Martini-Henry IC1 Deadeye
MARTINI-HENRY IC1 DEADEYE. (See also, MARTINI-HENRY CARBINE, SCOPES) The Martini-Henry IC1, being a single-shot rifle, was capable of chambering an extremely powerful, and unusually large, black powder cartridge. Despite its low muzzle velocity it had tremendous stopping power and could be used as a sharpshooter's rifle.
Recollections of Nadia Orville
Handwritten journal, 8 x 10 in.
4/5
By the morning light two things were clear. The lugger was adrift in the sound, and there was a storm approaching from the south that would drown us on this strip of land. There was no way the boy could swim, missing an arm. I would have to swim out and bring the boat back.
We took stock of what we had. Two clean rifles, one with a telescopic sight, four bayonets, and the rest of the crate of preserved rifles. The boy would do what he could to cover me from the shore. I loaded the rifles for him. We both knew it was unlikely he could reload them. I took a bayonet and stripped off the cloak. "Bill"said the boy, telling me his name. I nodded, replied in kind, and set into the water.
Aboard the vessel was a corpse. I rolled it off the deck with my boot. I jammed the bayonet through the hatch handles, securing it. I raised the sail and turned the rudder, drifting us away from the island. Bill would have been a better sailor. I darted to the sail, to try to catch the wind right.
The storm had moved off the horizon. Its wind snapped the sail, lurching the boat. I grabbed the mainsheet to hold the sail. Another gust tore it from my grip. The bayonet clattered at my feet. I looked up to the captain emerging through hatch, leveling a six-shooter at me
There was a distant gunshot, and a shower of splinters from the mast. The captain shot. A thudding pain blossomed then spread from my gut. He cocked the hammer a second time.
Doubled over with pain, I imagined the boy now readying the second rifle. He would have one chance. To grit through the pain of his arm, line up the captain in the sights, and take the shot. The wind had pulled the sail
taught, a spray was rising above the bow. The captain snarled something, lost on a west wind that carried the sound of a Martini-Henry firing a second time
