Voyage of Plunder

by Michele Torrey

  Three cable lengths. Two. One.

  Josiah cried, “To your battle stations, men!”

  Weapons were checked for the thousandth time—pistols crammed into sashes, hooked onto crossbelts, tied to the ends of long ribbons and draped about the neck.

  All was ready.

  All waited.

  “Ready to fire bow chaser!” Josiah ordered.

  Slowly … slowly we drew closer, the Surat Merchant now but one hundred feet off the leeward bow.

  “Fire!”

  And with Josiah's command, Basil struck the match to the vent, shouting, “Give fire!” then ducking and covering his ears. Orange fire burst from the bow gun, and a loud boom split the air. We all watched as the iron ball sailed harmlessly over the Surat Merchant's stern.

  A warning shot.

  Surrender or else, it said.

  We held our breaths, waiting for the merchant ship to turn head to wind so we could board her.

  I tightened my grip on my cutlass, tasting the salt of my sweat.

  With no warning, flame and smoke burst out of her two stern gun ports. I stood stupidly, half wondering what was happening when, a second later I heard the boom of cannon, followed by the sound of shot whistling overhead. A cannonball punched through the main course. Another glanced off the foremast with a sharp crack of timber. I cursed and ducked behind the powder box before I realized that if any shot hit the powder box, I'd be blown to a million pieces. As suddenly as it had begun, there followed a silence.

  Josiah drew his cutlass and jumped atop the bulwarks, hanging on to the shrouds. Rage darkened his normally pale features. He pointed his cutlass at the Surat Merchant. “Run up the bloody flag and prepare to fire a broadside down their miserable throats! There will be no quarter this day!”

  A flag the color of blood was raised on the main halyard. No mercy, it meant. To the hair-raising screams and curses of pirates, I laid aside my weapons and went to work as a powder monkey.

  Soon we were directly abeam the merchant ship. The deck shivered as flame and cannonballs belched from the Tempest Galley. My bones rattled and my ears rang, like a punch in the gut and a box on the ears at the same time. I staggered back to the powder box for more charge, breathing smoke, teeth gritty with gunpowder.

  Timothy was all smiles, dipping his arm into the powder box. “Another treasure, Daniel. Do you hear me? We're going to roll in it tonight. A hundred diamond rings for every one of my mother's fingers and toes.”

  Again I heard the thunderous roar from the Surat Merchant.

  Whum.p! A shot hit the bulwarks in a spray of splinters. Someone screamed. Another shot dropped in the ocean below, showering a cannon crew with water. Droplets hissed and danced on the cannon's hot barrel. “Blood and thunder!” Will Putt yelled, wiping his eyes. “Heathen dogs! See if they get me wet!”

  “Fire!” shouted Josiah, and again the deck trembled beneath me as I covered my ears against the barrage. Once the sound began to fade, Josiah cried, “Stand by the braces! We'll ram her with our bowsprit and board her!”

  We soon left the Surat Merchant behind us on our leeward quarter. Behind the Surat Merchant, I saw the Defiance, bloody flag flying atop her mainmast, fire a shot off her bows—a puff of smoke in the distance, a faraway boom. Ahead of us, the other merchant ship sailed onward, scarce looking back at her beleaguered companion.

  “Helmsman, hard to starboard!” commanded Josiah. “Brace in the yards, men!” The Tempest Galley turned, stern to wind, her bowsprit now pointed like a sword at the approaching Surat Merchant. “Prepare for impact!”

  For a moment, all was silent as we watched the Surat Merchant plow through the water.

  Then someone dangling from the rigging, dagger in hand, cried, “Death!”

  One hundred and forty pirates erupted with piercing screams, battle cries, and the chant: “Death! Death! Death!”

  Pirates swarmed the bulwarks, waving their weapons above their heads. Pistols flashed in the afternoon sun. Cutlasses gleamed. Eyes glinted from beneath blood-red kerchiefs. The deep beat of a drum pounded through my heart. Fiddles, flutes, and an accordion wailed and screeched—discordant and ugly. Gooseflesh rushed over my skin. Shivers clawed down my spine.

  Death! Death! Death!

  I stood at the rail on the fo'c'sle deck, watching in gathering horror as the two ships drew closer … closer … bent upon a collision course. The Surat Merchant tried to change course, but she was too sluggish, there was not enough time.…

  “Death!” shrieked Timothy from beside me. He lit and tossed a grenado. It fell short, hissing into the water.

  I drew my cutlass, my heart in my throat.

  Forty feet…

  Death! Death! Death!

  Thirty …

  Men heaved grenadoes and stink pots aboard the merchant ship. Explosions erupted. I saw a man fly through the air, musket still in hand, into the water below.

  Just then, flame and smoke burst from one of the swivel guns on the Surat Merchant's bow.

  Whump!

  Death cry cut short, Timothy flew backward, hit.

  “Timothy!” I cried.

  He lay against the foremast.

  Death! Death! Death!

  Timothy held his innards in his hands. He blinked and stared at his innards, then at me, his face a mask of disbelief.

  “My God! No!” I knelt beside him. Tried to stuff his guts back into his belly. They were soft, slimy, and hot. Oh, God! They won't fit! There's too many of them! “Don't die, Timothy! Don't die!”

  His mouth moved wordlessly. Open. Closed. Open. Then, “My mother. Tell her … tell her … I …” His eyes rolled back in his head.

  “No!” I shrieked.

  Suddenly the ships collided. I fell to the deck, stinging my cheek, my dagger gouging my side. Timothy flopped over, his lifeless eyes staring at me, a small bloody cannonball lodged in the foremast behind him. Pirates rushed past us, swarming aboard the Surat Merchant. I stood and picked up my fallen cutlass, hands slippery with Timothy's blood.

  And I turned with the others and surged over the bowsprit and aboard the merchant ship, cutlass held high, a scream ripping from my throat.

  Death! Death! Death!

  mad rush of bodies.

  Into the swirling smoke.

  It was as if time stood still—I saw the gaping mouths, howling death. The daggers, cutlasses, pistols clutched in every hand. The intensity in every eye. The brightly colored clothes, some already stained with blood. I smelled the gunpowder, the sweat, the sulfur from the stink pots, the exhilaration, the fear.

  Then it was as if time rushed forward, faster, faster. A blur of pirates, running, running, arms waving, swords flashing. Indian soldiers, hundreds of them, turbaned, drawing cutlasses, firing muskets. A collision of pirates and soldiers. The blast of smoke. Of flame. Screams. The man beside me falling backward, punched through the chest with lead. A chop of steel, a spray of blood. A turbaned head rolling across the deck.

  I bellowed, charging a soldier who aimed his musket at Caesar's back. No one kills Caesar! The soldier faltered, and I swung at his head with my cutlass. He parried with the barrel of his musket. Metal jarred against metal. Back I slashed. In an instant he dropped his musket and drew his cutlass. I stepped over the musket, pushing past a pirate who had stumbled to his knees, the hilt of a dagger protruding out of his belly. I pressed the soldier back, hacking, slashing. He lost his footing and fell back against a cannon. Then, with a practiced flick of my wrist, I sent his cutlass clattering to the deck.

  In that instant I saw both surprise and terror in his eyes. A cry bubbled from deep within me, and I ran him through with my cutlass. The man stared at me, the surprise in his eyes dimming. I yanked my cutlass from his body and shoved him away with my foot.

  For Timothy.

  “Retreat!” I heard Josiah shout. “Retreat! There are too many of them! It's a trap!”

  I stared at the man I'd just killed. He was young, maybe eighteen. My gorge ro
se, sour, burning. I leaned over and vomited.

  My God, I'm a murderer. A killer.

  With a cry of anguish, I fought my way toward Josiah's voice, stumbling over bodies, parrying blows on all sides with my cutlass. A soldier aimed his musket at my head, but I ducked as the gun fired, at the same time whipping my cutlass blade up, slicing his arm. He dropped his musket and grabbed his wound, mouth open in a scream. I left him there.

  Retreat. Retreat.

  Suddenly there was a sharp crack of timbers, and the deck beneath me shuddered and heaved. I lost my balance and fell, at the same time trying to see what had happened. It was the Defiance. She had collided with the Surat Merchant, and now more pirates gushed aboard, surging like an ocean wave—a hundred more cutthroats, at least.

  “Cease retreat!” commanded Josiah. “Stand and fight, men, fight! The Defiance is here! No quarter!”

  The air renewed with the retort of musket and pistol fire, the clash of cutlasses, battle cries, explosions.

  As I struggled to my knees, something ripped through my left arm like a red-hot poker. A curse lodged in my throat. I looked down. Blood poured from a wound in the fleshy part of my upper arm.

  I've been shot!

  Suddenly, out of the chaos, a soldier hurtled toward me, brandishing his cutlass, mouth open, screaming, eyes afire with murder. My vision narrowed, and I saw him as if from a distance, as if through a tunnel—he at one end, and I at the other—as if this weren't real. I dropped my cutlass, yanked out my pistol, and fired at his thigh, scarcely aware of him falling forward just inches from me, his cutlass flying useless into the air. He lay on his stomach, then raised himself and looked at me, his eyes filled with the expectation that I would kill him. But I could not. Would not.

  Never again.

  Tossing my pistol away and picking up my cutlass, eyes watering from the sulfurous stink, I stood and ran, tramping over bodies. Hands reached out, clutching my pant legs, my ankles. Someone pleaded, “Help me.”

  “Daniel! Over here!” I heard Josiah yell.

  “I'm here!” I cried.

  I'd lost my bearings, not knowing which way was forward or aft, Josiah's voice seeming like it was coming from everywhere. From nowhere.

  Then, suddenly, an explosion. I hurtled through the air, a wave of heat blasting over me. I tumbled hard against a bulkhead. My arm! My arm! I lay for a moment, blinking back the pain, wishing this wasn't real, not wanting to die. My eyes stung, and I tasted blood and smoke. Orange flame hissed and roared.

  We're on fire. The Surat Merchant is on fire!

  Smoke billowed upward, blocking out the sun. I staggered to my feet, groaning, aching. Blood seeped into my eyes from a cut on my forehead. Already my kerchief was soaked through. “Josiah!” I shouted.

  But there was no answer.

  Instead, to my horror, Gideon Fist stepped out of the swirling smoke. Like the devil come straight from the bowels of the earth.

  lackened by soot, he clutched a cutlass in one hand, a pistol in the other.

  Except for his crossbelt holding two brace of pistols, Fist was bare-chested, hairy, shining with sweat, the bullet wound on his belly puckered and purple. He was breathing hard, his chest heaving. His red beard appeared to be on fire. Smoke rose from its curling depths, seeping about his head, swirling to his eyes, red-rimmed and murderous and looking right at me.

  All pain suddenly forgotten, I whipped out my dagger from behind my back and threw it in one motion. He dodged to the side, the dagger sailing past him into the smoke.

  Fist smiled. “Well, what do you know. It's the puppy.”

  Frantic, I searched about for my cutlass, having lost it in the explosion. A dead man lay near me, bloody fingers curled about a cutlass. I snatched it up and whirled, facing Fist.

  He advanced. Fire roared behind him. I had nowhere to go; the bulkhead pressed against my back. I moved sideways over bodies, trying to find some space behind me.

  Suddenly, with a roar like a beast from hell, he rushed forward, and in five steps he was upon me. But, to my surprise, he did not shoot me or thrust at me with his cutlass, instead only beating aside my attempts to skewer him. All defense.

  Of course. He wants you alive. Dead, you are of no worth, to him.

  I bellowed, renewing my efforts. I slashed at him from above, from below, dagger now in my left hand, both weapons moving, slashing, hacking, thrusting, trying every trick I'd ever learned. But he was powerful. A devil, indeed, warding off each stroke like he was made of stone, not flesh.

  And then he whipped me with the flat of his cutlass directly on my bullet wound. Pain and nausea washed over me. My vision wavered. I cried out. Dropped my dagger. Stumbled over a body. And in that moment, Fist swung back and hit me aside the head with the butt of his pistol.

  Stars exploded, shooting across the sky of my mind before everything went black.

  I awoke to the stench of body odor. Candle smoke. Dampness. Mildew.

  It was stiflingly hot. My arm burned with fire, and I couldn't remember why it hurt so. I tried to move away from the pain, but it seemed to follow me.

  I heard water sloshing, a shout from far away, the groan of timbers, a low chuckle—menacing and near.

  Where am I? What has happened?

  I opened my eyes, slowly a crack only wincing. Pain stabbed my temples.

  I lay in a bed. Fist sat in a chair beside me. Seeing him, my memory returned: the battle, the soldiers, my wounds, the explosions, my fight with Fist, getting hit over the head with a pistol butt. And now? Now I was certain that I was aboard the Defiance, in the captain's cabin, lying atop Fist's own bed that smelled of rats’ nests and stale sweat.

  With a startled cry, I sat up, trying to reach for my weapon, any weapon. But I discovered my wrists were bound to the wood rails on the sides of the bed. I was trapped.

  “Looking for these?” Fist asked, gesturing toward a table. Upon it lay my three remaining pistols and a dagger.

  I groaned and lay back down, head swirling. “Josiah will find me,” I managed to say.

  At this, Fist grinned broadly. “Your beloved Captain Black is dead. Burnt to a crisp.”

  I blinked at him, wondering. Is it true? “You're a liar.”

  Fist's eyes narrowed and darkened, and his smile abruptly ceased.

  I shrank back against the straw mattress.

  He thrust his face into mine. His beard tickled my skin. His breath stank of decay. “There is only one thing I want from you, puppy. Can you guess what it is?”

  No doubt Fist had already searched me for the map but had missed it, scrawled as it was on the underside of my crossbelt.

  Is Josiah really dead?

  “I know what it is you want,” I retorted, trying to hide the quiver of my lip. “You need me to teach you how to fight with a cutlass. You're not very quick and you tire easily.”

  Fist's eyes flashed with anger. “Wrong answer.” And so saying, he ground the butt of his pistol directly into the wound in my arm.

  I threw my head back and screamed.

  He stopped after a while. I lay panting, sweat trickling off me, heart hammering from the shock of pain.

  “Don't be a fool, boy. Tell me where you hid the treasure.”

  “What—what treasure?”

  Again the pistol butt ground in the wound, harder this time. I gritted my teeth. Nausea bubbled. Merciful God. How much longer can I take this?

  It would be simpler to just give him the map. But then he would merely kill me.

  No, I had to endure. I couldn't tell him—not if I wished to live.

  Once again he stopped. “Now, my good sense tells me that you're a clever lad. You've got that gleam of intelligence in your eye. And you're smart enough to figure that this pains you more than it pains me. Just tell me where the treasure is, and I promise to let you go. You'll never have to hurt again.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you?” I gasped. “You're— you're a liar.”

  I was immediatel
y sorry for the rashness of my words, for he roared a thunderous roar, eyes bulging. He stood, his chair crashing to the floor, and grabbed my dagger from atop the table. The blade glinted in the feeble candlelight.

  My heart crashed against my ribs. What is he going to do?

  In two seconds, I had my answer.

  He grabbed my left hand and held the dagger's blade over the top knuckle of my little finger. “Talk or I'll slice it off.”

  I started to squirm, trying to pull my hand away. “Help! Down here! I'm being held prisoner!” And that's when the dagger bit deep. Pressing down hard. Slicing. Severing tendons. Bone. Me, screaming. Screaming. Oh, God. Help me!

  I thought of Faith. I thought of her and her child—my half brother or my half sister. I thought of them, destitute perhaps, hungry, alone. I remembered my promise to my father that I would care for Faith. And I could not do that if I was dead. I had to return to America, if only for her.

  Even after Fist finished cutting off the first knuckle of my finger, rivers of pain continued to wash through me, searing me. Every muscle quivered. I rocked my head from side to side, crying hot tears. Save me, Father!

  A hand grabbed my hair, yanked my face toward his. “Tell me,” he snarled. “Or I'll cut you knuckle by knuckle until you're only good for fish food. Tell me!”

  I blinked at him through a haze of tears. His eyes, filled with hate. His face, twisted with rage, blood spatters on his cheeks. Before I could stop myself, I gathered what saliva I could and spat in his face. “Clean yourself off.”

  I think I shrieked even louder this time, shrill and inhuman-sounding. I heard the crack of bone.

  No!

  No!…

  Knuckle by knuckle … again … again …

  A deep haze of pain covered me like a burial shroud when, suddenly, the door burst open. I was vaguely aware of someone drawing a cutlass, a roar of rage from Fist, a clash of steel.

  I heard boots scuffling across the floor, furniture being thrown aside. Someone stumbled on top of me and then off again. The clash, clang, clash of steel. And finally a cry of death, choked, surprised. Then silence.

  Silence …