Ill Wind and Dead Reckoning: Caribbean Pirate Adventure (Valkyrie) (39 page)

I woke to find Klara in the cabin with hot chocolate, fresh bread and meat.

‘You don’t have to do that, I’m not your mistress.’

‘No, you’re my captain,’ she replied, smiling. ‘And you need to eat.’

I sighed and heaved myself out of the cot. Yes, I was a pirate captain, but at what price?
Why did I have to lose Leo? What else would I have to lose to be free in this world?

‘Drink, you’ll feel better.’ Klara shoved the beaker of hot chocolate at me. ‘You have a boatful of confused people out there; they need to know what your plans are.’

I nodded, and made a huge effort to suppress my desolation and fear. I was the captain of this vessel, that had been my choice, and it was time to act the part. I had a quick wash, gulped my breakfast down, used the privy ledge and went topside just as the bell rang five times. It was midway through the morning watch, about six of the clock. The sun was climbing rapidly, we had a gentle breeze and
Valkyrie
was sailing well. I went aft to Carmen, who was standing her trick at the tiller, to check the course, then walked down the deck to hear Mr Gaunt’s report. He was at the mainsheets instructing the crew on the set of the sails.

‘Morning, Mr Gaunt,’ I interrupted. ‘Is all well?’

‘As well as can be, I reckon,’ he grumbled. ‘I hope thee knows what thee’s doing. Thee should never have left the Cap, lassie, never. Who knows what’ll happen now. I don’t like it. I tells thee, I don’t like it.’

‘Neither do I, Mr Gaunt, but I had no choice, I couldn’t stay, not after what he did. I couldn’t stay, so let’s just make the best of it shall we?’

‘Aye, lassie,’ he muttered.

‘Aye what?’ I asked sharply. He looked at me. ‘Captain. Aye, Captain.’

‘Thank you, Mr Gaunt. I’m relying on you, you know. I’m going to need your help to get
Valkyrie
through this. I’m sure Leo would expect it.’

He looked at me and I wondered if I’d gone too far, but if my quartermaster wouldn’t respect me as captain and show it, why would the rest of the crew?

‘Aye, Captain,’ he said with a hint of a smile. ‘That’s more like it, but thee’ll have to do this without calling on the cap’s name, thee knows. But I’ll help thee, don’t fret about that.’

I touched his arm. ‘Thank you, Mr Gaunt,’ I almost whispered. ‘You don’t know how glad I am to hear that.’

I looked around and my eyes met Carmen’s at the helm. She couldn’t possibly have heard us, but I didn’t like the small smile I could see around her pipe.

I went back to the quarterdeck and looked over my boat again. The enormity of what I’d done had hit me whilst I had been talking to Gaunt. I had seven men I thought I could rely on, although I was only sure of two of them, and they were all annoyed at my leaving the man they still thought of as their captain. Added to that, five women looked to a sixth and still thought of her as their captain.
What had I been thinking?
The only person aboard I knew I could trust fully was Klara. She’d never taken to sails or gun and seemed to have taken over the galley, but, thanks to her, I was sure Obi was my ally. And Gaunt, of course. I knew he wasn’t happy and was still loyal to Leo, but I also knew he looked on me as a daughter and I trusted him completely. I realized he’d be the key to my captaincy – if he showed support, then Davys, Butler, Cartwright and Greenwoode would most likely fall into line. I had no idea where Baba’s loyalty lay.

Carmen and the Awildas, however, were my biggest problem, and by the looks of it, the problem was growing. I noticed the men each had an Awilda working closely beside him. Was that coincidence, or was Carmen preparing the way to make a challenge against me? Or did the women just want some male company after sailing together for so long?
Bloody hell.

Carmen smiled at me. ‘A motley crew,’ she said.

I looked at her, not sure of her motives, and realized I didn’t like them, whatever they were. I knew she was unhappy at leaving
Freedom’s
firepower behind, and the tentative friendship we’d enjoyed at first was gone.

‘Umm,’ I replied. ‘What’s Andy doing?’ She was heading forward with a bag of tools, chased by Gaunt.

‘Oh, she’s sorting your guns out for you,’ Carmen explained. ‘It looks like she wants a gunport in the bows. I think your carpenter is going to help her. Now that we’re on our own, we need to be better prepared.’

‘Nobody cuts holes in my ship without my say so,’ I stormed. ‘And I doubt very much Mr Gaunt wants to help.’

I left her smirking at the tiller and headed forward once again.

‘Put down the saws,’ I ordered, in my best commanding voice. ‘How dare you cut into
Valkyrie
without my knowledge or agreement!’

‘You told me I was Master of Arms. I cannot be a master gunner without gunports. We’ll be chasing a lot of ships and need a bigger gun here now that we’re on our own.’ Andy turned to continue what she was doing, and the similarity of her words to Carmen’s was not lost on me.

‘You still need to report to me before you make any structural changes on this boat, and Mr Gaunt needs to agree the change.’

‘Will a gunport here cause any weakness to
Valkyrie
?’ Andy asked Gaunt.

He examined her marks, then said, ‘Well, no, but that’s not the point, lass.’

Andy glowered at the epithet. ‘I am used to being trusted and allowed to get on with my duties,’ she stated. ‘Is that not the case aboard
Valkyrie
?’

I could feel myself losing this one. ‘Of course it’s the case, but please let me know before you cut into my ship!’

She nodded and turned back to her work.

‘What gun do you want to place here?’ I asked.

‘I’ll bring up a six-pounder from the waist. We’re hunters – chasers, we need more range forward.’

‘But they’re iron guns, there’s too much spray forward – the salt will rot them!’

‘I’m a master gunner, Captain, and excel at my craft. I will take care that it does not,’ she replied stiffly. I could not think of another reason to stop her and looked at Gaunt helplessly. He shrugged.

‘I’m changing the other guns too,’ Andy said, her back still to us.

‘What?’

She stood and turned. ‘I’m changing the other guns too. They’re all different sizes and take different balls and powder. I want you to target ships with six-pounders to match those I brought from
Awilda
. If all our cannon are the same, we’ll be more efficient, and there’ll be fewer mistakes with shot and powder.’

She turned back to her saws without waiting for an answer, and I realized she hadn’t actually asked a question. I stared at her back in frustration and clenched my fists. I knew I was in grave danger of losing my temper which would only make things worse. I forced myself to turn and walk away. I’d have to find a way of controlling the pair of them, but at the moment I didn’t have a clue how to go about it.

‘Thee’ll have to keep an eye on that ‘un, Captain,’ Gaunt said. ‘She’s a law unto hersen, and won’t do a damn thing she’s told. Be careful with the both of ‘em. There’ll be trouble there, thee mark ma words. Aye, they’s trouble, them two.’

‘Yes, I know, but we’re stuck with them, Mr Gaunt, so we’ll have to make the best of it,’ I managed to say quite calmly. I looked up at the sky. ‘Nearly noon, time to take a sight, will you accompany me?’

He smiled. ‘Aye, ‘course I will, lass.’

He was teaching me how to carry out the day’s work by dead reckoning, but was kind enough to let me pretend he was keeping me company. I went below to the cabin to get the backstaff, then joined him on the foredeck where we’d get the best view of the sun on this course, Klara’s words ringing in my ears – another warning to beware Carmen. She’d noticed Carmen smiling at my altercation with Andy, and thought she’d set it up in the first place. I was to keep a close eye on her. At least that wouldn’t be a problem on a boat this size, but it didn’t help me to know what to do with either her or Andy. They’d both been at sea a lot longer than I, Carmen on the quarterdeck of her own pirate vessel. She was a more experienced sailor and leader, and was already making trouble. Although without directly threatening my position, I couldn’t accuse her of mutiny.
Does she still want
Valkyrie
for her own? And with a ragtag crew at best, how will I stop the Awildas taking her?

‘We’d do better tacking round and finding
Sound of Freedom
again, lassie, thee knows that don’t thee?’ Gaunt reiterated. He was not going to leave it alone.

I studied the shadow cast on to the unwieldy backstaff by the noon sun behind me, and said nothing. The length of my arm, it had a large arc at one end through which I sighted and used to obtain one reading, and a smaller arc at the other end with a shadow vane which I adjusted to the sun to give a second reading. Our line of parallel, or latitude, was the sum of these two angles, but it wasn’t easy to decide on the right numbers when I was constantly heaved about on deck.

‘Whatever went on ‘tween thee and Cap, thee can mend it. The both of thee have been through so much and come out the other side, thee can get through this an’all.’

‘No we can’t, Gaunt. You don’t know.’

‘I knows enough.’

‘No you don’t!’ I shouted, unable to keep hold of the temper that had been threatening to engulf me since I’d last seen Leo. ‘He hit me! He threatened to put me in irons! He’s just like my father, just like my husband! I won’t have it! Not from him, not from anyone!’

Gaunt stepped back as I shook the two-foot-long backstaff at him.

‘I don’t think it were that simple, lassie,’ Gaunt said.

‘Gabriella? What’s wrong?’ Klara had arrived.

‘Of course it was that simple,’ I shouted, shaking Klara’s hand off my arm.

‘You defied him in front of the whole crew. That were mutiny. He had to show his authority – to thee and to everyone else. Does thee not think that might have summat to do with it?’

‘Damn him and his authority!’ I screamed. ‘He knows about Erik and he knows about my father, and he threatened me anyway!’

Memories of my father flooded back and I shook them off. I’d been free of him for years and done so much, why was he in my thoughts now? Erik had been little better. Well, he’d been worse really. He’d looked remarkably similar to my father when his temper was ignited – even though they’d never met. Erik
had
been worse. He’d used a weapon as well as fists – his cane – although he’d usually been careful enough not to leave any visible bruises larger than the width of his thumb. The times he broke this rule of thumb, I’d been so incapacitated that I couldn’t have shown anyone the evidence of his brutality anyway. Except for Klara of course, and she and the other slaves didn’t count. I should be grateful, he hadn’t really had to take the care, as nobody on Sayba would have done anything about it. He could have killed me at any time, at his leisure. Then Leo had turned on me, and threatened me, and Gaunt was telling me to go back!

‘Gabriella, please,’ Klara said quietly, still trying to keep the peace. ‘This is not helping you – everyone’s watching.’

I looked around, shaken by my memories, and realized I was behaving in the same manner as the men I was railing against. I was alone with a hostile crew, I needed to keep control – I was hardly filling them with confidence in their captain.

‘I can’t go back,’ I repeated, my voice almost normal again, although I was still shaking. ‘He threatened me. I won’t go back. I have to make the best of this.’

Gaunt nodded, too wise to say anything more, and pointed up to larboard. ‘Thee sees them birds, lassie?’ he asked. ‘Thee has to choose which of them thee’s gonna be: man-o-war or booby. Just watch ‘em a minute.’

I’d seen them before. The white boobys were excellent fishers, and hardly ever returned home without a prize – unless they became prey to the black men-o-war. Rather than catch their own, the larger birds ganged up on a laden booby and forced it to give up its treasure.

He saw I understood and handed me the backstaff I’d dropped in my rage. ‘The sun’ll be past its zenith soon, and thee hasn’t a parallel yet,’ was all he said.

Once again, I turned my back to the sun and balanced myself as well as I could on the heaving deck to hold up the instrument to read its shadowfall. ‘It’s right between fifteen and sixteen.’

‘Right then, we’ll check the traverse board so thee knows the course and speed over the whole watch, then thee can make our position.’ Gaunt was all business again.

‘Very well.’ I smiled, trying to repair some of the damage my tantrum had caused, and led the way back to the quarterdeck.

*

Down in the cabin I looked in despair at the mess on the chart table, and cursed myself that I hadn’t worked at this harder before striking out on my own. Charts, log book, dividers, compass, traverse board, slate, paper, and sharpened, string-bound sticks of plumbago for writing covered the wood. At least I could put the backstaff away for another day; the nocturnal, or star clock, wasn’t needed; nor was the astrolabe. What I needed now was my head – and Mr Gaunt’s guidance. The line of parallel was easy enough, I’d just read it off the backstaff, and I drew a faint horizontal line on the relevant chart to represent it.

I studied the traverse board next, a wooden roundel laid out like a compass with a length of wood above, all drilled with rows of small holes. The pegs stuck into it translated to how fast we’d travelled and in which direction since the last time I’d fixed our position. I added the details to my slate, tallying the previous watches’ information so the traverse board itself could be cleared ready for the next pegs to be inserted on the half hour. At least heading south with a fair wind our course had been fairly steady, with no constant tacking, so this dead reckoning would be easier than most to plot.

‘Thee’d be better leaving that traverse board in place on the taffrail by the tiller,’ Gaunt advised. ‘Just make a note of its reading and them on the slate, then wipe it clean for the next watch. Then thee can take as long as thee likes in the cabin over thy positioning.’

I nodded and scratched my calculations with my writing stick. I underlined my answer and did it again, and again, until I got the same result three times. I crossed the line of parallel where I reckoned our position to be, and raised my eyebrows at Gaunt.

‘Hmm, I’d have put us a bit more to the west,’ he said. ‘The current from the Atlantic swell will have pushed us sideways no matter how much southing we’ve made, but not bad, lassie, not bad.’

I threw the writing stick down in exasperation. ‘How can I work out where I’m going if I can’t work out where I am!’ I exclaimed. ‘And I’ve told you to call me Captain, not lassie!’

‘Settle down lassie – Captain. Thee’s doing right enough. It takes time and practice, and even then thee can’t be sure – every navigator at sea has the same problems. Make a good guess, keep an eye out for land and do thy best, that’s all thee can do. It’ll get easier, thee’s not far off. Thee’ll do better fretting about that lot out there than charts, anyhow. That Dane and her saw-happy mate’s the biggest problem on boat if thee asks me.’

I nodded; he was right. I finished off the log, determined to get back out on deck and keep a closer eye on Carmen. I couldn’t bear to lose
Valkyrie
to her – but I had a lot of work to do if I was to avoid the booby’s fate.