The King`s Coat

whispered. 'Now why don't you cut the swaggering duckfucker up'' Lewrie nodded to him and touched him on the shoulder wjth his free hand, then turned to face Lieutenant Wyndham, who was getting the feel of the heavy cutlass as though he had never handled one before. It was a plain weapon, heavy as sin, a simple chopping weapon with a wide blade and only one edge and a point of sorts at the end of the upward curve, like a caricature of an infantryman's hanger. The hand-guard was of flat steel with a ring guard and a wooden handle, which had been rubbed with dust to stanch the expected sweat. ’Salute,' Overstreet called, raising a long double-barreled pistol at half-cock. Wyndham took up a graceful, balanced pose with one hand over his shoulder, perfect as a French sword instructor, his blade in quarte. Lewrie brought his own blade to octave and he had to smile at the incongruous sight of someone posing with a cutlass as though it was a foil. 'I shall begin the count,' Overstreet intoned. 'One… and two… and three… begin.' They advanced with small steps, blades trembling with anticipation. First beat rang hesitantly as they explored. The army man opened with a thrust, which Lewrie beat aside, and then Wyndham responded with a cut -over. It was obvious that the lieutenant was a point man. They fenced in school style fora while, Lewrie trying Wyndham's disengage and parry style, eyes on Wyndham's own, his point, and the set of his feet.

Wyndham exploded with a sudden lunge. Lewrie parried it off high to his left, stepping aside the thrust in quartata, then swung at the unbalanced man and came a toucher of disemboweling Wyndham, who leaped back like a cat, eyes wide with surprise. Lewrie went to the attack with a feint thrust, beating aside the parry and lunged himself. Wyndham gave a grunt of alarm and stumbled backward to fallon the firm sand beach, while Lewrie spun past him and took up guard, waiting for him to regain his feet.

Lewrie understood what Osmonde had meant. What little small beer he had drunk was sloshing around in his belly like a sack of mercury, and his thirst was hellish. The exertion felt debilitating, and they had barely begun! But he found time to whirl his cutlass in mock salute and raise one eyebrow in a cocky grin as Lieutenant Wyndham got to his feet and began to advance once more.

Wyndham began thrusting low with feint thrusts, stamping to distract Lewrie's attention, or throw off his timing, forcing him back as their blades rang in engagement and light parries. Lewrie gave ground half-step for half-step to maintain distance before shifting to a low guard and point-parrying Wyndham wider and wider. The soldier wanted to step back and regain his advantage, so he ended with his blade at high first, and whirled it suddenly in a killing swing that Lewrie met with a crossover to fourth. The two blades met with a great clang and the shock stunned his arm and hand, but Lewrie cut across, his own blade ringing off Wyndham's hilt guard, which lowered the army man's weapon below his waist. Lewrie feinted a cut to the head backhanded, which made him duck back off-balance. Lewrie drew his elbows back and disengaged, then whirled his cutlass under and around to spin Wyndham's guard over his head. He then struck down the blade, to lay the heavy cutlass on Wyndham's scalp with a firm tap that cut through hair and skin and thudded off the bone. The infantryman tried to bind, but Lewrie shoved forward with his hilt and pushed hard, jumping back at the same time from the irate killing swing that followed.

There were murmurs of alarm or pleasure from the witnesses as they saw the blood on Wyndham's head and face running down into his eyes. Humiliated, Wyndham was on the attack at once, taking the hint of their brief practice and using the point less, wielding the cutlass more like one would a hanger to attack edge to edge. Lewrie gave ground, seeing the energy Wyndham was putting into his efforts, and knowing that sooner or later the man would go back to the pointwork he was used to, once he began to flag.

Wyndham began to execute flying cut-overs fairly well, which Alan was parrying off, but he suddenly went back to the point and faked Alan out badly. The straight-armed lunge grazed his left cheek with steel, and he felt a sudden pain in his face. But he responded with a counterthrust under that made Wyndham hop to save his nutmegs, then an upward parry and a rapid double, which forced Wyndham to leap back once more. Lewrie took a long pace forward to attack, changing tactics to the full naval cutlass drill-stamp, slash, balance and return, slash-right and left, up and down, whirling the heavy blade in a whistling arc that brought grunts of effort from Wyndham each time he parried, the blades smashing together with the hefty clang of a farrier making a new horseshoe. Lewrie added flying cut-overs to break the pace, going from high to low before making a swing with his wrist that almost put his point into the army man's chest. Wyndham's parry was weak, and he almost dragged himself backward to escape, his chest heaving. Lewrie thought it a trick, but was not sure. He himself was tired… God, he was aching, his wrist and his arms heavy as lead, and his legs juddering props that threatened to go slack at any second and drop him to the ground. But Wyndham did look finished. His body was streaming sweat, thinning the blood that ran down his face and coating it with claret. And his eyes that had been so mocking and so sure were now squinted with concern and doubt. He was tempted to leap forward and finish it but remembered Captain Osmonde's advice to go slow and wear him down.

They met again, blades still ringing, but softer now. Wyndham thrust low, using the point to come up with a ripping slash at Lewrie's stomach, but he beat it aside at the last instant, driving Wyndham's guard low, met the next blow wi1b a two-handed swing that forced Wyndham's blade wide to the left and almost into the sand. Lewrie stepped forward into his guard sideways and swung back to the right two-handed again with all his flagging might. He felt a thud like sinking an axe into a chopping block, and leaped back, centering his guard against a reply. But it was over.

Wyndham stood before him with his feet together, his face as white as his snowy breeches. They both looked down at the sand to see Lieutenant Wyndham's right arm lying there, still clutching the cutlass and the nerveless fingers curling and drumming an irregular tatoo on the hilt! Wyndham looked back to him in surprise, before his eyes rolled back into his head and he pitched forward to the sand, a fountain of blood gushing from what remained of his shoulder with each beat of his heart.

Lewrie stumbled backward, unable to feature it, the tip of his blade dragging a furrow through the sand. Ashburn came up to him and he dropped his cutlass and turned away from him. Wyndham's party came forward, and both surgeons worked on the infantry officer, cauterizing a great cut in Wyndham's side, and hands slipped in gore as they tried to seize the spurting arteries and sear them shut, while the seabirds cried and wheeled at the smell of blood steaming on the beach.

Lewrie sat down on the step of his coach, watching the drama below. The naval coachee gave him a large glass of brandy to drink. ’Gawd almighty, sir.. ‘. ’Indeed.' Alan nodded in shock. 'Another please.’

This brandy he sipped more slowly, becoming aware of how sore he was allover after being so tensed up for God knew how long, how his arms arched and throbbed, and the pain pulsed in his ravaged cheek. His thigh muscles were jumping and his calves and ankles hurt as though he had strolled twenty miles across country.

Captain Osmonde climbed up the sand slope from the beach to him. 'I believe you shall make a dangerous man, after all, Mister Lewrie.’

’I meant but to cut him…' Lewrie dazedly protested. ’I believe you should consider that intent most successful,' the Marine officer said most dryly. ’Will he live?’

‘Lieutenant Warren Wyndham is now late of His Majesty's 12th Regiment of Foot,' Osmonde said. 'Totally exsanguined of his life's blood and dead on the field of… honor. Was it worth it?’

‘At the moment, aye, sir,' Lewrie said, studying his shoes. 'I don't know about tomolTow.’

’An honest answer, at any rate,' Osmonde said, kneeling down in front of him. 'Don't develop a taste for this, boy. War is gloriously obscene enough, without turning into a man-killer.’

’I want no more of it,' Alan confessed. ’Best have the surgeon sew that up,' Osmonde said, toucbing his cheek to examine his wound. 'Won't spoil your looks for the ladies, I doubt. Hungry?’

‘Yes,' Alan realized. ’Ashburn had the good faith in you to reserve rooms for us for a late breakfast at an inn on the way back. I, for one, am famished.’

’There's one good that will come out of this,' Lewrie said as he got to his feet at the approach of the surgeon with his bag. 'There is no way they'll keep me as a messenger and elTand boy ashore after this. If I'm not at sea within a week, there's a dozen of good claret for you and Ashburn on it.. ‘.

Chapter 11