The man who staggered up the hill to them was white, or had been once, before he had been caked in mud, grimed in sweat, and stained with blood. He was a sight to be sure, a terrified, harried creature of a man seemingly on his last legs, but with a wild light in his eyes.

Look at this here white man! Have you ever seen such a sight?

The Captain stepped forward just ahead of Mister Murray. The rest stood back fearfully wary of the man, who held a small sword in his left hand and kept a black bundle tucked maniacally under his crooked right arm, the hand of which was hideously swollen. The thing in the crook of his arm was gripped with such ferocity that it threw the man’s gait off and caused the right shoulder to be hunched forward. The man was crazed, wide-of-eye, and clutching at the bundle as if he were Judas clutching at his silver as his bowels were cast out by the Avenging Angel of The Lord.

The man advanced uphill toward The Captain and then took to one knee, croaking some unfathomable request, in a language they did not understand. Murray Oswald then blurted, “You limey bastard, we be Americans not some savage locals.”

The man shook his head in understanding and then looked even more wide-of-eye, though no less wild-of-eye, up at The Captain, and gasped, “Sir, I have fled them for weeks, weeks, night upon day upon dark night!”

The man then began to gag and spasm. The Captain then nodded to him, and intoned in his stony way, “You have my protection. Speak later, rest.”

The Captain’s eyes then scanned the horizon as he issued orders without looking to whom he spoke, “Clay, Sam, take this man to the boat and see him well."

"Slanty, Pea-brain, get the launch under way. Mister Murray, Mister Eager, take the boys home and cash them out. Mister Heel will see to the arrangements.”

Mister Eager and the two deckhands headed down to the launch straight away. But Sam and Clay had to collect the strange man who was contorting around his black cloth-wrapped parcel, and Mister Murray, made his objections, “What in blazes, Captain? I’ll not leave you here—down the way with you, Sir.”

The Captain ignored his wartime subordinate, and nodded to the rise opposite of them. They all followed his gaze to see a dozen or so short, trotting, black-robed figures, short stout black-headed men with red faces dressed in robes not unlike the cloth that the strange man held onto so fiercely as he babbled to himself.

The Captain’s voice was sure, “Mister Murray, stay if you wish. Sam, Clay, off with you to the launch, quickly!”

Sam, always a strong one, heaved the much taller man over his shoulders and grunted to Clay, “Just grab his gangling legs, boy, and keep up!”

Clay grabbed the stinking, booted feet, attached to the torn and bloody shins, hefted them over his shoulders, and then ran downhill behind Fat Sam, who jiggled as he went, thumping down the grassy slope toward the launch. It was all Clay could do to keep up with Sam and keep his feet. It seemed like forever. Then, finally, they made it to the launch where the other three waited. As they dumped the slumping man into the launch, and Clay heaved the booted feet over the side and heard the tall stranger roll into the boat, he had to take a look uphill.

Oh my!

Clay saw what appeared to be a troop of demons leaping at The Captain with swords as The Captain slashed and stabbed this way and that. Mister Murray Oswald was already down, being stabbed and hacked by three of the fiends as he attempted to defend himself with his peg-leg swung like a club with one hand as he propped himself up with the other. Mister Eager shouted, “Damn it, Clay, aboard boy!”

Clay tore his eyes away from the scene above them and leaped in, taking the rudder as the other two deckhands shoved off into the surf and then hopped in to man oars with Fat Sam and Mister Eager who was taking no chance at getting caught by these fiends for lack of men at the oars. Mister Eager could out-row, out-dig, out-heave, and generally outwork any of them, and he set a hard pace.

As the oars beat the surf and the launch began to lurch into the spray Clay looked around, hoping to see The Captain standing victorious above a pile of these little red men. All he saw above against the darkening skyline was a scattering of still forms, and half a dozen or more fiendishly silent little men running down the hillside, tearing off their robes as they ran, obviously intent on leaping in and overtaking the launch.

“Oh my, Mister Eager, they come. If they swim like they run they shall overtake us!”

Mister Eager ground his teeth as he pulled at his oar, “Well boys, you best row the harder. And Scrawny Clay, you best take up that shovel and prepare to repel boarders. The Lord knows you cannot row. At least redeem yourself with some fight!”

Clay grabbed the shovel that Fat Sam passed back to him, and held it in his right hand, as he steadied the rudder with only moderate success in his shaking left. He could not help but look behind him. Indeed it was his duty, as their only ‘marine’. When he turned to look shoreward at their pursuers, and the mad man cackled and mumbled in the bowels of the launch, the sight Clay saw chilled him to the bone.

Two red men remained on shore, having collected the robes of the others. Six naked, red savages, with big, round, black-topped heads, ran into the surf, with short bent swords grasped between their teeth. They were only a hundred yards or so behind the launch, close enough that he could hear their splashing feet as they continued what seemed like an age’s old pursuit of the gibbering mad man that curled up around the strange object he carried just a few feet behind Scrawny Clay.

Oh my, Mister Mad Man, if only you knew that only Scrawny Clay Evenstar stood between you and these fellows, you would gibber all the more!