Damn! If that one throw had missed, the other ship would be careering away, by now, its steering ropes broken, the Anna free to make her escape. One throw. One stupid throw. The difference between life and death. He must cut that rope.
The two hulls came together with a grinding crash.
Sails full set, the attacking ship tried to veer away, helmless, but met the resistance of the Anna's hull, its wheel still set for the wind. For the moment the greater mass of the Anna took charge, and the two intertwined hulls charged on through the dark.
The remaining men on the attacker raised an exultant cheer. There were no prisoners taken at sea. And this had become personal. There were eleven of them left, a couple of them wounded but not seriously so, and only four men on the main deck of the Anna, two on the quarterdeck. What was there left to lose?
Gresham knew that in an instant the remaining enemy would launch themselves onto the deck of the Anna. They would do so to the accompaniment of the awful, shrieking and grinding sound of two hulls bound unwillingly together, — and the frantic banging on the hatches that secured the forecastle and the hold. Mannion and the others had thoughtfully battened both of them down, as one would when securing for a storm. The result was that the normal crew of the Anna and her captain were locked in below, just in case they might decide to take the side of the attackers.
The defenders had one surprise left. Those attacking had to step up onto the deck of the Anna, exposed. Men expecting to board a ship, where those on the receiving end had no warning, armed themselves with axes and sabres, cutting weapons for close work. Pistols were heavy, cumbersome, and tended to lose their priming powder if joggled. There was less hindrance for those who stood waiting for an assault.
As eleven men launched themselves onto the deck of the Anna, six pistol shots rang out. One missed completely. Dick had been shown how to load and fire such a weapon, but at the last nerves had overcome him. One other ball caught a glancing blow to the shoulder of an attacker, tearing his jacket but only nicking his flesh. He swore vociferously but swept on. One, obscenely, caught an attacker full in the mouth, and blew his head into a foul red jelly.
Unlike a rifle bullet, a pistol ball leaves the barrel at a relatively low velocity. This has many consequences that reduce its lethalness as a weapon. The recoil is more blunt and savage, reducing aim. The short barrel means that the ball receives less sense of direction from its carrier, and is freer to decide where it goes. The ball travels less far. Its accuracy is in part a function of the speed with which it leaves the barrel.
But the pistol ball has one, great advantage. The far faster rifle bullet hits the body at high speed and passes through it, there being little difference in size between the entry and the exit wounds. The lead pistol ball does not have the speed to pass through the body. It flattens as it meets its first impact with flesh, and even more so if the first impact is with bone. So much of the human body is fluid, and the slow pistol ball sets up a shock wave as it first hits and then settles into living flesh. Fire a pistol with a lead ball into a lump of clay, modelled to have the same constituency as human flesh and the exit wound will be six times larger than that on entry.
Thus a pistol bullet does not have to kill a man to incapacitate him. It can, quite literally, knock him out, deliver such a shock to his body that it shuts down and goes into total shock.
Of the six pistol shots fired by Gresham and his men, one killed a man instantly, three condemned men to lingering, gangrenous deaths, blowing flesh out of their bodies for which nature could not compensate. More importantly for the defenders, the odds were reduced: eleven functioning men reduced to seven. Seven against six. Except for the four upright seamen on board the attacker, still stamping out flames but capable of joining the attack at any minute. One of them, the small man with the goatee beard, seemed in control.
Seven men leapt on board the Anna. Seven men who a short while earlier had been in a company of twenty. Seven men who had seen two thirds of their companions diced into bleeding red meat. Seven men crazed by combat, by the loss of their fellow men, by sheer blood lust. Seven men who had nothing to lose.
Gresham and Jack vaulted the front rail of the quarterdeck, landing hard on the deck. Two of the attackers veered towards Gresham, seeing in his finer clothes his status as captain. There was a shout, a command. It was the small man with the beard. His first words were strange. Then he shouted again, more clearly, 'Not him! Not him! Keep him alive!' Was it accented? The faintest hint of something unusual in the inflexion?
The two men backed off, sabres pointing warningly towards Gresham. On either side of him, fierce, hand-to- hand fighting was skidding across a deck slippery now with blood. Mannion was locked in a gut-wrenching exchange of blows with a man as big as he was, the clang of their blades something primeval. Jack seemed to have the better of his man, probing at him thoughtfully, deflecting his enemy's wilder and wilder blows with almost intellectual precision, forcing the man back further and further, with occasional feints with his boat axe confusing his enemy even more. Edward, as thin and lugubrious as ever, was dancing across the deck, showing the agility of a dancer, drawing the tail, thin man on, attacking him, tiring him out. He had noticed the thin stream of blood flowing from the man's leg, where the grape must have brushed against him. Young Dick, dark hair matted against his forehead, was losing ground, out of breath, on the edge of panic, flailing out widely and wildly. He was being played with, as a cat plays with a mouse, as Jack was playing with his opponent. Dick's opponent, the one whose shoulder had been nicked by the pistol ball, was showing no sign of any serious injury, and was eyeing Dick with the same predatory caution with which Jack was eyeing his man. It was only a matter of time. Tom… where was Tom? He was nowhere to be seen. The seventh attacker, his cap ripped off his head to reveal a startlingly bald pate with a diagonal scar across it, had seen Dick as the weakest of the opposition, was turning to attack him. At the same time, the two men who had been called off Gresham had retreated enough to leave a gap through which Gresham could see the grappling iron, cutting deep into the wooden side of the ship. Cut them free? Or help Dick?
Gresham's sword was out, the boat axe in the other hand. He turned as if to head for the grappling iron, and his two guards instinctively turned with him. With extraordinary agility Gresham swung round the other way, and in the brief moment that one of the men exposed his chest Gresham plunged his sword directly under his ribcage, twisting and turning the blade as he did so and ripping it back out with a savage downward heave. The man screamed, more in anger and fear than in pain — and dropped his sabre to clutch at the gaping wound through which blood was now pouring. The other man backed off, fear in his eyes. Gresham had turned in a moment, impossibly, the blade a mere flicker. There was no time for finesse. Dick had seen bald pate coming towards him, and was almost crying now. His first attacker chose not to wait for bald pate, and suddenly leapt forward, smashing Dick's blade aside and raising both hands to bring his heavy edge down on Dick's skull. An expression of surprise came over his eyes, and he looked down to see a sword blade protruding from his chest. Gresham had pirouetted round in one seamless movement and lunged forward again. As the man gaped and blood began to dribble from round his mouth, Gresham put his foot firmly in the man's back and pushed with all his strength. With a sad, sucking, sighing noise the blade pulled out of the man's body, as he was hurled forward onto Dick, who screamed and half scrabbled out of the way of the descending body. Dick's face was a mass of blood now. Not his blood. The blood of the man who had so nearly killed him. Gresham faced up to bald pate, who suddenly halted his onward rush. Gresham saw something in the man's eyes, and started to turn.
The man behind him, one of the two who had been told not to kill him, was about to make a last brave effort and disobey orders. Scarface. He had a scar down one side of his face, a scar which had closed off his left eye. Whether the eye was still there or not, God only knew. Scarface had seen Gresham's skill, knew there would be no prisoners from this fight, knew it was kill or be killed. He was experienced enough, whoever he was, to see that this was his one chance, even if he had only one eye left to see it.
Gresham had lunged at one man, then turned and skewered the other man, but it had taken time to kick the body off his blade. He had then turned a third time to face the bald-headed man. Reacting to three opponents was miraculous. Reacting to four was simply impossible. For a brief moment Gresham was unbalanced, exposed. Scarface wielded his crude blade like a scythe aimed at Gresham's neck. Gresham turned his head to see it heading inexorably for him. Even as he brought his own aching sword arm up he knew he would be a fraction too late, even as he tried to spring back away from the gleaming steel. He had killed two men, and parried a third. The fourth would kill him. He greeted the prospect with something approaching relief.
There was a clang that could have come from Titan's armoury, and the swinging blade hung in mid-air, stopped. Mannion and his opponent had been exchanging blows of vast force with monotonous regularity, almost taking turns, when for no apparent reason one of Mannion's massive strikes did not stop at his enemy's sword, but seemed to carve down straight through it, snapping the defending blade as if it was glass and carrying on to split the man's skull, grey brain matter and blood spurting out like a newly constructed fountain in a noble's garden. Mannion had not waited to see the man's body drop to the ground, but had turned just in time to cover the four
