After a few moments, the weight pressing her to the deck eased, and she felt herself lifted to her feet.
“Can you stand?”
She nodded, locking her knees as she rested her back against his chest. “Was …” Her throat worked. “Was that lightning? Did it strike the ship?”
“Yes. And no.” His grip tightened over her wrist. “It struck theirs.”
She craned her neck to look up at his face. His features pale and drawn, he stared hard out over the ship’s rail. Sophia followed his gaze.
At first she scarcely noticed it, the faint red glow at the tip of the
Kestrel’s
mainmast. The ship was still some distance away, and Sophia had to squint to make it out. But it was there. Gray’s arm went slack about her, and she took a step forward. The light seemed to disappear for a moment, then sparked feebly and glowed anew, like an ember in a dying fire.
But this fire was not dying.
The captain appeared at Gray’s side. Together, the two men stared up at the red glow. “Gray, can you see—”
“Yes.”
A tongue of flame spurted from the tip of the mast. Sophia felt Gray’s whole body stiffen. Fire slithered down a length of rope, igniting one tip of the topmost yardarm.
“Damn it, why don’t they raise the alarm?” the captain asked. “Where is her crew?”
“After a blast like that …” Gray’s voice took on a steely edge. “Dead, some of them. Stunned or maimed, at least.”
A swell tipped the deck, and Sophia stumbled back against his chest. His chin scraped the crown of her head. They fit together so perfectly. Since the day he’d helped her board this ship, she’d fallen time and again into his embrace. To her, the truth was plain. His arms belonged around her. If only he would let her into his heart.
She turned her head and rested her brow against his shoulder. “Gray,” she whispered.
He tensed and pulled back. But he didn’t let her go.
The captain cupped his hands around his mouth. “Put in the boats!” he shouted toward the men at the bow. “Brace the mainsail aback!”
“You’re falling back?” Gray asked.
“What choice do we have?” The captain scrubbed his face with one hand. “There’s no telling which direction that mast will fall. We can’t risk the
Aphrodite
catching fire. I’ll put in the boats. If there are any survivors, they’ll make their way overboard.”
“Not if they’re injured or trapped in the hold, they won’t.”
“What do you propose to do, Gray?”
His reply was quiet, but firm. “Board it.”
“What?” Sophia pulled out of his grip and turned to face him.
“What?” The captain’s expression mirrored her sense of alarm. “Board a burning ship? Gray, are you mad?”
“You act as though we’ve never done it before. This used to be our livelihood, boarding burning ships. That mast is a fuse. It’ll send the whole ship up in smoke if it’s not cut down before those flames reach the deck.” He clapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder, his lips thinning in a tight smile. “Come on, Joss. It’ll be like old times.”
“In old times, any blaze we faced was the result of our own cannonfire. You know a lightning strike can spark fires all through a ship. Even now, there could be a blaze in the hold. If there’s a keg of powder, a cask of rum nearby … The whole thing could go any moment.”
“Then we’d best look lively, hadn’t we?” Gray strode toward the rail, shouting up at the sailors, “Mainsail haul! Bring her around!”
The men complied without hesitation, and the
Aphrodite
pivoted, coming abreast of the other ship. Sophia stood transfixed as the flames crawled across the royal yard. The furled sail took fire like a scroll of paper.
“Volunteers!” Gray lifted a coil of rope from its pin. “Who’ll board her with me? No men with wives or children.”
Levi appeared at his side out of nowhere, strong and silent as ever. He and Gray exchanged nods of agreement.
“I’m in.” O’Shea swung down from the yardarm and dropped to the deck with catlike grace. “Just like old times, eh, Gray?”
Gray shot an amused glance at his brother. “See?”
As the distance between the ships narrowed, the three men tested their ropes.
“I’ll go, too.” Davy pushed to the rail.
“No!” Sophia cried. “Gray, you can’t let him.”
“The ship could suffer my loss easier than most.” The boy stood tall, rolling the sleeves of his tunic up over his elbows. “And I’ve no wife or children, sir.”
“So you haven’t,” Gray said. “All right, then.”
The four men grabbed hold of their ropes and climbed onto the rail, preparing to swing across the gap of churning sea to board the burning ship. No anxiety showed on Gray’s face, only sharpened focus and grim determination. By contrast, Sophia was consumed with fear. She glanced up. The flames had reached the topgallant now. Dread numbed her entire body, and the bitter gale seemed to howl straight through her, whistling through her ribs and chilling her heart. She remembered the captain’s words.
There could be fires throughout the ship … A keg of powder, one cask of rum, and
…
And he would be gone.
“Gray!” A gust of wind took her choked sob and flung it out to sea.
The captain strode forward, reaching for a coil of rope. “If you’re determined to do this fool thing, I’m going with you.”
“No.” Gray’s face was hard. “No men with wives or children.” His gaze darted toward Sophia, then quickly away. If he read the desperate plea in her eyes, he did not acknowledge it. She winced, feeling the meaning of that dismissive glance. What ever she was to him, she was something less than a wife. And he would never allow her to be more. She wasn’t reason enough for him to live.
I don’t want you
.
Something inside her splintered and cracked. Sophia wrapped her arms tightly across her chest, as if she could hold the pieces together.
Gray turned back to his brother. “Fall back as soon as we’re aboard, you hear? We’ll signal when all’s clear.”
He hoisted his body’s weight on the rope, the powerful brawn of his arms and back straining against the seams of his wet shirt. “The
Aphrodite’s
yours, Joss. Take care of her for me.”
“Aye, I will.” A knowing look passed between them. “I’ll look after the ship, too.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Gray’s boots hit the
Kestrel’s
deck with a hollow thud. Once the other three dropped over the rail, he began giving orders. The howling wind forced him to shout.
“O’Shea, take the wheel. Keep her steady, pointed into the gale. Otherwise, she’ll be on her beam ends before we even get a whiff of smoke.” The Irishman nodded and raced to the helm.
Gray looked to Levi. “Find some axes and start chopping down the mainmast. I’ll join you.”
His men dispatched, Gray peered up, squinting at the darkened sky rent by a line of bright flame. The fire was halfway down the mast now. With this unholy wind fanning the flames, they had only a matter of minutes before the fire reached the deck. No time to waste.
“I’ll chop with Levi.” Davy stood at his elbow. “I’m strong.”
“No.” Gray looked around. Where were the damn axes, anyhow? “I need you to search the ship. See if there are blazes in the hold. Look for injured, or anyone trapped. If you come across anything flammable—spirits, powder, medicines—you’re to heave it overboard immediately, do you understand?”
The boy nodded, his face pale but determined. “Aye, captain.” Davy’s voice cracked, and Gray felt a twinge of guilt. He should have insisted the boy stay aboard the
Aphrodite
.
“I’m not your captain,” Gray called after him.
“On this ship, you are.” With a shrug, Davy hurried toward the hatch.
Gray strode toward the mainmast, looking for Levi. His boots crunched over something metallic. He stared down at the deck. Nails. Bent, fused together, some gnarled as tree roots. Good Lord, he’d heard of lightning strikes like this—jolts strong enough to rip nails right out of the mast and send them clattering to the deck—but he’d never seen such a thing, in all his years at sea. He hoped he’d never see it again.
A misshapen hunk of metal rolled to a stop at his feet, still smoking. Gray kicked the roundish lump. “What the devil is that?”
“I think it used to be the bell.”
Gray’s head snapped up, and he found two bedraggled sailors standing before him.
“What can we do?” the shorter of the two asked, rubbing his shoulder as though it ached.
“Are you unharmed?” Gray eyed the men from head to toe. Tattered clothing hung from their gaunt frames, and their hands were black with tar and soot. The acrid odor of singed hair assaulted his nostrils.
The sailors nodded. “Just rattled, is all,” the taller one said. “Others weren ’t so lucky.” He tilted his head toward a lifeless heap of rags on the opposite side of the deck. Mercifully, the dead sailor’s face was hidden from view, but a charred hand still clutched the rigging.
Gray swallowed hard, tasting bile. “Where’s your captain?” He brushed past the sailors. “And where the devil are your axes?”
“Don’t know where the captain’s at,” one sailor answered. “Probably rummin’ in his cabin. I’d like to think the bastard’s dead, but we wouldn’t be that lucky.”
“As for the axes …” The taller seaman nodded toward the rail, and Gray followed his gaze. A row of wooden hatchet handles stood at attention. Their hatchet blades, however, lay on the deck. Jolted from their handles, still smoking, half-melted … and completely, utterly useless.
Gray swore. Levi came bounding out from the galley, some sort of meat cleaver in one hand and a carving knife in the other. It was all Gray could do not to laugh till he cried. They were going to take down the mast with a meat cleaver?
Without a word, Levi handed him the knife and began attacking the mainmast with the cleaver. Well, apparently they were going to try.
Gray ran to the standing rigging, using the knife to saw through the ropes that connected mast and ship. If by some miracle Levi managed to cut through the mainmast, it couldn’t fall clear with the rigging intact. The two sailors drew knives from their belts and began to assist. Despite the spray and wind, Gray’s body quickly heated with the exertion. Sweat trickled down his brow, and he dabbed at it with his sleeve between blows. Eventually, he gave up the sawing motion in favor of full-armed swipes of the knife.
“How many crewmen?” he yelled at the sailors, hacking away at another rope. “Dead.”
Thwack
. “Alive.”
“There’s eleven of us. Five were in the forecastle. Don’t know how they fared. Two dead here on deck. A few others got blasted, but they’re still alive. So far.”
“What’s in the hold?” His blow landed awkwardly, glancing the rail. Pain erupted in his elbow.
“Rum!” Davy scrambled toward them, juggling a small powder keg. Gray stopped mid-swing and stared at the boy. Terror was etched on his young face. “It’s rum, Gray. The hold’s full to bursting with it, and the—”
Davy tripped on a coil of rope, dropping the keg. Gray watched it roll back down the quarterdeck, trailing a thin line of powder as it went.
Perfect
. Just bloody wonderful.
Gray swung the knife again, fear cramping his side. “Is there fire below?”
“Not that I saw. But there are wounded men down there. One of them …” Davy’s chest convulsed with a sudden heave, as if he would vomit. “One of them’s burnt bad.”
“Boats?” Gray looked to the sailors.
“Just one.”
A wave of heat swamped them as the topsail caught fire, going up in flames like a dry leaf. Gray examined the shallow groove in the mainmast. Despite Levi’s strength, he’d barely managed to score the trunk of pine. It would take far too long to fell it. By that time, the flames would be too low. The fire would reach the deck, ignite the powder, spread to the hold full of rum, and the entire ship would explode like a Bonapartist’s grenade.
Bloody hell
.
Levi kept swinging the tiny cleaver, while the rest of the men merely stared at Gray. Davy swallowed and shifted his weight, clearly awaiting direction. “Captain?”
The instant that word fell from Davy’s lips, Gray knew several things. He knew he was now the de facto captain of this godforsaken ship. He’d boarded it and taken command, and now he had to stay with it until the end. He knew he could save some of the men, but not all. At this rate, they’d be lucky to get the boat lowered before the rum exploded, let alone bring the injured up from the hold. And he knew he couldn’t leave the wounded behind and live with himself afterward. Which meant he wouldn’t live. He’d never get back to the
Aphrodite
. Not to his business, not to his family.
Not to her.
He was going to die. Today.
Christ
.
He ran both hands through his hair, pushing it off his brow, then took the cleaver from Levi. “Put in the boat. Raise the call to abandon ship.” A hunk of charred yardarm dropped to the deck at his feet, forcing him to step back. “And be quick about it.”
The men hurried to lower the jolly boat from the ship’s stern, leaving Gray to stare up at the burning mainmast. The mast danced with flame like a giant candlewick. He made a fist and punched the stubborn column of wood, earning nothing but scraped knuckles and searing pain for his trouble.