Hands snapped to triggers. Boots kicked up sand. Farmer Boy reached for his pistol. Naim thrust the blade under the boy’s chin, drove it into his brain, and then, with the body still convulsing, twisted behind it for cover. A musket discharged. The ball tore through Farmer Boy’s chest and exited his back. It snapped against Naim’s rib. The Chronicler winced and stumbled back a step.
The next moments were a blur. Naim pulled the knife from farmer boy and flung it at the Janissary with the loaded rifle, dropping him instantly. A gaunt-faced Janissary came at Naim with his scimitar. He slashed too high, and Naim dove under the blow by inches. He trapped the gaunt soldier’s sword arm with his shackled hands, kneed his stomach, and dislocated the shoulder. The fifth Janissary lunged at Naim’s back with a scimitar, and he twisted Gaunt Face into the path of the lunge.
The charging soldier couldn’t stop his momentum, and he speared his own comrade through the gut. Naim took the scimitar from the impaled Gaunt Face, and with his hands shackled together, cleanly severed the fifth Janissary’s head.
The sixth and final Janissary charged Naim with his bayonet. Naim was too close for an effective parry. Guided by fifty years of instinct, Naim dropped his sword, sidestepped the rifle, and caught the barrel. He smashed his head into the rifleman’s nose. And again. And a third time. Pain drove through Naim’s skull like hot needles. He could hardly see through the stars in his vision. The bloody-faced rifleman stumbled back. Naim pulled the gun from his grasp, spun it around, and thrust. The last Janissary joined his brothers in the dirt, a bayonet stuck through his heart.
Naim stumbled against a pew, fighting for balance. He was still dizzy with stars. The hole in his chest was shallow, the spent bullet having bounced off his rib bone. The bayonet slash left only a flesh wound. He could bear the pain, as he always had, and bandage his wounds later. It didn’t seem possible. Six men dead in half again as many seconds.
Naim hurried to gather his possessions. The noise of jogging soldiers came from nearby passages. He took a canteen off of the dead Corbaci Ildemir. Water poured down his beard as he drank. He willed his legs to carry him into the ruins. Once again, when all should have been lost, he eked out a victory. The work would continue.
Varlick Naim was alive.
Chapter 62
The Independence
The Lake of Tunis
Wednesday, September 14th, 1803
Day 5, Afternoon
John Sullivan dragged a hand through the grime on his face. The Independence had already sailed miles crisscrossing the lake, a game of feint and retreat played hour after hour. With her sleek hull design and sail plan, Independence glided on the water like a skater on ice. The American brig occasionally dismasted or sank a gunboat with a well-placed shot, only to retreat from a swarm of vessels trying to swoop in and board. For all her agility, lucky shots from the enemy were taking a toll. Clipped stays, torn sails, or parted sheets continued to mount, threatening to overwhelm the repair crews. The pirates were closing in, corralling their prey toward the blockade at the channel. Independence had no choice but to make another attempt to push past the nest of vessels and escape to sea.
John coughed up grey phlegm. Gunsmoke choked the air like a London fog. His eyes ran with tears as he looked to starboard. A forest of lateen sails blocked the narrow passage two hundred yards away. Supplies of shot were running low, and the blockade showed no sign of breaking.
“Avast!” cried a sailor. “Broadside incoming. Broadside—”
The voices of the Independence crew vanished in a salvo of gun blasts. Cannonballs screamed over the lake. Most fell short, spraying jets of water over the side. Several smashed into the hull, throwing wood chips across the forecastle deck. A broken block hit the bell with a resounding gah-lang! A few feet away, a sailor of fourteen writhed on his back, screaming in agony near the galley stovepipe. The lad pawed at his face, where shards of broken wood stuck out of his cheek.
“Marine!” John shouted to a man in a red coat and top hat. “Get Chauncey down to the surgery.”
The Marine fired his musket at a gunboat before rushing to Chauncey’s aide.
A moment later, John found Ryland on the quarterdeck shouting orders to the maintopmen.
“Captain,” said John. “There’s too many. We can’t keep this up much longer.”
“I agree,” Ryland replied.
A hail of rifle shots came from a gunboat off the port stern. The two officers took cover below the taffrail as small arms peppered the hull. A row of Marines rushed to their side and returned fire with muskets.
“Sullivan, I think it’s time to show the corsairs your special munitions.” Ryland fired his pistol over the rail, then ducked back down. “I expect they’re ready by now.”
John grinned. “Aye, aye, Captain.” He hurried toward the quarterdeck hatch. Seeing Eric Long giving orders to a few powder monkeys, he shouted, “Mr. Long, you’re with me.”
“Aye sir!” The ten-year-old raised the brim of his borrowed bicorne hat, which kept slipping down on his brow. “Raaji, get those bags to the forward guns,” he commanded to one of his juniors—it was the young boy John had rescued from the catamite den. The freed boy ran bravely through the chaos of battle.
John smiled as Long fell in behind him. The lad will make midshipman in no time. They made their way through the smoke-filled gundeck. The whole ship trembled as fourteen port long guns were fired at a passing ketch. The air pulsed with the deafening reports. They paused until all the guns had launched back on their carriages, then continued to the brick stove near the bow.
A portly French chef, looking out of place in his striped breeches and monogrammed apron, was stoking the galley fire.
“Chef Jean-Christophe,” John shouted over the noise. “Is my order ready?”
The portly chef’s white mustache ticked up. “Why, just as you requested, Monsieur Sullivan. The main course is just coming out of the oven now!” He flung open the iron door and swept a hand as if unveiling a soufflé.
Nestled in the coals of the oven, a dozen iron cannonballs glowed red-hot.
###
“Get them out! Get them out!”
Dominique looked up from the bucket of bloody water and sponges. A Marine was helping Seaman Chauncy into the sick berth. Splinters of wood stuck out of the young man’s right cheek. Blood ran off his jaw in streams.
“Get it out!” Chauncey cried over and over, reaching for the splinters in his face. The Marine held back his hand, yelling for the surgeon.
The planks above Dominique’s head trembled as cannons on the gundeck fired. Wounded had been flowing into the sick berth since the battle started. Ethan had performed two surgeries already. His aplomb never seemed to falter, even with patients screaming and the deck shaking around his head.
Dominique rant to the wounded sailor. The bulkheads shuddered with the impact of another enemy shot, and dust rained down from seams in the oak planks. “Mr. Chauncey, you mustn’t touch the wound. We’ll see to you, I promise.”
“Mrs. Aubert,” Chauncey pleaded, his eyes wide with panic. “Get them out! You have to get them out!”
“I will, Mr. Chauncey, I will.” Dominique reached a hand for his face, only to realize she had no earthly idea how to help.
“Dominique!” said Ethan over the sound of a wailing patient. “Where’s my sponge? I can’t stitch through all this blood.”
“But Mr. Chauncey—”
“—Will live!” interrupted Ethan. He was standing over a sailor in his forties, who writhed on the bloody slab of the surgical table. One of the patient’s mates held him on his side while Ethan stitched a ragged gash on his abdomen. “This man will die if I don’t close his wound.”
“Coming!” cried Dominique. “Mr. Chauncey, I’m coming back, I promise. But you mustn’t pull out any of the splinters.”
Chauncey was sweating and pale, but he managed to calm himself. “I’ll be all right, Mrs. Aubert. Help Mr. Taylor.”
Domin
ique’s hand slipped off the lad’s shoulder, and she raced back to the surgical table. She grabbed a sponge from the bucket and took position across from Ethan. She wiped around Taylor’s wound, cleaning where Ethan was stitching. Taylor bit hard on a stick of wood, his face a sweaty grimace.
Another gun fired on the deck above, and Dominique flinched. She had hoped the surgery would distract her from the horrors of battle. But she felt sweat gathering on her skin. It was getting harder and harder to breathe in the suffocating heat. Her heart raced even faster. But she couldn’t give in to the urge to hide. She had to fight.
“Dominique.” Ethan’s hands were working another stitch into his patient’s wound.
“Yes?” Dominique asked, wondering what she’d done wrong this time.
“Good work.”
Dominique nodded and sponged more blood from the wound. She was holding back tears.
###
“Where’s my goddamn hotshot?” bellowed Old Man Meadows from the starboard bow chaser.
“Gunboats incoming on the port quarter!” shouted Midshipman Merrick from the quarterdeck.
“Ketch dead ahead!” cried Thomas Keane. “Laying on her broadside.”
“Hotshot coming up, Mr. Meadows,” cried John squatted near the forward hatch. Gabriel Sawyer was on the deck below using a powder ladle to carry the heated shot. He dumped the ball into a metal bucket at the end of a rope and tackle. John hauled up the bucket. “Meadows, load the starboard chaser.”
“Aye, sir!” Meadows barked orders, and a moment later his gun crewmen were loading powder and wadding. The gun would have to fire immediately after receiving the hotshot, or it might overheat and explode.
John shouldered between the two soot-stained gun crews. He looked through the gunports in the bow. A one-masted sloop was on the port tack, sailing across the mouth of the channel. Independence was sailing straight into the canal on a course perpendicular to the sloop. In moments, the main defender of the blockade would be firing a broadside into the American crew’s bow. The hotshots would have to be perfectly timed.
“Buford, guide their aim,” John ordered when the first bow chaser was loaded.
“Hmm.” The Tennessean stepped up to the starboard gun. “Four degrees lower. Their powder magazine is right above the water line.”
The gun crew hurried to adjust the wooden wedge under the gun barrel, lowering its elevation.
Meadows turned to John, his frown drawing leathery lines across his face. “Sir, it’s a one in a hundred shot. If we miss, they’ll rake us to pieces.”
“Time to win with the deuce, Mr. Meadows,” said John.
“Sir?”
John slapped the old sailor’s arm. “Run her out!”
“Second hotshot on the way!” cried Eric Long, the metal bucket in hand and steaming. He handed it off to the port bow chaser crew, who set to loading.
“Enemy sloop firing!” cried Keane.
A wave of iron roared toward the Independence. Two shots crashed into the hull, showering John and the forecastle crew with falling splinters.
“Steady, men!” cried John. “Starboard chaser, fire as you bear!”
Meadows hovered a slow-burning match over the gun’s touchhole, waiting for the aim to pass over the right spot. John watched through the gunport, along the barrel of the gun. Another of the enemy sloop’s cannons belched shot. The ball screamed toward them, thudded on the keel, and bounced into the water.
One of the sailors manning the gun looked at John slack-jawed. “Fuckin’ Hell! Did that shot just bounce off us?”
“Merciful Christ,” said another, making the sign of the cross.
Meadows plugged his closest ear and touched the match to the gun. The carriage launched back, and the iron muzzle belched smoke. A cluster of pirates screamed on the enemy deck as hot metal tore away limbs. The shot landed in the forward mainmast. It smoldered and smoked, but didn’t catch fire.
“Bugger it!” Meadows spat.
“It’s all right, Meadows,” said John. “The port gun’s loaded. Try again. Take your time.”
Meadows squatted behind the port bow chaser, once again squinting over the gunsight. Painful seconds ticked by. More shots from the enemy splashed around the bow. One penetrated the lower decks. Buford looked close over Meadows’ shoulder, again helping the gun crew properly elevate the gun.
At last, Meadows yelled, “Fire!”
Another deafening shot. The carriage roared back, wooden wheels creaking. John watched through smokey tears as the ball flew over the water. In that half heartbeat, the freedom of every soul aboard hung in the balance. There was a snap. A hole punched through the enemy’s hull.
Another second ticked by.
The air over the lake trembled with a massive explosion. The enemy sloop burst in half, a cloud of fire enveloping the main mast and setting the ship on fire. Cannons flew into the water. Rope and bits of yards crashed down like falling trees. The aftercastle of the ship split like a log in a fire. Flames mushroomed around the triangular sails, burning the canvas like dry paper. Pirates ran screaming out of the blaze, trailing fire as they hurled themselves into the water.
“Hoorah!” cried the men at the bow, fists in the air.
“Chew on that, you devils!” cried Old Man Meadows, his eyes maniacal.
The spreading fire had the desired effect on the nearby vessels. In a matter of minutes, they began to scatter, opening a hole in the blockade.
“It worked, sir!” Eric Long beamed at John. “Your idea worked, Mr. Sullivan! The pirates are fleeing.”
John laughed, patting the boy’s shoulder. “I’m not the first man to think of hotshots, my lad.”
Meadows gave Long a wink. “All the same, you just keep an eye on our Sully, young man. He’ll show you how it’s done.”
“That’s enough, Meadows,” groaned John. “Ready the bow chasers with another—”
A concussion, and a pop in John’s ears. He was tumbling through space. The solid wood of the deck slammed into John’s body. He rolled, flopped, and all went black. A moment later, John’s eyes flew open, his lungs gasping for air. His body shrank into a ball as a coughing fit seized his lungs. He choked on the smoke-filled air. Feet thudded around him in a frenzy. The face of Meadows appeared before him, his mouth open as he spoke but with no sound coming out.
Slowly, the ringing began to fade, and John struggled onto hands and knees. He realized he was on his back near the gangway. There were moans of pain.
“…You all right, sir?” The voice of Matthew Meadows filtered through John’s hearing as if underwater. The old sailor offered John a hand. “Mr. Sullivan, are you all right?”
John’s mind began to clear, and he jerked his head toward the forward guns. He took in a sharp breath as he saw a pile of smoking, twisted metal where the port bow chaser had been a moment ago. John realized what happened. The cannon’s crew had been loading another heated shot, and the barrel warped and exploded. He looked frantically looked about the deck. A man face-down in a pool of blood. Smoke billowing from the wreckage of the gun. And…
Eric Long lay on his back under the ship’s bell. John crawled forward like a drunk to Long’s side. The boy’s blue coat, too tall for his short height, was tattered and blackened with soot. A corkscrew of iron shrapnel was buried in the boy’s stomach. Blood bubbled up through his white waistcoat, filling the air with its metallic odor. The boy looked up at John with fearful eyes, his lips turning blue.
“Did the pirates hit us, sir?” Long murmured. “I’m sorry; I weren’t looking when I should’ve been.”
“Don’t worry about that, lad,” said John, his voice trembling. “It’s all right. You’re going to be all right.”
“Gunboats fine on the starboard quarter!” yelled Gabriel Sawyer, looking to John. “Orders sir?”
“I…ah…” John stared at the boy bleeding in front of him. “Gunboats…fine on the starboard quarter…”
Metal screamed through the air. Ryland�
�s voice carried over the din, shouting orders to the rigging, to the helm, to the gunners. Marines fired over the side. The hull shook with impacts. John felt as if there were something he needed to do, but he couldn’t think. Like a man powerless to wake from a dream. An image raced through his mind.
It’s a month ago. John is fighting on the deck of a Barbary gunboat. He’s in a blood-drunk rage. He hears a voice behind him.
“La taqtal ’akhi,” says a pirate boy only a few years older than Long.
John runs him through the gut. He doesn’t know it now, but Naim will one day translate the phrase.
“It means, ‘Don’t kill my brother.’”
“Sir, what are your orders?” Sawyer asked again.
“Sawyer,” said Meadows. “Fetch more heated shot from below. Our work isn’t done here.”
“Aye, aye,” said Gabriel.
Meadows kneeled beside John. His voice was soft as a father’s. “It’s all right, Mr. Sullivan. Why don’t you take the lad down to the surgery? I can take charge here.”
“Right.” John scooped Long up in his arms. “Mr. Meadows. Erm, please take charge here…”
“Aye, aye, Lieutenant.” Meadows said. “You just see to Mr. Long, sir.”
John nodded, unable to muster another word. He stepped down the hatch, the wounded boy cradled in his arms.
###
Dominique’s arms were bloody to the elbows. A dozen men in various states of dismemberment lay in sick hammocks, some of them moaning, others unconscious, wounds or stumps soaking through bandages. Half a dozen others lay covered on the floor—corpses awaiting burial. A macabre bucket was piled high with amputated limbs. Fingers, toes, and exposed bones poked over the rim. Dead blood mixed with the stench of human waste. She lifted a ladle of water to Seaman Chauncey’s lips, her heart breaking at the sight of his mutilated cheek, patched with strips of bloodied linen.
“Thank you, Miss,” said Chauncey after a few sips. He tried to sit up. “Give this hammock to someone else. I’m well enough to fight.”
Blood and Oak- Wolves Will Eat Page 51