Rapscallion (62 page)

Lasseur
had used chain shot. He yelled again.
"
Feu!"

Another
detonation.
This time Hawkwood saw the shot
hit, tearing away the gaff, ripping into the sail and shattering what remained
of the mast. Halyards gone, main sail shredded, the cutter's rig lost all
integrity. As the man in the stern wrestled with the tiller, the vessel began
to wallow.

But
her crew were fighting back.

A
double report sounded from across the water. Hawkwood saw the twin billows of
smoke dispersing along the cutter's deck - one from the swivel gun. He hunkered
down instinctively as a section of the schooner's starboard rail disintegrated
under the impact, heard a whimper as the ball went past his ear and ducked
again as splinters pierced the air like arrows. Screams rang out. Hawkwood saw
one man spin away, hand clamped around his throat, blood pumping from between
his fingers.

A
roar of defiance erupted from
Scorpion's
crew.

"Au tribord!
"
Lasseur screamed at his helmsman.

The
helmsman hauled down on the wheel and
Scorpion
obeyed
the command. Her bow dipped. Water boiled along her length and foamed across
her steeply sloping deck as she swung towards the cutter's hull. Her stern
lifted as she slewed to starboard. There was another blast of cannon fire and
Hawkwood saw one of the cutter's gun crews split asunder in a welter of blood
and smoke and splinters and tumbling bodies. And
Scorpion
was beam on to
the cutter's port side. Only yards separated them.

Lasseur
screamed at his men to steady themselves. The hulls were less than two cannon
lengths apart when the first grappling hook curved over the cutter's gunwale. A
rain of metal claws followed. With their comrades providing covering fire, the
men on the ropes began to haul in. Hawkwood felt Jago's strong hand on his
shoulder, held on to a shroud and braced for impact. It wasn't dissimilar to an
attack on a breach in a wall, he thought, as the distance between the vessels
closed. The principle was the same: people were trying to kill you. So, eyes
forward, keep your wits, don't bloody fall over.

"It's
possible they'll match us in numbers," Lasseur had told them. "But my
men have done this before. Watch your flanks."

Powder
flashes lit up the faces lining the cutter's rail. A seaman to Hawkwood's left
gave an explosive grunt and fell back, a red orchid blossoming across his
front.

The
hulls met with a shuddering crash and a groan of timber, and
Scorpion's
crew, screaming
like banshees, leapt over the schooner's side and hurled themselves towards the
cutter's deck.

Where
they were met head on with ball and steel.

As
Hawkwood jumped, he caught a glimpse of grey-green water swirling in the gap
below his feet. Then he
was
over and the deck was rushing up to meet him. He landed hard, slithered in a
pool of dark blood, brought the pistol round and fired point-blank at a body
coming in, sword held high. He saw a red mist envelop the attacker's skull and
then tin- corpse was falling away into the melee. Hawkwood reversed the pistol
and drew the tomahawk from his belt. The air rang with the clash of steel and
the crack of small-arms fire.

He
looked for Morgan but couldn't see either him or Pepper. In the uproar and the
noise and with powder smoke roiling across the deck, all he could see was a
confused mass of struggling bodies. Hawkwood searched for anyone not wearing a
neckcloth on their bicep. He saw Lasseur, fighting with knife and
sword,
turn his blades towards a blue-jacketed man, his face
a mask of fury. A good number of Morgan's men were still wearing their French
uniforms. Lasseur had briefed his crew. They were making good use of the information.
The blue tunics made easy targets.

A
huge figure - one of the cutter's crew, from his lack of an arm band - appeared
on Hawkwood's right, in his hands a musketoon designed for close-quarter work.
The gun's maw looked about a foot wide. Hawkwood saw death staring at him and
then Jago was there, cutlass hacking down through the man's wrist before he
could pull the trigger. Hawkwood followed through with the tomahawk, felt the
blade bite into muscle, tugged the weapon free and scrambled on.

The
battle raged. It was brutal and bloody, and it was becoming increasingly
perilous underfoot. Detritus from the vessel's broken rig had turned the deck
into a morass of cordage, black rigging, torn sailcloth and broken spars. The
bodies of the dead and wounded were adding to the debris.

Then,
through a gap in the fighting, Hawkwood saw Pepper. Morgan's lieutenant was at
the cutter's stern, hacking a cutlass at a knot of rope wrapped around an arm
of the jolly boat hoist. The tiller man lay dead by Pepper's feet.

Bastard's trying to go over the side again
,
Hawkwood thought. But Pepper wasn't alone. Another man was attempting to free
the ropes on the hoist's other arm. Hawkwood didn't recognize Morgan
immediately. His black beard was gone, but his shape gave him away. He looked
up, saw Hawkwood, swallowed his shock and redoubled his efforts. Like some of
his men, he was still wearing the blue tunic and white breeches. Hawkwood saw
diagonal stripes low down on the tunic sleeve as Morgan raised his arm and in a
moment of clarity heard Lieutenant Burden's voice in his ear describing the
broad- shouldered sergeant who had shot Corporal Jefford stone dead in the
residency lobby.

His
eyes swept the deck, trying to pierce the smoke. He saw

Lasseur,
caught the privateer's eye and pointed. Lasseur followed his gaze and his eyes
took on a new intensity. Sidestepping over the mess of fallen canvas and
ignoring the press about him, the privateer,
teeth
bared, clambered towards the jolly boat.

Hawkwood
saw Pepper look up. Morgan's lieutenant had spotted Lasseur moving towards him.
Beneath his beard, Pepper's cheeks hardened. He edged away from the hoist,
cutlass in his hand. Behind Pepper's back, Morgan continued to attack the rope.
Suddenly the strands parted and the jolly boat's bow dropped. Morgan
transferred his energy to the second hoist.

Hawkwood
heard Jago bellow.
Another of Morgan's men chancing his arm.
He turned and whipped the pistol butt into a startled face. Regaining his
balance and with the fighting raging about him, he headed for the stern.

Pepper
gripped the cutlass and waited for Lasseur's attack. He looked unconcerned,
confident. The cutlass was his weapon.

Lasseur
ran in, Pepper scythed the cutlass towards Lasseur's sword arm. Lasseur
parried, driving the strike away with the side of his blade. As Pepper's weight
carried him round, Lasseur went low and ripped his knife through the tendons
behind Pepper's right knee. His hamstrings severed, Pepper collapsed on to the
deck, his expression one of bewilderment, shock and pain. Head thrown back, his
mouth opened, but the scream was cut short as Lasseur rammed his sword point
down and through the exposed throat.

Lasseur
placed his boot on Pepper's unmoving chest and tugged the blade free.

"Cretin!"
he hissed.

Morgan
was almost through the last rope when he saw Pepper fall. The sight of Lasseur
and the Runner on the bow of the schooner had been shocking enough. Seeing his
lieutenant killed so suddenly and with such ruthless efficiency was even worse.
One second Cephus was there, guarding his back, the next he was on the deck
with a gaping wound in his throat, leaking blood. It didn't seem possible
things could happen that quickly.

But
they had and Morgan had seen the look in Lasseur's eye and he knew what it
meant. So, ignoring the dead tiller man and the pool of blood that was seeping
into the deck, he continued with his frantic attempt to free the jolly boat
from its cradle, knowing it was futile.

He
heard a voice say, "It's over, Morgan," and turned, breathing
heavily.

Lasseur
and Hawkwood were standing shoulder to shoulder. Beside them stood a stocky,
hard-faced man with gun-metal hair, carrying a bloodstained cutlass.

"It's
over, Morgan," Hawkwood said again. "You lost. Your men are
finished."

Morgan
saw that Hawkwood spoke the truth. Those members of his crew that were still
standing were laying down their arms in surrender and lowering themselves to
the deck, hands on their heads. Lasseur's men were moving among them,
collecting weapons. It was clear from the lack of cloth bands on the bodies
littering the deck that the cutter's crew had been overwhelmed by sheer force
of arms. The
Sea Witch's
scuppers were slick with blood.

"Reckon
this is what they mean when they talk about rats tryin' to leave a sinkin'
ship," Jago said.

Morgan
let the sword slip from his grasp. His chest rose and fell.

"We're
still fifteen miles off the coast," Hawkwood said. "Did you really
think you'd make it?"

"The
Lord loves an optimist," Lasseur murmured.

"Can't
blame a man for trying," Morgan said.

Hawkwood
stuck the pistol in his belt, tossed the tomahawk aside and drew the knife from
his boot.

A
flicker of doubt crossed Morgan's face. His jaw tightened.

The
man looked strange without the beard, Hawkwood had decided. His face looked rounder
and at least five years younger, and not so aggressive. In fact, Hawkwood
thought, there was something else about Morgan that was different. He looked
more portly round the chest, which was a bit odd, and his movements looked . .
. ponderous.

Before
Morgan could react, Hawkwood jabbed the knife point beneath the front hem of
Morgan's tunic and with effortless ease sliced the blade towards Morgan's chin
like a surgeon opening up a cadaver. The tunic cloth parted like grape skin.

"Well,
would you look at
that!
" Jago said in wonderment.
"Haven't seen one of them since the old king died."

It
was a waistcoat, but it wasn't like any Hawk wood had seen before. It was lined
with pockets and every one of them was bulging.

Hawkwood
reached out and with another flick of his wrist performed a second filleting
along one of the pocket seams. The cloth split and the weight of the contents
did the rest. A gold ingot clattered to the deck.

Hawkwood
slid the knife back in his boot and picked the ingot up. It wasn't very big,
about half the size of a tinder box, but it was heavy nonetheless. Impressed
into the dull metal were some numbers and a round stamp bearing the words
Rothschild Sons.

From
the size of him, Hawkwood guessed there were pockets in the back of Morgan's
waistcoat, too, and there was a suspicious bulge across his lower back. Lasseur
used his sword point to lift the back of the blue tunic. A bustle-like garment
was tied around Morgan's waist.

"You
might want to check inside his breeches, an' all," Jago said. "They
used to carry thigh pieces, back in the old days."

"We
get the picture," Hawkwood said. "Check Pepper."

Lasseur
did so.

"The
same," he announced, realizing that the weight had contributed to Pepper's
sluggishness and inability to repel his attack.

"The
old tea waistcoats used to hold about thirty pounds weight," Jago said.

"Judas
got silver. You got gold," Hawkwood said. "You go to all that trouble
and all you end up with is a bloody waist coat.
Hardly worth
the effort."

"What
do you want to do with him?" Lasseur asked. "I give him to you.
My gift."

"Let
him have the gold," Hawkwood said.

"What?"
Lasseur's jaw dropped.

Hawkwood
shrugged. "Let him take his chances."

"You
ain't bloody serious?" Jago said. "After all you said?"

Morgan's
head came up. "You're not arresting me?"

"Arrest
you?" Hawkwood laughed. "You've a bloody high opinion of yourself.
No, I've a mind to let you keep your waistcoat. I don't think the army will miss
thirty pounds of gold, do you? Far as I'm concerned, you make it to the
coast,
you damn well deserve to keep it. There's only one
condition ..."