The Egret was a damned fine ship as well and Dante was envious of the baldheaded walrus who was her master. She was stout hearted and fast as lightning, capering through the waves with a headstrong grace that reminded him all too painfully of his sylphlike Virago. He regretted he was not the one passing orders to the helm, for there were some tricks, some clever maneuvers, he was certain the Egret could execute that might bring a quicker end to the Spaniard’s stubbornness.
The thought had barely left his head when he felt the incline of the deck shift beneath his feet. His crew had just fired the demi-cannon and it took a moment for the echo of the explosions to fade and for the cloud of hot, roiling smoke and sparks to clear. When it did, Dante looked up sharply at the groaning of spars and snapping of canvas sheets overhead. On a signal from the helm alt the sails had been backed and the yards swung about in their braces. A quick took over the rail confirmed what the sudden shift implied: The Egret had taken a stunningly sharp turn, almost skidding sidelong through the swells, and was refitting her canvas to sweep her in a new direction.
In a few minutes they were once more running with the wind in their teeth, heading straight at the San Pedro. As a target the Egret would pose a nearly impossible challenge to the inept gunners on board the Spanish galleon; as a threat, she was at a temporary disadvantage herself, able to bring only her forward bow chasers into play until Spence gave the order to shear away and present a broadside. Since it was almost the exact maneuver Dante himself had been thinking about, he clenched a fist in a show of support and cast a broad grin up at the captain. Spence, in turn, executed a courtier’s bow to acknowledge the pirate wolf’s praise, and was still partly off balance when the iron ball screamed through the sails overhead and struck the after-deck.
A younger man with two good legs and several stone less weight around his girth might have been able to spring clear and come up laughing.
As it was, Spence jerked to one side, and instead of taking off his head, the ball struck the lower half of his leg. It tore away everything below his knee, and sent Jonas spinning sideways against the mast, with his hairless skull cracking as loud as a gunshot against the solid white pine.
Dante dropped the iron shot he had been holding and was in motion before Spence’s body sagged to the deck. He mounted the ladder in two bounding strides and caught the massive shoulders under the arms, propping him against the trunk of the mast even as Beau skidded onto her knees beside them.
“Father! Father!” she cried.
“God deliver me from the sin o’ fornication,” Spence gasped, clutching at the sheets of blood that poured from the deep gash in his head. “Have the bastards killed me?”
“No.” Beau wilted briefly under the weight of her relief. “But your head nearly killed the mast.”
She ripped the sleeve from her shirt and used it to bind her father’s wound. Dante, meanwhile, was gaping down at the shredded flaps of Spence’s breeches, at a wound that should have been spouting gouts of blood but was only leaking a few feeble drops where the leather leg brace had been torn away.
He looked up at Spence’s face, then over at the shattered remains of the wooden limb crushed against the rail.
“You didn’t know?” Beau asked with some surprise.
“I … merely thought he had a limp.”
Beau grinned. “How profoundly observant of you, Captain Dante.”
The impish smile produced a startling change on her face and Dante found himself completely unsettled by it. Soft brown brows arched above eyes that had the luster of burnished gold; supple pink lips were gracefully curved, unexpectedly sensual. She had shed the thickly padded doublet and her breasts pushed against the linen as if trying to burst through … indeed, where she had ripped the seam of her sleeve, the whiteness of her flesh shone like a hidden pearl.
Billy Cuthbert shouted for their attention. His face was contorted with strain as he leaned against the tiller, trying to hold it steady. “Is the captain all right?”
“He has cracked his head hard enough to cross his eyes,” Beau said, tying off the makeshift bandage. “But otherwise he will probably live.”
“Good. Because we have a problem here that might require his attention.”
Beau cursed and sprang to her feet. Dante was a beat behind and did not need to see the sudden, appalling drain of color from her face to know that in the brief few minutes they had taken to tend Jonas Spence, the Egret had come well within the range of the San Pedro’s guns.
Within range and still streaking toward her like a hawk diving on its prey.
Dante looked at Beau, then swore his way through a quick decision as he whirled and strode to the rail. “Mister Pitt! Mister McCutcheon! Double-shot every gun and be prepared to fire on my signal!”
The gnarled face of Spit McCutcheon turned hesitantly to Beau. At the same time, several of the Spaniard’s shots found their range and smashed through the bow rails, spraying fragments of timber on the heads of the men in the waist of the ship. More ripped through the canvas overhead, bringing down the skysail and sending lines hissing through the air like snakes.
“Do it, Spit,” Beau ordered. “Do as he says!”
“Aye, sir! Double up, lads!”
“I need five men up here on cables!” Dante shouted. “Now! Lucifer—!”
The Cimaroon emerged from the debris on the run and jumped up to the afterdeck without troubling himself to use the ladder. A curt order from Dante put him on the tiller anchoring the heavy cables at intervals along the thick oak arm, passing the ends to the other men who had responded to Dante’s call.
“Beau—” Dante whirled again. “On my command, put everything you have on the rudder. She’ll fight you at this speed, but you have to hold her. Can you do it?”
“We’re moving too fast! You’ll tear her apart!”
He shook his head. “She’s strong, she’ll hold! If we try to slow her down, we’ll only stay under the Spaniard’s guns longer and if we shear away now”—he ducked as another barrage of exploding wood splinters and rubble narrowly missed him—“they’ll be able to hit us with everything they have.”
“What are you going to do?”
“We … are going to surprise the hell out of them,” he said with a predator’s grin.
They were coming up fast on the San Pedro, close enough now to clearly see the Spanish officers in their shiny breastplates and feathered helmets moving along the decks, ordering their gunners to bear down on the approaching ship. Their efforts were finding some success as a burning spar crashed onto the Egret’s gundeck, crushing one man and sweeping another, screaming, through a new gap in the rail.
McCutcheon and Pitt encouraged their gunners with a calmness that might have been applied to a training drill, not the fiery maelstrom erupting around them. When both batteries were loaded and ready, the men looked up at Simon Dante, their faces white and streaming sweat, and nodded.
Dante repeated the gesture and raised his hand in Beau’s direction, watching her, watching the fast-approaching galleon, watching the shocked reaction on board the Spaniard as the crew scattered in panic, expecting the Egret to ram them bow-on. Dante waited to the last possible second, judging the tack with the likeliest amount of clearance before he brought his arm slashing down.
“Now!” He shouted savagely. “Bring her hard to starboard, now!”
At a distance of barely fifty yards the Egret started to carve a deep blue swath in the sea as she turned into a parallel course with the galleon. Because of her comparative size she looked more like a mongrel running into the shadow of a stallion, but Dante had gauged her speed, her roll, the swell of the sea, and when his arm came down a second time to release his gunners, the bite she took out of the monstrous ship was both devastating and crippling in its effect. The thunderous volley was delivered almost as a single shot and exploded with such a vengeance on the enemy deck, there was a corresponding explosion of planking, timbers, and bodies on board the galleon. Screams and s
maller blasts followed as stores of powder were struck and ignited. McCutcheon’s crews were able to fire a second murderous barrage, then a third and a fourth, before the Egret started to peel away. By then the galleon was enveloped in a thick black boil of smoke that left scrolling plumes in the sky behind her.
“Captain!”
Beau’s scream did not allow Dante time to celebrate the success of his maneuver. She was sprawled on her backside, as were Lucifer, Billy Cuthbert, and the other four men who had been putting their backs into holding the rudder. The arm of the tiller had snapped under the incalculable strain and sent them all into a crushed heap against the rail. Suddenly free of tension, the rudder swung loose, guided by momentum and motion, breaking out of the tight turn and plunging instead toward a sure collison with the wide stern end of the galleon.
Lucifer staggered to his feet, shaking a spray of blood droplets off his hand. Beau was struggling to her knees as Dante ran past and snatched her upright by the scruff of her shirt. Her lip was split and the palms of both hands were raw from rope burns, but she gathered up the cables and ran after the two men to the broken stub of the tiller. Lucifer twined the rope around the oak, then coiled it once around his body and pulled, while Dante and Beau plied every last ounce of their strength to pushing on the opposite side. The rope gouged deeply into the Cimaroon’s flesh and he let loose a bloodcurdling roar, one that had the veins popping in his neck and his eyes rolling back so that only the whites showed.
Dante’s every muscle and sinew bulged across his back and arms. His long legs were braced back on the deck and his head was dropped between his shoulders; he did not have to look to see if their exertions were having any effect, they would all know well enough in the next few seconds.
The sound of cold, rushing water filled their ears. An ominous black shadow swept over their heads as the Egret passed so close to the Spaniard, they could feel the heat of her fires belching out the broken gallery windows, so close the end of an English yard snagged on the tangle of Spanish rigging overhead and was brought screaming around in its fittings, ripping cables and cleats free as it twisted around the mast. A massive, almost human groan rose from the Egret’s belly as she squeezed past the galleon, her planks and boards shuddering with the friction as she cut through the turbulence of the San Pedro’s wake. When she was clear, and bursting into sunlight again, the groaning was deafened by the cheers of the men as they threw their arms in the air and whooped in triumph.
While Lucifer eased some slack into the cable, Beau collapsed in disbelief against the broken spar.
“Did we do it?” she gasped. “Did we really do it?”
Dante, grinning, did not answer her with words. Instead, he reached down and took her face between his hands, kissing her hard and full on the lips.
Chapter 10
Within fifteen minutes the San Pedro de Marcos brought down her flags. To the last there were sporadic shots fired in anger and frustration at the Egret, but with masts and sails in ruin and gundecks in chaos, it was only a matter of time before the captain-general signaled an end to the fighting. Almost immediately, the Egret’s jolly boat was lowered and filled with armed crewmen who, under the bristling command of Spit McCutcheon, crossed to the Spaniard and issued the terms for surrender.
During the interim the carpenter on board the Egret jury-rigged a temporary new arm for the tiller. Dante ordered the mainsails reefed and kept aloft just enough canvas for steerage as he maneuvered the ship around the galleon, waiting for the Spaniards to douse their fires and make preparations to be boarded. He kept the gun crews and arquebusiers at their posts but otherwise ordered the decks to be cleared of debris, damaged sails to be cut away, and critical repairs made. The wounded were helped below, where Cook was already red to the elbows, hard at work with his saws and cauterizing irons. Amazingly enough, there were only five dead and fewer than a dozen with serious wounds. Those with blisters, cuts, and scrapes tended each other or themselves, making light of their trifling injuries in lieu of the excitement of winning such a resounding victory.
Jonas Spence had had his scalp stitched closed but was too befuddled to retain a lucid thought for more than a minute or two; he had been moved below to his cabin. Lucifer had earned a crushed rib through his exertions but refused to be attended by a ship’s cook. He archly conveyed by hand signals that he could easily cure himself if he had a severed chicken foot, but since there were no fowls on board, he made do with the limb of a gull that had been unlucky enough to be caught in the exchange of fire.
Dante de Tourville similarily disdained any suggestion of having his cuts and scrapes seen to. There were far more pressing matters to concern him, like breaking out muskets and pikes for the boarding parties, readying the grappling lines, clearing space in the holds for whatever plunder might soon be coming onboard. While he was undeniably pleased at the Egret’s performance, he was also markedly disappointed at the amount of damage the San Pedro had sustained. Although it was indeed a lumbering sow, it was one of Spain’s finest and could have presented quite a sight being sailed into an English port as prize. As it stood now, the hulk would be lucky to stay afloat as far as the Spanish coast—providing it could even raise enough canvas to catch the wind.
Billy Cuthbert brought him a bucket of seawater and a scrap of lye soap to make himself presentable before going on board the Spaniard. The bulk of the fighting over, it would now become a battle of wits, with the Spanish captain-general expressing indignation and outrage over an open act of piracy, issuing dire warnings of reprisals, revenge, and outright war should any of his cargo be appropriated. Dante had heard it all before, too many times for it to have much effect on anything but his temper. The bastard had surrendered. His ship and all its contents were forfeit. It was as simple as that. If he wanted to debate the issue, Dante would gladly reshot his guns.
In the calm that followed the battle, Dante had to admit, if only to himself, just how remarkable a feat they had accomplished. Had it not been for the Egret’s spirit and her captain’s slight madness, a victory over such a Goliath should not have been so swift or easy. Not just the Egret, but her entire crew had spirit and guts, and Dante found himself staring back at the afterdeck, his soul aching over the loss of the Virago, once again envying Jonas Spence his fine ship and crew.
One crew member in particular, he conceded with a wry smile.
Dante ran his hands through the blue-black waves of his hair, shaking a spray of water droplets free. He took his shirt from Billy and shrugged it over his big shoulders, then stood easy while the shorter man climbed atop a capstan and helped him into his doublet and sword belt. There was still a thin pall of smoke drifting over the decks of the Egret, cloaking the sun, making it appear small and pale in a colorless sky. Dante had to narrow his eyes to identify the figure he saw standing by the afterdeck rail, and, confirming it was Beau Spence, he thanked Cuthbert and made his way along the deck toward the stern, weaving a path through and around the men who were recovered enough to speculate excitedly among themselves over what plunder might be waiting for them on board the Spaniard.
The lion’s share, they knew, would go to the captain, who had financed the voyage himself and owed nothing to investors. The remainder would be divided among the crewmen, and if it was a very rich prize, they would all be sailing home to England wealthy men.
When Dante mounted the ladder to the afterdeck, he saw Beau’s head turn slightly to acknowledge his arrival.
“I have dispatched a man below to check on your father, but I do not hold much hope of his being able to savor his victory just yet.”
She offered up a weary imitation of a smile and looked out over the rail again. “I am not even sure I have enough energy left to savor it. I think … if I had a bed beneath me right now, I could sleep until we reached Plymouth.”
Dante surprised himself with a thought of what he might want to do if she had a bed beneath her right now. The sun was behind them, bathing her head and shoulders in a g
olden light. Despite the dust coating her hair, it gleamed a rich auburn and the floating wisps betrayed a stubborn tendency to cling in soft, feminine curls against her temples and throat. Her one bare arm seemed at once too slender and exposed and he wanted to remove his own leather doublet and offer her the protection of its warmth.
“I also came to apologize,” he said after another long moment.
She turned and gave him an odd look. “What could you possibly have done that requires an apology? You saved the day, Captain Dante. You saved the ship, saved the crew, won the battle.”
“I should not have taken command so … arbitrarily.”
She frowned, as if the thought of anyone else taking command had not occurred to her, especially the thought that it might have been her place to do so. “Perhaps not,” she said consideringly, “but I am thankful you did. This was … not my first fight, you understand, but … it would have been my first command, and … I do not know if I could have handled it. I have always had my father behind me, you see, and … well …” She paused and caught her lower lip between her teeth. “I just never gave a thought to what we would do or what it would be like without him. Foolish of me … I suppose.”
Her voice trailed away and Dante moved to the rail beside her.
“You have no reason to doubt yourself or your skills. In fact, I would offer a confession freely, mam’selle: Despite your father’s confidence in your abilities, I did not believe a woman’s place was at the helm of a ship going into battle.”
Across a Moonlit Sea Page 13
