Chapter 36
Several more bullets screamed past their airship as they descended onto
the island of Navasa. Liza could have sworn she heard one hit the bottom of
their ship with a dull thud. John was yelling in Creole at his fellow pirates,
who scrambled to the cannons.
“We need to scare them a little, soften them up!” He yelled as the first
of the cannons let loose on the deck. The sound was tremendous and a few
seconds later there was the sound of an even larger explosion.
“What sort of cannon ball is that?!” Liza yelled as another cannon fired.
“Not a cannon, a bomb, a missile! Remember we fight in the clouds! Cannonballs
are fine except when they plummet straight to earth! So we’ve been working on something
different. Don’t look surprised, we stole the idea from the Germans! Brace
yourself!”
“Why?”
“We’re landing!” and with that the ship rocked violently as it came to
rest on the hard ground of the island. More bullets flew as Liza and Mary
huddle underneath the small steering tower.
“Here, come below!” John had lifted a small trapdoor and was climbing
down into the belly of the ship. Liza and Mary quickly followed suite.
Underneath was not high enough to stand up and lit by oil lamps, but the
thick wood seemed to offer protection from the hail of bullets, which had not
let up.
“Here” John said, swinging aside a small piece of wood that allowed a
view of the outside.
“What? I’ll get my eye shot out!” Liza said.
“Perhaps, but what kind of shot would that take, assuming they saw the
hole. Here, let me look.”
John pressed his eye up to the hole and moved his head slightly back and
forth.
“Just as I thought, there are not too many of them.” He yelled at another
pirate who swung open a similar hole on the other side of the ship. He then
yelled back at John.
“OK, Jacque spies six, maybe eight on his side, I see six for sure. If
there are two dozen people here I would be surprised. We have to take out as
many of the guns as possible, the Dyba will never make it down.”
He got up and talked to the other pirates, who all nodded and took up positions
around the ship.
“Firing holes, not the best way, but our only way really.”
“Is there one I can man?” Liza asked.
“Liza!” Mary said, but Liza’s look silenced her from speaking further.
“Go up towards the front, see what you see and tell me.” John said. Liza
scrambled up and found a small hole that faced forwards. She swung the wood
aside and cautiously peered through the hole. It took her a moment to adjust to
the bright morning sun light already flooding the island. The rocky soil
reflected the light as well, making it initially hard to understand what she
was seeing. It appeared that the men on the island had barricaded themselves
behind crates and barrels. From this position they were able to fire unmolested
at the ships. Liza withdrew and put the barrel of her gun against the hole. She
was not sure how far the gun would fire or how far the barricaded men were. But
she thought it was not much more than the firing range she had used on one of
her relatives country estates in Wales. She fired, blindly, to see what would
happen.
For a second nothing did and then she heard what sounded like a hail of gun
fire hit the front of the ship. Instinctively she stepped back even though the
wood was stopping the bullets. She wondered if, eventually, the bullets might
eat away enough of the wood to let the bullets in and hit her. She shivered.
She went back to John. He and others were doing better, having two holes
to use, one to look out and one underneath to shoot.
“What do you see?” He asked.
“Barricades. You?”
“We see the same barricades. We will run out of bullets, the question is,
who first?”
Liza stood there for a moment. “Why not launch one of your special
cannonballs at the barricade?”
“The men will never go for it, that would destroy their supplies, which
they have rights to at the end of the battle.”
“They’ll have no rights to anything if they are dead. Come on John, all
it might take it one or two shots.”
“I- I don’t know…”
“Don’t make me repeat your speech…”
“OK! Ok! Perhaps one might soften them up.”
“Good.”
“The only problem is getting back up on deck to aim and fire the cannon.”
“I can do that, you keep them occupied with fire while I go up top.”
“That is crazy; you have no idea how to fire them?”
“Then help me!” Liza said as she began to climb up the short ladder to
the top deck.
John said something in Creole that sounded like an epitaph. Mary put her
hand on Liza’s as she began to open the trap door.
“Liza…” Liza looked annoyed but then softened.
“I’ll be careful Mary. Stay here and help, make sure the men do not run
out of bullets, especially while I am up there!”
Liza emerged onto the deck and belly crawled over to one of the forward cannons.
She got there and pushed herself up against the framing, shielding herself from
any bullets. She saw John emerge and motioned for him to stay low, he nodded.
He soon joined her at the cannon.
“We need to swing it around to the front. It will be hard to aim, but we
do not need to destroy everything.” John said. “If we can blow up just some of it
that will force them out into the open. The men know to wait for the first explosion
and then fire upon anyone who runs.”
“It will be better if we can do tow at once, in different parts, makes
sure they all come out!” Liza shouted. “Show me what to do on this one and then
I can go over there.” She pointed across the open deck. John shrugged and then
nodded.
“Alright. These are easier than most to fire. Load this cartridge into
the barrel and close the latch like so. Then insert this fuse, and light it.
You will have only a second or so to adjust the aim, so do that first, before
you light it. It won’t be easy to aim, but a large explosion anywhere near
should work. We’ll fire together.”
Liza nodded and then began crawling to the other side. She was halfway
across, in the open but still very low when she felt a sharp pain on her
shoulder. She flattened herself completely and then reached up with her hand,
it came back red with blood.
“Liza!” John called but she wave at him. The pain was intense, but she
could move her arms. She hoped it was only a scratch. She wiggled the rest of
the way until she could prop herself up in the shadow of the cannon box. She
looked and her short was red, but as she felt her back, she could only make out
a rip in her shirt and a small ridge on her should blade. She looked at John,
who wore a concerned look on his face, and gave him a smile and a thumb up.
As fast as she could she worked to load in one of the cartridges housed
next to the cannon. Although her shoulder had begun to ache, she made quick
work of it. With the cartridge in, she tried to line up the cannon without
putting her face too much in the open hole the cannon was resting in. From what
she could se the cannon was aimed directly at the left side fo the barricade.
She turned back and yelled to John, who held his hand up and then dropped
it. He nodded and put up three fingers. He counted down silently and when the
last finger disappeared Liza lit the fuse with the box of matched she had found
in a small compartment next to the cannon. Seeing the fuse spark, she checked
the cannon one more time and then scooted back.
With a deafening roar the cannon spat out the missile, a second later she
heard two distinct booms, one right after another. Then, rapid fire from below
decks. She dared to peek through the cannon hole and saw several men running
around in front of the now destroyed barricades. Like marionettes whose strings
had been cut, they fell, one by one, into the rocky soil. She risked even more
and swung her head in back of the cannon. She counted 5 men lying on the
ground. Then she heard several more explosions. Other ships were firing
missiles too.
From overhead she then head whoops and cries. She looked up to see the
sky filled with descending Arawak in their baskets. When the balloons were
still twenty feet up in the air, Arawaks dressed with war paint and feather
stuck in their hair, jumped out from every basket. They quickly swarmed over
the encampment, stabbing the men lying on the ground. Liza had to turn away as
she realized each warrior, as they landed, were running up and stabbing the
prostrate and very dead men.
John rolled over.
“Are you alright?” He asked.
“Yes, sorry, I guess the Arawak are having their time, still…”
“Oh, yes, but I mean your shoulder?”
“Oh, yes. Honestly I had forgotten about it almost. It will need
cleaning, but it is just a graze. We should go out and stop them before they
make mincemeat of those men.”
“They are dead, let them have their moment, as you say. They will also
make sure there are no men hiding. It is their battle just as much.”
Just then the hatch to the deck opened and Mary’s head popped out.
“Liza! What on earth!” She scrambled up and crawled quickly over. “John!”
She looked angry. “What did you let her do!?”
“ME?” John said, his mouth open.
“Yes, you. You were not to let anything happen to her!” Mary was pulled
the cloth away from Liza’s should, pulling the rip wider to look at the wound.
Liza was smiling at John and then began to laugh.
“It is not funny Liza! You could have gotten killed!”
“Oh, I know Mary, I just think it is funny that on this whole trip,
surrounded by all of these men, it is only the women who have taken a shot!”
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