James Nelson: The Guardship

“Eh, quartermaster, you are still the devil with a sword, but can you live in hell as I can? Eh? Can you breathe, quartermaster? Can you see?”

“I can breathe, LeRois,” Marlowe said, which was just barely true. “But you do not sound so good yourself. Perhaps you are not the devil you think you are. Perhaps you are just a drunk old man who is too weak to be a capitain .”

“ Merde !” LeRois roared, and suddenly he emerged from the smoke, sword swinging as if he were trying to cut a swath through the fog, hoping that Marlowe was in the arc of his blade. Marlowe dodged the weapon, leaped across the deck, and this time it was he who lost himself in the smoke.

He heard LeRois coughing, gasping, and wanted desperately to cough himself, but he held back as long as he could. He shuffled forward, and when he could hold it no longer he doubled over, coughing and gasping and retching.

“I am coming for you now, quartermaster,” LeRois shouted, croaking the words through his damaged throat. The hold was entirely engulfed. Marlowe could no longer see the burning pots of brimstone, and the torch fire was just a dull

yellow light illuminating the thick gloom. He coughed again and held his sword up, and LeRois was on him once more.

There was less power in the pirate’s strokes, and that was the only thing that saved Thomas’s life, for he barely possessed the breath to defend himself. Thrust and parry, attack and fend off, the two men went back and forth, emerging and disappearing in the yellow smoke, coughing, wheezing.

Marlowe could hardly see through his watery eyes. He had no sense for what was forward and what was aft. He stumbled on something and almost fell, and as he recovered he waited for LeRois’s blade to come through the smoke and finish him off, but it did not, and Marlowe was alone again in the yellow acrid hell.

“LeRois!” he croaked, then gagged. “LeRois, you stupid son of a whore, you drunken useless madman! You pathetic wretch!” If he could make him mad, furious, he might make a mistake, and then he could kill him and get back on deck before he passed out. “LeRois!”

Coughing from somewhere in the smoke, retching, and then LeRois’s voice, slurred, faltering, “The devil, he has brought us here, and he will kill us both.”

Marlowe blinked hard, looked in the direction from which the voice had seemed to come. There was a dancing light, like a ghost, like a spirit moving through the smoke-filled space. He blinked again. He could no longer tell if he was conscious or not, dead or alive. Perhaps he was already in hell. He was no longer afraid. He did not care.

And then from some back corner of his mind came the realization that the moving ghost was the torch. LeRois must have picked up the torch. He must be carrying it, and that meant that where the light was, so was LeRois.

Marlowe panted, coughed, and held his sword in front of him like a lance. He took a faltering step forward, and his foot came down on something soft. He bent at the knee and touched it. It was a hat. LeRois’s hat. He picked it up and took a step toward the bobbing light, then another, stumbling toward

the torch, trying to reach it before he passed out, before he fell for the last time.

The fire burned brighter as he ran, and suddenly he could see flames, actual flames, but LeRois was just a shadow, a dark outline in the yellow smoke. He paused, tensed, and then threw the hat at LeRois.

“Merde!” the dark shadow screamed, then twisted, and a blade cut through the smoke, the shadow slashing at whatever had hit it.

Marlowe charged. Two steps, and in the diffused light of the torch he could see the dark face of Jean-Pierre LeRois, his filthy cheeks streaked where the tears ran down. He saw LeRois blink and look up from the hat, confused by what was coming out of the smoke, and then Marlowe felt the point of his sword make contact with flesh and with all the strength remaining in his arms he shoved the blade in.

LeRois’s eyes shot open, his mouth gaped wide, and he screamed, a long, prolonged howl. The torch fell from his grip, and he staggered back as Marlowe twisted the blade and dragged it free.

They were so close that Marlowe could smell LeRois, even through the sulfur, smell the sweat and the rum and the foul breath and corruption. He could see the dark blood erupting from his mouth as he fell. He watched, unable to move, unable to breathe as the man he feared most in the world collapsed onto the deck.

He took a step forward, leaned over, unable to believe what he was seeing. It was not possible that LeRois was dead, yet here was his sword, Thomas Marlowe’s sword, dripping with the pirate’s blood.

And then suddenly LeRois gasped and choked and coughed up more blood that ran black down his cheeks and into his beard. He blinked and looked up at Marlowe with wide eyes, and then with a sound that was equal parts retching and coughing and screaming he rolled over and grabbed the torch and flung it away.

They were swallowed by the darkness again, the darkness and the diffused yellow smoke from the sulfur pots, and out of the dark came the retching and the coughing as LeRois fought his last battle.

And then the torch flared and the light grew many times brighter. The yellow smoke was lit up from within, and Marlowe could see the wild death grin on LeRois’s face, but there was still life in his eyes. He coughed and in a weak voice said, “Cochon.”

From the center of the light Marlowe heard a crackling and a popping and hissing, the unmistakable sound of gunpowder burning. He felt his eyes go wide, despite the pain from the sulfur smoke. LeRois must have laid a powder train to the magazine. Of course he would. He would not have created his own hell without thinking of that.

“Oh, damn you!” he heard himself say, and at his feet the pirate laughed until he started to choke. Marlowe rammed his sword into the sling at his side and crouched low and raced back in the direction he had come. The ship was going to blow up. He had to get his men off. Did not know how long he had.

He plunged through the smoke, coughing, gasping, wasting his precious breath cursing LeRois. He stumbled on something and began to fall, arms flung out in front of him, hit something solid and caught himself. He was inches from whatever it was he had run into, but he could not see what it was. He ran his fingers over it. A stack of barrels. There had been no barrels aft that he could recall. He must have run in the wrong direction.

He felt his head spinning, felt his legs grow weak as the smoke overwhelmed him. He tried to stand, but he could not. His knees buckled, and he fell. He grabbed at the barrels for support, but they slipped from his weak hands and the next thing he knew his face was pressed against the deck and he was gasping and coughing.

But he was breathing. He was breathing clean air, or at least cleaner air than he had had in some time. Down next to the deck the smoke was not so thick. He felt himself revive,

and he breathed deeply until he began to gag again. He crawled away, prayed it was the right direction.

Off to his right the fire flared and began to race along, illuminating the yellow fog. Marlowe got on his hands and knees and crawled faster. Could hear the hissing sound of burning powder.

As long as the fire was just consuming loose grains the powder would only burn. It was when it hit the tight-packed barrels that it would explode. He had until then to get his men off, and he did not know how long that would be. Minutes, if he was lucky, but it could just as easily be seconds.

He scrambled along, and now he could see LeRois’s lifeless body illuminated by the fire he had started as his last act on earth. Surrounded by the glowing light, he looked as if he was being lifted up into heaven, which Marlowe very much doubted. It was a reference point, a landmark in the fog, and Marlowe scurried past.