by Scott Cook
“Ready!” Fournier roared. “Helm’s aweather! Standby on jib sheets!”
The schooner turned like a dancer on her heel, putting the wind so far aft that it moved just over the port quarter, causing the two big main and fore booms to jibe over and the hands forward had to heave in on the sheets to fill the jibs again.
Yet something was wrong… Meraux watched in astonishment as not the narrow profile of the brig’s bow greeted them, but the nearly parallel broadside faced his ship. A broadside now only fifty meters away!
“Merde!” Fournier roared. “Tir Tir!!”
Again the roar of the guns, the billows of smoke and the crashing of round shot, the rending shriek of wood torn into splinters and the screams of the men. The Anglais had foreseen their move and had preempted them, putting their own stern before the wind and training their guns.
From forward there came a series of twangs and the two huge headsails began to flop loosely in the wind, booming like thunderclaps. Meraux actually felt it, the passage of a shot that couldn’t have missed him by more than a foot. From the corner of his eye, he saw the forward five feet of the tiller vanish in a cloud of splinters and the upper half of Fournier’s body jerk backward and over the rail as his torsoless hips and legs still stood for an instant, gushing crimson gore and not even having the good grace to crumple to the deck. This interminable instant of horror finally passed when they did, and Meraux realized that no one was tending to the tiller at all!
His horrified mind seemed to be operating with dream like sluggishness. He watched as the brig began to turn away, exposing her stern. He watched as the men forward struggled to heave on the cannon’s train tackles, swab and load and get ready to fire again. But it seemed to take forever, and now more men were lying on the bloody deck, some in immovable death and some shrieking in agony from hideous splinter wounds or from having vital parts of their bodies shot clean away.
The now only captain of the Épée de Vengeance, the Sword of Vengeance, a name he’d come up with himself and of which had been very proud, knew he must act immediately. Yet what to do? With Fournier dead, who would advise him?
“I must turn the ship and get alongside…” Meraux muttered. It was the only thing he could think to do.
He leapt for what remained of the tiller, still a five or six foot heavy bar of oak and shoved it to the right with all his might. Although the brig’s shots had apparently shot away a stay or a sheet forward that robbed the schooner of her big heads’ls, she still had plenty of way on her, enough to turn and pursue the brig. With the wind now on her beam, the main and mizzen sails swooped back over to starboard and were still drawing and the schooner was now racing ahead, just to starboard of the brig.
Yet was that right? That ship had just fired her starboard guns… and might not be ready before he ranged up. But something else tugged at his mind… something about the wind…
The wind was on his left, which meant that if he put his ship on the right side of the brig,, the wind might push against his big fore and aft sails and prevent his men from grappling the two vessels together!
No! he must engage on the windward side, using the push of the wind to his advantage. Of course, this meant that his ship would have to suffer at least one more volley at point-blank range from the brig’s unfired larboard guns… yet what choice did he have?
He continued to aim for the leeward side of the brig, hoping to make the Anglais captain believe that was his target. At the last moment, within seconds of the tip of his bowsprit coming even with the brig’s taffrail, Meraux threw his weight on the tiller bar, fighting against the enormous pressure created by wind and water on his rudder and turned his bow to the left, aiming to come along the larboard side.
“Grapnels!” he shouted. “Secure us to them!”
The brig’s cannon roared, seemingly right in his ears. Because the schooner’s deck was considerably lower, most of the shots went high, most simply passing through canvas. One or two men were hit but his surprise maneuver seemed to have paid off.
The two ships ground together and half a dozen men tossed grappling irons at what remained of the brig’s railings as well as the taught shrouds and main chains. Several of the more seasoned sailors hauled the main and fore courses in and secured them along the vessel’s centerline. This effectively created a windbreak that shoved the schooner up against the larger brig’s side.
“Take her!” Meraux roared, drawing his sword and leaping for the starboard rail. Then, in a sudden flush of inspiration, he further goaded his crew by shouting a version of the Sans-Culotte song: “Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira… les roastbifs à la lanterne!”
The men’s cheer rose in time with the thunder.
“Prepare to repel boarders!” John Woodbine shouted as he drew a cutlass from the pile of weapons that had been brought up from the arms chest hours before.
The Whitby Castle didn’t have much to offer in the way of small arms. A few muskets and pistols, which thankfully David Kent had had the forethought to have cleaned and loaded with fresh powder during the long days of the chase. There were a few dozen melee weapons, too. Cutlasses mostly along with a few pikes and boarding axes.
“Well, here’s a pretty kettle of fish…” Woodbine groaned aloud. “One more volley lads, and then Split up! Half of you go with Miss Cook to the foc’sle and the rest of you with me! They’ll try and swarm us and cut our running rigging and seize the wheel. Let’s get them in a clench, shall we?”
Catherine Cook stood splay legged amidships, supervising the guns. Twenty-five men in all. A pitifully small group of men that included the gun crews, the master now at the wheel and one or two others. Although they’d certainly killed nearly that many aboard the schooner, a privateer of that size surely had half again as many men remaining.
Long odds for the brig’s crew but hardly a sure run thing for the French. Woodbine had watched as the huge bowsprit of the schooner had drawn near, looking as if she’d range up on their starboard beam. That would’ve been preferable, since the howling wind would’ve shoved the privateer away. However, the French captain had either been attempting a ruse or had realized his mistake at the last moment and turned to range up on their larboard side. Thankfully, Cook in her forethought had already had those guns loaded and ready to fire. Unfortunately, however, in spite of the broadside Cook gave them, the schooner crashed against Whitby Castle’s hull, grapnels were set and the two vessels were inextricably locked together.
A hearty roar of defiance rose on deck, the heartiest by far coming from the tall young woman who held her sword aloft. Woodbine had to admire her once again. Not simply for her obvious female charms, but for her dash, her ferocity and her presence of mind. A rare thing in someone so young, especially a woman.
Cook grinned at him, reaching up absently to adjust her now tightly clubbed hair. Her long brown tresses, falling nearly to the center of her back, had been tightly bound and then doubled into a short club. A good precaution in a battle.
He worried about her, though. Such a fine example of feminine beauty would be slathered over by the kind of hard bargains that signed aboard a letter of mark. He could only hope that her size and strength as well as all of their luck would prevent her and the other nine women who made up the passenger list from being put to the blush.
Even as Catherine ran forward, eight sailors trailing her, Woodbine had time to experience a stab of contempt for that prissy Bentley and the rest of the brig’s human cargo. Not one of them besides the daring young woman had come on deck to offer assistance. Only complaints and woes. The brig carried twenty civilians, half of whom were men, and at least six or seven were young, strong and able-bodied enough to pick up a weapon and fight. Yet none had come forward during the brutal few minutes of the conflict.
“Well they can kiss the roundest part of this sailor’s fuckin’ ass,” Woodbine growled as he aimed his pistol, held up his cutlass and waded into the fray.
A boarding action was not an organized
affair. It was not a gentlemanly contest of men facing off and clinking blades in some romantic duel. When it came to the real close-in fighting, the life or death battle for possession, it was nothing short of horrifically brutal. Not to mention almost impossible to comprehend from a single point of view.
The two ship’s ground together, their timbers groaning from the contact and the push and pull of the waves. Three dozen French privateers flooded over the bulwarks, roaring and howling like fiends from the pit. It was a demoralizing sight, yet Woodbine’s crew responded with equal ferocity, meeting the charge with shouts and curses and shots and steel of their own.
Dozens of pistols flashed and cracked and nearly sixty men, and one woman, were embroiled in a melee with seemingly no rhyme or reason to it. Just a mad, writhing body of men trying every trick to batter each other into bloody pulp. Nothing less than outright bedlam.
It quickly became apparent that Kate and her small team were in desperate straights. They’d squared off on the foc’sle, which in truth was in no way elevated above the waist of the ship just as the quarterdeck was not. Even on a flush-decked vessel, the after end, middle and forward sections were still referred to as the quarterdeck, waist and foc’sle.
The difficulty being that Kate and her men had no high ground. They were simply being pushed back to the head rails by a press of snarling Frog’s intent on their blood. They were holding their own, both sides having discharged what pistols they had to hand and doing virtually nothing. One of her men, Danvers ironically, had taken a ball high up on his shoulder but in his fighting rage he’d taken no notice.
On the other side, two of the dozen men facing them had fallen, one from one of Kate’s pistols and one from another of her men’s, she didn’t know who. The odds were somewhat improved, yet only unbridled ferocity and aggression would answer.
She roared out in fury, lunging forward and swinging her blade at the throat of the nearest privateer. He contrived to block her blow, but the shocked look on his face indicated that he was not ready for the strength behind it. Although nearly a head taller than the man, she was still a girl and to his mind, weaker in consequence.
She disabused him of this notion rather quickly, however. As she parried a wicked back handed thrust from his cutlass, she drew her blade arm back and sent a vicious kick into the man’s belly, sending him toppling backward into one of his fellows. With lightning swiftness, she brought the blade of her sword down and across his neck, nearly cleaving his head from his shoulders.
Another Frenchman came at her but Danvers appeared at her side, jamming the broad curved blade of his cutlass into the man’s belly. She was just about to utter a word of congratulations when the long shaft of a boarding pike seemed to appear from nowhere, a snarling Frog driving it straight through Danvers’ right thigh.
He cried out in rage and pain as he too fell back. Enraged beyond description, Kate seized the shaft of the pike, hauled it and the surprised wielder close to her and drove the point of her blade straight through his neck. With a grunt and a kick, she sent his body flying back and stepped sideways to cover Danvers.
Her men had been making headway. At least half the frogs were down and only Danvers was disabled. Blake, a middle-aged seaman and captain of the foretop lie dead just to her right. She felt a ghostly flicker of sadness, more because she simply didn’t have the time to grieve. He’d been kind and they’d spent many an hour in the top or high up in the rigging yarning together. Blake had recognized her talents immediately and was pleased to allow Kate to bear a hand when setting, striking and reefing canvas.
With her better than average height, Kate could see something of the battle raging near the wheel. Like her group, Woodbine’s had been pushed back. She knew that unless she could break through and offer him assistance, this boarding action would go to the French and very soon.
Even as her remarkably swift and ordered mind cataloged this information, a burly sailor, a mahogany skinned Turk, lunged for her, a wicked-looking knife in his left hand and his right reaching for her. His narrowed eyes and unpleasant sneer seemed to indicate that killing her was not his goal… at least not for the moment.
She managed to pivot and bring her sword arm up, but he was too close. Somehow he got the blade of his knife against the handguard of her blade and both weapons were knocked away even as his large right hand clamped down on her throat. The two of them went down in a heap.
The man was easily a half foot shorter than Kate, but he was broad and well-muscled. He was also surprised at how slender a girl… at least in terms of her proportional slimness to her height… was also so strong. Yes, her shoulders were broad for a woman, but not that of a man. However, as they toppled to the deck, she also succeeded in getting her strong hands around his windpipe and began to squeeze with hate and rage driven strength. They rolled, kneed and kicked at one another, at first to no effect. Not until the sailor got his other hand around her long muscular neck and began to apply even more pressure.
By that point, however, Kate had used her long legs to get the better of him. She was now on top, her hands on his throat and his on hers. She possessed two advantages. Her arms were inside of his and she was astride him. The fool actually grinned at her, in spite of his brown skin flushing a deeper brown and the bulge of his eyes. She grinned back, pushed her forearms outward, forcing his hands off her throat and his arms open. Then she pushed up, planted her right knee in his groin and used his testicles to push herself to her feet. Even as she spun away, the sound of his vomiting coming to her ears, she scanned the deck and analyzed the scene before her.
She had no weapon now. For a moment, a moment that would be all to brief, she was alone on a small space of deck. She cast about frantically, searching for her sword or for any weapon close to hand. When a seaman aft shouted something about the captain, Kate simply clutched at the first thing she clapped her eyes upon, which happened to be a four foot piece of heavy oak. Perhaps a piece of railing, perhaps something else, it didn’t matter.
“Cap’n’s down!” The seaman shouted. “They’ve scragged the skipper!”
Several men caught sight of her and turned with burning eyes to take her down. Yet Kate’s eyes too were burning. Full fighting madness was upon her now, driving her into the fray. She leapt toward the two men, beating and smashing her club with a lunatic’s strength. Her mighty blows drove three men back, their rage turning to terror as a tall, enraged woman, her blue coat torn and splattered with blood, battered them relentlessly, shrieking and roaring with demoniac savagery. Her already considerable strength bolstered by almost mindless fury, she brought the heavy oaken timber down right, left and center, smashing with incredible speed. Limbs snapped, jaws shattered and men’s teeth soared through the air like beads at a parade.
It seemed to go on and on and on… roaring, shrieking and beating furiously. A pike thrust, beat it aside and bring the oaken timber crashing down on a head… parry a cutlass and shatter the wrist that drove it! Punch, kick and swing… move aft, always aft…
She must not stop… could not stop!
Abruptly she was through! No one stood before her for nearly a quarter the length of the deck!
“Whitby’s! Whitby’s!” She cried out over the howling wind and driving rain. “To me!”
She didn’t turn to see if anyone followed or indeed if there was anyone to follow her. She bolted down the heaving deck toward the still ongoing melee near the stern. She waded into the fray, swinging her club and bowling men down as she pressed to get through, where a small group seemed to be standing apart near the wheel .
“Stop, Monsieur… no… Mademoiselle?” A tall young man, not quite as tall as her, exclaimed. He was lean and dressed in a blue and buff coat that would’ve been elegant but for the blood splattered upon it. His handsome face complete with rakish pointed mustachios appeared stunned. He seemed to recover himself and grinned at her, “It is over. Surrender or else.”
She now noticed that lying on the deck, his
chest beneath the young Frenchman’s boot, was little Willis. The frog’s long rapier blade hovered above the boy’s throat. His other hand held a pistol levelled at her own chest.
Kate glanced about and saw the truth of the matter. There were still some of the brig’s men left, but they’d been corrralled and pressed in upon by greater numbers of privateers. No one was fighting now. Apparently some order for a cessation of hostilities had been given and obeyed without her taking notice, so great was her fighting madness.
She turned back to the man and met his gaze with blazing eyes, still clutching her oaken bludgeon, “who are you? Where is Captain Woodbine?”
“Here…” Kate was surprised to hear Woodbine’s pained voice croak from behind the Frenchman.
He lay on the deck, blood coating him from his right shoulder, across his chest and to his belly. More blood soaked his left leg. He met her gaze and nodded.
“Your captain has surrendered, young lady,” The Frog stated arrogantly. “I am Captain Pierre Meraux of the Sword of Vengeance. I am a certified letter of mark of the Republic of France. I claim this ship as a lawful prize.”
Kate spat at his feet even as she dropped her club, “A licensed pirate, you mean… and this is not a ship, Monsieur, it’s a brig.”
His smile grew wider as he gazed at her, looking at her intently from head to foot with open admiration, “indeed, Mademoiselle … perhaps in the coming days you can teach me more. I am new to the sea, it’s true. Yet I’m open minded, n’est-ce pas? Always eager for new… experiences.”
She narrowed her eyes and clenched her fists, “Be careful what you wish for, Meraux.”
3
We arrived at Bahia Mar just as the last tendrils of daylight were dissolving into the indigo of dusk. Lisa and I got the Rachel’s Recompense secured into her slip and then took turns in the guest head. I was bummed that even on a forty-five footer, I couldn’t share the shower with her.
