"Fire!!!"

The second salvo went off more intermittently than the first as some gun crews were faster than others, but the barrage of heavy lead had the same damaging effect as before. Two Whalers were sinking. One had its mainmast down and the Polly was headed for the other two who were attempting to cut anchor and escape the harbor.

Jim saw the wildly gesturing form of one of the giants high lined on the ship that was dismasted. He ran down the line of canons before stopping at one that had just gotten loaded.

"Out of the way!" He said.

The gun crew peeled away from the canon as the big Samoan muscled the heavy cannon over a little as he targeted in on the giant. After adjusting the cannon up slightly he pulled the cord. Smoke filled the gun bay and Jim peered through the portal to see if he'd had a successful hit or not.

The cannonball whizzed by mere inches from the head of the giant and Jim smote the cannon barrel in frustration with one fist. The giant's head whipped around to stare at Jim as if knowing somehow that the shot had been a personal thing.

The giant reacted and with a blink of startlement Jim lunged off to the side as a manually thrown harpoon slammed through the open gun port to lodge deeply into an interior wooden beam.

That had been a close call.

Jim glanced through the gun port quickly to see if any more harpoons were on their way from the apparently very ticked off giant. All Jim saw was the tail end of the splash up as the giant dove into the sea heading for the ship.

Jim couldn't help but think that was not a good thing.

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Flynn had seen the interchange with the giant occur and now he turned Polly's wheel over sharply to line her up with the fast approaching swimmer in the water. He gritted his teeth with the determination to split the giant's skull with the keel of the ship.

There was a loud thunk followed by a roar that brought a savage smile to Flynn's features. The smile however was wiped off though at the sight of the bloody giant suddenly standing fifteen feet tall at the end of the forward deck.

An awful bone chilling cry erupted from it as it thumped its chest like a challenging ape and started off across the deck in a pounding run straight for him.

Flynn had no options that he could see to avoid being pulverized and eaten. Shame of a way to go out on the formerly best day of his life he thought abstractly to himself as he saw the giant draw close.




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