melted back into the rain to avoid the barrage from the ship. By the
time their longboat was hoisted up over the side and lashed midships,
Morris had retreated to safety with his men.
While Mewes ordered the remaining anchor cable slipped and the mainsail
dropped, Katherine ushered Serina through the companionway to the Great
Cabin, followed by seamen carrying Atiba. Then the mast groaned against
the wind, a seaman on the quarterdeck unlashed the helm, and in moments
they had begun to pull away.
"That was easy." Mewes spat in the general direction of the scuppers,
then hoisted up his belt as he watched the rainswept shore begin to
recede.
"Could be Morris is just saving us for the frigates." Winston was
studying the bobbing mast lights off their portside bow. "He probably
figures they heard the gunfire and will realize something's afoot."
"They've got their share of ordnance, that much I'll warrant. There's
at least one two-decker still on station out there, the _Gloucester_. I
sailed on her once, back when I first got impressed by the damn'd navy,
twenty-odd years back. She's seen her years at sea, but she's got
plenty of cannon between decks for all that."
"I think you'd better have the portside guns primed and ready to run
out, just in case. But I figure once we get past the Point, we'll be
clear. After that we can steer north and ride this coastal westerly
right up to Speightstown, maybe heave-to there till the storm eases."
He turned and headed down the deck. "I'm going aft to take the
whipstaff. Get the yardmen aloft and damn the weather. I want the
maintop and all braces manned."
"Aye, you never know." Mewes yelled the gunnery orders through the open
hatch, then marched down the deck giving assignments.
Katherine was standing at the head of the companionway leading to the
Great Cabin as Winston passed on his way to the quarterdeck. "I've put
the African in your cabin, along with the mulatto woman." She caught
his arm as he headed up the steps. "She's delirious. And I think he's
all but dead. He's got a bad musket wound in his shoulder."
"Even if he dies now, it'll be better than what Briggs and the planters
had planned." He looked at her face and pushed aside a sudden desire to
take her into his arms, just to know she was his at last. "But see if
you can clean his wound with brandy. I'd hate to lose him now after all
the trouble we went to bringing him aboard."
"Why did you do it, Hugh? After all, he tried to kill you once, on this
very deck. I was here, remember."
"Who understands why we do anything? Maybe I like his brass. Maybe I
don't even know the reason anymore."
He turned and headed up the steps.
Serina lifted his cheek against her own, the salt from her tears
mingling with the sea water in his hair. The wound in his shoulder was
open now, sending a trickle of blood glistening across his chest. His
breathing was in spasms.
Shango, can you still hear me . . .?
"Try washing his wound with this." Katherine was standing above her, in
the dim light of the candle-lantern, holding a gray onion-flask of
brandy.
"Why are you helping me, senhora?" Serina looked up, her words a blend
of English and Portuguese. "You care nothing for him. Or for me."
"I . . . I want to." Katherine awkwardly pulled the cork from the
bottle, and the fiery fumes of the brandy enveloped them.
"Because the senhor told you to do it. That is the real reason." She
finally reached and took the bottle. "He is a good man. He risked his
life for us. He did not need to. No other _branco_ on this island would
have."
"Then you can repay him by doing what he asked. He said to clean the
wound."
Serina settled the bottle onto the decking beside the sleeping bunk,
then bent over and kissed the clan marks on Atiba's dark cheek. As she
did, the ship rolled awkwardly and a high wave dashed against the
quartergallery. Quickly she seized the neck of the flask and secured it
till they had righted.
"I think we will have to do it together."
"Together?"
"Never fear, senhora. Atiba's black skin will not smudge your white
Ingles hands."
"I never thought it would." Katherine impulsively reached down and
ripped off a portion of her skirt. Then she grabbed the flask and
pulled back his arm. While Serina held his shoulder forward, she doused
the wound with a stream of the brown liquor, then began to swab away
the encrusted blood with the cloth. His skin felt like soft leather,
supple to the touch, with hard ripples of muscles beneath.
The sting of the brandy brought an involuntary jerk. Atiba's eyes
opened and he peered, startled, through the gloom.
"Don't try to move." Quickly Serina bent over him, whispering softly
into his ear. "You are safe. You are on the _branco's_ ship."
He started to speak, but at that moment another wave crashed against
the stern and the ship lurched sideways. Atiba's eyes flooded with
alarm, and his lips formed a word.
"Dara . . ."
Serina laid her face next to his. "Don't talk. Please. Just rest now."
She tried to give him a drink of the brandy, but his eyes refused it.
Then more words came, faint and lost in the roar of the wind and the
groaning of the ancient boards of the _Defiance_. Finally his breath
seemed to dissolve as unconsciousness again drifted over him.
Katherine watched as Serina gently laid his head against the cushion on
the bunk, then fell to her knees and began to pray, mumbling foreign
words . . . not Portuguese. She found herself growing more and more
uneasy; something about the two of them was troubling, almost
unnatural. Finally she rose and moved to watch the sea through the
stern windows. Though the waves outside slammed ever more menacingly
against the quartergallery, as the storm was worsening noticeably, she
still longed for the wind in her face. Again she recalled her first
night here with Hugh, when they had looked out through this very window
together, in each other's arms. What would it be like to watch the sea
from this gallery now, she wondered, when the ocean and winds were
wild? She sighed and pulled open the latch.
What she saw took her breath away.
Off the portside, bearing down on them, was the outline of a tallmasted
English warship with two gun decks.
Before she could move, there were shouts from the quarterdeck above,
then the trampling of feet down the companionway leading to the waist
of the ship. He'd seen it too, and ordered his gun crews to station.
She pulled back from the window as a wave splashed across her face, and
a chill swept the room, numbing her fingers. She fumbled a moment
trying to secure the latch, then gave up and turned to head for the
door. If we're all to die, she told herself, I want to be up with Hugh,
on the quarterdeck. Oh God, why now? After all we've been through?
As she passed the lantern, she noticed Serina, still bent over the
African, still mumbling the strange words. . . .
"Do you know what's about to happen to us all!" The frustration was
more than she could contain. "Come back over here and take a look."
When the mulatto merely stared at her with a distant, glazed
expression, she strode to where she knelt and took her arm, pulling her
erect. While she was leading her toward the open window, she heard a
deep groaning rise up through the timbers of the frigate and knew the
cannon were being run out. Winston had ordered a desperate gamble; a
possible ordnance duel with a warship twice the burden of the
_Defiance_. Moving the guns now, when the seas were high, only
compounded their danger. If one broke loose from its tackles, it could
hurtle through the side of the ship, opening a gash that would surely
take enough water to sink them in minutes.
"Do you see, senhora?" She directed Serina's gaze out the open windows.
"If you want to pray, then pray that that man-of-war doesn't catch us.
Your African may soon be dead anyway, along with you and me too."
"What . . . will they do?" The mulatto studied the approaching warship,
her eyes only half seeing.
"I expect they'll pull alongside us if they can, then run out their
guns and . . ." She felt her voice begin to quiver.
"Then I will pray."
"Please do that." She whirled in exasperation and quickly shoved her
way out the door and into the companionway. As she mounted the slippery
ladder to the quarterdeck, she felt John Mewes brush past in the rain,
bellowing orders aloft. She looked up to see men perched along the
yards, clinging to thin ropes in the blowing rain as they loosened the
topgallants. The_ Defiance _was putting on every inch of canvas, in
weather where any knowing seaman would strike sail and heave-to.
"Good God, Katy, I wish you'd go back below decks. The Gloucester must
have spied our sail when we doubled the Point." Winston's voice sounded
through the rain. He was steering the ship all alone now, his shoulder
against the whipstaff. Off the portside the English warship, a gray
hulk with towering masts, was rapidly narrowing the distance between
them.
"Hugh, I want to be up here, with you." She grabbed onto a shroud to
keep her balance. "They're planning to try and sink us, aren't they?"
"Unless we heave-to. Which I have no intention of doing. So they'll
have to do just that if they expect to stop us. And I'd say they have
every intention of making the effort. Look." He pointed through the
rain. Now the line of gunport covers along the upper gun deck were
being raised. "They're making ready to start running out their
eighteen-pounders."
"What can we do?"
"First put on all the canvas we've got. Then get our own guns in order.
If we can't outrun them, we'll have to fight."
"Do you think we have a chance?" She studied the ship more closely. It
seemed to have twice the sail of the _Defiance_, but then it was
heavier and bulkier. Except for the _Rainbowe_, Cromwell had not sent
his best warships to the Americas. This one could be as old as Hugh's.
"I've outrun a few men-of-war before. But not in weather like this."
"Then I want to stay up here. And that mulatto woman you took on board
frightens me, almost as much as this."
"Then stay. For now. But if they get us in range, I want you below." He
glanced aloft, where men clinging to the swaying yards had just secured
the main tops'ls. As the storm worsened, more lightning flashed in the
west, bringing prayers and curses from the seamen. "The weather's about
as bad as it could be. I've never had the _Defiance_ under full sail
when it's been like this. I never want to again."
After the topgallants were unfurled and secured, they seemed to start
picking up momentum. The _Gloucester_ was still off their portside, but
far enough astern that she could not use her guns. And she was no
longer gaining.
"Maybe we can still outrun them?" She moved alongside Winston.
"There's a fair chance." He was holding the whipstaff on a steady
course. "But they've not got all their canvas on yet. They know it's
risky." He turned to study the warship and she saw the glimmer of hope
in his eyes, but he quickly masked it. "In good weather, they could
manage it. But with a storm like this, maybe not." He paused as the
lightning flared again. "Still, if they decide to chance the rest of
their sail . . ."
She settled herself against the binnacle to watch the _Gloucester_.
Then she noticed the warship's tops'ls being unfurled. Winston saw it
too. The next lightning flash revealed that the _Gloucester_ had now
begun to run out her upper row of guns, as the distance between them
slowly began to narrow once more.
"Looks as if they're going to gamble what's left of their running
rigging, Katy. I think you'd best be below."
"No, I . . ."
Winston turned and yelled toward the main deck, "John, pass the order.
If they pull in range, tell Canninge to just fire at will whenever the
portside guns bear. Same as when that revenue frigate _Royale_ once
tried to board us. Maybe he can cripple their gun deck long enough to
try and lose them in the dark."
"Aye." A muted cry drifted back through the howl of rain.
"Hugh, I love you." She touched the sleeve of his jerkin. "I think I
even know what it means now."
He looked at her, her hair tangled in the rain. "Katy, I love you
enough to want you below. Besides, it's not quite time to say our
farewells yet."
"I know what's next. They'll pull to windward of us and just fire away.
They'll shoot away our rigging till we're helpless, and then they'll
hole us till we take on enough water to go down."
"It's not going to be that easy. Don't forget we've got some ordnance
of our own. Just pray they can't set theirs in this sea."
Lightning flashed once more, glistening off the row of cannon on the
English warship. They had range now, and Katherine could see the
glimmer of lighted linstocks through the open gunports.
"Gracious Lord, for what we are about to receive, make us truly
thankful." John Mewes was mounting the quarterdeck to watch. "This
looks to be it, Cap'n."
"Just keep on praying, John. And get back down on deck. I want every
inch of sail on those yards."
"Aye, I'd like the same, save I don't know where exactly we've got any
more to put on, unless I next hoist my own linen." He crossed himself,
then headed down the companion way.
Suddenly a gun on the _Gloucester_ flared, sending an eighteen-pound
round shot through the upper sails of the _Defiance_, inches from the
maintop. Then again, and this time the edge of the fo'c'sle ripped
away, spraying splinters across the deck.
"John! Tell Canninge he'd better start firing the second his guns bear.
And he'd best be damned quick on it too." Even as he spoke, a roar
sounded from below and the deck tilted momentarily sideways. Katherine
watched as a line of shot splintered into the planking along the side
of the _Gloucester_, between her gun decks.
"Damn, he came close." Winston studied the damage. "But not close
enough."
Again the lightning flashed, nearer now, a wide network across the
heavens, and she saw the _Gloucester's_ captain standing on his own
quarterdeck, nervously staring aloft at the storm.
"Katy, please go below. This is going to get very bad. If they catch
this deck, there'll be splinters everywhere. Not to mention ..."
The _Gloucester's _guns flamed again. She felt the deck tremble as an
eighteen-pound shot slammed into the side of the _Defiance_, up near
the bow.
"John, let's have some more of those prayers." Winston yelled down
again. "And while you're at it, tell Canninge to give them another
round the second he's swabbed out. He's got to hurt that upper gun deck
soon or we're apt to be in for a long night."
"Hugh, can't we . . ." She stopped as she saw a figure in a
bloodstained white shift slowly moving up the companionway.
"Good Christ." He had seen it too. "Katy, try and keep her the hell off
the quarterdeck and out of the way."
While he threw his shoulder against the whipstaff and began shouting
more orders to Mewes on the main deck, Serina mounted the last step.
She moved across the planking toward them, her eyes glazed, even more
than before. "Come below, senhora." Katherine reached out for her. "You
could be hurt."
The mulata's hand shot up and seized her arm with an iron grip.
Katherine felt her feet give way, and the next thing she knew she had
been flung sideways against the hard rope shrouds.
"_E pada nibi!_" The voice was deep, chilling. Then she turned and
advanced menacingly on Winston.
"God damn you!" He shoved her back, then reached to help Katherine.
"Katy, are you all right? Just watch out for her. I wager she's gone
mad after all that's happened. If we get time I'll have some of the
boys come and take her below."
Again the _Gloucester's_ guns flared, and a whistle sang across the
quarterdeck as the shot clipped the railing next to where they were
standing. Serina stared wildly at the shattered rail, then at the
English man-of-war. Her eyes seemed vacant, as though looking through
all she saw.
"Good Christ, Katy, take a look at those skies." Winston felt a chill
in his bowels as the lightning blossomed again. "The wind is changing;
I can feel it. Something's happening. If we lose a yard, or tear a
sail, they'll take us in a minute. All it needs is one quick shift, too
much strain."
As if in response to his words, the hull shuddered, then pitched
backward, and Katherine heard a dull crack from somewhere in the
rigging.
"Christ." Winston was staring aloft, his face washed in the rain.
She followed his gaze. The mainmast had split, just below the maintop.
The topsail had fallen forward, into the foremast, and had ripped
through the foresail. A startled main-topman was dangling helplessly
from the side of his round perch. Then something else cracked, and he
tumbled toward the deck, landing in the middle of a crowd of terrified
seamen huddled by the fo'c'sle door.
"I knew we couldn't bear full sail in this weather. We've just lost a
good half of our canvas." He looked back. "You've got to go below now.
Please. And see if you can somehow take that woman with you. We're in
very bad trouble. If I was a religious man, I'd be on my knees praying
right now."
The _Gloucester's_ guns spoke once more, and a shot clipped the
quartergallery only feet below where they were, showering splinters
upward through the air.
"Atiba!" Serina was staring down over the railing, toward the hole that
had been ripped in the corner of the Great Cabin beneath them.
Then she looked out at the warship, and the hard voice rose again.
"_Iwo ko lu oniran li oru o nlu u li ossan?"_ Finally her eyes flared
and she shouted through the storm, "_Shango. Oyinbo I'o je!"_
Once more the lightning came.
Later he wondered if he might have been praying after all. He
remembered how the fork of fire slid down the mainmast of the
_Gloucester_, then seemed to envelop the maintop, sending smoke
billowing through the tops'ls above. Next it coiled about the mainmast
shrouds.
In moments her main tops'l was aflame, as though she'd been caught with
fire-arrows. Soon a tongue of the blaze flicked downward and ignited
her main course. After that the shrouds began to smolder. Almost
immediately her seamen began furling the other sails, and all open
gunports were quickly slammed down to stop any shreds of burning canvas
from accidentally reaching the gun deck. Next the helmsman threw his
weight against the whipstaff to try and take her off the wind.
She was still underway, like a crippled fireship bearing down on them,
and for a moment Winston thought they were in even greater danger than
before. But then the _Gloucester's _mainmast slowly toppled forward as
the shrouds gave way, tearing into the other rigging, and she heeled.
It was impossible to see what followed, because of the rain, but
moments later burning spars were drifting across the waves.
"It was the hand of Providence, as I'm a Christian." John Mewes was
mounting the quarterdeck, solemn and subdued. A crowd of stunned seamen
were following him to gain a better view astern. "The Roundhead
whoresons were tempting fate. They should've known better than puttin'
to sea with topmasts like those in this damn'd weather. Heaven knows, I
could have told them."
There was a murmur of assent from the others. They stood praising the
beneficence of God and watched as the last burning mast disappeared
into the rain.
After Winston had lashed the whipstaff in place and ordered the sails
shortened, he collapsed against the binnacle.
"It was a miracle, Hugh." Katherine wrapped an arm about him. Her
bodice was soaked with rain and sweat. "I think I was praying. When I'd
all but forgotten how."
"I've heard of it happening, God knows. But I've never before seen it.
Just think. If we'd had taller masts, we could well have caught it
ourselves."
Now the mood was lightening, as congratulations began to pass among the
men. It was only then Katherine noticed the white shift at their feet.
The mulatto was crumpled beside the binnacle, still as death.
"John, have somebody come and take that woman below." Winston glanced
down. "She looks to have fainted."
"Aye. I was near to faintin' myself, truth to tell."
Finally Winston pulled himself up and surveyed the seamen. "I say well
done, masters, one and all. So let's all have a word of thanks to the
Almighty . . . and see if we can locate a keg of brandy. This crew has
earned it."
Katherine leaned against him as she watched the cheering men head for
the main deck. "Where can we go now, Hugh?
There'll soon be a price on our heads in every English settlement from
Virginia to Bermuda."
"From the shape of our rigging, I'd guess we're going nowhere for a day
or so. We've got to heave-to till the weather lets up, and try to mend
those sails. After that I figure we'd best steer north, hope to beat
the fleet up to Nevis, where we can careen and maybe lay in some more
victuals."
"And then are you really going to try your scheme about Jamaica? With
just the men you've got here?"
"Not just yet. You're right about the men. We don't have enough now."
He lowered his voice. "So I'm thinking we'll have to make another stop
first."
"Where?"
"There's only one place I know of where we can still find what we'll be
needing." He slipped his arm about her waist. "A little island off the
north coast of Hispaniola."
"You don't mean Tortuga? The Cow-Killers . . ."
"Now Katy, there's no better time than now to start learning what
they're called over there on that side of the Caribbean. I know the
Englishmen here in the Caribbees call them the Cow-Killers, but over
there we were always known by our French name."
"What's that?"
"Sort of an odd one. You see, since we cured our meat Indian-style, on
those greenwood grills they called _boucans_, most seamen over there
knew us as the _boucaniers_. And that's the name we kept when we
started sailing against the Spaniards."
"You mean . . .?"
"That's right. Try and remember it. Buccaneer."