"Good," said Dreamer. "You have set it. All is ready. Now… take your aim. And when you are ready, touch the second trigger."
Flint aimed out to sea. He reached for the second trigger with his finger…
Whoof-BANG! said the rifle.
"Ah!" said Flint. "But I barely touched it!"
"No," said Dreamer. "It has a hair-trigger. It sets off the gun with a touch that does not disturb the aim." He nodded. "The German white man calls this stechabzug."
"Oh!" said O'Byrne, sitting up. "Sie sprechen Deutscb?"
"Ja," said Dreamer. " Icb babe eine bischen."
"Huh!" said Flint. "But how well does it shoot, this special gun?"
"I will show you," said Dreamer, and he began to reload.
Cut Feather and another Patanq stood up, and while Dreamer was loading Cut Feather found a piece of driftwood about a foot long and six inches wide and set off walking away from them. The other man brought a log and placed it at Dreamer's feet. Dreamer finished loading… he carefully touched the rifle against his wampum belt… he closed his eyes briefly… then stood waiting with the rifle butt on his foot, to save it from being scratched by the rough ground, and with his arms wrapped round the barrel. He looked steadily at Cut Feather, and an excited murmuring arose from the white men.
When Cut Feather had gone about a hundred paces, he turned and stood facing Dreamer. Dreamer laid down in the sand. He put the rifle to his shoulder and balanced the long barrel on the log.
"Sun-Face?" he said.
"Yes?" said Flint.
"See — the weight does not matter. I do not hold it."
"I see," said Flint.
There was complete silence. Cut Feather raised the piece of wood till it was next to his face. He nodded.
Dreamer took aim.
Click! said the hair trigger.
Whoof-BANG! said the rifle.
Smack! said the piece of driftwood and jumped from Cut Feather's hand.
Calmly he picked it up, walked back, and gave it to Flint. A sharp round hole ran through its centre.
"Sun-Face," said Dreamer, "this way we shall take the forts."
Chapter 29
Mr Joe looked carefully out between the big, earth-filled gabions that protected the gun emplacement on the south-facing side of the fort.
"Where?" he said.
"There, Cap'n!" said Johnny Bowden, and pointed. Mr Joe straightened his back in pride. They called him "Captain" as if the fort were a ship and himself in command. And they were doing it of their own free will. Nobody had told them to.
Bowden was in charge of the gun. He and the five-man gun crew had hardly moved from it since they came in behind the walls. That was Silver's drill and it had saved their lives once already.
"Me don't see nothin'," said Mr Joe.
"Bah!" said Bowden, turning to his men. "You — Atty Atkins! You show the cap'n. It was you as saw it." Mr Joe frowned, straining to follow their conversation. It was always hard, no matter how long he'd known them. For he'd been raised in Jamaica, while they were from England's West Country. He had no ear for accent; to him, their speech sounded like dogs growling: "Arrrrrr; arrrr, arrrrr," they said.
"It were a rag, Cap'n, a-wavin' on the end of a stick." Atty Atkins, who was a little taller than the rest, stretched up. He got his head clear over the gabion for a good look.
"Well, bugger me!" he said. "There it is ag-"
THACK! Something struck Atty Atkins's brow like a hard- swung cricket bat. He jerked back and a cupful of blood, brains, hair and bone-splinters burst out of the back of his head and all over his comrades.
At the forest edge, white smoke rolled in the breeze. Then all was silent and nothing moved.
"Fuck me!"
"Christ!"
"Get down!"
And five living men threw themselves flat beside the warm and twitching corpse of Atty Atkins.
Ten minutes later, Johnny Bowden was shot dead, looking out over the barrel of his gun. Then another man was killed as they tried to block up the gun-slit with timber. After that Mr Joe ordered them away from the guns and behind the ramparts. But then a man was shot going to the water butts, where he should have been safe.
"It came from up there, Cap'n," said one of his mates. "I saw the smoke! Them buggers is looking down on us from Foremast Hill, and they must be bloody magic, 'cos it's way out o' range."
Mr Joe went up on the ramparts. His heart was pounding. He had to look. But if he put his head over; he might get shot. But if he didn't look… He gathered his courage, started to stretch up… but his nerve failed. Then he saw the men looking at him in fear, and being their captain he tried again… and failed again. Then he sobbed and stretched, and rested his telescope on the packed earth of the thick, musket-proof wall. He focused on the hill, which should have been too far away for accurate fire — as indeed it was, for musket fire. That's why the fort had been built in this spot.
He blinked and swept the hill with the glass. There weren't so many trees up there. He could see bare ground, and bushes and… ah! He caught a flick of movement and saw a brown-skinned savage, crouched behind a rock, and he saw — actually saw — the puff of the lock and the muzzle-flash.
CRASH! The telescope shattered, a deflected ball whined past Mr Joe's ear, and needle shards of glass slashed his right eye to dripping, slimy pieces.
"Ahhhhh!" he cried, and fell back clutching the mess and the blood, screaming with the pain.
But he was a stubborn man. He didn't give up. He clapped a bandage on his face and got all hands into the central redoubt, and up on the firing step behind the walls, and made sure the muskets, pistols and grenadoes were ready. He expected an assault at any minute. But none came. The blasted savages just waited until some poor fool couldn't contain his impatience and put his head up, and looked round… and got a bullet through the bridge of his nose.
It was four men dead by nightfall.
Next day, despite every precaution, the Indians shot two more.
That made six out of the garrison of fifteen.
"We got to abandon ship, lads," said Mr Joe. "We don't got no edge here no more. Them buggers pick us off day by day! We go over the side tonight, and we go to Fort Spy-glass."
So they spiked the guns, and took what they could, and nine men crawled over the palisade in the dead of the night and crept like mice, southward towards the far end of the island, imagining be-feathered, staring-eyed savages behind every tree and blade of grass.
But they saw no Indians. Not at first.
"Left a bit, left a bit…" said Israel Hands, and the four- pounder creaked and groaned as the men heaved and it shifted in its carriage. "Well!" said Israel Hands, and took a final sight. He looked back to check all hands were clear of the recoil, and touched off the gun with a flash and a roar… and a spurt of earth and stones jumped up two hundred yards off, where a savage was getting down on his belly for a shot at the fort.
"Huzzah!" cheered the gun-crew as the creature leapt up and ran back into the forest, fifty yards behind him. The ball didn't strike close enough to hurt him, but it told him there'd be no quiet target practice that day.
"How's that, then, Cap'n?" said Israel Hands.
"Well enough, Mr Gunner, but it don't change nothing," said Silver. "We're stuck behind these walls, just as I feared. They can't get in and we can't get out. We could be here for months!"