It was instantly a deadly race to bring their arms to bear, neither man hesitating a second. White had the advantage of a smaller weapon, but he was caught in an awkward position with one leg still over the rail. He quickly grabbed at the gun grip and flipped the barrel forward but nervously squeezed the trigger before taking aim. A harmless seam of bullets ripped across the deck and into a mound of ice near the ladderway before a loud pop erupted from across the deck.
With nerves as cold as the ice that encompassed the ship, Pitt had calmly dropped all the weapons but one, pulling the thick stock of a loaded Brown Bess musket to his shoulder. The gunman’s bullets ricocheted off the deck nearby as he quickly aimed the long barrel, then squeezed the trigger. It felt like minutes to Pitt before the external percussion cap ignited the black powder charge and sent a lead ball blasting out the muzzle.
At short range, the Brown Bess was deadly accurate, and Pitt’s aim held true. The lead ball struck White just below the collarbone, the impact throwing him clear off the rail. His body cartwheeled over the side, slamming into the frozen turf at Zak’s feet. With a confused look in his eye, he stared up momentarily at Zak, then died.
Zak callously stepped over the body while pulling out his Glock automatic pistol.
“Take them,” he hissed at the other two men, waving his gun at the ship.
The gun battle quickly descended into a deadly game of cat and mouse. Pitt and Giordino took turns popping out of the ladder well and rapidly firing two or three of the antique weapons, ducking bursts from the incoming automatic weapons. A heavy pall of smoke from the burnt black powder soon obscured visibility on the deck, making aim difficult for the shooters on both sides.
Pitt and Giordino established an ad hoc reloading station at the base of the ladderway, allowing one man to shoot while the other reloaded additional weapons. Pitt had found a small cask in the Spirit Room containing five pounds of black powder, which he carried to the lower deck. The cask was used to fill a number of small hand flasks, which in turn were used to load black powder into the muskets, shotguns, and percussion pistols found below. In the lengthy reloading process from the days of old, the powder was poured into the barrel and compressed with a ramrod, followed by the lead shot and a layer of wadding, which was rammed yet again. Pitt was no stranger to firing antique weapons and showed Giordino the proper quantity of powder and ramming technique to speed the process. Loading a long-barreled musket took half a minute, but with repeated efforts both men were soon reloading in less than fifteen seconds. Popping out of the ladderway, they would then fire singly or in succession, trying to keep their opponents guessing.
Despite their superior firepower, Zak and his men had a tough time getting a clean shot off. Forced to climb up the hull, they had to grab the side rail and cower behind its planking while trying to bring their guns to bear. Pitt and Giordino could easily spot their movements and soon had bloodied the hands of the gunmen by splintering the rail with lead. Zak quietly moved in front of the other two gunmen, clinging deftly to the outer rail. He turned and whispered to the other men between rounds.
“Rise and fire together after the next shot.”
Both men nodded, holding their heads down while waiting for the next burst of musket fire. It was Pitt’s turn to fire, and he crouched atop the ladderway with a flintlock pistol on the top step and two muskets across his lap. Shouldering one of the muskets, he peered over the lip of the deck, scanning the side rail through the gun smoke left from Giordino’s last shots. The top of a black parka wavered above a point on the rail, and he quickly drew a bead on the target. He waited for a head to pop up but the gunman refused to budge. Deciding to test the stopping power of the side rail, Pitt lowered his aim a foot and pulled the trigger.
The shot bore through the aged planking and into the calf muscle of the gunman crouching behind. But his body was already reacting to the sound of the musket shot, and he rose with his machine gun to fire. Ten feet down the rail, the second gunman followed suit.
Through the black haze, Pitt detected both men rising and immediately ducked into the ladderway. But as he back-stepped, his instincts took over, and he grabbed the pistol on the step. As his body ducked below the deck, his arm went up with the pistol. His hand was aligned closer to the second gunmen, and he whipped the barrel toward the man’s head and quickly squeezed the trigger.
A simultaneous explosion of lead ripped across the surrounding deck, blasting a shower of splinters on top of him. His ears told him that one of the machine guns had ceased firing, while the other still peppered the ladderway. Sinking to the lower deck with a slight dizziness, he turned to Giordino, who was headed up with a pair of wood- handled pistols and a Purdey shotgun.
“I think I got one of them,” he said.
Giordino stopped in midstep, noticing a pool of blood growing on the deck next to Pitt’s feet.
“You’ve been hit.”
Pitt looked down, then raised his right arm. A V-shaped hole had been ripped through the sleeve beneath his lower forearm, dripping a steady flow of blood. Pitt squeezed his hand, which still gripped his pistol.
“Missed the bone,” he said.
He slipped off the wool jacket as Giordino stepped over and ripped open the sleeve on Pitt’s sweater. Two ugly holes tore through the meaty part of his forearm, somehow missing nerves and bone. Giordino quickly tore strips from Pitt’s sweater and wrapped them tightly around the wound, then helped Pitt back into his jacket.
“I’ll reload,” Pitt said, regaining some color in his pale face. Gritting his teeth, he looked Giordino in the eye with a determined plea.
“Go finish them off.”
82
Zak had remained hidden behind the rail when his two gunmen rose and fired. Using their barrage as a cover, he then stood and rolled over the rail, scurrying across the deck to the ice-encased foremast. He looked aft, but there was no way he could make a clean shot on the ladder well, as a mound of ice amidships created a high barrier between the two positions.
It was an absurd situation, he thought, being held up by men armed with weapons over a century and a half old. He had to admire their cunning, which seemed noticeably absent from his own security team. He looked for another vantage point from which to fire, but, finding none, he searched for a way belowdecks. He spotted the forward hatch, but it was buried under two feet of ice, and there was no forward ladderway on the ship. Then he looked up, noticing that the foremast was tilted at an awkward angle. A cross-spar had ground onto the ridge and jammed the mast to starboard. The heavy mast had cracked the deck around its base, opening a two-foot gash that led below.
Had Zak looked back at the exchange of gunfire, he might have witnessed the death of his second gunman and reconsidered his next move. But he was already thinking three steps ahead as he tucked the Glock into his pocket, then lowered himself through the gap in the deck and dropped into the black interior below.
Giordino climbed cautiously to the head of the ladderway and quickly peered over the ledge. The deck was silent, and he caught no sight of any movement. Then he heard a cry, close by but not from aboard the ship. With the shotgun cocked and at the ready, he crept out of the ladderway and tentatively stepped to the side rail.
Aside the exterior hull, he observed two bodies lying faceup on the ice. The mercenary White, the first casualty, lay with his eyes still open, a pool of red around his torso. Beside him was a second gunman, who had a large hole through his forehead from Pitt’s last pistol shot. Giordino spotted a third man down on the beach, who was shouting for help. He clutched his leg and moved with a limp, trailing a thin stain of red.
Giordino heard a noise behind him and turned to see Pitt climb uneasily out of the ladderway, a pistol in his good hand and a musket over his shoulder.
“Did we manage to scare them off?” he asked.
“Thanks to your eagle-eyed marksmanship,” Giordino replied, motioning over the rail at the two dead gunmen. “I’d say you won the turkey shoot today.”
Pitt eyed the bodies with little remorse. Though he felt no comfort in killing another man, he had no pity for hired murderers, especially those that had had a hand in sinking the
“Sounds like they have some companions on the beach,” he said. “They’ll be back in force shortly.”
“My thoughts as well,” Giordino replied. Looking at Pitt’s bloodied sleeve, he gave his friend a concerned
