Authors: Mark Keating
'Run out the guns!' Granger yelled to the main deck, and the port lids yawned open. The two quarterdeck nine-pounders were always out. They would be loaded after the first broadside, in anticipation of closer fire.
Howard sped from the quarterdeck to his gun-crew. He flashed a glance over the gunwale as he dropped down the stair for the boats. Anderson was calling for ropes to drag them in. Good. Another thirty hands and the real lieutenant. All was well. Anderson and the rest.
He reached the tobacco gloom beneath the quarterdeck in time to hear the long roll of the iron heaving into place. Richards, the bosun's mate, could have the bright light of the five guns in the open; the close confines outside the cabin seemed a more intense quarter for a young man.
He swept to number one, lowering his head to look out the small square gap now filled by the gun, following its line to the
Shadow.
His heart pumped against his ribs as the image rolled down, and the ship rose out of view. Only the roll of the sea was in the window now.
A wall of water, seemingly about to pour through the port at any moment, then the black ship fell again, slowly, a feather floating before his eyes.
Howard jerked back upright.
'Fire!'
The slow-match of the linstock tickled the touch-hole before the cry had finished. Three young Indian men to light three guns apiece and every soul jumped two steps clear.
The deck shook. The shrouds above them shivered. Hands clasped to ears as the guns came alive one after the other, flying back, laughing thunder, threatening to break any legs and arms left straying near the trucks and breeches. Then, spent and smoking, the tackles pulled short by, shivering dust from their twists of hemp as they tensed and the bulwarks strained to hold them. They hissed angrily as the fourth man rammed the wet sponge down their throats and, amid the clouds of smoke and smarting eyes, the loading began again.
On the quarterdeck, Davison and Granger swept and coughed the cloud away as it travelled on the wind. They could no longer see the
Shadow
through the drifting curtain but, deep in the fog, a succession of orange lights blinked at them silently from afar, nine of them, one by one, followed by the soft rumble of thunder.
Then the whistle came on the wind, and the whistle became a howl. Even the loading men stilled, as all eyes looked to the sky, slowly clearing back to blue, just in time to show the trio of topsails being punched through by three lucky shots. The rest of the whining barrage steamed harmlessly into the sea, far to leeward like tossed pebbles.
'Back to your guns!' Howard yelled. The last blanket of smoke ghosted away. Davison raised his glass once more to the pirate vessel, praying for damage. He swept the freeboard of the ship, his ears ringing. No holes.
The gunwale shattered on the starboard quarter, a rail missing on the quarterdeck. Good. Some satisfaction. His head suddenly became filled with the bellow of Lieutenant Anderson, who hurried upon the deck.
'Double-shot!
You…' Anderson swallowed his final word. 'You're firing high! Double-shot the guns. Double the quoins and get her below the waterline.' He lowered his voice respectfully to Mister Dawson. 'Courses, Mister Dawson, if you please. We have a close reach, enough to get us three knots at least.'
'Aye, sir,' Mister Dawson sighed, 'but the pirates would love to see us make sail.'
'We'll risk it for the speed; they have courses and are on the same reach, we'll match 'em.'
Anderson turned to the main deck, in time to see the guns being heaved back into the ports for their next broadside.
'Double-shot now, Mister Howard!' he ordered. 'I want to see firewood! Wait for the order!'
'Aye, sir!' Howard wiped the black sweat from his face and handed the Indians their linstocks from the tub amid the skid beams.
Davison and Granger shared a sigh, their signatures for the day now relieved by the actual lieutenant. They would share success, but as long as they stayed alive they would not know blame.
Anderson had left the three boats to be pulled along as the fresh hands busied themselves to the shrouds to clamber up and release the courses. The
Starling
had her reach now, and the jibs along the bowsprit filled and pulled with pride.
Anderson turned to the ship, now within three hundred yards, her cloud of green smoke dissipating, but still arrogantly playing a dancing jig.
They were almost parallel now, broadside to broadside, beam to beam, the pirates slightly ahead, in danger of crossing the
Starling's
bow where only her two fo'c'sle guns at angle might lay at her.
Anderson had moments to make a choice. He could see the make of it, of the next quarter-hour: stay on this reach, outsail and outfight, side to side until the pirates broke off under superior poundage and rate of fire. Or, boldly, swing about to larboard, bring the
Starlings
bow in front of the enemy guns, a narrower target but heading straight at them. Then close and head for the stern or hope for surrender. These were undisciplined men; they would surely panic at such a daring direct assault.
Perhaps one more broadside and then decide. Perhaps even one more broadside might make them turn, as they no doubt fumbled drunkenly with their cracked shot and dusty powder.
'Mister Howard!' Anderson raised his right arm as the young man stared up at him. He would flag it down, to snap neatly by his side, before giving the order to fire, but he was distracted by the crack of cannon that came too soon from across the gap of water.
The noise was unfamiliar. The men, strung out across the yards, hastening the furled sails from high above, shared anxious final looks with the marines on the platform as they watched the ball and chain hurtling toward their heads with an unnatural scything cry.
The yards beneath their arms snapped like cobwebs and fell from the mast as the whirling dervish of chain cleaved through the ropes.
A bundle of men fell, wrapped and swathed like discarded fishing tackle into the sea. A marine's head flew from his shoulders, and he staggered for a moment, his fingers splayed out in horror, grasping out to his cowering comrades, who shrank back, screaming to the mast away from his headless bulk until he fell to his knees and tumbled to the deck, pinwheeling all the way.
Silence wept over the deck after the marine's body cracked upon the starboard gunwale and slumped to the gangway. Blood pulsed from the thick gristle in two great, slow waves, then pulsed no more.
The whole ship held a breath. Anderson looked to the missing yards. The courses were still hanging on. He glanced down to the odd sight of the marine, the snow-white spine staring from the neck like an ungodly eye.
Anderson's hand was still raised, but hung in the air as he turned from the corpse to the music playing on and on from the ship across the way.
Peter Sam brought the glass down from his eye with a rare smile. He ran a hand through his red beard, tugging at the final hairs thoughtfully. He turned to the deck.
'Same again, lads. Barshot all!' he bellowed. 'Bring me that mast!'
The small band of musicians stood at the larboard quarter beneath the quarterdeck, fiddling with glee, piping the guncrews to movement.
Black Bill kicked any slow hand to move faster, especially the men clearing the guns with the lambswool sponges, for that would be the end of them all if a gunner loaded powder into a hot barrel.
The first tirade from the
Starling
had skimmed the bulwark and the quarterdeck. It had smashed four pins from the helm wheel and shattered the starboard-quarter gunwale. No men were lost, but that would change.
Peter Sam raised the glass again and caught the black- coated form of his opponent doing the same. He grinned beneath the telescope and then passed his eye to the stern of the ship.
Peter Sam had launched two boats under the cover of the smoke from the cauldrons. Twenty-two of his most vicious brothers, gambling that no soul would be looking to the sea when a smoking, vapouring pirate hung before them. He had held that trick in his pocket, handed down from the
flibustiers
of Tortuga when they first began to creep off the island and sneak aboard passing merchants, which had stopped to trade for the barbecued meat from the
boucaniers.
Even Devlin would be surprised at his brains.
He heard the cannon fire again from the
Starling
at last. A bad one, no doubt; he would take the next second to duck beneath the fo'c'sle bulwark, but for the moment, whilst the iron whined towards them, he could not pull away from the distinct sight of the yellow justaucorps coat hanging out of the open stern windows, bodiless, suspended from a borrowed sword, beckoning the boats towards it.
'I'll be damned,' he whispered, then dropped to the deck in time to feel the pounding hail rattle his spine and rock the ship almost out of the water.
The tirade was brief. Peter Sam pulled himself unsteadily up to the rail afore the helm. Looking over the deck, all seemed well. A few men thrown to their backs, now grasping for handholds, shaking the fog from their heads. He leaned down and dragged the helmsman to his feet, pushing the wheel into his trembling hands.
'Bill!
' His shout echoed over the heads of all and drew the face to appear behind the foremast. 'What damage?'
Black Bill ran to the gunwale, heaving men out of his way like so many bags of wheat.
'Fine, Peter!' he yelled back through cupped hands. 'Holed but worthy. She'll stand yet!'
'Get five men to the well!' Sam yelled. 'Pump as wants!'
'Aye!' Black Bill looked to the slow-match of his linstock, then to his guns ready to fire, loaded with langridge to tear and rip limb and sail, wood and chain. He raised his head over to the
Starling,
the smoke from her last anger drifting south over her stern and clouding the two boats even more. He lumbered to stand behind numbers one and two before the foremast.
'Stand clear!' and eight men jumped back. 'Hail Mary, full of grace,' and he laid the linstock to the touch-hole of number one and reverently passed his arm to do the same to number two. 'The Lord is with thee.' The guns blazed and rocketed past him to struggle in their tackles, men leaping on them instantly with sponge and ladle ready.
Bill dodged around them to the next two guns, the most open view, clear of shrouds and rigging. 'Blessed art thou amongst women,' the fuse sparked, 'and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus,' and three and four fired free.
He stilled slightly to watch the first bars hit home and split the fore topmast and gallant like a sword stroke.
'Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners.' He stroked the touch-hole of five and six, crowded beneath the mainmast rigging, sparing a look to witness the platform, where the marines stood in the tops of the mainmast, shower into tinder. The sails began to ripple as the tentacles of the stays buckled and writhed.
He winked to the lads beneath the quarterdeck and passed the linstock on for the final flurry of the last three guns that would rake the mizzen and stern.
'Now and at the hour of our death. Amen.' His final eloquence was drowned out by the three sudden punches of the guns.
'Do you never tire of such foolishness, Bill?' A face, once tanned and young, now black and ancient, crouched breathless beside him.
'You'll thank me one day, lad, mark me.' Bill shoved the man to reload and yelled to Hartley for more of the fine Portuguese red-letter powder that reported so well.
Captain John Coxon stood beside Captain Patrick Devlin, shoulder to shoulder. Through narrowed vision they surveyed the stirring sight before them. The vast colourful panorama, the majesty of the
Starling
ploughing steadily so'west, her shining beauty marred viciously by the faint hacking of the ship's axe to the ropes of the fore topgallant, wildly bucking alongside the starboard bow.
They had watched the tarred, black wooden platform burst apart, smashing the marines like glass, and the fore gallant slowly tumble, yards and all, sail still furled. The sound of deadeyes and tackle plummeting to the deck echoed even to the beach.
Coxon could remember the chaos that was no doubt occurring on deck. The smoke and confusion. Almost a hundred men and officers aware now of only the five men nearest to them, holding on to a small quarter of order within the remnant of their vision that was not crowded by smoke and noise. He winced, pained more from helplessness than the ache in his right arm.
Devlin shared Coxon's tension. He could see the
Shadow'
s fore quarter beyond the
Starling's
, her masts and sails just visible through the courses and shrouds of the other. Distant. Unreachable.
Devlin had sent his men to the stockade, to the chest, along with Gregory and Davies, leaving the two captains alone on the shore, staring hopelessly at the drama before them. Two captains, commanding nothing.