Day of Honor 01_ Ancient Blood - Diane Carey [23]
There was blood drawn today, plenty of it. The dying man turned his eyes to Alexander in a ghastly, final plea that Picard felt bolting through the boy.
“Barbaric …” Picard waved at the sulfurous smoke rising from the Justina’s own cannons, and peered through the gray clouds at the other ship.
The hull was cracked in several places above the waterline. The top half of the foremast was broken like a twig, bent over to one side, caught in the rigging. But with that fore-and-aft rig, the colonial ship didn’t have as many lines tangling the space above her decks, and the broken mast was being cleared quickly away by men smeared with soot and blood.
This was all very close and immediate—very personal. Not like a battle aboard a starship, where the enemy was half a solar system off. Hologram or not, this program was based on detailed diaries of someone who had been here and seen this, on this day, in 1777, who could still taste the gore and sweat as he wrote his journal.
Where was that person? Where was Alexander’s ancestor?
One of the gun crew? An officer? One of that line of redcoated marines who were now taking aim with rifles?
At his side, Alexander flinched hard as the marines fired their volley, all at once, with cold organization. Withering fire rained across the other ship. Screams rose from the deck, and the Chincoteague fell off her attack stance. Even from here, Picard could see the wheel spinning. The helmsman had been mown down, and so had anyone near enough to take his place.
Letting out a moan of empathy, Picard stuffed down a ridiculous urge to jump over there and help steer the other ship.
Suddenly a commotion on the main deck caught his eye—three men in officers’ dark blue coats were joining the gun crew in a supreme task—one of the huge ship’s cannons had tipped over on its side, guntruck and all, and the fabulous weight of the iron monster would take several men to heave up.
Those must be the command officers. Yet Picard saw in their effort the long years they had spent on board ship. They didn’t look at all as he had when he had played at historical programs before. Their uniforms were tattered and smutty with gunpowder and splinter dust, and the wool strained around their muscles as they threw their weight onto the cannon with force matching the effort of the deckhands. Slowly the big gun began to shift.
The cannon was enormous—what did that thing weigh? A thousand pounds? Beneath the deadweight maw of iron, a jagged scream erupted. Some poor crushed soul was still alive under there!
The deckhands and officers got the cannon up a foot or so, but the effort took all the men in that area of the ship. There was no one who dared let go long enough to pull the injured man out. For a moment, the team floundered as the unfortunate sailor screamed and tried to claw his way out of the man-made trap.
“I can pull him out!” Alexander piped, and slipped past Picard.
But a man from another gun crew waved a copper knife with one hand and grasped Alexander’s arm with the other.
“Y’ain’t headin’ for the main deck, is you, swab?” the man barked, spinning Alexander around and giving him a sturdy shove. “Y’know the rules. Niver go within a boathook’s length of d’captain. Got that, boy?”
Alexander managed a nod, then looked at Picard. Pretty clear message—should he stay a boathook’s length from Picard? And what the devil was a boathook?
“Sergeant!” one of the uniformed men at the cannon gasped, straining horribly to keep the cannon’s bulk up.
Instantly a tall young soldier appeared from behind the mast—he wore a red jacket over his sailor’s shirt, and he took a moment to put down a black-muzzled rifle. A marine sharpshooter. A sergeant.
The marine sergeant dropped to the