Aztec Fire

by Gary Jennings

  Addressing a crew member—heaven forbid a master sailor—was a flogging offense, so speaking to him carried certain risks. I didn’t see how I had much choice, however.

  Luis and I desperately needed another berth.

  One afternoon as he was entering the powder magazine with a waterskin, I approached him.

  “Cannon master, I want you to know I am an expert gunsmith and an accomplished powder-maker. Luis here is an unmatched cannoneer.”

  “Really?” He motioned me into the powder compartment. As with my own powder shop, there was no metal anywhere—nothing that could strike a spark. Otherwise it was a sparse, Spartan facility—powder kegs, a workbench, and a wood stool.

  “So you say you know powder, indio?”

  “Sí, señor.”

  “What kind of powder is this?” he asked, holding a small bag up to my face.

  “I need to see the grains, Patrón.”

  He poured some in his hand so that I could examine it more closely.

  “Tell me its purpose—cannon, musket, pistola, demolition. Is it pristine or degraded. Come on, Aztec bastardo. Tell me.”

  I was afraid to touch it—for an indio to even touch black powder was a crime. Still I believed I could discern that it was the sort of fine grade that was corned for pistolas.

  “Look closely at it.”

  He lifted his palm up so I could see the grains.

  “I believe it is—”

  He flipped the black powder into my wide eyes. Grabbing me by the back of the head, he ground the granules in his palm into my burning orbs.

  As I howled with pain and ripped his grinding, twisting hand away from my eyes, I accidentally knocked him down. In a towering rage, he got up and laid the weighted butt stock of the quirt against my head.

  When I came to, he and his assistant were dragging me into a firing hole. Bending me over a cannon, he beat me brutally for—what he called—my “insubordination.”

  The assistant’s parting words when I was dumped back in the bilge slaves’ compartment were: “Never speak to us again.”

  Well, as bad as it was, at least he had not turned me over to the captain who would have lashed me to the mast and stripped my back with a flogging cat.

  For two days Luis and I debated the relative benefits of killing the powder master and his assistant. Aside from the pleasure it would give me, I saw none. Luis showed no surprise when I explained I was a master gunsmith.

  Ever smarter and more devious than me, Luis saw a benefit where I didn’t.

  “Killing him would leave the ship without trained powder and cannon handlers. El Capitán would have to use you, no? You could get me assigned as the cannon master.”

  “Killing him is not a good idea,” I said, shaking my head. “We’d be the number-one suspects, and as Arturo said, we are utterly expendable. They would flog and feed us to the sharks as soon as look at us.”

  “So we just rot here till we die?”

  “No, we find another plan—one with at least some dim possibility of success.”

  PART XI

  I will have you keelhauled …

  Capitán Zapata

  FORTY-FIVE

  AS THE DAYS went by, I secretly watched the cannon master and his assistant prepare the black powder with which to train the cannon crew. They didn’t actually make the powder, as I had so often done. Instead, the powder master examined it for dampness, adulteration, the proper proportions of the ingredients, as well as the size and texture of the granules.

  Ships were inhospitable places for powder storage, dampness and seawater being everywhere. Then there was the absolute life-and-death necessity for certifying that the powder was properly mixed. If the grains lacked the proper coarseness, the huge quantities of powder—which cannoneers routinely rammed into the muzzles of their big guns—could blast them out of their firing holes and into fiery death and watery graves.

  Two things began to bother me about the cannon master. He was our ticket out of the bilge—and its certain death—but he was blocking our escape.

  I also had not forgotten his grinding black powder into my eyes and the beating I got from him and his assistant.

  My fevered brain had formed a plan, which might bail us out of the bilge, ensconce us permanently above-decks, and punish the cannon master for his unprovoked abusiveness.

  When he left the powder magazine for his midday meal, he left behind the batches of cannon, musket, and pistol powder that he was preparing for the test at the end of the week. When he finished his work, I wanted to get my hands on it.

  For that, however, I needed help—the ever-resourceful Luis.

  When I laid out my plan, he clapped me soundly on the back.

  “Amigo, I am pleased that my backbreaking tutelage was not wasted. You have indeed been an apt pupil. With each passing day, you remind me of myself—more and more. You are utterly without conscience, are you not? You cannot say you were born that way. My example has been your teacher, is that not so? To get us out of the bilge you would murder anyone aboard this ship, and you would do so without hesitation.”

  “If they tried to keep me down there.”

  “All that counts is your survival and success. You would murder the innocent and the guilty, the just and the unjust … if it got you out of the bilge and off this ship.”

  “I wouldn’t describe it that way, but as God is my witness, I will get off this ship.”

  “Well spoken, my Aztec bastardo. Spoken like … like … why, like me!”

  “But to get the cannon master and his assistant out of the way, I must get into the powder room. Can you get me in there while the cannon master is enjoying his midday meal?”

  “I am the grandmaster of surreptitious entry. In all sincerity,” Luis said with a sly smile, “I can penetrate any lock on this earth like a knife through butter.”

  “The padlocked door looks formidable.”

  “Leave it to me.”

  FORTY-SIX

  I NEVER DOUBTED for one second that Luis would get us into the powder magazine.

  Which he did with stunning skill, no doubt sharpened by much practice picking locks.

  After that it was up to me to heighten the power of the black powder used for cannons.

  I found a keg of excellent fine-grain pistol powder—the only keg they had since everything else was degraded. Pouring the cannon powder that had already been prepared by the cannon master into an empty keg, I dumped most of the pistol powder into the cannon-powder container, coating the top with a thin layer of cannon powder.

  Being of a finer grain, the pistol powder would burn at a faster, hotter rate. In small quantities such an accelerated burn rate is perfect for propelling a pistol ball. In large quantities such fine powder would increase the cannon’s explosive potential.

  I doubted the cannoneer would be in jeopardy. A cannon can absorb an enormous explosion and even split without killing the cannoneer. Or at least not quite killing him.

  The blast could disable the cannon though.

  Still, I was not going to err on the side of moderation in doctoring the cannon powder. Luis and I had only one chance to get off the bilge gang and out of their sweltering, stifling, disease-choked sleeping quarters. I wasn’t going to skimp.

  My hope was that if the cannon misfired, the cannon master and his assistant would be blamed and Luis and I would win spots working in the powder magazine and at one of the firing holes. Why wouldn’t the captain want us there? We would be the only two men on the ship who knew both cannoneering and powder-making.

  Maybe Luis was right. Maybe I was secretly as cynical about life and death as he was. As the hours before the test crawled by, I felt that way: I no longer cared whether those testing the powder lived or died.

  All that mattered was me.

  And my friend, Luis.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  THE CANNON TEST was scheduled for midafternoon. During the previous three hours I had prayed perhaps for the first time sinc
e I was a child and knelt with other parishioners in Fray Diego’s village chapel.

  I prayed very simply that the scheme would work.

  During the last few minutes my prayers became more frantic. I was praying to the most exalted and honored god of my Aztec ancestors—our Aztec Savior, Quetzalcoatl—for divine deliverance from this mortal hell.

  I did not even consider beseeching Christ Jesus, the peace-loving Christian savior. I had no doubt that Christ Jesus—who preached turning the other cheek and that peacemakers were divinely blessed—would have despised my deviously violent scheme.

  Instead, my Aztec blood rose to the fore, and I beseeched Quetzalcoatl on hands and knees to deliver me from the wrath of the Spanish curs … at the very least make the powder strong enough to disable the cannon and disgrace the ship’s experts.

  At which point Luis interrupted my implorations with a look of fear on his face.

  And he was afraid of nothing.

  Luis had peeked around the corner and spotted the powder master and the cannon master enter a firing hole.

  “I just saw them enter the firing hole. Do you realize which cannon they’re testing?”

  “No.”

  He pointed to our forward bulkhead. “It’s that big son of a whore next door. It holds twice the load of the other guns.”

  I was about to beseech to Quetzalcoatl to cancel my last request when Luis and I heard the cannon master count down the testing of the big gun.

  “Three!”

  “We have to get out of here,” I whispered urgently.

  “Never,” he whispered his response. “Flight is evidence of guilt. If anyone sees us flee and this thing blows, the captain will spread us out on the mast, strip our backs, feed us our cojones and the sharks the rest.”

  “Two!”

  We both put our hands to our ears and squatted down in the corner, our faces between our legs, empty bilge buckets over our heads.

  “One!”

  A roar detonated in our eardrums like the crack of doom. That thunder-crack lifted us up and banged us around that tiny compartment like we were rocks in an empty wine bottle shaken by an angry drunk.

  Blinded, we were both coughing up stinking, choking, whitish powder smoke. My ears throbbed, my vision spun, my head rang like a mission bell. Every bone in my body felt broken. I choked so convulsively I couldn’t get my breath.

  Slowly the dense smoke-fog cleared. A huge jagged hole—where the forward bulkhead used to stand—gaped at us. Inside, a massive cannon had peeled like a banana at both ends, most of its breech blown to pieces. Both ends fumed furiously as if it were packed with all the fires of hell instead of our accelerated explosive.

  Instead of a firing slit, a huge aperture framed by charred, flaming, broken planks peered out over a blue breaking sea and a cloudless turquoise sky.

  Whatever was left of the men manning the cannon was blasted all over the firing hole where we were standing.

  The explosion had thrown the cannon master’s bloody torso into Luis, knocking him backward into the rear bulkhead. Undismayed, Luis ignored his bleeding right jaw. Instantly on his knees, he bent over the man’s remains and rapidly rifled his pockets and belt purse, swiftly purloining several gold coins.

  Dropping his pants, he quickly and dexterously inserted them in his rear end.

  For safekeeping.

  Luis had clearly done this sort of thing before.

  He leaned against what was left of our rear bulkhead. I joined him.

  “I think the ship’s carpenter is going to have his work cut out for him,” Luis said amiably. “What do you think?”

  “The captain will be short two specialists. It could present an opportunity for two men with experience.”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  WE HAD TO get word to the captain that we were skilled powder and cannon experts. He would not need to be convinced that he needed the help of men who worked with munitions. When the ship reached the pirateinfested waters of the Philippines and the Cathay region, it would be an easy kill for marauders if its powder wasn’t dry and its cannons ready to fire.

  As bilge slaves, that was about as easy as a sewer worker chatting with the king. And more risky, though the beatings passed out had been greatly reduced now that we were weeks at sea and most of the bilge muckers would die under a beating. Arturo told us that bilge master Emile and his assistant would have to take their turn, along with other crew members, when so many of us had died off we could not keep the ship afloat.

  We’d have to bribe Emile with gold before he’d convey the message to the captain. We decided against using the money Luis had pilfered from the powder master.

  “He’ll know we stole it from someone,” I pointed out. “We were alone with the powder master and the cannon master. He’ll steal the money or turn us in.”

  Luis had once paid a Toledo barber to pack a large molar on the left side of his mouth with gold after the man had chipped out much of the decayed tooth. “He cut off the leg of a man with a saw before he got to my mouth with his chisel and hammer,” Luis said, describing the surgical and dental work barbers performed to supplement their income.

  In extreme conditions, he would never be broke—he could rip out his solid-gold tooth.

  “Amigo,” Luis said to me that night, “things will never get more extreme than they are now.”

  “Are you sure we have to bribe Emile? He will be doing the ship a favor.”

  “You know better than I. No one does anything for anyone on this ship—not for free—Emile most of all.”

  He was right. Also, I knew Emile would not do anything for a slave that would put him at risk. Even conveying information to the captain could result in a good beating.

  Still, I saw another possibility.

  “We could promise to extract your excruciatingly painful tooth from your lividly swollen jaw for Emile if he carried the message. But only after we meet with the captain. He’ll believe us. That side of your face is swollen from this afternoon’s explosion. After we see the captain and have been elevated to real crew members, we can tell Emile it wasn’t the tooth at all but the explosion. In other words, we lie to him. Who is he anyway? A bad hombre who bloodies our backs.”

  Luis peered into my eyes searchingly.

  “Young friend, my mentoring skills are indeed paying off.”

  “Luis has a toothache,” I explained to the bilge master that night, letting him know that most of the tooth was solid gold. I first told him that Luis and I were experts at powder and cannons. He was inclined to believe me because he already knew that I had gotten a beating from the cannon master for making that claim.

  “The explosion proves what a bad state the ship’s armaments are in. If you were able to provide the captain with experts on powder and cannon …” I grinned and shrugged. He was a stupid man in most ways, but had animal cunning.

  “Were you to get me a pair of pliers or a small knife and carry a message to the captain about our skills, I will extract Luis’s tooth, which then shall be yours. Just look at his jaw.”

  Luis clutched his swollen jaw and groaned miserably.

  I stared intently into Emile’s cruel but craven eyes. I could read fear and indecision on Emile’s cowardly face. And greed. No doubt the notion of simply ripping out the tooth and not doing us a favor was tempting. But the resulting infection would not only cost the ship another bilge slave, but word would get out that he did it for a gold tooth.

  He could get a severe beating for even approaching the captain with a request from bilge slaves. But rumors about Luis being a nobleman who fell from grace because of a woman scorned—spread by himself, of course—gave him stature as a macho hombre, adding credibility to his claim of being an expert at the implements of warfare.

  “Give me the tooth,” Emile said.

  “We pull this tooth only after we see El Capitán.” Luis howled like an animal in pain … a wolf gone mad with bestial suffering.

  Emile insisted that he see L
uis’s gold tooth.

  “An ounce of solid Aztec gold,” Luis said, exaggerating the size more than twice. Still groaning and massaging his swollen jaw, he opened his mouth wide and let Emile have a quick peek. “Worth more than you will make in your doomed and desperate life. I swear on the graves of my martyred mother and sainted, belated, and much beloved father that it is gold of the highest purity.”

  Luis’s mother was a puta-swindler and his father … nobody knew who his padre was, but Luis was the first to admit that he probably ended his days on a gibbet.

  “You two really know guns and powder?” Emile asked.

  We gave the poor benighted wretch our widest, brightest, most reassuring smiles.

  Luis’s grin almost reached his eyes.

  The bilge rat insisted on one more look at that treasure trove of Aztec gold in Luis’s mouth … before he finally agreed.

  FORTY-NINE

  EMILE’S WORD WAS good as his greed.

  When we told Arturo about our plan, he smiled.

  “The idiot, Emile, will understand none of this but the captain will from necessity speak to you, even greet you two with open arms if you convince him of your talents,” Arturo said. “What Emile does not appreciate—so blinded is he by fear and greed—is that the captain needs you two like he needs air to breathe. We will soon be entering Pirate Alley, where the Southeast Asian pirates hunt merchant ships as if they were rabbits to rip open and gut.”

  “Through his incompetence, the cannon master has left us defenseless,” Luis said. “All the powder in the ship’s magazine is now in question. The cannon master has to constantly dry, refine, and remix it just to keep it potent. Cannoneers won’t fire it until an expert examines it and determines it’s safe.”

  Emile got the message to Capitán Zapata.

  Arturo’s prediction was right—the captain sent for us.

  We stank so badly he met us upwind on the foredeck. He hardly looked at us once throughout the interrogation. His tone was insultingly insolent.