Chapter 5

A new character introduced in this chapter:

Sonsri

Daughter of the Governor of Korat Province, 5'-0" tall, 98 pounds, 32B-22-32, 18 years old, long black hair, brown eyes, cute

On leaving Muak Lek, we had ridden for over two hours without much talk. Chanthra had purchased two large conical hats made of straw and bamboo before we left the village. I had wondered why at the time, but the reason soon became apparent on the ride.

"Here put this hat on," she told me handing me one of the hats after we had been riding for a short time. The sun was fierce by now, and we were sweating even though the horses were doing all of the work. I removed my Beret and tucked it in my belt before accepting the hat from her. It did create a little shade for my face and shoulders. The inner structure, which held the straw exterior shape and also held the hat on one's head, was of woven bamboo. It was designed so that the hat was held off the wearer's head and this created an air space so that air could circulate around the head and keep the wearer cooler.

We had stopped after an hour or so to water the horses again at a small stream that flowed from the mountains to our north, and ran beside the road for a time. Chanthra had wet a cloth, and we had washed our faces, necks, arms and hands in the relatively cool flowing water. It had been very refreshing.

By now though it was well after 1500 hrs, the hottest part of the day, and we were looking for another stream to water the horses and cool off in when I heard the first shot. It was quickly followed by several more.

I tore the straw and bamboo hat off my head and flipped it to Chanthra while reaching for my Beret.

"Stay behind me!" I ordered her, and moved my horse forward at a quicker pace to find out what was going on, and where those shots were coming from.

"Be careful, my Mike!" Chanthra called from behind me. I had drawn both pistols by then, and advanced to the crest of the slope that we were on to see what was going on.

On reaching the crest, I could see a stream crossing the road in the small valley between the hill that we were on and the next one. I could also see the group of ragged men who had swarmed out of hiding in the trees along the floor of the valley to attack a party traveling a short distance ahead of us. They had apparently been stopped for some time, as we hadn't seen them on the road ahead of us.

The travelers consisted of a number of men on horseback, and a coach of some sort pulled by four horses. The attackers greatly outnumbered the defenders, a couple of whom were lying on the ground already. I heard a woman scream from the vicinity of the coach, and that made up my mind.

I took the reins of my horse in my teeth, cocked both pistols, and kicked my horse in the ribs. He instantly took off, and charged down the road, straight for the men, and the other horses. I couldn't yell because of holding the reins in my teeth, and didn't want to alert them to my presence in any event. The horse and I charged down on them like Quantrell's Raiders, and the first any of them knew of my arrival was when I shot two of them who were attacking one of the men on the ground.

The pistols worked very well and shot right where I was aiming. I quickly thumbed back the hammer on each pistol, and fired again, and again; killing one of the attackers with each shot. My sustained fire was too much for them, and they soon broke off the attack and fled. I emptied my last two shots into their retreating mass.

Two of the men with the coach had reloaded their single shot pistols by then and also fired at the fleeing attackers. My pistols were empty, and my horse was blowing from the exertion when we came to a stop in front of the other men. I dismounted, but kept the horse away from the water until he cooled down. I holstered one pistol and quickly changed the cylinder in the other one for a loaded cylinder. Following that I reloaded the second pistol also.

The men accompanying the coach were looking at me suspiciously all of this time. Apparently they were unsure if I was a friend, or an even more dangerous foe with my multiple shot pistols. An older woman looked out of the coach just then to see what was going on.

"The Governor's Daughter is injured," she told the men who had gathered around the coach to protect it.

"What is wrong with her?" I heard from behind me and turned to see Chanthra approaching.

"She's bleeding!" the woman called in anguish. Chanthra stopped her horse beside me and dismounted. Her horse was not blowing from exertion, as mine was, since she had approached much more slowly than I had.

"Are you all right, my Mike?" she asked.

"Yes, I'm fine," I assured her, as she moved forward to speak to the men around the coach.

"Sawat Dee, Ka," she addressed them with a Wai and a bow. The guards, or whatever they were didn't answer.

"I will look at the Governor's Daughter. I know about wounds and can help her," she continued.

"Who do you think you are to approach the Governor's Daughter?" one of the men, apparently the leader, demanded haughtily.

"I am a Teacher of the Amulets, and I have been trained to deal with things like this. Already my Champion and Guardian has saved you from those other men. Now move aside so that I may attend to the Governor's Daughter. If she were to die, it would go very hard on you for not taking proper care of her," Chanthra told them in a voice full of authority. The men moved aside at her words, and she moved up to the coach, opened the door, and got in.

"Champion, bring me my bundle of things from my horse. I will need some things from it to treat the wound of the Governor's Daughter," she called to me after a short time.

I fished my first aid kit out of my backpack before getting her bundle of things from her horse. I carried all of this to the door of the coach, and handed them to her.

"I will be a short time here," Chanthra told me.

"If you need me for anything, call," I told her, and turned to take care of our horses. Two of the guards were already taking care of their horses and the coach's horses. They took mine along also. They at least smiled at me. Their Commander still wasn't smiling, but I didn't care at that point, as I was coming down from the adrenaline high of the charge and the fight, and had started to shake.

Instead, I pulled the reloading tool out of the backpack and started reloading the two fired cylinders after giving them a cursory cleaning with water from my canteen. I soon had both expended cylinders reloaded and oiled. I was back to twenty-four shots again.

"What kinds of guns are those?" the Thai Guard Commander demanded, as I finished.

"They are repeating pistols," I told him.

"How do you have them? No one is allowed to have weapons like those in Siam but the Army, and even we do not have such weapons. You must surrender them to me!" he demanded. He had also reloaded his single shot pistol.

"I have the King's permission to have them," I told him. Of course, I didn't mention that it was the current King's successor over a hundred years in the future who had given me that permission. "I am an adviser to the Siamese Army. You have seen me use these," I added, as I held one up, "Do you think you could shoot me before I could kill all of you with them?" I asked, and stared straight into his eyes. He was the one who dropped his gaze.

"A number of your men have been wounded. We should take care of them," I told him after that.

"Are you a doctor?" he asked hopefully.

"No, I am a Military Trainer, and I know how to take care of wounds, and to keep men alive until they can be gotten to a doctor, or a hospital," I told him. "I have also been trained in some field expedient surgery," I added before we went to check on his men.

Two of the men on the ground were dead. They had been stabbed multiple times, and two others had cuts that needed to be closed and bandaged. I had some thread and curved needles in my first aid kit, and turned to the Commander of the Guards.

"I can sew these cuts up. It will be painful, but they will heal a lot faster, and won't get infected if properly cared for," I told him.

"I have seen doctors do that. It is always painful," he admitted.

"Do you have any alcohol?" I asked.

"Alcohol!?" he responded, apparently unfamiliar with the term.

"Mekhong will do!" I told him.

"You need a drink?" he asked, unsure of what I intended.

"No, it has alcohol in it. It will clean the wound," I told him, and he looked at me strangely.

"Water will clean the wound," he told me.

"Water will cause infection. It isn't clean!" I told him before he returned to his horse and removed a bottle of Mekhong from his saddle bags and brought it over. In the meantime, I had retrieved my first aid kit from Chanthra and prepared the needle and thread.

The two wounded men had looked up at me in fright while I was doing this. They were bleeding heavily, and if we didn't do something they would bleed to death. I removed a strap from my pack and cut a stick for a handle to make a tourniquet. It was ready by the time the Commander returned with the whiskey.

"I will use this to stop the flow of blood, so we can see to work on their wounds," I told him as I tightened the tourniquet on the first man's arm. The blood slowly stopped flowing. The Commander seemed shocked by this. I took the bottle from him, opened it, and then offered the man a drink -- a small drink. Following that, I poured some of the whiskey on the cut. The man screamed like a banshee and tried to move, but I had a firm grip on his arm, and he soon flopped down in exhaustion.

"Hold his arm like this while I work," I told the Commander. "Tightly!" I added before I poured a little of the Mehkong over the needle to sterilize it. The man screamed several times as I worked to close the wound which was some four inches long and required eight stitches to close it adequately to stop the bleeding. I wrapped the wound in a clean piece of cloth one of the other men had brought me from their scant medical supplies. They had all been gathered around us to see what I was doing.

"Shouldn't some of these men be on guard in case the bandits come back?" I asked their Commander.

"Yes, that is a good idea," he said, and directed a number of his men to various locations to keep an eye on the surrounding area.

The second man flinched as soon as I approached him. He had already seen and heard everything that I had done. He had also seen me remove the tourniquet from the first man's arm and that the wound had only seeped a little. This man's wound was on his leg, and it was obvious that he had received it while on his horse. Fortunately, it was only a couple of inches long.

I placed the tourniquet on his thigh above the wound and tightened it up. I gave him a larger drink of the Mehkong because he was so nervous, and then poured some of it on the wound and over the needle again. He too screamed as the alcohol cleaned the wound, and I handed the now mostly empty bottle back to the Commander who drank the last of it. He again held on to the man to keep him from moving while I did the sewing. It only required six stitches to close this wound, and the man flinched each time I inserted the needle, but other than that he was reasonably quiet.

I was handed another piece of clean cloth to wrap the wound with when I finished. I tied the cloth closed with strips of a tough vine that I cut from the surrounding area, just as I had the first man's. Just as I was finishing up, a female voice was heard.

"Roi Ek (Captain), your injured men can ride in the coach with me. It will be more comfortable for them," the voice told us. I turned to see a very pretty young Thai woman of about eighteen in the door of the coach. She had a bandage on her arm. Chanthra was already out of the coach, and headed toward us.

"How are the soldiers?" she asked, as she approached.

"They are all right for now. Riding in the coach will help a lot," I told her.

"How can they ride in the coach with the Governor's daughter? That is unheard of!" the Captain told us loudly.

"If you put them on horses, they are sure to pass out from loss of blood and fall off," I told him.

"Bring them over here, immediately!" the young woman demanded in a cross voice.

"All right," the Captain agreed uneasily, and several men helped the two wounded men over to the coach. They needed to help them inside also, as they were too weak from blood loss to get in by themselves.

"We need to move out of here quickly, if we are going to make it to the next town before dark," I told the Captain. He sent his men to hitch the horses to the coach and tighten the saddle straps of the riding horses. He was ready to leave the two dead men here though, along with the dead bandits.