Hades's Revenge (5 page)

A foul smell permeated the room as the
plaster was pulled away from the leg. The boys laughed and waved
their hands in front of their noses accusing each other of passing
wind and laughing. The skin revealed was sickly white from plaster
dust, lack of sun, and oxygen.

After cleaning and inspecting the stitches
under the remains of the dried herbal poultice, he slowly moved the
knee, flexing the atrophied muscles. “It’s normal. You need to go
slow to regain your muscle,” Simmons said, noting Rees’s shocked
face at seeing the difference between his thigh muscles. “A break
like this will not completely heal for some time, but if you’re
careful, it looks like it’s started nicely.

“I know you’re dying to scratch it, but try
not to. Your skin’s taken a beating in that cast for the last eight
weeks. I suggest you work the muscles in a gentle and controlled
movement taking your time to get back your strength. If you go to
fast you risk another major injury which might not heal as well a
second time.”

“I certainly don’t want that. Thank you, Mr.
Simmons. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”

“I’m glad it worked out. Now get out of
here. I don’t want to see you in here again for a very long time,
if ever—get my meaning?”

“Yes, sir,” Rees said with a smile.

“You boys help him off the table and up the
stairs, and when you’re feeling up to it, Rees, take down the
contraption that hauled you up and down to the middle deck. I need
to help Bartley with a repair of one of the sail riggings and I
need that pulley.”

“Right away, sir,” Rees said, steadied by
Marcus on one side and Phillip on the other he hobbled out the door
and up the stairs.

* * *

At dinner with Simmons, Donovan, Penn, and
Day, Jessop was celebrating after Day explained to the others how
the captain had relayed to Day that Jessop had disarmed him twice
that morning. A feat not easily done and one worth an extra few
pints of beer and rum.

Day set up a line of shot glasses, running
the rum bottle across them in a sloppy fashion spilling more on the
table than in the glasses. They filled their pints with beer and
held the shot glass above the stein. Day announced, “Anchors away,
boys,” and they all dropped their shot glasses in their steins and
drank their way to the bottom, retrieving the shot glasses in their
teeth when done.

After a game of liars dice and a few more
pints, Jessop was slurring his words and ready for bed. Simmons and
Penn followed him out for a piss off the deck. When Jessop turned,
still lacing his trousers, he bumped into Rees.

Rees shoved him, but Jessop was too drunk to
notice. He staggered as if on rough seas to the ladder of the
middle deck.

“Bafoon,” Rees said under his breath as he
watched Jessop make his way down.

Simmons grabbed him by the arm and said,
“That
bafoon
you’re referring to is the reason you’re
standing on two legs instead of one, Mr. Rees. You might show him a
bit more respect.”

“What do you mean, sir?” Rees said,
embarrassed to be heard by Simmons.

Penn stepped next to him and said, “What he
means is Mr. Simmons was ready to amputate your leg and Mr. Aster
thought to save it.”

“That’s right, he even cast your leg in
plaster with the help of Phillip and Marcus, built that contraption
to get you to your meals and bed and took up the majority of your
duties,” Simmons continued.

“He did?” Rees said scratching his chin.

“He did, indeed,” Penn said.

“I had no idea,” Rees admitted.

“Now you do, so quit your bellyaching and
show him a bit of gratitude,” Simmons said as the two men turned
away.

* * *

Jessop woke in the morning, his head
throbbing and feeling very dehydrated from his over drinking the
night before. But despite how he felt, he had made a commitment to
the captain and he refused to break word.

The sun was rising in the east as he
stumbled to the deck. He was blasted with a gust of briny wind that
made one of the sails snap to attention.

“Looking a little peeked, Mr. Aster,” the
captain stated as he pulled his sword from its scabbard.

“Yes. I drank a bit too much last
night.”

“Celebrating, were we?”

“Maybe—a bit,” Jessop guiltily admitted.

“I suppose I’ll have to work you a little
harder then,” he said getting into his sparring stance and sizing
up the depilated Jessop.

The swords clanged as they gracefully danced
around the deck resembling some violent version of a waltz. When
the captain pinned Jessop’s sword to the railing, he said, “Come
now, you can do better than that, son. You’re fighting like Crock,”
which Jessop surmised was an insult.

“Sorry, sir. I’m not myself this morn,” he
responded.

“
Lyeth with the right side as thin as you
can, towards your enemy, pointing no higher than the shoulder.
Trusting to your swords defense; for thereby your enemy hath little
room to hit, and you the less to defend.”

Cling, clang, cling, clang.

“
Also a good guard discourageth the enemy
to offend, and is ready always to defend. He that dazzles much
never defends well: for if you offend when he dazzles, he can
neither certainly defend himself, nor offend you.”

Cling, clang, cling, clang.

“Sir, might I make and observation of
grievance regarding one of your officers?”

Cling, clang, cling, clang.

“If you must.”

“Are you aware that Mr. Crock conscripted
these men and myself, in order to fulfill your demand for
sailors?”

He easily disarmed Jessop and stood still in
contemplation.

“I was not,” he said uncomfortably then took
stance for another volley of sword dancing. “Though my ignorance
does not purge me of guilt, nor do I applaud his methods, alas, his
resourcefulness serves the king and our priorities to defend our
nation.”

This did not sit well with Jessop, but he
had to admire his absolute loyalty to his men and his king.

“You do not find enslaving men to service
wrong?”

“My feelings are irrelevant. I do not ask
how, I only ask that orders are followed and lawful, in which both
are in account. Your apprehension is no different than an informal
drafting of services.”

“I suppose. What, pray tell, are our orders?
I can only surmise from our heading and the distance we’ve
traveled, that we’ve rounded the cape and are somewhere on the
western coast of the Americas.”

He seemed pleasantly surprised by Jessop’s
calculations. “You’ve been talking to Mr. Brown. Yes. Though I’m
not obliged to tell you details, I will say we are north of a port
called San Francisco, to defend and deflect the Spanish and French
from staking any more claim to these lands,” the captain said,
dodging a lunge from Jessop.

Suddenly a shout came from above in the main
mast. A sailor was excitedly warning of spying a ship. The swords
made one last clank together before the captain had his sword
tucked away and was pulling a spyglass from his belt. He extended
it to its full length and looked in the direction the man had
pointed through the misty fog of the morning.

Crock appeared out of nowhere as if
magically summoned as soon as the captain declared, “Man the battle
stations. There be pirates in our midst.”

Crock started shouting orders, bells rang,
and men were running every which way. If a bystander had been
there, they would have thought utter chaos had broken out, but in
reality, everyone knew what needed to be done.

“Mr. Aster, we’ll need your steel on deck to
defend the
Victory
.”

“Me?”

“Anyone who can handle himself with a sword
as you is needed. Pirates are notoriously deadly in these
parts.”

“Can’t we out run them?” Jessop asked.

“We’re fully loaded. Even if we weren’t, a
frigate like that can out maneuver us even in a squall. Hopefully
we out man and arm her, but I won’t lie, it will be a bloody day if
they plan to attack.”

“How will we know if they plan to
attack?”

“We are rerouting with a hard starboard
turn. If they turn with us, we can only assume attack is eminent.
Go to the armory and get yourself armed with a musket, pistol, and
supplies—now get.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Pirates, Jessop thought as he headed to
Master Day to get his supplies and into position. Of course there
were pirates on the sea, everyone knew that. Horrible stories of
pirates and their plunders, destruction and murder were told in
every tavern near a port, but it had never dawned on Jessop he
might encounter them himself. They always seemed to be, just that,
stories, but this was real. He would be fighting for his life and
the lives of the crew.

It was apparent by the commands and
clattering of more bells that the pirate ship was in pursuit. It
was time to take his stand with the others and defend his life and
the ship.

* * *

The next few hours were the most
horrifically bloody Jessop had ever experienced. It started with a
boom that muffled the rest of the remaining yells, booms, and
cracks, replacing them with a high pitched ring over all the sounds
of death and ruin.

Though the
Victory
was well armed and
supplied, Captain Kramer was right, the pirate ship maneuvered
around the
Victory
as if it were sitting anchored in port.
The name seen on the bow was
Hades’s Revenge
and as far as
Jessop could tell by its inhabitants, it was well named. They went
’round and ’round the
Victory
exhausting the cannon ball
reserves to the point that not just Phillip was running up and down
to get more.

Men were running everywhere, trying to
supply the cannons and when they couldn’t keep up with the
onslaught, the marauders swung aboard on ropes, like monkeys.
Others dropped long ladders from deck to deck. In no time the
Victory
was overrun with pirates.

Muskets and pistols fired, filling the deck
with white-gray smoke from the gun powder ejecting their
projectiles. The deck was littered with bodies, moving and not, but
all bloodied.

Jessop did his best to keep the pirates at
bay as did his comrades, but there seemed to be no end to their
numbers. Jessop had been lucky so far, only suffering a minor flesh
wound to the arm. He hadn’t even felt it due to the adrenalin that
ran rampant through his bloodstream. He noticed it only when he saw
blood on his sleeve, but there was no time to worry about his
wound, it was time to fight for his life.

He couldn’t keep up with the loading of the
pistol and tossed it aside and pulled his sword from its scabbard.
He could only hear Captain Kramer’s voice in his head telling him
what he should be doing. He sliced and chopped through a jungle of
pirates leaving two squirming pile of bodies and parts on either
side of him like a wake made from a boat.

It wasn’t until he found himself
face-to-face with the man whose voice was telling him what to do,
but HE was not speaking. He sat propped against the broken main
mast, his hands in his lap holding or maybe trying to put back the
parts spilled out from the massive gash in his abdomen.

“Captain Kramer,” Jessop yelled when he saw
him. The captain looked up at the familiar voice, dazed from his
injury. With his last breath he whispered “Jess” then went slack
into a pose of death that Jessop knew he would remember all his
days.

He wished to stop the world and mourn the
man he had come to greatly respect, but there was no time for
nostalgia. A war was raging around him and he had been lucky to
have the few moments he had with his friend and mentor.

Reality beckoned his attention as he heard
and felt the force of a sword passing very near his right ear. He
turned his sight to the brutal fighting. He slashed and stabbed
making a wide circle around himself and when he had a moment to
breath he saw William backed to the deck railing—three pirates
thrusting and swiping their shiny long blades coated in red
blood.

Jessop raced to his side. Unaware of his
coming up behind them, Jessop was able to kill one and injure
another giving William time to catch his breath. The last pirate
was not so easily removed and Jessop fought hard and long before he
was able to anticipate the pirate’s move into a lunge. Jessop was
able to spring to the pirate’s left and trip him with his legs.
Once he was off balance, a stab to the heart was all that was
needed to fall him.

William’s fighting skills were not great but
he was holding his own for the moment. Jessop focused on newcomers
who boarded in an endless rush of tides and ebbs. He was making
headway for a while until he heard a yelp from William who had
incurred a slice to his sword arm.

A quick look to his young comrade took his
attention off the pirate who came up from behind. Instead of
running him through with a sword, he hit him on the side of the
head with the pommel, knocking Jessop into a world of black.

When Jessop awoke, he and William Rees were
in a cage of sorts. It was barred on three sides and backed up to
the inside of the hull. A foul smell of stagnate water sloshed in
the middle of the room. The stench made him wrinkle his nose.

Where am I?

He could only assume on the pirate ship, but
why were they not dead? Before Jessop was knocked out, there were
very few
Victory
men still alive on deck. Why not make a
clean sweep and kill them all? What could they hope to receive from
the two of them? Jessop couldn’t see any reason why they had been
saved.

“Rees, are you all right?” Jessop asked with
concern to the young man who slumped in the corner of the cage his
forearms resting on his knees.

“I’m okay. Couple of gouges and cuts but
nothing that won’t heal.”