Gentleman Captain (40 page)

'He's taken the wind from
Republics
sails!' cried Kit, jubilant now. 'Oh, God in heaven, I've never seen the like! To bring her up so exactly, in so little water–and now he'll rake her, by God!'

The
Veere
's first broadside was as mighty as that of the
Republic.
If they had been side by side, it would have been a fair and equal fight. But raking is neither fair nor equal. The broadside tore into the weakest part of Judge's ship–of
any
ship: her stern. The gallery and windows of the captain's cabin shattered like matchwood. The two stern chasers, the only guns on the ship bearing in that direction, must have been destroyed at once. With the
Republics
main deck cleared for action, there was no obstacle to the
Veeres
cannonade passing the entire length of the ship. It was slaughter.

Republics
fire against us fell away. We were close now, just yards away. Leaving Kit Farrell on the quarterdeck in effective command of the
Jupiter,
D'Andelys and I ran down to the forecastle where my crew was massed. The
Republics
starboard side loomed above us. I could smell the stench of death on her main deck, where the
Veere
had done her work. Above me, half of a man's head was lodged in one of her gunports, one eye staring blankly into oblivion.

Then the remains of our bowsprit crashed into the
Republics
forecastle. The two ships locked together in a morass of tangled rigging and broken wood. Each vessel seemed, to my exhausted mind, to scream in agony as wood sheared against wood. I raised my sword, climbed on our rail, and cried out, 'With me, Jupiters!'

A hellish roar told me that Cornelis had raked the
Republic
once again. I seized the moment, grabbed a rope, and pulled myself up the ship's side. Jupiters swarmed after me, shrieking for blood and revenge. Lanherne, Polzeath, Treninnick and Carvell were at my back. Francis Gale was at my side, a long cavalry sword in his hand. Heads appeared at the ship's rail above us. I heard Vyvyan command a volley of musket fire and cried for my vanguard to crouch down. The heads above us disappeared, and I led my men over the rail and onto the upper deck of the
Republic.

Judge's men were massed in the middle of the ship. Our fire had not touched them. They were drawn up in the three lines of the New Model Army, front rank kneeling, second rank stooping, third rank standing. Each rank levelled a row of thirty or more muskets toward us. They would fire by rotation, each rank in turn, until they had swept our bodies back into the sea.

One thing to do, boy,
an almost familiar but impossible voice in my ear seemed to say. I levelled my sword at the enemy lines, and charged.

The first rank fired and I felt a searing pain in my thigh. I stumbled but caught myself and ran on into the smoke of the muskets, wielding my sword right and left. I felt the blade strike flesh, and knew I had reached the first rank. I looked down the musket barrel of a man in the second rank. Gale knocked it aside with his sword, and I stabbed the man with mine. Our lads were up with us, and the line of musketeers broke. They looked like the New Model, but at bottom they were simply sailors with guns. Judge must have thought that the mere sight and prospect of rotation fire would have been enough to cow the Jupiters. He had to despatch us quickly if he was to stand any chance of manoeuvring away from the murderous fire from Cornelis's guns. But we were too close to them, and if we held our nerve and charged before the reload, we could prevail. As, it seemed, we had, for no men were better to rush into point-blank fire than a hundred or so blood-crazed Cornishmen.

It was ugly, close fighting now.
Wapen van Veere
fired another raking broadside into the deck below–had she seen the Jupiters on board?–and I heard the screams of the dying. Smoke clouded our business of murder on the upper deck. Judge's men had their dirks and cutlasses drawn, and Cavalier fought Roundhead with undiminished passion. I slashed at men, left and right, seeking to cut my way through to the quarterdeck. I saw Francis Gale, ordained of God, slice the head off a man with one stroke of his sword. Through the pungent cloud of powder-smoke, I caught a glimpse of Treninnick and Polzeath stabbing a man time after time in the guts. There was young Macferran, wielding a fearsome dirk with a viciousness that belayed his years. Warm blood splashed onto my face and shirt, I knew not whence, I knew not whose. It could have been mine. I heard scream succeed scream, and the distinctive sounds of metal striking metal or carving into flesh. The deck was slippery from blood and the very air seemed to glow red. The stench was like that of an abattoir.

Our men were falling, too. I saw Seaton, the cuckold of Looe, fall to a shot in the stomach from an officer's pistol. I came up with James Vyvyan, covered all over with the blood of others–or so I hoped–grinning hideously as he fought his first battle and slew his first men. We were friends at last, he and I; friends in blood. The throng pushed us apart then and I felt the blow of a half-pike on my breastplate, then the excruciating pain of a deep, bloody graze on my thigh. I killed my man. I killed the next. Then I turned to seek out Vyvyan again.

I saw him through the haze, a few yards away. It was a vision that will never leave me. He was staring at me, blue eyes wide, fair hair spattered with gore. He was still grinning. There was more blood on his face, and I knew with awful certainty it was his own. And then he fell forward, and I saw the dagger in his back.

Behind him, a man that I recognized all too well sneered defiantly. It was my assailant on the night I had taken command of the
Jupiter
at Portsmouth. It was Linus Brent.

The Jupiters had been barely holding their own until that moment. At the sight of his dead lieutenant, John Treninnick howled like a wolf, crying out in Cornish. Above all the screams, all the death throes and the cacophony of blade on blade, Treninnick's voice carried. My men stopped. Their lament began as a low growl, then turned in an instant into a ferocious howl of rage. James Vyvyan, their lieutenant, was dead. James Vyvyan, a Cornishman and one of their own. James Vyvyan, the murdered nephew of the murdered Captain James Harker.

Enraged, the Jupiters pressed home with a new vigour. I saw Ali Reis swing his vicious Turkish scimitar about his head, flaying limbs as he went. There was John Tremar, the tiny father of twins, cutting his way through a man twice his size. Behind him, Julian Carvell used his half-pike to stick a man like a pig.

There was a new sound. I heard it first after another broadside came from the
Veere.
There was a sudden brief lull in our fight, as sometimes happens in battle, when both sides almost consciously decide to draw breath, before resuming the slaughter anew. This new sound was distant, but even in that hell of battle, there was no mistaking it. Somewhere on the Ardverran shore, the pipes were skirling. Roger d'Andelys made his way to my side, a great bloody gash disfiguring his cheek, his sword blade red with the blood of English traitors. He pointed towards the shore, his eyes alight.

'Look there, Matthew. Our general rides.'

Over the hill above Ardverran came the Campbell host, their pipers to the fore. At their side marched a regiment of men in the king's red uniform, and at the head of all rode Colin Campbell of Glenrannoch. He was dressed in full cavalry armour and a glorious helmet of black and gold; a great cloak fell in folds at his back, an orange sash crossed his chest. He had been right about his wound, or else he had the strength of will and of body to ride out in spite of it. Above him flew the flags of Clan Campbell and the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and the red lion rampant standard of the King of Scots. As he had predicted, the mighty general was leading his last army.

I looked over toward Ardverran Castle and saw the Macdonald birlinn pulling away from the jetty, its prow toward the open sea. I could just see my lady Niamh, Countess of Connaught, standing at its stern with her little son, looking back at the ruin of their dreams. For a moment, I thought she was looking directly at me. Then a gun fired close to me, and the smoke took them from my sight.

D'Andelys and I were almost at the quarterdeck stair. We fought our way past two soldiers in New Model uniforms. Up, and onto the deck...

One man alone was left on the quarterdeck of the
Republic.
And there, at last, I looked upon the true face of Captain Godsgift Judge.

There were no other men around us now, and no other ships. Judge stared intently into my face, and I into his. The fop was dead. Without all the face paint and the wigs and beauty spots, Godsgift Judge's gaunt features were those of a warrior. Here stood a killer: for his God, his woman and his son. He held a bloodied cutlass. A deep slash across his chest seemed not to trouble him. His eyes were tired, though, and his voice, when it spoke, was weary and harsh.

'Ship to ship, Quinton, I'd have you beaten. You know that. The Dutchman, there–now that was weighting the odds, my noble captain.'

I circled him, watchful, trying to contain my anger, to gain control of myself. 'You and your countess first brought the Dutch into this, Captain Judge. To give your son a kingdom, she said. But perhaps some know the Dutch better than you do. The noble general, there, for one.'

Glenrannoch's army was spreading out to surround Ardverran. In the second I spared to look, I thought how it seemed but a ghost of a castle. Behind Judge, the
Wapen van Veere
lay still and silent, her guns manned and pointed into the broken hull of the
Republic.
I could see Cornelis plain on her quarterdeck, no more than a hundred or so yards away. I raised my left hand in greeting, and he raised his right, stiffly, aware that to move it too rapidly would bring a broadside down on us all and probably tear my flesh to pieces.

I looked back at Judge. 'And my good-brother, Captain van der Eide there, for another.'

For the first and only time in our acquaintance, Godsgift Judge appeared genuinely surprised. 'Your good-brother?' he asked. Then he smiled. 'Yes, it had to be, of course. Popes and cardinals and countesses, they can plot all they like. As the good Lord knows, I plotted all I liked. But God disposes.' He sighed. 'Divine justice, then.' His eyes narrowed and his lips twisted into a cruel sneer. 'What an unfortunate fool I am. I order the killing of James Harker so the whoremaster Charles Stuart will replace him with a lesser man. And I am delighted with the result.' He gave me a mocking salute. 'But God disposes that this lesser man is the brother-in-law of the best captain the Dutch have. And from a faction that hates our cause. Now, is that divine justice or divine irony, Captain?'

I thought of James Vyvyan. I felt a pain somewhere inside me. I had known this, but to hear it from those venomous lips was awful.

'You killed Harker?'

Judge's eyes showed no remorse. 'Ordered him killed, yes–of course. Who else, Quinton? And his servant. And that miserable turncoat Warrender, who sought to betray our cause to Harker. It matters little now, for we both know I'll not leave this ship alive. Either you kill me in single combat, or your men tear me to pieces if I kill you. That's what Charles Stuart's demented notion of reconciling us old enemies means at the end of the day. The only truthful reconciliation is found in the grave.' He gave a pale, venomous smile. 'And that, Captain, is where we are headed.'

'But how...?' I said, and stopped.

'How, Captain?' Judge raised an eyebrow, then looked across to the main deck and nodded towards a man all too familiar to me. 'See Linus Brent, there, my surgeon's mate? A useful man. Apprentice in his youth to an old surgeon of Cheapside who dabbled much in alchemy. Not many potions he doesn't know, my Linus. A pity his blade didn't do for you in Portsmouth town, Matthew Quinton, as his poisons had done for Harker.'

At that, Judge raised his cutlass in salute. Enraged as I was, I assumed the pose of warrior-ready. I would not salute this man, this murderer and traitor. This was meat to be carved, and with that, I would avenge James Vyvyan, James Harker and Nathan Warrender together. I looked on Judge, and my anger streamed out of me.

'In the name of God and of the king, this is your reckoning, Godsgift Judge.'

'I care not for your king, Matthew Quinton. Mine was the good old cause of the Republic of England. And yet more than that, too–for my cause was the love of my life, and the future of my son.'

His lips drew back over his teeth and he stepped forward, raised the blade above his head and slashed for my shoulder. I was ready, my father's cavalry sword blocking the cutlass well short of its target. I thrust for Judge's side, but for a mere mariner he was sharp on his feet. He swung again, for the same shoulder, and I parried again. I lunged for his chest, but he swept his blade down instinctively and forced my sword away. Our swords clashed again and we fell into each other, steel screaming as blade ran against blade. Again I could find no way through. The cutlass is a good weapon aboard a ship and in a melee. It cuts and carves through massed flesh like a butcher's cleaver. And Judge was a master of it–that much was clear.