Ill Wind and Dead Reckoning: Caribbean Pirate Adventure (Valkyrie) (17 page)

I desperately wanted to follow Frazer through the scuttle and ensure he lived. But I could not. I was the captain of this ship and Frazer wasn’t the only one crippled. The ship was injured too; she had a hole in her hull and the pumps were only just keeping up with the intake of water. We needed to make repairs before I could turn downwind again. I had to see to
Freedom
first, and my carpenter was busy.

The last of
Magdalena’s
men climbed aboard, and I instructed Cheval on the tiller to keep us hove-to until it was safe to set sail again. I went below to inspect the damage for myself.

The gundeck stank of brimstone, and it was hard to see and breathe – even with the extra ventilation. The gash in the side was about a foot wide and almost the same high, and the deck before it was thick with vicious splinters. The hole was not as bad as I’d feared, but was too close to the waterline to ignore in these seas; it could be enough to sink us. It was too large for a patch of lead sheeting, and Blackman and Smith struggled to cover it with tarred sailcloth, which they battened to the hull to keep the worst of the seas out. It was the best we could do until we could find a safe harbour.

‘Let me know the second it’s safe to bear off, Bo’sun,’ I said, ignoring Blackman’s grumbles, and went to see the huddle of men in the bows. They were comparing injuries, each claiming to have won the pieces of eight each gunner put into the pot to go to the man with the worst injury. Despite the hammocks rolled up against the wooden hull, the splintered hull had caught three or four of them and one, Jacques, was close to serious; he would not be hauling out the heavy cannon for a while. He was enjoying the attention, though – and the twenty-odd pieces of eight he finally claimed from the others. I supposed whatever kept them shooting was fine by me. I couldn’t imagine a worse place to be in a gunfight. As we’d just proved, the four-inch-thick wooden hull didn’t offer much in the way of protection from cannonball. They worked with the risk of fire or cannon exploding if just one man lacked the care required. Even without accidents, gunners wore their shoulders out at about the same rate they lost their hearing.

I climbed back up the main scuttle to my upper deck, and paused for a moment in the wind to enjoy its strength on my face, then looked up at the sails. We were safe enough hove-to like this, but I didn’t like being at the mercy of the wind gods. I could not steer. I could not command. We were drifting downwind, despite the sea anchor, vulnerable to the sea and anything on her, and there was nothing I could do about it.

‘Keep her head to wind, Cheval,’ I said, looking at the sails again. ‘Blackman’ll shout when it’s safe to set a course.’

I examined the decks and tried not to think about what was happening down on the dark, wet orlop deck in the bowels of the ship. I imagined Frazer screaming as Gaunt sliced and sawed; his blood streaming into the bilges. Then the smell of cooking flesh when Gaunt sealed the stump with the red-hot wide cauterizing iron. I remembered Garcia – one of the topmen aboard Capitán Valdez’s ship – when I first went to sea. He’d fallen from the mainyard and shattered his arm. I’d been one of the men tasked with holding him down for the surgeon, Don Roberto. The things I saw that day came flooding back. The way Roberto had circled Garcia’s arm with his sharpest knife and peeled the skin back. Garcia’s piercing screams and frantic struggles, even with copious amounts of rum and poppy, plus six sailors holding him down. Then a larger knife carving muscle as calmly as if preparing a boar for the spit; except I’d never known a boar fight back. The horrendous grating of the bone saw.

By the time Garcia had succumbed to oblivion I’d thought it a blessing, but he never woke. Despite Roberto cauterizing the stump, pulling the flap of skin back down and sewing it up, Garcia had lost too much blood. It had taken months to scrub the last of the stains from the deck.

And now Frazer was in the same position, and it was my fault. All my fault. I shook myself out of my imaginings. We were still in danger. I was still responsible for more than forty lives. I couldn’t afford to dwell on Frazer’s sufferings.

*

At last, Blackman’s head appeared out of the main hatch, thumb up. The hull was seaworthy again, and we were masters of our own fates once more.

Hoping the cant of the ship as she came off the wind wouldn’t affect the steadiness of Gaunt’s hands, I gave the order to loose the main-topsail and set the maincourse and spanker.

‘Keep the damage to leeward, Cheval. We’ll have to stay on larboard and pray we find land quickly. Any ideas?’

In any other circumstances, I wouldn’t take my ship even within sight of land in a blow this strong; it was usually the worst time to go ashore – there’d been many a ship wrecked whilst searching out shelter close to land. Today, we had no choice; we couldn’t stay out at sea with mere canvas to keep it out.

‘Well?’ I barked in impatience, trying to ignore the screaming just audible from below.

‘Course sou’east, Capitaine, we could probably shake the reef out of that main, but I advise on the caution with our damage.’

‘Muy bien, Cheval. Very well. Is there any land out there?’

‘Sayba, Capitaine, right on our nose.’

‘Sayba!’ I spluttered. ‘You want to take us to Sayba?’

‘Oui, mon Capitaine. We can sail sou’east, maybe east with this wind and this ‘ull, but there’s nothing else out there. It’s either Sayba or St Eustatius, another three days sail away and with, no doubt, the even frostier welcome.’

I knew he was right, but I didn’t like it. Sayba was a nasty place for an injured ship in a gale. Most of her coastline was rocked and cliffed, and a lot of her rocks hid below the surface. Not to mention it being Blake and Hornigold’s lair.

‘Trust me, Capitaine, I know the island. I know where we’ll ‘ave the safety.’

I paused, then nodded, I would have to trust him, I had no other choice; nowhere else to go.

*

The island had been settled by the Dutch until Thomas Morgan – Henry’s uncle – had captured the island in 1665 and forced the Dutch settlers into servitude. Once the Anglo-Dutch war had been resolved, the Morgans recognized the mercantile potential of the Dutchmen, which was being wasted, and had allowed some of them to resettle the island. Now that Morgan had been suspended from the Council of Jamaica, Tarr, and then Blake and Hornigold, had taken over his interests here; although I was sure Morgan still took a slice of the profits.

‘
Land oh
.’

Just as the call came, Gaunt appeared on deck, and I hurried over to him, desperate to hear his report.

‘He’s breathing, but out cold. Best thing for him, Cap.’

‘Will he live?’

‘He likely will if he wakes. More than that I can’t say. It’d help him to be up in fresher air, though.’

‘Yes, bring him up to the chartroom.’ I noticed just how drawn Gaunt looked. I grasped his shoulder and nodded. ‘Gracias
,
Robert. Thank you.’

I returned to my place on the quarterdeck. If we could see the island in this weather we were close, and I did not entirely trust Cheval at the helm. The closer we got, the worse it looked – a square-rigger’s nightmare. The lee shore was a jagged, confused jumble of sharp, unforgiving rock. I wanted a boat to go ahead and make sure there was a passage large enough to accommodate
Freedom,
but Cheval swore there was a way through to a hidden anchorage. I could not risk heaving-to, to get the boats manned and away anyway. With the shallowing sea, the waves were getting up higher and were messy – coming from all directions – and
Freedom
would not last long here with no way on her. I had to trust the one man aboard in whom I had the least faith.

‘If you sink my ship, I’ll cut your throat,’ I promised Cheval, just to make sure he understood my position.

‘Relax, Capitaine, I know what I’m doing, let me do it – and the threats to my life are not helpful.’

I grunted in reply. I was not happy, but could do little about it. I sent a double-lookout to the bows and aloft, and had two of my strongest men, Phillippe and Carlos, standing by with the leads. It was a beast of a job to swing the seven-pound pyramids of lead and haul them back in, but I wanted two men sounding over and over again. I needed to know exactly how deep the water was below my keel, and the soft tallow on the base of the lead would tell me whether we had sand or rock below. This would not be pleasant.

*

The wind was still dropping, but too slowly for
Freedom.
We approached the rocky shoreline much too quickly, and I shouted to have the smaller jib and the mainsail furled. The force of the waves and the reefed main-topsail would give us enough speed, and the last jib would help us keep the necessary course, but I was still nervous and joined Cheval on the helm once more.

‘Do you see Lookout’s Rock just off the starboard bow – the one with the split like a seat?’

I nodded to Cheval as Phillippe called the depth, ‘No bottom’. We had sixty fathoms of line attached to the lead, three hundred and sixty feet, and it did not reach the seabed. Good news.

‘I’m lining that up with the clump of the trees on the cliff face behind it.’

I looked carefully and could just make them out, three trees clinging on precariously and leaning over the grey teeth below.

‘If I get it right we’ll clear the passage through—’

‘
If
you get it right?’ I thundered, angry again.

He looked at me. ‘I haven’t been here in a while,’ he admitted. ‘But with a fortuitous wave we’ll clear the rocks and be well hidden while we make the repairs. There are the defensive works on the cliff, but only the one gun may give us cause for the concern here, if it’s manned. It isn’t usually, only when they expect the trouble, and we’re not showing any lights. It’s the best chance we’ve got, Capitaine
.
Around that headland to the sou’west is Eckerstad, the Dutch town, and if Blake’s here that’s where he’ll be.’

‘Fifty by the mark, shell and coral,’ Phillippe shouted. Fifty fathoms of water.

‘Is that likely? How much time does he spend ashore?’

‘Not a lot, he hates the landlubbers almost as much as he hates Spain, excusez-moi.’ I nodded to hurry him along. ‘I doubt he’s here or we’d likely have seen him, but there’s no way to be sure. Hornigold though, if he survives, he’ll be here.’

I nodded again, then thought of something else. ‘Assuming we get in safely and the wind turns fair, how’s the passage out?’

‘Forty, shell. Looks like conch,’ Phillippe called, as if he could tell.

‘Tricky,’ Cheval answered eventually. ‘It’s rare for the wind to be blowing like this. Sayba normally has the easterlies, but as you can see, the coast is high and the headland an odd shape – it can be unpredictable. As long as we wait for a fresh offshore breeze we’ll make an offing, no problem, but it may take a little of the patience.’

I kept nodding. I’d expected his answer and had only asked to calm my nerves, I hated having to rely on somebody else for the safety of my crew and ship, especially him, but he knew these waters better than I did.

‘Twenty by the mark, shell.’ One hundred and twenty feet; there were no jokes now.

I could see the extent of the reef by this time, but was encouraged by Cheval’s demeanour – he did sound as if he knew what he was talking about. But I still couldn’t see the passage through the rocks myself.

‘You can’t see it until we’re right on it, Capitaine. When you can see the beach, you’ll see the gap to it. There! Help me, we’re a little too far to the larboard.’

I grabbed the tiller and pushed it to larboard away from me as Cheval pulled, both of us muttering to
Freedom,
asking her to respond.

‘Five, shell and sand.’

‘Loose the mainsheets! Haul the main buntlines!’ Cheval shouted. The wind shook out of the mainsail, and our speed dropped.

The crew lined
Freedom’s
rails, holding their breath as we slipped between the rocks. Then she shuddered as her keel scratched the reef below, but only for a moment. The next wave lifted her just enough and we carried on. Touch and go – we were through; jib flogging now as well. She beached on to the sand and I looked astern at the reef we had bested.

I shook Cheval’s hand. ‘Your throat’s safe for the time being, Second!’ I laughed. ‘Well done. If anyone’s looking for us, they’ll find it difficult to spot us here. Good work, marin
,
I’m impressed.’

I was a little taken aback by the width of his smile, but thought he was probably just as relieved as I was to get through. He wore a smug grin on his face all the way forward as the crew took their turns to clap him on the back and congratulate his navigational skills. I could almost see his vanity growing, but felt much more indulgent towards him. My opinion of him had definitely improved; maybe I’d judged him too harshly.

Cheval had done well. We’d come in on the flood of the tide, and although he took the credit for this timing, it was really down to sailor’s luck – and maybe a slight storm surge. Either way, the result was the same; when the tide dropped,
Sound of Freedom
was left high and dry on the sand (or if not dry, at least high and draining – she still had a tun or two of water sloshing about her guts), and ready for work to begin.

Cheval had taken a couple of men to the island’s gun placement overnight – he was the only one who knew where it was, and was sure he could find it in the dark. He’d returned at first light, gun silenced. Now we had to set up our own defensive cannon before we did anything else.

‘Call thysen a sailor, man? Have a care with that cannon! If she swings any harder, she’ll bring the mast down!’

I jumped in surprise at the shout behind me. Gaunt was back on deck, and I walked over to him to find out how Frazer fared.

‘His battle’s with fever now, Cap. It’s up to Providence, I can do nowt else for him.’ He paused. ‘Go and see him, Cap. I don’t know if he’ll know thee, but he might.’ He looked past me at the gun slung over the mainyard and being lowered to the beach, then shouted again, ‘Have a care with that cannon! What have I already told thee?’

I looked at the cabin door for a moment, then turned away, back to the deck. I wasn’t ready to face Frazer yet. It was my fault he’d lost his leg, and if he died, that would be my fault too. We hadn’t sunk Hornigold; it had all been for nothing. How could I look him in the eye? Besides, there was nothing I could do for him. I gave my attention back to the ship.

Freedom
needed new planking which meant we needed trees, and the only ones in sight were either growing out of the cliff face or atop it. At least the problem of getting them to the beach in one piece gave me something other than Frazer to worry about. I called Cheval and Gaunt to join me. The climb itself didn’t look too arduous – there was even a path – and the wind would blow us on to the cliff rather than off it, but it would still take some planning to get the wood to the beach.

Conversation was brief on the way up – all of us needed our full concentration to find safe footholds – and I for one had no breath to spare. At last, the loose dark stones of the path were behind us and the footing became surer. I stared out to sea – a view I never tired of – and studied the calm, deep blue water. It showed no trace of the storm that had pounded us more thoroughly than Hornigold’s cannon the day before. It looked so beautiful and peaceful; the storm, waterspout and loss of the
Magdalena
already felt like a dream. But it was all very real, and we’d have had him if not for that squall. Instead of glory,
Freedom
lay helpless on the sand directly below me. At this height she could have been the carcass of some great stranded sea creature. She didn’t belong on a beach, her body holed and her wings clipped.

I shook myself out of my reverie. We needed to get on with it and make this enforced stop as brief as possible. I turned inland to have a good look at our surroundings. The dense jungle looked just like my early home in Panama, except for the bare rock of the top half of the central volcano shrouded with grey cloud. I could see no sign of people, but Cheval assured me there was a grand estate close inland and the town of Eckerstad was three or four leagues along the coast to the south. Blake and Hornigold had close ties to that town, and we could learn something useful about them there. I resolved to visit it with my second mate once all the decisions regarding the repairs were made.

‘Well, what do you think, Robert?’ I asked my carpenter.

‘Mahogany – it’s good wood,
Freedom’ll
do well with it, but it’ll be a beggar to work with.’

I nodded; this was going to take time then. ‘What do you want to do? Lower whole trees down or plank it up here?’

‘Good question. I reckon it’ll be easy enough to rig up a gantry to lower the smaller trees. We’re not exactly short of cordage, and I can rig up a runner and tackle easy enough. I ain’t dragging all the tools up here so the strakes can be damaged on the passage back down.’

I nodded, that made sense.

‘I’ll need a dozen men up here felling and lowering, and another half dozen below,’ he went on. ‘Then it’ll take time to carve and fair each strake, and there’s only a handful of men who can do that work. I wouldn’t count on leaving inside of two week. Mebbe three.’

I nodded again. I wasn’t surprised; the ball had split several strakes, and there was a lot of splintered wood to replace. It was no easy job to shape the four-inch-thick planks we needed. We’d use the time to thoroughly clean, air and scrape
Freedom’s
hull to get her fighting fit and to her fastest again. I looked back down at the beach, noting the gun placements and lookout positions. I would want somebody up here as well and, once the gantry was rigged, a gun or two wouldn’t be a bad idea, as long as they were the smaller ones. If we used one to signal the beach, the other would protect us from the bearing of the cliff top and the estate. We weren’t quite as vulnerable as I’d feared. Nobody would find it easy to sneak up on us here, and if they did try, we were well prepared and heavily armed. The gun covering our passage out had been spiked, and if there was no perceptible threat to the island, there was no reason the sabotage would be found – and if it was, it would take time to deal with. It was a big task, but with a little thought and planning we should be able to make our repairs and put off again right under the noses of our enemies.