The Frontier, May 1926 — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

6 of the after cabin, the fo’c’sle, and the open hatchway. They were armed with cutlases, and they made for the bulwarks with a yell that fairly split my eardrums. “Gut the swabs—all hands, all hands!” roared their skipper, leaping to the bulwarks and firing both pistols into the knot of men at.our after port gt. In that horrible moment our fate seemed certain. In reality there were forty men pouring out to attack us; but at first glance there seemed to be a hundred. And though Captain Van Tassel fired on the instant, and others followed suit, dropping a man here and there, the most of our crew were thrown into a panic. I, for one, yelled excitedly and fired my pistol with only a hasty aim; in the next second I found myself facing a burly ruffian who came charging at me with his cut- las swinging high above his head. But even before his blade fell Dono- van had acted, and the tide was turned, From the tail of my eye I saw him clamp the glowing end of the tarry rope to the fuse. It sputtered. With an upward sweep of his arms he raised the heavy keg over his head; then, with a mighty heave, the giant threw his terrible bomb toward the Retriev- er’s deck. It struck the pirates’ leader fairly in the breast as he balanced upon the bulwarks. He was knocked back- ward to his own deck, the keg of pow- der tumbling with him; and immedi- ately afterward there followed a tre- mendous explosion. I was knocked to the deck by the force of it. The man who aimed to cut me down pitched over me as though shot from a gun, sprawling on his face in the scuppers. A dozen more, including our own men and those who had gained our deck, were knocked into a cocked hat, as the say- ing goes, sprawling here and there in every imaginable attitude, while others were brought up standing, with silly, shocked expressions on their faces. On our deck the majority had been protected from serious wounds by the intervening bulwarks of the two ves- sels, but the execution on the deck of the Retriever was frightful. Fully two-thirds of their men had yet to gain the bulwarks when the spark struck the powder in that keg. Others were still poised at the rail, ready to leap across to our planks. Of these, some were blown across our decks and into the sea; some were knocked down, un- conscious, into the midst of our men; and others were killed by flying splin- THE FRONTIER ters. But those remaining on their own deck suffered most terribly. They were blown in every direction, three being lifted to the yardarms, where they hung, dangling, and one being thrown, tumbling end over end, to land in the sea astern, Donovan had thrown himself prone after casting the bomb. Now we scrambled up together. Snatching up a cutlas from a fallen men, he glanced toward the poop, saw that Captain Van Tassel was down—shot through the a He thrust it quickly into his shirt bosom calf of his right leg, as we learned later—and then rallied our men with a stentorian roar. Before the smoke of the explosion had drifted away we were following him about the deck, cutting down those who had gained a footing among us. Some fought des- perately; some cried for quarter; and others attempted to jump back aboard their own vessel. We in the meantime, under Donovan’s leadership, kept some degree of organization, so that isolated men were quickly borne down by a concerted rush and our deck was quickly cleared. Then, pausing a mo- ment for breath, the giant brought us round him again with another roar. “A round dozen of us yet?” he cried. “Well, then, by the Flying Dutchman, we'll do the boarding now.” He leaped to the bulwarks and pointed his bloody cutlas at the decks of the Retriver, still enveloped with drifting whisps of smoke. “At ’em, my hearties!” he bellowed. “Follow me, all hands!” We were over and into them on the instant, aflame with the joy of victory on our own deck and eager to be at them before they could recover fully from the shock of that explosion, We were confronted by fairly equal num- bers; but some of these were still dazed and went down at the first on- slaught. Thereupon the crews split into entangled groups which milled here and there about the deck, step- ping over screaming wounded men and hacking at one another in a bedlam of cries and curses. For my own part, I was close he- hind Donovan when he struck the Re- triever’s deck. A pirate lunged at me, and, in dodging his cut, I almost fell into a gaping hole in the planks. Don- ovan split the man to the chin with a whistling stroke and went on. Then inother pirate came at me, and I found myself battling desperately to save my life. How long we cut and slashed at each other I do not know. To me it seemed a century. The man fought with the fury of despair, and he cut at me so rapidly that I had hard shift to ward off the blows. He had a brutish, pock- marked face, and a patch over one eye which I saw later in my dreams. But ‘when my lungs seemed to be bursting, and the perspiration was pouring into my eyes, he stumbled, and my blade found his neck. He went down witha choked sob. The force of my blow had almost swung me from my feet, so that I stumbled over him and leaned, panting heavily, against the cabin companion- way. Thus my attention was called to a scuffle in the pirate captain’s quar- ters. Turning, I saw Donovan, with his back toward me. He had just cut down one of the buccaneers and was in the act of jerking something from the fallen man’s hand. What it was I could not see, for he thrust it quickly into his shirt bosom before turning about. Afterward I remembered that he started a little, then quickly recovered himself. At the time I gave it little thought. He came rushing out at once and paused abruptly to scan the shat- tered, bloody deck. “Got your man, I see!” he panted. “Bully for you, Jack!’ And he clap- ped me heartily on the shoulder with his left hand. ‘Well, our two was the last,” he went on, pointing with his cutlas. “See there, Jack? They’re done.” I looked, and saw that he spoke truth. Only a bare half dozen pirates remained untouched, and these had thrown down their arms and were begging for quarter. The fight was over. cCoOmniclbooXxsS. com