Robert Jones - Blood Tide

There might be more boarders . . .

Seamark stood on and off the Dangerous Ground as the battle neared its climax. Miranda’s hair was stiff with spiderwebs. She wanted more than anything to wash it, at least to pour a bucket of seawater over her head. But if she left the helm in these random winds, she might capsize. Flashes of gunfire lighted the dark to the west, yellow behind the filaments of the baba . She kept the helm, on and off, off and on, a broad reach outbound, making short tacks back in toward the battle.

An engine rumbled toward her out of the booming background of surf and gunfire. She allowed a gust of wind to lay the boat over on its port side as black water hissed at the lip of the coaming. The engine came closer—she could not hide the sailboat’s profile. She took the AK and held it ready. The dog, warm against her feet, suddenly rose and stared toward the sound of the engine.

It was a Thunder. She saw its bow, shattered by gunfire, move toward her. The dog growled. Miranda held the wheel with a tight-pressed hip and raised the rifle. She lowered the barrel until its forward leaf sight disappeared into the denser blackness of the approaching boat. She didn’t want to shoot, but she would . . .

“Not shooting now, please.”

It was Kasim.

She shivered and put down the rifle.

Kasim brought the Thunder alongside and slung something heavy and limp into the cockpit. It was Curt. In the flare of a gun blast she saw he was cut across the top and side of his head. Brillo licked at the blood, looked up at her, licked again.

“Maybe dead already,” Kasim said. “Or not. I go back. You go away. Zamboanga, Hawaii, America.”

“Don’t go back into that hellhole,” Miranda said. “Stay here. We’ll get out of this, go together.”

The dog growled. He leapt into Kasim’s boat.

“Is a fighter, the dog?”

“Yes,” she said. Kasim laughed—the most amazing thing he’d ever heard.

Kasim waved, smiled, and rumbled away into the darkness, toward the flash of the gunfire.

Padre Cotinho stood at the door of the cathedral. Below him the town was burning. He could hear the pop of gunfire, louder than burning timbers. Looters whooped their owl song amidst the ruined shops. He stared to the north.

“Do you see it?” he asked Rosalinda.

“What?”

“The gunfire.”

She followed his gaze and saw it, pale blooms of light behind the devil’s drool.

“Let them kill each other,” she said. “What about these people?” The cathedral was full of women and children, praying in the dark, under the smile of Saint Lazarus.

“They will survive,” he said. “Only the town is dying.”

Balabatchi came up from the town. He had the yakuza with him. The six Japanese looked pleased with themselves, strutting and laughing, hung heavily with weapons and loot.

“ Que va? ”

“ Bueno ,” Balabatchi said.

“Then now is the time,” Padre Cotinho said.

Balabatchi nodded. He beckoned to the yakuza and walked briskly toward Gólgota. They followed, laughing. They died in the shadows, under the flash of many bolos.

“You are no man of God,” Rosalinda said.

“No,” Padre Cotinho agreed. “Just a man.”

He stared to the north, watching the slow flares of gunfire.

THIRTY-ONE

“I think that does it,” the commodore said. He had his binoculars to his eyes, the flare of the other ship’s fires dancing on the lenses. Billy Torres fed another shell into the gun, slammed the block closed, and fired again, for good measure. The round smashed into the schooner’s bow, sending splinters high into the night. “No movement,” the commo said. “Just dead men, Billy. She’s burning from stem to stern.”

I can see that from here, you asshole, Billy thought. Without binoculars.

“Get on over there in a boat and blow her up,” the commo ordered. “Take a couple of satchel charges.”

Billy slammed another three-inch shell into the receiver, slammed the block, fired again. Chunks of burning wood spun off crazily at the hit.

“Do it now, Billy,” the commo said. “You’re just wasting ammunition, and you know they don’t make that kind of three-inch any more.”

“You go,” Billy said.

“What?” The commo turned, his face redder than the light of the fires. Both ships were burning, and to Torres it was only a question of which would sink first.

“I said, ‘You go.’” Billy fed the gun again.

“You fire that thing one more time, and it’s a general court,” the commo said.

“Then you go over there, sir. I’ll cover you.”

“This sounds a lot like mutiny to me, Billy.”

“ Fuck mutiny,” Billy said. “Fuck you , sir.” All of it came surging up now. “Yeah, fuckin’ aye, mutiny! Why don’t you go over there, you round-eye pussy? Why’s it always me?”

“Mutiny!” the commodore screamed. He slammed his binoculars onto the deck, kicked them into a fire.

“Mutiny,” Billy agreed. His lata told him the commo was scared. It was there in his eyes. Billy had a .45 Colt automatic pistol on his hip, and he pulled it now. There was a round already chambered. There was always a round chambered. “Get off this goddamn tub, or I’ll blow you off.”

The commo stepped back. He didn’t know what to say now. Billy reached into the wheelhouse and pulled out a heavy canvas packet. A satchel charge. He tossed it to the commodore.

“Move it,” he said. “I wanna see this. And don’t try to run. I’ll take you out with the three-inch.”

“What do I—”

“Blow her up. Then you can go to hell as far as I’m concerned.”

The commo went.

Culdee had slipped below, in the shadows, to check the bilges. There was a fire in the engine compartment, and he could see Takahashi’s body sizzling over the flames. He flashed a light down through the scuttle. A lot of water down there. No power. No pumps. Timbers overhead cracked and crackled. Something rustled behind him. The engineer’s assistant, a wiry little man with gray hair but no face, twitched in the far corner of the engine compartment. Culdee looked down into the bilges again and swung the beam forward as far as it would reach. Firelight flickered on the oily water, and he saw bodies floating face down, toward the bow. Sparks and burning embers fell through a hole in the main deck and hit the water with angry hisses. Some fell on a dead man. They burned on. The Arizona . . .

Topside again he saw Sôbô crouched by the gun. He motioned Culdee to lie flat on the deck. It was hot. Sôbô pointed toward the Moro Armado . Culdee heard the revving engine of a fast boat. Someone was coming over. Where was the AK? He couldn’t remember where he’d left it. Fire. Flying splinters. Another hit from the Moro Armado . Kasim’s Moros slumped dead over the wrecked Lewis guns. The smell of burning flesh . . .

Culdee saw the Thunder now, silhouetted against Moro Armado’s fires. There was one man at the tiller.

The Moro Armado’s forward three-inch banged again, and the hit came on the fantail this time. Bodies spun off into the water. No one was left alive there, or dead either. Except Culdee. The Moro Armado was still moving, slowly, on the night wind—but moving, right to left. Venganza was dead in the water.

Culdee felt a body shudder against his elbow. It was a dead Moro, still kicking. No rifle, though. Culdee took the man’s bolo. The fast boat loomed close aboard. There was a man at the helm, scared—a white man at the helm. He wore no hat. His khaki shirt was torn. His hair was blond, blond going gray. The man looked up as he cut the motor. He threw a line over the taffrail, looked up again. He heaved himself aboard the schooner. He had a pistol on his hip, a satchel charge in his free hand.