The Pirate Captain (34 page)

“Won’t they figure out that was just a bunch of barrels?” she asked of Hodder, watching the
Valor
follow what must have looked like the
Morganse
’s stern lights.

Hodder smiled faintly, his multitude of ivory rings glinting in the starlight. “Oh, aye. Even if ’tis but an hour, ’twill be too late.”

He directed her attention to the topsails and jibs, now charcoaled to obscurity. On the moonless night, the black ship would be nothing more than a dark blot on the water’s oily satin.

Cate stood amidships. Venus, a diamond low in the sky, was soon blotted out by the jagged edge of land looming near. Uneasiness prickled between her shoulder blades as the islands, the ones they had paralleled all day, came closer. Obviously, Nathan had something in mind, but it was still a worry.

The watch bells were reduced to no more than the rap of Hodder’s knuckles on the binnacle. The lead lines were flung, the depths passed aft to the afterdeck by word of mouth. Men stood at the ready at the tacks and braces, should a change be necessary in a moment’s notice. A complex system of flashes and waves of watch lamps were employed to direct the helm as the ship tiptoed her way through.

The black spine of land before them eventually split, a passage between two islands showing itself. The land on both sides closed in as they slipped through, the air becoming heavy with the smell of damp earth and rotting vegetation. The breeze brought the howls and cries of night creatures. A hunch-shouldered blur swept overhead; Artemis, taking her leave. The land eventually fell away and the smell of jungle gave way to salt air. The lead lines were stowed as the
Morganse
came hard about and flashed out her sails, their ivory glowing in the starlight.

Cate might not have been much of a seaman, but she had sense of direction enough to know that they had made a U-turn and were now backtracking. The
Morganse
was heading north, judging by Polaris over the forestays, while the
Valor
was assumed to be still on her southerly heading, the string of islands now between the two vessels.

Time. It wasn’t always one’s friend. Late into the night, Cate laid across the bunk. She didn’t bother to undress, for sleep was an unlikely prospect. An ever-so-slight disturbance in the ship’s easy motion brought her up from her bed. On deck, she was met with the sight of sentinels of rock on either side. Jagged with palm trees, they towered over the masts. She glanced up to see Artemis roosted on a foreyard.

“Barely a biscuit toss,” murmured Mr. Pickford in awed admiration as land slid past. “The Cap’n knows his waters.”

“Calypso’s hand is in this,” said Ogden over his shoulder. The snake tattooed on his head glared down as he canted it toward the bow. “There she is now, a-leadin’ us.”

Cate looked forward. Indeed, there was a flash of silver, but it appeared more like a cavorting sea hog.

There was another hesitation in the
Morganse
’s motion, as her keel brushed the sandy bottom. A bit later, there was a vibration, felt only through a hand on the rail, as she skimmed a reef. Then she shot out into open waters.

“The wind holds,” Nathan declared, lifting his face. “Master Pryce, let’s fly all she will bear.”

“Now what?” Cate asked, feeling quite bleary-eyed. Impending dawn was a lavender blush at the line where water and sky met. She had no idea when Nathan had last slept, but his spirits and voice were buoyant.

“The good Captain Prichard awakes to his Officer of the Watch bidding him joy of the morning and informing of a ship larboard astern. There will be no doubts as to the who,” he said with a smug glance toward the red-crowned sails overhead.

“After a certain amount of arguing over coffee as to how we managed to achieve such a commanding advantage, he’ll commence to maneuvering for the weather gauge—to windward, to put us in his lee,” he explained to her confused scowl. “Toward those islands over there,” he added with significance.

Islands had a staggering tendency to all look the same, but those to windward were easily recognized, for they were the same strand she had stared at all day. In the pre-dawn, when the world became one-dimensional, only the gleam of white sand defined their shape. The
Morganse
was where she had been earlier that day, except the
Valor
was now ahead of them.

The mouse had just become the cat.

Nathan rocked on his heels in expectation of her next query. “And then?” she finally asked.

The first rays of the sun broke on his face as he waggled his brows. “All good things come to he what waits.”

The
Morganse
flattened and ran like a horse with the bit in its teeth. The song of canvas and rigging was lost in the rush of the water down her sides, her cutwater slicing the deep blue. Her decks took a severe pitch once more. Readings from the log lines were called out from the leeward chains. Ten. Ten and two fathoms. Eleven. Eleven and four. Twelve and three.

Nathan laid aloft on a topgallant yard and there remained. To Cate’s mind, there was a grand difference between chase and being chased. Nathan’s half-smile and gleeful spark suggested he took a greater joy in the latter, outwitting his enemy as opposed to besting. Some hours later, he slid down a backstay, landing as a fairy might on a toadstool, and said “Sail ho!” with a beaming flash of gold and ivory.

Cate felt pity—only a modicum, but pity nonetheless—for the faceless, hapless Prichard. The
Valor
had to be suffering a certain amount of confusion, if not outright concern, as to how she had kept pace with the
Morganse
earlier, but now was being so handily outpaced. Eventually the
Morganse
was obliged to spill her sails, ever so slightly so that never a shiver nor flogging sail was seen, sure signs of a ship deliberately slowing. Cate was put to mind of that cat having now caught the mouse desired to play with it.

Nathan was in the mizzentop. His attention fixed well ahead of the
Valor
, he called directions down to the helm. The
Morganse
pressed the vessel like a shepherd dog goading an unwitting sheep, the
Valor
slipping further and further to windward, in order to gain the favored position.

By then, the
Valor
was near enough that the faces of her people could be seen as they scrambled, her port lids opening. The
Morganse
was astir, too: her boarding party making ready, dispensing weapons, affixing strips of red cloth around heads or arms to mark them as Morgansers, and preparing the boats—which had been stowed aboard at the first sighting of the frigate—to be roused over the side the instant word was given.

Nathan shot down a backstay. “Bow-chasers, if you please, Mr. MacQuarrie. Let’s kick ’er in the ass and see if she might be encouraged a little faster.”

Nathan stood with his eyes fixed on the chase with a half-smile of anticipation. Something was about to happen, and soon. Cate had no sooner stepped up next to him than she saw the
Valor
stop with a suddenness that sent her wake roiling up her sides nearly to her bow. The breeze brought the grind and howl of wood against a hard surface, and then the crackle of shattered rigging. Her topmasts came down on the heads of her people, draping her bow in canvas. One is never aware of the constant motion of a ship, until one is seen entirely motionless. An unnatural and eerie sight it was. The
Valor
was hard aground, up by the bow, her deck slightly angled toward the
Morganse
.

In the midst of the hands’ rollicking cheer, Nathan was already down the steps and at the waist, shouting orders along the way.

From behind, Cate heard Pryce make a caustic noise. “Ain’t no chart on the earth what shows that shallows, I kin warrant ye that.”

The
Morganse
luffed up near enough for an easy pull across to her prey. The
Valor
had no topsail to douse, but a white flag—more like a tablecloth—showed at the aft cabin.

“Away all boats,” called Nathan. A resulting splash could be heard from all four corners.

The deck was a mob of men, wild-eyed for battle, surging for the rail. Cate gaped in horror at seeing Nathan tuck a pair of extra pistols into his belt and a wicked-looking knife in his boot. He meant to go with the boarding party!

“You’re the captain. You don’t need—” she pleaded, grabbing him by the arm.

“Aye, but I do.” And he was gone.

In the melee of men pouring over the side and down the nets, Cate didn’t see which boat Nathan was in. As they rowed toward the
Valor
, She strained to find him in the scores of heads. And then, she saw him,
the bastard!
He stood like a damned figurehead at the bow of the lead boat, urging his men on.

The boats drew up at the
Valor
’s side and were nearly hooked on, when the
Valor
’s muskets opened fire on the unsuspecting pirates. It was a gross violation of a white flag. At the same time, the
Valor
muskets opened fire the
Morganse
. Someone knocked Cate to the deck and flung himself over her as musket balls and wood splinters shot past.

After the first barrage, the Morgansers raised their heads to glare over the rail. A roar of protests and obscenities dissolved into the furor of response. MacQuarrie and his gun crews stood in red-faced fury. They didn’t dare employ his great guns, not with their mates in the line of fire. They were handcuffed and livid for it. Muskets, already to hand from arming the boarding party, were snatched up, the sharpshooters scurrying aloft.

Cate wound up half-crouched behind the bulwark, wedged between Squidge and
Widower
, as etched near her shoulder on the carriage. Squidge paused in his firing to toss her a cartridge box and kicked a musket to her, for her to begin reloading. She fell quickly into the rhythm of tearing the cartridge’s paper with her teeth, pouring the contents down the hot barrel, ramming, priming and cocking. Squidge held out the empty weapon, ready to grab the next, grumbling, “Bear a hand! Bear a hand!” when she fumbled. With the steady resupply of cartridges and powder delivered, the barrels soon became so hot, she had to use her apron.

There were none of the rolling gun barrages. This was a battle of marksmen, meticulous picking off, a cry of victory going up at seeing a target fall. The air grew thick and acrid with smoke. Balls whirred overhead like a swarm of enraged bees. Spent balls bounced and rolled about the deck. Amid the continuous splat and crack of lead hitting wood, Cate felt splinters brush her body and tug at her clothing.

Underneath the gunfire, she could hear the clash of hand-to-hand fighting on the
Valor
. Through the disembodied voices bouncing between ships and the cries of the wounded, she strained to hear the one in particular: Nathan’s. She felt herself slip back into another time, during the Uprising. It had been Brian she had worried for then. The anguish, smoke, sweat, and blood, however, were all the same.

“Hold fire!” It was Hodder, from somewhere further amidships.

And then, it was quiet, eerily so. A cheer went up at seeing that the Valors had surrendered, their raised hands visible as Cate stood.

The breeze stirred and the deck cleared. The smoke still hung in grey whorls in protected nooks. The jubilation of victory was brief. The Morgansers set immediately to seeing about their ship and mates. Cate set to seeking the injured and tending the worst. Only a few had been hit, most just grazed. Mute Maori had dug a ball out of the flesh of his massive leg with his rigging knife, before she could reach him. Scripps bemoaned the disfigurement of one of his precious tattoos. Several of his fellow topsmen had already offered good-natured suggestions as to how the scar might be incorporated in a new one.

Overall, the mood was relaxed victory. A job done and done well.

Sombers glared at the
Valor
as Cate wrapped his arm. “Praise God that goddamned hulk was straked. The sodding bastard woulda opened his guns else.”

Cate glanced toward the
Valor
. Running up on the reef had left the ship leaning at least a strake, nearer to two. The gun ports allowed only a few degrees of variation in their elevation, which meant, if the
Valor
had fired, the result would have only been a great deal of dead fish.

“The spineless fucker was willing to kill himself and take every jack with him, all for the glory of King and Country,” came Hodder’s voice from somewhere behind her.

“Or endear ’imself,” put in Pryce grimly. His waistlong pigtail was queued up at the back of his head for battle. “Aye, a-coming back dead could be a damn sight better ’n comin’ back empty handed, where the Commodore is concerned.”

Cate worked to treat the wounded, but her mind was with Nathan. She snatched glimpses over the rail toward the
Valor
, but saw nothing of what was happening over there. She cursed herself for over-reacting. She had sent Brian off to battle with far more aplomb, and he had always come back unscathed…for the most part.

At length, she paused in her labors at seeing the
Valor
’s boats being loaded. Piles of plundered clothing, she judged, including flashes of the unmistakable Marine red. Once loaded to the point of near swamping, instead of being brought across, each boat was cast adrift, a torch tossed atop when the wind caught. They trailed away like a column of Viking funerals, their progress marked by curls of smoke.

Another lick of flame appeared, the
Valor
’s Union Jack and commodore’s banner set afire. The Morgansers jeered and hooted, baring their arses over the rail. The blazing fabric dropped from the
Valor
’s poop deck and floated down, a small hiss marking the flames’ death in the water.

Still no sign of Nathan.

Cate snatched a glass from the binnacle and focused on the
Valor
’s decks. Its downward angle allowed her a full view. It took her a moment to realize what she was seeing: an entire frigate of men all naked as Adam. Standing so closely packed together, their white bodies looked like maggots wriggling in the sun. She thought she should look away, but their eloquence in indignation was too delicious. Some were almost purple with outrage; they had to be the officers.