Part Five of Raid on the Sher-Li Temple or: The Fort of Jewel-Eye

As the LZ4.5 noses toward the temple, the American infantry and the British field gun cut loose. The rifle bullets pass harmlessly through the envelope, as the aircrew scrambles to patch the holes. The captain orders some water ballast dropped to retain trim. The field guns' shells are more of a threat, but the nearby gun cannot elevate enough to aim, and the farther gun's crew has never fired at an aerial target and finds it very difficult to gauge the range. As the work crew finishes loading the elephant, the US marines move up to the truck and the armed sailors are not far behind.

The airship captain has orders to take the great rubies but has very few troopers. He had gambled that by this stage of the battle the British and American forces would be chasing pirates down to the shore or at each other's throats in the center. Instead he finds the temple swarming with the American work detail and marines.
Doubtfully, he orders the airship to drop lines, and his small unit of Luftkommandoes slides down, right into a hail of American rifle fire. All but one are dead almost as soon as they hit the ground, but that one is Herr Major Rittmeister Manfred von Strickland - an imposing mountain of Teutonic sausage, expert swordsman, and the only man on the subcontinent with the titanic strength and unflinching determination to carry a first-model Maxim gun as personal sidearm (it has that convenient little pistolgrip on the back, you see) - with the ammunition box clipped to the belt around his massive waist. He cuts down a couple of American sailors with one burst.

Manfred hacks his way through the work party and leaps onto the bed of the truck, intending to gouge out one of the rubies and make a diving grab for the airship's dangling lines. He never makes it. An enormous volley from the marines and sailors shreds his grand uniform and knocks him to the ground with seven solid torso hits and an uncounted number of fleshwounds. He mumbles "Donnerwetter!" and makes one last lurching motion toward the truck, then falls into semi-unconsciousness.

The airship has drifted close to the mountains, and with no reason to remain, the captain orders nose up, and gives full power to the engines to get out of the hail of rifle and artillery fire.

Meanwhile, all of Hoo's pirates, except those encumbered by loot or British lead in their backs, have escaped to the junk, and the anchor windlass is turning enthusiastically. Junk Sank's ship has already caught the breeze and moved off with its skeleton crew, its starboard cannon firing an ineffective round at the American ironclad. The ironclad replies, clearing the gun crew on the junk.

As HMS Gadfly approaches from the river mouth, the junks are caught in a three-way crossfire. A long-range shell from the Punjabi's field gun near the temple takes down one of Hoo's masts. No sooner is it cut away than the broadside gun explodes during firing, killing most of the crew in the waist and turning Hoo's junk into a burning mass of wreckage that drifts slowly to shore. Junk Sank Sosumi does his best to reach the open sea, but the San Juan Hill pumps shell after shell into the vessel, clearing her crew and partially dismasting her. She too is now a drifting hulk.

The arrival of Her Majesty's Marines has given the Governor the forces he needs to reassert the Crown's prerogatives. Loss of the idol will mean a native revolt in the area. Through a hailing trumpet, he repudiates Capt. Hyde-Davis' earlier arrangement and demands that the Americans put down their arms and replace the statue. Capt. Plotz retorts that the Americans have the permission of the Fuzwah of Dobro, as well as the word of one of Her Majesty's Officers. The Governor replies that the Fuzwah is not sovereign in Sher-Li, and that the word was, regrettably, given by an officer without the authority to do so.

A firefight ensues between the American and British marines. The American auxiliaries can offer no help; they are at the peak of the mountain attempting to snipe at pirates, with the Punjabi sepoys firmly ensconced in the mission between them and the action.

As the British regulars come up in support of the Royal Marines, the San Juan Hill (whose captain must have first-rate optical equipment) puts a salvo of long-range shells on them with telling effect, but soon Her Majesty's marines are firmly in control of the road which the motor truck must use to reach the dock. Under the pressure of mounting casualties, Capt. Plotz decides that forcing a passage is a hopeless proposition. Handing his sword to the Governor, he smiles that he will come calling for it again after the Great White Fleet anchors in the Thames estuary.

And there is the little matter of a possible war with the United States of America. President Theodore "I'm not a sociopath" Roosevelt likes a good scrap and could hardly object to the British spiritedly defending their territorial claims, but American blood spilled because of a promise given in bad faith is another matter indeed.

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