Oswald turned to Smith. “Well. I stand corrected. One of them managed to reach my deck.”
Smith said, “More are on their way!”
“My God, so there are. They are persistent, I’ll give them that. But don’t worry. My men will take care of them.” Oswald grinned and then his eyes narrowed with curiosity. “But what in the world are they making?”
*
The human chain involved more than two hundred men and stretched from the shore to well past the breaking waves. The tallest and the strongest men gripped each other’s arms to form an intricate structure like ants forming a bridge. The line was roughly eight men wide and each man had a second person on their shoulders. Individually, the waves would have broken them, but together they appeared to be holding their position.
No other civilization in the world had achieved the same amount of human unity. They were working together as a single, defining object, without any consideration for the individual men, women and children who formed the bridge. Smith’s eyes darted to the deeper end of the bridge, where some of the men were sacrificing their lives to form a platform beneath the waves.
Oswald opened his mouth to speak. Paused and then said, “They’re killing themselves to build the foundations of the human bridge in the deep waters!”
Smith nodded without saying anything.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. I thought my men were disciplined in battle, but this is a whole new level. Have you ever seen anything like it?”
“No,” Smith lied. How could he tell his brother he’d seen something exactly like this back at the pyramid where the entire civilization worked as one machine? And what’s worse, he knew exactly how they were achieving it.
Smith watched, mesmerized by the sight. It was a phenomenal achievement of engineering and bravery. But would it work? A moment later he witnessed the answer. Crawling on their knees, four at a time, the warriors who were still on the shore made their way along the top of the human bridge. Once they reached the end, past the breaking waves and into the deeper waters, they were able to swim toward the Emerald Star.
“My God,” Smith said, “they’re going to reach us!”
Oswald turned to his men. “Save your shots. Wait until they’re right below us and then shoot on my command. Make every musket ball count!”
There was a loud roar of, “Aye, aye, Captain!”
Smith watched as the first set of men swam toward the ship. He looked at his brother, “I’ll need a weapon.”
“Go down below. Marcus will find you one from the armory. Not that I think you’ll need it. We’ll be off this sandbar any minute now.”
Smith nodded, wishing he shared his brother’s confidence. He placed his leather satchel over his shoulders again. There was no way he would let the ancient relic out of his sight while on board a ship full of pirates. His brother’s men or not, they couldn’t be trusted with such a fortune in gold. He moved quickly toward the open hatchway to the aft.
He wished he felt more confident about his brother’s sentiment. The men and women who were attacking them might be little more than savages, but they were focused with religious fervor and would fight ruthlessly to the end. He definitely felt much less confident now than he had twenty minutes earlier, when he assumed they held the infinite advantage of musket shots against their attacker’s much larger force. He would feel a lot better once they were off the sandbar and sailing out to sea.
He climbed down the steps and into the ship’s hold. He hadn’t made it any further before Marcus, the ship’s armorer met him. The man was short, with broad shoulders. Multiple scars lined his bearded face like medals from previous conquests.
Marcus grinned and handed him a musket, with a bag of powder and shot. “I heard the Captain. You’ll be needing this, then?”
Smith nodded and took the weapon. “Thanks.”
“Make every shot count.” Marcus had the hardened face of a man who’d seen enough battles to realize that they were never won until they were over.
He simply nodded at the man. “I will.” He then returned to the deck, where the first wave of forty or so warriors approached the Emerald Star.
The men on deck were already aiming their muskets at the first wave of attackers. The ship rested on the sandbar, while the men silently prepared for battle. The weapons had been primed and loaded and there was no more for the men to check. Their muskets would either fire or not. Some kissed lucky charms, while others closed their eyes and made promises to their Gods. Smith could hear their heavy breathing, and feel their uncertainty and eagerness to fire.
“Wait for it men… wait until they’re just below us!” Oswald commanded.
A moment later, the first attacker’s hand touched the chain that supported the bowsprit. Oswald pointed his pistol and squeezed the trigger. The warrior fell back into the water. “That’s close enough – fire!”
A series of shots fired. The deck became blurred by powder smoke and the scent of burned sulfur and saltpeter wafted through the battlefield. The men worked in three groups of shooters. Group B loaded their weapons while group A fired, and group C prepared to take the next shot. That way the pirates of the Emerald Star were constantly capable of firing at their attackers.
Only group A and B fired before the first wave of attackers were killed. Smith studied the sea which quickly turned pink as blood intermingled with the saltwater in a multitude of deathly swirls. Silence filled the air, and for a moment he thought every single one of the attackers had been killed. Then he heard the ghastly scream.
Smith’s eyes shot toward the sound in the water. It came from just aft of the Emerald Star, where one man desperately tried to keep his head above the water. He’d been shot in both shoulders and was now struggling to stay afloat. His head would dip below the water and Smith assumed it would be all over, but then somehow he’d find the strength to kick his legs and reach the surface again. Drowning was the worst imaginable death to any sailor, and it made him feel sick just to watch. Yet no one was willing to put the poor wretch out of his misery.
Smith quickly examined his own weapon. It was an old flintlock musket. His Lazarino Cominazzo wheel-lock rifle would have been much more accurate. He gritted his teeth. From this distance it didn’t matter, it would be hard to miss with anything. He pulled the hammer back to the half-cock position and carefully set the flint. He poured the black powder charge into the measuring flask until it reached the firing mark, and then poured that into the muzzle. He carefully tapped the sides of the musket barrel to settle the powder.
Smith opened the bag of shot and removed a lead ball. He slid it into the muzzle and gently used the ramrod to seat the bullet securely on the powder charge. Resting the musket horizontally, he opened the frizzen – the L shaped piece of hinged steel used to enclose a small priming charge – and filled the shallow flash pan with powder. Confident the weapon was ready to fire, he closed the cover tightly. His jaw was set hard as he took aim.
Oswald yelled, “Don’t waste your shot!”
Smith carefully leveled the musket at the only survivor and squeezed the trigger. The ball struck the man in the back of his head. His arms stopped thrashing in the water, and the water settled once more. It was the only gift he could give to the poor man.
“You shouldn’t have done that!” Oswald said.
He looked up, ready to argue, but stopped – because the second wave of forty warriors attacked.
*
Smith watched as the second wave of attackers fell as quickly as the first, and the third followed immediately after. The third focused its attack on the bow of the Emerald Star. It was the only place where they had any chance of climbing onto the vessel. It should have made it easy to defend. Instead, it made it exceptionally hard, because there were only so many spaces for the men to load and fire their muskets. While their attackers were spread out around the ship, it was easy to pick out individual targets and take them out. Now, the same attacker was being hit by multiple s
hots while the person behind, was able to continue the advance.
When the fourth wave of attackers reached the bow they did so with the same unity as the human bridge. They locked arms and gripped the bowsprit and chain, to form a semi-rigid platform. The attackers quickly scrambled over their backs and up on to the deck of the Emerald Star.
Muskets fired and the deck was filled once more with the familiar cloud of smoke of burnt gunpowder. The men rotated through the process of priming, loading, and firing so that they could keep a constant barrage of shots at the boarders. Smith noticed, for the time, the method worked – but how long could the muskets keep firing? His eyes glanced at the army of warriors, impatiently waiting on the shore to join the fight. He knew the answer – not very long.
Their only hope was that the tide would rise sufficiently so they could flee before being overcome by the superior numbers. He turned to check with his brother and stopped. A small party of attackers had managed to form a small human chain, and climbed up the portside to the no longer guarded aft section of the Emerald Star.
“Boarders aft!” he said.
Smith aimed his musket and fired at the first attacker to step foot on the deck. He then dropped the weapon, and replaced it with a pike. The sudden success of the boarder’s attack, sent a surge of adrenaline to his system, and his fear turned to bloodlust. He charged at the men trying to scale the railing. He stabbed at their fingers as they gripped the gunwale, before they had a chance to overcome the railing.
Behind him, he heard his brother shout, “You five! Help Smith. The rest of you, stay at your posts – if the boarders breach the bow, we’re done for!”
“Aye, aye, captain!”
The five reinforcements joined Smith and quickly killed the remaining boarders. Smith felt his heart pounding in his ears. He paused on the edge of the ship, struggling to catch his breath. He glanced as the growing number of attackers surrounding the ship was swelling again. It was hard to tell the living from the dead. He stared at them, stunned. With their own superior weaponry, how could they possibly lose? But it was clear their dominance was beginning to wane and struggle to keep up with the endless number of assailants, willing to sacrifice their lives to win. Soon, he knew, the muskets would start to fail. They would misfire, the powder would fail, and their shot balls would run out. Then what would happen?
Smith knew the answer with the simple certainty of a man who knows that he cannot fly like a bird, or breathe water like a fish – their attackers would overcome them, and the crew of the Emerald Star would be slaughtered.
Unless they changed their tactics, now.
Smith stared at a row of dead men floating in the water below. Despite the gruesome sight, he suddenly grinned. The solution had presented itself to him. He couldn’t believe his brother hadn’t thought of it already. He turned to tell his brother. But a hand stretched through the railing and clasped his leg.
He looked down and saw a fiend from the dead suddenly rise out of the sea. Smith stabbed his pike at the man, but the attacker gripped the head of the weapon and used it to pull himself up. Smith let go, but he was too late. The fast moving boarder had already cleared the railing. The man appeared young, no more than fifteen or sixteen. He wore nothing but a small animal-hide loincloth. His muscles were lithe, and he moved about with the agility of a circus performer. He used a small dagger of fragmented obsidian and sliced one of the men in the process of priming his musket.
Someone else fired a shot, but the lead ball went wide. Another pirate threw his dagger, but it missed. The attacker slipped past three men who were reloading their muskets and ran forward. Oswald stood toward the bow of the ship, where most of the crew still fought off the main boarding assault. He noticed the unfolding disaster and ran toward the assailant, with his cutlass drawn, ready to slice the small man. The boarder glanced at the large man and turned. He was now trapped between Smith and his brother. Smith reached for his musket and quickly began the tedious task of priming it to fire.
The attacker stared at him. The assailant’s eyes darted back toward Oswald, who stared back with the vehemence of a seasoned pirate with blood on his drawn cutlass. It was enough for the attacker to make a decision. The attacker turned to run away, directly toward him. Smith quickly filled the muzzle with gunpowder. He didn’t measure the amount, and then shoved a round shot ball into the barrel. He dropped his ramrod, and opened the frizzen to fill it with an unmeasured priming charge. The attacker jabbed at him with his small dagger. Smith parried the attack with the barrel of his musket, and stepped back. He closed the frizzen and squeezed the trigger. The shot ball fired and struck the man’s belly…
The soft lead flattened on impact. Unlike a modern spitzer-type bullet, which enters and exits tissue quickly, the deformed ball doesn’t travel through tissue very efficiently. Instead, it transfers most of its kinetic energy to the tissues, organs and bones of the victim causing unimaginable damage. The boy gripped his abdomen with his right hand. Abject horror in his eyes, as blood started to gush out. It was a mortal shot, but the man still moved.
The boarder howled with rage. Driven by some unearthly force, he pushed passed Smith and clambered up the ratlines to the main-mast. He reached the maintop and continued to climb up to the topgallant. Once there he started to cut the rigging. Smith cursed and swiftly started the process of reloading his musket.
“Forget about him,” Oswald said, as he glanced up into the rigging. “He won’t live long, and if I don’t do something to change their attack, we won’t have a ship left to protect.”
Smith nodded. “I’ll take care of him.”
It took less than twenty-five seconds to finish priming and loading the musket. Smith then climbed the ratlines to the maintop. He stopped and tried to aim at the dying man. The shot was obstructed by the main mast and second stage of ratlines. If he had his rifle he could have made it, but not with the musket. The dying man above appeared to be making the most of his last few minutes of life by cutting as many rigging lines as possible. Why doesn’t he just lie down and die? Smith breathed hard and started to climb again. Immediately, the man above started to move toward the very end of the crosstree, toward the portside.
Standing on the small platform at the main-topgallant, Smith looked at the end of the crosstree where the man he was chasing had finally stopped running. He studied the native’s face, realizing he was little older than a boy. His eyes were focused. There was fear inside, but it wasn’t of losing his own life. It was something else. Something somehow far more frightening. Whatever it was, Smith intended to put him out of his misery without hesitation. He took aim. They were close and it was an easy shot, but he didn’t want to get caught out if he missed.
The boy looked crestfallen. Like many of the men from the pyramid, he’d learned to speak basic English. “Do you have any idea what you have done?”
“I’m sorry,” Smith muttered, silently.
The boy shook his head. “Not as much as you will be once you discover what the demon with the purple eyes will do with it.”
Smith stopped himself from squeezing the trigger. “What do you know about the man with the purple eyes?”
The boy stared back at him. His eyes were sardonic. Smith recognized that look. It was the same one the damned skull had given him. It was like a curse. A challenge. It said, do you dare open Pandora’s Box?
“What will he do with it?” Smith persisted.
The boy cut the end of the mainsail sheet, and jumped. He swung like a pendulum, and landed on the fore-topgallant platform, toward the bow of the ship. Smith immediately took aim and fired. But he was too late – the boy had already chosen to dive, head first with his knife held outward. He landed on the deck with a sickening thud, which broke his neck in an instant, and killed one of the pirates.
*
The defiant act served the attacker’s cause more than the death of one musket-wielding pirate. One glance at the crew, and Smith knew exactly why the boy had done it. The ac
t had simultaneously invigorated his brethren, and demoralized the crew of the Emerald Star. It showed them that their attackers would stop at nothing to win.
Smith clambered down the ratlines. He needed to do something. Otherwise the outcome of the battle was indisputable. Oswald’s face, which was earlier cheerful and confident, was now set hard. His jaw was rigid and his eyes wide. They were winning, but for how long? He knew as well as every one of them that the muskets would fail well before the enemy had depleted its supply of men and women willing to die to save the relic.
He looked up at Oswald. “How much longer until we’re off this God-forsaken sandbar?”
“I don’t know,” Oswald said. “It may be a few more minutes. Definitely no more than an hour or two.”
“An hour or two!”
Oswald shrugged. “The ocean can be capricious. Working out how much time it wants to take to raise the Emerald Star to float is not a precise science.”
Smith said, “The muskets won’t fire indefinitely.”
Oswald pointed his pistol at another boarder, and fired. The ball struck the man in his neck. He gripped it, and fell backward into the sea. “I know. I’m still trying to work out what to do about it.”
“What about the fore-cannon?”
“We’re too close,” Oswald grunted. “There’s no way we could maneuver it to hit the boarders.”
Smith shook his head. “I wasn’t thinking about the boarders.”
“No?”
“No. I was thinking about destroying that human bridge.”
Oswald glanced out toward the strange construction of men used to overcome the breaking waves, as he thought about it for a moment. He turned to one of the shorter men, and said, “Matthews, take the rest of the forward gunner team down below. I want you to start battering that human bridge!”
“Aye, aye, Captain!”
The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3 Page 4