"I've seen naught of him, and that's a fact." He peeredup the beach, hoping one last cursory check would suffice. Now that the rain had intensified, it was no longer possible to see the hills beyond. "But I did manage to get that Spaniard from Ruyters, the one named Vargas." He laughed. "Though I finally had to convince the ol' King of the Butterboxes to see things our way by bringin' over a few of the boys and some muskets.""Good. He's on board now?""Safe as can be. An' happy enough to leave that damn'd Dutchman, truth to tell. Claimed he was sick to death of the putrid smell of the Zeelander, now that she's been turned into a slaver.""Then to hell with the African. We can't wait any longer.""'Tis all to the good, if you want my thinkin'." Mewes reached up and adjusted Morris' helmet, then performed a mock salute. He watched in glee as the English commander's face flushed with rage. "You're not takin' these two damn'd Roundheads aboard, are you?""Damn you, sir." Morris ignored Mewes as he glared at Winston, then looked down at the pistol. He had seen a double-barrelled mechanism like this only once before—property of a Spanish diplomat in London, a dandy far more skilled dancing the bourree than managing a weapon. But such a device in the hands of an obvious marksman like Winston; nothing could be more deadly. "There's been quite enough . . .""Get in the longboat.""I'll do no such thing." Morris drew back. "I have no intention of going with you, wherever it is you think you're headed.""I said get in. If you like it here so much, you can swim back after we weigh anchor." Winston tossed his bundle across the gunwale, seized Morris by his doublet, and sent him sprawling after it. Then he turned to the infantryman. "You get in as well."Without a word the man clambered over the side. Winstonheaved a deep breath, then took the muskets Katherine was carrying and handed them to Mewes. "Katy, this is the last you're apt to see of Barbados for a long while.""Please, let's don't talk about it." She seized her wet skirts and began to climb over the side, Winston steadying her with one hand. "I suppose I somehow thought I could have everything. But I guess I've learned differently."He studied her in confusion for a moment, then turned and surveyed the dark shore one last time. "All right, John, prepare to cast off.""Aye." Mewes loosened the bow line from its mooring and tossed it into the longboat. Together they shoved the bobbing craft and its passengers deeper into the surf."What's your name?" Winston motioned the infantryman forward as he lifted himself over the gunwales."MacEwen, Yor Worship." He took off his helmet and tossed it onto the boards. His hair was sandy, his face Scottish."Then take an oar, MacEwen. And heave to.""Aye, Sor." The Scotsman ignored Morris' withering glare and quickly took his place."You can row too, Colonel." Winston waved the pistol. "Barbados is still a democracy, for at least a few more hours."Morris said nothing, merely grimaced and reached for an oar.Katherine laid her cheek against Winston's shoulder and looked wistfully back toward the shore. "Everything we made, the Commonwealth's going to take away now. Everything my father and I, and all the others, worked so hard for together."He held her against him as they moved out through the surf and across the narrow band of water to the ship. In what seemed only moments the longboat edged beneath the quartergallery and theDefiancewas hovering above them."John, have the boys drop that short sail and weigh anchoras soon as we're aboard. This westerly off the coast should get us underway and past the blockade. We'll just keep her close hauled till we've doubled the Point, then run up some more canvas.""It'll be a miracle if we manage to take her by the Point in this sea, and in the dark besides." Mewes was poised in the bow of the longboat."When we get aboard, I'll take the helm. You just get the canvas on her.""Aye." He reached up and seized a notch beneath a gunport, pulling the longboat under the deadeyes that supported the mainmast shrouds. As he began mounting the rope ladder he tossed the line up through the rain.Winston had taken Katherine's arm to help her up when he heard a buzz past his ear. Then, through the rain, came a faint pop, the report of a musket."God's blood!" He turned back to look. Dimly through the rain he could make out a line of helmeted infantrymen along the shore, muskets in hand. They were disorganized, without a commander, but standing alongside them and yelling orders was a heavy man in a wide black hat. Benjamin Briggs."He betrayed us! He brought them right down to the bay. I wonder what he's figuring to get in return? Doubtless a place in the new government. We've got to . . ."Before he could finish, Katherine had caught his arm and was pointing over in the direction of the river mouth. "Hugh, wait. Do you see that? There's someone out there. In the surf. I thought I noticed it before.""More damned infantry?" He turned to stare. "They'd not try swimming after us. They'd wait for longboats.""I can't tell. It's over there, on the left. I think someone's trying to wade out."He squinted through the rain. A figure clad in white was waist deep in the surf, holding what seemed to be a large bundle."That's no Roundhead. I'll wager it's likely Briggs' mulata. Though she's just a little too late. I've a mind to leave her." He paused to watch as a wave washed over the figure and sent it staggering backward. Then another bullet sang past and he heard the shouts of Benjamin Briggs."Maybe I owe a certain planter one last service.""Cap'n, we've got to get this tub to sea." Mewes was crouching behind the bulwarks of theDefiance. "Those damn'd Roundheads along the shore don't have many muskets yet, but they're apt to be gettin' reinforcements any time now. So if it's all the same, I don't think I'd encourage waitin' around all night.""John, how are the anchors?""I've already weighed the heavy one up by the bow." He called down. "Say the word and we can just slip the cable on that little one at the stern.""Maybe we've got time." He pushed the longboat back away from the side of theDefiance. As he reached for an oar, Morris threw down his helmet and dove into the swell. In moments the commander was swimming toward shore."Aye, he's gone, Yor Worship. He's a quick one, to be sure." The Scottish infantryman gave only a passing glance as he threw his weight against the oar. "You'll na be catching him, on my faith.""And what about you?""With Yor Worship's leave, I'd as soon be stay in' on with you." He gave another powerful stroke with the oar. "Where’er you're bound, 'tis all one to me.""What were you before? A seaman?""A landsman, Yor Worship, I'll own it. I was took in the battle of Dunbar and impressed into the Roundhead army, made to come out here to the Caribbees. But I've had a bellyful of these Roundheads and their stinking troop ships, I swear it. I kept my pigs better at home. I'd serve you like you was the king himself if you'd give me leave.""MacEwen, wasn't it?""Aye, Yor Worship. At your service.""Then heave to." Winston pulled at the other oar. Through the dark they could just make out the bobbing form, now neck deep in the surf. She was supporting the black arms of yet another body."Senhora!" Winston called through the rain.The white-clad figure turned and stared blankly toward them. She seemed overcome with exhaustion, unsure even where she was."Espere um momento. We'll come to you." He was shouting now in Portuguese.A musket ball sang off the side of the longboat as several infantrymen began advancing down the shore in their direction. The Scotsman hunkered beside the gunwales but did not miss a stroke of his oar as they neared the bobbing heads in the water."Here, senhora." Winston reached down and grasped the arms of the body Serina was holding. It was Atiba. While Katherine caught hold of her shoulders and pulled her over the gunwale, MacEwen helped Winston hoist the Yoruba, unconscious, onto the planking. He was still bleeding, his breath faint."He is almost dead, senhor. And they have killed Derin." Serina was half choked from the surf. "At first I was afraid to try bringing him. But then I thought of what would happen if they took him, and I knew I had . . ." She began mumbling incoherently as she bent over the slumped form of Atiba, her mouth against his, as though to urge breath back into him."Katy, the minute we're on board take them straight down to the cabin and see if you can get a little brandy into him. Maybe it'll do some good.""I'll try, but I fear it's too late already. Let's just get underway." She turned to look at the deck of theDefiance, where a line of seamen had appeared with muskets.The firing from the shore slowed now, as the infantrymelted 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, theGloucester. 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 otherbrancoon 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 thebranco'sship."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 theDefiance. 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 theDefiance. 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. TheDefiancewas 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 theDefiance, but then it was heavier and bulkier. Except for theRainbowe, 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 theDefianceunder 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. TheGloucesterwas 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 theGloucester. Then she noticed the warship's tops'ls being unfurled. Winston saw it too. The next lightning flash revealed that theGloucesterhad 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 frigateRoyaleonce 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 theGloucesterflared, sending an eighteen-pound round shot through the upper sails of theDefiance, 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 theGloucester, 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 theGloucester'scaptain 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 ..."TheGloucester'sguns flamed again. She felt the deck tremble as an eighteen-pound shot slammed into the side of theDefiance, 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 theGloucester'sguns 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."TheGloucester'sguns 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 theGloucester, 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 theGloucester'smainmast 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 calledboucans, most seamen over there knew us as theboucaniers. And that's the name we kept when we started sailing against the Spaniards.""You mean . . . ?""That's right. Try and remember it. Buccaneer."Book ThreeTORTUGA / JAMAICAChapter TwentyThe sun emerged from the distant edge of the sea, burning through the fine mist that hung on the horizon. Katherine was standing on the high quartergallery, by the railing at the stern, the better to savor the easterly breeze that tousled her hair and fluttered the cotton sleeves of her seaman's shirt. The quiet of the ship was all but complete, with only the rhythmic splash of waves against the bow and the occasional groan from the masts.She loved being on deck to watch the dawn, out of the sweltering gloom of the Great Cabin. This morning, when the first light of day brightened the stern windows, she'd crept silently from their narrow bunk, leaving Hugh snoring contentedly. She'd made her way up to the quarterdeck, where John Mewes dozed beside the steering house where he was to monitor the weathered grey whipstaff, lashed secure on a course due west.Now she gazed out over the swells, past the occasional white- caps that dotted the blue, and tasted the cool, moist air. During the voyage she had learned how to read the cast of the sea, the sometimes fickle Caribbean winds, the hidden portent in the color of clouds and sun. She'd even begun practicing how to take latitude with the quadrant.Suddenly a porpoise surfaced along the stern, then another, and together they began to pirouette in the wake of the ship like spirited colts. Was there any place else in the world, she wondered, quite like the Caribbean? She never tired of watching for the schools of flying fish that would burst from the sea's surface like flushed grouse, seemingly in chase of the great barracuda that sometimes flashed past the bow. And near the smaller islands, where shallow reefs turned the coastal waters azure, she had seen giant sea turtles, green leatherbacks and rusty-brown loggerheads, big as tubs and floating languorously on the surface.The wildness of the islands and sea had begun to purge her mind, her memory. Fresh mornings like this had come to seem harbingers of a new life as well as a new day, even as the quick, golden-hued sunsets promised Hugh's warm embrace.After Barbados they'd made sail for Nevis Island, and as they neared the small log-and-clapboard English settlement along its southern shore, the skies had finally become crystalline and dry, heralding the end of the autumn rainy season. They lingered in the island's reef-bound harbor almost three weeks while Winston careened theDefianceand stripped away her barnacles, scorched the lower planks with burning branches to kill shipworm, then caulked all her leaky seams with hemp and pitch. Finally he'd laded in extra barrels of salt beef, biscuit, and fresh water. They were all but ready to weigh anchor the day a Dutch merchantman put in with word that the Commonwealth fleet had begun preparations to depart Barbados.Why so soon, they puzzled. Where were Cromwell's warships bound for now?Wherever the fleet's next destination, it scarcely mattered. The American rebellion was finished. After word spread through Nevis and St. Christopher that Barbados had capitulated, all the planters' talk of defiance evaporated. If the largest English settlement in the Americas could not stand firm, they reasoned, what chance did the small ones have? A letter pledging fealty to Commons was dispatched to the fleet by the Assembly of those two sister islands. That step taken, they hoped Calvert would bypass them with his hungry army and sail directly for Virginia, whose blustering royalists everyone now expected to also yield without a murmur.Still, after news came that the troops were readying to move out, Katherine had agreed with Winston that they shouldn't chance being surprised at Nevis. Who could tell when the Commonwealth's warships might suddenly show themselves on the southern horizon? The next morning they weighed anchor, heading north for the first two hundred leagues, then steering due west. That had been six days ago. . . ."You're lookin' lovely this morning, m'lady." John Mewes' groggy voice broke the silence as he started awake, then rose and stretched and ambled across the quarterdeck toward the bannister where she stood. "I'd say there she is, sure as I'm a Christian." He was pointing south, in the direction of the dim horizon, where a grey-green land mass had emerged above the dark waters. "The pride of the Spaniards.""What is it, John?""Why, that's apt to be none other than Hispaniola, Yor Ladyship. Plain as a pikestaff. An' right on schedule." He bellied against the bannister and yawned. "Doesn't look to have budged an inch since last I set eyes on her."She smiled. "Then that must mean we're nearing Tortuga. By the map, I remember it's just off the north coast, around latitude twenty.""Aye, we'll likely be raisin' the old ‘Turtle' any time now. Though in truth I'd as soon ne’er see the place again.""Why do you say that?""'Tis home and hearth of the finest assembly of thieves as you're e’er like to cross this side of Newgate prison. An' that's the fact of the matter.""Are you trying to make me believe you've actually been there, John?" She regarded him carefully. John Mewes, she had come to realize, was never at a loss for a story to share—though his distinction between truth and fancy was often imprecise."Aye,'twas some years past, as the sayin' goes. When the merchantman I was quartermaster on put in for a week to careen." He spat into the sea and hitched up the belt on his breeches."What exactly was it like?""A brig out of Portsmouth. A beamy two master, with damn’d seams that’d opened on us wide as a Dutch whore's cunny— beggin' Yor Ladyship's pardon—which is why we had to put in to caulk her . . .""Tortuga, John.""Aye, the Turtle. Like I was sayin', she's the Sodom of the Indies, make no mistake. Fair enough from afar, I grant you, but try and put in, an' you'll find out soon enough she's natural home for the rogue who'd as soon do without uninvited company. That's why that nest of pirates has been there so long right under the very nose of the pox-rotted Spaniards. Mind you, she's scarcely more than twenty or thirty miles tip to tip, but the north side's a solid cliff, lookin' down on the breakers, whilst the other's just about nothing save shallow flats an' mangrove thickets. There's only one bay where you can put in with a frigate, a spot called Basse Terre, there on the south—that is, if you can steer through the reefs that line both sides of the channel goin' into it. But once you're anchored,'tis a passing good harbor, for it all. Fine sandy bottom, with draft that'll take a seventy-gun brig.""So that's how the Cow-Killers . . . the buccaneers have managed to keep the island? There's only one spot the Spaniards could try and land infantry, and to get there you've got to go through a narrow passage in the reefs, easy to cover with cannon?""I'd say that's about the size of it. No bottom drops anchor at Tortuga unless those rogues say you aye." He turned and began to secure a loose piece of line dangling from the shroud supporting the mizzenmast. "Then too there's your matter of location. You see, m'lady, the island lays right athwart the Windward Passage, betwixt Hispaniola and Cuba, which is one of the Spaniards' main shippin' lanes. Couldn't be handier if you're thinkin' to lighten a Papist merchantman now and again. . . ."Mewes' voice trailed off as he glanced up to see Winston emerge at the head of the companionway, half asleep and still shirtless under his jerkin. Following after him was Atiba, wearing a pair of ill-fitting seaman's breeches, his bare shoulders glistening in the sun's early glow. When he spotted Mewes, he gave a solemn bow, Yoruba style."Ku abo, senhor.""Aye,qu avait is." Mewes nodded back, then turned to Katherine. "Now, for your edification that means 'greetings,' or such like. Since I've been teachin' him English, I've been pickin' up a few of the finer points of that African gabble of his, what with my natural gift for language.""God's life, you are learning fastly, Senhor Mewes." Atiba smiled. "And since you are scholaring my tongue so well, mayhaps I should cut some of our clan marks on your mug, like mine. It is a damnable great ceremony of my country."''Pox on your 'damnable great ceremonies.' '' Mewes busied himself with the shroud. "I'll just keep my fine face the way it is, and thank you kindly all the same."Winston sleepily kissed Katherine on the forehead.She gave him a long hug, then pointed toward the south. "John claims that's Hispaniola.”"One and the same. The queen of the Greater Antilles. Take a good look, Katy. I used to hunt cattle in those very woods. That mountain range over in mid-island means we should raise Tortuga any time now." He turned and began unlashing the whipstaff, then motioned Atiba forward. "Want to try the helm for a while? To get the feel of her?""My damnable shoulder is good, senhor. I can set a course with this stick, or cut by a sword, as better than ever.""We'll see soon enough." He watched Atiba grasp the long hardwood lever and test it. "I just may need you along to help me reason with my old friend Jacques.""Hugh, tell me some more about what he's like." Katherine took another look at the hazy outline of Hispaniola, then moved alongside them."Jacques le Basque?" Winston smiled and thought back. Nobody knew where Jacques was from, or who he was. They were all refugees from some other place, and most went by assumed names—even he had been known simply as "Anglais." "I'd guess he's French, but I never really knew all that much about him, though we hunted side by side for a good five years." He thumbed toward the green mountains. "But I can tell you one thing for sure: Jacques le Basque created a new society on northern Hispaniola, and Tortuga.""What do you mean?""Katy, you talked about having an independent nation in the Americas, a place not under the thumb of Europe? Well, he made one right over there. Weboucanierswere a nation of sorts—shipwrecked seamen, runaway indentures, half of them with jail or a noose waiting in one of the other settlements. But any man alive was welcome to come and go as he liked."Katherine examined his lined face. "Hugh, you told me you once tried to kill Jacques over some misunderstanding. But you never explained exactly what it was about."Winston fell silent and the only sound was the lap of waves against the bow. Maybe, he told himself, the time has come. He took a deep breath and turned to her. "Remember how I told you the Spaniards came and burned out the Providence Company's English settlement on Tortuga? As it happened, I was over on Hispaniola with Jacques at the time or I probably wouldn't be here now. Well, the Spaniards stayed around for a week or so, and troubled to hang some of Jacques's lads who happened in with a load of hides. When we found out about it, he called a big parlay over what we ought to do. All the hunters came—French, English, even some Dutchmen. Every man there hated the Spaniards, and we decided to pull together what cannon were left and fortify the harbor at Basse Terre, in case they got a mind to come back.""And?""Then after some time went by Jacques got the idea we ought not just wait for them. That wed best try and take the fight back. So he sent word around the north side of Hispaniola that any man who wanted to help should meet him on Tortuga. When everybody got there, he announced we needed to be organized, like the Spaniards. Then he stove open a keg of brandy and christened us Les Freres de la Cote, the Brotherhood of the Coast. After we’d all had a tankard or two, he explained he wanted to try and take a Spanish ship.""You mean he sort of declared war on Spain?""As a matter of fact, that's how it turned out." He smiled. "Jacques said we'd hunted the Spaniards' cattle long enough; now we would hunt the whoreson Spaniards themselves. We'd sail under our old name ofboucanier, and he swore that before we were through nobody would remember the time it only meant cow hunters. We'd make it the most dreaded word a Spaniard could hear."John Mewes was squinting toward the west now, past the bowsprit. Abruptly he secured a last knot in the shroud, then headed down the companionway and past the seamen loitering by the mainmast."And that was the beginning? When the Cow-Killers became sea rovers and pirates?" For some reason the story made her vaguely uneasy. "You were actually there? A part of it?""I was there." Winston paused to watch Mewes."So then you . . . joined them?""No particular reason not to. The damned Spaniards had just murdered some of ours, Katy, not to mention about six hundred English settlers. I figured why not give them a taste back? Besides, it looked to be the start of a grand adventure. We got together as many arms as we could muster, muskets and axes, and put to sea. Us against the Spaniards . . ."
"I've seen naught of him, and that's a fact." He peered
up the beach, hoping one last cursory check would suffice. Now that the rain had intensified, it was no longer possible to see the hills beyond. "But I did manage to get that Spaniard from Ruyters, the one named Vargas." He laughed. "Though I finally had to convince the ol' King of the Butterboxes to see things our way by bringin' over a few of the boys and some muskets."
"Good. He's on board now?"
"Safe as can be. An' happy enough to leave that damn'd Dutchman, truth to tell. Claimed he was sick to death of the putrid smell of the Zeelander, now that she's been turned into a slaver."
"Then to hell with the African. We can't wait any longer."
"'Tis all to the good, if you want my thinkin'." Mewes reached up and adjusted Morris' helmet, then performed a mock salute. He watched in glee as the English commander's face flushed with rage. "You're not takin' these two damn'd Roundheads aboard, are you?"
"Damn you, sir." Morris ignored Mewes as he glared at Winston, then looked down at the pistol. He had seen a double-barrelled mechanism like this only once before—property of a Spanish diplomat in London, a dandy far more skilled dancing the bourree than managing a weapon. But such a device in the hands of an obvious marksman like Winston; nothing could be more deadly. "There's been quite enough . . ."
"Get in the longboat."
"I'll do no such thing." Morris drew back. "I have no intention of going with you, wherever it is you think you're headed."
"I said get in. If you like it here so much, you can swim back after we weigh anchor." Winston tossed his bundle across the gunwale, seized Morris by his doublet, and sent him sprawling after it. Then he turned to the infantryman. "You get in as well."
Without a word the man clambered over the side. Winston
heaved a deep breath, then took the muskets Katherine was carrying and handed them to Mewes. "Katy, this is the last you're apt to see of Barbados for a long while."
"Please, let's don't talk about it." She seized her wet skirts and began to climb over the side, Winston steadying her with one hand. "I suppose I somehow thought I could have everything. But I guess I've learned differently."
He studied her in confusion for a moment, then turned and surveyed the dark shore one last time. "All right, John, prepare to cast off."
"Aye." Mewes loosened the bow line from its mooring and tossed it into the longboat. Together they shoved the bobbing craft and its passengers deeper into the surf.
"What's your name?" Winston motioned the infantryman forward as he lifted himself over the gunwales.
"MacEwen, Yor Worship." He took off his helmet and tossed it onto the boards. His hair was sandy, his face Scottish.
"Then take an oar, MacEwen. And heave to."
"Aye, Sor." The Scotsman ignored Morris' withering glare and quickly took his place.
"You can row too, Colonel." Winston waved the pistol. "Barbados is still a democracy, for at least a few more hours."
Morris said nothing, merely grimaced and reached for an oar.
Katherine laid her cheek against Winston's shoulder and looked wistfully back toward the shore. "Everything we made, the Commonwealth's going to take away now. Everything my father and I, and all the others, worked so hard for together."
He held her against him as they moved out through the surf and across the narrow band of water to the ship. In what seemed only moments the longboat edged beneath the quartergallery and theDefiancewas hovering above them.
"John, have the boys drop that short sail and weigh anchor
as soon as we're aboard. This westerly off the coast should get us underway and past the blockade. We'll just keep her close hauled till we've doubled the Point, then run up some more canvas."
"It'll be a miracle if we manage to take her by the Point in this sea, and in the dark besides." Mewes was poised in the bow of the longboat.
"When we get aboard, I'll take the helm. You just get the canvas on her."
"Aye." He reached up and seized a notch beneath a gunport, pulling the longboat under the deadeyes that supported the mainmast shrouds. As he began mounting the rope ladder he tossed the line up through the rain.
Winston had taken Katherine's arm to help her up when he heard a buzz past his ear. Then, through the rain, came a faint pop, the report of a musket.
"God's blood!" He turned back to look. Dimly through the rain he could make out a line of helmeted infantrymen along the shore, muskets in hand. They were disorganized, without a commander, but standing alongside them and yelling orders was a heavy man in a wide black hat. Benjamin Briggs.
"He betrayed us! He brought them right down to the bay. I wonder what he's figuring to get in return? Doubtless a place in the new government. We've got to . . ."
Before he could finish, Katherine had caught his arm and was pointing over in the direction of the river mouth. "Hugh, wait. Do you see that? There's someone out there. In the surf. I thought I noticed it before."
"More damned infantry?" He turned to stare. "They'd not try swimming after us. They'd wait for longboats."
"I can't tell. It's over there, on the left. I think someone's trying to wade out."
He squinted through the rain. A figure clad in white was waist deep in the surf, holding what seemed to be a large bundle.
"That's no Roundhead. I'll wager it's likely Briggs' mulata. Though she's just a little too late. I've a mind to leave her." He paused to watch as a wave washed over the figure and sent it staggering backward. Then another bullet sang past and he heard the shouts of Benjamin Briggs.
"Maybe I owe a certain planter one last service."
"Cap'n, we've got to get this tub to sea." Mewes was crouching behind the bulwarks of theDefiance. "Those damn'd Roundheads along the shore don't have many muskets yet, but they're apt to be gettin' reinforcements any time now. So if it's all the same, I don't think I'd encourage waitin' around all night."
"John, how are the anchors?"
"I've already weighed the heavy one up by the bow." He called down. "Say the word and we can just slip the cable on that little one at the stern."
"Maybe we've got time." He pushed the longboat back away from the side of theDefiance. As he reached for an oar, Morris threw down his helmet and dove into the swell. In moments the commander was swimming toward shore.
"Aye, he's gone, Yor Worship. He's a quick one, to be sure." The Scottish infantryman gave only a passing glance as he threw his weight against the oar. "You'll na be catching him, on my faith."
"And what about you?"
"With Yor Worship's leave, I'd as soon be stay in' on with you." He gave another powerful stroke with the oar. "Where’er you're bound, 'tis all one to me."
"What were you before? A seaman?"
"A landsman, Yor Worship, I'll own it. I was took in the battle of Dunbar and impressed into the Roundhead army, made to come out here to the Caribbees. But I've had a bellyful of these Roundheads and their stinking troop ships, I swear it. I kept my pigs better at home. I'd serve you like you was the king himself if you'd give me leave."
"MacEwen, wasn't it?"
"Aye, Yor Worship. At your service."
"Then heave to." Winston pulled at the other oar. Through the dark they could just make out the bobbing form, now neck deep in the surf. She was supporting the black arms of yet another body.
"Senhora!" Winston called through the rain.
The white-clad figure turned and stared blankly toward them. She seemed overcome with exhaustion, unsure even where she was.
"Espere um momento. We'll come to you." He was shouting now in Portuguese.
A musket ball sang off the side of the longboat as several infantrymen began advancing down the shore in their direction. The Scotsman hunkered beside the gunwales but did not miss a stroke of his oar as they neared the bobbing heads in the water.
"Here, senhora." Winston reached down and grasped the arms of the body Serina was holding. It was Atiba. While Katherine caught hold of her shoulders and pulled her over the gunwale, MacEwen helped Winston hoist the Yoruba, unconscious, onto the planking. He was still bleeding, his breath faint.
"He is almost dead, senhor. And they have killed Derin." Serina was half choked from the surf. "At first I was afraid to try bringing him. But then I thought of what would happen if they took him, and I knew I had . . ." She began mumbling incoherently as she bent over the slumped form of Atiba, her mouth against his, as though to urge breath back into him.
"Katy, the minute we're on board take them straight down to the cabin and see if you can get a little brandy into him. Maybe it'll do some good."
"I'll try, but I fear it's too late already. Let's just get underway." She turned to look at the deck of theDefiance, where a line of seamen had appeared with muskets.
The firing from the shore slowed now, as the infantry
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, theGloucester. 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 otherbrancoon 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 thebranco'sship."
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 theDefiance. 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 theDefiance. 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. TheDefiancewas 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 theDefiance, but then it was heavier and bulkier. Except for theRainbowe, 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 theDefianceunder 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. TheGloucesterwas 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 theGloucester. Then she noticed the warship's tops'ls being unfurled. Winston saw it too. The next lightning flash revealed that theGloucesterhad 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 frigateRoyaleonce 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 theGloucesterflared, sending an eighteen-pound round shot through the upper sails of theDefiance, 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 theGloucester, 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 theGloucester'scaptain 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 ..."
TheGloucester'sguns flamed again. She felt the deck tremble as an eighteen-pound shot slammed into the side of theDefiance, 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 theGloucester'sguns 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."
TheGloucester'sguns 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 theGloucester, 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 theGloucester'smainmast 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 calledboucans, most seamen over there knew us as theboucaniers. And that's the name we kept when we started sailing against the Spaniards."
"You mean . . . ?"
"That's right. Try and remember it. Buccaneer."
Book Three
TORTUGA / JAMAICA
Chapter Twenty
The sun emerged from the distant edge of the sea, burning through the fine mist that hung on the horizon. Katherine was standing on the high quartergallery, by the railing at the stern, the better to savor the easterly breeze that tousled her hair and fluttered the cotton sleeves of her seaman's shirt. The quiet of the ship was all but complete, with only the rhythmic splash of waves against the bow and the occasional groan from the masts.
She loved being on deck to watch the dawn, out of the sweltering gloom of the Great Cabin. This morning, when the first light of day brightened the stern windows, she'd crept silently from their narrow bunk, leaving Hugh snoring contentedly. She'd made her way up to the quarterdeck, where John Mewes dozed beside the steering house where he was to monitor the weathered grey whipstaff, lashed secure on a course due west.
Now she gazed out over the swells, past the occasional white- caps that dotted the blue, and tasted the cool, moist air. During the voyage she had learned how to read the cast of the sea, the sometimes fickle Caribbean winds, the hidden portent in the color of clouds and sun. She'd even begun practicing how to take latitude with the quadrant.
Suddenly a porpoise surfaced along the stern, then another, and together they began to pirouette in the wake of the ship like spirited colts. Was there any place else in the world, she wondered, quite like the Caribbean? She never tired of watching for the schools of flying fish that would burst from the sea's surface like flushed grouse, seemingly in chase of the great barracuda that sometimes flashed past the bow. And near the smaller islands, where shallow reefs turned the coastal waters azure, she had seen giant sea turtles, green leatherbacks and rusty-brown loggerheads, big as tubs and floating languorously on the surface.
The wildness of the islands and sea had begun to purge her mind, her memory. Fresh mornings like this had come to seem harbingers of a new life as well as a new day, even as the quick, golden-hued sunsets promised Hugh's warm embrace.
After Barbados they'd made sail for Nevis Island, and as they neared the small log-and-clapboard English settlement along its southern shore, the skies had finally become crystalline and dry, heralding the end of the autumn rainy season. They lingered in the island's reef-bound harbor almost three weeks while Winston careened theDefianceand stripped away her barnacles, scorched the lower planks with burning branches to kill shipworm, then caulked all her leaky seams with hemp and pitch. Finally he'd laded in extra barrels of salt beef, biscuit, and fresh water. They were all but ready to weigh anchor the day a Dutch merchantman put in with word that the Commonwealth fleet had begun preparations to depart Barbados.
Why so soon, they puzzled. Where were Cromwell's warships bound for now?
Wherever the fleet's next destination, it scarcely mattered. The American rebellion was finished. After word spread through Nevis and St. Christopher that Barbados had capitulated, all the planters' talk of defiance evaporated. If the largest English settlement in the Americas could not stand firm, they reasoned, what chance did the small ones have? A letter pledging fealty to Commons was dispatched to the fleet by the Assembly of those two sister islands. That step taken, they hoped Calvert would bypass them with his hungry army and sail directly for Virginia, whose blustering royalists everyone now expected to also yield without a murmur.
Still, after news came that the troops were readying to move out, Katherine had agreed with Winston that they shouldn't chance being surprised at Nevis. Who could tell when the Commonwealth's warships might suddenly show themselves on the southern horizon? The next morning they weighed anchor, heading north for the first two hundred leagues, then steering due west. That had been six days ago. . . .
"You're lookin' lovely this morning, m'lady." John Mewes' groggy voice broke the silence as he started awake, then rose and stretched and ambled across the quarterdeck toward the bannister where she stood. "I'd say there she is, sure as I'm a Christian." He was pointing south, in the direction of the dim horizon, where a grey-green land mass had emerged above the dark waters. "The pride of the Spaniards."
"What is it, John?"
"Why, that's apt to be none other than Hispaniola, Yor Ladyship. Plain as a pikestaff. An' right on schedule." He bellied against the bannister and yawned. "Doesn't look to have budged an inch since last I set eyes on her."
She smiled. "Then that must mean we're nearing Tortuga. By the map, I remember it's just off the north coast, around latitude twenty."
"Aye, we'll likely be raisin' the old ‘Turtle' any time now. Though in truth I'd as soon ne’er see the place again."
"Why do you say that?"
"'Tis home and hearth of the finest assembly of thieves as you're e’er like to cross this side of Newgate prison. An' that's the fact of the matter."
"Are you trying to make me believe you've actually been there, John?" She regarded him carefully. John Mewes, she had come to realize, was never at a loss for a story to share—though his distinction between truth and fancy was often imprecise.
"Aye,'twas some years past, as the sayin' goes. When the merchantman I was quartermaster on put in for a week to careen." He spat into the sea and hitched up the belt on his breeches.
"What exactly was it like?"
"A brig out of Portsmouth. A beamy two master, with damn’d seams that’d opened on us wide as a Dutch whore's cunny— beggin' Yor Ladyship's pardon—which is why we had to put in to caulk her . . ."
"Tortuga, John."
"Aye, the Turtle. Like I was sayin', she's the Sodom of the Indies, make no mistake. Fair enough from afar, I grant you, but try and put in, an' you'll find out soon enough she's natural home for the rogue who'd as soon do without uninvited company. That's why that nest of pirates has been there so long right under the very nose of the pox-rotted Spaniards. Mind you, she's scarcely more than twenty or thirty miles tip to tip, but the north side's a solid cliff, lookin' down on the breakers, whilst the other's just about nothing save shallow flats an' mangrove thickets. There's only one bay where you can put in with a frigate, a spot called Basse Terre, there on the south—that is, if you can steer through the reefs that line both sides of the channel goin' into it. But once you're anchored,'tis a passing good harbor, for it all. Fine sandy bottom, with draft that'll take a seventy-gun brig."
"So that's how the Cow-Killers . . . the buccaneers have managed to keep the island? There's only one spot the Spaniards could try and land infantry, and to get there you've got to go through a narrow passage in the reefs, easy to cover with cannon?"
"I'd say that's about the size of it. No bottom drops anchor at Tortuga unless those rogues say you aye." He turned and began to secure a loose piece of line dangling from the shroud supporting the mizzenmast. "Then too there's your matter of location. You see, m'lady, the island lays right athwart the Windward Passage, betwixt Hispaniola and Cuba, which is one of the Spaniards' main shippin' lanes. Couldn't be handier if you're thinkin' to lighten a Papist merchantman now and again. . . ."
Mewes' voice trailed off as he glanced up to see Winston emerge at the head of the companionway, half asleep and still shirtless under his jerkin. Following after him was Atiba, wearing a pair of ill-fitting seaman's breeches, his bare shoulders glistening in the sun's early glow. When he spotted Mewes, he gave a solemn bow, Yoruba style.
"Ku abo, senhor."
"Aye,qu avait is." Mewes nodded back, then turned to Katherine. "Now, for your edification that means 'greetings,' or such like. Since I've been teachin' him English, I've been pickin' up a few of the finer points of that African gabble of his, what with my natural gift for language."
"God's life, you are learning fastly, Senhor Mewes." Atiba smiled. "And since you are scholaring my tongue so well, mayhaps I should cut some of our clan marks on your mug, like mine. It is a damnable great ceremony of my country."
''Pox on your 'damnable great ceremonies.' '' Mewes busied himself with the shroud. "I'll just keep my fine face the way it is, and thank you kindly all the same."
Winston sleepily kissed Katherine on the forehead.
She gave him a long hug, then pointed toward the south. "John claims that's Hispaniola.”
"One and the same. The queen of the Greater Antilles. Take a good look, Katy. I used to hunt cattle in those very woods. That mountain range over in mid-island means we should raise Tortuga any time now." He turned and began unlashing the whipstaff, then motioned Atiba forward. "Want to try the helm for a while? To get the feel of her?"
"My damnable shoulder is good, senhor. I can set a course with this stick, or cut by a sword, as better than ever."
"We'll see soon enough." He watched Atiba grasp the long hardwood lever and test it. "I just may need you along to help me reason with my old friend Jacques."
"Hugh, tell me some more about what he's like." Katherine took another look at the hazy outline of Hispaniola, then moved alongside them.
"Jacques le Basque?" Winston smiled and thought back. Nobody knew where Jacques was from, or who he was. They were all refugees from some other place, and most went by assumed names—even he had been known simply as "Anglais." "I'd guess he's French, but I never really knew all that much about him, though we hunted side by side for a good five years." He thumbed toward the green mountains. "But I can tell you one thing for sure: Jacques le Basque created a new society on northern Hispaniola, and Tortuga."
"What do you mean?"
"Katy, you talked about having an independent nation in the Americas, a place not under the thumb of Europe? Well, he made one right over there. Weboucanierswere a nation of sorts—shipwrecked seamen, runaway indentures, half of them with jail or a noose waiting in one of the other settlements. But any man alive was welcome to come and go as he liked."
Katherine examined his lined face. "Hugh, you told me you once tried to kill Jacques over some misunderstanding. But you never explained exactly what it was about."
Winston fell silent and the only sound was the lap of waves against the bow. Maybe, he told himself, the time has come. He took a deep breath and turned to her. "Remember how I told you the Spaniards came and burned out the Providence Company's English settlement on Tortuga? As it happened, I was over on Hispaniola with Jacques at the time or I probably wouldn't be here now. Well, the Spaniards stayed around for a week or so, and troubled to hang some of Jacques's lads who happened in with a load of hides. When we found out about it, he called a big parlay over what we ought to do. All the hunters came—French, English, even some Dutchmen. Every man there hated the Spaniards, and we decided to pull together what cannon were left and fortify the harbor at Basse Terre, in case they got a mind to come back."
"And?"
"Then after some time went by Jacques got the idea we ought not just wait for them. That wed best try and take the fight back. So he sent word around the north side of Hispaniola that any man who wanted to help should meet him on Tortuga. When everybody got there, he announced we needed to be organized, like the Spaniards. Then he stove open a keg of brandy and christened us Les Freres de la Cote, the Brotherhood of the Coast. After we’d all had a tankard or two, he explained he wanted to try and take a Spanish ship."
"You mean he sort of declared war on Spain?"
"As a matter of fact, that's how it turned out." He smiled. "Jacques said we'd hunted the Spaniards' cattle long enough; now we would hunt the whoreson Spaniards themselves. We'd sail under our old name ofboucanier, and he swore that before we were through nobody would remember the time it only meant cow hunters. We'd make it the most dreaded word a Spaniard could hear."
John Mewes was squinting toward the west now, past the bowsprit. Abruptly he secured a last knot in the shroud, then headed down the companionway and past the seamen loitering by the mainmast.
"And that was the beginning? When the Cow-Killers became sea rovers and pirates?" For some reason the story made her vaguely uneasy. "You were actually there? A part of it?"
"I was there." Winston paused to watch Mewes.
"So then you . . . joined them?"
"No particular reason not to. The damned Spaniards had just murdered some of ours, Katy, not to mention about six hundred English settlers. I figured why not give them a taste back? Besides, it looked to be the start of a grand adventure. We got together as many arms as we could muster, muskets and axes, and put to sea. Us against the Spaniards . . ."