“We accept,” Quince said calmly.
After a short, surprised silence, De Vries blurted, “Finally, some common sense.”
“Yes,” echoed Quince, “we accept. Now if you would have your men toss their arms over the side, close the gunports, and raise a white flag, we will go easy on you and spare most of your lives.”
The mocking answer was too much for De Vries; he turned to the captain and screamed for him to kill the upstarts.
Jack stood forward.
“We will show you how men die, Dutchman.” Jack motioned to his men, spread evenly along the edge of the low surf.
The voice of a Dutch officer carried clearly over the water. “You don't have a prayer, surrender or die.”
“We must know if your powder is dry before we surrender,” Jack yelled to the captain of the
Stuyvesant
.
“You are quite mad, pirate,” came the reply. “Enough foolishness, this is your last chance. If you throw down your weapons now we'll spare all but your leaders, and they'll be given a fair trial.”
In answer, Jack swept his rifle to his shoulder in one smooth move and, without seeming to aim, fired at the captain. The shot missed and struck a splinter of wood off the overhead which buried itself into the face of one of the Dutch officers by the captain's side. The response was almost immediate. A broadside rang out, pushing the vessel sideways in recoil. Two of the islanders dropped, wounded, but most of the deadly barrage missed the thin strand of beach, the majority of projectiles falling short or sailing harmlessly over the men's heads. This was expected by the experienced sailors on both sides. Jack knew the gunners now had the range and the next round of fire would be much more lethal. This is where it all gets decided, Jack thought. Maril and the boys in that bell better have done their job.
“Captain, we're adrift and headed into the beach!” the
Styuvesant
's first mate screamed.
“But howâdid the hook slip?”
“Damn it, no, Skipper. Somehow the bastards cut the line.”
“Thank God,” Jack said aloud as Quince let his breath out in a long sigh. The men on the ship cast puzzled glances toward shore. They could not fathom why their enemies kept position on the beach, making no move to run or return their fire. Only those next to a fallen man had broken ranks, to minister to their comrade's wounds.
As the ship gradually continued to shift position, the air suddenly filled with lead, raining down from above. A withering fire from concealed rifles somewhereâin those damned palmsâstarted raking the deck, where the officers were clustered. They were totally exposed. There was the thud of lead hitting flesh, the sight of men falling to the deck, some groaning, most silent.
Below, the cannon muzzles were beginning to reappear through the square ports but the ship drifted toward shore and the gun barrels were deflected hopelessly upward. As the vessel ran aground, the port side dipped down, then upward, as the keel scraped over the uneven sea bottom.
“Now!” Jack yelled. “Charge the bastards!”
He watched Arloon's jaw drop and a look of panic sweep his face. Directly in front of him dozens of warriors seemed to be materializing from the thin sandspit, splashing madly through the shallows toward his grounded ship. Some Americans also appeared from the same sandy grave and had dropped to their knees at the water's edge, where they began firing rifles with deadly effect through the open gunports. The captain appeared to abandon the thought of any broadside and called out to “Fire at will!”
Jack would never have believed such an explosion possible. It was deafening. The sleek
Stuyvesant
lifted several feet in the air, much of its upper stern vaporizing in a ball of fire and smoke. The captain and most of the men on the stern were blown into the sea from the force of the blast. The Americans and Indians threw themselves on the beach, covering their heads with their hands as pieces of wood, machinery, and body parts flew by.
As the sound of the blast died away, the lagoon grew eerily silent. The flotilla of canoes that had just rounded the spit, led by Yatoo, seemed frozen in place. The men who had been charging the ship stood or knelt, their arms over their faces. Jack, lying next to Quince on the beach, was speechless.
Sweet Jesus! Madre de Dios, what the hell happened? The confusion seemed to affect both sides equally, but the first to recover were the battle-hardened Dutch dragoons, most of whom, positioned forward on the ship, had been spared the main force of the blast. Jack, still stunned at the miraculous disintegration of the ship he had coveted, heard the sergeant order the ship's boats brought up to pick up the officers, most of whom were killed or badly wounded in the blast. He told his men to hold fire as the rescuers picked a few survivors floundering in the light surf. Without commands of any kind, fire had ceased from the American side. The American sailors, along with their Belauran allies, were transformed into uneasy spectators in a strange drama in which, moments before, they had been lead players.
As the officers were pulled into one of the boats, it was soon apparent to Jack that, although wounded, the captain and De Vries were still alive. The boat into which they had been deposited started pulling for the far end of the spit to regroup away from their enemy and their ship. Quince and Jack, decisive and aggressive in battle, were strangely paralyzed in the face of this boggling turn of events. What kept repeating itself in Jack's head wasâMy ship! My way to Cuba!
From the side of the cove, a Belauran canoe suddenly made way toward the Dutch boat holding the captain and De Vries, which was now engaged in fishing out survivors. Paul sat in the canoe's stern, holding a rifle taken from a fallen Belauran. Two natives were paddling, but the progress seemed to be directed by Quen-Li. This was just one more strange development in what appeared to Jack an altogether surreal scene. He and the others stared in wonder at this new inexplicable turn of events.
The captain stood shakily in the stern of the launch as the Belauran canoe approached; De Vries lay prostrate in its belly, Paul could see, bleeding profusely from his nose and good ear. The canoe caught up to the boat as it rounded the stem of the
Stuyvesant
, out of the protective cover of the dragoons clustered along the rail and some distance from most of the American marksmen.
“Captain Arloon?” The question from Quen-Li came in perfect English, his voice carrying across the quiet waters clearly.
“Aye . . . yes, that's me. What . . . ?”
“I have a message for you from the emperor of China.” With that, he drove a Belauran spear through Arloon's throat. A one-armed dragoon in the boat raised his weapon to shoot Quen-Li when a shot rang out from the canoe and the man was blown backward into the water. A wisp of smoke trailed from Paul's weapon.
With the captain sitting in a heap and staring vacantly in front of him, blood streaming from his neck, Jack heard his friend proclaim
in a voice that seemed not that of the Paul Le Maire he knew, “Oh Captain, you know something interesting? Something you can think about in hell? I'm left-handed.” The canoe back-paddled swiftly with no further engagement between the men in either craft.
Quince dropped to his knees, mouth open, repeating, “What in blazing deep-sea hell is going on? What in . . . ?”
Jack turned to him, “Skipper, uh, there's . . . well, there's a story there you need to know about.” Jack actually didn't know the full details himself, but from what he had just seen and heard, he could pretty much guess.
With most of the officers killed or wounded, the sergeant of dragoons took command, and no one on the ship seemed inclined to argue. Jack could overhear a short parley taking place with the dragoon leader speaking from the bow of the
Stuyvesant
. An apparent act of the god of chaos had interfered with the affairs of men. The instrument of divine intervention: a humble Papaloan woman. The sergeant explained the mystery of the explosion in fair, if broken, English, “Dat Papaloan bitch did it. She ran into ship magazine with a torch when we opened it for the powder monkeys to reload.”
“Papaloan?” A voice asked.
“Aye, she came aboard several weeks ago. Fair-skinned kaffir to service the officers. Seemed to relish it, cozy with all the men whenever they wished . . . she pretty much got the run of the ship. Her son and her man were killed in that first incident with you Americans that started this mess.”
The image of a woman's face sprang into Jack's mind, one that would be there the rest of his life. A beautiful, haunted, brown face of a Papaloan girl clutching a bloody bundle in her arms, rocking back and forth on her knees, grief so deep she had no way of expressing it.
“Quince, the girl in the clearingâ”
“I know, lad, I know.”
Negotiations went quickly. The dragoons and remaining Dutch sailors could still cause significant bloodshed if forced to a desperate last stand. At this point no one seemed to have the stomach for it. Yatoo had entertained following up on the advantage, but Quince convinced him the spoils of the
Stuyvesant
were a magnificent prizeâand two dozen dragoons could inflict terrible losses, ship or no ship. Their captain and most of their leaders were dead and they would be happy to put as much distance between themselves and this archipelago as fast as possible; but if they had to stand and fight, who knew what might happen. The bloodshed wouldn't be worth the gain, Quince argued. If these were British or French, or the Dutch twenty years ago, the chance of reprisals would be great; but in this age the Dutch would be happy to find softer targets, even if news of this battle reached their homeland.
The sergeant never knew for sure what had happened in the boat with Arloon and never asked. He was a practical man. For Quince's part, even when Jack and Paul explained the background of Quen-Li, the first mate couldn't absorb it in the context of everything else that had happened. He decided it was just one more event in a day he would never fully comprehend, and asked about it no more.
As the chiefs and men talked, Paul watched some young native boys pushing stray arms and heads around in the shallows. They were fascinated with the grisly testimony to the power of the white men's magicâa magic which they didn't seem always able to control. Paul had killed his first man and he was numb. It had been so easy: point a muzzle, flick a fingerâyes, just like thatâand you toss some soul off the planet.
What's that they're saying? Ah, kill the badly wounded they've decidedâmore finger-flicking. The rest will be given canoes and food, and pointed south. If they make it several hundred miles down chain they'll come to a strait where an occasional white sail is seen and they may find their way home. Their trail will be followed for five days by a Belauran and American war party. If it
finds any stragglers, they will be killed. If they aren't all gone by morning, they will be killed. If they ever return, they will be killed. All in all, a straightforward if not very gentle arrangement.
Quen-Li came by and sat with Paul. He did not flinch as Paul did with the sound of each shot; he just looked into Paul's eyes and smiled when it was all over.
“Life is sometimes hard, my young friend, and victories hollow. You have given me my life back for a time and I will make good use of it. Thank you. The air feels good in my chest tonight, I am glad not to be breathing the dirt.”
“Quen-Li . . . Arloon was on your list?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone else we know? What about De Vries?”
“No, not De Vries.”
“But another? Who?”
“Maybe one other.”
“Who, damn it, who?”
“Captain Deploy.”
“Sweet Jesus.”
“Bonne nuit, mon ami.”
J
ACK STOOD LOOKING at the burning hulk of the Dutch ship, recently standing so proud in the lagoon. She spewed an acrid mixture of gunpowder and burning timbers, and with smoke pouring from her innards, her death was imminent. Jack could not rejoice in its sinking, even though the enemy had been vanquished.
The sun balanced itself on the foreyard, casting a brilliant hue through the haze. Quince broke the silence.
“She were a fine ship, lads. Pity the captain acted like an ass. I've seen them smolder and burn like this for days. She'll be down by her bulwarks by morning.” He turned and walked away, the rest of the men following in ones and twos, at once relieved, triumphant, and saddened by the day's events.
Jack crouched against a palm tree, staring at the wooden pyre.
“What are you thinking?” asked Paul.
“Oh, I don't know, really. Just wondering what this is all about. You know, the deaths, destruction. Wondering what it all has to
do with me and my need to get back to the Caribbean.” The two friends sat silently, watching the sun perform its magic on the cobalt sea. “I was thinking what a shame it is to lose such a magnificent vessel as lies there, the
Peter Stuyvesant
.”