Counting Sheep

By Christopher Jon Luke Dowgin

Part of the Sinclair Narratives

Welcome to another episode in The Sinclair Narratives featuring everyone's favorite immortal, Henry Sinclair, and his third-generation reincarnated Viking crew (sometimes). In this episode, I will tell the story of how Henry, Magnus, Bjorn, Teddy, Caroline, Keno, Twain, and Nikola met up with the Russian Imperial Army to fight the Bolsheviks at a Russian Army Base in Lakehurst NJ.It definitely was not something to sneeze about, at least onto someone.

 

October 1987

We were in the Cassville section of Jackson, NJ, attending the funeral of an old friend. Vlad Kizenko had just lost a sudden battle against testicular cancer from showering. We had gathered at St. Mary’s under the three golden domes to pay our last respects to our comrade. Is that appropriate to say for a white Russian… ? Vlad fought bravely against Morgan’s and Rothschild’s army that descended upon this sleepy little hamlet in the Pines. Just down the road in what is now Manchester. Many know about the mighty led zeppelin that crashed here with the swastika going down in flames, but did you know a greater evil was stopped here? Back when Lakehurst Naval and Engineering Base was owned by the Imperial Russian Army.

To think adopting the more common practice of showering daily killed our friend who took on the ‘Russian Bear’ alone during one of those forgotten little wars in America during and after WWI. Almost as forgotten as the Virginian Coal Mine War. Exposure from exploded mustard gas containers, soon after the Russians sold the land to the American army, had been stewing in the groundwater of the adjacent communities. Leading to its vaporization in the shower. The irony was that Vlad had just died from injections of this mustard gas into his veins. What gave him cancer in the shower was used later to try to cure him. In the form of chemotherapy? Talk about believing in the ‘hair of the dog’?

Mayor Portash just dodged another bullet, blaming a local asphalt company for dumping chemicals used in fire extinguishers into the ground. Portash is another story for a later date...

Archpriest Vitaly Yazykov was walking me and Caroline out of the chapel. “Henry, I wish we could have met on more pleasant of occasions; but that is the symbol of the times, my old friend.” Vitaly has been here since before America conceded troops to the Great War, but he never caught all of our phrases. Well, to tell the truth, I think he screws them up on purpose to fit in more with the current refugees that have been moving into the area. Well, with falling numbers in the congregation, you have to do something to keep from closing the doors. “Out, in the wink of a smile, we are gone—“

Who made these expressions anyway? What phrases never caught on? Why didn’t ‘there is more than one way to club a baby seal’ become universal?

 

 

"Yes, Vita, ‘We’ do need to come here more often to drive in the Pines with you. How is Green Fox Swamp? Is the bridge still in good repair?” I asked.

“Yes, my friend. The wooden bridge still stands firm,” nods the old starlet. “Caroline’s graffiti with its name on the bridge is still as bright as ever.” Caroline smiles and holds both of Vitaly’s hands in hers as she shrugs her shoulder in close. " ‘And my machine, she's a dud; I'm stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey’ — Rosalita, yes? I always like Springsteen, even though he didn’t write Jersey Girl."

“Is Hank still selling his hot dogs at Hidden Lakes—Old Halfway?”

“No, the Breed just shot an Angel there, and the state went in and dynamited the old clay mine to pieces! Kaboom!!” said Vitaly, just shaking his head and moving his hands to mimic a few explosions. “They just held their celebratory pig roast at Plane Janes. No more wet-shirt contests… Sorry, Caroline. Sometimes I don’t talk like a priest.” Vitaly also speaks broken English when he speaks in a consolatory fashion. Mostly with his wife. “Come now we party at Rova Farms Bar—big party for the dead!”

Vitaly and Vlad were the last of the White Russians' Imperial Army, who came to what was then Manchester to test ammunition from Eddington Ammunition, a subsidiary of Baldwin Locomotives of Philadelphia, for their promise to continue fighting the Kaiser during WWI. The property was once owned by my old friend Keno’s wife, Louisa Dupont Crowninshield. They had a manufacturing plant in Whiting, but the proving ground was in Manchester (now the borough of Lakehurst) before they sold the grounds to the Russians. Keno was with the raid in Lakehurst against Morgan and Rasputin, and in the later battle, Vitaly and Vlad fought by our side.

Wilson was supporting the White Russians and the new Provincial Russian Government under Col. House’s and the McCormick family’s threats in 1917 up to September, at which time Crane and Root (under Morgan’s orders) threw a few wrenches and gave rise to the October Revolution and the Bolshevik supremacy. The Russians had only so much money. It was either McCormick’s International Harvester tractors or Morgan’s friend’s Baldwin locomotives. The locomotives won, and my Russian friends here defected and set up a little enclave.

Tensions were high after the Battles of Orleans in Cape Cod and Ambos Nogales in Arizona. The only official conflicts in America during the war. Though the in-state explosions last week at the T.A. Gillespie Company Shell Loading Plant in Sayreville were a German attack, local Germans and the old Dutch, who founded this state, are finding life very tense living next to their English neighbors. The Italians are just sitting on their porches, passing their cellar wines back and forth as they watch their neighbors scrap it up down the boulevards.

I was a little tense; we were flying in Caroline’s friend's dirigible again to Manchester. Louisa’s brother had sold Dupont’s proving ground to the Russians a few years ago, and now their friends at the Manchester Branch of Brown Brothers & Shipley have brokered the sale to the US Army to form Camp Kendrick. The White Russians have deserted this base and fled to Jackson. Just up the road. Some still reside in Manchester. Their arsenal just mysteriously disappeared with them into the Pines.

Now the Army is testing mustard gas and bombing sheep in trenches. Some of the shells misfired and landed on the beach of Lake Horicon. People fled the waters quicker than during the Jersey Shark Attacks of 1916. General Wood has been rumored to be running tests, mixing the flu with mustard gas in the lungs of sheep. Just this month, hundreds of soldiers at Camp Kendrick died of the flu here. Seven hundred and fifty-seven just died in Camp Devons last month in Massachusetts, back home. We have been following Wood throughout the country. October alone, so far, has claimed 195,000 lives in America. We were coming here in part to investigate the deaths. Since March at Camp Funston in Kansas, where Dr. Wood was commander, this plague has spread throughout the world as soldiers stationed there deployed throughout the world. Internationally, they think Wood worked with the Bolsheviks to set up an extermination camp in Azerbaijan, where they are teaming up with the Armenians to liquidate the locals. He might be setting one up in Ukraine during the Bolsheviks' war there too.

Morgan is rumored to be behind the Red Army attacking Ukraine’s bread basket to stop the contracts with McCormack’s selling them tractors.

It's all about where the Choo-Choo goes.

Disconto-Gesellschaft Bank took over the German branch of Rothschild's, and they overextended loans to the Russians, who are now in the Bolshevik party. This could be seen as the reason why the Morgan’s flopped sides on the Root Commission and the local White Russians. The Rothschilds told them to do it. The Morgans have been close to the Rothschilds since George Peabody began drinking with Nathaniel Rothschild in Manchester, England. Peabody from Salem founded the Morgan Bank. Now George Peabody, through his use of his time machine in the Downing Block in Salem, has been posing as JP Morgan II.

Got it all?

Well, I haven’t yet, and we were only minutes away from landing at Camp Kendrick. We just flew over Cranberry Inlet as we soar over the Toms River, NJ, heading inland from the coast. Our 'recovered' Mercedes engines are doing well as the ship closes in on the base. We were going to Lakehurst to investigate threats of a biological agent that might threaten the world! Well, I know a lot of you have never seen an atom or even a molecule, so I can’t prove to you that germs and viruses exist, but it wasn’t to be long before millions were going to die.

Shells explode in the air all around us. A fine mist spreads forth from them. Mustard Gas. Keno and Magnus run through the ship, throwing gas masks at everyone in time. I fear the liquid might burn the skin of the ship. We turn back east to land near the old Phoenix Forge behind Lake Horicon once more to land again before the mustard gas burns through the outer shell completely. We lost a good amount of hydrogen before attaching to the mooring. Teddy and Tesla helped Caroline get out of the ship after the linesmen pulled us down. Louie followed her. I was the last to leave. Bjorn had to stay behind, but it was his brother Magnus who joined us. Bjorn had been ill for months after that boar brushed him. He has not complained much. The ladies at Miss Lilly’s parlor have been taking good care of him. Keno stayed behind with him to receive some gifts from his wife's munition company.

Charles Rogers, the sort of mayor of the Lakehurst section of Manchester, greeted us. The Wrights, who once owned this forge, were his relations. He maintained a mooring for us on his family’s old site. “Henry and Mr. President,” Rogers was a very patriotic man. “Morgan and Wood are residing at the Pine Tree Inn. We should head there now.”

We were in a quick march ever since leaving the ship and talked on the move. “Sounds good. Do you have a car ready for Louie?” Louie loved driving and was the fastest of us all. Through the centuries, Louie has reincarnated and found me. He has been my cabbie through time. Louie snapped on his gloves and donned his helmet. He was already wearing his duster. The car was brought up, and without pause, Louie sat behind the wheel as the previous driver meticulously timed his departure for his entry into adventure. We followed suit. The engine roared, and we kicked up a dust storm as we zoomed and weaved under the pines on these old clay roads, not much bigger than a deer trail to Union Avenue.

We exited the car at the Inn and went up to the doors. On either side were these two Italian men, standing tall. One was said to be Al Capone, a bouncer who came down from NYC for the summer. A tough enforcer in the Five Points Gang. The other was Joseph Parisi. A known anarchist bomber. Morgan had brought them down from Manhattan to protect General Wood. Al put out his hand to push Louie in the shoulder; as it made contact, Louie grabbed it with his opposite hand on the outside of his palm, wrapped his fingers around his knuckles, and did likewise with the other. He dropped low as a loud crack was heard. Then Louie spun to his right, throwing Al to the ground, and he was on his chest with a knife to his cheek. “Count this as your fourth scar,” Louie said before giving Scarface another stripe. I looked at Joseph; he just backed away.

We just went in unmolested.

Then we heard a vicious laugh. We turned to see Parisi throw one of those cannonball bombs with the fuse down the hall. We ran into the ballroom, escaping the blast, as Parisi carried Al away on his shoulder.

Jumping from the tables, there were Bolsheviks everywhere, raising their handguns and knives as they ran for us. We were forced back to the smoldering hallway. Caroline just jumped in time before a joist fell on her. It was just our small group from the ship against what was a battalion. We had to escape back out of the flames and hope Al and Joe weren’t waiting for us with reinforcements. Or another bomb.

As we got out, we noticed instead a group of Russians. Some I remember from our battle against Rasputin. I heard the gun bolts click in place. We all ducked as the first volley of fire went off. They hit all of the Bolsheviks as they exited the flames. The rest ran back into the inferno. We looked up in confusion as Vlad and Vitaly extended their hands to help us up. They rushed us behind the White Russians that were called in by Rogers from Cassville. Some were already drinking in his variety shop.

“Udachnogo dnya,” Vitaly said as he handed us an Eddington rifle.

So Crane and Wood had hidden some Bolsheviks within Camp Kendrick with the White Russians, and I fear they have taken over the base. At any time, they will be shelling Roger's if they find us. Or worse, they might just gas us. So we need to come up with a plan quickly. There was a rumor that a deadly strand of influenza was found in a sheep named Dolly, for which Wood began cloning, which mutates quicker than anyone can find an inoculation for. Also, Crane is spreading propaganda against immunization and wearing masks already. Deaths in Kansas were already high due to his propaganda.

The plague started outside of the base Woods ran, though today we know it as the Spanish Flu because their king was the first to publicly acknowledge it.

The real reason for the war was to destroy international workers and egalitarian political movements. The war was not killing workers fast enough. Trench warfare is at a standstill, and soldiers on both sides of the lines have been bombing empty sections of the trenches for months. The bankers needed a faster means of killing the John Does of the world. At least if the worker movements succeed, they would have to pay higher wages only to a few of them. So Crane was spreading his share of chaos to kill more on the home front.

“Louie, put down the cards!” I yelled. Within fifteen minutes, he had pulled eight aces and two kings out of his sleeves and won three bottles of vodka and a hundred dollars worth of gold leaf. He always has an angle when working.

"OK, boss, what is our next plan?” Louie snapped to.

“We need to get into the lab in the east building by the landing strip; there, Vitaly has told me, is where Wood has been working. Sometimes late into the night with his sheep behind closed doors...” Tesla interjected as his fellow Slav giggled as he made some rude motions with his hips. Caroline just smiled and shook her head.

“I heard Morgan likes to buy sheep and sell them dearly too,” Louie said as an ace dropped out of his pocket onto the floor unnoticed.

“Louie, get up and start up the Liberty Truck out back,” I snapped, and Louie almost fell out of his chair backwards as he stood to leave, placing four kings down on the table. “OK, lets round up and head on over.”

“We have some good Lithuanian boys coming over from their hunting shack in Cassville, big and strong with a good eye,” said Vlad, lowering his gaze like that of the wolves with a smile. “Dowgins, they are a hard bunch to handle, but they will help.”

Teddy, Magnus, and Nikola headed out, followed by the rest. Rogers stayed behind. Caroline got into the passenger seat next to Louie as the rest went in the back of the troop carrier.

We drove the half mile to Fort Kendrick and burst into the lab—it was empty. Outside on the runway, we heard a Class C Blimp named Fat Boy warm its engines,and by the time we got outside, it was leaving its mooring. We hopped back into the truck and headed for our dirigible. Louie raced us back, along with the Dowgins that just got there in time to enter the truck, a mile down the dirt roads. The ship was ready to disembark as we entered. Caroline said the local Dupont factory had loaded her with rifles and a few surprises. Compliments of Keno’s wife, Louisa Dupont.

The good thing about chasing a dirigible is that they don’t go that fast, and there is nothing in the sky blocking you from seeing where it is going. So Louie suggested another card game to kill some time. The Russians just grunted at him and turned their backs to him.

"Well, Wood has his sheep on board,” Teddy said. “I remember him trying some odd experiments on the locals in Cuba, inflicting them with malaria and withholding treatment. I was young then and thought of them as the backward enemy. I’m sorry I didn’t do anything then. I met many fine people in Africa that changed my opinions of people. This one Zulu, with whom I shared several bottles of single malt with—Killed the biggest rhino I saw with just his spear. Bully!”

“I heard they kept the command in Europe from him because of some of those rumors.” I said.

“Yes, Keno got drunk with Col. House and Wilson one night and told them a few war stories that turned them green,” said Teddy. “Keno was never much for decorum, timing, or appropriateness." Keno just hid his face.

Magnus was checking the riffle along with the Dowgins and Russians. Like Bjorn, Magnus did prefer his sword. Though unlike Bjorn, he liked his katana better. Louie was feeling dejected and just sat alone, shuffling his cards. I went to the cafeteria. Behind the bar once again was the Professor from Miskatonic University. As always, just appearing out of nowhere.

“Hello Henry,” he said as he handed me a glass of mead. I know damn well this ship didn’t stock anything as exotic as mead, but I accepted his magical drink. At least it wasn’t one of those Mickey Finns from Chicago that were all over the headlines.

“Thanks Albert, any new news from Russia?” I asked after my first sip.

“No news is good news, but I’m afraid there are things to tell, Albert answered, shaking his head while cleaning a glass. “ John Carter just returned from Mars and met Wilson outside of Princeton in Grover’s Mill. It seems Carter learned from Ulysses Paxton on Mars that Colonel House was in Aldershot near Oxford at Montgomery Lines, where he learned about the normal flu from pigs and geese mixing in the lungs of those soldiers who were gassed in the trenches. House brought back a sample to Woods at Camp Funston.”

“HOW APPROPRIATE—that was the base during the Apache Wars the soldiers received the small pox blankets from to distribute through the villages,” I said, holding my hand in my head. “This country never learns. I saw the disease spread from the French wiping out the Massachusetts and Naum Kike. Four hundred years, and nothing changes.”

“I think around that time some of those fishy people in Ipswich found it safe to come out from the sea; the Agawam had been holding them at bay for centuries prior. The Dark One first walked about the North Shore then,” Albert told from his knowledge of the tombs of chronicles his dark university holds within their tunnels below their buildings. “These plagues might not be from man. The Greeks first talked about lights falling from the sky onto their highest mountains. Tales of taller men with short hair bearing gifts of various technologies. Mythologies of these people fighting an older civilization on their home planet and being forced to leave by beings even larger than them after castrating their leader, who it seems had castrated the previous ruler. A genocide had led them to rebel against their creators, sort of. They had learned to separate the city states on the Aegean Sea against one another to only consolidate power in the region in Athens. To hide themselves among the population, they started persecuting men with long hair, since they genetically could only grow hair to their shoulders. As they conquered various regions, they forced their inhabitants to cut their hair. Like Samson, stripping these warriors of their virility and manhood. Any tribes they didn’t conquer were called barbaric, barbar meaning hairy. Ever wonder why American history follows Greek and Roman history? Why did Cromwell and his roundheads do so too? They cull their herds every so often. These labor movements were not threatening us, but their means of production and anonymity within the rulers of this world. Some think they were controlling us through Divide and Rule. Carter has been saying for years that White Martians have been collecting silver, gold, and copper from us for centuries to run their electronics after their supplies dwindled around the time of Summer rising out of the desert. The Dark One was told to have lived with Icarus within his labyrinth under the guise of the Minotaur.”

“I have heard these stories too. The sages of the Massachusetts have seen visions this year of tiny heads falling from the sky, which they say are displacing human souls from newborns in the womb.” I retell.

“Just the next round, the last were the generation of the Robber Barons,” Alfred continued.

“Who are you talking to, Henry?” Caroline said as she walked up. The professor was gone, but he left a second glass of mead for Caroline and refilled my own.

We were coming up on Barnegat Light. The C-Class Blimp was just detaching from the mooring at the top of the light as we saw a skiff begin to be loaded. I radioed ahead to the Norwegians at Viking Village to prepare a fishing trawler with its new outboards to be ready for us. It should out sail their wind-powered skiff. We were still ten minutes out, and their ship was almost loaded with all of their sheep.

When we docked, Magnus was the first to walk down the light’s stairs, with the Dowgins and Russians behind him. The rest followed. From the windows, Frank and George Dowgin knocked off a few of the Bolsheviks; they provided coverage for us as we went to storm their boat.

Parisi was there again, throwing his cannonball bombs; they blew dust up in front of us. Scarface was eyeing for a rematch with Louie. Louie just kicked the outside of his left knee, and he went down as Louie continued on unfettered. Parisi and Al saved them enough time to launch their skiff.

Rounding the inlet was the trawler piloted by Johansen. We embarked and made our way, chasing them. Louie found some crabs walking around, that he stomped on their heads and began eating their claws raw. Tesla just looked at him, and Louie gave him a dumbfounded look and a grunt.

Their ship was making its way to a German U-boat that had just emerged. We could catch them. They still needed to unload the sheep and crew into the small holes on the submarine.

Then we saw the wake of a torpedo heading our way. Johansen turned the wheel sharply starboard, exposing the trawling nets to the submarine. The nets were replaced with anti-torpedo nets. We heard the explosion, and the captain turned back to the U-boat. Another came for us. He turned to port, catching the last one in the net and splashing Louie, who dropped the crab leg. We were close enough now that it would be too dangerous for the sub to shoot another. Though we had to duck from small arm fire, Frank and Martin shot a few in the leg, ending their barrage. As we closed, all but two sheep were loaded below.

Then it happened.

They had tied the two sheep to cannonballs and catapulted them at us. Some of the White Russians only received minor flesh wounds. Some jumped overboard out of fear of the plague. I guessed they would not have thrown infected ones since those were too valuable.

 

Then I saw the second one blot out the sun.

I woke up counting sheep on cloud nine.

Harvey the Pooka was waiting for me, dressed like Little Bo-Beep with bad stubble on his legs and smoking a stub of a cigar. “Welcome, Henry,” he said, smashing the cigar on his heel.

Apaches were racing on horseback, shooting sheep. Piles of wool, miles high, challenged the stacks of bison bones next to railroad lines. Below their war bonnets, they wore gas masks, protecting them from the fumes emanating from the wounds in the sheep.

Harvey threw me a mask.

I woke up to find Louie shoving a mask over my head. I was the last one to put it on.

We continued, but the sheep halted us enough to let them sink. Crossing our path was the Carolina, which was accidentally struck. Johansen radioed nearby trawlers to rescue them. We followed some bubbles, and we closed on them since they were going down more than straight. Plus, the friction of the water was reducing their speed as the pressure increased. Caroline produced the surprise from Louisa—guncotton grenades. The White Russians began dropping them with glee. Soon we saw enough wool to knit all of the emerald isles’ fishermen a new wardrobe floating before us.

I wondered if the Apaches were on seahorse?

At the sight of it, Johansen steered hard for port again and headed us for Barnegat Inlet.

Wood had survived, though we stopped him from spreading the plague. Unfortunately, soldiers from Camp Funston were being deployed to a base in Massachusetts, Camp Dix, and Camp Kendrick, along with all of the other forces, met in Hoboken to be deployed throughout Europe with the plague riding with them. About five million would die in the next few years. Though it could have been a lot worse.

In time, Fort Meade was renamed Fort Leonard Wood to only revert back. The base headquarters America’s chemical warfare research. After WWII, it was headed by the Chinese general who conducted the genocide in Northern China and dreamed of dropping smallpox launched from submarines and deploying smallpox in Los Angeles. The base moved up from sheep to goats, as the man who stared at goats can relate. Wood was stripped from the name and was honored with a new base that houses the CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear) unit. This base is rumored to have a large sheep farm. Camp Funston had a large heard also to grow smallpox that was spread on blankets against the Apache.

Louie was the only one that got sick, at the time, from the shellfish.

To think, all of those years later, Vlad, who got his mask on in time, would get sick from vaporized mustard gas in his ground water outside of Fort Kendrick (Lakehurst Naval and Air Engineering) and be killed by the gas in the form of chemotherapy.

Coming back from the war, Frank Dowgin won a poker game on a ship that set him up for life. He figured that, being gassed for his country, he didn’t have to pay taxes on those winnings or anything else for the rest of his life. He paid his fair share in the trench.

The End.