“I trust that you have become a dangerous man, Mister Lewrie,” Captain Osmonde said, pumping his hand. “And my best wishes to you.”
Lewrie shed his uniform and undid his neckcloth, tossing it aside. He took a deep breath and enjoyed the sight of the gulls wheeling over their cove-sheltered beach, the play of sun on the bright green water. He shook himself all over to loosen his tenseness. This is what comes of getting involved with a chick-a-biddy young girl. I should stick to whores.
“Gentlemen,” Major Overstreet called them together. “That a blow was struck, and grievous insults exchanged notwithstanding, they were brought about by strong drink, and can be excusable. I charge both of you now, is there no way to settle this quarrel without recourse to steel?”
“Only if Lieutenant Wyndham publicly recants his slurs on the lady in question, his slurs on me, and apologizes for striking me, sir,” Alan stated as calmly as he could, feeling trapped and knowing in his heart that it was not going to be that way. He could see the swaggering, superior way Wyndham glared at him.
“I stand by my statements, sir,” Wyndham replied.
Overstreet sighed. “Then it is my sad duty to allow you to proceed. The weapons chosen by the aggrieved party are naval cutlasses. You shall both draw a weapon which your second shall offer you. You shall separate to the red pegs, which are five paces apart. You shall salute each other at my command, then take what guard you will and advance to touch blades. On my count you shall begin. I shall say one, and two, and three, begin. The duel shall continue until such time as one party has received his third cut. At that time I shall call you to cease. Should honor be deemed satisfied, the duel will end. Should you not feel that your cause has been redeemed, your seconds shall inform me and the duel shall continue until such time as one or both of you has fallen. A disarm shall be considered a touch. Should either of you advance threateningly before my count, or fail to halt after the third cut at my call, or if one of you attempt to strike the other after disarming the other, the second of the offended party and I shall shoot him down. Do you understand?”
They both nodded, grim and pale.
“Then take your weapons, please.”
Lewrie went to his peg, where Ashburn stood. He offered him a cutlass hilt-first. “Pray God for you, Alan,” Keith whispered. “Now why don’t you cut the swaggering duck-fucker up!”
Lewrie nodded to him and touched him on the shoulder with his free hand, then turned to face Lieutenant Wyndham, who was getting the feel of the heavy cutlass as though he had never handled one before. It was a plain weapon, heavy as sin, a simple chopping weapon with a wide blade and only one edge and a point of sorts at the end of the upward curve, like a caricature of an infantryman’s hanger. The hand-guard was of flat steel with a ring guard and a wooden handle, which had been rubbed with dust to stanch the expected sweat.
“Salute,” Overstreet called, raising a long double-barreled pistol at half-cock.
Wyndham took up a graceful, balanced pose with one hand over his shoulder, perfect as a French sword instructor, his blade in quarte.
Lewrie brought his own blade to octave and he had to smile at the incongruous sight of someone posing with a cutlass as though it was a foil.
“I shall begin the count,” Overstreet intoned. “One … and two … and three … begin.”
They advanced with small steps, blades trembling with anticipation. First beat rang hesitantly as they explored. The army man opened with a thrust, which Lewrie beat aside, and then Wyndham responded with a cut-over. It was obvious that the lieutenant was a point man. They fenced in school style for a while, Lewrie trying Wyndham’s disengage and parry style, eyes on Wyndham’s own, his point, and the set of his feet.
Wyndham exploded with a sudden lunge. Lewrie parried it off high to his left, stepping aside the thrust in quartata, then swung at the unbalanced man and came a toucher of disemboweling Wyndham, who leaped back like a cat, eyes wide with surprise. Lewrie went to the attack with a feint thrust, beating aside the parry and lunged himself. Wyndham gave a grunt of alarm and stumbled backward to fall on the firm sand beach, while Lewrie spun past him and took up guard, waiting for him to regain his feet.
Lewrie understood what Osmonde had meant. What little small beer he had drunk was sloshing around in his belly like a sack of mercury, and his thirst was hellish. The exertion felt debilitating, and they had barely begun! But he found time to whirl his cutlass in mock salute and raise one eyebrow in a cocky grin as Lieutenant Wyndham got to his feet and began to advance once more.
Wyndham began thrusting low with feint thrusts, stamping to distract Lewrie’s attention, or throw off his timing, forcing him back as their blades rang in engagement and light parries. Lewrie gave ground half-step for half-step to maintain distance before shifting to a low guard and point-parrying Wyndham wider and wider. The soldier wanted to step back and regain his advantage, so he ended with his blade at high first, and whirled it suddenly in a killing swing that Lewrie met with a crossover to fourth. The two blades met with a great clang and the shock stunned his arm and hand, but Lewrie cut across, his own blade ringing off Wyndham’s hilt guard, which lowered the army man’s weapon below his waist. Lewrie feinted a cut to the head backhanded, which made him duck back off-balance. Lewrie drew his elbows back and disengaged, then whirled his cutlass under and around to spin Wyndham’s guard over his head. He then struck down the blade, to lay the heavy cutlass on Wyndham’s scalp with a firm tap that cut through hair and skin and thudded off the bone. The infantryman tried to bind, but Lewrie shoved forward with his hilt and pushed hard, jumping back at the same time from the irate killing swing that followed.
There were murmurs of alarm or pleasure from the witnesses as they saw the blood on Wyndham’s head and face running down into his eyes. Humiliated, Wyndham was on the attack at once, taking the hint of their brief practice and using the point less, wielding the cutlass more like one would a hanger to attack edge to edge. Lewrie gave ground, seeing the energy Wyndham was putting into his efforts, and knowing that sooner or later the man would go back to the pointwork he was used to, once he began to flag.
Wyndham began to execute flying cut-overs fairly well, which Alan was parrying off, but he suddenly went back to the point and faked Alan out badly. The straight-armed lunge grazed his left cheek with steel, and he felt a sudden pain in his face. But he responded with a counterthrust under that made Wyndham hop to save his nutmegs, then an upward parry and a rapid double, which forced Wyndham to leap back once more.
Lewrie took a long pace forward to attack, changing tactics to the full naval cutlass drill—stamp, slash, balance and return, slash—right and left, up and down, whirling the heavy blade in a whistling arc that brought grunts of effort from Wyndham each time he parried, the blades smashing together with the hefty clang of a farrier making a new horseshoe. Lewrie added flying cut-overs to break the pace, going from high to low before making a swing with his wrist that almost put his point into the army man’s chest. Wyndham’s parry was weak, and he almost dragged himself backward to escape, his chest heaving.
Lewrie thought it a trick, but was not sure. He himself was tired … God, he was aching, his wrist and his arms heavy as lead, and his legs juddering props that threatened to go slack at any second and drop him to the ground. But Wyndham did look finished. His body was streaming sweat, thinning the blood that ran down his face and coating it with claret. And his eyes that had been so mocking and so sure were now squinted with concern and doubt. He was tempted to leap forward and finish it but remembered Captain Osmonde’s advice to go slow and wear him down.