Pirate Wolf Trilogy (17 page)

“Make those
monsters spit fire, lad; that will be worth all an’ more to
see.”

Within
fifteen minutes the
Egret
had
changed her course to intercept and raced with her nose held high
under a swollen pyramid of sail. Her decks were cleared for action.
The gunports were opened, the lashings taken off the muzzles of the
culverins, and sturdy breeching tackle attached. Buckets of sand
and ash were spread on the planking for added traction, barrels of
seawater were hauled on board and set between the guns in case of
fire. Sponges, crowbars, linstocks, and handspikes were laid
alongside the gun carriages; the wooden wheels were given an extra
smear of grease, and the trolleys were stacked high with iron shot
in varying weights and calibers.

The
Spaniard, within the next quarter hour, had been identified by her
silhouette and fittings as the
San Pedro de Marcos
, indeed a treasure ship, and one that had likely
been in the small fleet that had cleared Hispaniola a fortnight
before the
Egret
.

The
captain-general of the
San Pedro
had equal time to prepare, for there was no way to misread
the
Egret’s
intentions, though it was doubtful he would know the
identity of the merchantman beyond the Cross of St. George she
flew. With predictable insolence, and being nowhere within range,
the
San
Pedro
fired the first
shot, its main purpose being, Spence declared in a contemptuous
bellow, to frighten them away. He ordered a temporary course
change, one that presented his broadside for a brief snub, then
gave the helm back to Beau, who tacked efficiently into the wind
again. Someone on board the Spanish galleon must have recognized
the insult for what it was— either that or he realized the
Egret
was not going to be so easily
discouraged—and ordered another volley, this time a full salvo from
both tiers of guns, fired almost simultaneously so that the
leviathan was lost for a moment behind a dense cloud of
smoke.

The
Egret
streaked
within five hundred yards, then four. A second full salvo and a
third followed the first, all of the shots falling well shy of any
real threat, and by twos and threes the grins began to break out on
board the English merchantman. The biggest grin by far came on the
face of the Cimaroon, who startled everyone around him by leaping
nimbly up onto the deck rail, flinging his loincloth aside, and
sending a long stream of yellow liquid in the direction of the
Spaniard.

Spence
ordered the gunners to open fire at three hundred yards. Geoffrey
Pitt’s crew scored the first direct hit, albeit a harmless one,
bouncing an iron ball off the
San
Pedro’s two-foot-thick outer hull. His succeeding shots,
and those of his other gunners, were more accurate and far more
deadly, blasting away sails and yards and the men who balanced
there precariously awaiting orders from their helm. Standing off at
what must have seemed a preposterous distance from the startled
Spaniard, Pitt’s crews split rails and smashed through the ornately
gilded stern galleries.

They maintained
a steady barrage, firing as quickly and as smoothly as the guns
could be swabbed and reloaded. Clouds of smoke and flame erupted
continuously from the long black row of muzzles, cloaking the lower
deck in a thick, impenetrable fog of choking cordite. Sweat
streamed from the bodies of the men who lifted and rammed the
thirty-pound shot into the smoking muzzles. A shout had them
jumping back from the anticipated recoil and covering their ears
against the tremendous roar of each explosion. Another shout had
them leaping forward and swarming over the gun again, feeding a
powder cartridge down the barrel, packing down the shot and
wadding, then grunting against the winch lines to reseat the
carriage in front of the gunport. More black powder was poured down
the touch hole and ignited, and the macabre dance began again.

Beau’s
throat soon grew raw from the smoke and heat, from shouting orders
to the men who worked the miles of rigging, setting the sails to
her directions. By the time they made their fourth pass around the
Spaniard, each one as tight and clean as if executed with a brush
stroke, her nerves had settled, although her blood still roared
with the excitement, the thrill of battle. The treasure ship was so
sluggish and heavy, she seemed to be standing still while
the
Egret
swooped
and carved furrows in the sea around her. They were returning fire,
but for every shot that chanced off the
Egret’s
hull or decking, the
San Pedro de Marcos
suffered thirty or more in
return.

The afterdeck
was Spence’s domain and he ruled it with thunderous authority,
ordering tighter circles on each pass, allowing the gunners on the
smaller culverins to join in and pour round after round of
mercilessly destructive shot down the Spaniard’s throat. She was a
magnificent example of Spain’s finest, with gold figureheads and
ornate carvings on all her decks. Regal beauty though she was,
Spence’s armaments made short work of her fancy trimmings and
scrolled grotesques. The rows of diamond-paned windows across her
stern galleries were reduced to powder, exploding in founts of
shattered glass. The sails were shredded, the rigging slashed in so
many places, the yards swung loose in their braces. Two of the
masts took direct hits and were cracked off midway down the stems.
They hung over the side of the ship, dragging their sodden sails
and lines in the water, further hampering the ability of her helm
to respond.

Dante’s
demi-cannon were impressive, wreaking most of the damage on
the
San
Pedro’s
sails while well out of range of the Andalusian guns. De Tourville
and Lucifer labored side by side on one of the cannon, both men
working as hard as the rest of the gun crew. Dante was stripped to
the waist like the common seamen, trading off blisters and cuts
from flying splinters against the more dangerous threat from the
clouds of live sparks and burning cinders. His chest was a gleaming
wall of muscle, rippling under the strain of loading shot and
hauling winch lines. His hair was tied back with a leather thong,
his face streaked with sweat and as blackened by smoke as Lucifer’s
was by nature.

Geoffrey
Pitt stalked the rows of guns like a panther, thundering as loud as
the cannon if he saw a line too slack or a flambeau hovering too
carelessly close to a bucket of loose powder. The crew of
the
Egret
had become
accustomed to his amiable and cheerful presence on board their
ship; they had to adjust their perceptions accordingly as he turned
into a green-eyed devil in battle. But they responded each time he
pounded them on the back for encouragement, and they grinned as
broadly as he did each time one of their shots tore down rigging or
sail. Even Spit McCutcheon, whose bony nose had been put out of
joint watching the demis outshine his culverins, was seen to roar
and leap with approval a time or two and he began to look to Pitt
and watch for his signal that they might send the next volley
arcing out across the water in unison.

The
Spanish galleon staggered under the assault. She had been caught
completely off guard by the
Egret’s
size and audacity. The haughty, armor-clad hidalgos paced
atop the tall forecastle in frustration, their polished
breastplates winking through the smoke, their plumed helmets
bobbing up and down as they shouted useless commands to their
crews. Sailors and soldiers alike were helpless to do more than
watch as the
Egret’s
guns
turned the open and unprotected decks into a bloody
slaughterhouse.

As
the
Egret
closed her
deadly circle the returning fire came closer to the mark, but the
shots were solid and easy enough for a man to avoid by tracking the
high-pitched whistle. Unlike Pitt’s little innovations. He began to
fill hollow shells with combustibles, rusty nails, and sharp iron
filings. They flew in silent, lethal arcs across the water,
exploding on the enemy deck with a decimating spray of slivered
metal and smoldering faggots. Fires began to break out on
the
San
Pedro’s
shattered decks,
turning the entire length of the ship into an inferno of thick,
boiling clouds of black smoke shot through with columns of orange
flame. On every gust of wind they could hear the screams of the
soldiers and crewmen, for a shipboard fire was dreaded even more
than sinking in shark-infested waters.

Dante’s
earlier misgivings were replaced by genuine admiration each time he
looked through the smoke and spouting water and saw that the
distance between the two ships had not varied by more than the
length of a knife throw despite the increasingly choppy waves.
The
Egret’s
motion
was becoming more unstable as she rocked against the swells and the
spine-juddering recoils, but they had the wind to their advantage,
blowing sharp and steady, and a helmsman who was relentlessly
efficient at presenting the
Egret’s
best broadside to her enemy.

Spence’s
daughter was good, as much as it galled him to admit it. Damned
good. She was guiding the helm with a sure, deft touch and
the
Egret
was
responding like a lover, thrusting and withdrawing, thrusting and
withdrawing, at her pleasure. More than once Dante found himself
staring at the slender figure on the afterdeck. She worked the
tiller with a young, muscle-bound crewman named Billy Cuthbert, and
even though her arms surely had to be tiring from holding the
rudder in such a tight pattern for so long, she did not take more
than a few minutes’ break at a time. Her shirt was soaked in sweat
and her cheeks wore two red blazes from her exertions … yet Dante
suspected she would have to fall over in a dead faint before she
would relinquish the helm.

The
Egret
was a
damned fine ship as well and Dante was envious of the bald-headed
walrus who was her master. She was stout hearted and fast as
lightning, capering through the waves with a headstrong grace that
reminded him all too painfully of his sylphlike
Virago
. He regretted he was not the one passing orders
to the helm, for there were some tricks, some clever maneuvers, he
was certain the
Egret
could
execute that might bring a quicker end to the Spaniard’s
stubbornness.

The
thought had barely left his head when he felt the incline of the
deck shift beneath his feet. His crew had just fired the
demi-cannon and it took a moment for the echo of the explosions to
fade and for the cloud of hot, roiling smoke and sparks to clear.
When it did, Dante looked up sharply at the groaning of spars and
snapping of canvas sheets overhead. On a signal from the helm alt
the sails had been backed and the yards swung about in their
braces. A quick took over the rail confirmed what the sudden shift
implied: The
Egret
had taken
a stunningly sharp turn, almost skidding sidelong through the
swells, and was refitting her canvas to sweep her in a new
direction.

In a few
minutes they were once more running with the wind in their teeth,
heading straight at the
San Pedro.
As a target the
Egret
would pose a nearly impossible challenge to the inept
gunners on board the Spanish galleon; as a threat, she was at a
temporary disadvantage herself, able to bring only her forward bow
chasers into play until Spence gave the order to shear away and
present a broadside. Since it was almost the exact maneuver Dante
himself had been thinking about, he clenched a fist in a show of
support and cast a broad grin up at the captain. Spence, in turn,
executed a courtier’s bow to acknowledge the pirate wolf’s praise,
and was still partly off balance when the iron ball screamed
through the sails overhead and struck the after-deck.

A younger man
with two good legs and several stone less weight around his girth
might have been able to spring clear and come up laughing.

As it was,
Spence jerked to one side, and instead of taking off his head, the
ball struck the lower half of his leg. It tore away everything
below his knee, and sent Jonas spinning sideways against the mast,
with his hairless skull cracking as loud as a gunshot against the
solid white pine.

Dante dropped
the iron shot he had been holding and was in motion before Spence’s
body sagged to the deck. He mounted the ladder in two bounding
strides and caught the massive shoulders under the arms, propping
him against the trunk of the mast even as Beau skidded onto her
knees beside them.

“Father!
Father!” she cried.

“God deliver me
from the sin o’ fornication,” Spence gasped, clutching at the
sheets of blood that poured from the deep gash in his head. “Have
the bastards killed me?”

“No.” Beau
wilted briefly under the weight of her relief. “But your head
nearly killed the mast.”

She
ripped the sleeve from her shirt and used it to bind her father’s
wound. Dante, meanwhile, was gaping down at the shredded flaps of
Spence’s breeches, at a wound that
should
have been spouting gouts of blood but was only leaking a
few feeble drops where the leather leg brace had been torn
away.