Chapter Seventeen
Fire!!!
If I kept up with these underwater breath holding contests I was going to get lungs of steel!
It felt like it had been ten minutes instead of the two my watch’s luminescent dial recorded to have passed by. Thirty seconds later the whales stopped just below the surface of the water, as we all felt the rhythmic action of the waves.
I glanced at Keturah and she nodded. This was as far as the whales would take us.
Glancing down to the sea floor I could see that they had taken us in pretty far. There was no more than ten to fifteen feet of water below us.
I let go of Dimbo’s tusk and floated up to the surface with Keturah. Thirty some others floated away from their whales and up to the surface with us.
I felt the swish of the underwater movements that signaled that the whales were leaving without ever having surfaced except that is for Dimbo, who still waited below for Keturah. We were about three hundred feet out from the beach. Treading water I glanced at Keturah and was taken aback momentarily by the raw emotion being expressed on her face.
“Hey! It’s alright!” I exclaimed trying to calm her.
She latched on to me with one hand desperately and said, “Please come back to me!”
“I will!” I said in firm response to ease her fears.
I really didn’t have the authority to either know, much less claim that I would return, but above all I wanted to allay her fears at all costs.
She surged out of the water briefly to give me a salty kiss, a kiss that didn’t last nearly long enough before she let go and sank beneath the waves to her trusted whale companion. Dimbo would take her back out to where the entire fleet of the Whale People were congregated together in the fog bank waiting for the signal.
The swim to shore went quickly and like some special forces team we slid out of the surf and sprinted across the beach to the cover of the forest. We paused just back from the forest’s edge to catch our breath. Once done I motioned to a man, who had been a slave up until a year ago, when he had escaped, to take the lead.
Three of the thirty of us were as black as I was. The rest of them verged from brown cream to white, but we all appeared black as the whiter ones had been rubbed down with a black tar resin.
We were on a mission to save a people who were oppressed. Color had nothing to do with it.
We started out after our guide through the foreboding stillness of the forest. I had once been in awe of these strange majestic trees, but now all I wanted was to be free of them and this island with a dark history that had come to life once more.
A fantasy flashed across my mind’s eye for a moment. It was simple and yet profound in its meaning.
The fantasy was of me and Keturah sailing along across this inner sea beneath the world above. Just sailing. There was something so peacefully fulfilling about the imagery of that fantasy.
Oh to God did I pray that it became my reality!
Our guide suddenly stopped and held up a hand to us in a sign to stop as well. We stood crouched over as only our eyes moved as we listened for a sound, any sound.
My head jerked off to the side as I heard what the guide must’ve sensed. Somebody was in the forest and it sounded like they were crying.
The others looked to me silently and I made an inclusive hand gesture to indicate to scatter out and surround the source of the noise.
They nodded and filtered out to the sides silently as I approached the noise head on. A few carefully silent minutes later I found myself standing behind a man who looked to be one of the plantation owners.
He appeared to be alone and completely petrified. He was crouched down next to a hollow in a tree stump as if he was prepared to dive into it at a moment’s notice. He was making a lot of noise as he shifted from whimpering to carrying on a cryptic conversation with himself.
I slipped an arm around his throat from behind and clamped down. He tried to scream but couldn’t. The others closed in quick and we had the man restrained on the ground in a matter of moments.
The man actually looked relieved to see us. Well me anyway.
I took my hand from off his mouth and he was instantly babbling, “Please take me with you back to the surface! Oh please don’t leave me here in this cursed place! Please I……”
I held up a fist to hit him, “Shut up!” I whispered out sternly.
His rambling pleas came to a halt as he fearfully swallowed down his latest calls for mercy.
“Now what’s been going on since I left the island?” I asked softly.
The man swallowed hard and looked as if he was accessing a memory of unimaginable horror, “The giants came. We’d always heard the stories about the sculptures in the ancient ruins, but never did I expect to see such creatures brought to life. They’re beyond horrible! The very sound and sight of their faces is enough to kill one from fright!”
“What happened?” I said interrupting him.
“They came to the colony. They laughed at us as we ran in fear from them. Those who resisted like the Governor, they ate. Their hunger seems to know no bounds! All they do is eat it seems!”
On a sob the man said, “They ate my fiancé! Pulled her apart like she was a play toy and then ate her like she was candy as they commented on how sweet her flesh was.”
The man began to cry his eyes out again and I had to say that I could see why given such a sight one would have that reaction. I’d most likely go crazy too.
“What have they done to the slaves?” I asked breaking into the man’s emotional outpouring.
His expressed emotions of sorrow abruptly switched to something much more aggressive in nature, “The slaves!” He exclaimed.
“They haven’t so much as eaten one of them! They make sport of us and yet the slaves haven’t even been touched!”
“And why is that?” I asked, but I thought I already knew the answer.
“Because they make the food. That’s all these monsters seem to care about is food. They’ll have everything and everyone eaten off the island within a year. They may be eating us now, but the slaves will be next, mark my words! It’s only a curse that they didn’t start with them in the first place!”
The man then looked up at me pleadingly and begged once more, “You have to take me with you!”
I stared at the frantic man’s face in contemplation. I didn’t like the man, but did that justify leaving him behind to be fed upon?
The man abruptly gasped painfully and gazed at us in shock for a few tense moments before the life left his eyes. I let my gaze leave the wide-open staring eyes of the man on the ground to the knife slipped in between the man’s ribs and the hand of our guide who had put it there.
I met his eyes and the question of why was in my gaze upon him.
The former slave pointed down with a finger accusingly at the dead man, “This man begs for mercy and yet he was without mercy himself! He was one of the worst of the field masters. I felt the sting of his whip many times, but I could forgive perhaps that. But I cannot forgive what he did to the little slave girls!”
A tear made its way down the man’s cheek as raw emotion shown out of the man’s eyes as he went on, “Little girls no older than four and five he carried off into the bushes to rape and abuse. Do you know what it’s like to hear the cries for help and screams of pain from those who are innocent and be powerless to do anything to stop it? This man deserved no mercy!”
I nodded my head in understanding and got up.
We headed off through the forest leaving behind the carcass of a man that had been as much of a monster in life as the monsters who were terrorizing the island even now.
We met no one else along the way through the forest. It was trickier once we cleared the forest, but these were the sleep hours and no one appeared to be out and about.
We reached the caves where the slaves were held, but drew up before stepping out into the open because of an unwanted sight. A giant was sitting up against the side of the wall just to the right of the cave that had iron bars running across the front of it.
The giant’s loud snores rent the still air in an awful way.
I looked from the giant to the iron bars and back again. It was apparent that the giants did not want a potential upcoming food supply to escape from them.
I stared silently at the giant in contemplation of what the best way to kill him would be. He was liable to make a fuss, perhaps even overpower us before we could deliver a killing blow.
It was best that we waited for the diversion to begin and I said as much to those around me. Hopefully once the commotion in the harbor started up the giant would rush off to investigate and leave his post wide-open.
I felt that it was our best hope for success, because if we tried to kill the giant in his sleep and he was able to get out a bellow then all of the giants would be down upon us like a stampeding herd of elephants. I wanted the slaves to know what was up though before everything got started.
As quietly as I could I crept up to the bars of the cave cell alone. It was dark inside and I couldn’t see anyone, but I didn’t want to call out for fear of waking the giant. Then suddenly a figure materialized out of the darkness and coming closer I recognized her as Mandy.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
Mandy and some others pressed up against the bars to hear what I had to say, “Do you still have the keys Mandy?” I whispered out.
Wordlessly she pulled them out of a pocket with a soft jangle.
“Good. Now this is going to be difficult, but I need you guys to wait in here a little longer, because we have to get rid of him.” I said gesturing to the giant who could have sawed mature redwood trees in half with the force of his snores.
I told them about the diversion that was going to take place in the harbor and I watched as the hope lit up in the tired avenues of their worried faces.
“When he runs off to investigate unlock the doors and all of you head for the forest. You’ll all have to work together. The young will need to be carried and those unable to keep up will need to be helped along, because we have to be fast about this! Boats will be waiting at the shore of the old ruins when we get through the forest. Everything clear about as to what needs done?” I asked.
The small group nodded as one.
Hands that ranged from black to white reached through the bars to touch me with reverence as I watched their faces quiver with suppressed emotion.
“Everything is going to be all right and soon you’re all going to experience freedom!” I said confidently before I crept back to the opposite end of the clearing where the men who’d come with me waited in concealment.
Settling down in the bushes we commenced to wait quietly. It was all that we could do for now.
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Flynn looked through the narrow wheelhouse window at the harbor ahead and smiled grimly. Just like old times. Recent times anyway.
He was starting to become quite the pirate in his old age. He patted the wheel before him that still bore evidence of crustacean growth. She was old and damp from being drowned, but she was still a fine ship.
They were heading into the harbor with a fine head of steam built up. There was just one more thing to do to complete the picture and put a seal on the best moment of his life spent at sea.
He rooted around in his pocket and came out with the stub end of a mostly burnt cigar. He’d been saving this for just such an occasion. Taking his last match he lit it up and puffed on the cigar for a moment before rolling it to the side of his mouth.
“All right me mates it’s time to give’m a taste of hell!” Flynn said before laughing maniacally for a brief moment.
The moment of hilarity was abruptly ended as he choked on the smoke of the cigar. The cigar fell out of his mouth to the floor and he stamped it out with a foot, even as he hacked out a piece of it that he’d accidentally bit off and half swallowed.
“Bloody things will kill you!” He muttered out sourly, as he glanced forward again out the narrow window even as he heard Jim’s voice bellow out of the recesses of the ship, “Open gun ports!”
Flynn smiled again before looking behind him with a scowl to see if Matt had been able to keep up. Matt’s little barge was still there surprisingly.
Flynn shook his head in consternation as to Matt’s specific choice of the little ship versus the larger one. What man in his right mind would pass up this ship with all its canons for that little pea shooter back there with just two canons?
So what if the two canons were mounted on a rotational turret! In a fight like this firepower was the only thing that mattered.
Matt had even had the gall to name his little gunboat the USS Nathanael, after the Revolutionary war hero Nathaniel Hale. Flynn rolled his eyes at the thought of that injustice.
Naming ships after past heroes wasn’t necessarily a thing of bad taste, but in Flynn’s mind every ship was a ‘she’. He’d named his ship Polly.
It was a good ship and Polly had been a good woman. The two went hand-in-hand to his way of thinking. Treat a ship well like you would a woman and you’d be rewarded. Treat her mean and there’d be no living with her.
Flynn saw a flurry of activity upon the five remaining Whalers that were in port, as someone on board noticed the Polly and the USS Nathaniel steaming into the harbor. They looked like ants in their activity as they were driven to their tasks by the bellowing roars of giants little better than overstuffed cockroaches.
“Well, cockroaches and assorted vermin, time to feel the boot heel!” Flynn called out in glee.
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Jim gazed out the open gun ports judging the distance and the trajectory needed. They were all lined up.
A harpoon shot out from one of the mounted launchers on one of the Whalers. The harpoon dinked off the side of the heavy iron plated ship and everyone within the gun bay chuckled.
“Stand at the ready!” Jim called out.
A moment passed before the order was given.
“Fire!!!” Jim bellowed out and the canons went off belching flame as gunpowder smoke acridly filled the gun bay.
The two rows of canons leaped backward in their traces even as their gun crews went back to work in the process of reloading them. Maybe the actions of the gun crews weren’t as polished or as quick as their counterparts in the distant past may have been, but they were getting the job done.
The wet swab meant to extinguish still simmering embers was shoved down the cannon barrels with a hot hiss of sound as water came into contact with hot metal. The powder charge was rammed down it followed by a cannonball tapped into place, even as a new fuse was stuck into the breach.
“Fire!!!”
The second salvo went off more intermittently than the first as some gun crews were faster than others, but the barrage of heavy lead had the same damaging effect as before. Two Whalers were sinking. One had its mainmast down and the Polly was headed for the other two who were attempting to cut anchor and escape the harbor.
Jim saw the wildly gesturing form of one of the giants high lined on the ship that was dismasted. He ran down the line of canons before stopping at one that had just gotten loaded.
“Out of the way!” He said.
The gun crew peeled away from the canon as the big Samoan muscled the heavy cannon over a little as he targeted in on the giant. After adjusting the cannon up slightly he pulled the cord. Smoke filled the gun bay and Jim peered through the portal to see if he’d had a successful hit or not.
The cannonball whizzed by mere inches from the head of the giant and Jim smote the cannon barrel in frustration with one fist. The giant’s head whipped around to stare at Jim as if knowing somehow that the shot had been a personal thing.
The giant reacted and with a blink of startlement Jim lunged off to the side as a manually thrown harpoon slammed through the open gun port to lodge deeply into an interior wooden beam.
That had been a close call.
Jim glanced through the gun port quickly to see if any more harpoons were on their way from the apparently very ticked off giant. All Jim saw was the tail end of the splash up as the giant dove into the sea heading for the ship.
Jim couldn’t help but think that was not a good thing.
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Flynn had seen the interchange with the giant occur and now he turned Polly’s wheel over sharply to line her up with the fast approaching swimmer in the water. He gritted his teeth with the determination to split the giant’s skull with the keel of the ship.
There was a loud thunk followed by a roar that brought a savage smile to Flynn’s features. The smile however was wiped off though at the sight of the bloody giant suddenly standing fifteen feet tall at the end of the forward deck.
An awful bone chilling cry erupted from it as it thumped its chest like a challenging ape and started off across the deck in a pounding run straight for him.
Flynn had no options that he could see to avoid being pulverized and eaten. Shame of a way to go out on the formerly best day of his life he thought abstractly to himself as he saw the giant draw close.
The giant was in midstride when its flesh shredded apart in a bloody rain of torn parts. Flynn blinked and then glanced off to the side to see the USS Nathaniel had come broadside and was even now rotating her twin guns away in search of a new target. The Nathaniel had saved his bacon with their highly accurate salvo of homemade grapeshot.
Flynn lifted a hand in thanks, but he doubted any of Matt’s crew saw it. Perhaps the little boat wasn’t such a worthless pee shooter after all.
Flynn corrected to a course that would bring him up alongside of the remaining two whalers, which were putting on sail in an effort to escape port. There would be no escape today if it was up to him.