The Dust of 100 Dogs - A. S. King [84]
The hours passed quickly. Her fleet split the Spanish into four smaller groups, picking off the weakest first. Emer led her fleet round and round the Spanish ships, knocking down at least half their crews with her grapeshot. Ship by ship, her marines boarded, cut down the Spanish sailors, and pillaged. When the marines returned, she switched to plain round or double shot and plunged the plundered ships into the sea. One Spanish frigate on the west side had already sunk. Two others had moved in to rescue stranded crew and were being singled out for boarding. Each of her four groups did this—board, kill, pillage, sink—until, by sunset, nearly half the Spanish fleet was sunk. Toward the east, Emer noticed two galleons separating from the melee.
“Those two, David. Take me to them.” David ordered the crew of the Vera Cruz to make it so. Two other frigates followed.
Emer readied her cutlass and pistol and gave Seanie her long-handled axe. As they approached, one of the Spanish ships fired its three port cannons, and Emer ducked. A single ball of burning iron landed on deck with a dull thud, only cracking the planks beneath it. She watched it roll toward the mast and then roll back again, burning a groove into the wood in its path. A sailor fetched a small keg of seawater and tossed it over the ball, creating a sort of steamy mirage of the battle. Still balanced between the two men, Emer ordered her crew to board the shining galleon just as the red shine of Caribbean dusk touched the waves.
Her crew piled onto the ship two by two and began taking down every man they met. Emer and Seanie climbed aboard with the last batch of her marines.
But when they landed safely on the galleon’s deck, she realized that swordplay was impossible with only one good foot. Walking had been easy, yes, but this was not walking. She tried to jump from one plank to another, flinching in pain from her two missing toes. She managed to skewer a Spanish sailor or two, and clubbed one across the face to knock him out, but she couldn’t swashbuckle like she used to. She stayed alert and defended herself in the dark, mostly helping Seanie and the other marines. A hack here, a slap there, a few clunks and swift punch in the balls, until—eighty-four dead men later—the ship was hers.
As the sun rose, Emer helped search the galleon even though she was in pure agony from the right knee down. David saw her limping up the final steps to the deck and put his arm around her waist. Where is this Seanie fellow now? he asked himself, half hoping Seanie was floating dead in the sea. His face was covered in blood, a deep cut had been slashed into his scalp, and he wore a strip of cloth around his head to stench the bleeding.
“Easy now, Captain. You need to get that foot up, you do.”
“It’s done, David! We did it!”
“Aye, sir, we did.” He smiled. “Tis a glorious day to be alive.”
Seanie arrived then, much to David’s disappointment, and helped balance Emer on the ropes. She smiled and squeezed David’s hand. “You deserve the captain’s share of this. I had little to do with our success.”
“I’m sure the officer’s share will be more than enough,” he answered soberly. “You fought well under the circumstances.”
“I mean what I say, friend. You’ll have my share and that’s the end of it.” Emer took a deep breath as they lifted her onto the deck. She slipped her aching body over the edge, landed on her good foot, and hopped toward the forecastle landing with David still holding her under her arms.
“Will I help you down, then,