Cutting through the woods he quickly got a line of fire to the cutter. From here it was still a fairly long pistol shot, perhaps twenty yards. At the east entrance to the cutter two apes had already been dropped by Elphinstone, but at least one other was inside the cutter where Petreckski couldn’t get a clear shot at it.
Inside the cutter Lady Elphinstone knelt beside her only patient. He was Glyn Ramano, an unlucky sailor whose chest was crushed in their initial crash landing into this world. Fortunately, none of the wounded on the battle line had been brought back to the aid station yet. Elphinstone’s two small pistols dropped the first two apes as they approached the eastern entrance, but now she held only a dagger as yet another came at her.
The ship’s cat, perched on a beam above the intruder, launched himself at the ape. Landing on the beast’s back, the cat scrambled around the neck to the left, beneath the slavering jaws on top of the head, sinking claws and fangs into the left eye as it peered out from behind the breast bone. Each facet of the compound eye burst wherever claw or fang pierced it, spraying a milky white fluid.
With a howl of rage the beast reached up with its two topmost arms and one additional left arm to impale the cat. “Mwrrarw!!” The cat squalled in pain and death.
Elphinstone lunged. Quick as lightning her right hand sunk the dagger under the creature’s lower left armpit and she felt fetid air escape from its lung. “That should let some of the wind out of ye!” she shouted. She was slammed backward by the impact as the beast came forward to stand over her helpless patient. Almost casually, each of the two limbs on the ground pierced Ramano as he lay helpless.
Two legs were imbedded in the dying sailor, three were impaled in the cat. The beast’s remaining arm slashed at her, but the Sylvan healer ducked under the blow and crouched back. There was escape available out the other side but she wouldn’t take it, not while there was any hope that her patient might be saved.
She held her bloody dagger as the beast swayed, then the head lunged forward in a last, spasmodic death dive, jaws open wide. She leapt to the side and the ape’s teeth sank into the cutter’s timber. Outside a mass of other apes fought to enter the narrow way.
Petreckski stands holding a pistol in a two-handed grip. The monk’s left foot and left shoulder are slightly forward. The enemy is clustered around the narrow east entry to the cutter, literally fighting to get in. He permits tunnel vision to set in. All that matters in all the world is the entrance to the cutter, the ape closest to it, and the sights of his pistol.
“____!,” “____!,” both barrels fire, the lead two apes drop, but he hears nothing. Vision is the only sense required here, and his mind tunes out all other sensory input. Without forward momentum the apes die with a sudden splay of all six limbs, then collapse into a heap of stinking white fur.
Both of Petreckski’s hands reach back. He drops the empty pistol from the left hand. A clever middy slaps a fresh pistol into his empty right hand.
Roughly twenty yards range. Each shot has to be carefully aimed from this distance. At very close ranges most modern warriors were taught to use “point” shooting. Look through the weapon, point and shoot. The physiological arousal of close combat often makes the eye incapable of focusing on any close-in objects, like pistol sights. This loss of near vision makes point shooting a viable alternative at very close ranges, if it is practiced long and hard enough.
But bullets are not magic. They don’t hit their targets by themselves. The inverse square law applies, and the odds of missing your opponent increase exponentially as you move away from the target. At twenty yards the chance of making a kill with a hasty, unaimed shot is tiny. Remote. Miniscule. At this range it was vital that he take his time and . . . aiiimmm.
The key is to focus the eye on the front sight. Whatever the eye focuses on, consciously and unconsciously that is what your fine motor muscles will work to stabilize. Everyone has baited hooks, threaded needles, and cut with steak knives. Each time we focused our eyes on the end of the tool, and that was what we held steady. On a pistol the vital thing is to hold the front sight steady and on the target. If you do that, everything else will follow.
Petreckski was firing a SIG pistol, which was standard issue for the Westerness Navy. He’d been lucky enough to actually train at the SIGArms Monastery, under the supervision of Father “Bang” Miller and Brother Johan Pederson. Petreckski was a faithful servant of his God. As faithful as any flawed, fallen human can be. But Father Miller taught him that God would forgive him if, just for a moment, he worshipped at the Holy Church of the Front Sight. The alternative was the Discount House of Worship: pull, point, and pray. Petreckski was certain that God could do anything He chooses, but He most often chooses to bless those who practice and prepare.
The other part of the combat marksmanship equation was even older than the Church of the Front Sight. It was, “aim small, miss small.” You must pick the smallest aim point you can discern. You don’t aim for the ape, you aim for a specific spot on the ape, like the yellowish patch of fur under his armpit. That way even if you miss your mark by a little, you’ll still hit your foe.
The front sight, a simple blade placed on the end of the barrel, comes into focus, superimposed over the white ape’s armpit, which is out of focus. Every scratch, every mark on the little sight is in perfect focus. Two-handed grip. Breathe . . . front sight . . . squeeeeze . . . “____!” Don’t wait for the target to drop, don’t look at the falling foe, go on to the next. Pick your mark, front sight . . . squeeze . . . “____!” The middies look on in wonder as two more apes splay and drop.
Hand the empty pistol back with the left hand where it is snatched away to reload. Breathe. Simultaneously reach back with the right and a middy slaps a new pistol, cocked and ready, into his hand. Front sight . . . “____!” Front sight . . . “____!” Each time the lead ape falls. And again. And again. “Front sight, front sight,” is his mantra. If he loses concentration and focuses on his target, he’ll miss, and Elphinstone surely will die. The middies reload feverishly. Finally there are no loaded pistols left to slap into his hand.
Petreckski has fired twenty-four shots in as many seconds, and twenty-four apes join the two already outside the cutter. A swirl of red and blue jackets swarm over white fur. A flash of bayonets and swords, and the few remaining apes fall. Petreckski stands confused and dazed. He has been concentrating with superhuman intensity and when all his targets are gone he isn’t sure what to do.
Suddenly, there is silence. No foe is left alive. The battle is over.
Lieutenant Melville looked out at the carnage. Heaps of reeking white fur were everywhere. He was stunned to realize that the battle didn’t end until the last ape died. In real life no enemy ever fought to the end. A few always turned and ran, or surrendered, or committed mass suicide when defeat was imminent. Here was something truly different.
In the silence, Private Jarvis stood, dazed and staggering, clutching a bleeding shoulder with his hand. He looked with wide-eyed wonder at Sergeant Broadax and said, “Dear God, Sarge, they was brave.”
“Aye, maybe they was, lad,” answered Broadax. “Maybe. But as the great Dwarrowdelf general, Gzagk Pazton once said, ‘Untutored courage is useless in the face of educated bullets.'”
Their victory was bitter bought. Six dead, eleven seriously wounded. He’d begun the battle with forty warriors, forty-four counting Elphinstone and the midshipmen. Now over a third of his men were dead or disabled. Not to mention over half his dogs and his one cat! And it had been so close, so very close.
Uninvited, a little ditty came to mind:
I never shall forget the way
That Blood upon this awful day
Preserved us all from death.
He stood upon a little mound,
Cast his lethargic eyes around,
And said beneath his breath:
“Whatever happens we have got
The Maxim Gun, and they have not.”
Well, they didn’t have Mr. Maxim’s machine gun of yore. Its complex mechanisms wouldn’t last an hour in two-space. But they did have “educated bullets,” Westerness’ finest double-barreled rifled muskets, and a company of stalwart hearts with steady hands that could load and fire four volleys a minute as they “stood upon their little mound.” And that was sufficient unto the day.