Pirate Wolf Trilogy (18 page)

He looked up at
Spence’s face, then over at the shattered remains of the wooden
limb crushed against the rail.

“You didn’t
know?” Beau asked with some surprise.

“I … merely
thought he had a limp.”

Beau grinned.
“How profoundly observant of you, Captain Dante.”

The impish
smile produced a startling change on her face and Dante found
himself completely unsettled by it. Soft brown brows arched above
eyes that had the luster of burnished gold; supple pink lips were
gracefully curved, unexpectedly sensual. She had shed the thickly
padded doublet and her breasts pushed against the linen as if
trying to burst through … indeed, where she had ripped the seam of
her sleeve, the whiteness of her flesh shone like a hidden
pearl.

Billy Cuthbert
shouted for their attention. His face was contorted with strain as
he leaned against the tiller, trying to hold it steady. “Is the
captain all right?”

“He has cracked
his head hard enough to cross his eyes,” Beau said, tying off the
makeshift bandage. “But otherwise he will probably live.”

“Good. Because
we have a problem here that might require his attention.”

Beau
cursed and sprang to her feet. Dante was a beat behind and did not
need to see the sudden, appalling drain of color from her face to
know that in the brief few minutes they had taken to tend Jonas
Spence, the
Egret
had come
well within the range of the
San Pedro’s
guns.

Within range
and still streaking toward her like a hawk diving on its prey.

Dante looked at
Beau, then swore his way through a quick decision as he whirled and
strode to the rail. “Mister Pitt! Mister McCutcheon! Double-shot
every gun and be prepared to fire on my signal!”

The gnarled
face of Spit McCutcheon turned hesitantly to Beau. At the same
time, several of the Spaniard’s shots found their range and smashed
through the bow rails, spraying fragments of timber on the heads of
the men in the waist of the ship. More ripped through the canvas
overhead, bringing down the skysail and sending lines hissing
through the air like snakes.

“Do it, Spit,”
Beau ordered. “Do as he says!”

“
Aye,
sir!
Double
up, lads!”

“
I need
five men up here on cables!” Dante shouted.
“Now!
Lucifer—!”

The Cimaroon
emerged from the debris on the run and jumped up to the afterdeck
without troubling himself to use the ladder. A curt order from
Dante put him on the tiller anchoring the heavy cables at intervals
along the thick oak arm, passing the ends to the other men who had
responded to Dante’s call.

“Beau—” Dante
whirled again. “On my command, put everything you have on the
rudder. She’ll fight you at this speed, but you have to hold her.
Can you do it?”

“We’re moving
too fast! You’ll tear her apart!”

He shook his
head. “She’s strong, she’ll hold! If we try to slow her down, we’ll
only stay under the Spaniard’s guns longer and if we shear away
now”—he ducked as another barrage of exploding wood splinters and
rubble narrowly missed him—“they’ll be able to hit us with
everything they have.”

“What are you
going to do?”

“
We
… are going
to surprise the hell out of them,” he said with a predator’s
grin.

They were
coming up fast on the
San Pedro
, close enough now to clearly see the Spanish officers in
their shiny breastplates and feathered helmets moving along the
decks, ordering their gunners to bear down on the approaching ship.
Their efforts were finding some success as a burning spar crashed
onto the
Egret’s
gundeck,
crushing one man and sweeping another, screaming, through a new gap
in the rail.

McCutcheon and
Pitt encouraged their gunners with a calmness that might have been
applied to a training drill, not the fiery maelstrom erupting
around them. When both batteries were loaded and ready, the men
looked up at Simon Dante, their faces white and streaming sweat,
and nodded.

Dante
repeated the gesture and raised his hand in Beau’s direction,
watching her, watching the fast-approaching galleon, watching the
shocked reaction on board the Spaniard as the crew scattered in
panic, expecting the
Egret
to ram
them bow-on. Dante waited to the last possible second, judging the
tack with the likeliest amount of clearance before he brought his
arm slashing down.

“
Now!”
He shouted
savagely.
“Bring her hard to starboard, now!”

At a
distance of barely fifty yards the
Egret
started to carve a deep blue swath in the sea as she turned
into a parallel course with the galleon. Because of her comparative
size she looked more like a mongrel running into the shadow of a
stallion, but Dante had gauged her speed, her roll, the swell of
the sea, and when his arm came down a second time to release his
gunners, the bite she took out of the monstrous ship was both
devastating and crippling in its effect. The thunderous volley was
delivered almost as a single shot and exploded with such a
vengeance on the enemy deck, there was a corresponding explosion of
planking, timbers, and bodies on board the galleon. Screams and
smaller blasts followed as stores of powder were struck and
ignited. McCutcheon’s crews were able to fire a second murderous
barrage, then a third and a fourth, before the
Egret
started to peel away. By then the galleon was
enveloped in a thick black boil of smoke that left scrolling plumes
in the sky behind her.

“Captain!”

Beau’s scream
did not allow Dante time to celebrate the success of his maneuver.
She was sprawled on her backside, as were Lucifer, Billy Cuthbert,
and the other four men who had been putting their backs into
holding the rudder. The arm of the tiller had snapped under the
incalculable strain and sent them all into a crushed heap against
the rail. Suddenly free of tension, the rudder swung loose, guided
by momentum and motion, breaking out of the tight turn and plunging
instead toward a sure collison with the wide stern end of the
galleon.

Lucifer
staggered to his feet, shaking a spray of blood droplets off his
hand. Beau was struggling to her knees as Dante ran past and
snatched her upright by the scruff of her shirt. Her lip was split
and the palms of both hands were raw from rope burns, but she
gathered up the cables and ran after the two men to the broken stub
of the tiller. Lucifer twined the rope around the oak, then coiled
it once around his body and pulled, while Dante and Beau plied
every last ounce of their strength to pushing on the opposite side.
The rope gouged deeply into the Cimaroon’s flesh and he let loose a
bloodcurdling roar, one that had the veins popping in his neck and
his eyes rolling back so that only the whites showed.

Dante’s every
muscle and sinew bulged across his back and arms. His long legs
were braced back on the deck and his head was dropped between his
shoulders; he did not have to look to see if their exertions were
having any effect, they would all know well enough in the next few
seconds.

The sound
of cold, rushing water filled their ears. An ominous black shadow
swept over their heads as the
Egret
passed so close to the Spaniard, they could feel the heat
of her fires belching out the broken gallery windows, so close the
end of an English yard snagged on the tangle of Spanish rigging
overhead and was brought screaming around in its fittings, ripping
cables and cleats free as it twisted around the mast. A massive,
almost human groan rose from the
Egret’s
belly as she squeezed past the galleon, her planks
and boards shuddering with the friction as she cut through the
turbulence of the
San Pedro’s
wake. When she was clear, and bursting into sunlight again,
the groaning was deafened by the cheers of the men as they threw
their arms in the air and whooped in triumph.

While Lucifer
eased some slack into the cable, Beau collapsed in disbelief
against the broken spar.

“Did we do it?”
she gasped. “Did we really do it?”

Dante,
grinning, did not answer her with words. Instead, he reached down
and took her face between his hands, kissing her hard and full on
the lips.

CHAPTER
TEN

Within
fifteen minutes the San
Pedro de Marcos
brought down her flags. To the last there were
sporadic shots fired in anger and frustration at the
Egret
, but with
masts and sails in ruin and gundecks in chaos, it was only a matter
of time before the captain-general signaled an end to the fighting.
Almost immediately, the
Egret’s
jolly boat was lowered and filled with armed crewmen who,
under the bristling command of Spit McCutcheon, crossed to the
Spaniard and issued the terms for surrender.

During
the interim the carpenter on board the
Egret
jury-rigged a temporary new arm for the tiller.
Dante ordered the mainsails reefed and kept aloft just enough
canvas for steerage as he maneuvered the ship around the galleon,
waiting for the Spaniards to douse their fires and make
preparations to be boarded. He kept the gun crews and arquebusiers
at their posts but otherwise ordered the decks to be cleared of
debris, damaged sails to be cut away, and critical repairs made.
The wounded were helped below, where Cook was already red to the
elbows, hard at work with his saws and cauterizing irons. Amazingly
enough, there were only five dead and fewer than a dozen with
serious wounds. Those with blisters, cuts, and scrapes tended each
other or themselves, making light of their trifling injuries in
lieu of the excitement of winning such a resounding
victory.

Jonas Spence
had had his scalp stitched closed but was too befuddled to retain a
lucid thought for more than a minute or two; he had been moved
below to his cabin. Lucifer had earned a crushed rib through his
exertions but refused to be attended by a ship’s cook. He archly
conveyed by hand signals that he could easily cure himself if he
had a severed chicken foot, but since there were no fowls on board,
he made do with the limb of a gull that had been unlucky enough to
be caught in the exchange of fire.

Dante de
Tourville similarly disdained any suggestion of having his cuts and
scrapes seen to. There were far more pressing matters to concern
him, like breaking out muskets and pikes for the boarding parties,
readying the grappling lines, clearing space in the holds for
whatever plunder might soon be coming onboard. While he was
undeniably pleased at the
Egret’s
performance, he was also markedly disappointed at the
amount of damage the
San Pedro
had
sustained. Although it was indeed a lumbering sow, it was one of
Spain’s finest and could have presented quite a sight being sailed
into an English port as prize. As it stood now, the hulk would be
lucky to stay afloat as far as the Spanish coast—providing it could
even raise enough canvas to catch the wind.

Billy
Cuthbert brought him a bucket of seawater and a scrap of lye soap
to make himself presentable before going on board the Spaniard. The
bulk of the fighting over, it would now become a battle of wits,
with the Spanish captain-general expressing indignation and outrage
over an open act of piracy, issuing dire warnings of reprisals,
revenge, and outright war should any of his cargo be appropriated.
Dante had heard it all before, too many times for it to have much
effect on anything but his temper. The bastard had surrendered. His
ship and all its contents were forfeit. It was as simple as that.
If he wanted to debate the issue, Dante would gladly reload his
guns.

In the
calm that followed the battle, Dante had to admit, if only to
himself, just how remarkable a feat they had accomplished. Had it
not been for the
Egret’s
spirit
and her captain’s slight madness, a victory over such a Goliath
should not have been so swift or easy. Not just the
Egret
, but her
entire crew had spirit and guts, and Dante found himself staring
back at the afterdeck, his soul aching over the loss of the
Virago
, once
again envying Jonas Spence his fine ship and crew.

One crew member
in particular, he conceded with a wry smile.

Dante ran
his hands through the blue-black waves of his hair, shaking a spray
of water droplets free. He took his shirt from Billy and shrugged
it over his big shoulders, then stood easy while the shorter man
climbed atop a capstan and helped him into his doublet and sword
belt. There was still a thin pall of smoke drifting over the decks
of the
Egret
, cloaking
the sun, making it appear small and pale in a colorless sky. Dante
had to narrow his eyes to identify the figure he saw standing by
the afterdeck rail, and, confirming it was Beau Spence, he thanked
Cuthbert and made his way along the deck toward the stern, weaving
a path through and around the men who were recovered enough to
speculate excitedly among themselves over what plunder might be
waiting for them on board the Spaniard.

The lion’s
share, they knew, would go to the captain, who had financed the
voyage himself and owed nothing to investors. The remainder would
be divided among the crewmen, and if it was a very rich prize, they
would all be sailing home to England wealthy men.