Free The Dead Men Stood Together by Chris Priestley

without making a sound. But suddenly a sentry saw us and reached for his horn.
    ‘I had one bolt left and knew that it must be a death shot. Anything less and the man would raise the alarm. I had no time to aim and only one chance. Without another thought I just lifted the crossbow and –’
    ‘You and your crossbow,’ said a sailor nearby. ‘Day after day, polishing it and oiling it and hugging it like it was your wife. Tale upon tale about how you can shoot through the eye of a needle. Enough! All these weeks and we’ve never seen you fire the damned thing except with your lying mouth.’
    The movement was so rapid that I did not see his trigger finger move once the crossbow was raised to his eye, and no one could have stopped him even if we had known his intent. My uncle was every bit as good a shot as he’d said, curse him.

XVII
    A terrible silence followed the thud of the albatross hitting the deck. All heads turned to the sound and each face froze in horror at the sight of the bird they had come to love lying stretched out on the boards, its mighty wings flat against the deck.
    I pushed myself forward and stared at the pathetic sight. It seemed smaller somehow in death. The joy it had given was gone and the gloom that replaced it worse for coming after it.
    We mourned that bird as if it had been a parent or a child. The sadness was like a great weight that slowly descended on us.
    But it was not until the captain stepped forwards and turned the bird over that the crossbow bolt was seen, sticking out of its chest, the feathers dark with blood.
    A murmuring rose up and all faces turned towards my uncle. Several men strode towards him and overpowered him, then dragged him towards the captain, who stood near the albatross. The captain pointed at the fallen bird.
    ‘Is this your work?’ he said, his eyes half closed, his lips trembling, as though talking to my uncle disgusted him.
    My uncle did not answer.
    ‘Speak, damn your eyes!’ said the captain. ‘I want to hear it from your own lips before I hang you! Did you do this?’
    ‘Hang me?’ snarled my uncle, struggling against the men who held him. ‘On whose authority? Since when did the killing of a bird become a hanging offence?’
    ‘This is my ship,’ said the captain, his face crimson red and his eyes bulging. ‘Don’t tell me what I can and cannot do.’
    ‘No!’ said my uncle, struggling again. ‘I’ll not hang for the killing of a bird.’
    ‘Who is going to stop me?’ said the captain, looking round the crew. ‘Who will speak for you?’
    My uncle did not turn to me nor did he call me. No one looked at me. And yet I felt as though by staying silent I shouted out at the top my voice, ‘Kill him! Hang him!’
    They say that blood is thicker than water, but in that instance I had more fellow feeling for that dead albatross than I had for my uncle. I wished with all my heart that he had never walked into my life.
    No one spoke. In fact, no one seemed to breathe for fear that an exhaled breath might be seen as some sign of an objection. But there was to be no objection.
    ‘Lang,’ said the captain, ‘fetch some rope and make a noose.’
    My uncle renewed his struggles but there were too many men holding him. He stamped on someone’s foot, and the ship’s carpenter stepped forward and hit him in the stomach with one of his huge fists.
    ‘Be still,’ he said. ‘Tie his hands.’
    My uncle gasped and winced and spat on the floor, but he made no further attempt to escape. Where could he escape to, in any case?
    The rope was fetched and knotted and someone was sent to tie the other end to the yardarm. The noose was passed down and down until it dangled above my uncle’s head. He looked at it and cursed loudly.
    The captain fetched my uncle’s crossbow, which was still lying on the deck where he had dropped it. I thought perhaps he had changed his mind and was intending to shoot my uncle rather than hang him.
    Instead, he lifted it over