Except . . . he's here to kill me.
"You!" He shouted a challenge as he climbed up the parapet, readying his flintlock. There were shouts from the militiamen behind him, warning him to come down, but he did not hear, did not want to hear.
The officer in the silver helmet looked up and spotted the outline of the brash youth standing atop the parapet, brandishing a musket. He knew.
Jeremy watched as the man drew up his musket and took aim. He waited a moment in fascination, savoring what it was like to face death, then drew up his own flintlock and sighted the man's chest down the barrel.
There was a flash of light and a whistle past his ear, the sound of a hurried horsefly.
Then he squeezed the trigger.
The Roundhead officer opened his mouth noiselessly and seemed to wilt backward. He fumbled for his musket as it clattered against a jagged lump of coral beside him, then sprawled onto the sand, still as death, his helmet circling in drunken arcs down the slope toward the surf.
"Sir, mind you take cover!"
In the flush sweeping over him, he scarcely felt the hands tugging at his boots. He was still gripping his flintlock, knuckles white, as the other militiamen dragged him back into the trench.
He lay panting, at once dazed and exhilarated, astonished at the sensations of his own mind and body. The most curious thing of all was his marvelous new awareness of being alive; he was adrift in a new realm of the spirit, untroubled by the cacophony of musket discharges from all sides.