Cast Off (16 page)

I stared down at the swirling sailors again. Any one of them could be part of the plot. How far did it spread? I thought of the men I'd come to know so far: Clockert, Lobo, Jaya, Louis, the Polish trio, the twins Gos and Goth, Barometer Piet.

Barometer Piet.

His conversation with Jaya took on fresh meaning. I pictured the crinkles around his eyes and remembered the strength of his mangled grip when he took my hand. His gratitude to me for saving his life. Could my friend be plotting to overthrow the captain and steal three million florins from the Dutch East India Company? I wrestled with an urge to protect Barometer Piet, as Piet was protecting me by keeping his suspicions about my identity a secret from the rest of the ship. But Bram had also protected me—at great risk to himself.

“I may have overheard something,” I said. “Perchance it's nothing . . .”

“Tell me anyway.”

“Jaya came to see Barometer Piet in the infirmary. He said Commander Van Assendorp wanted to know how Piet fared and when he would be healed. Barometer Piet got angry and told Jaya to tell Van Assendorp—well, I won't repeat exactly what he told Jaya to tell Van Assendorp because it was rude, but Piet did say, ‘If anything goes amiss, it'll be the wind and the weather, not Barometer Piet.'”

Bram considered what I told him and said, “Aye, sounds like Piet's in on it. I already knew about Jaya. Kosnik the smith too—hey! Hold fast a minute . . .”

Bram jumped onto the yard, hanging on to the mast with one hand and scanning the sea behind us. His black pigtail whipped about in the freshening wind.

“You see that, Miss Petra?” he said, suddenly full of excitement. I peered in the same direction but saw nothing. “Aye, I think it is. It's . . .
Sail ho
!
” He smiled down at me. “I've always wanted to do that.”

“What do you make out, Mister Broen?” shouted Van Plaes from the deck.

“Can't say for sure, sir,” Bram called.

“One of ours?” yelled Van Plaes.

“Too soon to tell!” Bram yelled back.

“What's happening?” I asked.

He sat down next to me. “It's like this. If the other ship's friendly—say Dutch or a stray whaler or even an English boat, since Dutch and English isn't currently at war—we'll pass each other and maybe stop to parley. But if the other ship's a pirate—and she could be; there's buccaneers in these waters—well, the
Lion
's full up with cargo and VOC treasure, so she's low and slow.”

“An easy target,” I said.

“Aye. So if De Ridder knows what's good for him, he'll throw his pride into the winds and run.”

The ship was gaining fast. Me and Petra and most of the crew was leaning over the rail trying to make out the colors of her flags or the shape of her hull—some sign that would tell us who she was and what we'd do.

De Ridder and Van Plaes was up on the poop deck with the goats and chickens, their spyglasses fixed on the spot in the water. Men near 'em relayed their parley to the rest of us.

“Van Plaes says she's got Dutch colors.”

“Dutch colors.”

“Captain says it could be a ruse.”

“A ruse.”

“Captain says it's a ruse.”

Oak stood by his master, ever dignified. Every man of us was clammed up, waiting.

“Mister Grof!” De Ridder finally called to the bosun, who was peering over the quarterdeck rail.

“Captain?”

“She's no Dutchman. She's a buccaneer. Let fall the topgallants, if you please, which should favor us with a bit more speed. We must not be taken, do you understand?”

“Aye, sir,” called the bosun. He called the orders and the crew raced to obey.

“Time favors us,” the captain said to Van Plaes. “'Twill be night in another hour and I shall head south. With any luck, the pirate will not anticipate my change in direction and by morning we shall be clear of her.”

“The sea will be heavier farther down, sir,” Van Plaes said, his eyes like black pits over his sunken cheeks.

“With this cargo I am prepared to risk heavy seas, but not”—De Ridder looked into the spyglass again—“a thirty-gun pirate ship.”

Just in case his plan didn't work, the captain ordered all hands—even the soldiers—to get battle-ready. Six hundred feet pounded the decks. If mine was maybe a little slower than the others, I figured no one would notice in the hubbub. Right away the soldiers got to tying pikes to the masts so's they'd be in easy reach if we got boarded. I couldn't think of much worse than having to stick one of those spears into some pirate cove's gut—unless 'twas having him stick one into mine.

I headed below to the gunroom, passing the galley where Happy Jan and his mate cooked up the last hot meal we'd eat for hours—or maybe forever. Tixfor and the other lads hurried by me to the officers' cabins so's they could pack up all the fancy glass and lash the furniture down tight. In battle, breaking bodies was fine, but breaking crystal wasn't.

In the gunroom, Lobo and his team was making grenades out of rags and lead bars.

“Cheval could use your help, Bram,” Lobo said, pointing at Louis next to a rack of shelves stocked with cans of gunpowder. “Open all the cans and make sure they're dry. Then prime the guns.”

“Aye, Lobo.”

'Twas good those cans had no sharp edges. My hands was shaking so bad I could hardly uncork the stoppers.

In the infirmary, Barometer Piet and I tore linen into bandages.

“Tell me what he said again, sonny. Every word. And make sure you don't leave nothing out.”

I repeated the captain's conversation with Van Plaes. For the third time.

“Ach!” Barometer Piet groaned, thrashing his head back and forth on his cot. He raised himself on his elbows and pointed a thumb at me. “It ain't right, those buccaneers veering so far offshore. Spanish silver ain't enough, so they got to come after us?”

“But surely we've nothing to worry about,” I said, “seeing as how the
Lion
is so much bigger than the pirate ship and we've got many more guns.”

Barometer Piet gave me a pitying look. “You're a greenhead, Albert, so let me lay it out for you. We're bigger, aye, and we got more guns. But them pirates is faster—a lot faster—and our big cannons won't be doing us no good when the picaroons steal the weather gauge and sneak close enough to board us. And while I'd stake my life on the sword arm of any able seaman on this ship, the riffraff on the soldier deck ain't good for more than target practice, and, between you and me, even some of the ordinary seamen ain't much good either.”

“The buccaneers are skilled hand-fighters?”

“None better. But they ain't pretty about it, see? They start by slicing off the little bits—noses and ears and such. If that don't bring order, they'll go for hands and feet. I heard of a pirate crew that decided to make a show of what happens to resisters. They took two coves and stuck 'em through bottom to mouth with a sharp stick, then roasted 'em over a fire like pigs on a spit.”

Surely Piet's talk was just tall tales. “And is that, um,
usual
?”

“Roasting men alive? No, I just heard of the one time. But ears and noses, aye, that's usual.”

No grin tugged at the corner of Piet's mouth. He meant what he said. The pirates were as thirsty for blood as they were for money. I shivered in the cold damp and cast my eyes around the surgeon's cabin. In a matter of minutes, the
Lion,
which was to carry me to a distant shore and keep me dry and fed, could carry me to the bottom of the sea.

“Barometer Piet, it's exceedingly important that we outrun this pirate ship.”

“Aye, sonny.
Exceedingly
.”

After supper had been doled out and preparations for battle completed, hands were piped to quarters to take what sleep they could before sunrise. I was checking on Piet one last time when the ship tacked southward.

“And away we go,” he muttered, “with our tail between our legs. I tell you, sonny, I ain't exactly keen to take on a ship of pirates, but there's something downright shameful about running away from a fight.”

What if it was a fight you couldn't win? A fight where your opponent—be it a single man or a ship of pirates—had murder on his mind and was faster and stronger than you? Nay, to my mind there was nothing shameful about running away from this fight—or others like it. The only shame would be not running fast enough.

The motion of the ship changed now that we'd shifted course. The boat tilted sharply and lurched with each choppy wave. Clockert's instruments clattered from the worktable to the floor and I ran to stow them in his trunk. The surgeon himself didn't even bother to look up from his journal.

“Good night, master,” I said. He grunted in response.

I staggered to the curtain to the sick bay and braced myself against the wall. “Until the morrow, Piet.”

“Get ready, sonny,” he said, flexing his remaining fingers. “There's a storm coming.”