Charlie Woods and the Lost Scabbard of King Arthur

Chapter 28 -Shadows Among the Castle Keep

In fact, as they drew closer to the castle in the far distance, already it looked all but abandoned there at the edge of a big valley meadow with high grasses and trees surrounding her bulwarks. It was a tall affair, perhaps five or six stories high, but not big and fat like Cardiff castle. It was more like a wide tower with a single turret, than a castle, surrounded by a lower brick wall with huge bushes at every corner.

There was an old barn about a half mile away that they snuck up to off the road north from Guernica, and out of view of the castle and the town next to it, and they tucked the horse and carriage into the barn's large double doors. It had a hole in the ceiling and pigeons were cooing inside and they flapped about when Charlie and Sam backed the brougham in by hand.

There was a lot of hay in there and work clothes, wading pants, oil-clothed jackets hung on the walls among hay cutting instruments, and a work table with some drawers left open. There was even a large old rifle up on the wall of some ancient unknown make with a drawer open to small boxes of black powder and bullets below it. Sam thought it was too bad that to use such an old instrument might be foolhardy. It might even require loading and ramrodding, insertion of the powder and the lighting of a wick. The farmer had probably used this rarely to kill his cattle when it came time to butcher meat.

Woods ran from this barn towards the castle and a town next to it. The town near the castle was away from it about a quarter mile to the east and separated from the castle by the same swath of woods running along the meadow all the way to the barn. To the east of the castle they could see swamps and the river Mundakako Itsasadarra.

They had just tucked into the barn when another wave of airplanes came buzzing past. They were moving in from the coast along the river and quite low through the middle of the valley amid the surrounding hills. They were headed straight towards Guernica and grew smaller, since Guernica was now about two miles to the south. They could be seen circling and dive bombing like distant flies. You could clearly hear the distant muffled sounds of their bombing and machine gun strafing even from here, two miles away.

Sam and Charlie looked over the landscape. There were sheep on a far bank in a grass field held low by their eating. On the backside of the castle was the river and a swamp that led almost right to its bulwarks.

"Maybe the woods along there, that's where I'll sneak up to the castle." Charlie pointed, "Will you wait for me?"

"Of course, sir. I'll have plenty of company with this mare." He patted her flank. The mare was already chewing on a swath of long grass that Sam had torn and brought into the barn.

* * *

The village right next to the castle looked bereft of people. From a wooden sign along the road Charlie knew it was called Zelaieta. An occasional motor car raced through town to get away from Guernica, but there was not yet a lot of traffic or people on foot. There seemed to be no movement as Charlie peeked at it from behind a tree in a park like setting next to the thicker woods just off the roadway. The houses looked Italian, if anything, and were all painted the same drab pale colors, and where they didn't have thatched roofs, they had red terra cotta. But the woods had thinned considerably until they were now trimmed and well kept as a park between the Castle and the town.

The grounds right next to the castle, however, were not well kept at all, overgrown, but this area of wood leading to it must be a park next to the town or maybe a cemetery since he could see a little chapel and headstones next to it on the town side. Within the courtyard on the heavily grassed castle side were several camouflaged vehicles and an artillery piece hidden in the thick grasses.

And he could see right into town. After a while there was an old Seniora in a long dark dress with her skirts held up to move fast. She left one building and ran into the next across the street there with a slamming door. He did not proceed forward but went back into the deeper woods, and then went at a parallel toward the clearing and castle, and eventually he came to the swamp next to the river Mundakako Itsasadarra and far behind the castle. There appeared to be a great swath of swamp between the river and the castle outer wall.

He could see up on the bulwarks some sudden movement. His eyes were keener than normal with the scabbard on his belt. He made out the slight movement of a bayonet, perhaps up on someone's back patrolling up on a parapet atop of the bulwark circle above the roof-line. There were four of these at each corner of a wall only about twenty feet tall with no connecting walk in between them, just wall top. And next to the castle keep roof was one more bulwark circle, a tall column that went the length of the castle with a roof of its own higher than the castle roof. Undoubtedly there would be a spiral staircase in it leading up and down.

Then he noticed a sudden flash from the top of the castle from behind bulwark up top. It was the reflection perhaps off some glass from binoculars, or maybe a sniper rifle scope. But the person up there did not appear to see him, instead turning to peer northward.

He did see a way in however. He could slip into the river here, which was deeper than in Guernica, and if he could hold his breath for a while, he might be able to swim right up to the wall of the bulwarks. Around the outer wall was thick reeds and maybe swamp water in a kind of moat.

The water was cold, the swamp looked thick, but somehow, he could stand the temperature. There were reeds there along the river and he did try to break a reed and use it for a snorkel, but soon discovered this was impossible. Maybe that was just something he'd only seen in the movies. The reeds here in Spain were filled with debris and plant material, and some squirrely bugs that he had to spit out in disgust.

But the swimming went well. In fact, he was really moving underwater it seemed. And it felt like he could hold his breath nearly forever since his lungs did not hurt, nor did he have any reflex to breathe. But even so, he would ease up to the surface and breathe a few breaths and get his bearings.

His eyesight underwater was also clear. Usually, without the power of the scabbard, it was blurry and painful to keep his eyes open. Surprised schools of little fish among the reeds saw him come through and would disburse. The reeds grew thicker and the floor of the swamp muddier and closer to the surface until finally he was there at the wall which was surrounded by thick brambles and brush.

Though there were thorns and briars, he easily slipped through the thick brush to the wall of the bulwarks. The wall was perhaps only seventy years old. This was not an old castle outer wall, but there were plenty of places, rocks and crags to grab with the tips of his fingers and push with his feet to climb the wall freestyle like a spider. It was invigorating to climb with no pain in his fingertips or arms or legs and with such strength and speed.

He slowed near the top of the wall and took a peek. A soldier was watching the town far away through a pair of binoculars in a bulwark circle set a little out from Charlie's climbing. He didn't yet see Charlie, and so Charlie wiggled over the wall like a salamander and crawled quickly along the wall to the taller circle of the bulwark to climb that up to the fellow from behind, stood up, and just as he was about to deliver a blow to the back of this fellows head a shot rang out and Charlie was struck in the head by a bullet. He collapsed right on top of the fellow he was going to knock out and that fellow let out a yelp. There had been a lot of blood-work splattered.

A man from on top of the Tower, next to the sniper, was yelling to the soldier on the bulwark roof to, "Take off his belt! Take off his belt!" The soldier was very confused about this. He was already shocked by a fellow falling on him with a bleeding hole in his head. What good would it do to take his belt off?

Meanwhile Charlie was on the ground and stunned. The diameter of the hole at the back of his head was quickly shrinking to nothing. Even the hair there was growing back nicely and thick. Then Charlie shuddered, drew in something stuck in his nasal cavity like snot and coughed and then spit out the sabot of a 7mm Spitzer bullet. He had just started to open his eyes and could feel he was now healed and he started to move when someone had run up a staircase onto the bulwark roof and cut off his belt from behind, the belt which was holding the scabbard to his hip.