the galleon. They were shooting real guns, firing real ammunition, that could make a real hole in the deck right where I was lying.
I rolled to my feet and looked aft. A knot of men were there, grouped around a small deck gun they seemed to be having trouble wrestling into position. They were dressed in sixteenth-century costumes, worn, soiled, and sweat-stained. One of them was bleeding from a cut on the face. The wound looked much too authentic to be part of a game.
I dropped down behind a large crate lashed to the deck, containing a live turtle with a chipped and faded shell a yard in diameter. He looked as old and tired and unhappy as I felt.
Shouts, and something came fluttering down from aloft to slap against the deck not far from me: a tattered banner, coarse cloth, crudely dyed, sunfaded, with a device of an elongated green chicken with horns writhing on a dirty yellow background. Heraldry was never my strong suit; but I didn’t need further clues to deduce that I was in the middle of a sea fight that my side seemed to be losing. The galleon was noticeably bigger now, coming across on the other tack. More smoke blossomed and there was a whistle and a crash up for’ard like an oil stove blowing up, and splinters rained down all around me. One of the men at the fantail went down gushing scarlet and thrashing like a boated carp. More yells, running feet. Somebody dashed past my hiding place, shouted something, maybe at me. I stayed put, waiting for an inspiration to come along and tell me what to do.
I got it in the form of a squat swarthy man
I rolled to my feet and looked aft. A knot of men were there, grouped around a small deck gun they seemed to be having trouble wrestling into position. They were dressed in sixteenth-century costumes, worn, soiled, and sweat-stained. One of them was bleeding from a cut on the face. The wound looked much too authentic to be part of a game.
I dropped down behind a large crate lashed to the deck, containing a live turtle with a chipped and faded shell a yard in diameter. He looked as old and tired and unhappy as I felt.
Shouts, and something came fluttering down from aloft to slap against the deck not far from me: a tattered banner, coarse cloth, crudely dyed, sunfaded, with a device of an elongated green chicken with horns writhing on a dirty yellow background. Heraldry was never my strong suit; but I didn’t need further clues to deduce that I was in the middle of a sea fight that my side seemed to be losing. The galleon was noticeably bigger now, coming across on the other tack. More smoke blossomed and there was a whistle and a crash up for’ard like an oil stove blowing up, and splinters rained down all around me. One of the men at the fantail went down gushing scarlet and thrashing like a boated carp. More yells, running feet. Somebody dashed past my hiding place, shouted something, maybe at me. I stayed put, waiting for an inspiration to come along and tell me what to do.
I got it in the form of a squat swarthy man