The Buccaneers (17 page)

Down the length of the gun, across the yards of water, I saw the buccaneers hauling at their cannon, a line of men pulling on a rope. I pulled the lanyard. The flintlock hammered down, its little spark turning all I saw to flames. The tackles sizzled past my feet as the gun recoiled. When the smoke cleared, the buccaneers had scattered.

A cheer went up from our crew. Butterfield said, “Now
that's
good shooting.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Abbey, with a funny tilting of his head. “I've got us sighted in now, all right.”

Horn sneered. He sponged the barrel, and the steam swirled round him. A gun went off beside me, another an instant later, and although the shots were wildly off the mark, they kept the buccaneers at bay. The long gun sat abandoned on the
Apostle's
deck, but on the brig a dozen men tramped around the capstan, and the gap between the ships grew wider.

Horn rammed the ball down the barrel. “Give them the same again,” he said.

I sighted down the gun, the lanyard in my hand. For a moment it dizzied me, the barrel seeming fixed in place as the ships and sky and trees soared across it. The aiming knob settled on the
Apostle
‘
s
deck, on a group of men going boldly to their gun. But I didn't pull the lanyard.

“Shoot,” said Horn.

“I can't,” I said.

“Don't think of what you're aiming at,” said Horn. “They won't give a damn when it's you they see at the end of
their
long gun.”

“But it's Dasher,” I said.

Directly in my sights, as though he stood atop the knob, was Dashing Tommy Dusker. Like a bright red shield, he'd been brought before the gun, flanked by a pair of buccaneers. It was a twisted little shield he made, hunched down to be as small as he could, but he seemed enormous to me.

“Shoot!” cried Horn.

T
he
Dragon
rolled in the swell. The muzzle lifted, zooming up the
Apostle
‘
s
masts. Then slowly it steadied and started to fall, and Dasher's red coat slashed across the aiming knob. When I pulled the lanyard, there was nothing but water in front of my gun. And the ball fell so pathetically short that a hoot of disdain swelled up from the harbor.

It was a terrible waste of a shot. Horn belittled me with a grim look of anger. “There'll be a price to pay for that,” he said.

I glared back at him. “Dasher saved my life.”

“For what?” asked Horn. “Do you think he'd stand there now and want you
not
to shoot?”

“Yes,” I cried. He would be a frightened, trembling shield, never believing that I could aim a cannon toward him.

Horn rolled his eyes. “I'm on a ship of fools,” he said. “We'll never stop that long gun now.”

He was right, but not entirely through my doing. At that moment the brig came free from the
Apostle.
For an instant the two ships leaned together mast to mast. Then they
straightened as the brig's long yards untangled from the schooner's shrouds. Within a minute the warping lines were cut, the anchor cable severed. Her courses and topsails were sheeted home and—carried by the tide and wind—the brig came sailing from the harbor.

A mass of men scrambled from her deck. They leapt across the growing gap to the
Apostle's
rails or took to the boats she had in tow. But they fled from the brig in a tumbling rush. Then only the dead man was left, his arms nailed in place to keep the ship on her course.

Up from the hold came a thin thread of smoke. It twisted through the rigging, swirled around the masts, and rising to the belly of the courses, puffed like little breaths from the edges of the sails.

“They've fired her,” said Horn, his back toward me as all of us watched that ship sailing on under a dead man's hand. He whirled round from the rail. “Aim high!” he shouted. “Aim for the masts.”

At each of our guns the wedges came out. The barrels lifted like animal snouts, muzzles gaping toward the topsails, which towered higher above us at every moment. Beyond them, deeper in the harbor, the
Apostle
was raising sail.

Abbey came down his line of four little guns, sighting each in turn, giving words of encouragement—not to the men but to the cannons themselves. “Hit her in the sticks,” he said. “Shoot straight, you little murderers.”

We had time for only one broadside, and we fired the guns as they bore. The sound made a single, ragged clap, the smoke one great, thick cloud. The brig was so close, so big, that it seemed we couldn't possibly miss.

But we did. Two of the balls soared over the ship and one
splashed close beside her. The fourth drilled through the topsail but hit nothing but canvas, and the brig came sailing down toward us, wrapped in a thickening smoke. We heard the crackle of the flames, the little bangs of burning timber. We smelled the powder and the wood, the paint and tar. The deck split open down the middle, and the flames—amid a crimson hail of embers—leapt from the holds in a hot and maddened rush.

“Cut the anchors!” shouted Butterfield. “Fore and aft. Abbey, cut them loose.” He gazed at the brig, his head tilting higher and higher. Through the hole in her topsail, the smoke blew out in puffs. “Raise the jib,” he shouted. “John, you take the helm.”

Our small crew scattered throughout the ship. Only Horn was left at the guns, and I saw him bending to his sponge, his broad back taut with muscles. The smoke from the burning brig welled across us, and he vanished in the black and putrid mist.

I ran up to the wheel. I felt the bow swing round as the first anchor was cut away. Then the stern fell free, and the
Dragon
drifted in the currents. She seemed lifeless in my hands.

The brig came swiftly on, so hidden by the smoke that only her mastheads thrust above it. Her courses caught on fire with bursts of yellow flames. Ash and embers rained upon us.

At last I felt the
Dragon
tremble. The jib, filling with wind, gave her life and movement. She slid ahead, and I turned the wheel to meet her.

The brig sailed on, ablaze from end to end. I saw the
helmsman at the wheel, his ragged clothes rippling in the tremendous rush of heat. His head, sunk on his chest, lifted for a moment, and the flames caught his clothing, and the smoke welled up to hide him.

The masts, like giants’ candles, burned along their lengths. The main yard tilted, broke, and tumbled to the deck. The fire roared with a deafening thunder like a thousand miles of surf rumbling every instant, a thousand rattling carriages on a thousand wooden roads, and all the crowds of London shouting all at once.

The
Dragon
quickened as her foresail filled. She heeled to the hot blasts of wind that came from the brig, driven by the fire itself. I felt the tremble in her rudder and her masts and it seemed to me that she was frightened.

The brig barely missed us. She passed down our port side, so close that I could have leapt and caught her bowsprit. I cringed from heat, from the sound of the fire. My head down, my eyes nearly blinded by smoke, I didn't know who shouted at me; maybe no one did. In all the din and rumble of the fire, the voice that screamed, “Look aloft!” might have come only from my thoughts. But I looked up, and saw the main yard, a flaming sword, slashing for our backstays. I spun the wheel hard and turned us to starboard. The
Dragon
tilted heavily. The brig's long yard scraped across our shrouds and stays.

The yardarm snapped off, hanging by a smoldering brace. Then the fire was behind us, and we sailed from the smoke into sunshine. And directly ahead was the
Apostle.

She was nearly free from the harbor, bearing down on
the wind with her topsail bulging, her boats in tow behind her. On the yard rode her men, brandishing cutlasses that shone in the sun. At her wheel stood Bartholomew Grace. And up in the bow was that long gun, its barrel pointed straight toward us.

In the
Dragons
waist, Horn worked alone at the little four-pounder. From sponge to powder, to ball and ram, he went silently through his labors as others raised the topsail.

The
Apostle's
black hull plunged through the tide rips on the shallow bar. White water leapt at her bow, and high on her yards rode the buccaneers, with tiny glints of gold in their earrings. Above them, the crimson flag stiffened and curled and stiffened again. Below them, the gunners hauled their long gun up to the rail.

Horn threw down his ram and took up the tail of his tackles. He wrapped the rope around his shoulders and, leaning to it, dragged the little cannon forward.

A howl came from the
Apostle
, a cry from the men on her yards. In the steady roar from the burning brig, it was a faint and distant-sounding cry, as though from a pack of dogs running on a moor.

Our topsail filled, the canvas falling, snapping open. It urged the
Dragon
on, and every instinct told me to turn the wheel and put our stern toward that big, black schooner. But Horn, with the smallest gesture, told me to keep her on her course. He lowered his head, and pulled again at the tackles.

When the sails were set, the crew turned from sheets and braces to man the cannons instead. A sailor came aft to take the wheel. “The captain wants you at the guns,” he told me.

I ran to the waist. Horn let go of his tackle and stooped to
sight the cannon. But Abbey shouldered him aside. “They're mine,” he shouted. “You don't know my guns.”

Horn stared down at him. His hands, in fists, were as big as sledgehammers. “I was a gunner's mate,” he said.

Abbey didn't look up from the sights. “Tell us, Spinner.”

“Damn you,” said Horn. His voice was low but touched with rage. “For three years I was gunner's mate for that devil, that Bartholomew Grace. Now stand away from that gun, you bloody little fool.”

Abbey straightened. It seemed that he meant to give up his place, to surrender his beloved gun. But I saw his hand reach for the lanyard. And I threw myself at him. We fell against the rail as Horn stepped in behind the barrel.

“Hurry,” I said.

Horn smiled faintly. “There's no hurrying this, Mr. Spencer.”

The
Dragon
trembled at the height of a roll; then the deck fell away and the water rushed up to meet us. One hand behind his back, one on the lanyard, Horn sighted down the gun.

Over his shoulder I saw the
Apostle.
Barely a hundred yards away, her bow rose from the swell, pushing foam at either side like rows of gleaming teeth. A puff of smoke burst from the long gun and, on the instant, Horn pulled his lanyard.

The muzzle was right beside me. I was deafened by the noise, blinded by the flames and smoke. I felt the shock of the gun as it crashed back against the tackles. Suddenly there was blood on my arms, and a man was screaming.

“Chain shot,” said Horn. “They fired chain at us.”

In a moment, our crew had been reduced by two. Our
helmsman fell to the deck, and the
Dragon
veered from her course. At the same instant, little Roland Abbey slumped against me with blood spurting from his neck. I staggered back and let him roll past me; I eased him down.

“Did we hit them?” he asked.

Horn was already sponging the barrel. The smoke cleared away, and I saw a great chunk torn from the
Apostle's
rail, the long gun tipped on its end. The black schooner was turning away.

“Yes,” I said. “We hit them for six.”

Butterfield knelt beside us. He pressed his hand on Abbey's neck, but the blood flowed up through his fingers.

“Green,” said Abbey.

“Hush.” I tightened his jacket, for he was starting to shiver. He had taken the shot that was meant to be mine; I had held him there like an offering for the buccaneers’ gun. Yet now he smiled at me, his good eye glazing over.

“Green,” he said again. “It's the Fiddler's Green. I can see it now.” He shuddered and, still smiling, he was gone.

Butterfield, his fingers wet with Abbey's blood, slid the gunner's eyelids closed. “John,” he said. “You'll have to take the wheel.”

I turned away, but Horn called after me. “Mr. Spencer. Keep them off our larboard side. Whatever they do, keep our guns toward them.”

I
had to stand astride the fallen helmsman to take my place at the wheel. His cheek was pressed against the deck, and I was thankful not to see his face. But the way the sun touched his hair—the way his hands lay side by side—filled me with a great pity for the man—and for all of us, but myself most of all.

We had four little cannons, all on one side, and not enough men to work them. The
Apostle
could sail circles round us. With a single broadside she could tear down our masts and leave us a hulk. What would happen then?

I saw myself nailed to the wheel, my corpse steering a dead ship across the ocean as the worms ate it away, month by month. Then I heard, from the waist, the words of our song. It was Horn who started it, but the others joined in, and Butterfield too. In the stirring words to the old “Heart of Oak,” I felt my pity vanish. I shook myself and gripped the wheel in my fists.

The
Apostle
was swinging toward us, her boats sledding out on their tow lines. I touched the wheel, and the ships began to circle.

I could see Grace at the helm, the bright dot of his
feather. I tried to put myself there, to make his thoughts my own. If I were in his place, I would spare my powder and my shot and herd the
Dragon
toward the reefs, where the sea might do my killing for me. I watched his topsail and saw it shiver, and hoped I'd guessed him right.

I glanced toward the burning brig, then spun the wheel, round and round until the rudder met the stops. The
Dragon
swung her bowsprit across the island, across the surf and the open sea. Her deck at a slant, her sails full, she spun in place like a top.

It caught Grace by surprise. We were like a little dog he was trying to chase toward a corner, suddenly turning to race between his legs. Our guns came to bear for only an instant, but Horn found his mark.