Adrian backed away from the smoking bow gun and stumbled aft, passing several ashen-faced gunners who looked to him wordlessly for some sign of encouragement. In the sudden lull, all that could be heard on the Eagle were the cries and groans of the wounded, the slosh of water pouring through her riddled hull, the creaking of a dangerously unstable topmast. Fires hissed and crackled along the main deck. Men spoke in curses, uttering streams of obscenities instead of intelligible sentences. Bodies were everywhere—draped on spars, crumpled against guns and capstans, sprawled bloodily on the glistening planks.
“What the deuce is happening?” croaked a cold, harsh voice from the bulkhead below the quarterdeck. Jennings had crawled there, aided by Falworth. “Why are we being attacked without provocation? Who is commanding that ship?”
Ballantine, stunned by the devastation he saw around him, could not offer an immediate answer.
“Beddoes!” Jennings screamed. “Damn the man, where is he? Who can identify those colors?”
“I do not know who is in command,” Ballantine said slowly, “but those are Farrow colors.”
“Farrow! Duncan Farrow? But that is not possible!”
“No!” Falworth screamed. “We were assured that both of Farrow’s ships had been captured at Moknine. We were dispatched to Snake Island because both ships had been captured!”
“Obviously the report was premature,” said Adrian, dragging a trembling hand across his brow. It came away with a slick smear of blood. His shirt was soaked with sweat, spattered with blood; he stank of cordite and gunpowder, mixed with the unfamiliar, galling taste of defeat.
“You cannot think Farrow himself is in command,” Falworth gasped. He was—”
“He was hanged,” Adrian snarled. “And the Wild Goose was destroyed. So then you tell me, Lieutenant, who the hell is out there now?”
“We have to haul down the colors,” Jennings rasped. “I see no other way out of this predicament. We have no choice but to surrender and hope for clemency.”
“Surrender?” Ballantine wiped savagely at the blood that persisted in trickling into his eyes. “You cannot surrender! By God, I will destroy the ship myself before I surrender it to pirates!”
Jennings pounded the deck with his fist. “By God you will do as I command! Half of our guns are useless! The men are being slaughtered where they stand! We have no chance of surviving another assault like the last one.”
“That does not mean we surrender!” Adrian exclaimed, appalled by Jennings’ disregard for the pride of the Eagle and her crew, not to mention the flag she flew. An American warship had never surrendered to a corsair!
Ballantine thrust a finger in the direction of the squall. “We can double back and run for the heavy weather. Farrow will not be expecting it. Hell, no one would expect it with the seas as rough as they are, and if we can reach the curtain of rain before he realizes what we are about, we might just be able to lose him.”
“And lose ourselves in the process!” Jennings shrieked. “We have no steerage, no speed. We would be overtaken before we covered half the distance!”
“Not if we move now! While his ship is gathering headway to make the turn. If we sit here and wait, we are inviting disaster. The men have heart and guts, but I agree we cannot hope to withstand another raking.”
“That is why we must surrender,” Jennings insisted. “At once! Before it is too late!”
Ballantine took a step toward Jennings, his fists clenched by his side. “We will not surrender!”
“I gave you a direct order!” Jennings screamed. “I order you to bring down the colors!”
Fury and disgust fought for control on Adrian’s face, and his knuckles glowed white with the desire to smash into the corpulent flesh.
“You bloody coward, we will not surrender,” he repeated, his eyes savagely bright. “We will stand and fight and die to the last man if need be, but by God, we will not surrender!”
“Mutiny,” Jennings gasped. “You are calling for a mutiny! I will see you hanged for this! Hanged, I say!"
“So be it,” Adrian snarled and whirled around to face the crew, who had gathered and were listening in stunned silence. “Are you with me, men? Do we bring down the colors or do we show these damned pirates how to fight a battle?”
There was a deafening cheer from the surrounding ring of officers and seamen. Shouts of “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Rang through the air, echoing as high as the men on the topmost yards.
“No! I order you to haul in the colors!” Jennings screamed. “I order you! I order you!”
No one paid heed. The men were already in motion, wheeling the guns into new positions, calling for fresh shot, helping the wounded below.
Jennings drew his cutlass. Ballantine saw the flash of steel and whirled. His fist caught the rounded jaw, low and hard, and Jennings’ head snapped back under the impact. His body was sent crashing against the base of the mast, then sank, like whale blubber, to the oak deck.
Adrian’s steely gaze flicked up from Jennings and fixed on the astounded features of Otis Falworth. “You wanted your moment of glory. Here it is. Take command of the helm and watch for my signals, and by God, if you foul up one of them—”
He left the threat unfinished as he turned on his heel and pushed through the piles of smoking debris. He stripped off his shirt and tore a length of cambric from the bottom edge, using it as a bandanna to staunch the blood flowing from a cut above his eye. He strode the length of the gun-deck and stopped by one of the massive twenty-four pounders that had been buried under a tangle of broken spars and cables. The gun crew exchanged a fleeting, nervous glance among themselves, but when they heard the confident roar of his voice issuing orders they soon gave a rousing cheer and joined him in freeing the cannon.
With the same superb seamanship that the marauder had shown in running her prey to ground, she completed her turn and bore down on the crippled Eagle once again. On board the American frigate, the cannon were primed and waiting. A silence enveloped the decks that amplified the hiss of the spluttering fuses held aloft in readiness. Ballantine could feel the fear in the men around him; he could smell it and taste it with each breath he pumped into his lungs. And like so many of the others, he unabashedly moved his lips in a silent prayer and laid his hand on the cold, rough comfort of the black-iron monster that would decide if he lived or died.
The corsair came at them fast. Her topgallants disappeared as she shortened sail to fighting trim; a moment later, the forks of orange flame and boiling, billowing clouds of acrid smoke spewed from both tiers of guns. Adrian's hand came down in a slashing motion, giving his crews the signal to fire and the battle was on again.
The effort, though valiant, was futile. Hot grapeshot smashed through what little protection remained on the Eagle’s deck, exploding projectiles of razor-sharp metals, nails, and musket balls across the deck, slicing through flesh and bone, canvas and cordage alike. Yards cracked overhead and twisted as the chain-shot carved them away. Sails slatted over, and the remains of the mizzen topmast crashed to the sea, dragging streamers of tangled shrouds behind. Marksmen on board the corsair concentrated their musket fire on the few courageous topmen who held to their posts, and the marines began dropping out of the yards one after another with ghastly precision. Fires broke out, and there were not enough brigades to contain them. A flaming scrap of canvas drifted lazily through a gaping hatch and landed on a stack of flannel-encased powder cartridges. The resulting explosion lifted ten square feet of decking and destroyed three gun positions on the lower deck.
The two ships closed to within one hundred yards, and to the credit of the Eagle's gunners, there were signs of damage beginning to appear on the corsair. Her sails became pockmarked with holes; her deck was cloaked beneath a cloud of smoke and flying debris. But within fifty-yards, the attacker's carronades were brought thundering into action again, hurling forty-two pounds of destruction through what remained of the Eagle’s meager defenses.
Cannon we
re unseated and whole crews were crushed beneath the weight. Water bled through gouges in the hull. Smoke and steam clogged the companionways, the storerooms, the cabins, and drove choking hot fumes into every crack and crevice that harbored life.
Ballantine kept his gun crew firing steadily, scarcely able to see past the smoke that creamed from the muzzle between rounds. He loaded and fired without bothering to adjust the aim of the heavy gun—the corsair was so close, it would have been a waste of precious time. Each round seemed to bring the Farrow ship nearer, and with her the threat of boarding planks and grappling hooks. Men were already lining her rails in eager readiness. Even more were sent high on the yards to spray the Eagle’s deck with a thicker hail of musket fire. The choppy sea and gusting winds were no more of a deterrent than the cannonades that rocketed between the two vessels, causing each to buckle and roll in the turbulence.
Adrian felt the enemy’s iron smashing through the deck below his feet as the corsair trained a final raking broadside along her hull. The cables to the rudder were severed, and the valiant Eagle heeled sideways in a lurch that sent her bow careening sidelong into the opposing frigate.
Ballantine was thrown to his knees with the impact. He was blinded by the smoke and the pain, and his head seemed suddenly to be too heavy for his neck to support. He crawled several feet in agony before he was able to find something solid to brace himself against. He shook the blood out of his eyes and looked around the deck, searching for the source of the rapid thuds that were hooking into the rails and planks of the Eagle.
“Prepare...to repel boarders,” he gasped and groped for one of the barbed handspikes strapped to the mast. He could not tell if anyone had heard the warning, or if anyone was alive in the carnage that spread out before him. His ears bled from the concussion of the guns; pain and nausea dulled his senses to everything but the insult of seeing filthy, bearded pirates swarming across the lines to attack his ship.
All of the repressed violence and anger erupted in a blood-curdling roar as Adrian hurled himself toward the oncoming threat. Beside him, equally wide-eyed and determined, was the cut and bleeding figure of the chaplain, John Knobbs. On hearing Adrian’s call to arms, he grabbed a pistol from the hands of the dead sailor he had been praying over and staunchly took his place at the lieutenant’s side. Together the unlikely pair led the charge to meet the wall of shrieking corsairs.
John Knobbs was grazed on the neck by a musket ball. It slowed him, but he aimed and fired his pistol point-blank, blowing away a portion of his assailant’s shoulder. He threw the smoking pistol aside and scooped up the corsair’s broadsword, dealing with two more attackers before several shots fired simultaneously halted him, and he fell back in a plume of blood.
Ballantine slashed his way into the phalanx of men, dodging and ducking the cutlass blades that sought to stop him. A tall, black-haired corsair bellowed for the privilege of ending Ballantine’s charge and lunged toward the wildly swinging handspike. Adrian saw the flash of crimson-stained steel too late to avoid it completely. The blade glanced off his thigh, and he staggered back. His foot twisted over a pile of wreckage, and he stumbled back, tripping over the raised lip of a hatch coaming. The hatch itself was nothing more than a gaping black hole and he plunged through the opening and landed hard on the shattered deck below.
The black-haired corsair stood a moment and stared down at the splayed body. When there was no sign of movement, he threw his shaggy head back, and with a blood-curdling cry of triumph, leaped for the mizzenmast. There, he raised a tattooed arm and brought his sword hacking down across the cable that held the American colors aloft.
Chapter Eleven
Matthew Rutger forcibly blocked out the pain of his lacerated shoulders and groped his way back to consciousness. He was huddled with other wounded members of the crew—at first glance they appeared to number in the scores—lying on the Eagle’s quarter-deck, exposed to the teeming rain. The storm had struck in its full fury, drenching the fires and creating huge rolling clouds of acrid steam. The oak planking ran with rivulets of pink, men were groaning in agony, and the few who were able to move wept for their own inadequacies as they tried to help others less fortunate.
Matthew commanded his bruised limbs to function and began crawling between the rows of wounded men. Some were already dead, having bled out their lives in quiet desperation. Some were unconscious, their heads cradled by others who were not much better off. Most were nursing burns and shrapnel wounds, cuts and punctures, saber slashes, and bleeding welts dealt out by eagerly wielded truncheons. There was no sign of Captain Jennings, and Matt had not seen Adrian since their brief conversation in the cabin. He did not know how he, himself, had come to be on the deck in the pouring rain; his last memory was of being slammed into something hard and of hearing the girl scream.
Matthew straightened on his knees a moment and searched the sea of battered, anguished faces. He saw two of the younger powder boys, wounded and crouched together for warmth and comfort, but there was no sign of Courtney Farrow or Dickie Little. Matt’s chest constricted with fear and he broadened his search. He dragged himself upright and shook the rain out of his eyes, squinting to see through the haze and swirling mists to where men were crowded beneath anything that afforded protection from the elements.
Surely these were not the only survivors of the battle! Surely there had to be more men than this pitiable lot!
“Dear God! he exclaimed and scrabbled forward, ignoring the moans of men nearby. He recognized a figure in white shirt and black breeches lying face down on a sheet of canvas and he moved the body gently, easing it over to lift the face out of the pool of filthy rainwater and sodden ashes. “Adrian? Adrian, can you hear me?”
He tore a scrap from his shirt and cleared the blood and grime away from Ballantine's eyes and around his mouth.
“Adrian?”
This time he was rewarded by a stifled groan.
“Thank God,” Matthew muttered. The doctoring instincts took over, and he inspected the cut over Adrian’s brow, then probed gently for any sign of broken bones or internal injuries. By the time had had finished, a bleary, blood-shot gray eye had opened a slit. It focused on Matt’s face with effort, then slowly panned around the deck.
“Wh-what happened?” came the croaked whisper.
“I can only guess, but I would say from the looks of it, you tried to take on the entire enemy crew single-handedly. Wait. Do not sit up yet, give your head a chance to clear.”
Adrian pushed aside the restraining hand and struggled up onto his elbows. He looked around at the drenched, suffering casualties, and his skin blanched beneath the grime.
“Good God...the ship,” he gasped. “Is she...?”
“I do not know,” said Matt. “She feels as if she is holding her own. We do not appear to be listing too badly, or not so as I can see at any rate, and they have made no move to transfer the wounded.”
Adrian craned his neck painfully. The Eagle was still bound to the enemy ship by dozens of hooks and grappling lines. A steady stream of corsairs were swarming back and forth across planks laid out between the two ships, laden with crates and casks and supplies from the Eagle’s holds.
“They appear to have their priorities well in hand,” Matt grumbled under his breath.
“Jennings?
Matt shook his head. “I have not seen him. As far as I can tell, they have grouped the wounded apart from the others. At least I am hoping there are others. This cannot be all the crew.” His voice faltered, and it took a moment to bring it back under control. “Beddoes is gone, Millar, Coop, Spence, Danby...those are just the few I have been told about.”
“The chaplain is dead,” Adrian murmured. “Falworth was wounded, but not too badly. Jennings was alive and spouting at the mouth the last I saw.”
“Who were we fighting? And why?”
The question was echoed on the faces of some of the men lying within hearing distance, but Ballantine did not answer. His gaze had stra
yed to the rubble that was once the forecastle and had locked on the figure standing in its midst. The man, like the ship he had commanded, had emerged from the battle remarkably unscathed. Six feet of lean, black-haired pirate stared down at the progress of his crew with eyes that burned as viciously as the fires that had raged around him earlier. He was naked from the waist up, save for the double leather straps crossed over his chest, which held three muskets apiece. A wide belt around his waist carried an assortment of dirks and a pair of long steel cutlasses. There was no question he was the leader. His shouts were met with immediate replies. A constant stream of messengers were sent to him from all points of the ship to report progress and wait for orders.
“Garrett Shaw,” Adrian murmured, half in awe, half in disbelief.
“Who?”
“Garrett Shaw. Duncan Farrow’s partner and commander of the Falconer.”
“But...was he not supposed to have been captured and hung with Farrow?” Matt turned and stared at the pirate, who was obviously in excellent health. “How can you be sure it is him?”
“The tattoos,” Adrian said, directing Matt’s eye to the corsair’s muscular forearms. From elbow to wrist he wore coiled, hissing snakes that looked so realistic, they seemed to be writhing. “Verart Farrow had the boar; Duncan had a brace of crossed swords; and Garrett Shaw has snakes. He is known affectionately in some circles as “the Cobra” because of them.”
“Dear God. How did he find us?”
“Sheer killer instinct, I would not doubt,” Adrian grunted. Matt looked up in time to see the lieutenant straining to haul himself to his feet.
“What do you think you are doing? Where are you going?”
“I want to talk to the bastard,” Adrian replied.
Adrian shrugged off the doctor’s hands and stood swaying against a broken section of rail, his chest laboring to keep the air flowing into his lungs and blackness from enveloping him again. The movement was detected almost instantly, and the glittering blue eyes that Adrian had last viewed over the blur of a slashing cutlass drilled into him, nailing him where he stood.
Wind and the Sea Page 20
