"Svensen!" Alan called over his shoulder to the sloop not sixty yards to his rear in the river. "Lay a gun on these bastards and shoot at the largest pack of them!"
An arrow whickered by him with a thrumming sound and he flinched as he pulled his weapon back to half-cock and began to load, rapping the butt on the nearest crate to settle the load after he had bitten off the cartouche and poured the powder in. Another arrow zhooped past his head, and his cocked hat went sailing off somewhere aft. Rabbit was kneeling near him behind the crates, and went to fetch it for him. She came back just as he stood up and shot another running man down in mid-stride, and as he sensibly knelt to load out of sight this time, she gave a blood-thirsty smile of encouragement, whooping in glee.
San Ildefonso's after-most larboard three-pounder barked, and the sound of round-shot and grape passing close overhead made them all go almost flat on the ground. The round-shot cut a warrior in half, leaving his legs and trunk standing, and his torso and head flying off into the trees, shattering against a cypress trunk when they finally hit something solid. The grape-shot frothed the water in the marsh and three more Indians screamed and erupted into bloody statues before they fell, which took the starch out of their courage. After a few more arrows were loosed at the encampment, and two more warriors had been clawed down by the fusiliers at over sixty yards, they made off back into the trees.
"Goddamn and rot the bastards!" Alan raged, snapping off his last shot at one Apalachee who stopped by the trees and presented his bare arse to them in derision. He laughed with delight to see that he had aimed a bit low and had hit the man on the inside of the thigh just a quim-hair from his genitals. "Try stuffin' what's left up your arse, you sorry shit-sack!"
"Nice shot," Cashman panted. "Nigh on ninety yards."
"Damn, but I like the fusil!" Alan shouted back with pleasure. "Now you give me my Ferguson, and I'd have taken his right nutmeg off!"
Rabbit brought him his cocked hat, now decorated with a long cane arrow with a flaked stone point and three raggled feathers at the other end. She pulled a metal knife from her waist and waved it in the air, making motions that he should go out there and lift some hair.
"God, it's just as well I can't take you with me," Alan told her, smiling so she would know he was pleased. "I'd love to turn you loose on some people I know with that thing."
"I should have known we couldn't trust the Apalachee, not with so much loot to be had," McGilliveray spat. "They once were a mighty people you could trust, but the Spanish have turned them into shabby dogs. They must have been watching all this time, waiting for us to get all the muskets landed, and for us to pull our pickets in."
"For all the good it did them," Cowell sniffed, clumsily trying to reload the musket he had snatched up and fired at least once.
Several shots boomed out from the marsh and the tree-line and they ducked down once more into cover. As Cashman crawled up to his furthest forward marksmen, the volume of fire increased.
"Damme, must be a platoon of 'em with muskets out there," Cashman shouted back. "Mark your targets and return fire, and keep your bloody heads down."
"Svensen!" Alan bawled. "Into the tree-line! Take your time and aim true, one gun at a time! Reload with grape and canister as you do so!"
"Aye, zir!" a thin voice called back from the sloop. Barely had the mate spoken than the first gun fired, and the trees rustled in shock as the deadly grape-shot thrashed at the hidden musketeers.
"We'll cut 'em to pieces if they try to rush us again," Cashman said as he rolled over onto his back to reload behind a palmetto and a mound of gritty sand.
"If they do try to rush us, it might be a near thing, even so," Alan told him. "I've not seven men aboard the sloop, and the crew for a three-pounder is three men, so that's not two guns able to fire more 'n once a minute. With a whole lot of luck, they'll try to rush us once more, get cut up between your fusiliers and the artillery, and go sulk or something until the Creeks finally stir up their bloody arses and get here, damn their lazy eyes!"
Rabbit was tugging at his sleeve urgently, and he turned to her. She pointed up-river and growled something in her own language.
"Jesus Christ shit on a biscuit!" Alan cried.
The river was thick with dugout canoes, the canoes crowded gunwales deep with more Apalachee, and white men in dirty blue uniforms.
"'Ware the river, Kit, we've been sold out to the Dons!" Alan warned. "Svensen, use the springs and heave her about!"
He had to stand to direct the mate's attention up-river, and a flurry of arrows and bullets flailed the air around him as he waved and pointed.
"Sarn't, six men this side of the cargo, use it as a breastwork," Cashman snarled. "Rest of you, stand fast along this dune line! Mister McGilliveray, you and your warriors up here, please. You, too, Mister Cowell. It's going to be warm work here in a few minutes."
Warm ain't the fuckin' word for it, Alan thought with a grim shudder of fear. Not two-score of us against at least a company of Dago troops and God knows how many Apalachee. Oh Christ, you could fit our little defense line into Shrike's fo'c'sle. We're all going to get knackered and scalped. "Rabbit!"
"Rabbit, go to the ship. Understand me? Be safe there! Go ship! Swim?" he said, talking with his arms and hands in a flurry.
She shook her head and snatched the dragoon pistol from his belt.
"Let's have this crate opened, and that'un there!" Cashman was ordering. "You men, load as many muskets as you can and stack 'em ready for use. With enough volume of fire, we may blunt 'em yet."
San Ildefonso cut loose finally with her starboard battery of guns, which had yet to be fired. Round-shot and grape-shot tore the river into a forest of water fountains, and two of the leading canoes were shattered into scrap lumber, pitching their screaming paddlers and warriors into the river. Svensen had shot his bolt, though, with that broadside, for with only seven men it would take time to reload three guns.
"Swivels, Svensen!" Alan screamed. "Don't forget the swivels! Cony, fetch the two swivels from the boats. One here facing the river, one for the fusiliers to play with up on the dune line."
With no more cannon being fired at them from the sloop, the savages in the marsh whooped into motion. Alan stuck his head up and saw that there were at least thirty Spanish troops with them, probably the ones responsible for the musket fire. The boats were too far off to land close; it would be the pack coming from the marsh they had to deal with first.
"Feel like a gambling man, Lewrie?" Cashman asked.
"Aye, but the odds are bloody horrible."
"Bring your people up here to be my second line."
"Svensen, keep that lot off our backs!" Alan shouted out to his ship, which looked so damned safe and snug out there on the water, where he really much preferred to be. Damn the cargo, he thought with a sick, empty feeling inside. If we can fight these bastards off, we're out of here like a shot.
They met the charge with a shot from a swivel gun that had had its stand jammed down into the firm sand. Bayonets glinted evilly as the Spanish came on to the sound of a trumpet, and the Apalachee howled their death songs.
"First rank, pick your targets… fire!"
A dozen shots, perhaps eight men struck down.
"Lewrie, fire!" Cashman yelled.
"Take aim… fire!"
He shot one Apalachee down, tossed down his fusil and snatched up a Brown Bess from the cargo that had seen better days, but the lock came back with a firm snap, and when he pulled the trigger, it fired, and a Spaniard shrieked in shock as his chest was torn open by the.75 caliber ball.