Clash of Empires Read Online Free Page A

have.”

 
    THE TROJANSAURS
    Jack is up a ladder working on Harry’s face when the lieutenants arrive. Some have blood spatter on their uniforms. Most look a little shocked, although one or two seem exhilarated. He knows this look. They have just killed herbisaurs. For most of them this was their first kill of any kind. Not for the tall Irishman, Big Joe Hoyes, though, Jack knows. He has seen much worse on the battlefield.
    Jack ignores them and concentrates on his work.
    The trojansaurs are lined up outside the carpentry workshop, in the open air. Jack would like to see them inside, out of the elements, but they are too large to fit through the workshop doors.
    There are six trojansaurs altogether, named after the legendary wooden saur of Troy. The upper body of a dinosaur mounted on a gun carriage. A practice dummy. When the trail of the gun carriage is resting on the ground and the dinosaur head raised into the air, each is twice the height of a man. That is where Jack is now. He set the ladder carefully and checked it three times for stability before daring to climb it. He focuses on the face so he won’t look down. He does not like to look down.
    The faces are nightmarish, bony-ridged brows over eyes foiled with silver. They reflect even the dull light of the overcast London sky. The nostrils are deep-set and keyhole-shaped. The “skin” is painted with intricate scales. The jaws are open, and white-painted wooden teeth gleam with menace. Each head has taken Jack more than a week to carve and paint in painstaking detail, using skills he learned from his father.
    He has styled them after the six men on his gun crew, lost at Waterloo: Harry, Sam, Douglas, Dylan, Ben, Lewis. In his carvings he has tried to capture something of each person: Dylan’s narrow-set eyes, Ben’s single thick eyebrow, Harry’s wide smile.
    He misses the lads. They always treated him well. They were like brothers. Here he has no brothers and few he could count as friends. Like other survivors of the battle at Waterloo, he is not regarded as a hero. Far from it.
    He marks cuts with a stick of chalk, then holds the chalk with his mouth and takes a chisel and mallet from his belt.
    The lieutenants wander along the line of trojansaurs as Jack chips carefully away at the corner of Harry’s smile.
    The Scotsman, McConnell, stops next to Jack’s ladder.
    â€œI’ll take this,” he says.
    â€œHarry’s not quite ready, sir,” Jack mumbles through the piece of chalk in his mouth.
    â€œ Harry ’s not quite ready, sir.” McConnell mimics Jack, and laughs. “They have names.”
    â€œYes, sir,” Jack says. “After me friends. Who died at Waterloo, sir.”
    â€œYes, Waterloo,” McConnell says. He takes hold of the ladder with both hands. “This ladder doesn’t look stable to me. Is it safe?”
    â€œYes, sir, I hope so, sir,” Jack says, not daring to look down at him.
    â€œLet me check,” McConnell says. He shakes the ladder, grinning around at the others as he does so. Jack’s chisel slips and adds a cruel gash to the corner of the wooden lip. He grabs for the huge, carved wooden teeth of the trojansaur. The chisel clatters off the cobblestones below him, landing at McConnell’s feet. Jack had not even realized that he had dropped it.
    â€œAre you afraid, Sullivan?” McConnell laughs. “Like you were afraid at Waterloo?”
    Jack says nothing. It is true. He was terrified at Waterloo.
    McConnell rattles the ladder again. Jack clings on desperately.
    â€œWell, Sullivan?”
    â€œSir, yes, sir. I’m a bit afraid of heights,” Jack manages.
    â€œWill you run away?” McConnell asks. “As you ran at Waterloo, leaving your friends behind?”
    â€œI didn’t run, sir,” Jack says.
    â€œI think you did, Sullivan,” McConnell says, shaking the ladder again. “And that’s why you lived