OPORTO, 22nd May - Naval Landing Parties

Bloody Frogs! He was taking out all the pent-up fear and frustration he felt, slashing and hacking with no... no elegance about it, the way a gentleman would have.

He eventually calmed down enough to try to remember the basic cutlass drill, needing to prove to them that he hadn't, really, been about to start crying like a girl, that he was just as good as any of them.

He followed the last French man disappearing down the stairs, to fight the attackers in red , checkered and blue. Snatching of a post, on the way, he took a musket with him.

He stopped by the end of the stairs. The door to the magazine room were right to the left, and in the hall The Frenchmen were trying to funnel into the other room. In so far not very successful.

He hesitated and took aim to the side. The musket was terribly heavy, but atleast he knew it was loaded and ready to fire. Ready, ... a moment , .."Argh!" And the weapon discharged into the hall at the men, away from the door.

Another musket shot rang out. Branning flinched and instinctively checked his swing, succeeding in slashing a Frenchman only partway down his shoulder.

"Somebody's behind 'em, sar!" He exclaimed, surprised by that fact. Hadn't they been the only ones attacking the magazine?

Cartwright shoved the barrel of his musket into a French soldier's stomach and knocked the man down with the firelock's butt. "Lay into them, lads! Branning, here!" He tossed the musket to the big Marine, and nearly dropped his sword when Branning tossed it back. Now this was more like it.

The sound of a musket shot made Oxley jump. He wanted to stick with Mister Cartwright if he could, after everything the officer had done down there, and he couldn't help grinning at the state of his uniform, with his hair sticking up all over the place and his hat gone.

Oxley and the others weren't in much better condition, though. He wondered if the smell was making the Frogs reluctant to face them.

The boy backed a little as some of the Frenchmen had turned. They were for a moment distracted, thinking that somehow the enemy has managed to attack and come from both sides and that they were surrounded. It cost one of the men his life, turning too late, he stared at the young drummer boy? , who could've been his death. Another man cried out in pain, and parried a blow from the big marine, calling to his friend in French, that they should slice the bastard up together! They snarled and they charged, each with his blade.

With only one at the back, the French quickly learned to turn to the enemy that looked to pose the greater threat. But they were discouraged, sparing glances towards the other side, towards the boy who had somehow managed to get hold of another musket, and it was this time he had also a pack of cartridges to use.

As the second musket fired, the smoke filled a Frenchmen fell, but the others continued, one heaving himself at the lieutenant with his blade slashing towards the man's belly.

Another shot rang out and somebody shouted, probably in surprise.

Cartwright spared only a brief glance toward the door across the room,then he was thinking of more pressing matters. Namely, a blue-coated soldier slashing at him with a cutlass.

If he had kept the musket, he would have parried the slash with the weapon's barrel. Instead, he had his sword and he was far handier with that. Cartwright caught the power of the strike fully on the lower half of his sword and he used the Frenchman's momentum to let the man's blade slide away harmlessly. The instant the two swords were separated, he turned his blade and lunged forward with it.

"How're you faring, Oxley?" He asked, tugging his sword free from the Frenchman's midriff. He didn't need to ask after Branning or Grattan, as both had fought their way toward the door where the first musket shot had come from.

"I... I'm doin' fine, sir," he said, thankful that Sergeant Quinn had made him attend the sailor's cutlass drill sessions... well, some of them, at least. He slashed a Frog across the belly, dopping him to the deck where he moaned against the pain. It was only a short sword, but it was suited to his height and strength, and was much better than the stupid dirk the young gentlemen had.

"I... I... Thanks for earlier, sir. Really, sir, thanks."

The man slouched clutching at the wounnd that the lieutenant inflicted on him, and caughed blood dribbling down from the corner of his mouth. He thrust his weapon towards the same man, but his attack was weak and his aim that of a man dying.

Another man came forward, heaving his musket much like a club at Branning. It wasn't loaded and it couldn't really go off. He too was a broader shouldered Frenchman, with glossy black hair, and the uniform looking fit on him.

The boy on the other side had reloaded his musket and had to duck before one whizzed past moments later. Third shot, sloppy. The sound was a bit different than the first and second. Might've not put a proper amount of the gunpowder in, exactly. Two of the Frenchmen detached themselves from the main body and charged after the Tar.

A wounded Frenchman reached for Oxley's leg, perhaps attempting to have the boy stumble while he was passed, too wounded to be able to lift a sword at him. Which was no surprise for his other arm had been hacked.

"A pleasure," Cartwright said, reversing his sword to stab down at a blue-jacket he had only just cut down. "No better way to steady your nerves than by having something to focus on. Watch your leg there!"

Across the room, Branning grinned at the sight of a big Frenchman coming at him. It was about time he faced off against somebody his own size!

The Frenchman stabbed slumped, good and dead now. His eyes glazed and gone. The next Frenchman, a wiry thing, but swift footed, thrust his musket towards the marine lieutenant, the bayonet attached at the end. He shouted :" Vive l'Empereur!", and tried to push the man back, calling the men to follow, for the Emperor.

The broad shouldered Frenchman smirked aiming for the man's head , probably placing such force in that strike that it might throw a smaller man right of his feet and a few meters back.

De Guarde ducked under one of the soldiers that had come for him, jutting the musket at the other man's legs, so that it got tangled right inbetween them and had the man fall.

Oxley stepped aside, looking distastefully down at the wounded man. He couldn't kill a wounded man in cold blood. Even the idea of that turned his stomach. "I... I..."

'A pleasure,' the officer had said, which couldn't be strictly true, but he hadn't brushed it off, or anything like that. He was just about prepared to worship the ground Mister Cartwright walked on, he knew that much.

"Thanks, sir," he said again, not knowing quite what else to say.

The men saw reluctance in the boy's eyes, and reached for the small dagger that lay not too far from him. Just as the boy was looking towards the officer and saying something, he took hold of the weapon and slashed at his feet. His final deed in that life.

Oxley had moved far enough away that the dagger didn't catch his feet, though it did catch in the fabric of his trousers. He shrugged. "Needed a new pair anyway, after all that stink," he said, and parried a thrust from his right, though he wasn't strong enough to beat it down and go on the attack.

"C'mon on then, fella," Branning challenged, blocking the blue-jacket's swing with the butt of his own musket. He countered with a downward chop, using the musket butt in much the same way he had been using Mister Cartwright's sword only a few minutes before.

Cartwright nodded grimly at Oxley's reluctance to run the wounded blue-jacket through. "Good lad," he said, as he parried the bayonet-thrust. This Frenchman was quick, however, and used the deflection as momentum to swing his musket butt up toward Cartwright's head.

He turned that swing aside too, but was a second too slow parrying the follow-up slash from the bayonet as the French again used the natural momentum to his advantage. With a curse, Cartwright went back half a step, the sleeve of his coat opened up along his forearm where he'd used his arm to block. Enough was enough. He slipped quickly past the blue-jacket's guard when the man set up for another bayonet-thrust and neatly ran him through.

The man too, as the other was no danger any longer, though another that had attacked the younger Oxley might as well have been. The Frenchmen were being slowly pressed back to the door through which they have come. And as the ones infront tried to get back, the ones in the back tried to get in, so that no one could go either way just yet.

De Guarde was trying to get back to the stairs. His back was safe there, where as between the two sides of men he was but a very young Tar.

The Frenchman that was targeting Branning was Pierre Badeau stepped aside, bringing his musket diagonal to shield himself from the strike, then allowed one end to slide forward - the barrel that had also the bayonet on it, shoving it towards Branning's shoulder.

Oxley was losing this match. The Frog was taller and stronger than he was, and he didn't know what he could do to get out of this mess. Any minute now, he was going to get skewered, simply because he didn't have the strength to turn the bayonet aside to step past it and get the man, not like Branning, or Mister Cartwright.

His left arm felt afire from the bayonet slash. Cartwright set his jaw against the pain and turned his attention to the next blue-jacket who saw fit to try his luck.

Branning twisted aside just in time avoid being stuck through the shoulder by the bayonet, but not quickly enough to completely escape injury. The bayonet sliced through his upper arm and he howled in anger, incensed, that he had been nicked by such a lucky strike. He drove his musket butt into the blue-jacket's stomach and, dropping the weapon, grabbed the man by his shirt-front. He heaved the surprised Frenchman bodily aside, sending him crashing into a pair of other blue-jackets that were fighting with the others, behind him.

"Bloody Frogs!" Branning cried, looking around for another opponent.

"Help," Oxley managed, still backing away from the bastard with the bayonet, only to go sprawling as he caught his foot on the dead Frenchman who'd tried to get his feet earlier. He tried to raise his sword or roll out of the way, or something, but he couldn't see what to do and he didn't have the strength to counter the damn bayonet that was coming at him.

All three of the other Marines turned at the cry, temporarily ignoring their opponents. Grattan moved forward to shove his bayonet into the blue-jacket moving in on Oxley, but the Frenchman he'd been fighting with knocked him sprawling with a musket butt to the back.

Cartwright's attempt to strike down the blue-jacket was partially-successful. He managed to knock the man's musket aside, in time for Branning to grab the unsuspecting Frenchman by his collar and coat-tail, and toss him toward the door.

"Neatly done," the lieutenant said, holding a hand out to Oxley.

Through the door and the shouting De Guarde recognised the cry of his friend. He wasn't sure what was going on inside: "Oxley!!" He shouted and had nearly been struck the next moment by the butt of a musket aimed at his head. Dropping to the floor, he was up the next moment, his musket still in his hands but rendered useless when he couldn't load it. Wasn't as bloody efficient as them marines.

"Surrender!"

"You're surrounded!" He yelled in French yet the men would probably not have believed him. He scampered under the legs of one of the men in persuit of him, but as the sounds of fighting became heavier at the door, the two persecutors turned in the direction instead. "Come on." The boy was loading and wishing he had had drilling for it. Too late now.

The Frenchman who saw the drummer boy fall, grinned grimly at him and lifted his musket and stabbed it at the boy, thinking he was certain to be victorious in it. Up until he was grabbed and instead of having a drummer on a stick, he found himself crashing to the floor.

"Thanks, sir," Oxley said, slightly shame-faced as he took the officer's hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. He hadn't been doing too badly till that point, only the Frog was bigger and stronger and him, and he hadn't known quite how to get out of the situation. He couldn't have done it even with a musket, he thought.

"Must be gettin' tired of me, sir," he said to the officer, feeling embarrassed that he was just in the way again.

"Tired of you?" Cartwright shook his head. "Hardly. Can't very well expect to take on the world all in one go." He grinned. "You're doing quite well."

"Yeah, if you don't mind me gettin' in the way alla the time," he muttered, shooting the officer a startled look as he realised he'd spoken the words out loud. And it wasn't like he'd been in the way all the time anyway. He'd helped with the charges, and wondered about whether they could use the privies to escape, which no-one else had suggested. He just felt stupid, and in the way. But Mister Cartwright's words helped.

Down in the drain-hole they had come up into the room through, somebody coughed. It was one of the Tars they had left behind in the sewer tunnel. Cartwright glanced meaningfully toward the noise and shook his head. "Not half as in the way as some others!"

Oxley blinked and grinned. That was funny. That was really funny. And now he was laughing like an idiot and he'd get sent to Bedlam and his brother would tell their Mum he'd been killed, or something, because he was stupid, if he even told her they'd found each other again. But it was just so funny.