Wind and the Sea

by Canham, Marsha

  THE WIND AND THE SEA

  Marsha Canham

  First published by PaperJacks, April 1986

  Original Copyright 1986 © Marsha Canham

  Ebook copyright 2010 © Marsha Canham

  Cover Copyright 2010 © Marsha Canham

  ISBN 978-0-9866872-4-2

  Ebook edition published by Marsha Canham at Smashwords.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely due to the author's narrative. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Marsha Canham, except in the case of brief quotations for articles or reviews.

  If you did not purchase this copy please remember that most of us authors are ordinary, hard-working people who need to eat too.

  This Ebook version is dedicated to two equally hard working people whose help in getting this book into digital form has been invaluable. Thank you Gaile Brockman, who typed it onto a disc for me many years ago, and Judi Smith, who proofread and edited this gently revised edition.

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Between the line of thick green foliage and the sparkling sweep of azure water lay a stretch of blindingly white sand. The sun was directly overhead, a fiery orb that caused the surface of the sea to shimmer like silver and the trees to droop in the heat. Now and then a gull circled, screaming mock commands at the row of sweating men and scorching cannon strung along the beach below. Periodically, a bleary eye was raised skyward and a curse was muttered; the absence of the normally huge flocks of scavengers was taken as an ill omen.

  Everart Constantine Farrow crooked an eye above a dust-laden stone wall and peered out to sea. His voice was as ominous as approaching thunder as he spat a low warning over his shoulder.

  “Any time now, lads. She’s got ‘er arse to the wind and she’s comin’ in fast. Keep yer ‘eads low and yer guns warm. She can’t be takin’ too much more punishment the likes we been givin’ ‘er, mark my words.”

  Several red, powder-burned faces glanced in Verart’s direction but no voice dared to contradict him. It was the truth as far as Farrow was concerned, for he was not a man to admit defeat easily. The siege cannon had replied enthusiastically all morning to the broadsides unleashed from the warship Eagle and had left many marks on the oak decks of the American frigate. Still, a glance past the battlements would see the Barbary defenses badly mauled. Of the fifty-eight massive cannon originally commanded by Farrow’s men, fewer than twenty remained seated and functional. Out of a force of three hundred eager, strong men attempting to stave off the naval assault, fewer than one hundred and thirty were still alive. The stand of palm trees behind the line of defense was littered with the dead and dying. Pieces of bone and flesh hung from the branches, and the sand underfoot was stained crimson from the spill of blood.

  “‘Ere she comes,” Verart murmured, watching the warship tack expertly to take advantage of the full lift of the wind. There were gaps blown through her sails and rigging, holes gouged in her sides, and at least one of the three main masts was cracked, rendering the top steering sails all but useless. Still the Eagle came on. Whoever was at her helm was a master of the sea.

  Through his spyglass, Verart could see gaffers scrambling in the rigging, beginning to bend the fighting sails on orders from the helm. He could see the gunnery crews at their stations and the two decks of gleaming black cannon presenting their iron maws. In the stern, on the quarter-deck bridge, stood a group of uniformed officers, their white breeches and dark blue jackets unmistakable even at such a distance. A sudden flash of light skipping off brass made Verart’s skin prickle with the knowledge that he was being just as closely observed by the enemy.

  The enemy, he mused, and spat in disdain. How in blazes had the American warship found Snake Island? Surely none of the Pasha’s men would have betrayed them; the Farrow stronghold represented staggering profits for the Dey of Algiers, as well as irreplaceable firepower to guard the approach to Tripoli. He could only assume that the war for control of the Mediterranean had taken a turn for the worse. If the Yankees could spare their ships to search out pockets of corsairs along the coastline, then it did not bode well for the fate of his brother, Duncan Farrow, and Duncan’s two ships, the Falconer and the Wild Goose.

  Verart lowered the spyglass and growled loudly, “Court!”

  A slender figure whose features were buried beneath layers of grime and oily sweat jumped up at once. “Yes, Uncle?”

  “How do we stand for shot?”

  “We have more than enough to hold them off,” was the confident reply. “We have double and grape a-plenty. Seagram has brought down more incendiaries, and we have enough to pepper a hundred fires if the bastards will just hold course.”

  Verart chuckled and thumped the narrow shoulders affectionately. Huge emerald eyes shone up at his and startling white teeth broke through the grime in a smile that stirred the older man’s heart.

  “Ah, Court, yer father will be proud of ye this day. I always held ye would do a proper turn when he needed it. I told ‘im havin’ a sprout like you was nothin’ less than the grandest feat of his miserable life.”

  Courtney Farrow beamed under the praise, knowing her uncle rarely bestowed compliments and never unless they were heartily deserved. It made the aches and bruises in her body seem insignificant. It made the bleeding wound in her upper arm more of a trophy than a nuisance, and it made her wish more fervently than ever that she could single-handedly destroy the Yankee ship that was even now backing its sails into raking position.

  The daughter of the most notorious pirate along the coast of North Africa was as lithe and well-honed as a decade of living amongst the corsairs could make her. She had the brilliant, bold green eyes of her father, the same dark auburn hair and quick Irish temper. From an early age, she was as apt to be found drilling on one of the smoking cannon as she was to be running her hands covetously over the rich silks and satins confiscated in prize cargoes.

  “We will get her, won’t we, Uncle?” she asked tersely, her eyes blazing with sudden hatred. “We will be able to hold her off until Father returns?”

  “Bah! Hold her off? We’ll sink the bitch into her own beakheads, we will. Moffins! Willard! Polks! Look lively on them guns, lads. A gold sovereign for each sharpshooter ye send to look sharper in the never after!”

  The words had scarcely cleared his throat before a cheer went up along the beach and the guns roared to life. A hailstorm of grapeshot the size of musket balls, screa
ming tangles of chain, rockets, and red-hot iron balls hurled across the six hundred yards of churning blue water. The reply from the Eagle was swift and equally as lethal. Her starboard battery erupted with fire from both decks and in moments cloaked the sleek lines of the frigate in clouds of white, drifting smoke.

  ~~

  Captain Willard Leach Jennings paced the width of the Eagle’s bridge, hands clasped behind his back emphasizing the bulk of his girth. He was a short, stubby strut of a man with a florid complexion that did not take kindly to the Mediterranean sun. Narrow, beady eyes were set between pudgy, red-veined cheeks, beneath a brow that arched high on a dome-shaped pate. Beside him, similarly attired in immaculate white breeches and dark blue naval tunic. was the Eagle’s second lieutenant, Otis Falworth.

  “Well, Mr. Falworth,” the captain mused, “I see Mr. Ballantine is in his full glory.”

  “Indeed, sir.” The junior officer sniffed through nostrils that were as inordinately long and narrow as his nose. “He does seem bent on winning the day unassisted.”

  The officer to whom they referred, Lieutenant Adrian Ballantine, stood with his long legs braced against the roll and sway of the ship. His tunic was discarded, his shirt torn open from throat to waist, baring a wide vee of coppery brown hair. His face was sun-bronzed and angular; his thick wavy hair, once brown, was bleached to a pale gold by constant exposure to sea and sun. There were fine creases at the corners of his eyes, gained from squinting at tall, sunlit masts and distant horizons. Deeper lines were etched into the square jaw and around the firm, resolute mouth—lines drawn by experience and cool efficiency. He stood six feet tall, although the breadth of his powerful shoulders and the length of his tautly muscled legs made him seem far taller.

  One of his arms was raised. Steely gray eyes were fastened on the shoreline as he issued commands to his gun captains, directing the ship’s long guns for the most effective range of fire.

  Each time his arm descended, the starboard battery erupted with orange-flecked smoke as the twelve eighteen-pounder guns exploded almost simultaneously. The Eagle lurched violently with the recoils, the motion helping the crews who immediately hauled on the thick breeching tackle to pull the guns inboard for reloading. The snouts were reamed out, and fresh powder cartridges were fed into place. The iron shot was rammed into the muzzles; they were packed and primed, and one by one the gun captains turned their sweating, smoke-streaked faces toward Lieutenant Ballantine and shouted, “Clear!”

  Ballantine was justifiably proud of his crew. They could fire three rounds per minute, if pressed, and their aim was so precise that even as formidable an emplacement as the sand-covered defenses of Snake Island was being systematically destroyed.

  He shouted encouragement to the crew of bare-chested, blood-smeared gunners who fired steadily even though the rails and planking were being shot out from under them. The lower tier of guns was blasting as quickly and as efficiently as the upper. Ballantine mentally praised the chief gunner, Danby, as well as the helmsman, Loftus, who was holding fast to the course he had ordered. The men were eager and superbly trained. The Eagle was handling like the predator she was named after—there was no earthly possibility they would not emerge as the victors this day…or any other.

  ~~

  In one of the cramped, mud-daubed huts that clustered in a deep valley sheltered by sand dunes, Miranda Gold raised apprehensive, amber-colored eyes from the wounded man she was tending. Miranda was a blend of striking features; slim of waist and hip, but possessing the full-blown, voluptuous bosom that bespoke her Castilian bloodlines. Her hair was the color of ravens’ wings, her skin a warm olive hue. The lashes framing the almond-shaped, seductive eyes were long and lustrous, and guarded the windows of a soul wise far beyond her nineteen years.

  “What do you make of it, Drudge?” she asked in a husky whisper. “Do you think we will hold the day?”

  Drudge’s right leg was shattered from the knee down. He could only close his eyes weakly and run a dry tongue over his parched and cracked lips and hope that his lies sounded convincing.

  “We got a good chance, Mistress Gold. But the fox at the helm o' that ship knows no backin’ down. He’s a fair shot, and must t’ink if he keeps rammin’ iron down our t’roats we’re bound to choke. But he don’t know Verart, now do he? He don’t know that Verart’ll take a chokin’ in stride then spit out the bile twice as fierce as afore.”

  “If Duncan was here,” she murmured bitterly, “or Garrett, the Yankee ship would never have come within a thousand yards. Damn the pair of them. Damn their souls for insisting on running to aid the Pasha. They should have left Karamanli to stew in his own treachery and stayed here to protect us.”

  Drudge’s eyes opened a slit. He would rather cut out his tongue than harbor any ill thoughts toward “Golden Miranda”, but only a week ago it had been Miranda, the high-spirited, outspoken mistress of Duncan Farrow, who had sided with Garrett Shaw, the captain of the Falconer, when Garrett demanded that the Farrow ships keep the rendezvous with the Pasha’s messengers. Ten thousand gold ingots were at stake, and all they had to do was escort a fleet of five grain ships past the Yankee blockade and run them into the beleaguered and starving city of Tripoli. Easy work for the captains of the Wild Goose and the Falconer. They were as slippery as eels and had run the blockade so often in the past it was child’s play.

  Drudge’s wandering thoughts were brought sharply back to the present by a thunderous volley that shook the dust loose from the walls of the hut.

  Miranda screamed and dropped to her knees as stones and debris fell around her. The roof began to cave in, and clouds of dirt and dried grass swirled through the unshuttered window. Searing heat rolled through the gaping doorway, and Miranda screamed again as she realized that a shell had exploded close enough to the hut to set the thatched roof on fire. There was no water to douse it with, no men to fill the buckets they kept handy for just such a dreaded occurrence. Miranda started to crawl toward the door, her eyes blinded by the acrid smoke, her lungs fighting for every scalding breath.

  “Please...!”

  She stopped, halted by Drudge’s weak cry. He could not move because of his leg, but fear was driving him upright as he struggled to support his weight on his elbows.

  “An arm, lass, there’s a good girl. An arm, and I can make it.”

  Miranda looked at the door, four short paces away, then at the straw cot, full ten paces from where she knelt.

  “I…I will send help” she said, and started to crawl for the door.

  “There ain’t time, lass! See, the walls are aflame!”

  The wooden supports behind Drudge’s cot were smoldering, and licks of flame were darting through gaps between the wall and roof.

  “Just an arm to lean on, lass,” he pleaded. “Or a stick, for pity’s sake. The sweep handle! The musket! Anyt’ing!”

  “I said, I will send help!” she screamed, and bolted for the door. She did not straighten fully until she was well away from the danger, and when she looked back it was with a brief, whispered thanks for her own quick thinking. Three of the four walls were alight and the roof was blazing. Two seconds elapsed—the time it would have cost her to go back for Drudge—and the structure collapsed. The roof crashed down with shower of spitting flames. The walls quivered for the spate of a deep breath, then they too folded inward, almost drowning the shrieks of Drudge MacGrew as a flaming ceiling beam severed him in two.

  Miranda swallowed hard and staggered the few paces necessary to fall into the outstretched arms of the three women who had come running out of nearby huts.

  “Miranda! Miranda! What happened?”

  “A shell,” she cried, and began to sob uncontrollably. “It struck the side of the hut. I called for help but no one came and so I had to try to move Drudge by myself. We almost made it. We almost...but when he saw it was too late...he pushed me out the door! He saved me! He pushed me away so that I couldn’t go back for him and because of that he...he...”
>
  The women did not need to hear the end of the grizzly story.

  “There, there. Hush now, girl. You did what you could to help. No one can ask more of you.”

  Miranda raised her tear-stained face. “But I just know I could have saved him. If he had just tried harder, if I was just a little stronger...”

  “I said hush,” the elder woman commanded. “And dry your eyes. We’ve no time to be weeping over what could have been and what should have been. We cannot mourn the dead when there are still the living to tend to.”

  After few more moments of offered comfort, the three crones hurried back to tend the horrible wounds and mutilations coming up from the beach. Miranda dashed away the tears that shone on her face and brushed away the thick layer of ash and soot that coated her damask skirt. By habit, she adjusted the neckline of her sheer cotton blouse, scooping it lower so that her shoulders were bared along with a breathtaking expanse of bosom. With a toss of her ebony hair she left the circle of huts and climbed the dune that overlooked the scene of the battle. Her eyes narrowed and the amber shimmered, alive with bright green flecks of anger.

  The cratered, pockmarked beach stretched out below her. A haze of smoke and drifting sand hovered over the line of palm trees like a cloud of ash over a volcano. Men were running everywhere, carrying powder and shot to the cannon emplacements, buckets of water to the many fires, litters to remove the bodies that peppered the beach and dunes in unbelievable numbers. Most of the wounded had not made it up the shallow hill; a trail of broken, bleeding bodies lay face down in the hot sand.

  Her sharp, quick eyes located the center of activity on the beach. She easily identified Verart Farrow and the hovering bulk of the giant Billy Seagram. Between them was the nimble, darting figure of Courtney Farrow.

  The tiger eyes glittered with sudden, malicious pleasure as she envisioned the slim, auburn-haired daughter of Duncan Farrow being thrown onto a heap of lifeless bodies. Miranda relished the thought of ants and maggots feeding on the hated face, of crows and scavengers picking the bones clean and leaving them to bleach white under the sun.