The Voyage of the Sea Wolf (13 page)

“ Mr. Forrthinggale! William!” she called. “Get ye over here and give me a take on this.”

It was to William that she first handed the spyglass.

“She is showing no colors,” William said. “ 'Tis mornin'
but there is no sign of life about her.”

“Aye.” She took the glass from William and gave it to the quartermaster. “What think ye, Mr. Forthinggale?”

He peered at the
Isabella
.

Around me I heard the mutterings of the crew and felt their apprehension. They had come this far and the riches of the
Isabella
were within their grasps. What did this strange first sighting signify?

“Has another ship come here afore us an' ransacked her?” someone asked. “Has another took her treasure?”

There was no answer from the captain or Mr. Forthinggale. They and William took turns with the spyglass as the distance between the two ships closed.

Beside me, a pirate with a ragged scar on his face fingered it and asked in a low voice, “Why does she consult the boy?”

“Because he be's hers, ye fool,” someone answered.

His words were arrows, piercing me.

“Sebastian!” the captain called and Sebastian pushed beside her. “What do ye make o' this?”

He shook his head and did not take the spyglass she made to hand him. “I have no wish to look, Cap'n. May I speak with ye alone?”

Captain Moriarity gave a resigned sigh and moved away from the rest of the men.

Sebastian spoke to her earnestly but I saw her scowl. Her mind was set. I knew we would attack.

Sebastian spoke one more time with a raised and imploring voice: “We should turn around.”

The captain whacked her cutlass against her leg. “Never,” she said.

Those of the men, close enough to hear, gave a cheer.

“Go back like mangy dogs, wi' our tails a'tween our legs? There'll be none o' that.” It was Claw doing the shouting.

“We be's afraid o' nothin',” Puce yelled. “Not wi' ye as our cap'n.”

“We'll be ready to engage soon as ye give the order.”

Captain Moriarity lifted one fist in the air. “ 'Tis settled then. We will go after her.”

The pirate flag at the masthead had been hauled down and the English one raised. “ 'Twill do no harm to look respectable,” the captain said with a sly grin, leaning back to inspect it as it fluttered innocently against the sky. I saw her stiffen as she saw again the small black cloud that still hung motionless above us. “ 'Tis but a rain cloud,” she muttered and Sebastian said, “Nothin' that easily explained, Cap'n.”

Now we could see the
Isabella
clearly. New wood on her hull showed that she had been repaired but there was still caulking to be done and a gap to be attended to. She was a galleon with a long beak and a low forecastle. She had two decks and a square tuck stern. The name
Isabella
was written on her in gold. Boards and carpenter tools and barrels of what might be tar lay in the sand around her.

“She looks like she was disturbed as she was attending to her repairs,” Mr. Forthinggale commented.

“Aye.”

The ship lay on her side on the sand of the small cove
that was thick with trees and jungle undergrowth. Weak waves lapped around her hull.

“She's short on gunports,” William said.

The captain grunted. “Guns take up cargo space. Those holds o' hers be's fat with gold and jewels just a'waitin' for us.”

We were within hailing distance now.

“Ahoy the
Isabella
,” the captain yelled through the bullhorn.

There was no answering hail.

“She be's a dead ship,” someone said, and though it was a whisper it came clearly.

“Not dead, just sickly,” another opined. “Weak and ready to be pillaged.”

I did not consider myself superstitious. I thought I believed in luck but deemed it likely that it was a matter of knowing what you wanted and pursuing it no matter the obstacles. People said you were lucky. I thought plucky was perhaps a better word. But there had been such a lot of forebodings about this venture that it was difficult not to feel some trepidation. The black rat, the witch, the horseshoe, the Bonne Chance sign and now the isolated black cloud. Were they indeed warnings?

“Ahoy the
Isabella
,” the captain called again. “We sail under the protection and power of the English crown.”

It seemed our ship held its breath.

Again there was no response.

“Gunner! Send a shot across her, a friendly greetin' more'n a threat. We will see if that gets us an acknowledgment.”

The quiet on the
Sea Wolf
was shattered by the loud boom of her cannon and the roar of the cannonball as it streaked through the air above the masts of the
Isabella
. Smoke rose in a trail that faded into the sky.

There was only silence from the galleon.

“Something is amiss,” the captain said. “She has the look of an abandoned ship with no soul alive on her. But it could be a trap set for anyone that comes near. We have to play this wisely.”

The men waited expectantly.

“Listen men!” she said. “We cannot get closer. We need more depth below our keel and we'd be grounded afore we got to her. 'Twould be a mistake to pound her from here. We want no damage to what we've come for.” She paused, staring at the small beach, at the dense brush that grew thick around it, at the jutting cliffs, dark forbidding claws reaching out to the sea. “I have been informed, through me own sources, that on board that ship are religious artifacts, goblets of gold, crucifixes heavy with jewels, a Prie Dieu ornamented with better 'n a hundred gems.”

I could hear the intake of breath from the men. This was even more than they had hoped for.

“We will sail beyond that point where we will not be sighted and we will wait for dark. Then we will launch the longboats and come upon her secretly, armed and ready. 'Tis better to go cautiously into the unknown.”

“ 'Tis a good plan,” Mr. Forthinggale said, though the captain had not asked for his opinion. “We'll be on her deck afore she knows what's happenin'.”

The men swarmed around Captain Moriarity, laughing and whooping.

After a minute she asked, “Sebastian, what will the weather be tonight?”

Sebastian fixed her with a steady gaze and for a heartbeat I thought he was going to refuse to answer. Or was he about to warn her again? But he only said, “I checked me string already. There will be a half moon but heavy clouds. If'n ye go through wi' this ye'll see little, but ye'll be little seen yerself.”

The captain nodded.

“Navigator, set sail for yonder point. If we're bein' watched they'll be satisfied we sailed on and away. We will lie at ease till night comes.”

There was a sudden yelp from somewhere in the crowd of men.

“Snake's britches!” Magruder shouted. “I just seen a rat, a black 'un, big as a cat. She was lookin' through the railings there like she was a person. Then she run down that hatch below decks.”

“Ah, 'twas likely Catman's cat ye did see,” Frenchy called. “Ye been lightheaded ever since the wench bit ye on the snout.”

The captain looked quickly at Sebastian and away.

We were under sail heading for the point.

The captain and Mr. Forthinggale and the bosun, and those of us not engaged, watched the
Isabella
till we rounded the jutting cliff.

Nothing about her changed. Birds, brightly colored, swooped and skimmed across her. Looking through the spyglass the captain reported an iguana asleep in a corner of the deck.

“By heaven, the vessel looks deserted,” she muttered. “'Twill be a sorrowful happening if she be's plundered already.”

“Would there not be bodies? Dead men on the beach?”
Mr. Forthinggale asked.

“Perhaps. Unless they took time for the burials.” The captain's brow was furrowed. “We could launch the boats and go straight for her now. But what if it is a ruse? Better we wait for dark.”

“Aye,” Mr. Forthinggale agreed.

The arms chest was unlocked again and weapons were distributed. Pistols and powder, two guns for every man. Ronan himself took possession of the grenades but the captain warned him. “We do not want to damage the booty aboard. Do not throw yer grenades less'n I give the order.”

“Aye, aye, Cap'n.”

Knives and cutlasses were sharpened.

The cook promised salmagundi and dried beef tongue to celebrate when all was finished but for now there was only hardtack to sustain us for whatever was to transpire. No one expected a strike from the
Isabella
, a ship so clearly incapacitated, but all safeguards aboard the
Sea Wolf
were checked and fortified.

Sebastian and I worked on the sail, so badly torn in the battle with the
Reprisal
. For once, he did not talk. But one time he muttered, as if to himself, “I fear this plan will end in the spillage of much blood,” and he added, “but you and I will continue to stitch. We will need this
topsail when what's left o' us voyage back to port.”

Back to port, I thought as I stitched and watched the crew employ themselves and wait for dark. Will back to port be a new start for William and me? Will she let him go?

Night came. The half moon that Sebastian's string had predicted moved in and out of a sky filled with ominous gray clouds that hung like a pall over the sea. Among them I thought I could detect the darker darkness, lying in wait above our ship. But the captain was surely right. It had blown itself in from some place that had a storm.

Forty men were chosen to go.

One by one they touched the horseshoe on the main mast. Do they know that the luck was spilled out of it last night, I wondered? I thought not. Sebastian had righted it before it was remarked upon. The Bonne Chance board had been rehung so it was their belief that good fortune still sailed with them.

They spat in the ocean, spat in the eye of Davy Jones. “We's not goin' to ye yet, ye son of a black toad.”

They tossed coins in the water as a tribute to Neptune.

O'Neill whistled and was shouted at. “Judas Ghost! Do ye want to bring misfortune down on us afore we gets our hands on the gold?”

There was edginess, expectation and shakiness in the
hands and voices of the men picked to go. But there was a cockiness, too. They were the ones deemed worthy by their captain.

The three longboats were lowered.

The men were armed and ready.

The captain was first to climb down the rope ladder, her two pistols hanging one at either end of her silk scarf, ready for her hands to reach. Silently she motioned for the others to join her. She had tied a dark kerchief about her head to hide the brightness of her hair that glowed even in the half dark. In the bow of the lead boat, she was a figurehead, a goddess, queen of the pirates. Sebastian was beside her. She had wanted him with her, and whatever his misgivings he had gone. She was his captain, and I suspected, the one person in the world he loved.

The others followed.

I breathed easier. At least William was not among them. Perhaps the captain had been unwilling to risk his life. Or perhaps she considered him inexperienced when every man in the boats was essential to the mission.

But then, I saw her beckon to William who stood by the railing. He was to be part of this after all. He moved. But before he could push his way to the ladder I rushed toward him.

“Don't go!” I clung to him, putting all the conviction I
was capable of into my voice. “There will be death. Sebastian says. Do not let her take you.”

Hands pulled me away from him, rough hands that tore at my shirt and shoulders.

“Yez holdin' them up down below,” someone grunted.

“Have ye no shame, ye hussy?”

“Let go of me.” I squirmed and bit and clawed.

Then William's arms were around me and he whispered, “I have to do what she asks. It is for us. Do not fret, me love. I will stay safe.”

From the lead boat came the hoarse whisper, “Time's a'wastin'. Get ye down here, William. Yer place is wi' me. Stand back girl or I'll order ye locked away.”

Against my hair William whispered. “Ye are me heart.”

My hands reached out to hold him back, but he was gone.

“Ye are me heart.” How had I ever doubted his love? But now he was going into danger. To myself I repeated the captain's prayer. “Keep him safe.”

I watched him climb into the second boat.

He did not glance up.

The sea was calm. The boats drifted gently, jerking a little on their ropes, as anxious to go as the pirates they carried.

On soundless oars they pulled away.

The rest of the crew that were still aboard the
Sea Wolf
hung over the railing till the boats were out of sight. All was silence and darkness except when the moon came out of the clouds to shiver on the sea.

Some of the men padded quietly along the deck. There was a half-hidden anxiety, a straining to know what was happening, a frustration at not being able to see around the point, to set eyes on the prize and their comrades.

The quartermaster, who had been left on board in charge of the
Sea Wolf
, was stopped as he walked the deck, stopped by murmured questions that he could not answer.

Each time I saw a shadow race along the deck I thought it was the black rat and I skittered away from it. It never was. Once my foot touched an old canvas shoe abandoned in a corner and I stifled a scream. A shoe was not a rat. There was no doubt in my mind that there was a rat down there, lurking below decks and that it might come up. But whether or not it was a witch or an omen of death I did not know.

I smelled salmagundi cooking and the smell of it, usually delicious, roiled my stomach. I tried to take comfort in the knowledge that Cook was already making it in preparation for the celebration. It seemed like a good omen in a ship of omens. Over and over again I thought on William's last words to me. Not a share of a ship or the
needs of its indomitable captain could persuade him. In spite of the danger the remembrance of his words made my blood sing. He would come back to me. I allowed myself to dream.