The Sea Beggars (14 page)

Read The Sea Beggars Online

Authors: Cecelia; Holland

Pieter was already hauling himself up over the bow rail; puffing, his eyes narrow with suspicion, he trotted up the deck toward Jan. “What the hell are you doing, boy-o?” Leaning over the rail, he beckoned the others up.

Jan took the knife out of the sentry's chest. Liking the musket, he unbuckled the dead man's belt to get the fittings for it and took the sword as well. Pieter and the others were wandering around the ship, looking over the rigging and the guns and opening up the hatches. Jan threw the sentry's body over the rail and went looking for his uncle.

“Call them together. We have to work fast.”

Pieter stuck his fists on his hips. “This is my ship, boy-o.”

Jan shifted the musket and the sentry's belt into his left hand. “Yes, sir.”

“You remember that.” The old man stuck his chin out. In an undertone, he said, “I saw you take that guard. You and I will do very well together, but I intend to give the orders. You understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Jan said.

“Now, let's get out of here.” Pieter tramped away toward the stern.

Jan stowed the musket and his other trophies against a bulkhead and went to inspect the amidships guns. He felt wonderful; no matter what happened now, he knew he would triumph. He leaned against one of the portside guns, his hand cupped over a brass turning, and waited for the next thing to happen.

“All hands,” Pieter shouted, from the stern deck.

The other men were scattered around the ship. At his yell, they looked around, startled and curious, but nobody moved. Like his nephew they needed some discipline. He filled his lungs with breath and began to bellow orders.

“Marten, Willem—man the mainsail halyards. Flippo, Mark, the jib halyards—”

Instead of doing as he bid they were rushing toward him, in a mass, their mouths full of argument. Only Jan stood silent and watched and waited.

“Pieter!” Marten Lamsbrok ran at him, his finger jabbing the air. “The wind's dead foul! Why spread sail? Let's hull her and go home. We can't—”

“Jan,” Pieter called. “Bring that musket.”

The others watched with their eyes popping as Jan climbed the poop steps, the long gun over his shoulder like an ax.

“Ah, well,” Pieter said, setting his fists on his hips. He glanced at his oversized nephew, who came to stand at his shoulder. “I'll start over again, boys, and this time you'll do it, or, by Cock, the fellow here with the bang stick will see you never do anything else.” His voice swelled to a roar. “Marten! Willem! Man the mainsail halyards!”

They jumped. Marten and Willem van Zook had sailed before on the
Wayward Girl
under Pieter and their good turn of foot gave the others an example. Pieter sent a man to the anchor; he looked quickly all around the harbor. There were men sleeping on deck on the galleon, and several lights on the shore, and, more alarming, there was a light at the mouth of the harbor, where the shore battery was mounted. Against his cheek the wind was backing around to the north. He pursed his lips. By now the tide would be sliding back down the river mouth into the sea.

“Up anchor!” He glanced at Jan, beside him, engrossed in the musket. “Can you work that Devil's poker?”

“I can't tell if it's loaded.”

Pieter laughed, short. “Well, boy-o, we'll find out soon enough.” He laid one hand on the big young man's shoulder. “Soon enough.” The anchor was coming up; the tension on the cable had pulled the ship forward a little, her bow aimed deeper into the harbor, past the galleon.

“Up the jib,” Pieter shouted.

“Pieter, you old fool,” someone shouted, and Pieter gripped his nephew's arm.

“Shoot over their heads.”

Without hesitation Jan brought the musket to his shoulder and fired. The blast resounded across the deck and over the water. The muzzle flame licked out into the dark like a fiery tongue. Down in the bow the men wailed; the three-cornered jib sail went shrilling up the mast.

“There, now,” Pieter said.

The sail filled and drew, as the men tugged the braces in to keep the canvas face to the wind, and sweetly the
Wayward Girl
answered the urging. Pieter cast a quick look around them. The galleon still lay between them and the channel; it looked dark and inert, but deeper in the anchorage a small boat was rowing through the lesser ships, and lights moved and people shouted on the deck of a galley only a cable length from Pieter.

He shouted, “Shake out the mainsail!”

Jan was bent over the musket, trying to fit a patch into the muzzle, but he wasn't needed now; the men leapt to the halyards, and the huge new mainsail cracked open, falling wide from the jack yard on the mast. Pieter let out his breath, exhilarated.

On the galley there was a shout, and a drumbeat.

“Man the sheets!” Pieter went to the edge of the stern deck, above the wheel. “Jan, take the helm.” He looked up the harbor, toward the distant sea. The wind blew full in his face. More than the wind against him, he feared the three big cannon mounted on the shore. He gripped the rail, looking down at his nephew's head as the young man took the wheel.

The ship was moving handily through the water now, headed dead away from the mouth of the harbor; she would pass astern of the dark galleon. The mainsail was luffing a little, which surprised old Pieter, until he remembered that the weight of the new cannon had the ship out of trim. He licked his lips. Ahead the river poured into the harbor.

“Luff off all sail!”

They jumped to the braces and let the sheets fly, spilling the wind out of the canvas. With the wind off her the ship lost her liveliness. She seemed to die slowly, or fall asleep. On the last of her forward momentum, she glided into the onrushing river current, and the forceful water bore her away down toward the sea.

Now they understood, Pieter's crew, and a rough cheer went up.

“Hands to the braces,” Pieter roared.

Jan looked up at him, his face solemn. “Here comes that other ship.”

The old man was watching the far shore slip by, judging the ship's speed downriver. The tide was ebbing strongly. The ship was swinging slowly around in the broad tug of the current, and he called an order to trim the jib. When the wind turned the ship broadside to the current again, he spared a look over his shoulder at the galley.

The harbor master's ship was putting out her oars. In a ragged line the blades rose dripping into the air, flashing and sparkling in the light of the lanterns at her poop and forecastle. Slowly she moved out of her anchorage. Free of the wind, she could pass the galleon on the bow side, cutting in half the margin between her and the
Wayward Girl
. Pieter bit his lips. He drummed his fists on his thighs. Abruptly, one hand on the rail of the poop deck, he vaulted down to the waist beside Jan.

“Get that musket ready. I'll take the wheel.”

Jan reached down at his feet for the gun. “What do you suppose the range is with this thing?”

“You see that culverin in the galley's bow?” Pieter hung his arms over the wheel spokes, keeping the ship steady as he could. He squinted to see forward through the bustle on the deck. “Just don't let them fire on us with that culverin.”

“Yes, sir,” Jan said.

The
Wayward Girl
was slowly losing speed. The current nudged her off to the side. Pieter's legs tingled, as they often did when he was frightened. What an ass he was, to give up his house and his jug of liquor for this wretched life again. He yelled to his crew to trim the jib.

While he was bringing the ship up into the current again, someone on the foredeck saw the galley.

“They're chasing us!”

All the men but two dropped their work and ran to the rail to see. Pieter roared, “Luff off. Luff off, damn you! Jan—”

The men rushed back to their work. Pieter cast a quick look over his shoulder. Jan had gone up onto the stern deck; he was laying out the powder flask, the sack of musket balls, the patches, and kneeling began to load the musket. Pieter's gaze changed its angle. The galley was coming on, her oars rising and falling like wings. Within minutes she would have the
Wayward Girl
within range of her bow gun.

Pieter gave a yell of rage. His men had finally taken the wind out of the ship's jib, but too late; her way would carry her upriver a little now, closer to the galley, while the rowed ship like an arrow coursed down the tideway at their flank.

“Jan,” he shouted. “Keep watch!” Despairing, he flung a look ahead of them, at the narrow mouth of the harbor, where the shore guns hid in the dark.

“She's firing,” Jan called.

There was a boom from the galley. A moment later the ball whisked through the air and a fountaining splash shot up from the black water to starboard.

“Don't let them fire on us!” Pieter danced on the deck, spitting with rage as he shouted. “One good shot and we're hulled!”

“She's too far away still.” Jan stood calmly looking over the rail at the oncoming galley.

The galley was sweeping down on them. With the
Wayward Girl
nearly broadside to her, she had an enormous target to fire on. Pieter gritted his teeth. He longed for his little fire and his gin. In the light of the galley's forecastle lantern he could see the men working around the big culverin, loading, running her forward, standing up with the slow match—

“Jan,” he shrieked.

The culverin thundered smoke and flame. Pieter's whole body tensed, waiting, waiting for the blow. The hiss in the air sounded almost overhead. He whirled; the white eruption of the water where the shot hit burst up on the far side of the ship, a scant two fathoms off. They had fired completely over the ship. They were aiming high, trying to disable the
Wayward Girl
so that they could recapture her.

“Jan!”

The boy raised the musket to his shoulder. The
Wayward Girl
was nearly to the mouth of the harbor, now, still turned broadside to the current and to the pursuing galley. The stink of sulfur crossed the water to Pieter's nose. In the forecastle of the galley the men bent over the cannon, so close he could see the gleam of sweat on their naked shoulders. The bore of the culverin like a preacher's mouth was round with fulminations.

“Jan—”

The boy lifted one hand to him to wait.

Farther away, in another direction, there was another low boom, like summer thunder. Pieter wheeled, his hair standing on end. They had come under the shore battery's fire. He peered toward the dark hilly headland between the harbor and the sea. Where that shot went, he could not tell, and he saw nothing; his back tingled in expectation of the next.

On the galley they ran the gun forward into firing position, and the man with the slow match stepped forward. Jan raised the musket neatly to his shoulder and shot the gunner through the chest.

Pieter emptied his lungs in a yell. His nephew grabbed the ramrod. On the galley's forecastle the gun crew was milling around; someone shouted angry orders in Spanish, and then in Dutch. “Shoot! Shoot!” Jan flung down the ramrod and poured gunpowder into the musket.

From the shore battery came another dull thump. Pieter held his breath. He flung a wild look around him, looking for the ball that could come from anywhere, and saw to his surprise that they were in the mouth of the harbor now, the open sea only yards away.

“Hands to the braces!”

The galley's gun banged, so close that the smoke from the culverin rolled across the water and enveloped the stern of the
Wayward Girl
. Pieter coughed, blinking his fogged eyes; Jan loomed through the smoke, the musket to his shoulder, unmoving, and fired.

There was a shriek from the galley. The Spanish officer fell in a long dive over the rail into the sea.

There was another low boom from the shore battery. Pieter ducked; he heard the whistle of the shot passing close beside his ship. Between him and the galley, the water suddenly burst upward into a volcano of white spray. Jan yelled in triumph and delight, dancing on the poop deck. The white water subsided. Behind it the galley rolled helpless in the thrashing wave, half its bow gone.

“Mainsail,” Pieter cried, his voice hoarse with relief. “Trim her down!”

The crew hauled in the mainsail sheets; into the taut belly of the sail the wind poured its strength, and the ship grew light and quick in the water. The shore battery boomed again, but, perhaps distracted by the calamity it had brought upon its own galley, it sent its shot way wide. On the foredeck of the
Wayward Girl
the men were dancing and hugging one another and cheering. Pieter cranked the wheel over.

“Prepare to wear ship!”

Jan sprang down to his side. “Are we out? Are we free?”

Pieter was looking forward, past the wild celebrations on the deck, toward the broad flat horizon of water unbroken by any land. “Yes,” he said.

Jan clapped him on the back, and Pieter put out his hand and gripped the boy's arm in rough proud affection. They brought the ship around on a broad reach and sailed away into the masterless sea.

5

Every morning before dawn, Michael opened the ovens and raked over the coals and laid on more charcoal. While the ovens were heating, he went around to the front of the bakery and unrolled the awning and opened the shutters and the door. Now the sun was rising.

The ovens were hot, and his mother would be up, shuffling around in the small dark room at the rear of the bakery, exhaling deep sighs in place of words or prayers. The first loaves were ready for the ovens, little round buns that Antwerpers loved in the midmorning, some plain, some stuffed with fruit or jam. There were forty-two of these; Michael knew already the names and faces of those who would buy thirty-six of them and could have guessed to the moment when these regular customers would appear, who would pay with a penny and who with a real, and what each one would say to him in the course of the transaction.

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