No one was sure who was more excited to have Rees’s cast coming off—Rees or Marcus and Phillip, but the day finally came when, lo and behold, Simmons got out his medical saw and slowly and carefully made a cut down one side and then the other.
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.