The Black Ring

by William Westbrook

  “Yes,” Fallon replied. “Hunting.”

  “Who are they?” asked Aja.

  “I think they’re pirates,” replied Fallon. “Maybe privateers, probably Spanish because the French don’t usually work together. But who knows? Whoever they are they’re probably crammed with men and every one of them smells blood. But … they bide their time.”

  “Maybe waiting for darkness, Captain, sir,” replied Aja. “Maybe they attack at night.”

  They both studied the little wolves carefully. It was hard to see in the dimming light, but they appeared to be still under easy sail, in no real hurry to catch up. Fallon raised his telescope for another look. Two of the ships appeared to be sloops, with the third one in the rear too far away to tell. At this rate, the chase would go on all night unless … unless there was a way to force the action.

  Fallon called Beauty to join him at the taffrail. Together they studied the distant ships without speaking. It would be dark soon, with every prospect of a moonless night.

  “What are you thinking, Nico?” Beauty asked.

  “Tell you what, Beauty,” Fallon said with a grin. “Let’s set a little snare and see what we catch.”

  The day’s curtain at last came down and evening was aboard. The crew changed watches silently, each man looking over his shoulder astern, but there was only black night beyond the ship. Barclay roughly estimated Rascal’s speed and distance from the little wolves and worked out calculations for when to heave-to. Three hours passed; the ships were still out of sight, and the time was right.

  Rascal struggled to gain way with opposing sails, settling down in an easy bob and dip and essentially staying put in the weakening breeze. The rain had not returned but no lanterns were burning at any rate so the ship was entirely dark. Two lookouts were posted to report any sightings, though they were not to shout down to the deck, as usual, but rather to slide down a stay like old tars to report. The little wolves should pass Rascal by sunrise, Fallon figured, if indeed they held their course and speed, faster if they set more sail. They, too, burned no lights that Fallon could see. Cat and mouse, wolves and rabbit. Fallon took the deck while Beauty went below to sleep. There was nothing for it now but to wait.

  Time crawled by with no reports from the lookouts, and Fallon pondered possible outcomes as he paced the deck. One wolf had been off his larboard quarter at dusk, and Fallon made up his mind to have the weather gauge to windward of the sloop should she be about when daylight came. An hour passed. Then three. Beauty came on deck but Fallon could not bring himself to go below. A cloudy, starless night engulfed them on the wide expanse of ocean. Fallon strained to see something in the darkness, or to hear a sound, but nothing. Finally, he sank down against the mainmast and dozed fitfully.

  An hour before sunrise, Fallon awoke. All was quiet as before, but he gave the order to head up to the east, and Beauty quietly called the hands to stations. Fallon ordered both batteries loaded but not run out, not yet. Shot and powder and slow match were brought up from below. The men went about their tasks quietly, their bare feet padding on the deck.

  A slight lightening under the clouds to the east. There was no word from either lookout, but it was still quite dark with no prospect of an actual sunrise. When Fallon felt they had made enough easting, Beauty shook out the reefs and settled the ship down on their old course to await events. The hands went to breakfast while there was still waiting to be done. Fallon stood at the binnacle and stared to the west, wondering if he’d mistimed the thing or perhaps exaggerated the threat. The mysterious ships could have changed course and sailed away anywhere.

  Suddenly here was a lookout on the deck next to him. “Deck there,” the lookout whispered, though he was standing two feet away. “Sail off the starboard bow.” Fallon smothered a laugh at the lookout’s discipline. He’d never heard “Deck there!” in a whisper.

  Fallon immediately raised his telescope and scanned the horizon. Perhaps a faint white mark was visible, just there. “Beauty,” he ordered in his own whisper, “head down toward that sail. We’ll see what this lobo is about.”

  The sloop was ahead, farther south, and Rascal sailed down to her with the wind on her larboard quarter. There was no sign of the other ships, but it was not light enough to really see much and might not be for another half hour. The big schooner carried the freshening breeze in her sails and bore down on the sloop, the rabbit after the wolf now, and all hands relished the reversal of roles. Rascal drew closer with every plunge of her bow, and the world grew slightly lighter, and when at last the sloop discovered she was no longer the hunter but the prey she ran out her larboard guns and sent up signals to her hunting companions, though it was not light enough to see them at any distance. Rascal was a mere half mile away now, and Fallon ordered Cully to man the long nine in the bows. He wanted a couple of shots at long range before engaging the starboard battery. A moment later Rascal’s British ensign went up, snapping smartly to attention, and the sloop fired her larboard broadside. Though the shot fell well short, that was all the excuse Fallon needed.

  “Cully, fire as you bear!” he yelled, and the long nine sent its ball across less than a half mile of dark water, though just wide of the mark. Quickly the gun crew swabbed and reloaded, Cully making a slight adjustment, but only slight, as Rascal was eating up the distance between the two ships. Within two minutes the long nine was ready again.

  “Fire, Cully!” yelled Fallon, and this time the ball crashed through the sloop’s larboard railing, sending a chunk of wood like a spear into a man’s belly nearby. Fallon thought he could see the man’s startled face in his telescope before he disappeared.

  “Good shooting, Cully!” yelled Fallon. “Ready the starboard battery now!”

  Slowly Rascal dropped down on a parallel course with the sloop, behind but closing the gap. Fallon could read the sloop’s name on her stern: Bella.

  Rascal lunged forward to close the distance, finally gaining an overlap on Bella as Fallon looked toward Cully and nodded.

  “Fire as you bear!” ordered Fallon, and the starboard guns roared one by one in perfectly sequenced, deafening reports that sent deadly iron into Bella’s hull and across her deck. Fallon could see her side explode in splinters and her crew tumble—one man seemed literally to be blown over the side and into the darker sky to the west. Quickly, Rascal’s gun crews loaded and ran out again. Now two broadsides seemed to fire at once, for the sloop had gotten over her surprise and was showing her teeth. Fallon felt the impact of Bella’s broadside on Rascal’s hull and watched helplessly as the crew at Number Four gun were knocked backward by an upended cannon; the men were thrown to the deck and the gun captain’s head twisted awkwardly, his neck broken.

  But Rascal’s second broadside into Bella multiplied the damage of the first. The sloop’s larboard quarter was shattered, sending splinters like darts into the soft flesh of her crew, some of whom died with their eyes open in astonishment. But more! Bella had slewed around as the sloop’s big boom had been shot clean off the mast to trail over the side.

  “You men, get the wounded below quickly!” yelled Fallon. He surveyed the damage to the ship and then called for Aja to summon the carpenter to sound the well in case Rascal had been holed below the waterline. The mainsail had two shot holes, and there was a shallow furrow across the deck from the hull to the foremast where a 6-pound ball had come to a stop and was now rolling around. It was a remarkable sight but before Fallon could fully appreciate it, the lookout called.

  “Deck there, here comes the other sloop!”

  Quickly, Fallon looked to his right to see the other sloop sailing out of the morning gloom, to the west of Bella, her bowsprit pointed at Rascal. The sloop was on a close reach with the wind heeling her over as she rushed into action.

  “Beauty!” called Fallon in a snap decision. “Fall off on a broad reach! We’ll fire the starboard battery and then wear ship on my command!”

  Rascal dropped down with the wind on her larboard quarter t
o get a better firing angle on the sloop, which was beating against the wind and fighting to hold her line and cross Rascal’s stern.

  “Fire as you bear!” yelled Fallon, and Cully went gun to gun to be sure every shot told. The sloop seemed to shudder with the impact of Rascal’s cannon fire, with shot holes appearing in both mainsail and foresail, but now her larboard gun ports came open and her battery was being run out.

  “Wear ship!” ordered Fallon and Beauty brought Rascal’s stern through the eye of the wind carefully, the foremast boom and the main boom swinging across the centerline of the schooner as slowly as she could allow and still keep the ship moving. Suddenly, it was done, with nothing carried away, and now the situation with the second sloop had changed dramatically. The sloop was heeled over on a starboard tack, and now she could not come up into the wind close enough to fire her larboard guns. If she fell off the wind, she would have to quickly load her starboard battery and run out. But there was no time.

  “Cully!” called Fallon, exhilarated at the change in the tactical situation. “Rake her bows!”

  Cully exhorted the gun crews, who loaded and ran out with anger after what had happened to Number Four’s crew. This was a little war all their own now.

  “Fire!” yelled Fallon with excitement, and the larboard battery thundered its 12-pound balls across very few feet of water into the fragile bows of the sloop. The broadside tore away the sloop’s bow railings, bowsprit, and all the attendant rigging supporting the jib and fore staysail. Rascal shot past her, and when the smoke had blown away, the scene revealed the total devastation of the sloop’s bows. Sails were over the side, and the bowsprit had simply evaporated. Without the pressure of the wind on the headsails, the sloop bore off to the south, revealing her name board: Estrella Azul—Blue Star—which Fallon was thinking was a lovely name when suddenly his attention was pulled back to earth.

  “Deck there!” called the lookout. “Brig to the west!”

  Jesus! Fallon looked up quickly and there, less than a half mile away, a black-hulled brig was slowing, tacking through the eye of the wind. Here was the bigger, stronger wolf coming down on the scene and meaning trouble. Fallon looked at the brig, dark and menacing, settling on her new course and just running out her larboard guns. He looked at Estrella Azul, now attempting to tack toward the brig for protection, weighed the odds and decided his business was done. His ship was battered and the wounded were still being carried below.

  “Beauty!” he called. “Wear ship again and bring her onto a beam reach. Let’s show them our heels. I don’t think they’ll be following us anymore.” And with that, Rascal came due south and began sailing out of range of further danger, the distance from the black brig now almost a quarter mile.

  Here was Aja with the carpenter’s message: only a foot of water in the well. Fallon decided to go below to get Colquist’s report in person and to check on the wounded. Some had died, some were dying, and some might wish they were dead already.

  Aboard the black brig, a man in the dark vestments of a priest stood on the quarterdeck and turned his face to the sky, raised his arms and closed his eyes, going into a prayer trance. Aja looked at him through his telescope and shivered. What strange man was this who thought God would favor him with an answer to his evil prayers?

  EIGHT

  IN LESS than two days they would be in Port-au-Prince—assuming good weather—and Rascal sailed into the afternoon with a bone in her teeth, tossing off spray with every plunge of her bows. Fallon felt good about his ship, and the ship felt good about its captain. Only one man had died when Number Four gun had overturned, which was considered a miracle by the other gun crews. The wounded would live, though some with disfigured bodies. War collected its fees in obvious and less obvious ways.

  No other sails had been sighted since the battle with the little wolves. The routine of the ship had been re-established; the watches rotated on and off, and the distant horizon defined the boundaries of the crew’s life. Day and night they were alone in the universe of sea and stars.

  Fallon was below, and Beauty and Aja walked round the ship together, two easy shipmates in a small, wooden world. Aja wore the red ribbon he’d plucked from the sea around his wrist.

  “You haven’t forgotten the wreckage we found, have you?” asked Beauty.

  “I am afraid of what happened to the ship,” replied Aja. “I even dream about it some nights. I don’t know why, because I have seen many men die before. But, in my dream I can hear voices calling from the ship. They wake me up.”

  “Because you want to help them?” asked Beauty.

  “Yes, I want to help them,” said Aja. “The voices are African.”

  Beauty looked at Aja, not for the first time with surprise on her face. Could he be clairvoyant as well as brave? Had the wreckage belonged to a slaver and somehow Aja knew?

  Sailors were superstitious, Beauty among them, and communication with the spirits was believed to be possible. In Beauty’s mind it made Aja all the more remarkable, even powerful, and somehow more than a mere boy.

  “Deck there!” called the lookout. “Sail in sight!”

  The sudden call snapped Beauty’s head back to the business of the ship.

  “Where away?” she called.

  “To larboard!” called the lookout. “Running before the wind!”

  THE CALL startled Fallon, who had been about to write to Elinore, and sent him bounding from his cabin and up the companionway ladder. He joined Beauty by the binnacle, where she stood with a telescope, just calling all hands. Better to be prepared when a strange sail was sighted.

  Fallon could see the ship in his own telescope now, though it was hard to keep it in view with Rascal rolling in beam seas. He could not yet tell her size or armament, or confirm that she was Spanish or French or British, for that matter. The ship was square-rigged and ran clumsily before the east wind, however, and would cross Rascal’s bows if she stayed on her present course. But would she?

  The ship was not behaving aggressively, or at least Fallon could see no guns protruding from her sides. And on she came, innocent of ill intent, to all accounts. Fallon had a sixth sense that this ship wanted no fight, which at once relieved him and intrigued him, for as it grew larger in his telescope he could see it was a brig yawing toward them, her guns still inboard. Why would an enemy brig refuse a fight with a mere schooner? Perhaps it was no enemy.

  “Hoist the colors, Beauty,” Fallon said quietly. “Let’s see what we see.”

  Up went the British ensign with the strange ship still perhaps two miles away. There was no response, no flag of any kind, which convinced Fallon even more that something odd was afoot. Aja appeared at Fallon’s side with his sword.

  “Thank you,” said Fallon, and smiled a conspiratorial smile that told the youngster his captain was enjoying this little game.

  “The hands are curious, Captain, sir,” said Aja. “What do you make of it?”

  “I don’t know just yet,” answered Fallon. “She looks Spanish to me. But we will all know very soon.”

  On came the brig, now altering course ever so slightly to pass astern of Rascal instead of across her bows. That made up Fallon’s mind for him.

  “Beauty,” he said, “let’s harden up and sail as close as possible toward the brig. Something feels strange.”

  Beauty gave the orders that would set the ship more or less parallel to the brig’s course; that is, if the strange ship did not bear off farther to the north. On the brig plunged and twisted in the following seas, and she did in fact bear off more to the north. That forced Beauty to tack through the eye of the wind and bring Rascal onto a broad reach on a starboard tack about a half mile astern of the brig. Fallon could read her name in his telescope now: Luna Nueva—Spanish for New Moon. Now both ships had the wind on her quarter, but Luna had the advantage in press of sail, although Rascal was sailing higher and gaining slowly, her helmsman steering small at Beauty’s command. And, too, the brig’s bottom was no doubt foul
if she had sailed across the Atlantic from Spain.

  “Calm bugger,” Barclay said to no one in particular, though Beauty and Fallon both nodded. “Out for a Sunday sail with no worries.”

  Through his telescope Fallon could just see the officers on the quarterdeck huddled in conversation—and now what? Both the Spanish flag and a white flag were going up to the gaff! Good God, thought Fallon, what the hell did that mean?

  “Obviously, that Spanish fucker has heard of Nicholas Fallon,” said Beauty under her breath.

  Ah, Beauty.

  Fallon considered what to do, for they were drawing closer to the brig with every minute. They were within range of the long nine now, and Beauty had ordered the starboard guns loaded. Cully and his gun crews were standing by. Was it a trick? No, there would be no honor in a trick with a white flag. Perhaps the Spanish capitán wanted to talk? It was the only viable conclusion.

  As if in confirmation, the brig hove-to.

  Beauty let Rascal come closer before executing the same maneuver, and the ships settled down a mere half a cable apart. Fallon called for his gig, and with a last glance to Beauty that said I have no idea, he was over the side.

  As the gig’s crew rowed across one hundred yards of sea, Fallon could see the Spanish sailors in their red barretina caps lining the rail. He counted ten gun ports on the larboard side, which meant a 20-gun brig with plenty of muscle. At Aja’s urging, the gig’s crew pulled solidly over to the Spanish ship, and when at last they’d clapped onto Luna, Fallon took a deep breath. Now we’ll see.

  He was met on deck by a bowing officer who introduced himself as Capitán Cabarone, smiling an oily sort of smile that put Fallon on edge immediately. He led the way below decks to his great cabin, which was tastefully furnished above a captain’s pay, at least a British captain’s. Rich woods and a plush, patterned carpet made the cabin feel quite like a drawing room. Cabarone was of medium height, on the lighter side of dark skinned, and had small, delicate hands that had likely never done manual work.