The Last Battalion

Chapter 5

Gripping one of the taut vertical ropes and leaning far out over the rail, I waited a moment until the swell lifted the huge, creaking structure of the stern and the poop deck on which I stood, and then I flung the biscuit as hard as I could. It looked like quite a long throw at first, but as it dropped by quick degrees toward the water, and kept on falling instead of splashing in, I saw I hadn't really flung it very far out; but the gull had seen it, and came skimming in above the green water, and at the last moment, as if showing off, snatched it out of the air. The biscuit broke as the gull flapped back up to a comfortable altitude, but he seemed to have got a good beakful.

I had another biscuit in my coat pocket, but for a while I just watched the bird glide, absently admiring the way it seemed to need only the slightest hitch and flap now and then to maintain its position just above the boat's starboard stern lamp.

"Last night I just threw the whole plateful out of my cabin window. I hope that poor sea gull didn't sample any - it's nothing but a nasty lot of herbs and weeds Ashwin grows in a box in his cabin back at base" Suhail smiled sheepishly.

I shrugged "Doesn't sound bad to me."

Suhail had drawn three loops of thread out of each of the napkins, puckering the squares of cloth into bell shapes, and now he slipped three fingers of either hand into the loops and made the napkins stand upright and approach each other with a realistic simulation of walking. Then he had one of them bow while the other curtsied, and the two little cloth figures - one of which he'd somehow made to look subtly feminine - danced around the tabletop in complicated whirls and leaps and pirouettes.

" I hope it was worth it" he commented.

" I don't know man... I think we have gained more information than the Corporal would have expected"

Our boat slid easily through the waves, a friendly current bearing us coastward . Every so often Suhail would look up from his map to consult the horizon, and just the sight of his annoyed face in the sun filled me with false jollity.

A big black boat sailed far away in the horizon.

" Pirates," said Suhail tensely, clutching the rail next to him. "My Uncle described that noise to me. They'll be dancing, too - they call it 'vaporing' - it's meant to frighten us."

"It would frighten me, if they were in more of a vessel or we in less. Your uncle could buy the entire Armada if he wanted to... and he's afraid of a few Pirates?" I laughed.

Suhail joined.

Our disguise was perfect. We didn't use one of our submarines or a destroyer to get to the Island. We would be trespassing in Chinese waters without a permit if we did. We had a small boat with a deck stocked with advanced weapons, a couple of grenade launchers, a bazooka, a NOSLER M48 TGR sniper and hundreds of extra cartridges. No one would bat an eye. No one would know suspect that we were from the Military.

All morning the ship had been leaning slightly to starboard; now it straightened to level and then, without pausing there, heeled so far over to port that me and Suhail had to grab the rail to stay onboard. I braced my knees against the gunwale as the deck rose behind us and the breakfast table skidded and then tumbled down it to collide with the rail a yard from Suhail. The plates and silverware and deformed napkins spun away in the sudden shadow of the hull and splashed directly below where we were clinging.

"Damn me!" I grated through clenched teeth as the ship stayed heeled over and I squinted straight down at the choppy sea, "I don't believe the pirates can kill us, but our ship can!" I had to tilt my head back to look up at the horizon, and it so chilled my stomach to do it that after a few moments I wrenched my gaze back down to the water - but I'd seen the whole vista shifting from right to left, and the pirate vessel, no longer distant, wheeling with the seascape out away from the bow to a position closer and closer to exactly abeam; and though I'd seen it nearly head on, I'd noticed that it was indeed a sloop, a single-masted, gaff-rigged vessel with two shabby, much-patched triangular sails, one tapering back along the boom, the other forward past the bow to the end of the extra-long bowsprit. The gunwales were crowded with ragged figures who did seem to be dancing.

"Got to get out of here!"Suhail shouted. His last words before the gunshot. He fell overboard.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

RANK 42?

WE CAN DO BETTER !