Dawn on a Distant Shore (50 page)

"I can't pull a
friggin' turnbuckle out of thin air!" the first mate bellowed, his whole
body jerking as he rounded on his captain. Then his expression shifted, anger slipping
away suddenly to be replaced by surprise. He raised an arm to point. "The frigate's
rolling her guns out!"

Hawkeye swung around
without any prodding from Granny.

The frigate was no
more than thirty yards off, her broad black side looming with all gunports
open. Three officers stood on the quarterdeck, their hands crossed casually at
their backs: hunters sure of their prey, and in no hurry.

Giselle pushed in
front of Hawkeye, her jaw set like a child's who will not be ignored, but Granny
reached out and grabbed her by the shirt before she could say a word.

"To the
guns!" Granny shouted. "Don't stand there with your gob hanging open,
girl! To the guns!"

Giselle shook the old
woman off, all her concentration on Hawkeye, and so the volley took her by
surprise, threw her off her feet as the twenty-pounder plowed into the forward
mast where young Micah perched, still counting ships on the horizon.

Oak cracked like bad
bone and the mast came down, rope and sail shrieking, and through it all the boy
screamed. He hit the rail and his back snapped in two; the look of surprise on
his face was the last thing Hawkeye saw before the deck filled with smoke and
the terrible clatter and fizzle of grapeshot.

Granny slung her arms
tighter around Hawkeye's neck, shouting hoarsely in his ear. The ship rocked
hard as Giselle grabbed his legs to haul herself upright, but a twelve-pounder hit
the mast directly overhead and they went down in a tangle, the three of them,
Hawkeye bent over the women as a hailstorm of shattered rigging began to fall.
It went on for minutes, and then in the sudden silence Giselle coughed.

"Have they sunk
us?" Her voice calm, even cold.

Granny croaked a kind
of laugh and pushed at Hawkeye to move him off her. "You'd be treadin'
water already if that's what they had in mind, the bloody bastards."

"What do they
want?" That same tone, as if she were discussing the price of a new bonnet.

Hawkeye pulled himself
to his feet, feeling the bruises rising already on his back and a cut on his
shoulder. He said, "They must be after fresh crew. They'll be boarding us
next."

Granny's eye blinked,
as bright as a crow's. "Aye, and you'll arm yourself right quick, girl, or
those marines will be mountin' more than the poor old
Jackdaw
."

Connor's voice came to
them from the quarterdeck where he stood looking not at the frigate, which
could end them with one more volley, but in the opposite direction. "Blow
me if that ain't the whole Atlantic fleet. And they've got two sloops-of-war
headed this way."

Stoker lifted himself
off the deck, fought free of a mass of shredded sail, and picked his way across
the rubble.

Beside Hawkeye,
Giselle let out a half-sigh, but Granny Stoker grinned.

"There ye are,
boyo. Prime me musket double quick. Anne Bonney won't go down without a
fight."

"It's a gey lot o'
trouble they're goin' tae for a handfu' o' sailors," Robbie said darkly as
they watched the
Leopard's
longboat row toward them. "It makes no
sense."

"They look
healthy enough," Hawkeye agreed. If disease had reduced the crew to the point
where they were desperate for replacements, there was no telling that by the
brawny marines who manned the longboat.

There was only one
officer among them. He raised his speaking trumpet so that the brass bell caught
the light.

"
Jackdaw
!
I am Captain Fane of His Majesty's Royal Navy. You will put down your arms and
allow us to board or my gunners will sink you." With his other hand he
raised his short sword and in response the
Leopard
fired a shot across
the
Jackdaw
's bow.

The sailors were
muttering among themselves, but Granny Stoker was not intimidated.

"Poxy sons of
ha'penny whores!" she shouted, leaning out of Hawkeye's arms as if she would
fling herself overboard and take on the Royal Marines bare-fisted.

"Captain?"
Connor stood beside Mac Stoker, shifting from foot to foot.

Stoker kept his gaze
on the
Leopard
, the rows of cannons and gunners. He had a look about him
that came to a man when he knew himself to be outmaneuvered, and no longer able
to protect his own: just enough anger to keep a stranglehold on the shame.

He gave the order, and
the
Jackdaw
prepared to be boarded.

The captain of the
Leopard
kept Stoker with him while the marines searched the ship, took weapons, and
herded the sullen crew to the quarterdeck.

"Bloody Tory
arse-wipers! You can kiss me blind cheeks, fookin' cowards, the lot of youse!"
Granny had lost her musket and her knife to a marine three times her size, but
her mouth was her own.

She perched on a water
cask now, as there was no intact mast left on which to hang her sling. "Give
me back me musket. Do you bloody hear me, boyo? I want me musket so I can stick
it up your captain's arse! At least he'll die with a smile on his ugly
phiz!"

Hawkeye heard Giselle
draw in a breath, in disgust or distraction he couldn't tell. It was true that
the captain of the
Leopard
was young, but Hawkeye wasn't so quick as
Granny to discount a man with so much firepower at his back.

The wind was high and
there was no hope of catching anything of the conversation, at least not while
Granny kept up her steady stream of curses, spattering the circle of marines
with her spittle.

"Godforsook
shite-brained maw-dickers!"

Giselle grabbed the
old lady by the shoulder. "Annie," she said sternly. "Enough. We
cannot hear when you carry on so."

Granny Stoker peered
at Giselle anxiously, one hand clawing at her arm. "Ah, there you be,
sweetings."

Robbie stiffened in
surprise, but the crew covered their mouths with tarry hands, trying to hold back
their uneasy smiles.

"Christ,"
Connor muttered, wiping his sweaty brow with his cap. "She's off
again."

The old lady grinned
sweetly as if she had not heard this. "You'll fetch me musket, won't you,
Mary, me love?"

"Later,"
said Giselle evenly. "When the time is right."

The old lady slumped
down in Robbie's arms. She hung there, staring glumly at the marines and at the
crew gathered around, all of them nervous enough to jump ship and swim for
France, if that would keep them off the
Leopard
. At least the cutters
had been signaled back to the fleet, which seemed to take no more interest in
them, now that the gunplay was over. The Royal Navy was bound for France; and
so might this crew be, by nightfall.

"Cowards,"
Granny muttered thickly. "Not a real man in the lot of youse."

The captain of the
Leopard
turned and pointed in their direction.

"Here we are
then, mates," said Jemmy with a sigh. "Tories or sharks."

He was a man of no
more than average height but with a keen look about him, battle scarred and burned
deeply by the sun. His gaze slid over the crew, hesitated at Giselle, and moved
on to Hawkeye and Robbie. When he came to Granny she reared up and grinned at
him.

"Hello, luvy.
Come closer and give us a kiss."

"Connor,"
snapped Stoker. "Take her below."

She puckered up her
toothless mouth. "Ooh, that's not very friendly. All these lovely big marines.
Look at the doodle sack on that one, will ye? A yard like an iron pike."

"Connor!"
Stoker barked.

"Go with them,
Quint," said Fane. "We want no surprises."

Connor did as he was
bid with the marine at his back while Fane examined the rest of the crew.

He lifted his short
sword so that his sleeve pulled up. A scar crossed the back of his hand and
snaked up underneath his cuff. With a little flourish he pointed at a man
Hawkeye knew only as Penny Whistle.

"You, there. Have
you ever served on board a ship of the Royal Navy?"

Penny scowled.
"I'm Massachusetts born and raised. What would I be doin' on a friggin'
Tory shitebucket?"

It was calculated to
make Fane angry, but the man wasn't so easily riled. He smiled with half of his
mouth, the one side drawn down by a curving scar.

"An opportunity
missed, then, eh? Captain Stoker, who else is on board?"

Mac shrugged. "I
run a tight ship. This is my whole crew."

"All Americans,
I'm sure you'll claim."

"Every man of
them," Stoker said calmly, the Irish heavy on his tongue. "There was
a war fought, if you'll remember."

"Ah, yes,"
said Fane thoughtfully. "That little squabble." He turned and met
Hawkeye's gaze. Something flickered there, some curiosity. He jabbed the sword
twice, toward Robbie and then Hawkeye.

"These two."

There was a moment's
silence, and then Stoker began to sputter like wet gunpowder.

"Those two! Those
two? Are you mad, man?" He thrust a shoulder forward toward Fane. The marines
brought up their weapons, and he pulled back.

"You shoot me ship
half to pieces for two men?"

"I can take them
all, if you prefer." Fane's tone was icy. "And burn your ship, for good
measure."

Stoker's expression
shifted from outrage to suspicion. "Why those two? They're no sailors and
they're older than sin, the both of them."

Fane was studying
Robbie. "Not sailors? I suppose that one there is the King of Siam."

Stoker swung around to
Hawkeye.

"Say something!
Tell the man you're American."

"I ain't
American."

"Of all the-- Of
course you're American. Sure and you were born and raised on the New-York
frontier!"

Hawkeye met Stoker's
eye. "That don't make me American if I don't want it to. I was raised
Mahican, and Mahican I'll be until I die."

Stoker drew in his
breath with a hiss. "You're damned easygoing for a man about to be pressed
onto a Tory frigate."

There's good reason
for that
,
Hawkeye might have said. He made himself look away from the deck of the
Leopard
,
where a familiar figure had appeared at the rail with a long glass in his hand.
A man of no more than medium build. Not a sailor, or an officer.

Hawkeye said, "I
been taken prisoner more than once in my lifetime, and by worse scoundrels than
these. Rab here was held by the Mingo for a whole year."

Robbie grunted, his
brow furled down low. He hadn't seen the man studying them from the
Leopard
's
quarterdeck and he didn't follow Hawkeye's purpose, but they had hunted and fought
together for fifty years; Robbie could tell well enough when Dan'l Bonner had a
scheme.

"We lived this
far to tell the tale, I expect we'll survive a Tory frigate," Hawkeye
finished.

"Captain."
Giselle had been hovering at the back of the crowd of sailors, but now she
pushed forward and spoke up in her best drawing-room voice. "I will join
you, as well. I have no business on this ship."

Hawkeye forgotten,
Stoker's head snapped toward her. "You greedy bitch!" He lunged; the marine
next to Giselle lifted the butt of his musket in a lazy swing and tapped him
above the eye. Groaning, Stoker went down on his knees, pressing a fist to his
bloody forehead.

"Captain Stoker,
contain yourself," said Fane. "I shan't be taking your ... lady on
the
Leopard
."

"Sir,"
Giselle said, and pressed her lips hard together. "You would deny my
request for assistance without knowing my name, or my father's?"

Fane shrugged.
"You came on board of your own accord, did you not, madam?"

"I did. And now I
would leave."

"But not on the
Leopard
,"
said Fane firmly.

Giselle gave the man
an injured look. "Captain, perhaps you know my father, Lord Bainbridge. He
is lieutenant governor of Lower Canada."

Fane bit back a smile.
"Captain Stoker, I am impressed. The King of Siam, an Indian chief, and
now the daughter of the lieutenant governor ... Ayres! We're away. Fetch Quint,
and take these two men into custody."

At the rail, Fane came
up behind Hawkeye. "Your son and his family are not on board?" he
asked quietly.

Hawkeye shook his
head.

Fane grunted, clearly
not surprised but displeased all the same.

"Rob
MacLachlan!" shouted Giselle from the quarterdeck. "You and I have
unfinished business!"

But Robbie went down
the rope ladder to the longboat without even looking in her direction.

"Captain
Stoker," said Fane, touching the rim of his tricorn. "Until we meet
again."