seen gathered in one location — over fifty — tossing soul after soul into the sea; each person with a stone block attached to the soles of their feet. I submerged in a hurry as one of those human anchors bared down on top of me. Both stone and man broke through the water, and before I could return for air, I witnessed this figure's drowning descent not an inch from my face. Gargling desperate, he snagged his arms around my legs then dragged me with him to the weeds.
Struggling, I witnessed many others sink alongside us, all to experience the full and crushing weight of the sea. Breath rapidly depleting, I challenged this man's grip with every ounce of energy, tugging, pulling and prying; but his bulk was too heavy and his arms too powerful. Suffocating now, I begged his own anguished expression to show mercy and let me live. Like mine, his was a normal face craving air and another chance; but searching deeper, I saw something in this man that profoundly touched my heart — the pitiful remorse, the recalling years of regret playing like a movie over his drowning eyes — but too little for redemption, and all too late for rescue.
I expressed sorrow with the last of me, sorrow for the both of us; then abruptly and amazingly, I found myself free of him. Only he could explain, but the man willingly released me from his arms, and sunk alone to his fate.
Breaking the surface, I wretched the salt water from my lungs. Kat's call was clearer now, but with scant energy to swim, I expected my end sooner rather than later.
There was a long whistle too, followed by a tall ship battering the water aside. Three massed and fully rigged, it was a sight of sails fat with wind and rope tails blowing in the gale. Her sailors were thin silhouettes over the deck, but each scurrying to our aid. Fierce lightning cracked the masthead and its electric light revealed the name of this glorious ship, stretched golden across the stern — Bounty.
31. We Buccaneers
Seven men hauled us onboard using muscle, mitts, ropes and rings. Restored to our mortal bodies, we lay on a sopping deck before hardy sailors, their faces aged by salt and time.
'Merci!' said Harmony, breathlessly ringing the water from her gown.
'Thank-you all so much!'
'We're lost!' I chattered. 'Where are we?'
The sea pounded this ship from all sides, as if angry for losing us.
'Pretty girl!' sneered one of the men, curling Harmony's hair through his hands. 'She'll wish she was back in the water when we're through! Am I right lads?'
This grubby sailor laughed with the rest, only to be interrupted by a younger man, the runt of this litter.
'Back!' he exclaimed, separating them from us.
'Name's Hallet,' he said to me, 'John Hallet. You are safe now mister! You and your people. For the time being at least!'
Filling his naval jacket with pride, there was a kindness on Hallet's boyish face, and honesty in the eyes. It was his voice I heard bawl over the ocean and his whistle too — John Hallet was our saviour.
'Take what they have!' yelled one, built like a barrel. We were suddenly manhandled by these sailors, confiscating our weapons and flasks. We fought to prevent this but the water made us weak, even Kat slumped a temporary shadow of his former self.
The sailor who ordered this callous toss of our weapons into sacks had a face peppered with acne and scabs; and his body was as worn as this ship.
'I ordered these people be treated with respect!' cried Hallet, the spray lashing his face. 'They are no threat to us Williams! Now fetch some blankets and see them all to berths below!'
'Clamp ‘em in irons!' returned Williams, to agreeing grunts from his fellows.
'You'll carry out my orders!' roared Hallet. 'Never again will I repeat myself to a wretched, black-hearted curr like you Williams! Long have you undermined me man, and no longer will I stand for it!'
Surprised, Williams mocked Hallet's exuberance, his youth and class before rallying the men to his own cause. 'And what would the captain say, Mr. Hallet, sir? Pickin' up strays on these seas? Aye it may have been your notion to collect these floaters but it is mine to keep 'em where eyes can see 'em! What do we say lads?'
'We don't need more strangers!' concurred one, with a gaping hole where his eye should be. 'Not this sort anyhow! That scarred bugger there has seen many a battle, and the woman has wings!'
'They're cursed!' declared another. 'A curse from the Devil! Toss em back to the locker I say!'
'
'But after,' added Williams; 'after we get our share of the woman!'
His words inspired a salivating groan from these men, and their greedy hands began to molest Harmony, pulling the sling from her arm and groping her curves. Eddinray found the fight to beat them off, but Williams quickly slashed a warning cutlass across his chest. 'Take nay action against us, ye ole knight! Or my next score will cross yer bloody throat!'
Their calloused palms snuffed Harmony's moans, but before the clothes could be torn from her body, Hallet again pushed the men back and bawled over a storm.
'Williams you're a bloody disgrace! A bloody disgrace, you hear? You others curse your damned filthy hands to the devil! The captain will see to the matter! The captain alone! For now you follow out orders Williams, my orders, or tonight I'll see you keeping an eye on all of us — from the masthead!'
Williams set his withered eye to that high and hellish spot through torn canvas and rigging, then resentfully nodded at his younger superior. It was then, whilst examining the ship that I noticed — despite having enough seamen here — there was no hand at the helm of this ship. At the quarterdeck, thick rope held the wheel in place and on course, whatever diabolical course that may be.
Without warning, two heavyset men handled Kat by the armpits, and he immediately shoved the pair aside.
'He doesn't need assistance!' I yelled. 'Leave him alone!'
Kat's ungrateful attitude did not please the ugly Williams, who wasted no time smashing his boot heel into the samurai's face.
'We've done nothing!' Harmony sobbed, watching Kat collapse. 'Let us be!'
The rest advanced. Harmony was thrown over one man's shoulder; two dragged my limp body over the deck whilst the last of them tugged Eddinray along by the wrist. 'I can walk!' he complained. 'My legs are functioning perfectly!'
On his back, blood oozed from Kat's nose, and when it touched his tongue, his old self returned with a vengeance. His head butt staved one's cheek in and his punch blew the teeth out another's mouth. Quickly set on, all six crew dropped us to swing their fists and boots into our bullish friend.
'Leave him!' I moaned. 'Kat!'
My sound could never penetrate the storm, and although Kat was typically tough in defending himself, he took brutal hits enough to kill a lesser man. 'Don't fight Kat!' I cried. 'They won't stop if you keep fighting!'
Through walloping arms and legs, I noticed Williams brandish a blunt shank. Kat saw it too, and without mercy, he grabbed the Seaman's wrist, broke it with a downward snap then forced the shank through William's ribcage. The pit faced sailor spat red over the samurai, before thumping dead to the ever-washing deck.
From the corner of my eye, I noticed the bulging sack containing our weapons and the flasks to save this soul — but there they would remain. Expectantly, the subsequent dispersion of William's body only encouraged his fellow sailors to finish Kat off.
'Look out!' yelled Harmony suddenly, as Kat was knocked out cold.
'Get us all murdered!' exhaled Eddinray, the culprit holding the club. 'Bloody madman!'
Hallet snatched the wood from Eddinray's hand then ordered his remaining men to escort us below, as the soul of seaman Williams became a shrimp in his own bloodied pool.
***
We idled in a shell of old wood and creepy crawlies. A burning oil lantern smearing yellows and oranges hung
