Caribbee

by Thomas Hoover

  *

  Serina lifted his cheek against her own, the salt from her tears mingling with the sea water in his hair. The wound in his shoulder was open now, sending a trickle of blood glis­tening across his chest. His breathing was in spasms.

  Shango, can you still hear me . . . ?

  "Try washing his wound with this." Katherine was stand­ing above her, in the dim light of the candle-lantern, holding a gray onion-flask of brandy.

  "Why are you helping me, senhora?" Serina looked up, her words a blend of English and Portuguese. "You care nothing for him. Or for me."

  "I . . . I want to." Katherine awkwardly pulled the cork from the bottle, and the fiery fumes of the brandy enveloped them.

  "Because the senhor told you to do it. That is the real reason." She finally reached and took the bottle. "He is a good man. He risked his life for us. He did not need to. No other branco on this island would have."

  "Then you can repay him by doing what he asked. He said to clean the wound."

  Serina settled the bottle onto the decking beside the sleep­ing bunk, then bent over and kissed the clan marks on Atiba's dark cheek. As she did, the ship rolled awkwardly and a high wave dashed against the quartergallery. Quickly she seized the neck of the flask and secured it till they had righted.

  "I think we will have to do it together."

  "Together?"

  "Never fear, senhora. Atiba's black skin will not smudge your white Ingles hands."

  "I never thought it would." Katherine impulsively reached down and ripped off a portion of her skirt. Then she grabbed the flask and pulled back his arm. While Serina held his shoulder forward, she doused the wound with a stream of the brown liquor, then began to swab away the encrusted blood with the cloth. His skin felt like soft leather, supple to the touch, with hard ripples of muscles beneath.

  The sting of the brandy brought an involuntary jerk. Atiba's eyes opened and he peered, startled, through the gloom.

  "Don't try to move." Quickly Serina bent over him, whis­pering softly into his ear. "You are safe. You are on the branco's ship."

  He started to speak, but at that moment another wave crashed against the stern and the ship lurched sideways. Atiba's eyes flooded with alarm, and his lips formed a word.

  "Dara . . ."

  Serina laid her face next to his. "Don't talk. Please. Just rest now." She tried to give him a drink of the brandy, but his eyes refused it. Then more words came, faint and lost in the roar of the wind and the groaning of the ancient boards of the Defiance. Finally his breath seemed to dissolve as unconsciousness again drifted over him.

  Katherine watched as Serina gently laid his head against the cushion on the bunk, then fell to her knees and began to pray, mumbling foreign words . . . not Portuguese. She found herself growing more and more uneasy; something about the two of them was troubling, almost unnatural. Finally she rose and moved to watch the sea through the stern windows. Though the waves outside slammed ever more menacingly against the quartergallery, as the storm was worsening no­ticeably, she still longed for the wind in her face. Again she recalled her first night here with Hugh, when they had looked out through this very window together, in each other's arms. What would it be like to watch the sea from this gallery now, she wondered, when the ocean and winds were wild? She sighed and pulled open the latch.

  What she saw took her breath away.

  Off the portside, bearing down on them, was the outline of a tallmasted English warship with two gun decks.

  Before she could move, there were shouts from the quarterdeck above, then the trampling of feet down the companionway leading to the waist of the ship. He'd seen it too, and ordered his gun crews to station.

  She pulled back from the window as a wave splashed across her face, and a chill swept the room, numbing her fingers. She fumbled a moment trying to secure the latch, then gave up and turned to head for the door. If we're all to die, she told herself, I want to be up with Hugh, on the quarterdeck. Oh God, why now? After all we've been through?

  As she passed the lantern, she noticed Serina, still bent over the African, still mumbling the strange words. . . .

  "Do you know what's about to happen to us all!" The frustration was more than she could contain. "Come back over here and take a look."

  When the mulatto merely stared at her with a distant, glazed expression, she strode to where she knelt and took her arm, pulling her erect. While she was leading her toward the open window, she heard a deep groaning rise up through the timbers of the frigate and knew the cannon were being run out. Winston had ordered a desperate gamble; a possible ordnance duel with a warship twice the burden of the Defiance. Moving the guns now, when the seas were high, only compounded their danger. If one broke loose from its tackles, it could hurtle through the side of the ship, opening a gash that would surely take enough water to sink them in minutes.

  "Do you see, senhora?" She directed Serina's gaze out the open windows. "If you want to pray, then pray that that man-of-war doesn't catch us. Your African may soon be dead anyway, along with you and me too."

  "What . . . will they do?" The mulatto studied the ap­proaching warship, her eyes only half seeing.

  "I expect they'll pull alongside us if they can, then run out their guns and . . ." She felt her voice begin to quiver.

  "Then I will pray."

  "Please do that." She whirled in exasperation and quickly shoved her way out the door and into the companionway. As she mounted the slippery ladder to the quarterdeck, she felt John Mewes brush past in the rain, bellowing orders aloft. She looked up to see men perched along the yards, clinging to thin ropes in the blowing rain as they loosened the top­gallants. The Defiance was putting on every inch of canvas, in weather where any knowing seaman would strike sail and heave-to.

  "Good God, Katy, I wish you'd go back below decks. The Gloucester must have spied our sail when we doubled the Point." Winston's voice sounded through the rain. He was steering the ship all alone now, his shoulder against the whipstaff. Off the portside the English warship, a gray hulk with towering masts, was rapidly narrowing the distance between them.

  "Hugh, I want to be up here, with you." She grabbed onto a shroud to keep her balance. "They're planning to try and sink us, aren't they?"

  "Unless we heave-to. Which I have no intention of doing. So they'll have to do just that if they expect to stop us. And I'd say they have every intention of making the effort. Look." He pointed through the rain. Now the line of gunport covers along the upper gun deck were being raised. "They're mak­ing ready to start running out their eighteen-pounders."

  "What can we do?"

  "First put on all the canvas we've got. Then get our own guns in order. If we can't outrun them, we'll have to fight."

  "Do you think we have a chance?" She studied the ship more closely. It seemed to have twice the sail of the Defiance, but then it was heavier and bulkier. Except for the Rainbowe, Cromwell had not sent his best warships to the Americas. This one could be as old as Hugh's.

  "I've outrun a few men-of-war before. But not in weather like this."

  "Then I want to stay up here. And that mulatto woman you took on board frightens me, almost as much as this."

  "Then stay. For now. But if they get us in range, I want you below." He glanced aloft, where men clinging to the swaying yards had just secured the main tops'ls. As the storm worsened, more lightning flashed in the west, bringing pray­ers and curses from the seamen. "The weather's about as bad as it could be. I've never had the Defiance under full sail when it's been like this. I never want to again."

  After the topgallants were unfurled and secured, they seemed to start picking up momentum. The Gloucester was still off their portside, but far enough astern that she could not use her guns. And she was no longer gaining.

  "Maybe we can still outrun them?" She moved alongside Winston.

  "There's a fair chance." He was holding the whipstaff on a steady course. "But they've not got all their canvas on yet. They kno
w it's risky." He turned to study the warship and she saw the glimmer of hope in his eyes, but he quickly masked it. "In good weather, they could manage it. But with a storm like this, maybe not." He paused as the lightning flared again. "Still, if they decide to chance the rest of their sail . . ."

  She settled herself against the binnacle to watch the Gloucester. Then she noticed the warship's tops'ls being un­furled. Winston saw it too. The next lightning flash revealed that the Gloucester had now begun to run out her upper row of guns, as the distance between them slowly began to nar­row once more.

  "Looks as if they're going to gamble what's left of their running rigging, Katy. I think you'd best be below."

  "No, I . . ."

  Winston turned and yelled toward the main deck, "John, pass the order. If they pull in range, tell Canninge to just fire at will whenever the portside guns bear. Same as when that revenue frigate Royale once tried to board us. Maybe he can cripple their gun deck long enough to try and lose them in the dark."

  "Aye." A muted cry drifted back through the howl of rain.

  "Hugh, I love you." She touched the sleeve of his jerkin. "I think I even know what it means now."

  He looked at her, her hair tangled in the rain. "Katy, I love you enough to want you below. Besides, it's not quite time to say our farewells yet."

  "I know what's next. They'll pull to windward of us and just fire away. They'll shoot away our rigging till we're help­less, and then they'll hole us till we take on enough water to go down."

  "It's not going to be that easy. Don't forget we've got some ordnance of our own. Just pray they can't set theirs in this sea."

  Lightning flashed once more, glistening off the row of can­non on the English warship. They had range now, and Kath­erine could see the glimmer of lighted linstocks through the open gunports.

  "Gracious Lord, for what we are about to receive, make us truly thankful." John Mewes was mounting the quarter­deck to watch. "This looks to be it, Cap'n."

  "Just keep on praying, John. And get back down on deck. I want every inch of sail on those yards."

  "Aye, I'd like the same, save I don't know where exactly we've got any more to put on, unless I next hoist my own linen." He crossed himself, then headed down the compan­ion way.

  Suddenly a gun on the Gloucester flared, sending an eighteen-pound round shot through the upper sails of the Defiance, inches from the maintop. Then again, and this time the edge of the fo'c'sle ripped away, spraying splinters across the deck.

  "John! Tell Canninge he'd better start firing the second his guns bear. And he'd best be damned quick on it too." Even as he spoke, a roar sounded from below and the deck tilted momentarily sideways. Katherine watched as a line of shot splintered into the planking along the side of the Gloucester, between her gun decks.

  "Damn, he came close." Winston studied the damage. "But not close enough."

  Again the lightning flashed, nearer now, a wide network across the heavens, and she saw the Gloucester's captain standing on his own quarterdeck, nervously staring aloft at the storm.

  "Katy, please go below. This is going to get very bad. If they catch this deck, there'll be splinters everywhere. Not to mention . . ."

  The Gloucester's guns flamed again. She felt the deck tremble as an eighteen-pound shot slammed into the side of the Defiance, up near the bow.

  "John, let's have some more of those prayers." Winston yelled down again. "And while you're at it, tell Canninge to give them another round the second he's swabbed out. He's got to hurt that upper gun deck soon or we're apt to be in for a long night."

  "Hugh, can't we . . ." She stopped as she saw a figure in a bloodstained white shift slowly moving up the companionway.

  "Good Christ." He had seen it too. "Katy, try and keep her the hell off the quarterdeck and out of the way."

  While he threw his shoulder against the whipstaff and began shouting more orders to Mewes on the main deck, Serina mounted the last step. She moved across the planking toward them, her eyes glazed, even more than before. "Come below, senhora." Katherine reached out for her. "You could be hurt."

  The mulata's hand shot up and seized her arm with an iron grip. Katherine felt her feet give way, and the next thing she knew she had been flung sideways against the hard rope shrouds.

  "E pada nibi!" The voice was deep, chilling. Then she turned and advanced menacingly on Winston.

  "God damn you!" He shoved her back, then reached to help Katherine. "Katy, are you all right? Just watch out for her. I wager she's gone mad after all that's happened. If we get time I'll have some of the boys come and take her be­low."

  Again the Gloucester's guns flared, and a whistle sang across the quarterdeck as the shot clipped the railing next to where they were standing. Serina stared wildly at the shat­tered rail, then at the English man-of-war. Her eyes seemed vacant, as though looking through all she saw.

  "Good Christ, Katy, take a look at those skies." Winston felt a chill in his bowels as the lightning blossomed again. "The wind is changing; I can feel it. Something's happening. If we lose a yard, or tear a sail, they'll take us in a minute. All it needs is one quick shift, too much strain."

  As if in response to his words, the hull shuddered, then pitched backward, and Katherine heard a dull crack from somewhere in the rigging.

  "Christ." Winston was staring aloft, his face washed in the rain.

  She followed his gaze. The mainmast had split, just below the maintop. The topsail had fallen forward, into the fore­mast, and had ripped through the foresail. A startled main-topman was dangling helplessly from the side of his round perch. Then something else cracked, and he tumbled toward the deck, landing in the middle of a crowd of terrified seamen huddled by the fo'c'sle door.

  "I knew we couldn't bear full sail in this weather. We've just lost a good half of our canvas." He looked back. "You've got to go below now. Please. And see if you can somehow take that woman with you. We're in very bad trouble. If I was a religious man, I'd be on my knees praying right now."

  The Gloucester's guns spoke once more, and a shot clipped the quartergallery only feet below where they were, shower­ing splinters upward through the air.

  "Atiba!" Serina was staring down over the railing, toward the hole that had been ripped in the corner of the Great Cabin beneath them.

  Then she looked out at the warship, and the hard voice rose again. "Iwo ko lu oniran li oru o nlu u li ossan?" Finally her eyes flared and she shouted through the storm, "Shango. Oyinbo I'o je!"

  Once more the lightning came.