Pirate Latitudes

Hunter went to the stern and looked down at the dreadful sight. The bulbous body of the creature was directly astern, and its many tentacles gripped the ship in a dozen places, whipping and snaking this way and that. The entire body of the animal was phosphorescent green in the growing darkness. The creature’s green tentacles were snaking into the windows of the aft cabins.

He suddenly remembered Lady Sarah, and rushed below. He found her in her cabin, still stone-faced.

“Come, Madam-”

At that moment, the lead-paned windows shattered, and an enormous tentacle, as thick as a tree trunk, snaked into the cabin. It wrapped itself around a cannon, and hauled at it; the cannon came free of its chock blocks, and rolled across the room. Where the creature’s horned suckers had touched it, the gleaming yellow metal was deeply scratched.

Lady Sarah screamed.

Hunter found an ax and hacked at the waving tentacle. Sickening green blood gushed in his face. The suckers brushed against his cheek, tearing his skin. The tentacle backed off, then snaked forward again, wrapping like a glowing green hose around his leg, throwing him to the deck. He was dragged along the floor toward the window. He buried the ax into the decking to hold himself fast; the ax pulled free, and then Lady Sarah screamed again as Hunter was torn through the already broken glass of the window and outside, over the stern of the ship.

For a moment, he rode in the air, swung back and forth by the tentacle that held his leg, like a doll in the hands of a child. Then he was slammed against the stern of El Trinidad; he gripped the railing of the aft cabin, and held on with one painful arm. With the other he used the ax to hack at the tentacle, which finally released him.

He was free, for a moment, and very close to the creature, which churned in the waters below him. He was astounded by its size. It seemed to be eating his ship, holding fast to the stern with its many tentacles. The very air glowed with the greenish light the thing gave off.

Directly beneath him, he saw one huge eye, five feet across, larger than a table. The eye did not blink; it had no expression; the black pupil, surrounded by glowing green flesh, seemed to survey Hunter dispassionately. Further astern, the body of the creature was shaped like a spade with two flat flukes. But it was the tentacles that captured his attention.

Another snaked toward him; he saw suckers the size of dinner plates, rimmed with horns. They tore at his flesh, and he twisted to avoid them, still clinging precariously to the aft cabin railing.

Above him, the seamen were firing down on the animal. Enders shouted, “Hold your fire! It’s the Captain!”

And then, in a single swipe, one of the fat tentacles knocked Hunter free of the railing, and he fell into the water, right on top of the animal.

For a moment, he churned and spun in the green glowing water, and then he gained his footing. He was actually standing on the creature! It was slippery and slimy, like standing on a sac of water. The skin of the animal - he felt it whenever he fell to his hands and knees - was gritty and cold. The flesh of the creature pulsed and shifted beneath him.

Hunter crawled forward, splashing in the water, until he came to the eye. Seen so close, the eye was huge, a vast hole in the glowing greenness.

Hunter did not hesitate; he swung his ax, burying it in the curved globe of the eye. The ax bounced off the dome; he swung again, and yet again. Finally the metal cut deep. A gush of clear water spurted upward like a geyser. The flesh around the eye seemed to contract.

And then suddenly the sea turned a milky white, and his footing was lost as the creature sank away, and he was drifting free in the ocean, shouting for help. A rope was thrown to him, and he grabbed it, just as the monster surfaced again. The impact flung him into the air, above the cloudy white water. He crashed back again, landing on the saclike skin of the monster.

Now Enders and the Moor leapt overboard, with lances in hand. They plunged their lances deep into the body of the creature. Columns of greenish blood shot into the air. There was an explosive rush of water - and the animal was gone. It slipped away, down into the depths of the ocean.

Hunter, Enders, and the Moor struggled in the churning water.

“Thanks,” Hunter gasped.

“Don’t thank me,” Enders said, nodding to the Moor. “The black bastard pushed me.”

Bassa, tongueless, grinned.

High above them, they saw El Trinidad begin to turn, and tack back to retrieve them.

“You know,” Enders said, as the three men treaded water, “when we return to Royal, no one will believe this.”

Then lines were thrown down to them, and they were hauled, dripping and coughing and exhausted, onto the deck.

Part VI Port Royal

Chapter 34