Skull on Shako

[Kanada]

I am Gefreiter Fredrik Hansen. I'm twenty-six years old, five foot nine feet tall, I weigh 73 kilograms, and I am in the highest quality unit of the Kanadian armed forces from 1635 to 1834. The year is 1796.

My uniform consists of shined black boots that go to my knees, gray trousers, a dark blue double-breasted coat, a gray greatcoat, and a pure black shako with various silver chains, white ropes, a black and white pom pom, and a metal skull in the middle. I have a Kanadian flintlock musket with a smoothbore barrel, and a spike bayonet. My peers and I have been trained, and are expected, to five five shots a minute, and four in combat. We have been trained to fire cannons, skirmish, perform amphibious landings under fire, we are able to march up to 17 miles in a day, depending on road conditions and weather.

Everyone in my unit has been trained since they were boys, between ten and twelve years old, in the mountain ranges of western Kanada. We have learned everything there is to learn about living in the wild, fighting in the wild, and slaughtering in the wild. Once we could do that, we were transferred into cities at around the ages of fifteen, learning more about street fighting and dealing with rebellions by the lowly peasants. Out of the five hundred people training to get into the battalion, only thirty were accepted to replace the thirty who were retiring.

I am a soldier of the Royal Snowcapped Mountaineers, the most elite fighting unit on Kanadian soil. We are soldiers for the Empire, not for the people. I have the blood of innocent peasants on my hands, who did and could do nothing but stand and fight for their lives, and the lives of their family.

This story begins in 1792, a terrible harvest swept the nation, and relief from other parts of the UKAG arrived in too small a number to relieve the hungry masses. Yet the next year, the harvest was also bad, and as the price of bread began to rise, as did the number of people who spoke up. Hopes for a good harvest in 1794 were dashed, as a harvest even worse than the two before led to the price of bread skyrocketing, and violence began as the newspapers released the story. We barely had any food.

The army was stationed at granaries and bakeries to keep the public from lynching them, but it was not their fault. Attempts at by the government to regain order were dismissed, and whispers of a march on the government buildings in Kalgary rose. So they called in the RSM. This is where the Kanadian Bread Rebellion began...

 

[Kanada]

(Heerstrasse Street, a large market in Kalgary, 6:12 AM, August 22nd)
"It all began with a brick through a window. The glass shattered into thousands of pieces as the crowd surged inside the poor baker's storefront, taking anything that wasn't nailed down. I'd be a liar if I said I didn't take any bread either, but could you blame me? As a harbour worker, the only solid meal I'd had in weeks was meagre portions of fish or the occasional bread crust. The two men, policemen with their hats off and guns leaning against the walls, were taken off guard and grabbed by furious men and women all over and were pulled forcefully outside, followed by the baker.

Of course, with all the violence across what I'd assume to be the whole city, soldiers were sent in. Marched towards the mobs of people with glinting bayonets extended. That morning, I saw what happened to people when they refused to disperse..." -Taken from the journal of harbour worker Anders Larsen.

---

We were done with the march by the morning of August 22nd, watching the pillars of smoke rise in dark gray clouds towards the sky. The Royal Snowcapped Mountaineers had no time to lose. UKAG colonial soldiers were already marching into the peninsula city, with some ships circling around the coastal areas, but it wasn't nearly enough. There are dozens of thousands of people in fury, lynching innocent bakers and policemen, crowding through the thin streets. The thin streets work to our advantage, however.

The RSM are marched down a major street, the farthest left and right men brushing their sleeves against the walls and windows. Our shined black boots click menacingly against the multicoloured cobblestones. The clinking of metal chains and bullet casings moving around. The continuous drumroll to keep us moving at the same pace. It all attracted a mob of people in rags and scraps. They noticed our uniforms and began to yell at us, approach towards us but they wouldn't come within a few meters, for our bayonets hung out extended from at our waists.

A man threw a chipped cobblestone at the soldier beside me, and it pushed his hat off. He quickly kneeled to retrieve it and got another stone thrown at his head. This time he crumpled to the ground, knocked out in an instant. Our officer ordered us to present arms, and we did so. Our officer ordered the crowd to disperse, they did not.

The order, then the click.

Some dozen muskets fired, causing a panic in the crowd, but we gave them no time to think. My platoon of men kneeled, and the platoon behind us fired their some dozen arms. This repeated for the three other platoons, and in front of us lay blood-stained bodies and blood-stained cobblestones. After a moment of silence, both crowds staring each other with anger, the mob screamed towards us, cursing and swinging their crude weapons. We stopped reloading and prepared to fight in hand to hand combat.

 

[Kanada]

We slammed forward with a few steps into the approaching crowd, and crumpled the people up front with jabbing bayonets and swinging musket butts. They yelled and punched and swung with all their might, but were no chance against us. People began to run backwards, and on top of the dead bodies of the peasants, we finished reloading and continued our pursuit. From the mix of smoke and clouds in the sky, rain began to fall in a minor sprinkle and began running the blood of the dead down the street. We were ordered to fire off our shots quickly, and tore through the fleeing crowd of people.

Then came another crowd of charging people, looking much more fierce and well fed than the previous group. One fellow charged towards me with a sabre, and I stuck him through the ribs. Just as the chaos was about to continue, a sickening crack and massive explosion rose from the harbour. As both sides turned to look down the road to the docks, we could all see the rising pillar of smoke, fire, and debris rising from a recently constructed warship that was going to be sent to Andrenne soon. The fires had reached its gunpowder storage, and soon pieces of wood and iron smashed into the docks and cobblestone further north.

We took advantage of the shock quickly, slicing through the backs of the distracted men and women. They ran in a panic as the rain intensified, carrying the pools of blood downhill. Those of us with our firelocks still loaded took potshots at the retreating crowd, watching the rebels collapse and writhe.

---

(Deck of the Frigate Noterig, in the Kalgary Harbour) "I stood beside a cannon on the open top deck, clenching a ramrod. The rain was coming down softly, and men were desperately scurrying around to cover the powder before the rain got too bad. We were ordered to fire quickly in case we had to store the powder under the deck. So we did, and with the cannon already loaded, the fire was simply touched to the hole.

The cannon flew a few feet backwards, launching the solid iron shot straight towards the town with the rest of the guns on our side of the ship. It blew through the wooden houses in the slums with ease, tearing apart the crowds of people that looked like ants from this distance. While our first shot just tore through some poor bloke's roof, the second shot tore through some poor bloke's pals." -Taken from the journal of Quarter Gunner Frederick Moller.

 

[Kanada]

We stepped over the bodies and looked at the crippled crowd. Our casualties were minimal, with one dead, the man who was hit with a brick, and a few other men heavily wounded. While the few men injured were taken back by surgeons, we continued further forwards, regaining our unit composure and loading all our weapons properly. We marched down the road to the harbour, where debris still lay around from the explosion of the ship, and where gobs of people lay dead or dying on the rocks and wood.

To our right, along with the coast, was the Royal Palace of old, before the colonization by Andrenne, which was now used by the colonial leaders. To our left stood yet another mob of disorganized people, but they weren't interested in us or the Palace, but the lynching of the poor bakers and religious minorities. We marched on them and were ordered to unload on the crowd, but by the time they melted backwards to safety, nothing was left of their victims but corpses and, sometimes, ashes. We spent the next few moments rushing about, checking the bodies and hoping somebody made it out alive, but there was nobody with a beating heart.

But then, we were called to the Palace in the defence of the Colonial government.

---

Kalgary is a relatively large city, with a population of nearly 120,000 people. Even if a small amount of the population is actually out in the street in an uproar, it's still a dozen thousand people. Mobs of that size are seemingly unstoppable. But the Palace is built like a fortress, most in Kanada are. The windows on the lower floors are barred, and there are high stone walls and watchtowers within the compound. Even if the creme coloured walls and stretching green grass and flower beds seem beautiful, it was built to withstand an attack by sea or by land.

However, for all of its perfections, the guard is undermanned and underequipped. After years of minimal care, paint begins to peel within the walls, and the overgrown trees block some view of the outside, limiting our range. But we do our best to prepare as more and more militiamen fall back from the streets, simply outmanned and undertrained. The rain continued to fall, blast it, and we tried staying under canvas the best we could. Water does dreadful things to powder.

My first shot from the watchtower was a misfire. The hammer clicked and there was no sparked. I quickly began to check my weapon, nervously but carefully. After wiping away some dust and dirt from around the pan and hammer, and tried again. This time it fired correctly. I and five other men were high up in a wooden tower, with a canvas-covered roof protecting us from the rain. Most of the peasants were probably finding shelter from the storm. Thank God that a storm came in, for it gave us much more time to prepare. The extra time let us erect more barricades and bring more soldiers in.

The Governor and acting Duke had been evacuated by the river out to sea, to be sent a few miles westward before being brought back to the beach. So really, we were just protecting the Palace for prestige purposes. My second shot made the few peasants trying to climb over the wall nearby scatter, and we settled down for the night.

 

[Kanada]

We stood on the cobblestones, some in puddles and some not, between two of the large brick walls, meeting to form a gate. The gate lay open behind us and we stand at attention in neat rows. People stand from afar, watching from store windows and behind rubble on the street. Birds chirped from the trees and leaves swayed in the soft wind.

A gunshot sounded out from a block away, with a puff of smoke appearing from behind an empty barrel. The man directly to my left screamed out in pain, grabbing his chest, before collapsing face forward into a small puddle. He writhed in pain as we calmly lifted our muskets, and fired quickly, leading to the man crouching behind the barrel to fall backwards, dead.

Another gunshot sounded from a windowsill nearby, followed by a few more. The colour bearer has his hat shot off but doesn't flinch from his brave position until the man next to him places it back on. Peasants begin filtering out of doorways and up the block, bit by bit, and our volley fire proceeds to slice them down as they approach. Very few have firelocks, and few have any firearms made recently. They approach in a scattered formation, ragged and angry.

Each volley slaughters dozens of them, yet they don't seem to waver. They begin dying in piles in the gutters, yet between each consecutive volley, they creep closer and closer, until they begin to charge into our bayonets. We push them back with superior hand-to-hand fighting, yet eventually, their sheer number outweighs us. Someone fires a shot at our officer's head, killing him instantly. The second-in-command yells out, "Damn it! Fall back!"

We do so dragging our wounded with us, and the militiamen behind us close the gates forcefully, smashing back anybody who attempts to break through. Men in the watchtowers rain down bullets onto the ever-growing mob of people. A man crawls over the bars of the gate and falls down onto a soldier standing there. He's quickly surrounded, but as the RSM falls back to take position inside the palace, I can see him kick open the lock for the gate as his last action.

The men and women shove open the gate, streaming through and turning the courtyard into a giant levee of violence. We smashed the windows from the inside and shot through the bars, attempting to assist the retreating militiamen and contain the mob near the gates.

 

[Kanada]

We knocked them downs in their dozens, but they simply hid behind the bodies of their fallen comrades. A musket ball whizzed by my face and thwacked into the wall behind me, but I didn't crouch. The first few mob members began moving throughout the courtyard, and a man smashed through a sagging section of drywall nearby. A lone grenadier threw his explosive charge into the drywall hole to keep back some of the charging men.

Everyone inside saw and fell backwards, crouching behind the crumbling furniture and around doorways. The bomb shot chunks of wood and flesh outwards, causing casualties not only for the revolting peasants but for some more unfortunate soldiers.

I moved back forward to the breach and stuck a man climbing through with my bayonet. He fell backwards onto the ever-dwindling crowd, grabbing at his stomach and screaming. At the suggestion of the men around me, I fell back to the nearby stairwell, firing a quick shot from there before ascending the steps. From the second story, I could see much better over what was happening.

The few men still in the watchtowers were fighting valiantly but were slowly being snuffed out one by one. It seemed impossible to win, yet it was obvious that the crowd was dwindling. Either from being shot down, stabbed down, or the few lads in the back of the mob who decided they'd rather live and had run off.

More and more men came up the steps, firing from above or moving even higher to the roof. I fired another shot, my barrel growing to become unbearably hot, and rightly so. I reached for another cartridge at the pouch on my hip but felt it empty. Feeling panicked but knowing not to express it, I ran over to a face-down corpse and flipped it over to check the ammunition pouch.

The man's face was blueish, with blood dripping from his mouth and the bullet wound in his forehead. I reached into his cartridge box and pulled out a rather waxy one. Of course, this man was from a local militia. Chances were that this was made of clay, not iron, yet I began using it anyways.

After I took my shot into the advancing crowd, a voice sounded out from the nearly-taken first floor, "They've started a fire! Fire!" I carefully looked out the window, and indeed a wall was in a blaze, making its way up to the second floor.

 

[Kanada]

Most were warned to stay back from the spreading blaze, but I could hear the screams of pain. I placed my rifle against a wall and ran into the now burning hallway. A flaming man ran past me, yelling and patting himself out best he could. I grabbed a man crawling away by his shoulders and began helping him out, placing him on his back once we were back to safety. I was about to rush back in, but another man in my platoon came up behind me.

"Don't go back in! We need to fall back! The fire will act as a barrier to them." I nodded and grabbed my musket, stomping away as the yells for help grew quiet... Militiamen toting bucking sloshing with water ran past, trying to restrict the flames from destroying everything in the building. I found another stairwell and moved upwards twice, finding myself on the roof. A few scattered Jagers and Royal Snowcapped Mountaineers shot off from the walls.

I found a fellow RSM, dressed in gray, and asked him if he could spare some ammunition. He happily gave me a handful, and I repositioned to a corner of the building. Some men were sitting behind a few barrels in the courtyard, and I fired a shot at one of them, killing him and making the others realize they weren't safe, so they scattered. I spat at them off of the roof.

---

"Then a man ran up to the hole [In the wall] and stuck a flaming torch against the crumbling wall. Then the flames came, trapping men inside the hall and pushing us away from the increasing blaze. Then the screams came painful calls for help or for assistance or for their mothers.

Then the silence came, worse of all." -Taken from the journal of an unknown man in the crowd of revolters.

 

[Kanada]

They were on the run now, routing and moving back to whatever holes they had crawled out of. Bodies were being hauled away on carts, as the smoke rose over Kalgary. The Northern part of the city was in flames, burning slowly. If only the rain would return.

We walked through the streets and everyone looked away when we greeted them. Shopkeepers closed their doors and homeowners closed their curtains in bitter disbelief at their horrid loss. With nearly 5,000 dead, the extremists who chose to fights had mostly been gunned down. Those who were on the fence about helping their cause would be now against it if they had any sense in them. With only 223 dead on our side, measly in comparison, we could be able to fight on valiantly.

There were roughly 400 taken prisoner that were to be executed. This was given to any soldier close enough that had a working musket and a hard enough heart. I personally shot four of the goddamn traitors and only did they seem to regret their doing after the barrel was pointed to them.

I don't know how many I had killed overall. Perhaps fifty, perhaps more. I'm sure all of them now regret laying down their lives for a cause so small and useless, a slight lack of bread. Some may call us cruel, or heartless. The cadence marching, the intricate firing orders, and the ruthless jab of the bayonet. All terrifying when against you. Yet it is more reassuring when it is with you, by your side.

That's the charm of the Royal Snowcapped Mountaineers.

End​