There was a shriek of pain. The hand let go, and the attacker fell into the harbor with a loud splash. A face appeared on the other side of the gun port. Austin set aside the belaying pin and picked up a boarding pike. He tucked the spearhead under the man's chin. Austin was practically invisible on the darkened deck. The attacker felt the sharp point tickling his Adam's apple and froze, afraid to move.
Austin pushed the pike forward slightly, and the face disappeared. This time there was a loud thud, as the attacker fell into a boat. Seeing his gun port clear for the time being, Austin strode down the line of cannon. The ship's crewmen were using their boarding pikes with similar effect. Working in pairs, some of them tossed cannonballs over the side. Judging by the yells and crunching sounds, they were finding their mark.
Slade came running up, still wearing his cocked hat. "Not one of those jerks has set foot on deck." His sweaty face beamed with pride.
"Guess they're getting the point," Austin said. A face appeared over the bulwark behind Slade. Before Austin could warn Slade, the attacker had hooked a leg over the side and was bringing his assault rifle to bear.
Austin threw the boarding pike like a Masai warrior taking on a lion. The pike struck the attacker in the chest, and he let out a cry of surprise and toppled back, his weapon firing uselessly in the air.
Austin grabbed a cutlass and leaped onto the nearest cannon, intending to cut the rigging to prevent it from being used as a ladder. As he brought the sword back, he heard someone yelclass="underline"
"Starboard!"
The shout came from the fighting platform. The assault had moved around to the other side of the ship.
Two of Razov's men had climbed onto the bulwark and were unslinging their weapons, preparing to spray the defenders concentrated on the deck.
Acting on pure instinct, Austin slashed the line nearest to him, grabbed onto the loose end like Tarzan swinging through the trees and launched himself across the deck, his legs extended in front of him. The attackers looked up and saw a dark Batman-like apparition flying their way. They tried to get their guns around, but Austin's feet struck them with the full force of his weight, and they pitched over backward. Austin reached the end of his arc and swung back, then dropped onto the deck amid loud cheers from the astounded crew.
"Wow!" Slade said. "Where did you learn that trick?"
"Watching old Errol Flynn movies in my misspent youth. Is everybody okay?"
"Couple of cuts and bruises, but Old lronsides's deck has not been violated."
Austin grinned and clamped the sailor on the shoulder, then looked around.
"What's that?"
"Boat motors," Slade said. They ran to the side of the ship and peered over. They could see three wakes. A cheer went up from the crew, but it faded when the boats came to a stop a few hundred feet away and the pinpoints marking muzzle fire began. But instead of aiming for the nearly impregnable sides of the ship, they were concentrating on the rigging. The sails were being shredded. Bits of rope and splinters of wood began to rain down on the deck. The observers scrambled down from their platforms.
"Those cowards!" Slade yelled. "They can't board her, so they're going to rip her to shreds." Tatters of sail fell on his head. "We've got to do something!"
Austin grabbed the sailor's arms. "You mentioned a twenty-one-gun cannon salute."
"What? Oh, yeah, the two cannon on the foredeck. We fire them every morning and sunset. They're old breechloaders. We've jerry-rigged them to fire three-hundred-and-eighty-millimeter shells. But they shoot blanks, except for the time when someone forgot to remove a cap and we hit a police boat."
"Our friends out there don't know they're blanks."
"That's right."
Austin quickly outlined his plan. Slade ran back and ordered the helmsman to steer a new course. The helmsman swung the wheel over, and the Constitution slowly came about so that its bow was pointed at the attack boats.
Slade rounded up his gun crew and they climbed down to the gun deck and hurried forward. Within moments, the forward cannon were loaded. Austin peered through the gun port and saw the attack boats lined up. They had been readying for another assault when the ship turned and came at them. With Old lronsides taking the offensive, they seemed to be confused. Austin wanted them as close together as possible. The gap was closing. The boats started to move apart.
"Now!" Austin ordered. He stepped away and covered his ears.
Slade pulled the lanyards. There was a double roar, the foredeck was enveloped in smoke and the cannons leaped back, their recoil held in check by thick cordage. The gun crew had purposely left the caps in.
The bluff worked. The attackers saw the big black ship bearing down on them behind a cloud of purple smoke, heard the twin projectiles whistle though the air and saw the geysers of water. The boats sprinted out of the way like startled jackrabbits, then headed at full throttle toward the mouth of the harbor where they disappeared in the darkness.
The cannons roared again, with blanks this time, as the ship gave chase.
Even as the echoes faded, a mighty roar went up from the crew.
"Party's over," Austin said. Slade was grinning from ear to ear. The comment that followed might not have been in the same class of immortal words as "Don't give up the ship" or "Damn the torpedoes!"… but as Austin watched the departing wakes of the attack boats, he couldn't argue with the young sailor when he said, "Old lronsides still knows how to kick ass!"
33
WASHINGTON, D.C.
SANDECKER GLANCED AROUND the Oval Office and reflected on the life-and-death decisions that had been made in the famous room. It was hard to believe that the political currents that swirled around Washington had their center within these quiet walls. On his last visit to the White House, he'd been treated as a pariah and warned to butt out of national security matters, but after NUMA had rescued the NR-1's captain and crew and saved the White House major embarrassment, Sandecker had become the proverbial eight-hundred-pound gorilla. He lost no time throwing his weight around.
The White House's formidable appointments secretary hadn't hesitated when he called and asked to meet with the president on an urgent matter. The secretary bumped an ambassador and a congressional delegation from the president's busy schedule, and she never blinked when Sandecker asked that only the president and vice president attend.
Sandecker had politely refused the offer of a White House limousine and made the trip in a Jeep Cherokee from the NUMA motor pool. The receptionist had ushered the admiral, Rudi Gunn and Austin into the Oval Office and saw to it that a steward served them coffee on White House china.
As they waited, Sandecker turned to Austin. "I've been meaning to ask you, Kurt. How did it feel to commandeer a national monument?"
"Quite the rush, Admiral. Unfortunately, with only two cannon in the bow, I couldn't yell, 'Give 'em a broadside!' "
"From what I've heard, you and the Constitution's crew acquitted yourselves with undeniable valor. Old lronsides lived up to her glorious name."
Gunn said with a twinkle in his eye, "The scuttlebutt among the top navy brass has it that Old lronsides is being commissioned as part of the Seventh Fleet. After she's patched up, of course."
"I understand that the navy plans to retire an aircraft carrier in her favor," Austin said, with a poker face. "The Pentagon sees great cost-cutting opportunities in the use of sail and belaying pins."
"Cost cutting would be a new one for the Pentagon," Sandecker mused. "What happened to the men who attacked you?"