.
People embroidered, tended their kitchen gardens, and still had so much time left over they didn’t know what to do with themselves. Food and clothing had been taken care of for everyone, so they were all bored out of their minds with nothing to do.
And that boredom soon… found release in another direction.
“Uh… do we really need to go that far?”
“Of course! We have to stop the Spanish army!”
“Spending two or three days a week entirely on military training… does that really make sense…?”
“If the Spanish army attacks, won’t we all die anyway? And Mr. Nemo, you even saw a Spanish warship with your own eyes, didn’t you?”
At Eleanor’s sharp retort, I had no choice but to shut my mouth. Lawyer Hewet seized the opening and continued.
“She is right. That is only because you do not fully understand the wickedness of the Spanish, Mr. Nemo.”
“I do understand well enough, but…”
“There are various pamphlets, so you should take a look. They describe in detail how those Spaniards exploited and massacred the natives they call ‘Indios’…”
“…”
Hey. You people are going to do pretty much the same thing later.
You know, scalping, building things like concentration camps, spreading disease bombs…
Anyway.
I couldn’t say that to the settlers, who were being perfectly serious.
Besides, according to the records, the Spanish really had sent a fleet to search for our colony, so it wasn’t an entirely needless worry.
If the Spanish came, not only the settlers here but even our allies in Manteo’s tribe would all die.
No matter how troublesome it was, I couldn’t stop them. Even if my claim that I had seen a Spanish warship was a small lie, there was no way of knowing whether real Spanish forces might drop by here.
“S-so… what you want to prepare is…”
“We need wooden shields to stop enemy bullets!”
“I’d like there to be some sort of plan. If the Spanish come, those who need to evacuate can evacuate, and those who will fight can remain and fight.”
“And we are desperately short on gunpowder.”
On top of that.
“Wooden shields? Do you think those can stop bullets?”
“Isn’t the shortage of gunpowder an unavoidable problem?”
“As for a plan, how exactly do you intend to make one? If able-bodied men with steel swords come at us, everyone will die the moment close combat begins, won’t they?”
Every time I sat in on the settlers’ meetings, I wanted to butt in.
They were far too ignorant of the tools of the future, and because of that, the discussion kept going in circles.
“…Um, excuse me?”
“What is it, Lord Nemo?”
In the end, I had no choice but to bring it up.
“Actually… what would you think if the materials for gunpowder could be found nearby in unlimited quantities? Could we make gunpowder…”
“Of course we could! I am a former English sailor!”
“…So you have the materials?”
“…Yes.”
Of course I had more than enough.
After all, the main components of nitrogen fertilizer and gunpowder are similar.
“And you said you needed shields? And you asked what we would do about close combat?”
“Y-yes… That is correct.”
“Do not worry about that either. Let us go to the warehouse together.”
If you live in the countryside, you’re supposed to be able to repair and maintain your own house and nearby facilities to some extent.
In other words, I had materials for repairing the exterior walls of the greenhouse as well.
“…And, whew. Let’s put things in order. You want to deal with close combat?”
“Yes. That is correct.”
“Then… in short, we just need to be able to trample to death any enemies who come close, don’t we?”
“Uh, yes, well, that is true.”
I took even the man who said he had once been a sailor with me and headed to the warehouse.
When I opened the galvanized iron door of the warehouse, I immediately pointed at “that” and said,
“Suppose I drove that and charged at the enemy.”
“…Yes.”
“Would the enemy die? Or not?”
“…They would die.”
“Good.”
I clapped my hands and summarized all the discussions we had had so far.
“Then… let us settle the Spanish invasion issue like this for now. We will train, make shields with ‘that,’ and charge at the enemy driving ‘this.’”
There were no particular objections.
And for three months, we worked ourselves to the bone.
***
The quiet eastern shore of Croatoan Island was surrounded by a gray sea that looked as though it might freeze over at any moment. The waves rose high as if to swallow the snow clouds, then collapsed onto the sandy beach.
A wind heavy with salt and unbearable chill clawed madly along the coastline and beyond.
And there, a lone hut stood.
It was a coastal outpost guarded by a few sentries, the English flag that had once flown there now taken down.
From this place, the inhabitants of Croatoan Island kept watch for any ship sent from England. They did not know when Eleanor’s father, John White, who had come from beyond the rising sun, would send a relief ship.
“…Huh?”
Chauko, who had been staring intently through the ashen-white curtain made by snow and clouds, spotted a single dark “dot.”
Unable to tell whether it was a seabird or an illusion of the eyes, he frowned and looked toward the horizon once more.
The dot had multiplied into four.
“Uh, uhh…?”
When he blinked again,
“they” were no longer dots.
And on those ships were symbols the Europeans had taught them.
They were not the symbols of allies.
They were…
—“They are barbarians who burn people alive if they do not believe in their god! I definitely heard that when I was in London!”
…As Chauko recalled what Manteo had shouted, a chill ran down his spine.
There was no time to delay. Chauko ran at once.
When he sprinted toward the village where his people lived, he saw Manteo and the young men of the village in the middle of practicing how to shoot guns.
The moment Chauko saw Manteo, he shouted,
“S-Spain!”
That one word.
At that brief word, Manteo’s face, which had been wearing a relaxed smile, turned cold.
Soon, the young men of the tribe shouted and roused the villagers who had been idling about. They took only the bare minimum of belongings they could carry and left the village.
Time was short.
There was little time before the enemy landed.
***
December 20, 1588.
With only five days left until Christmas, the villagers moved even more busily. They had all arrived here in 1587, so this was already their second Christmas in America, but…
No one thought of it that way.
To them, this was their true first Christmas in this place.
Even those who had lost family or companions set aside their mourning for the moment and, with joyful hearts, picked fruit and prepared food for the festival.
With the mood like that, I too could not stay still.
…I made a big decision and put several roosters on the list for slaughter. The hens? Of course not. They had to keep laying eggs and increasing the flock.
Anyway, to put it briefly.
Everyone was excited.
Even I, who was not a sixteenth-century Puritan, found my spirits lifted along with them. I liked the positive energy people gave off for no particular reason, so I even joined in when they prayed or held worship.
That was what the settlement was like now.
“It has begun to snow. Is your house all right, Mr. Nemo?”
“Uh… why do you ask so suddenly?”
“Oh, no reason. It’s just that I have never once seen you carrying firewood home.”
“…”
“I wondered if perhaps you might be cold. I saw that your house has a chimney, so there must be a stove…”
I’m sorry. That thing is fake, made of bricks and boards.
My mother, who had been a huge fan of Anne of Green Gables, had once wailed that she would not be able to close her eyes even in death unless she recreated the exact appearance of the “Green Gables” where Anne had lived.
In the end, we had nearly given up central heating and gone so far as to heat the house only with a fireplace like in the nineteenth century… until I barely managed to stop her by asking if that made any sense, and we settled for making only a fake chimney and a fake fireplace.
In other words, our house ran on hot-water boiler floor heating, just like an ordinary Korean home.
And the boiler, like the faucet that endlessly spat out purified water, somehow kept running all on its own.
“I am all right.”
Of course, there was no need to tell them any of this. I simply nodded and smiled.
“The first priority is making sure the firewood all of you use does not run out. And if I had taken that much firewood for myself, would we have been able to decorate all those trees?”
***
“To think someone so wealthy would live so frugally and yield firewood for the sake of others!”
Deeply moved, Eleanor committed “Mr. Nemo’s” words to memory so she could write them in her diary.
Naturally, “Mr. Nemo” himself knew nothing of the sort.
***
Huh? Why does Eleanor look like that… No, never mind. Anyway.
The Christmas scenery I was familiar with would only take shape in the nineteenth century. There was still no Santa Claus or Rudolph at Christmas.
Of course, I could understand the lack of Santa Claus. This was still the sixteenth century.
Since there was no Santa Claus to hand out gifts, I understood the lack of gift exchange too. Christmas right now was simply a religious holiday.
But with no trees either, it felt far too bleak, so I taught them about those. Once we put candles and aluminum ornaments on the trees, they really were pretty.
And so, countless branches glittered with the aluminum pieces Mr. Brown had made hanging from them, and the sight was quite magnificent.
“…Now it finally feels a bit like Christmas.”
“Did they celebrate Christmas in your homeland as well, Mr. Nemo?”
“Of course. Grand lights were lit on every street, and people bought presents for children or donated their wealth to the poor on earth.”
“How…! It must have been beautiful!”
“Yes, it was beautiful.
…Especially the people dressed as Santa Claus and Rudolph…”
“Lord Nemo!”
Ah, damn it.
I was at the crucial moment of spreading the existence of Santa Claus to the world for the first time, and someone had to interrupt?
When I turned around, the gate in the palisade was open, and men with grave expressions were running toward me.
“…Uh, Mr. Hewet?”
The respected lawyer of this settlement. He had been quick to learn the native language, so we had sent him to Manteo’s tribe as an envoy, and now he had suddenly returned?
With dozens of native men, no less?
“Hah, haah, it seems we are not too late. They have come! They have!”
“…”
If he meant “they”… surely…
…At first it had been a lie, and after reading some records, I had come to think it was a worry with some basis.
But of all times, now?
When I looked beside me, Eleanor grasped the situation faster than I did.
Her face had already turned pale, and she was running toward the settlement. As she shouted at the top of her lungs, the others stopped what they were doing and immediately began heading to their assigned positions.
Yes.
For all these past days, there had not been much to do. Food supplies had become comfortable, and there was almost no need to worry about survival.
Other than chasing away birds that pecked at the potatoes, there had been little else to do.
And when there was nothing else to do, we did not simply play. For months, we had drilled the same patterns of action over and over.
Eleanor repeated a single word again and again.
“Spain!”
And at that word, everyone moved exactly as they had trained.
“Manteo, how much time do we have?”
“Probably about three or four hours. That is how long it will take for the Spaniards to land and find this place.”
“How far have your people come?”
“Right over there! They are almost here!”
“Have them all evacuate toward the greenhouse, and you and the able-bodied men take your guns and wait near the entrance!”
“Understood!”
“Everyone, take your shields and guns and gather at the entrance!”
At that, all the adult men and women of the settlement gathered, each holding a transparent shield and a musket.
The elderly and children had already finished evacuating long ago.
Thus, a chill span of time passed. I headed straight for the warehouse, started “that” up, and then likewise moved toward the gate.
Clack. Clack-clack. Clatter. Clack.
Soon, the sounds of metal and shouted commands rang out.
“They” soon gathered at the one place where we had not yet managed to build a palisade: the entrance of the settlement.
Before long, shouting could be heard.
“In the name of Felipe II, the rightful king who rules Spain by sacred blessing!”
“...”
“We shall grant you English heretics and your allied Indios a chance to spare your lives! If you swear with all loyalty to serve your new sovereign...”
Bang!
Thud.
“Go to hell!”
“...”
“...”
With Eleanor’s shout, silence descended upon the island.
And that was the first death of the battle.
***
Vicente Gonzalez, his face flushed red, immediately shouted to the adjutants around him.
“Those damned wretches! The English dogs have killed our envoy! There will be no more mercy for them!”
Of course, they had never had any reason to spare the English.
Man or woman, child or elder—there were more than enough reasons to execute them all in horrible agony and then plunder what remained, so they likely would have done just that.
Thus, Gonzalez’s anger did not stem from his mercy being rejected.
It stemmed from the fact that the process leading to arson, plunder, massacre, and so on had become somewhat longer and more troublesome.
But conveying that entire thought process one by one would be both undignified and inefficient.
So instead of paying attention to the bizarre structures inside that wooden palisade and wire mesh, Vicente shouted a single word.
“Fire!”
Tatatatatatatang!
At once, the muskets of veteran colonial soldiers—men who had fought countless Englishmen and massacred countless Indios—spat fire.
Should we have brought cannons after all...? No. In any case, the obstacles standing between us and them are as crude as can be. Unless we intend to lay siege, there is no need for cannons.
Tatatang! Tatatatang!
When the Spanish army fired, the English and the natives likewise fired their guns. However, the civilians’ volley fire was somewhat crude and clumsy.
For a long while, the smoke of gunpowder tickled the soldiers’ noses, the acrid stench stung their eyes, and their vision was obscured. Again and again, the two sides fired and kept firing, waiting for the other’s powder to run dry.
And then.
Whoooooosh.
When a clear wind blew through the battlefield where the volley fire had ceased, Vicente witnessed an unbelievable sight.
“Guuuuh... Cough...”
“Uuugh...”
It was not surprising that about thirty of their 211 men had collapsed and were lying on the ground.
Whether fired by a young girl, an old woman, or a sturdy man, a gun was a gun, and the English had fired guns as well. On the battlefield, death was as impartial as the merciful Lord.
Naturally, if volleys had been exchanged at this range, it was only natural that this many would be wounded.
Therefore, what startled him was not his own men.
“...They are not dead?”
It was the enemy.
To the naked eye, only—only one or two people at most had fallen.
It was hard to believe this was all that sailors hardened by countless acts of piracy and the suppression of rebellions had achieved.
But he would never be able to resolve this question.
That the shields they held were made of the same material as the greenhouse behind the farm.
That the material was PC sheeting.
That the outer walls of the Lexan smart greenhouse, into which one father’s retirement pay had been poured, could never be pierced by mere sixteenth-century matchlocks.
He could not know.
Yes. Retirement pay was stronger than gunpowder weapons.
Vicente’s face finally went beyond red and turned bluish.
He drew his Toledo steel sword himself, stepped forward, and shouted.
“Charge! Charge and tear those English savages to pieces!”
“Uwaaaaaaah!”
The Spanish soldiers swarmed forward, shouting as they clambered straight over the iron fence.
None of them could understand what sorcery had just occurred, but in any case, if it came to hand-to-hand combat, they would certainly have the advantage.
Or so they thought...
“Fire!”
Tatatatatang!
“Kuh...!”
“Kyaaaaak!”
By this point, Vicente could not understand the situation at all.
...Why?
From the information they had gathered, there was no way those people could have stockpiled more gunpowder than they had.
How could a half-failed colony, unable even to receive supplies, have moved here and amassed so much gunpowder?
The answer to his first question could be summed up in two phrases.
Ammonium nitrate fertilizer was treated as a “consumable” on this farm.
And ammonium nitrate was a principal ingredient of black powder.
Of course, just as with the information about the PC sheeting, Vicente had no way of knowing that answer. That was his second question.
And then.
Wooooooooooong!
“...Wh-what is that!”
Bang!
***
What else would it be?
A ten-ton excavator with a top speed of 37.5 kilometers per hour.
This is a map of the area around Croatoan Island! It was created by the author Water Count!