“Vhat’ll ve do now, Tham?”
“Join our men and let them know we’re still alive and kicking,” Clemens said. “That’ll recharge their morale.”
They arrived just in time to see the last of a large group storm onto the hurricane deck from the Rex. Below them, however, John’s men were forcing back the would-be boarders from the Not For Hire. In fact, John’s men were boarding his—Sam’s boat—on some of the bridges.
Sam leaned over and emptied his pistol into the rear-guard of the boarders below. Two men fell, one going down in the narrow gap between the two vessels. But one of the boarders, still on the Rex, looked up and then shot his own pistol. Sam ducked as the first bullet screamed by his ear. The other missiles shattered against the railing or the hull just below the railing.
Joe was going to look over the railing then, but Sam yelled at him that if he did he’d get his head blown off.
After waiting until he was sure that the boarding bridges below were empty, he looked over and down. The deck below was jammed with struggling, shouting people and was noisy with ringing metal. Sam told Joe what he wanted to do. Joe nodded, lifting his great proboscis up and down like a log floating in a rough sea.
They ran across the boarding bridge, Joe bellowing to the men there that he and the captain were coming.
On both sides of their group were a few of the Rex crew, rapidly backing away before the superior force. These broke on seeing the great head and shoulders of the titanthrop above the crowd of Clemens’ men. They ran as fast as they could, some diving into hatches, others leaping over the railing or through the gaps and into The River.
“That thyure ath hell didn’t take long, did it, Tham?”
“No,” Sam said. “I wish it was always that easy. Okay, Joe, you give them the orders.”
The titanthrop yelled at the top of his voice at the men. They had no trouble hearing him. Indeed, at least half of the people halfway down both boats on this side must have heard the thunder. In fact, on one deck below and opposite, the battlers stopped for a few seconds.
The men ahead of Joe cleared to one side. Joe proceeded to the nearest ladder, Sam immediately behind him, and the others following. They went down the ladder to the hurricane deck and along it until they came to the boarding bridges. Here the men spread out, forming lines of two abreast at each of the eight bridges.
Sam checked that everybody was ready. Attacking John’s men from behind them, from their own boat, tickled him. They would be demoralized when the titanthrop swung that Brobdingnagian axe upon their heads from behind them.
“Okay, Joe!” Sam yelled. “Go get ‘em!”
Joe, bellowing a war cry in his native language, ran across the metal strip. Sam came behind him. There was not room on the bridge for another person where Joe went. Besides, it was more discreet to stay behind him. ,
Things happened so swiftly that only in retrospect was Sam able to figure out what happened.
A great noise deafened him, and a shock traveled through the bridge and hurled him onto it. Almost immediately after, the far end of the bridge lifted up, bending as its hooks kept their hold on the railing, then tearing loose with a screech of metal.
Sam, clinging stunned to the edges of the bridge, both arms extended to their utmost, the fingers clinging to the edges, looked up.
Joe had dropped his enormous axe. It slid along the upward and sidewise tilting bridge and fell off into the gap between the boats.
Joe had not fallen, but now/he was bellowing in wrath. Or was it fear? It didn’t matter. He was bellowing because both his arms were caught about his body by a noose.
The other end of the rope was being tied to a railing on the deck above. The man who had lassoed Joe from the hangar deck wore a Western sombrero, white enough to gleam in the pale light. His teeth flashed briefly below the wide brim.
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