He raced up on to the deck with his loaded musket and joined the fight. Smith looked around. His eyes darting between the bow and stern, where the greatest number of attackers congregated, and pushed forward. Around him, his brother’s men were beginning to show signs of fatigue. Muskets were being loaded with the careless disregard of soldiers overwhelmed by their attackers. As a consequence, the muskets were starting to foul and fail. They were still winning, but not for much longer.
An attacker somehow reached the gunwale to the port side of the ship. Smith aimed his musket at the man’s head, and squeezed the trigger. The attacker fell back into the water, but more people continued to climb the railing. He grabbed a cutlass from the rack and sliced through their wrists, forcing them to fall back into the water.
He heard the third cannon fire. Its steel ball made a sharp whine as it sped through the air. Smith took a deep breath and held it. If the shot didn’t destroy the bridge, they would struggle to keep command of the Emerald Star for a fourth one. His eyes followed the shot. It was directly on target. This time, the human bridge parted moments before the ball struck. It dipped into the ocean, without injuring a single warrior, and sent a small plume of seawater into the air. Immediately afterwards the human bridge closed the gap and held firm — while another wave of warriors quickly climbed over the top and past the breakers.
Smith swallowed hard, and reloaded his musket.
Behind him, Oswald stormed down below into the gunners hold. “Same target. This time, load the grapeshot!”
Grapeshot consisted of small iron balls about three quarters of an inch in diameter, which were then packed into bags. The bags disintegrated when the powder ignited, releasing a cluster of balls in a wide shot pattern. This load was very deadly against crewmen at extremely close range, and often used to repel boarders. It was rarely used to hit a target fifty feet away.
Smith heard the loud boom of the fourth canon shot. His eyes traced the grapeshot’s trajectory as it whined through the air. This time the lethal concoction of deadly projectiles struck the middle of the human bridge.
At a guess, it killed at least thirty of the warriors in the process. It would take much longer to re-establish the human bridge this time, but Smith wasn’t so certain they’d won, and neither was his brother. The disconnected, outer section of the human bridge floundered in the water. No longer able to stabilize itself amongst the men whose feet were planted firmly in the shallow waters, the outer men started to float.
Oswald met his eyes. “One more shot and the bridge will be washed away in the breaking seas, and this all will be over!”
Smith nodded as he shot a man who started to climb the stern. “I hope that shot comes soon, because we’re not going to last much longer.”
“Don’t doubt my men.” Oswald grinned as he hacked at another boarder. “They’ll hold as long as we need them to.”
Behind him, a second boarder climbed. Smith looked at his shot pouch. It was empty. He was out of musket balls. He dropped the musket and picked up the cutlass instead. He hacked at the attacker, slicing him across his chest.
He turned and yelled, “Marcus. We need more musket shots.”
Smith didn’t hear the response. Instead he heard a loud explosion coming from the bow! Smoke erupted from the forecastle where the cannon were housed. He looked at his brother. “What the hell was that?”
Oswald shrugged. “The fore-cannon just exploded. Some fool must not have sponged the embers well enough!”
“Can we get the other cannon?”
“No. Not fast enough to make it do us any good.”
Smith glanced back at the shore. The human bridge was starting to form again. “Now what?”
Oswald growled. “Now we fight for our lives!”
“It would take a miracle to hold them off much longer.”
Oswald looked up at the sky behind. A massive storm was moving in toward them, whipping sand from the Namibian desert at them like tiny shrapnel. The once-unified human bridge appeared to disintegrate under the barrage.
“See, Smith — the Gods haven’t forsaken us!” Oswald was grinning with delight. “That wind storm is going to blow us right out to sea!”
The easterly wind screamed along the Namibian desert, picking up sand along with it, and sending it out to sea. The human bridge failed to form, and the warriors were scattered throughout the surf, which had been whipped into a turbid boiling pot of angry sea. Smith watched their arms flailing beneath the light of the crescent moon, as they struggled to keep their heads above the seawater. The few who were close to Emerald Star were now being blown further out to sea, despite their best efforts to reach the ship.
Smith carefully found another bag of shot balls, reloaded his musket and smiled. He’d beaten the odds, and survived. He searched the ship for any signs of boarders. The last thing he wanted now was to risk being killed by complacency.
His brother grinned. “I told you we’d be all right!”
“You did!” Smith embraced his brother. His eyes darted to the shore, where a dark, amorphous shadow stared back at him. “I’ll feel a lot better when we’re off this damned sandbar.”
“Any minute now. I can already feel her lifting in the swell.”
“We got lucky.”
“Yes. We did. But God knows I’ve made enough luck for myself over the years. It was time she paid me back some.”
Smith nodded. He wasn’t sure how much he deserved to be lucky, but he was none-the-less thankful for it. He climbed down below to avoid the tiny sand particles, which were cutting at him. Once there, he carefully opened the leather satchel he’d been carrying, and admired the cause of all this death. Of his entire party, only he had survived. The hideous relic stared back at him with hollowed eyes.
They teased at his conscience — was it all worth it?
Smith covered the relic with its protective cloth and placed it back inside the leather satchel, as though he could hide its accusatory eyes. A gust of wind howled as it screamed toward the Emerald Star. He felt the ship slowly list to her starboard side under the sudden pressure. He waited for it to right itself, but instead she remained slightly on her side.
The wind shrieked as it continued to thrash the portside of the ship. Smith slipped his arms through the straps of the satchel and stood up. Bracing on the side of the hull, he closed his eyes and made a silent prayer.
Please, let me survive, and I promise the man with the purple eyes won’t ever have you.
The ancient relic wasn’t in the mood for listening to his prayers. Instead, Oswald opened the deck hatch and said, “All hands on deck!”
Smith climbed up top. “What’s wrong? We have an easterly wind. Why aren’t we being blown out to sea?”
“It’s the sand!” Oswald yelled. His voice barely audible above the cry of the wind. His skin was speckled with his own blood where the sand had sliced at him. “This wind is dumping the dunes of the Namibian desert onto our deck.”
Smith felt his heart drum faster. No, it can’t be. The curse can’t be true! “What can we do?”
“We need every man to do his part to lighten the ship’s load. There are some shovels and buckets in the bilge. Those who aren’t getting rid of this damned sand, need to go below and make a human chain to remove the cannonballs and anything else that can be thrown overboard!”
“Aye, aye, Captain!”
Smith shoveled the sand from the deck. It lined the deck thinly, but the combined weight was enough to keep the Emerald Star well stuck where she lay. He struggled to breathe through the dense barrage of sand pellets. He covered his mouth with part of a small piece of cloth and kept working.