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The noise was astonishing. Imagination and memory were never up to the task of capturing the sheer volume of battle, musket shots and men shouting and cannonfire and breaking wood until it was all just one endless, deafening roar. Somehow the crew that remained managed to follow the shouted orders that sounded so thin and pale compared to the rest of the noise, firing their cannons into the smoky haze across the water where their opponents sailed.
Their guns were faltering, though. Cyrus could hear it in the stuttering pauses between their bellows, the ever-lengthening periods of relative quiet, and he could see it in the bloodied corpses and shattered, twisted wood and rope that covered their deck. They’d lost the mainmast at some point, he remembered seeing it topple, and now the sails dragged in the water beside them and made navigation impossible. They were helpless, and had been, and everyone knew it. Still they fired, giving their token resistance, but the time for that had passed.
He squinted up from where he stood behind the gunners, eyes the quarterdeck where the captain stood, stern and stoic even in the chaos. It was past time to call surrender, to strike their colors and save what they could of the crew before they were all slaughtered. Their fight was done, and they could contribute little more to this battle. What benefit was there in continuing, when all it would result in was further loss to their crew?
And yet the captain showed no sign of making that call. He would shout orders to be relayed, but none of them were orders to surrender. It was always fire, fire at will, bring the ship around, or as much as possible despite the failed mainmast and skewed deck, but never surrender. It felt like a brief eternity passed with every second Cyrus waited for that call, but it didn’t come. He was beginning to see it on the crew’s faces, the terror and desperation and growing hopelessness in their eyes as they looked to him as their first officer, and to their captain, to put an end to this hell.
He had to do something. The captain had always been a stubborn fool, but this was killing them needlessly. He didn’t know what the man was thinking, or even if he was thinking. Something had to be said, and he was likely the only one whose words had a chance of getting through. He hesitated a second, knowing leaving his position could destabilize things further, then started back toward the quarterdeck anyway. He couldn’t make things much worse than they were. He made a lunge for the railing as the deck beneath his feet bucked with the impact of cannonshot, holding tight as he peered upward. “Captain!” he shouted, trying to make himself heard over the cacophony.
He never knew if the captain heard his call. The deck beneath him suddenly heaved upward, the noise of shattering beams deafening as the movement beneath his feet tossed him like flotsam. For a moment he had no sense of where he was, just that he was briefly airborne and then once again on the deck, this time flat on his back, his body aching with impact and his ears ringing.
He started to sit up, his head spinning and throbbing, and looked around dizzily. The stairs he’d been standing on were gone, shattered by cannonfire, and he could see the remains of one of the helmsmen lying in the wreckage. His gaze drifted dazedly away, downward, to take in how he’d fared. He wasn’t surprised to find himself spattered with blood, but it took him a minute to realize some of it was his own. He still didn’t feel it, he was so badly stunned, but he could see long, sharp splinters of wood jutting from his ribs and his arm. One had gone clean through his left hand and he found another, as he brushed his uninjured hand up his neck and face, through his cheek. He could taste the blood, feel sharp wood pressing against his gums and teeth, and with a gasp and a grimace he pulled the shard of wood free before he could think better of it. If he hadn’t felt the pain of his wounds before, he certainly began to feel it then as he pressed his fingers to his cheek, uselessly trying to stop the gush of blood that followed the splinter’s removal.
He looked around again, still dazed, and unsteadily began to drag himself up. The splinter through his hand shifted and he gasped, reaching down to carefully pull that one free of his flesh as well before trying to rise again. He had to grip the wall next to him to make it, and his knees felt shaky on the shuddering deck. His ribs and arm throbbed around the splinters there, but he left them be for now. He was bleeding enough already, and he was no surgeon. He’d probably already made his state worse by removing the ones in his cheek and hand.
He hobbled around the far side of the cabin, finding the stairs there intact and he half crawled up them to the helm. The only remaining helmsman clutched the side of his face, blood running fast from beneath his hand, but though he was still on his feet Cyrus could see the shock and terror in his expression. Half the deck on the far side of the quarterdeck was gone, destroyed by cannonfire, and the mizzen mast had gone the way of the mainmast, leaving a tangle of sails and rope tenting brokenly over the side.
The captain stood back from the wheel, clutching a broken bit of railing, his own clothes badly bloodstained. His face was fixed in a harsh scowl, and Cyrus couldn’t tell if it was pain from his wounds or some sort of mad rage. He still hadn’t called a surrender, and Cyrus could not understand why. Surely he could see this was hopeless, they’d long since lost their fight.
He staggered the rest of the way up the stairs, picking his way through the debris and over to the captain. “Sir!” he shouted over the noise “Sir, we have to strike the colors. We’re done! Nobody else has to die!”
The captain barely spared him a glance. “I didn’t take you for a coward, Morrison!” he shouted back, anger grating in his voice “Get back down there and do your damn job!”
He couldn’t believe it. For a second he could only stare in shock, the moment broken only when another volley shook the ship beneath them. He heard screams from somewhere down on the deck and flinched, glancing around wildly. The helmsman was staring at him, his expression desperate, and Cyrus could see his mouth moving in some sort of mantra or prayer. It wouldn’t be long before what remained of this crew’s morale broke and left them with nothing but chaos. Nobody would make it out of here then.
“Sir!” he all but wailed “We have to surrender! Every man here will die if we don’t, and it will have been for nothing!”
The captain spun and, to his utter shock, struck him across the face. It was such a surprise he barely felt it even as he staggered off balance with the force of the blow, barely stopping himself from falling. At least it had been to the uninjured side of his face.
“Morrison, if you don’t get back to your post I’ll see you brought up on charges of insubordination and cowardice,” the captain snarled.
“Sir,” he began again, his tone growing desperate “If we don’t surrender, we’ll all be corpses! There won’t be anyone left for that! Half the crew’s dead already, and it’s only a matter of time before - sir!”
The captain was scowling, his hand going to the stock of his pistol, half drawing it from its place at his belt. “That’s enough,” he spat, leaning in close enough that Cyrus could smell the blood on him, and the stink of his sweat and sour breath. “I won’t hesitate again. Get back to your post.”
He spun away, clearly expecting compliance, and bellowed an order to come about to the terrified helmsmen despite the fact that they were so crippled there was no way to turn the ship anywhere. Cyrus stared at his back in shock, shifting his gaze slowly to meet the helmsman’s wide eyes, and then looking beyond him to the carnage that remained of their ship and crew.
The beams and railing were splintered in more places than not, cannons falling through weakened points in the deck or flipped end over end by a lucky direct shot from their opponents, maiming and crushing any in their wake. Tattered splinters jutted everywhere, and men broken and torn apart by explosion and cannonfire littered the length of the ship and stained it red with their blood. Screaming wounded made more noise than everything but the lagging cannonfire now, and that had fallen off more and more as their gun crews had died at their weapons, refused any relief by their captain. By the man who was supposed to be looking out for them, as much as this hellish situation would allow.
The man who had failed them.
Cyrus’ hand drifted to his own belt almost without conscious thought, resting on the stock of the gun he kept there. Everything seemed to slow down as he turned his head to stare at the captain’s back as the man continued to bellow orders. He caught the helmsman’s eye over the captain’s shoulder, saw the same realization he’d had reflected there. The captain was not going to let them surrender, and they were all going to die here. Unless someone did something desperate.
Cyrus drew his pistol, feeling an eternity pass as he lifted it, focused the barrel between the captain’s shoulder blades. He thought he should feel more than he did, like he should be terrified or furious or desperate, but in that moment he felt a remarkable calm. He could see the knowledge of what he was doing on the helmsman’s face, and the acceptance.
He fired.
That sense of slowed time lingered as the captain fell, blood spattering from the new wound in his back. He collapsed bonelessly to the deck, dead before he landed, and Cyrus watched as his arms sprawled, his hat sliding off and bouncing several feet to fetch up against a fallen bundle of sailcloth.
He stared for a minute, then gradually lowered the gun and looked up. The one witness to his treachery, the helmsman, stared in stunned shock for a minute before giving a jerky nod. His throat moved as he swallowed convulsively and looked quickly away, fixing his gaze away from Cyrus, away from the dead captain. Cyrus didn’t think the man was going to say a word about what had just happened, and nobody else had seen. Still, he wasn’t sure he would escape this without consequences. He honestly wasn’t sure if he wanted to, after a betrayal like this.
He took a shaky breath, carefully putting his gun away and rubbing his hand over his face. It didn’t matter, he told himself. The point was to keep the men on the ship alive. That was why he’d done it, and he had to act fast to make it mean something. He forced his shoulders straight and stepped forward, stumbling with nerves and fear despite his conviction. He gripped the railing by the wheel as he approached it, knuckles white against the wood where his skin wasn’t covered with blood.
He dragged in a shaky breath. “The captain has fallen!” He shouted as loudly as he could manage “Strike the colors! Strike the colors now!”
At first he thought he hadn’t been heard, but then the call began to spread along the deck, shouted from sailor to sailor over the continued boom of cannons, building and building to a chorus filled with fear and despair and relief . He raised his eyes to the one flag left, mounted on the intact foremast, watching as someone got hold of the ropes and frantically brought it down.
Voices still cried out, the wounded still screamed and moaned, but their few cannons fell silent. Cannons aboard other ships still sounded, but no more shot tore through their decks, no more clouds of splinters tore air and flesh alike, and slowly those men still on their feet relaxed, their shoulders slumping in exhaustion as tension drained from them with the cease of bloodshed.
He didn’t know how he got through the next few minutes, directing sailors in helping the wounded first and foremost. He didn’t think his voice even shook as he did his best to put things in order, though he felt like it should have. He felt like he shouldn’t have been able to stand upright as shock caught up with him, felt like he should have been weeping in a corner somewhere.
A sense of stunned calm settled over the ruined ship. It was only a matter of time before their enemy came with terms for surrender, but until then everything was quiet. He was left on his own on the quarterdeck, with only the captain’s corpse for company. He leaned against the railing, the trembling he felt in his gut finally spreading to his limbs, leaving his knees weak and his stomach upset. He could barely feel his wounds anymore, as shaken as he felt now, though he knew they needed attention. The fabric of his shirt was soaked through with blood in places, and he could feel it crusted on his hand, his cheek and throat, but it didn’t seem to matter.
He’d committed mutiny, and murder. With barely any hesitation he’d killed a man he’d known for months, shot him in the back like a coward. However honorable his motives, and however necessary his actions, he would likely face the noose for this when people started asking questions about what had really happened. The thought terrified him as much as any cannonball. In an instant, his life as he knew it was over. Even facing their enemy and their terms of surrender seemed a distant concern in that moment.
He didn’t regret it. It was something of a surprise to realize it, but he wouldn’t have changed it. Their casualties were massive, but the ship still floated and at least some of the crew still lived. They hadn’t died in a hopeless, useless fight, and some of them would live to see their families again. Whatever happened to him, right now that was worth it to him. Maybe when he actually faced the consequences he’d change his mind, but only time would tell.
Until then, there was work to do.