Heart of Steele (9 page)

I hated to bother my uncle with my fears and worries, but it seemed to me that Captain Hunter was within an ace of turning pirate for real. And then what would become of us all?

For many days we had been making our way north and east, heading, I guessed, to the little low island called Cruzado in the southern Bahamas, between Inagua Island and the Caicos and Turks Islands. A band of pirates had made a small settlement there, and we needed to replace our damaged foremast before a storm could rise and break it in two.

Captain Hunter nursed the ship along. His navigation was usually good, but this time his reckoning was off. We were too far south and east, and we came within sight of a ragged scattering of small islands, hardly more than rocks. Toward sunset, Mr. Adams climbed to the maintop to scan them with his telescope, and when he returned to the deck, he said, “I think the island in the far distance is Salt Cay, sir. We must be south of Grand Turk.”

Captain Hunter cursed at that. “Then we have to come about. Our course must be northwest by north, and—”

“A ship!” cried the sailor on lookout duty.

“Where away?” the captain called back.

“Fine on the larboard bow,” the lookout answered.

I could see nothing from the deck. Captain Hunter scrambled up the shrouds, though, and stared off to the east. “It’s the
Fury,”
he called down at last, and I breathed a little easier. The
Fury
was a sloop under the command of John Barrel, a right, true buccaneer and a friend of ours from back in the early part of the year.

Captain Hunter slid down a backstay like a boy, dropped to the deck, and ordered, “Clear for action.”

I could not believe my ears. The one-legged John Barrel had been loyal to us when we were under heavy fire in Tortuga Harbor. It would be monstrous to repay his loyalty with cannon fire.

But then I realized that Barrel knew Steele—had even sailed with him—and that he was just the sort of connection to Steele that the captain wanted. I ran below to my uncle, who was reading by the glow of a lantern, and gasped out the news.

“The devil!” he exclaimed, clapping his book shut. “Let me have a word with William.”

We hurried back to the deck. The men had run out the larboard cannons, though they looked uneasy and unsure of themselves.

“Let him come within pistol-shot range,” Captain Hunter ordered. “Then we shall take him.”

I looked over the rail. The
Fury
had closed fast, coming down with the wind. She was only two hundred yards away.

And then, with surprising speed, she shifted her sails, spun about to show us her broadside, and opened fire!

Fury Attacks

GRAPESHOT RIPPED ACROSS
our decks, shredding men and lines and sails. Railing flew into splinters and one of our guns was thrown over, crushing half of its crew under two tons of iron. Men screamed and cursed, and a dazed Captain Hunter stood there, his cutlass limp in his hand. Uncle Patch yanked him around and shouted into his blank face.

“Awake, William!” he roared. “The devil’s dealt new cards and you haven’t even picked up your hand!”

Fire came billowing back into the captain’s eyes, and for a horrible moment I thought he was going to strike my uncle, and that would mean the end of
us. Then something shiny and sharp came sailing over the larboard railing and bit into the black wood with a meaty thud. Both Uncle Patch and Captain Hunter stared at it.

“Boarders!” Uncle Patch snarled with a curse.

More of the silver hooks were flying up and over now just as the
Fury
emptied another broadside into our starboard. I ran to the side to see what was going on, only to be yanked back by my uncle after a glimpse.

“Have ye gone brainless as well?” he thundered. “Down, ye young fool, down!”

I was shoved down onto the deck, but I had seen what I had seen. Three longboats loaded to the gunnels with pirates were lashing themselves to our port side. While we had been concentrating on the
Fury,
they had crept up on us, silent as fever. And now they were roaring up our sides, all screams and steel.

And every one of them had a strip of red silk tied to his right arm. It was a uniform of sorts, the red mark of men who sailed for Jack Steele.

“No quarter, ye dogs!” a deep voice boomed from the deck of the
Fury.
“None asked, none given!”

Now the grappling hooks came flying from the decks of the
Fury
as her crew fought to lash her tight to the
Aurora.
Men were leaping over and landing on our decks, cutlasses flashing in the fading light. And every one wore a strip of bright crimson silk.

“They’ve hurt my ship,” said Captain Hunter in a voice lost in wonder. Then his eyes flashed with that old Hunter fire. “To me,
Aurora!
Repel boarders!” And he was rushing down to where his crew was just beginning to rally against the invaders.

“Aye, just rush in and get your simple English brains knocked out!” Uncle Patch yelled over the clash of battle. “’Tis so much better knowing we have a plan! Mr. Warburton!”

“Aye, Doctor?” rumbled our giant helmsman.

“Watch my fool of a nephew! ’Tis his help I’ll be needing before all this is down and done! I’ve got to help Hunter!” He turned back to me and slapped a gully, a sailor’s knife, into my hand. “Eyes, legs, liver, and lights—forget about honorable fighting! Any dog that attacks a boy doesn’t deserve it! Stab fast, get away, and run like the devil!”

With these words, Uncle Patch drew his own
sword and was about to leap down after the captain when he was stopped by a peal of cruel laughter from the decks of the
Fury.
He stared into the billowing cannon smoke and snapped a string of curses that made even Mr. Warburton step back.

“’S blood! Not him!” Then he was down the stairs into the battle. I stared over to where that stout sloop rode, grappled tight against us. A man I momentarily mistook for John Barrel stood there, stripped to the waist and roaring with laughter. His head and body and arms were covered with blue tattoos that swirled and twisted over him like flat snakes writhing under his skin. And I knew why my uncle had sworn so. If I had had his talent for cursing, I would have done so myself.

The man roared, “At them, ye bloodless swine! No quarter, says I! No quarter and the devil take the hindmost!”

The last time I had seen him, Jessie and I had been running from a plantation house on the island of Tortuga and from a smiling, pale man we had known as Mr. Robert Meade. Robert Meade had turned out to be Jack Steele, and this grinning monster was one of his major lieutenants, the infamous
pirate, Shark. I had thought him dead, for Captain Hunter had fired a pistol at him from close range, but the wound must not have been mortal.

Even as I stared, the pirate captain grabbed a loose line, wrapped it around his arm, and swung flying across to the deck of the
Aurora.
His cutlass gleamed as he fell roaring into the mass of struggling, straining men.

I wish I could give a clear account of the battle that raged that day, but in truth all that comes to me now as I write is a series of pictures, flashes of the fight. I will try to be faithful to them.

The pirates had the element of surprise, but I’m sure they had no idea of who made up the bulk of our crew. Morgan’s old buccaneers shook off their shock in short order and came back at the invaders, nasty grins on their seamed brown faces. This wasn’t playacting, this was butcher’s work, and that was work they understood full well. I had a lord’s view of it all, there on the quarterdeck with Mr. Warburton towering over me, a monstrous sword in his massive hand. I know not where he found it. He might have taken it from a dead Viking, for all I knew. I clutched my gully in a
death grip and prepared to sell my life dearly.

The
Fury
could no longer fire her broadsides at us, for she was too close and would have done as much damage to herself as to the
Aurora.
So it was hand to hand and man to man, and the blood flowed across our littered deck.

I saw Mr. Adams, as gentle a man as ever wore the king’s uniform, screaming like a madman as he discharged a pistol into the face of a man who was about to split his skull with the edge of a cutlass.

I saw Mr. Adain, he who had warned us about the Spanish advance at San Angel, go down with a fierce cut across his belly. He died in a gush of blood, clasping his innards.

I had never seen a boarding raid before. In the past the
Aurora
had always fired only one round at her victims, forcing them to strike their flags. Every time we had boarded without a fight.

This was different. This was men hacking away at one another like butchers slicing up a side of beef. There was none of the elegant parry and thrust I had witnessed when Captain Hunter and Uncle Patch had practiced at singlestick in the little yard behind the King’s Mercy.

The blades swung savagely back and forth, like sickles harvesting wheat. Where the edges struck, limbs flew and blood spurted in fountains. Where the sides struck, skulls split and arms snapped. The noise, the howling and growling and screaming, battered against my ears. The only mercy was that the musket fire had stopped, for the sharpshooters had no time to reload.

Mr. Warburton stood at the edge of the quarterdeck, swinging his giant sword back and forth. Pirates were trying to come up the stairs and take control of the whipstaff. But to do that they’d have to get past the towering helmsman, and that wasn’t likely to happen.

“Not my station!” Mr. Warburton roared, smashing another pirate on the top of the head so that he fell like a sack of wet flour. “Nobody barges onto my station!”

Then I heard it again. That silver meaty
thunk
that meant another grappling hook had gone home. I looked over to where it had landed. It dug into the splitting railing wood, gouging in as it was dragged tight. A cry of triumph came up from below. Mr. Warburton was busy tossing another
pirate off the deck, so I gathered all my courage, crept over to the railing, and looked over the side. Sure enough, three pirates were swarming up the side, daggers tight in their teeth. They grinned around the steel at me. I tried to pull the hook free, but it was in too deep and the weight of the pirates kept pulling it ever deeper. Then I could have sworn I heard a voice snap, “Is that the only idea you can come up with, you great mooncalf?” And suddenly it wasn’t.

I yanked out the gully Uncle Patch had thrust upon me, and I hacked at the rope. The blade was marvelously sharp and sliced through the hemp braids like a razor. The first pirate was almost upon me, his hand reaching out, his eyes wide as he realized what I was doing. The rope parted, and he and his two companions fell tumbling back into the water. I felt right proud of myself.

Then Mr. Warburton fell on me.

All the breath went out of me in a whoosh and I thought that I had been crushed to death. It took me precious moments to recover myself and push the valiant helmsman off me. He rolled over onto his back, and I saw the great oozing bruise on the
side of his head that had brought him down. Something had clipped him right fair. Quickly I checked his eyes and pulse as Uncle Patch had taught me. He was alive but not going anywhere. Grasping my gully, I rushed to what was left of the railing and looked down onto the deck below.

The battle still raged, but I saw a weariness about it now. The fighters had spent their initial fury and now bashed at one another with a mechanical viciousness that was even more frightening than their previous rage. And then I noticed who was battling away at the foot of the ladder, and I almost cried out in horror.

Uncle Patch and Shark stood toe-to-toe and slashed away at each other with their cutlasses. There was no retreating back and forth. They stood their ground, neither giving an inch as they hacked and blocked, each straining to get past the other’s guard. My uncle had thrown off his coat. His shirt, never the cleanest, was now stiff with blood and sweat. His copper-red hair had come loose from its ribbon and flew all over his head like a lion’s mane. And even from where I was high above him, I could hear him swearing under his breath. At least I
assumed he was swearing. During the battle he had switched from English to Gaelic.

Shark was also sweating, the heavy beads sheeting off his body and dripping off his shaved head. He was so slick with it, his spiraling blue tattoos seemed to actually twist and squirm around on his arms and chest. Unlike Uncle Patch, Shark didn’t say a word. He just swung away at his opponent and grinned.

It was a cold, white grin with too many pointed teeth.

Slowly—and still muttering away in the language of his father’s fathers—Uncle Patch began to force Shark back toward the cabin door beneath me. Soon the pirate would be right up against the wood. Then suddenly Shark began to laugh. It was a wild, ugly laugh that cut through all the battle noise like a barracuda through a school of fat fish. A second later I saw what Shark saw: a pirate with a spent musket rearing up behind Uncle Patch. With a roundhouse swing, he brought the useless weapon around and smashed my uncle on the side of his head. Uncle Patch went down like a poleaxed steer. Now I did cry out, for the pirate again raised the
shattered musket like a club and prepared to open Uncle Patch’s skull like a ripe melon.