Journey into the Deep by Guy S. Stanton III
“All right me mates it’s time to give’m a taste of hell!” Flynn said before laughing maniacally for a brief moment.
The moment of hilarity was abruptly ended as he choked on the smoke of the cigar. The cigar fell out of his mouth to the floor and he stamped it out with a foot, even as he hacked out a piece of it that he’d accidentally bit off and half swallowed.
“Bloody things will kill you!” He muttered out sourly, as he glanced forward again out the narrow window even as he heard Jim’s voice bellow out of the recesses of the ship, “Open gun ports!”
Flynn smiled again before looking behind him with a scowl to see if Matt had been able to keep up. Matt’s little barge was still there surprisingly.
Flynn shook his head in consternation as to Matt’s specific choice of the little ship versus the larger one. What man in his right mind would pass up this ship with all its canons for that little pea shooter back there with just two canons?
So what if the two canons were mounted on a rotational turret! In a fight like this firepower was the only thing that mattered.
Matt had even had the gall to name his little gunboat the USS Nathanael, after the Revolutionary war hero Nathaniel Hale. Flynn rolled his eyes at the thought of that injustice.
Naming ships after past heroes wasn’t necessarily a thing of bad taste, but in Flynn’s mind every ship was a ‘she’. He’d named his ship Polly.
It was a good ship and Polly had been a good woman. The two went hand-in-hand to his way of thinking. Treat a ship well like you would a woman and you’d be rewarded. Treat her mean and there’d be no living with her.
Flynn saw a flurry of activity upon the five remaining Whalers that were in port, as someone on board noticed the Polly and the USS Nathaniel steaming into the harbor. They looked like ants in their activity as they were driven to their tasks by the bellowing roars of giants little better than overstuffed cockroaches.
“Well, cockroaches and assorted vermin, time to feel the boot heel!” Flynn called out in glee.
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Jim gazed out the open gun ports judging the distance and the trajectory needed. They were all lined up.
A harpoon shot out from one of the mounted launchers on one of the Whalers. The harpoon dinked off the side of the heavy iron plated ship and everyone within the gun bay chuckled.
“Stand at the ready!” Jim called out.
A moment passed before the order was given.
“Fire!!!” Jim bellowed out and the canons went off belching flame as gunpowder smoke acridly filled the gun bay.
The two rows of canons leaped backward in their traces even as their gun crews went back to work in the process of reloading them. Maybe the actions of the gun crews weren’t as polished or as quick as their counterparts in the distant past may have been, but they were getting the job done.
The wet swab meant to extinguish still simmering embers was shoved down the cannon barrels with a hot hiss of sound as water came into contact with hot metal. The powder charge was rammed down it followed by a cannonball tapped into place, even as a new fuse was stuck into the breach.
“Fire!!!”
The second salvo went off more intermittently than the first as some gun crews were faster than others, but the barrage of heavy lead had the same damaging effect as before. Two Whalers were sinking. One had its mainmast down and the Polly was headed for the other two who were attempting to cut anchor and escape the harbor.
Jim saw the wildly gesturing form of one of the giants high lined on the ship that was dismasted. He ran down the line of canons before stopping at one that had just gotten loaded.
“Out of the way!” He said.
The gun crew peeled away from the canon as the big Samoan muscled the heavy cannon over a little as he targeted in on the giant. After adjusting the cannon up slightly he pulled the cord. Smoke filled the gun bay and Jim peered through the portal to see if he’d had a successful hit or not.
The cannonball whizzed by mere inches from the head of the giant and Jim smote the cannon barrel in frustration with one fist. The giant’s head whipped around to stare at Jim as if knowing somehow that the shot had been a personal thing.
The giant reacted and with a blink of startlement Jim lunged off to the side as a manually thrown harpoon slammed through the open gun port to lodge deeply into an interior wooden beam.
That had been a close call.
Jim glanced through the gun port quickly to see if any more harpoons were on their way from the apparently very ticked off giant. All Jim saw was the tail end of the splash up as the giant dove into the sea heading for the ship.
Jim couldn’t help but think that was not a good thing.
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Flynn had seen the interchange with the giant occur and now he turned Polly’s wheel over sharply to line her up with the fast approaching swimmer in the water. He gritted his teeth with the determination to split the giant’s skull with the keel of the ship.
There was a loud thunk followed by a roar that brought a savage smile to Flynn’s features. The smile however was wiped off though at the sight of the bloody giant suddenly standing fifteen feet tall at the end of the forward deck.
An awful bone chilling cry erupted from it as it thumped its chest like a challenging ape and started off across the deck in a pounding run straight for him.
Flynn had no options that he could see to avoid being pulverized and eaten. Shame of a way to go out on the formerly best day of his life he thought abstractly to himself as he saw the giant draw close.
The giant was in midstride when its flesh shredded apart in a bloody rain of torn parts. Flynn blinked and then glanced off to the side to see the USS Nathaniel had come broadside and was even now rotating her twin guns away in search of a new target. The Nathaniel had saved his bacon with their highly accurate salvo of homemade grapeshot.
Flynn lifted a hand in thanks, but he doubted any of Matt’s crew saw it. Perhaps the little boat wasn’t such a worthless pee shooter after all.
Flynn corrected to a course that would bring him up alongside of the remaining two whalers, which were putting on sail in an effort to escape port. There would be no escape today if it was up to him.
Chapter Eighteen
No More Bullets
The sound of loud cannon fire echoed up from the harbor and jarred the sleeping giant awake. Stumbling up to his feet the giant looked around dumbly in search of the noise.
More cannon fire echoed from the harbor and with an enraged roar the giant took off for the sounds of war.
The giant now gone we broke cover and rushed for the slave cave. Before we even reached the cave’s mouth the iron gates clanged backward as former slaves barreled out of it as a massed group heading for the trees in the distance.
I waited by the cave entrance to see the last of the slaves free of it. They ran with a will born out of fright and the basic human desire to live free. They left none behind to face the wrath of the giants.
Mandy had stayed back with me and she now confirmed, “They’re all out.”
“All right let’s go!” I said grasping her arm and beginning to run after the others.
A loud roar of outrage punctured the scene of escape and I saw that the giant had returned perhaps thinking better about leaving his post. People screamed and ran harder at the sight of the giant who looked absolutely unhinged with rage.
His intent was to kill and maim, but he looked confused as to where to start in the fast-moving line of humanity. I let go of Mandy’s arm and shoved her on after the others as I diverted off towards the giant.
He didn’t see me as I was coming up on his blindside. I reached behind my back and pulled the flare gun from the dinghy out. I stopped running and taking aim upward I pulled the trigger.
The giant had just started to move forward when the flare burned into the back of his right shoulder. I’d never heard such a caterwauling screech as I did then.
I’d been aiming for his spine, but the giant had moved at the last moment. His right arm hung limp and I took comfort in the knowledge that at least he was maimed up some.
I popped a new flare cartridge in as the giant turned to me with glaring eyes of hatred.
“That’s right big boy I’m over here.” I said, as I pulled the trigger again.
The flare whizzed off, but the giant dodged out of the way and then lunged for me in the next moment. I sidestepped quickly away, as I fed my last cartridge into the flare gun, even as a giant arm swung through the space where I had just been.
I fired off my back foot as I started to fall over because of my over commitment to dodge away from the giant’s arm. The flare fizzled brightly as it bore its way into the back of the monster’s thigh. I hit the ground and flipped on over and without a backward glance took off in the direction of the trees confident that the giant was too maimed to follow us now.
Something took my right leg out from under me and I went tumbling. In the process of falling forward I hit my head off a rock and saw stars for a moment.
Blinking I tried to clear my head as some corner of my still functioning brain broadcasted the need for alertness. I glanced over my shoulder to see that the giant under sheer force of will had limped up to me and was even now lifting a hammer hard fist into the air with which to pulverize me into the ground.
I guess this was where things ended.
Shots rang out and I watched blood splatter all over the giant’s face as the bullets hammered out one after the other. One bullet must’ve found the brain through an eye socket, because the giant went limp and started to fall forward.
In a panic I rolled off to the side to keep from being crushed by the giant’s bulk. The giant hit the ground hard and I coughed on the kicked up dust.
Glancing upward I saw Mandy standing there with my boot pistol still clutched in her hands as she pulled the trigger over and over.
“Mandy?”
She seemed to shake free a little from her trance to glance at me.
“No more bullets honey.” I said gently.
The pistol fell from her hands as she rushed over to help me up. It was painful, but nothing was broken. I could walk perhaps even run if it meant getting off this miserable island.
With an arm about Mandy’s shoulders we started off for the nearby forest in the direction that everyone else had gone.
I squeezed Mandy’s shoulder, “Thanks for saving my life back there.” I said half out of breath because of the pain that I felt with each step forward.
She glanced up and gave me a quick smile, “I could say likewise, but the truth is that you’ve given me more than just a reprieve from being a monster’s snack. You’ve given me freedom. Freedom is more valuable to me than life!”
I squeezed her shoulder again lightly, “We’re not out of the woods and home free yet honey.” I said cautioning her gently against any possible letdowns that lay ahead.
She shook her head, “Even if I yet die in trying to get off this island I will die free! Thank you Eli!”
“You’re welcome.” I said with a grimace, as I eased forward into a painful jog.
Chapter Nineteen
Gunpowder
The Polly touched off both escaping Whalers with two broadsides to each. The USS Nathaniel had been busy too. Of the two ships it was the more proficient of the two at giant killing.
Matt and his crew had polished off the giant watch guards on the two other sunken ships. There appeared to be no giants on the two ships that had tried to escape the harbor. Those ships could have been let go if it weren’t for the fact that it would have been a possible means by which the plantation owners or the giants could have come hunting the Whale People with.
Flynn glanced toward the shore and didn’t like what he saw. It looked like all the giants were drawn up in a group watching what took place within the harbor as they conferred as to what to do among themselves.
Suddenly all of their heads whipped back to look inland. That wasn’t good at all!
They must’ve heard something to do with the prisoners escaping. Something harsh was said by the one who appeared to be the leader of the group whose bellow echoed out across the bay. He and half the others tore off for the hills while the other half ran out into the sea towards them.
Flynn cranked the wheel over and turned broad side to the beach and Jim read his mind by firing off a salvo aimed at the group of giants headed for the hills. Three of the giants fell to the exploding cannonballs, but that was all. The rest never even looked back. Eli was on his own now.
Flynn looked at the giants in the water and turned the wheel hard for the open sea. It would be a near thing for them to escape given the fast rate at which the giants could swim at.
The Polly headed forward at top speed, which wasn’t all that impressively fast. Flynn wasn’t worried about the Nathaniel as it was faster than Polly by a good bit.
Maybe that’s why Matt had picked it Flynn thought darkly, as he felt the pressure of the swimming giants trailing in his wake.
Come to think of it where was the Nathaniel?
Flynn glanced around, but didn’t see it anywhere. He glanced behind and in horror saw that the Nathaniel wasn’t following, but was rather closing in on the giants in the water as her twin guns were depressed as far as they could go, as they continued to spew out the deadly grapeshot that was turning the water red. They were killing giants, but they didn’t stand a chance!
As one the surviving group of giants seized a hold of the Nathaniel and vaulted their way aboard to land on the flat iron clad deck. They as a group were universal in their desire to rip the ship apart and devour its occupants. They tore away at the heavy steel plating in an effort to make a way through to the ship’s interior.
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Matt picked up a torch, as did the rest of the crew gathered together around him, as the sound of protesting nails and splintering wood infiltrated the interior space loudly. The giants would soon be inside.
Matt looked around the somber group and said, “To slightly paraphrase on what a great man once said I say this, ‘I regret that I have but one life to give on behalf of my friends!’ For freedom!!!”
“For freedom!!!” The others echoed out loudly, as they all tossed their torches onto the open casks of gunpowder that lay all around them.
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The explosion rocked the harbor with its deafening crash of force and flame. The attacking giants were obliterated by the outpouring of shattered metal and wood splinters.
The USS Nathaniel was no more than scattered pieces of driftwood afloat upon the harbor’s surface.
Flynn turned away from the grisly sight and back to steering the Polly forward out to sea. He had entirely underestimated the little professor with a love for history. Now he would never forget him.
Chapter Twenty
Not Forsaken
I stumbled out onto the beach to see that half of those gathered there had already been loaded up onto the boats steered by the Whale People that had come in close to shore. We were going to get away with this!
‘Hallelujah!’ Was my prevailing thought. These people, who had been born into bondage, so deserved a chance to experience freedom.
I pushed Mandy away towards the surf, “Go get on a boat! Get out of here before something goes wrong.”
Screams rang out all along the beach where people were yet to be loaded aboard. The people in their fear backed away from the beach into the crashing of the waves, as those on the boats worked double time to bring them aboard.
I turned around to face what I knew I would find. Some thirty or more giants came walking out from the forest’s edge onto the beach. So much for the escape being a rousing success.
At least some would escape, but would those surviving giants not just use their technology to build crafts of some kind by which to hunt the Whale People down to wherever they fled
Despair loomed inside of me at the knowledge that we really hadn’t won or achieved anything of noteworthy value this day, until all these giants were dead and no longer a threat to anyone. But how to do it?
It was beyond any capability of ours to overcome such demonic aberrations personified in the flesh. It would have to be a God thing, if we were to survive.
“Oh God please help us! You brought me here and You’ve helped me deliver these people to this point and even find happiness for myself again where there was none before. Please hear my prayer and finish what You started and have helped out all along the way. I commit myself and the future of these people that you’ve tasked me to lead into your safekeeping, as I step out in faith.”
I limped out across the sand towards the approaching giants.
“Oh God do not forsake me now!” I whispered out.
“I never have and I never will.” Came a deep response into my innermost being that brought peace and the courage to potentially walk straight into my death, if it was what God had willed to be.
Something buzzed by my ear and I looked to the sound to see a hornet hovering in the air beside me. I smiled, as I remembered the stories of Israel and their conquest of the Holy Land, a land filled with giants, recorded down in the Bible so long ago for all to read. God was the same yesterday, today, and forever more.
I continued smiling, as I looked up at our formerly traitorous guide, who seemed to be the ringleader of the group. He had draped the central crystal of the Orlanis Star as a necklace about his neck.
Speaking loud enough for my voice to carry up to their lofty heights I said, “You’re not taking another step to stop these people from experiencing their freedom gifted to them from the God of heaven and earth.”
The giants looked among themselves and abruptly began to laugh so hard that it shook the air. Their leader boomed out with cruel mirth, “And who is going to stop us? You?”
“No, not me. In defiance of the natural order of creation you were made by those who fell from the heavens, who forsook their seats of righteous honor bestowed upon them by the Master of all creation. By the Creator’s hand you will be blotted out once again even as your kind was in the past.”