Samurai and Other Stories by William Meikle Page B

right at that... he was first, but by no means last, to fall in a dead faint.
    At our last visit some three years ago this was a thriving town of a hundred souls, living off the land that God gave them, and maintaining peaceful trading relations with the natives. There had even been talk of expansion, with land to the south earmarked for a church.
    Now it will only be used as a cemetery, for they are dead... every last soul of them.
    The fortifications have not been breached and there is no evidence of a fight. There were just the bodies of the dead, as if the Lord decided in that instant to take them to their heavenly rest. They lay, scattered on the ground like fallen leaves, faces grey, ashen and almost blue. They are cold to the touch, their eyes solid and milky, like glass marbles sunk in a ball of snow.  
    It was all the First Mate and I could do to keep the men from fleeing. Some did indeed fall to their knees in prayer and supplication.
    “What could have caused this, Cap’n?” the First Mate asked.
    “Mayhap t’was a freak storm,” Coyle the cook said. “For surely we have seen the same thing happen to a man at the mast in the far north waters?”
    “But these are not the north waters,” the pastor replied. “This land is most clement, even in comparison to our own home. Men do not freeze in October. This is the devil’s work, mark my words.”
    As for myself, I kept my peace then, but as I saw more of what lay on the streets I came to think they might both have been right.
    I was in the court house, standing over the still, dead bodies of Josiah MacLeod and his family and trying not to weep when the pastor made his final report.
    “We have searched the whole town, Captain. As far as we can tell the entire population has been felled, for no one answered our calls, although our entreaties have been long and loud. God rest their souls.”
    The burials began.  
    The small ones were the worst. The sun had partially thawed their bodies, but when you lift them you feel the hard frozen core inside. It is all that you can do to keep from weeping as you lay them into the too-small holes.  
    After the burials were finally complete our pastor called for a service of remembrance, but I knew the mood of the crew better. I had the cook break open our cargo and prepare a feast while I myself ensured that the tavern was made ready. The men had made a fair pass at clearing up the stench and gore of the carnage that had been wrought there. I was able to hide the last stains of blood with the judicious application of straw and wood chippings. What I couldn’t mask was the memory; of the sightless eyes and the strewn limbs that had so recently laid scattered on the floor. I could only hope that a flagon of grog and the hearty company of my shipmates would dispel the chill that had fallen on my heart.
    We set a great fire roaring in the hearth, cracked open what barrels we could find. We set to feasting and drinking with a gusto that only men far from home and long at sea will understand. Any guilt we might have felt at such merriment in a place where so much destruction had been wrought was quickly assuaged by the warmth of the fire and the sweet tang of the ale.
    The evening began in fine fashion. The chef excelled even his own high standards. He managed to turn a few stone of potatoes, a leg of salted pork and some rough vegetables into a mouth watering feast for each of us. Ale flowed freely. For a while we were almost warm.
    The pastor recited ‘The Lay of Lady Jane,’ as bawdy a verse as any old sea-dog might muster. It was all the better coming from such an austere man of the cloth. Jim Crawford told a tall tale, of a man from Orkney who was twelve feet high with a two foot cock which he used to beat off foreign raiders. The room was filled with laughter.  
    “A tune from Stumpy Jack,” came the call. When the eldest of the crewmen started on the squeeze box we could almost believe ourselves at home port once