by Mark J Rose
They ducked as a cannonball ripped into the mast above their heads. Pieces of wood and sail dropped all around them. Jay walked low to dodge as he returned with a hand wagon containing two bales of straw. He crouched down to pry off the top of a barrel and begin filling it with straw. Matt used his knife to pry open another barrel. “How much?” he shouted.
“Half,” Jay yelled as he ducked at the sound of cannon and then the whoosh of a ball rushing through the sails. The Norfolk veered hard again, but this time they were ready and managed to keep the barrels upright. It was a meager victory, but still enough to bring back their sense of control. When the deck leveled, Matt wiped more blood from his eye.
“You’ll want the surgeon,” Jay said. He stooped to lift two mortar shells from their crate onto the beds of straw in the barrels. Matt laid the long fuses on the edge of each barrel, and they packed the remaining space with straw to hide everything but the fuse. The weight of one of the barrels surprised Matt when he hefted it in his hands. A shiver of regret went up his spine. “They’re too heavy,” he yelled as they ducked at the sound of another cannon shot that tore through the sails. Only the sail on the mizzenmast, the rearmost of three masts, was undamaged.
“They’ll float,” Jay assured him. Jay swept the remainder of straw from the wagon with his arms, and they lifted the barrels onto the wooden platform to move them to the very edge of the stern to drop them into the water. Pearce had been watching their activities as he steered the ship. “Look alive,” he yelled. “They’re targeting our main.”
Chapter 15
A Palpable Miss
Matt and Jay were standing at the stern trying to move anything that could interfere with the barrels as they threw them overboard. They’d roll the barrels aft, one to port and the other to starboard. Their plan was for the tethered barrels to float behind them with the rope high enough in the water to catch the bow of the pirate ship as it followed. It seemed more possible now that the pirate ship was gaining on them.
Igniting the fuses on the mortar shells had to be seamless and once lit, based on their length, they had seven minutes. They’d light them together, lay a piece of tin to keep them off the hay, stuff the fuses into the barrels, coat the opening with a black pitch from a bucket, pound the wooden covers onto the barrels and then roll them simultaneously off the back. Jay had enlisted Tom Porter and Ebenezer Grey, the young men who had accompanied them in the rowboat, along with another seaman named John Turner, to help them heft everything off the stern once the barrels were sealed.
Tom Porter stood next to them with a glowing cannon rod. He doubled as a lookout, warning everyone to duck at the slightest hint of cannon fire. Jay put his hand up as they waited for the next cannon shot to pass through the sails, and then sprang into action. Tom touched the cannon rod to the fuses, and they hissed, Ebenezer coated the top of the barrels with thick black tar, Matt dropped the lids onto the barrels and Jay hammered them tight. It was the point of no return.
Matt and Jay worked together to pick up one of the barrels and Tom and Ebenezer, the second, while John Turner hefted a generous looping of rope and walked between them. Together, they hurried to the edge of the stern, hefting their packages and looking expectantly down at the water. A cannonball smashed the wood between them, sending razor-sharp splinters everywhere, and blowing John Turner off his feet. He landed on his rear and sat dazed. “On your feet, seaman!” Jay yelled. Turner looked around trying to figure out where he was, and then pulled himself upright and again lifted the spool of rope in his hands.
They set the barrels on the deck, and Jay took the time to brush splinters from his shirt and pull out the few that had lodged into the skin of his left arm. Matt leaned over the railing to peer down at the water. There were three wooden protrusions and another decorative carving of a sitting mermaid that could snag the rope. The barrels had an easy path off the corners of the stern to roll straight into the sea, but the rope had to be thrown almost flawlessly to prevent it from snagging. Damn Mermaid! Matt tapped John Turner on the shoulder and pointed at the four snag points. “Can you clear them?” he asked.
Turner used his full hand to gesture in a waving motion away from the obstacles. “If I throw it that way,” he said pointing.
“Hard as you can.”
“Aye, aye, Mr. Miller.”
Matt said a quick prayer. “You’ll do fine,” he said finally, hoping things did not go so poorly that they blew a hole in the Norfolk instead of the pirate ship. At the very least, they could wind up towing barrels behind them to stall the ship enough to allow the pirates to catch them.
Jay motioned, and they all lifted their packages into the air. “On three,” he said. He counted, and they heaved the barrels overboard. The throw was perfect in all respects. The barrels entered the water cleanly, and the rope only glanced off the carved stern before dropping into the sea. Matt looked to the sky and said another prayer as the barrels disappeared into the water. The rope stayed visible for a half-minute longer and then it, too, went under the surface. Another cannonball ripped above their heads.
When they rechecked the ocean, there was no sign of barrels or rope. “They sunk,” Matt said. “Shit!”
“Give ‘em a moment,” Jay replied. He reached down to open up his telescope and scanned the water.
“Well?” Matt asked. He was on the verge of panic.
“There,” Jay finally said. He pointed and handed the telescope to Matt.
The very tops of the barrels were bobbing to the surface. They hadn’t drifted as far apart as Matt wanted, but they were almost dead center in the path of the pirate ship. “Can’t see the rope,” Matt said, “but they’re headed straight for it.” Matt handed the telescope back.
Jay fixed the telescope again. “She’s got ‘em.”
Matt squeezed his fist tight and looked down at his watch. There was another minute left before they exploded. A cannonball came crashing into the rear of the ship, almost at the waterline.
“Mr. Jay!” Captain Pearce called. “Report.”
“Less than a minute,” Matt shouted.
They saw the explosions before they heard them. The pirate ship was sandwiched between two geysers of water.
“Yes,” yelled Matt. Jay still had the glass up to his eye. “Well done!” Matt yelled.
“A miss,” Jay exclaimed looking through the scope. “The explosions were behind her.”
“Mr. Jay!” the Captain shouted.
“Missed ‘em, Captain,” Jay shouted
“Time to have a bang at the bastards,” Pearce yelled.
“We’ve another, Captain,” Matt yelled.
Pearce ignored him as he turned the wheel, and the ship veered to the starboard. Matt held the remaining barrels from rolling away.
“What went wrong?” Matt asked Jay.
“She went right between,” Jay proclaimed, “then skidded o’er.”
Matt stood up and ran toward the hold.
“Where the hell are you off to?” Jay yelled.
Matt didn’t take the time to answer. He hurried back, awkwardly hefting the fifth barrel he had lodged against the ship’s rail. The barrel slammed against the deck as thrust it down. He pointed to the last set of tethered barrels. “Find the rope’s center,” he yelled. Another cannonball crashed into the deck sending them sprawling.
“Mr. Jay,” Captain Pearce shouted towards them from the wheel. “Do what you’ll do!”
Jay was too busy scrolling through the rope to reply. When he was at the center, he handed it to Matt who placed it up against the fifth barrel. Matt pulled each of the four nails from his mouth and one at a time used them to hammer the rope into the barrel, bending them across as before. It looked sloppy at best.
“It’ll never hold,” Jay said.
“Just needs to float the rope above her waterline.”
Tom was already standing, ready with the glowing rod. Lighting the fuses and sealing the barrels went faster the second time and they were soon
at the stern with the live mines set to throw. John was struggling to hold the barrel and the rope. “Can you handle it?” Matt asked.
“I can do it,” John replied.
On three again,” Jay yelled and began counting. They tossed all three barrels in unison over the back. The events unfolded in slow motion in Matt’s vision as he watched. The barrels containing the mines cleared the bow, but the center barrel snapped back and bounced awkwardly off the stern towards the port and then into the water. The rope slid across the rear of the ship and snagged on the mermaid’s head and the tail. The mines were now dragging in the water behind them. Matt rushed to the center of the stern for a closer look
“My fault, sir,” John said to Matt. “I’ll fix it.”
“How?” Matt said looking toward the pirate ship, but the young man had already disappeared. Another cannonball slammed into the deck, sending large splinters and knocking Matt back. His ears rang. The Captain veered hard now to port.
“Keep her straight, Captain,” Matt yelled. “He looked down at his watch.” The barrels had four minutes before they exploded.
“Drop sails, to come about, Mr. Lewis,” the Captain yelled. “Quarters!” Ten seconds later, the drum sounded.
Matt lifted himself across the stern railing to lower himself down to help untangle the rope, but Turner was almost there. Musket balls, fired from the pirate ship, spattered the rear of the Norfolk, making Matt duck his head under the ship’s rail. He took a moment to look for Jay, but the drum had already taken him away to ship’s duties. The Norfolk shuddered as half its sails dropped and the ship slowed. Matt stood to lean over the rail again, having difficulty keeping his feet on the tilting deck.
Dropping sails had been enough to put slack in the rope and Turner was frantically trying to use the chance to unravel the snag. The rope came loose from the mermaid’s tail, but her head was out of reach. The pirate’s cannon fired again, and another direct hit to the stern threw Matt back. He pulled himself to the rail and saw Tom, now bobbing in the water, hanging onto the rope that was towing the two barrels. There were two minutes on Matt’s watch.
“Man overboard!” Matt yelled. In the melee though, there was no one to listen. The pirate ship was now a giant at their stern. Matt tied the last rope around his waist and then the other end to the railing, and then stepped overboard to finish what Tom had started. It was no longer a matter of trapping the pirate ship. He was now afraid that their explosive rig would blow the backside of the Norfolk off and kill John Turner. He searched for the young man in the water as he climbed. Whitecaps nearly engulfed Turner as he hung onto the rope.
Matt scrambled to the middle of the stern where the single snag was holding the barrels. There was no way to get enough leverage to lift the rope over the snag while hanging onto the ship. Matt reached for the rope, resigned now to fall into the water and lifted hard. I’ve got you! The snag freed as another cannonball exploded above him and Matt, still hanging onto the rope, snapped back like an arrow shot from a bow. He hit the water, and his world turned dark green.
Matt struggled to orient himself as he tumbled struggling to break the surface and breathe. The remaining slack in the rope around his waist disappeared as his face broke into the light, and the momentum of the Norfolk snapped him forward. She tumbled him again and dragged him deeper. His lungs were ready to explode, and he could feel his will to live slipping away.
Chapter 16
Celia Ferguson
The Great Hall of Ferguson Manor was a polished-marble monstrosity. One short wall and one long wall were completely stone. An enormous fireplace filled a short side and then the remaining long wall was composed entirely of glass panes that reached to a cathedral ceiling. These windows looked out to a centerpiece fountain surrounded by an intricate hedge garden bordered on three sides by cherry trees. Lady Celia Ferguson stood in the middle of the light-grey marble floor watching as two servants finished hanging a life-sized painting of her late father, Duke Charles Fairchild.
Celia hoped that hanging the portrait would help make Ferguson Manor feel like home, something that had eluded her thus far. “Ferguson Manor,” she whispered to herself with scorn. No matter how she said it, bile filled her mouth. It wasn’t anything at all like the family manors of her childhood. This building had no fame or legacy. Nothing that lingered in the air, no laudable spirits haunting her halls, and not so much as a one Lord or Lady had ever walked its new marble floor.
Fairchild Manor, her home until her marriage to Sir Patrick Ferguson, was a proper seat for a noble family, not this empty shell. Ferguson Manor’s legacy consisted of a few dust outlines of paintings recently removed and sold at auction. The estate was liquidated before it’s completion to save the previous owner from debtor’s prison. The seats of noble families never passed one to another with the stroke of a pen. It took centuries to make a proper manor, and so this was no more than one man’s ode to pomp and largess.
“Is it to your satisfaction, Lady Ferguson?” Cavener called as he stood with another man on the platform. Celia shook her thumb sideways. “Slightly to the right,” she called back. She waited as they adjusted the portrait and then saw them look for her approval. Her next move was a thumbs-up to show that they were finished. “Lovely, Mr. Cavener,” she said. The men climbed down the ladder and worked to move the platform away from the mantle to give her a clear view.
Celia gazed up at the portrait as she contemplated her late father, resplendent in a full matador’s outfit. He was in his late thirties at the time. It was her mother’s favorite portrait, and so Celia knew she expected it to be somewhere conspicuous when she came to visit her daughter’s new home. Her father had trained in bullfighting as a young man in Spain and had continued the hobby when he returned to England. It had eventually killed him. Celia wanted to hate bullfighting, but the ring was part of her legacy, too. She warmed at the memories of being with her father as they inspected the young bulls and assessed their best qualities. She had been a young and idealistic girl back then, and her father had made her feel like anything was possible.
Her relationship with him had turned cold and formal in their last years. She could never forgive him for using her as a pawn in a game to shore up his title and increase his sway. Before that, he had taken her to places and given her experiences that no English daughter had dreamed, but in the end, he had expected her to do her duty. A rich man had appeared one day and placed a sizable amount of money on the table. He wanted to buy his way into the uppermost echelons of English aristocracy. In this new industrial England, everything depended on liquidity, so her father had made the deal.
Celia cursed her father again under her breathe. She had not been innocent to noble titles being available to the highest bidder, but she had not expected to become a pariah. People, who had once treated her like family, now shunned her. To make it worse, before his death, her father had confessed that he had expected as much; the ramifications of marrying her to a man with no family and no ancestry had been incontrovertible. To increase the frustration, her husband saw no shame in using his money to buy titles or sway, and so he could never understand how deeply wounded she was by the loss of almost all her support.
To give him some credit, Patrick Ferguson was handsome, prosperous, and confident, and while they couldn’t move among the old families, there were plenty of new ones in London. These families, too, had been able to purchase status. Britain’s wrecked economy hadn’t opened as many doors as her husband had pledged, but even she had been able to sense the vibration of their shifting fortunes. Celia scanned around the Great Hall of perhaps the grandest English estate in the city of London, thinking that maybe this room, at least, was worth hanging the portraits that her mother expected.
“It looks marvelous, m’lady.”
Celia turned to see her attendant, Camille, gazing up at the portrait. She was a woman in her late forties and had been with Celia since before she had learned to walk. “‘Twill do, I think,” Celia answer
ed quietly.
“Your father was never happier than when he was in the ring,” Camille said. “He liked to put on a shew for you and your mother.”
“I expect you’re correct,” Celia replied. “I accompanied him many times as he examined the animals.”
“He wanted you with him, m’lady, still,” she said.
“It’s difficult to understand why.”
“He wanted you to know the world of men.”
Celia looked back at her intensely at this observation. “He confided this in you?”
“Oh no, m’lady,” she replied, “but servants talk.”
“What things do servants say?”
“He was proud of you.”
“Proud?”
“He knew the challenge you’d face from the families. He said you were made of firmer stuff and that if anyone could bring England’s nobility into a new era, it was a Fairchild woman.”
Celia felt a tear form in her eye. “Camille,” Celia asked. “Why have you never told me this?”
“Not my place, m’lady,” she explained.
“And now?”
Camille gazed up at the portrait. “He was still a handsome man.”
“So they say.”
“Dinner will be served soon,” Camille announced.
“Have Mary dress the children in their finest. The Parkers should see nobility’s new era even in its children.”
“Yes, m’lady.” Camille curtsied and turned away.
“Nobility’s new era,” Celia whispered up at her father’s portrait. She had wanted to say it with more contempt.
Chapter 17
Old Dominion
Hosting elaborate dinner parties wasn’t Grace’s favorite pastime, but there was something satisfying about watching Virginia politics play out at her table. The economic congress was in session in Richmond, and it had seemed appropriate to welcome the delegates to the farm and see what they’d say after a few glasses of wine. Thankfully, Rebecca was brilliant at inviting, feeding, and lodging their guests. It was a mixed blessing, too, that Graine had moved her family back to the Martin estate from the Taylor-Miller farm; their house, built to exacting and opulent standards by Graine’s father, was usually empty now that Will was spending long periods in England. Even with Will back on the farm this weekend, there were still five luxurious bedrooms available for guests.
