Where Have All the Muskets Gone?

By Jerry Sciortino

Men and women from the Civil War to the present day cross thresholds of time seeking answers, victory and closure. Their quests take them to the troop ships and battlefields of World War II; to islands in Alaska and New York. Others strive to exorcise malevolent, sadistic spirits from a Confederate soldier lying near death on a battlefield before Appomattox.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jerry Sciortino
• Release date: Sep 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310788789

Jerry Sciortino

Autographed softcover novels may be ordered by contacting author.Please email: [e-mail]

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Cover and Title Page

WHERE HAVE ALL

THE MUSKETS GONE?

by Jerry Sciortino

Two Musketeers LLC

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where footnotes or other acknowledgements are indicated, any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Jerome J. Sciortino

Where Have All the Muskets Gone?

Publisher: Two Musketeers LLC at Smashwords

ISBN: 978-1-62620-083-8

Photos by Jerry Sciortino

Digital Palace, Inc., book designer

Total Printing Systems, Printer

Manufactured in the United States of America

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my brothers, John and Philip -Sciortino, who had hardly laid down their high school books when Uncle Sam called them to take up arms in defense of The United States of -America -during World War II. Jack fought in the Pacific and Phil,

in the European Theatre.

My special thanks go to Phil, from whose memoirs I have -borrowed excerpts and woven them into the fabric of our story. Phil declined to have his own well-scripted memoirs published. When I asked him why not, he replied; I didn’t do anything special that hadn’t also been done by many thousands of other men and women . . . and I was one of those who lived to come home, thanks be to God.

Is there any wonder why such Americans, at war and on the home-front, are called The Greatest Generation?

The reader will have no difficulty in telling which adventures are part of Phil’s genuine history and, which are my poor attempts at fiction.

Novel Directory

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Novel Directory

Prologue: June, 1944

Introduction: Accident of Fate

Chapter 1 Life Goes On, 1890

Chapter 2 Rediscovery: 1895

Chapter 3 A Walk in the Woods: 1906

Chapter 4 First Love

Chapter 5 The Ledger

Chapter 6 Ft. Shenandoah: May, 1998

Chapter 7 I’m the Rugrat

Chapter 8 Dr. Bruce

Chapter 9 First Homecoming

Chapter 10 Love and Death

Chapter 11 Escape to . . . Where?

Chapter 12 Diary: Waiting For Gramps

Chapter 13 The Nestling Has Flown

Chapter 14 Diary: In the Army Now

Chapter 15 Diary: The Stormy Atlantic

Chapter 16 Diary: Reynaud of Normandie

Chapter 17 Diary: Chickens and Racing to Berlin

Chapter 18 Diary: Northern France

Chapter 19 The Heroes Return

Chapter 20 Arrivals and Departures

Chapter 21 Wm. Parker & Co.

Chapter 22 A Time Traveler

Chapter 23 Dreams and Recognitions

Chapter 24 Dominoes and Death

Chapter 25 Appomattox Revisited

Chapter 26 Retrospective and Farewell, 1998

Chapter 27 Alaska: 2010

Chapter 28 Muskets to a Machine Gun Fight?

Prologue

January 5, 1945

The smell of the sea was stronger, now that the ship lay rocking and almost at rest. The engine vibrations ceased and the great bronze propellers no -longer thrashed. Only the faint thump of landing craft nudging the hullside broke the comparative silence of frightened men whispering or praying.

Then were heard the hoarse sounds of commanding voices and the creaking, squeaking sounds made by straining, heavy marine line rubbing against smooth steel. The manila rope netting he grasped ran over the cold, damp deck railing. Peering down to the wave tops was a mistake. No one wished to be reminded of the heaving hell down below.

Second Platoon: To the rails, please.

The uncommon courtesy took a few of the cold, scared young warriors by surprise.

Please? Yeah; can I go home now . . . please? he muttered. Grasping the net as they had been shown, Phil raised his right leg over the rail and slowly began climbing down the scrambling net toward the Higgins Boat bobbing in the roiling, deadly sea.

Falling into that water would mean sudden death. With full field packs, carbines, ammunition, steel helmets and filled canteens, each man carried an extra eighty pounds strapped to his body. If they fell, it would be as if a bag of concrete were strapped to them, they’d be gone in an instant!

The descent seemed interminable. Phil and the others were halted half-way down the nets. Word came from below that the landing craft were being moved away from the hullside by wind and wave action. It was impossible to offload the troops into the small boats quickly. There was danger of men getting crushed between the gunwales of their landing craft and the ship. They already knew what to expect if they missed their step and fell in.

Phil’s thoughts were painfully interrupted as the guy above him accidentally stepped down onto his hand. He muffled a cry but let his tormenter know that his inattention wasn’t appreciated. A fragment of a prayer was heard next to him and sounds of retching came from somewhere above him. Phil hoped that he wasn’t in harm’s way. He breathed a mental sigh of relief that all of the troops wore bloused boots. The bottoms of their pants were tightly bound around their boots. The nightmarish descent continued.

Two sailors shouted up to him; Step square on the rail and jump between us. . .we’ll catch you!

He did . . . and they did. Phil walked carefully to the opposite side of the boat where his buddies stood, silent and wide-eyed, as did he.

As the land mass loomed larger, the troops raised up to catch their first glimpse of their destination. American fighter planes circled over the sea and passed low over the beach.

Keep your head down before a bullet blows it off! shouted one of the seamen.

Phil thought about the thousands of other soldiers who had climbed down those nets on June 6th: The first waves of troops to land on Normandy. Their landings had been made into deeper and rougher surf, and under intense machine gun and sniper fire.

Damn. . .how many of them never even made it to the beach? How many of them never left the beach? How many of us will make it? Will I be one of them?

Phil had no other recollections of the pounding sea or the retching sounds or the voices. Awareness of his surroundings returned slowly. He noticed that the M-3 Carbines that he and his platoon carried made for strange silhouettes against the sky.

A sudden mental leap to his own timeline brought Phil back to Winchester. He thought about his grandparent’s gun shop and the full-stocked muzzle loading guns that Phil’s grandfather, Hunt, had built and repaired. Some of those guns were used in The War Between the States as the Yankees called it.

A brief, numbing detachment fell over Phil just as their landing craft came to a stop and the ramp fell.

Move out down the ramp quickly and don’t bunch up! He heard the seaman shout.

In the moments before he was spurred to action, Phil glimpsed again the short, skinny-barreled .30 cal. carbines, with their lumpy-looking front sights. He smiled inwardly. No one heard him say aloud to himself . . .

Where have all the muskets gone?

Introduction

Virginia, May, 1998

Accidents of Fate

Hi! Please pull up a chair and read awhile. I’ve been volunteered to do a bit of narrating throughout this story. Why me? As one of the original characters, I remember more about the background than does the fellow who wrote it.

In recent years, extraordinary incidents have occurred that, potentially, could have changed life as we know it. They might never have happened, were it not for three unrelated discoveries that were made in years past.

The first of these occurred in 1835, the second in 1939 and the third, occurred in the spring of 1998, when our adventures began.

Nothing about our exploits ever reached the newsstands, not even the lurid magazine racks at supermarket checkout lines. Yet, these early discoveries would help to create ripple effects that passed through the barriers of Space/Time. The events they made possible affected or changed lives and altered history as far back as the 1850’s.

I’ll bet that some readers are already wondering if I’ve been puffing on something illegal. Barriers of Space/Time

. . . my great grandma’s corset! What’s he trying to do . . . snow us with this Sci-fi techno-babble?"

All I can say in reply is this: While you read of our adventures, you might come to realize that what happened to us was anything but techno-babble!

Of course, if you’re lucky enough to have read of our earlier adventures in For the Want of a Musket then the following will just be a quick review.

* * * * * *

It was in 1835 that the first accidental discovery was made by a medical doctor named Everett Maxwell. The good doctor lived in Northern Virginia. When he was not tending to his patients, he traveled widely, searching for and learning about medical applications of herbs and roots.

His special quest was the search for ingredients that could be combined with others of special efficacy to ease some of the pains and discomfort of the senior members of his flock. At last he came upon a compound he thought might do the job. He called it Elixir #3 and began first by testing it on himself, then dispensing it to those in need.

In order to make it more palatable, Dr. Maxwell enriched it with a bit of grain alcohol. He found that adding the alcohol made the stuff delicious. It also masked the nasty taste of other medicines his patients might need to take. As an added bonus, the elixir also encouraged conviviality!

It didn’t take long for the doctor to discover that his elixir didn’t really cure anything, despite its popularity. However, since it eased the work-weary lives of his patients, he was convinced that the elixir did provide an honest, justifiable service.

Maxwell’s practice grew steadily . . . as did the demand for his elixir. The doctor brewed and maintained an ample supply of it in ceramic jugs. These he kept buried in the cold cellar of his home until needed.

A half-century after his sudden death, a number of these unmarked jugs of liquid were unearthed. The next owner of Maxwell’s home found and sampled what he thought was a cache of home brew. He was the first of a chosen few to learn of the really amazing properties of Elixir #3.

* * * * * *

The next discovery occurred in Russia, one hundred and four years later, in 1939. The scientist, Semyon Kirlian, managed to capture an extraordinary image of his hand on a photographic plate. It was done by placing his hand close to a metal plate charged with high voltage electricity. Success was achieved at the cost of a burned palm.

The image created was traced in an almost ghostly aura. The phenomenon, subsequently called Kirlian Effect, was the subject of wide-ranging theories and experimentation for decades to come.

Later on, Dr. Kirlian and his staff began to study the psychic phenomena of the Kirlian Aura. The suggestion that there might be some correlation between the aura and the life force of organic things triggered spurts of interest and imagination from professionals and hobbyists alike.

Later still, popular periodicals featured other Kirlian photographs. In some of these, the images were of hands that were missing fingers and tree leaves that had sections torn away. Amazingly, their Kirlian Auras traced the outlines of the missing parts . . . almost as if the hand and leaves were whole again.

Eventually, some imaginative psychics theorized that Kirlian Aura was mainly a visual manifestation of Kirlian Energy. Since the Kirlian Aura registered the absent, severed parts, it was reasonable to infer that Kirlian Energy transcended temporal barriers: That given sufficient Kirlian Energy and direction, people should be able to move through time. However, none of these theorists were brave enough to conjecture how this might be accomplished or, if it would be possible to go either forward or backward in time.

* * * * * *

The third and final occurrence came in 1998, when Fate brought together two men. The younger of the two had, during his term of military service, taken part in top secret experiments he had no wish to recall. The second was an old man of indeterminable age who had stumbled onto the key of something he had not understood. Meeting first in hostility and suspicion, the two were soon allied in trust. The true beginning of our sagas can be traced back to the coalition of these two men.

So it was that a group of historically-oriented target shooters and friends volunteered and were guided toward undertaking unimaginable adventures. Their two guides brought them to the threshold and supplied them with the key that opened for them a doorway through time.

Chapter One

Life Goes On: 1895

Hunt carefully folded the letter and sealed it in the envelope already addressed to Maureen. He wrapped it and the family photograph in a square of bright fabric that Amy gave him for the purpose. She had even written part of it for him. The package was neatly tied with string and tucked away in a small drawer in his desk. Years would pass before it could be delivered.

The letter had been difficult for him to write. It had been harder still to bid farewell to his friends in 1998.

And yet, the oldest of us will not be born for another fifty years . . . that’s sort of weird, ain’t it?

Hunt smiled grimly, as he thought about that other personality which, now and again, still spoke out in his mind.

The darkening sky would soon deliver its promised rain. Hunt stepped out onto the porch and watched for the first raindrops to strike the still-placid pond.

Since his first glimpse of that spring-fed pond, so many years ago, Hunt seemed to have formed an almost mystical connection with it. After his return home from Appomattox, he would occasionally sit for hours . . . staring into its cold clear waters. These sessions would often result in a self-induced hypnosis.

When rain fell and roiled the surface, it often conjured up images of those who . . . were no more. The widening ripples stirred memories of war; of shouting voices and the moaning cries of the wounded, lying alone on a battlefield. Sometimes he saw the faces of old dear friends and family.

Memories . . . they’re more often a bane than a blessing!

Like tiny ripples . . . racing to expand, they slow and are soon overrun by younger, stronger ripples. So many ripples: So little time to live and less for remembrance.

His mind seemed able to call up and link the faces of people to the places, settings or timeframes in which he had seen them. For someone like him, who had fought his way through four years of war, this was a gift of dubious value.

Blue and gray: Battling hand-to-hand or with saber and bayonet. Blue and gray: Lying dead and dying. Images in ripples of rain. Then one face emerged, clearer than the others.

How could any reasonably sane person cope with living in two or more timelines? How can we be sure which actions should be taken and which must be avoided? How do you learn to live with the wrong decisions you make?

What you mean is; how can a reasonably sane person knowingly let others face injury and death and not go bananas with the guilt? Come on, Hunt: All that you could do to preserve Will’s life was done. He told us plain enough after your closely timed reappearance at the house fire . . .

Yeah, I remember; he said that saving his worthless hide just that once was okay, but only because I got Amy out of the fire first. But if I tried any more of my Jules Verne wizardry on him again, he’d pepper my ass with rock salt.

Hunt’s involuntary laugh startled him out of his reveries and his contemplation of the rain. It drew Amy’s attention away from her sewing.

* * * * * *

Only a few gray strands wound through her luxuriant auburn tresses and her beauty remained undiminished in the eyes of her husband. Amy silently observed her man as he rested an arm on a porch pillar. He barely moved for minutes at a time, lost in his thoughts.

After years of marriage, there were still aspects of her husband’s life that were unknown and unimaginable to Amy. Her father, almost from their first meeting, seemed to fathom some of the mysteries that surrounded Hunt. At later times, both of her men would acquaint her with some of the events that had occurred.

Hunt had suffered fragmentary amnesia prior to his appearance at her father’s gunshop. His memory returned gradually, over a period of years. His amnesia was especially stressful for them both at first, especially since he could not recall his marital status

Years before, though still far in the future . . . a 20th century man named John Romano was accidentally shifted in time. Temporally split, he regained consciousness on a wooded hill some miles north of Winchester on May 12, 1858.

The next morning; gaunt, disheveled and in need of medical attention, the amnesiac caught the attention of Amy’s father. The young man assumed a name he had seen on a passing wagon. He called himself Hunt.

Amy’s eyes welled with tears as she thought about all she’d learned of what he’d gone through. She marveled that his love for her, her father and for his new-found life was strong enough for him to enlist in the Army of Northern Virginia after Secession.

Northern-born and against the dissolution of The Union, Hunt nonetheless upheld the rights of the states to self-govern. He chose to do what he could to preserve his adopted family in a war that he knew would be lost. . .even before it began.

I learned to dread it when it rained, after he returned home from the war. That would be when his thoughts were turned to the past. He would stand unmoving, his face a mask of sadness, watching the rain fall in the pond. I knew he’d made peace with that past when he no longer withdrew inside himself . . . until Father died. Now he does it again.

* * * * * *

The bond between Hunt Morgan and Will Parker had been more like that of close brothers, though thirty-five years separated them. Amy’s father died of heart failure five months ago. Hunt still had not fully recovered from the loss of the man who was his friend, senior partner and father-in-law. But Hunt’s emotional state went beyond mourning: He was almost plagued with guilt and self-loathing!

Prior to her father’s death, Hunt told Amy and Will about Elixir #3, the herbal concoction that had been made by the doctor who had built their house. Hunt gave them a brief description of Kirlian Energy and how it might aid certain individuals to move in time from one location to another.

Hunt deferred some of the questions they had asked pertaining to his knowledge and experience with time traveling. There was simply too great a gap in scientific knowledge and discovery for them to bridge. He assured them that he would provide any answers he could at a later time, if they wished.

That assurance was enough for them. They had witnessed many mysterious moments and events