⛵ ⛵ ⛵ ⛵. . . "Tour of the Gulf of Aden". . . (cont.)
[Last time...]
Then the unexpected happened, the two leading war Dhows split formation! The smaller dhow tacking quickly to the north-west, the largest Dhow slicing the sea to the south-west!
“Th’ snake’s tongue!” Galligan yelled out.
“Aye! A darin' move! Thes is a crafty mucker!" The Captain replied as he watched the skillful display unfold on the water in front of them…
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[On the lead war Dhow…]
“Pull hard to starboard!” The Arab Skipper Husam yelled out across the water to the second Dhow in Arabic, “Now men, let out all our sail cloth and I will cut the sea to the northwest!”
“Captain Sairrr, do we want to ram the warship?!” The muscular seaman on the main deck yelled in an anxious voice.
“If I had a bigger vessel I would! And Allah would reward me well!” Husam yelled back as he pushed hard on the rudder, bringing the Dhow careening off across the water, straight for the Silverton!
As the big war Dhow sped towards the warship, Husam pulled the rudder back abruptly to avoid a collision! His new course set him parallel with the Silverton, barely forty feet from her towering hull!
“Man the swivel carronade!” Husam yelled as his wake and the wake of the Silverton met each other in a tumultuous froth between the two vessels.
[Back on the Silverton…]
“Fock th' day! He's split his fleit an' runnin' under mah guns!” The Captain cursed as he ran to the front bridge rail, “Fisky! Git half ay th' gunners ower tae th' port line an' hae them cut 'att second dhow doon!"
“Aye Sairrr!”
The large war Dhow now was approaching the Silverton at a very high rate of speed, the two ships running in opposite directions!
“Is he goin’ tae ram us?!" Commander Galligan yelled out.
“Lit heem dae it!" the captain yelled as he leaned over the rail to try and see the approaching Dhow through the sea spray.
Suddenly, the deep report of the Silverton's sixteen pounders broke the sound of the wind and all eyes went to the sea north of the Silverton! There, the second Dhow lie broken and sinking, a black smoke coming up from her mid-ship area and thirty or forty of her crew flailing about in the sea, breathing their last!
The Captain’s attention quickly came back to the larger Dhow which just now sped over the starboard bow wake of the Silverton and disappeared below the row of sixteen pounders above her!
“Blast! Whaur is he!” The Captain’s voice boomed as he ran to the starboard bridge railing.
Leaning far over the rail, he finally saw the big Dhow, barely twenty feet off their hull, screaming westward through the violent wake of their warship! In a moment it would be past them and on out to sea to their stern, but it was a moment they didn’t have as the unthinkable happened!
The deafening boom of a small carronade swivel-gun shattered the hearing of everyone on the starboard gun line! The hot load of grapeshot shattered the rail in front of the number one gun on the main deck, bursting it from its carriage and sending wood splinters whizzing through the air like deadly daggers!
“Cheil doon! Cheil doon!" Fisky yelled as he ran over to the wreckage of gun one, “Och, nae Gawd...it's Spinny!"
The shock of the unexpected blast left Commander Galligan’s head in a numb cloud as the realization of what had just happened dawned on him…
“Spinny?! Spinny’s doon?!” Galligan yelled as he turned towards the Captain, “Keptin Sairrr, Spinny is…..Keptin? Keptin? Keptin?!!”
⛵ ⛵ ⛵ ⛵
"Ahh'm...Ahh'm sorry fur mah stammerin'...ain Ahh'm nae veery braw at thes...Ahh've bin thru a lot...ain tis nae bin a guid day...Ahh...Ahh needs tae push oan...ain git pas' thes... we huvnae heard...froms uir guid mucker Sergino. Hee's neist in line...it wis said...fur th' third prize...of silvers. Send us a spyug mate..if ye can...if yer alreit an' made it thru the battle...
Ahh dorn't knows... whit else tae... whit else tae say at thes time mates!...it's bin a tairible, tairible days..."
- Commmander Galligan
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"Confused? Ascared? Seasick? Need a private chat with the Captain?" - joshua.slane@aol.com
References: Pictures froms: www.freeimages.com, www.pexels.com, pixabay.com, steemit.com an’ www.google.com/maps. Data loosely interpretted froms: www.wikipedia.org an' sometimes reit from th' author's extensiff personal experience an' such.