The Pirate Captain (42 page)

He paused to thoughtfully tap his chin. “Alas no one took the time; I could have explained how I never allow me crew to go dry.”

Nathan continued to circle the insurrectionists.

“Pray, might I point out, just in case the obvious has been overlooked, that the hold is burstin’ with swag. Apart from the
Nightingale
affair, not a one for the sailmaker’s palm there’s been. How many did Maubrick commend to Jones’ Locker?”

Heads hanging like scolded pups, Bullock’s dwindling flock looked thoroughly wretched.

“A caution to whomever is your newly-appointed: luckily, the swag abounds, because the stores are thin. You’ll be needing canvas—that’s Leith canvas up there, you know.” Nathan ticked off each item on his fingers. “Cordage, nigh every size, at least five hundred yards each by me humble estimation. Add to that tar, pitch, shot, gunpowder, wadding, candles, beef, sugar, salt, flour, pea meal, salt cod, molasses, tea, coffee…and rum, of course,
lots
of rum.”

Nathan pulled up before Bullock. “Of course, you can always raid and pilfer for what you need, but you’d best show a leg.” He gestured larboard, where there was currently a view of nothing but blue sky and water. “Otherwise, those rats start looking
real
tasty-like. So, who’s ready to be captain?”

He finished with a spread of arms in open invitation.

It was as graceful exit as could be afforded. The neck of Bullock’s shirt was a darkened circle with sweat. If there was such a thing as being wretched and at the same time belligerent, Bullock was it, virtually the last man standing.

“Any more complaints?” Nathan called out over the low hum of dispersal.

The entertainment value gone, the need to vote passed, the crowd melted, gone either to their duties or their hammocks. The
Morganse
hummed once again.

Nathan swiveled a glare of unfiltered disgust at Bullock, and said in a menacing low voice, “I thought not.”

Pryce slipped between Nathan and Bullock. “To yer duties, mates!”

There are those who claim there is universal pre-determination: nothing ever happens unexpectedly; in everything there is an order and reason. The timing was too perfect to be credited to anything else: there was a squawk, a rustle of feathers, a blur of intense blue and a soft
splop!
of bird droppings landing on Bullock’s shoulder.

It was over.

Cate took a long overdue breath. She flexed her hands, working out the ache from being clenched for so long. She waited until Nathan was near enough that no one else would hear before she asked quietly, “So, what happens now?”

“We all go back to our duties,” he said with a queer look.

“Just like that?” The men nearby jerked at her incredulous shrillness. “Surely there’s some kind of retribution or, or punishment for…” she said, in low urgency.

“Exercising their rights?” Nathan asked blandly. He laughed, amused by the thought. “Not bloody likely. That would be sure grounds for…actions.” It was worth noting that he couldn’t bring himself to utter the word “mutiny.”

“So everyone goes on as if nothing happened?” The sequence of events was mind-reeling. First, everything seemed calm. The next minute the men were waving weapons, looking to throw Nathan off the ship, and then everyone went back to normal, as if nothing had ever happened. She thoroughly expected to see the malcontents clapped in irons and hauled away, hauled up…something!

Nathan beckoned a passing Pryce. “See to it that the rations are doled out early tonight,” he instructed under his breath, and then added, winking, “With extra. And break up Sir Roguery, the sea lawyer, and his band of puling miscreants.”

Nathan stabbed a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of Bullock, now seeking to rally his allies. “Every time a raindrop hits him, he’ll swear I arranged it in retribution. Yet, if I treat the bastard with care, he’ll swear ’tis because I’m afraid of him.” A sly smile grew as he considered. “The former is ever so much more gratifying, don’t you think? Make the bastard’s life miserable.”

Pryce nodded, one beetling brow lifting. “This isn’t over.”

A look of a different meaning flickered between them, briefly landing on her, and then back.

“One day at a time, Master Pryce,” Nathan sighed, tiredly. “One day at a time.”

Nathan headed for the cabin, Cate close at his side.

“I thought…you led me to believe my being here wasn’t a problem,” she hissed.

“It’s not,” he said, coldly.

“But, if the men don’t—”

Nathan whirled around on her at the door. “But they do! You saw when they voted to call you ‘Mister.’”

“No, I didn’t. I left, remember?” Cate argued, trailing behind as he went in. “But Bullock and the others—”

“Are a handful of swivel-tongued, gallowsy louts that
will
be dealt with, you can mark me on that.”

Nathan snatched the rum bottle from the top of a trunk as he passed and drew up at the table. Dropping his hat, he ran a tired hand down his face.

“But…I never thought…” Cate began.

One eye peered at her over the edge of his hand. “This is rule by majority, darling. If we were compelled to wait until everyone agreed on everything, we’d never leave port. As it is, there’s always going to be the unhappy…with anything.”

The rationalization didn’t make Cate feel any better and considerably less secure. Nathan's insistence for her to sleep in his berth took on a new meaning. She was excessively grateful for his stubbornness.

Nathan saw as much and chuckled. “I promise, you will be safe. You’ve a knife, over half the crew, a First Mate, a Captain…” A bleat came from the galley companionway. “…and a goat on your side. Now what more could any soul ask for?” he finished brightly.

In the face of over a hundred, Cate was hardly assured.

“This one went well,” she said with careful hesitance. “What about the next? There’s always a next, isn’t there?”

Nathan conceded reluctantly. He took a drink, thoughtfully rubbing the glass with his thumb. “Most of the time, if you keep their bellies and pockets full, and plenty of rum to ease their aches, there’s naught to be concerning.”

“But there’s always a Bullock.”

“Aye.” He sighed, shoulders slumping as he set down the glass with delicate precision. “There’s always a Bullock.”

The sound of footsteps quickly approaching the door caused Nathan to spin around, reaching for his sword and shoving Cate behind him at the same time. He relaxed at seeing it was only Sombers.

The boatswain’s mate touched a knuckle to his forehead. “Mr. Hodder’s compliments and duty, sir. Sail.”

Nathan raced outside and called, “Where away?” up to Hodder, now on the quarterdeck.

The boatswain gestured with his head. “Point ’er so off the starboard bow, sir. Hull up.”

Nathan winced at seeing the white of sails and dark dash of a hull bridging the line where sky and water met. “Had we not been so frivoulsy distracted…” The thought was left to finish itself.

Spyglass slung over his shoulder, he shot up the weather ratlines, spurred not by alarm, but avid interest. Lounging in a stowed staysail, he studied the ship. Several flips of the glass later, he swung down a backstay to alight next to Cate, startling her.

“It’s the
Sybilla
. There’s no mistaking those red ’n white checks,” he announced.

Pryce and the afterguard mouthed oaths in several languages. Low growls rode the air as the word passed forward.

“One of Creswicke’s puppets,” rumbled Hodder.

“With strings attached tight as no others,” added Pryce. “Marauding wolf.”

“Slush-handed Samuels, at command,” Nathan declared. “Unless Creswicke finally replaced that double-Dutch-handed princock. Highly unlikely,” he added as a judicious afterthought. “Worms do tend to knot together.”

“Slush-handed?” Cate asked, looking between the trio.

“Aye, slush: what’s used to grease the mast?” Nathan prompted as one would a dull student.

Cate nodded, straining to follow. Slush was the fat produced in cooking. It was collected by the ship’s cook to either be sold ashore—for candle- or soap-making, and such—or to the ship for greasing the masts, the resulting monies constituting his slush fund.

Nathan threw a scorn-laden glare toward the ship, now closing in at an alarming rate. “A sufficient greasing could prompt the man to sell his own mother, after pulling the gold from her teeth.”

“The worm tends to overvalue himself of late,” said Pryce.

His gaze still fixed on the ship, Nathan nodded distractedly. “Then our aim will be to render him a mite humbler.”

“She’s fast,” warned Pryce.

“Not so fast, nor more determined than we. She’s working for the wind already. Let’s get there first.”

“And if we don’t ‘get there first?’” Cate asked after Hodder and Pryce had taken their leave.

Nathan smiled tolerantly. “She’ll do everything she can to steal our wind, leave us dead in the water, and then blast the bejeezus out of us with her eighteens, until we’re naught but flotsam on the water.”

She recalled all too well the
Morganse
using that same tactic against the
Constancy
, minus the “blasting the bejeezus” part, of course. The dread of such helplessness visiting again prickled her neck.

The space between the two ships narrowed as they angled for the advantage. Once seen, the
Sybilla
proved to be a smaller ship, with flush decks and more triangular sails. A red flag broke from her mizzenmast, the sight bringing a currish growl from the
Morganse
’s afterdeck’s complement.

“It means they intend to give no quarter, take no prisoners,” said Pryce, glaring.

Cate turned into Nathan’s intent gaze at her, his expression pinched by an odd combination of self-recrimination and worry. Before she could inquire as to what concerned him so, he reeled away to the quarterdeck rail.

“Mates,” he called below. “That’s the
Sybilla
out there.”

It was a point needlessly made, for the ship had long been recognized, judging by their displeasure. Still, a roar of protest and derision was stirred by their captain.

“Yon ship doubts our heart,” he shouted. “Leave us serve them theirs on a platter.”

A savage cheer worthy of the Roman coliseum went up. The men shed their shirts, bound their heads with sweatbands and spit on their palms, ready to lay into their action stations.

The two ships’ paths converged. They veered and swerved, vying for the precious weather gauge, which would be the chaser, and which would be the chased. Running close to the wind, it was a tacking duel, something between a slow dance and a high-speed chess match. It was a race for that small edge that would steal the other’s wind. The deck pitched at a treacherous angle as the
Morganse
leaned, her bow as tight into the wind as she could sail, for there lay the advantage. It was a contest of which captain knew his ship best: too much sail could press her down, too taught could spill the wind, not enough sail or too flown loose could cost precious speed. It was a contest between crews; which one could execute hauling the sails, pirouette the most seamless, and bring the wind to their vessel’s other shoulder.

The white wakes zigzagged across the indigo sea in perfect unison as the racing vessels reposted and parried. Anytime the
Morganse
prepared for that fateful move, the
Sybilla
countered, ducking and pivoting, denying the opportunity. Pryce’s “Ready about!” was warning to brace for another turn. The rigging and blocks shrieked over the bellows of men heaving to bring the
Morganse
’s nose around, the decks pitching in the opposite angle as her sails caught the wind on her other side.

The bowlines twanging, the water raced down the
Morganse
’s sides, arching like a reversed waterfall at her cutwater. Log lines were unnecessary. Her exact speed was of little consequence, only that she outdistanced her rival. Those conning the helm were alert for a ripple on the water marking a puff of wind, timing the swell for that scant bit more speed, or slithering past a rogue wave that might slap her hull and slow her a fraction.

The decks were a teeming mass of men either manning the sails, preparing the guns, or readying the boarding party. Suddenly over six score pairs of hands weren’t enough for all that needed doing. Many doubled and even tripled their duties. Cate delivered baskets of arms from the armory and put final edges on blades, between tending the injured, for sailing with such ferocity came with a price. As Master Gunner, MacQuarrie was torn between preparing the larboard and starboard batteries, and overseeing the bow-chasers. Low brass creatures crouched on the forecastle, they poised at the ready for the first opportunity.

Nathan was everywhere: on the quarterdeck, at the helm, on the forecastle or laying aloft, sometimes idling in the stowed staysails. He was often shouting, but only in the natural way of a mariner: elevated to be heard over the chorus of ship, wind, and water. Torn by the wind, his graveled voice could never equal Pryce’s or Hodder’s in volume. Its weight came through authority. As he worked his way up and down the deck, a nod or an encouraging clap on the shoulder did more in the way of encouragement than any bellow or start.

Nathan’s greatest communion, however, was with his ship. More than once she saw him touch a finger to her wheel or backstay, or clasp a shroud—the arm-thick ropes which supported the masts—close his eyes and bend his head, as if in benediction. At one point, Cate saw him standing on the weather chain-plates. Braids streaming behind him, he grasped a shroud and leaned far out over the racing foam, whooping with joy.

An agonized cry drew Cate’s attention away. A man shuffled half-bent down the deck clasping his abdomen: another busted gut. After seeing him to his hammock and grog administered—not much else to be done—she found Nathan standing atop
Beelzebub,
the forwardmost gun. The wind pressed his shirt against his body and plucked at his sleeves and tails of his headscarf. Swaying with the rhythmic rise and fall of his ship, he was a creature of the sea, likely to perish if taken from his realm.