The King - Dewey Lambdin

"Hostages, perhaps, mes amis!" Choundas brightened. "For safe passage out of here. Timonier, steer to meet them in the shallows. Men, ready your muskets! I want prisoners. An officer if we can."

"They're turning to meet us shy of the beach," Lewrie told his boat crew. "We're going to have a fight on our hands, lad. A devil of a fight! Load muskets and pistols, and lay your swords to hand."

Lewrie looked back at Culverin. There was not one gun barrel that could be cranked around in its port to lay on the French. Even if they could have pointed, the range was too great. He looked back to the shore, to the eastern end of the beach where the boats were on fire; it would appear that his father's regiment had been held up in their advance. There would be no aid from that quarter, either.

I could meet 'em gunnel to gunnel, he thought, but one peek over the side canceled that thought. The water may have been clear as gin but there was the niggling little matter of his not being able to swim, and boats were sure to be capsized if they meleed like miniature frigates! The water was so clear it was impossible to judge its depth but for the faint sunrise shadow of his hull on the bottom-sand, and he judged that to be over his head, perhaps a full fathom still.

"Cony, put your tiller over hard a'larboard," he ordered.

"We beach and meet them with the boats for cover and steadier aim."

"Aye, sir," Cony parroted, and shoved the tiller bar over. The second boat in his wake followed suit a moment later.

"We'll be the stone fortress, he'll be the enemy squadron, men," Lewrie told both boat crews to cover his queasy fear of being drowned. "Once ashore, get down below the gunnels and we'll skin 'em. And if they want to come to us, then be-damned to 'em, I say! Save your pistols for when they get close."

The French boats changed course once more, and the oarsmen laid almost flat on their thwarts to drive faster, once they saw their plan for a miniature naval engagement was for nought.

"Row! Row! Get us ashore, quickly now!" Lewrie urged his hands. The French were aimed right for him, trying to be upon them even before they could jump over the gunwales or get the oars shipped! Musketeers lay in the bows of the French boats, and one or two tried shots at long range. A stroke oar aft by Cony shrieked and fell back among his mates, upsetting the furious stroke, his neck shattered by a ball.

"Toss yer oars!" Cony yelped as the surf heaved them forward on a limp wave. The cutter lurched and slithered with a wet hiss as her keel ran onto the sand.

"Damn the oars!" Lewrie shouted. "Over the side and make ready!" The bow man leaped shin-deep into water and started to drag the bows farther up the beach, while the oarsmen let go of their oars and took up their weapons. The bow man was hit,-flung backward with a grunt of ruptured lungs, which encouraged them to make haste and slither over the off-side gunwale instead of standing and leaping out with a care to staying erect and dry.

Muskets were popping, and bits of the cutter were flying into the air as ball splintered the wood. Lewrie had gone sprawling once over the side, and when he raised his head, there was the lead boat not ten yards off, ready to ground almost alongside!

"Cock your locks… take aim… fire!" he shouted as he drew his first pistol. Six muskets spat out a thin volley. The seventh had soaked priming and only squibbed with a dull phutt! But three French oarsmen had been hit as they stowed their oars and took up weapons from the bottom boards. The second French boat, the one with Choundas aboard, was landing ten yards farther up the beach. Lewrie drew back the lock of his pistol and took aim at a French musketman. He pulled the trigger and his weapon squibbed.

"Well, damme!" he spat, tossing the useless pistol aside and drawing its mate. By then, his target was kneeling out of side on the far side, his arm appearing as he rammed down a fresh load. He popped back up and Lewrie fired. This time, the weapon gave out a sharp bark and the Frenchman fell back with a shrill scream as the top of his head was blown off. "Fire at will!"

His second boat grounded, and the musketmen came running for shelter behind his cutter as four muskets fired. The French sailors were returning fire at a suicidal range.

"Cony, our crew. Steel!" Lewrie snapped. "Witty, give 'em a volley and then join me!"

He drew his hanger as the last of the French weapons popped. "Boarders! Away boarders!"

He went round the bows of his boat and ran straight for them.

Pistols were going off. A Frenchman leaped up with a musket to confront him, but was shot down. Another spun about in his tracks and fell into the surf with a great splash. And then Lewrie was upon his first man. Two-handed, he slashed upward, forcing the man's long musket barrel high, stamping forward with his left foot to get inside the reverse swing of that hard metal-plated butt as it came for his skull, only pummeling his shoulder. A quick downward slash that left him kneeling, and his foe was howling with pain, his belly laid open from left nipple to right hip.

A cutlass came probing from his dying foe's right, tangled in the man's flailing arms, and Lewrie drew back and thrust, taking this enemy in the stomach. Lewrie sprang erect, pushing himself forward to stay close, so Choundas' musketeers could not take a shot at the melee and pick out Englishmen to kill. He was met by a flaxen blonde sailor who was trying to decide if he wanted to finish ramming home a charge in his musket or drop it and draw his cutlass. Lewrie towered over him and cut downward through shoulder and collar bone, bringing a huge gout of blood that shot into the air like a fountain.

There was a volley of musketry, and two of Lewrie's hands went down as they clambered over the boat to get at the Frenchmen. From higher up the beach, there was an answering volley. Choundas had gotten his crew organized and they fired.

Able seaman Witty had taken his hands out to the right flank where they could get a clear shot.

"Pistols, Witty, then charge!" Lewrie howled. "Come on, men! At 'em, Culverins!" Without looking to see how many hands remained he waved his sword and ran for the second French boat.

Choundas waved his men on, too, so no more shots could be fired at his own hands. Those who had fled from the first boat found nerve to turn and join the charge as their gallant captain led them.

They met in the shallows between the boats, up to their knees in water with the light surf surging up to their crotches, and their feet sinking into the swirling sands as the waves lapped in and drew back. Witty's hands were coming in from the shore side, forcing the fight into deeper water. Pistols were popping, and a feather of spray from a near-miss leaped up between Lewrie and the young Frenchman he faced off with.

He's a gentleman, Lewrie thought, seeing the fineness of the young man's smallsword. They crossed blades, and Lewrie was sure of the man's background. He had a good wrist and arm, and quick nerves, meeting a direct attack with a prime movement, going to a high guard over his head at fifth to fend Lewrie off, then swinging under his blade to second before launching a thrust of his own. Lewrie let his left hand go and counter-thrust at the young man's lower sword arm, which was blocked by a marvelously well-executed circular parry to spiral Lewrie's point wide to the left. But Lewrie drew back out of range, two-handing his hanger again, and cut over from left to right, dragging the officer's blade back up to a high fifth position. As he did so, he waded forward to get inside the man's guard, feinting a thrust. The young man's reflexes, learned in an elegant sword-master's salon, made him step back, and he tripped over his own feet, bouyed free of the sand momentarily by the surf. As he came back up, spouting and blowing, flinging stinging salt from bis eyes, Lewrie overhanded a thrust down like stabbing at some fish and speared the young man through the side of the neck. With a gasp of surprise, the man sank once more with bright arterial blood looping and trailing in the sea.

"Vous!" Choundas screamed, beating his breast and striding easily through the surf toward Alan. "Timonier a mois, I think 'e slay ze wrong man in zat alley! En garde! I eat your brains and shit in your skull!"

Lewrie waded shoreward to meet him, to avoid the clumsy fate of the younger officer, sword held at third, waiting for Choundas' first move. It was like an explosion!

Choundas had no grace, no elegance to his swordplay, coming from a rougher school. With howls he was upon Alan with his smallsword swinging like a cutlass. Blades rang, not in beat, but with the rasp of a farrier's hammer, and the shock sang up Lewrie's arm like a bell's echo with each blow. Try as he would to thrust and counter-thrust, to slash with the point and cut over from defensive guards to direct or even indirect cuts, Choundas was always there, quick as lightning, all attack and very little defense of his own.

Lewrie was forced to give ground, half a step at a time, and the sea swirled higher up his body. From the ankles to his shins to his knees, then to mid-calf.

Captain Osmonde warned me I'd meet a truly dangerous man if I kept this up, Lewrie frowned, recalling the Marine officer aboard his first ship, the one who had taught him the true rough and tumble of steel, and guided him through his first adult duel on Antigua.

Choundas was pressing forward, both of them up to their waists in salt water and being buffeted by the incoming surf. Lewrie swung down and left to ward off a chest cut, felt a leg reach out to tangle with his to bring him down and stumbled right and away, into shallow water. Choundas' sword came arcing up out of the water glistening in the dawn light with water droplets, and he met it high left, the beat of steel on steel forcing his own blade back to touch his left cheek!

A shoulder lunging forward, and Lewrie stumbled again, reaching back with his left hand to steady himself. Falling sideways into the surf, with Choundas splashing forward to tower over him, and a wicked razor-honed blade descending in a powerful two-handed overhead strike!

He got his hanger up to parry at fifth, got his left hand under his hip and swept out with his legs. Cut directly down and forward under the off-balanced Frenchman's blade to clash with the hand-guard!

Choundas reeled back, almost going down himself. Lewrie came up soaking wet with his left leg under him and thrust with all of his might to leap like a porpoise with sword arm extended as rigid as a pike-staff. And missed!

His sword's point went over Choundas' left shoulder as the man ducked. Their bodies slammed together, and Choundas was going over backward, but he hefted Alan high enough over his shoulder to heave him a few feet away, to splash into water deep as his waist!

Drowning! Lewrie's mind screamed as he tried to get his feet under him, tried to fight the rush and shove of another wave. Tried to find a breath of air for lungs thumped empty by Choundas' body!

Lewrie lurched erect, coughing on the water he'd taken in, his eyes burning with salt and his hair streaming down his face.

Choundas! The final thrust! DEATH!

Arm across his chest to defend, sword point held low at prime, the blade pointing down as the thrust came for his throat. A sting on his left hip as the smallsword's point bit him, and he was going over backward again, and could feel Choundas' feet near to his own!