Raise the Red Flag Read online

  Simpler to transmit the narrative word for word over the crystal, Hamilton thought. But a wave of overwrought precaution prevented that. Some in the Admiralty distrusted the communications technology, fearing sensitive information might be plucked randomly out of the air by the so-called “Colonial Underground.” Hamilton had devised a solution: simply encrypt the messages. But he didn’t suggest his idea to anyone in authority. His jackyank status meant his official proposals often went ignored.

  “Thirty seconds to tethering, sir.”

  They had crossed the river to Algiers Point, an unassuming plot of land where the airdock was located. There followed another last few commands and acknowledgments, a soft bump as the ship was skillfully guided to the tethering tower; then the stairwell was wheeled up to the GB-254, and the crew began orderly debarkation.

  The Indomitable would remain afloat and secured while maintenance squads went to work on her, under the chief engineer’s supervision. Hamilton bade his bridge officers farewell as they slipped out one by one. He finally walked alone to his quarters.

  The airdock’s duty officer awaited him below, but he felt no need to hurry. He had a bag packed for his stay in New Orleans. He was being billeted with a major who had guest quarters in the Lakeview district. It promised to be a restful, stultifying sojourn. Cigars in the study, great guffawing stories from the ruddy-faced major, who he vaguely recalled as a boor. Proper meals prepared by proper servants. The whole experience would be positively… English.

  In his cabin Hamilton Arkwright pulled down a book from the back of his crowded shelves. It was a volume of verse. He didn’t intend to do any reading just now. He let the pages fall open, and there it was, the daguerreotype. Actually it was something better than that, a mechanically produced representation that didn’t require a professional’s hand, nor the necessity of remaining still for many minutes to capture the image. This photograph had been taken by Hamilton himself, employing a simple hand-sized device. The apparatus itself had spat out this very paper one moment afterward.

  He gazed on the proudly nude male, who was sublimely shaped, a da Vinci ideal of masculinity, smoothly muscled, pert, and eternally youthful. His hair consisted of unruly curls. Sweat gleamed on his brow. He had the look of happy exertion to him.

  His half-hard cock glistened with spit and semen.

  The sight sent helpless shivers through Hamilton’s body. When he thought on it enough, he could still taste the man’s spend on his tongue. He remembered how it had felt to slide his own erect member into the man’s waiting greased hole and how he had responded with high-pitched titters as Hamilton had thrust and thrust until he jetted hugely into that tight, succulent cavity.

  I fucked this man. He let the words burn in his mind. He could never say them aloud. In fact, it was a flirtation with absolute disaster to keep this photograph, which his lover of that splendored evening had dared him to take. At least he’d had the sense not to allow himself to be visually recorded in the same manner.

  Laws against sodomy were on the books in England. They were strictly enforced. The laws in the Colonies were the same, of course. But here their enforcement lacked a certain zeal, Hamilton had discovered. He had been to England, first with his family, then on his own, often on military business. He wouldn’t have dared to indulge his predilections there, in that stuffy country. But in America, things were different. Laxer. More free-loving. This picture had been taken in Providence, Rhode Island, a year ago. The man had given his name as Percy. They had engaged in the pleasant deed for hours. It had been a glorious experience. Yet if one officer or one lowly crewman in the Airborne knew the least thing about it, Hamilton’s career would be finished. Utterly. And himself off to some English jailhouse.

  It was one thing to be a jackyank, another to be found a shirt lifter.

  But this was America. More, he was in New Orleans, a city famed for its loose morals and unblushing decadence. Perhaps after he had presented himself to the duty officer, he would cross the Mississippi and pause for a drink at some French Quarter pub, someplace dim and out of the way, where men went to meet other men, no questions asked, no judgments made.

  The thought had Hamilton’s cock squirming in his trousers as he closed the book on the photo and shoved his memory of the night depicted there back into hiding on the shelf.

  Tonight was a night to go make some new memories.

  HE CHECKED out an electricar from the motor pool, changed into civilian attire in the back seat, and headed for the bridge over the Mississippi River. The vehicle was ingeniously equipped with a rectangle of mirror at the top of the windscreen so that the driver could see behind.

  Hamilton used this small looking glass to see that his auburn hair was neatly arranged, his chin not too badly dotted with stubble. He was twenty-eight, with an Arkwright’s utile features—square jaw, somewhat hawkish nose, the soft lips most men in the family concealed with a mustache at the earliest opportunity. Hamilton hadn’t done so, secretly believing there was something sensuous about his lips.

  He hoped to have those lips kissed tonight. By a man.

  Another car was on the shoulder just outside the Algiers Airdock’s gate, bonnet up. But whatever mechanical problem bedeviled its driver must have been resolved the moment Hamilton turned onto the roadway. Down came the lid over the electric engine, and the vehicle followed his toward the bridge.

  He knew he could just drive on through, bypass the fabled French Quarter altogether, head out to Lakeview where Major Abney and his no doubt unbearable wife awaited him. But Hamilton’s determination only sharpened with every segment of paved road that disappeared beneath his wheels. By the time he was crossing the steel bridge, his blood was thumping and his hands were tight on the steering hoop.

  Naturally, no one in his family knew of his partiality for males. He’d had his first homosexual experiences in school, where such activities seemed undertaken almost as a matter of course, as inevitable as scholastic assignments. He had attended Colonial schools, what with his father still serving in the Colonies. Those fast, wordless, emotionless gropings were conducted clandestinely and never spoken of afterward. The boys with whom he had randomly carried on in dark corners and WCs all behaved with a perfect adolescent masculinity among their fellows. No mincing, no swanning about. The caresses all seemed to be nothing more than the means for physical release. Masturbation with a partner. Young Hamilton had longed for something more.

  His encounters since then had been few and woefully far between. To keep up appearances he’d had to court various women, becoming expert at getting nowhere with the ladies. It was only Percy, from last year, who really stood out from the scattered and fleeting lovers of his adulthood. Percy had attended a function at which Hamilton was slated to speak, an evening of military discourse for the well-heeled of New England. Such wealthy men and heiresses were valuable to the Crown.

  After he’d recited his prepared remarks without too much stumbling, Percy introduced himself, handed Hamilton a drink, and gave him a smoldering look. It had quickened Hamilton’s pulse, and less than half an hour later he found himself in Percy’s hotel room a few blocks away. There they had ravished each other. For the first time, Hamilton was able to linger over the act, indulging his every fancy with this willing and adroit sexual confederate. It was far better than a ruthless mauling in a dark closet, that was for certain.

  As he parked in the Quarter, he was aware of a car pulling in behind his. The same one from outside the airfield? He instantly forgot about it. Carnal anticipations crowded his mind. His flesh prickled. The French Quarter night was lively with music and food smells. The reveling crowd swirled, and he let himself be carried along with it.

  The crew of the Indomitable spoke as coarsely as any band of military chaps in their off hours, and Hamilton had had occasion to overhear such talk. This stopover in New Orleans had been eagerly awaited. The randy sky sailors had spoken of women in less than gentlemanly terms, citing this name and that as lasse
s amenable to sundry acts, usually for money. Various saloons were mentioned, the bawdier the better. Other establishments were cautioned against—too expensive, too ritzy, or places where one might blunder in among a bevy of “margeries” and “nancies” and plain old sodomites.

  Hamilton had carefully recorded the names of these pubs.

  He expected some murky cellar when he entered one such place, recalling only belatedly that the city was actually below sea level and thus there were no basements anywhere. The tavern appeared quite ordinary, with tables and a bar, the lighting electrical and bright. Nonplussed, he frowned at the sight of women on the arms of the relatively respectable men. For a moment he feared seeing one of his own crew here, but there were no familiar faces. Music was being played on a small dais by a trio of black men in suits, executing strange rapid syncopations on assorted instruments. Such music was variously referred to as zazz and hop. The scene puzzled Hamilton. Exotic? Yes. Queer? Hardly.

  Disappointed, he was turning to leave when he noticed the barkeep shooting him an intense but covert look. The man sported muttonchops and lacquered hair, and when he furtively waved Hamilton toward the bar, he went.

  Without waiting for an order, the barkeep poured him a whiskey and said quietly, “You are with Miss Molly’s party, are you not, sir?”

  Even if Hamilton hadn’t known that molly was yet another word for gay—there seemed so many slang terms—he would have deduced something veiled afoot from the man’s manner. Feeling a delicious tension, he plucked up the whiskey and knocked it back. “I am,” he said decisively.

  A sizable fee was whispered. Hamilton slid the notes underneath his empty glass. All had the feel of subterfuge.

  He followed the bartender to the saloon’s far end and through a narrow door, not bothering to wonder how the man had spotted him so swiftly and accurately. Some men, he’d heard, had the uncanny ability to recognize a fellow’s inclinations. It was as though they had a crystal set tuned to mental frequencies in their heads.

  The tavern backed onto a single cavernous chamber, which had been converted for peculiar use. The space resembled nothing so much as an opium den, although Hamilton had only read of such depraved sanctuaries.

  The narrow door closed behind him. His presence caused only a languid stir. Thick colorful carpeting lay underfoot. Tapestries hung everywhere, creating many partitioned areas. The furniture was ill-kept but gaudy, as though it had come secondhand from a knocking shop. Incense burned. The lamps were glassed in red, lending the spectacle a sensual ambience.

  There were men here. Many men. Hamilton’s heart, which had seemed to slow in shock at this first sight, now began to dash with growing excitement. This was almost too good to be real. It was the sort of place a sexually agitated adolescent mind would conjure up, knowing it couldn’t exist in the actual world.

  Men sprawled on the lounges together. Men lay on the carpeted ground. Men danced to the faint beats of the music coming from the tavern proper—or perhaps this was the establishment’s true purpose, and that conventional front out there the deceit. Considering what Hamilton had just paid for the privilege of entry, a tidy profit must come of this backroom enterprise.

  The air was dense with masculine body heat. Smells roiled beneath the miasma of Oriental incense. The aroma of spilled male fluids touched his nostrils. And it was no wonder. Quite a few of these men were engaged in carnal acts, and more were going on behind the screened partitions. No doubt ejaculations took place here constantly.

  He stood there, eyes wide, taking in the red-lighted orgiastic panoply. Males of widely varying ages and shapes and even ethnicities were kissing and fondling and nuzzling and sucking and fucking. They weren’t all pairs, even. He saw at least two trios, working with as much coordination and industry as the zazz musicians in the outer room.

  It took effort to sort these flagrant activities into coherent units, Hamilton found, even as his cock had come to throbbing hardness in his linen trousers. He tried to focus as everything threatened to dissolve into a blur of runaway manly eroticism. Not five steps from him, a man wearing a bellboy’s raiment slumped upon a shabby sofa. His trousers were about his ankles, and a man with graying hair, dressed for a dinner party, knelt before him, greedily sucking his erect manhood. Even as Hamilton watched, the much younger fellow gasped, pimply face torn with ecstasy, as he pumped his spunk into the other’s mouth. Pearly seed spilled down the older man’s chin. He daintily wiped himself with an embroidered handkerchief.

  It was astonishing. And unnerving.

  Hamilton, still standing rooted, realized he hadn’t the first idea of how to go about participating in this sexual bacchanal. How were introductions made? Or was this more of the silent mutual onslaughts of his school days?

  While he contemplated this, the door opened behind him. Again it barely incited any reaction from the lasciviously engaged men.

  A moment later Hamilton was aware of a presence close by, just on his heels. He was beginning to wonder if this wasn’t too much for him. All this naked flesh was searing his eyes, it seemed. He was drawn toward other males, yes. And this spectacle excited him on a kind of primeval level, true. But was this really for him? An orgy in the back of a taproom….

  “Here, friend, have a bracer. You look like you need it.”

  A flask was thrust from behind him. He turned and found a young man with bushy blond hair offering the scrollwork flask. He gave Hamilton a sympathetic smile.

  Hamilton downed a large swallow. He knew now he should have had at least two more whiskeys out at the bar before venturing back here. He felt sweat on his forehead. There was a soft trembling in his guts.

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it. You’ve the look of one new to the Rookery. I have seen men faint their first times.” He gave a rather fetching grin.

  “The Rookery?” Hamilton, though he wouldn’t have credited it before walking in here, was glad for this distraction from all the lovemaking males. “That’s what this place is called?”

  “Why don’t we go to a quiet corner?” The blond man gestured. The corner Hamilton followed him to was empty, with a tapestry woven with red dragons screening it off from the rest of the chamber. They sat, with space between them, on a couch whose innards were spilling out of ruptured seams. The youth said, “Ol’ Cameron doesn’t spend much on the decor. What did he charge you? He generally fleeces the first-timers, until they learn to tell him to go prig himself.”

  Hamilton felt a surging gratitude. Though he could still hear the bestial grunts and groans, he no longer felt like he might swoon. “My name is…. Ar—Archer.” He only just stopped himself from saying Arkwright. What a gaffe that would have been.

  The blond man—twenty-one, twenty-two years old—nodded. “Hello, Archer. Call me J.C.”

  “J.C.”

  It was instantly civilized. Incredible. The mere exchange of names, even if at least one of them was fabricated. Still, it was the gesture toward the proprieties that pleased Hamilton. With Percy, the man with whom he’d had the most satisfying sexual experience of his life, cordial social preliminaries had preceded the carnal acrobatics. Those introductory moments had put him at ease, had allowed the attraction to settle and deepen, priming him for what was to come.

  J.C. took a pull from the flask and passed it over again. “I’d prefer absinthe to bourbon, but that requires more preparation and ritual than can fit in a flask.”

  Hamilton downed more of the bourbon, smoother stuff than could be found in Kentucky’s hills. Among the other policing duties given the Indomitable was the breaking up of illegal distilling operations. Such work was grueling and, frankly, undignified for a captain of a GB-254. A younger Hamilton Arkwright—say a youth J.C.’s age—wouldn’t have believed a ship so fine would be used for such humble tasks. It seemed more the errand for a mounted band of rugged mercenaries. Those backwoods Kentuckians and Tennesseeans were often armed, though with antiquated weaponry at best. Yet they could be elus
ive and wily. And firing artillery volleys down on the woods wasn’t the way to gain anything over these Colonials.

  “Absinthe?” Hamilton had only heard of the drink, which sounded more narcotic than liquor.

  “Let me tell you about the Green Fairy, Archer.”

  For minutes the blond youth did just that, rhapsodizing and waxing nostalgic over the green alcohol. As he spoke, he moved closer to Hamilton. By now Hamilton was well aware of J.C.’s general comeliness. He had a sweet face and soulful eyes, which sparkled with mischief. He wore a bright waistcoat and moccasins, which was fairly in keeping with the nonchalant dress of New Orleans in general and the French Quarter in particular.

  When his discourse on absinthe was done, J.C. very deliberately put his hand on Hamilton’s knee. He grinned and said, “You didn’t come here by accident, Archer.”

  Heat radiated from his touch, flowing up Hamilton’s leg, raising gooseflesh. He understood perfectly well how ridiculous this was—excitement over so simple a contact when just beyond this ratty tapestry men were exploring the length and breadth of Sodom, and doing so with unapologetic abandon.

  Nonetheless, a gentle, quivery need bloomed in him, growing by the instant. J.C. shifted until they sat flush against one another, and that further aroused Hamilton. His hard-on of earlier had wilted, perhaps frightened by the spectacle, but now it came surging back, tenting the front of his trousers.

  “No,” Hamilton said, voice atremble. “No accident. I’d heard that this bar….”

  “Yes. It’s one of our places. I’m going to kiss you now.”

  Hamilton was taller and more muscled than the blond youngster, but it was J.C. who took charge of the kiss. He immediately proved himself an expert. He pressed his mouth against Hamilton’s with a soft insistence. J.C. leaned in harder. Their lips melted against each other. When J.C.’s tongue came probing, it was no intrusion, rather, a tender questioning. Hamilton answered, and his answer grew more decisive with every racing beat of his heart.