He rakes the brush along the deck and a thick wave of bloody slush is pushed between the rails and down into the aquamarine sea. Other crewmates toss the dead wakō over the gunwale. A party of conquistadors have already rowed ashore to bury their dead in the island sands. A lowly deckhand like him isn’t expected to attend such an event. He’s just here to clean up the mess. Tonight the officers will revel in their victory and drink to their dead. While he and the other boys attend the many duties required of them to keep the ship afloat.
His brush strikes a corpse. In his idle thinking he’d drifted from the present moment and not noticed the fallen pirate. The wakō is barefoot and scantily armoured, his curved blade already looted by one of the crew. Blood soaks into the cloth of his trousers and shirt from the deck and the plates of his armour lie limp at awkward angles. His sun-bronzed face is plastered with dark, dry blood which cracks when the wakō’s eye snaps open.
The boy is frozen by terror, his scream stifled by shock. The wakō stares at him for a moment longer, then raises a shaking finger to his lips.
Paddy Dobson
25th October 2022