SIXTY-EIGHT
THERE WAS not a moment to lose.
At high tide the next morning and with the help of Castille’s boats, they brought the big ship closer to Hog Island, so close that she would beach herself when the tide withdrew. That’s when the work would begin, for it was Fallon’s idea to spend three days loading Castille with all the sand they could load, which should be a prodigious amount with two crews to do the work. It was not the best way to load a ship, but there was no hoy to bring alongside so it seemed like the only way. Cully and some of the hands rowed to shore to procure shovels and canvas for bags, which brought to Fallon’s mind the loading of Nuevo Año with bullion—a little different in this instance—and he wondered briefly where Alvaron was just then. Likely still refitting if the American yards were anything like the British.
The loading began as soon as the tide went out, with many sand bags already full and ready to hoist aboard. It was backbreaking work, as Fallon well knew, but some part of the success of the plan depended on the ship being low in the water. They worked literally day and night, in shifts, all hands all in. As Castille grew heavier, they backed her out with the flood, just a little, so that at the last she would float off the island. It would not do to have done so much work only to be stuck.
Even Somers and Elinore worked alongside the crews, which earned them undying respect and sore arms and backs. And gradually the big ship dropped lower into the water, and then lower still—the effect of several tons of sand showing—until by the third day she was quite low and barely made it off at high tide. Castille was built for a load, however, and floated rather proudly with her new cargo aboard.
On the fourth day most of the crew from Élan transferred to Castille, bringing the packet’s complement to well over one hundred men and bringing pistols and cutlasses and shot and powder enough for a small war, which is what they anticipated. Fallon elected to leave three older men on board Élan to guard the ship, along with Elinore and Somers, against strongly worded objections by all, but he would not hear it. It was a harebrained idea as it was, he could not in good conscience endanger the older, slower hands on board, plus taking an even older man and his daughter would make success even more inconceivable.
At the last, Somers pulled Fallon aside. “Listen to me carefully, Nico,” he said quietly, as quietly as Fallon had ever heard him speak. “We can do this two ways. Since you work for me now that you’re out of the Royal Navy, I can order you to take Elinore and myself with you.” Fallon’s face must have registered the surprise he felt, for Somers nodded yes that’s what I said. “Or you can just listen to reason. Elinore and I can’t take more worrying about you. We want to be with you and be part of this. You’re family, son. And anyway, we’ve come this far on our own and done a pretty good job of it. We even helped a little. Look, Nico, I can shoot the eyes out of a turkey at a hundred yards. And Elinore can help Theo down below with the wounded, because we both know there will be wounded, and you don’t have a surgeon on board anymore. I don’t want to order you. Hell, I won’t order you, I guess. But consider this a very strong ask.” And then he added, “If you think you can say no to Elinore, don’t waste your breath. She’s already made up her mind.” Then he smiled a very knowing smile.
With that, Fallon knew he was beaten. There would be no argument worth making. Somers and Elinore remained aboard Castille and the heavily laden ship weighed just before sunset. And as they left the harbor sailing northward, every man and woman aboard wondered if they would ever return.
SIXTY-NINE
BY MID-MORNING on the fifth day they were hove-to in Providence Channel, about in the center of the triangle formed by the Berry Islands to the northwest, Spanish Wells to the northeast, and Nassau to the south. As the crow flies, they were about twenty miles from each.
Fallon asked Wallace to have an old suit of sails brought on deck, which the crew set to work ripping to pieces. They had all furled torn and ripped sails aplenty and knew the look well enough. It was the work of an afternoon to finish tattering the sails and get them bent on. The topmasts were struck below, the yards hung cockeyed, and only a lowly foresail drew at all, just enough to provide steerage. Fallon had himself rowed around the ship; Castille was now riding very low in the water and virtually a wreck to all eyes—almost a ghost ship, something back from the dead.
Rowing under the stern he had a final thought, and as soon as he was back on board and the ship’s boat was hoisted into place, he detailed two men in harnesses to be lowered off the back of the ship with paint and brushes. He gave them a rough sketch of what he wanted, which they nailed to the stern above Castille’s name board as reference before they started work. It took several hours to complete the job, but by nightfall Castille had ceased to exist. Nuevo Año floated in her place.
Perhaps Clayton had seen Nuevo Año during the hurricane, perhaps not. If he had, the sight of her—if he believed his eyes—floating helplessly and deeply laden should make him rabid. If he hadn’t, he should at least be interested enough to investigate a Spanish ship that appeared unable to defend itself. Fallon was counting on greed to make Clayton believe that what he saw was true.
Finally, the Spanish flag that Aja had found aboard Élan was brought on deck to be shredded and virtually destroyed, and then hoisted to a dangling gaff. The illusion was complete. Here was the Nuevo Año, a Spanish ship carrying a fortune in bullion and specie that had apparently been drifting helplessly since the hurricane weeks ago, which had now drifted into Providence Channel to an X upon the water just off the Berry Islands. What other explanation could there be?
Fallon smiled at the idea, a deceptive little ruse that a turtle had had first. Yes, the image of the freshly named Nuevo Año as a snapping turtle lying motionless in the water with its jaws open was exactly right. Fallon squinted, seeing it all through the turtle’s eyes. Now if the prey would just happen to swim by…
On the sixth day, it did not. They drifted within the triangle all day, ripped sails hanging loosely, running rigging hanging over the sides, a disaster afloat. For the deck, Fallon had selected five crewmen with dark hair and skin to appear to be all that was left of the Spanish crew. Elinore and Theo had sewn canvas caps for the men and covered them in red dress material to imitate the barretina caps worn by Alvaron’s men. Convinced they looked the part, Fallon joined Beauty and the others below decks. Renegade would have more men than Castille, but not terribly more, as Theo had reported that more than half of Clayton’s crew had been put ashore in Nassau. Still, not good odds in a straight-up battle. Everything depended on looking so helpless as to be unable to fight the ship. If they could manage that, Clayton might decide to board, without even a shot, Fallon hoped.
Below decks, cutlasses were sharpened and pistols primed. Aja shifted his dirk from hand to hand, trying hard not to show his nervousness and not succeeding. Beauty had a pike, her weapon of choice, which she meticulously sharpened and then re-sharpened to a fine edge, the blood of a Scottish warrior in her veins. Somers was off to himself, having gathered fifteen pistols to load, and as he did so he placed them gently in an empty sand bag.
That night Fallon sat in the stern window seat and dozed fitfully, wondering if Clayton had held his course north out of Nassau, perhaps for Misery Island, perhaps with treasure to bury. Jesus, it was all thin.
Well, he decided after stretching out on the seat to stare at the stars, regardless of where Clayton went it might all simply depend on whether he kept a date with his woman in Nassau. Tomorrow would tell the tale, and if Clayton did not appear, Fallon had no plan for the next day.
SEVENTY
IT WASN’T easy for the five men on deck to act like they were on a derelict ship, likely malnourished and weak, and still keep watch for a pirate coming over the horizon. It’s not like anyone was at the masthead with a telescope. No, for the ruse to work it had to appear that they were lost and hopeless and leaderless.
All morning they lolled around the rolling ship, the piti
ful slip of a foresail doing just enough to keep her off the islands, doubling back on their track to keep the ship within the triangle and easily within view of Clayton should he be coming from anywhere northerly across the channel heading for Nassau. Below decks it was already growing warm, warm and tense as this was the second day in that dark, unventilated space. So many bodies, packed together and sweating with heat and nerves, made for an aromatic nightmare.
Fallon did his best to make the rounds of the men but it was next to impossible. It was dark and men were bunched together, some sitting on barrels, others sprawled across the narrow passageway. He was as nervous as they were, maybe doubly nervous. First, worried that Clayton wouldn’t show up, and second, worried that if he did show up he wouldn’t take the bait. As close as it was, they didn’t dare open a hatch to daylight for fear something would look amiss to Renegade’s lookout, something would throw Clayton off and put doubt in his mind.
Noon, the heat of the day. As time crept by, Fallon’s mind, as always, went to doubt and inevitable failure. With every minute it felt like his hubris had gotten the best of him, his deep self-belief in his own cleverness had deceived him into thinking he could read the future, even control the future, and pre-ordain events. He was on the point of throwing open the hatches and declaring it all a mistake when Elinore slipped up behind him and, unnoticed in the dark, put her hand under his shirt and moved her fingers lightly around his waist to his belly, and then down. He stood stock-still, smiling and almost giggling at the release of tension, as she deftly undid the first button on his pants. Things were about to get interesting below decks.
Suddenly two raps on the hatch!
A deckhand had given the signal that a ship had been sighted. Everyone froze, including Fallon and Elinore, all thoughts of fore-play gone, every nerve tense again. The mystery ship could be a trader or a French sloop or anything else, and they waited, holding their breath for a single tap more that would identify the ship as Clayton’s.
Seconds. A minute. Two minutes. Five minutes more. Then…a tap!
The game was on! Now the men on deck had their role to play, the coup de grâce to kill any doubt in Clayton’s mind that he was looking at a foundering ship. First, the helmsman let Nuevo Año fall off slightly, ever so little, so as to show the stern of the ship to Clayton. The wiggly little worm. Now Renegade shortened sail, her gun ports still closed, her men lining the railings in curiosity mixed with excitement. The distance closed, a quarter mile, then less and less, and finally close enough to prepare the grappling hooks. Seeing her so close and appearing to recognize her for a pirate, all five men on Nuevo Año’s deck suddenly threw up their hands, screaming loudly, loud enough for the crew below decks to hear, and they backed against the far railing in fear.
The sails were clewed up on Renegade to take off way and then bump! The ships came together. Bump! Quickly, grappling hooks secured the two ships as one. Over the side leapt dozens of pirates, landing with a yell on Nuevo Año’s deck and then oddly becoming silent since there was no opposition, the sailors in their red caps cowered in fear. The pirate crew seemed wary at first and then relaxed their muscles. Some even started to laugh at how easy it was, perhaps a fortune under their feet and no one to fight. Could this be?
Not for long. Suddenly the hatches flew open! Up came tens upon tens of screaming sailors, bloodthirsty and wild-eyed sailors who had sworn to give no quarter because defeat at the hands of Wicked Jak Clayton was unthinkable. Up they swarmed from the companionway, out of the hatches in an unending outpouring of rage and violence, and fell upon the startled pirates with a vengeance borne of desperation and fear. Clayton screamed his high-pitched yell, last heard on the beach when he had been tricked then, too. As Fallon reached the deck and heard Clayton’s scream, it sent shivers through him because he knew it would be a fight to the death now—no mercy given, none expected—until one of them was dead.
The pirates remaining on Renegade jumped aboard Nuevo Año, cutlasses slashing at the flesh that stood between them and their prize, still believing a fortune was beneath their feet. The fighting moved like a wave across the ship, ebbing and flowing, and Fallon and Aja stood together, parrying and thrusting and stabbing at any face they did not know. Fallon slashed the belly of a brute of a man, who dropped his sword and looked down to see his guts protruding from the wound. As the man looked down, Aja stabbed him in the heart with his dirk and the man went down. A shot rang out, Crack!, then another, Ezra Somers taking target practice from the quarterdeck, shooting the eyes out of pirates instead of turkeys. And here was Cully, a cutlass in both hands, swinging his arms like a lethal windmill, cutting down two pirates at a time and screaming at the top of his lungs: “Come on, you fuckers!”
Men were dying in heaps, bloodied beyond recognition, sometimes with a limb cut off and missing. And the fighting was not letting up. A fury had taken hold that possessed each man’s soul, and every man knew it was fight or die. Beauty swung her pike like a staff, backing first one man and then another away before flipping the shaft and stabbing them through the chest. She was merciless and efficient, her peg leg anchored to a ringbolt, letting the fighting come to her. Crack! Another shot, and a pirate dropped dead, his head blown open by Somers just as he’d raised his sword over Beauty’s head from behind. No time for thanks now, she thought, but that was a hell of a good shot!
The decks were pooling red, the sticky red of men bleeding out their lives, never intending to die this way, in the hot Caribbean sun, a scream in their throats that no one could hear.
Now a fresh charge, the pirates making a last push for control. They were rallied by Clayton himself who had jumped down onto the deck, his eyes blazing with hatred at seeing Fallon near the mainmast, furiously slashing at his men. Fallon, who had made a fool out of him once, then twice; Fallon who must now die without pity. Clayton was wild, with his black beard and scarlet ribbon and maniacal laugh, and he hacked his way through the throng, stabbing first one man and then another, seemingly impervious to injury. The sea of death seemed to part for him and at last there was no one save a black boy between him and Fallon. With a flick of his wrist, Clayton slashed at Aja’s back and sent him down, his white shirt slit open like an envelope, a bloody message inside. He lay as still as the dead man he fell next to.
“Aja!” yelled Fallon, a gasping rage in his voice, but there was no time to kneel, no time to take his young friend’s hand and lift him up. Clayton’s sword was on the way down toward Fallon’s head and he just had time to meet it with his sword, though Clayton had the strength to very nearly decapitate him.
Swords locked, Fallon brought his knee up into Clayton’s groin and saw the effect on his face, wide eyes and a gaping mouth that might vomit. Quickly Fallon moved around, putting Clayton against the mast now, and drove his sword into the pirate’s fleshy thigh, just missing the muscle. But the wound only filled Clayton with new rage and, his back protected by the mast, he swung his cutlass in an arc that slashed Fallon’s shoulder open. Instantly, Fallon dropped his cutlass, and as he stooped to get it with his other hand he knew that he was finished, that everything was lost and he would die. Trying to stand quickly he slipped in blood and fell to the deck on his knees. Now there was Clayton’s scream, that high-pitched, terrifying scream that had—not victory—but bewilderment and surprise in its upper notes as Beauty whirled around the mast, her wooden leg anchored in the ring bolt, her pike level with her waist, and drove the tip of that medieval spear into Clayton’s bowels with a force that pinned him to the mast like a collector’s specimen, wiggling and screaming and coughing up his life in red bursts of blood.
Fallon rolled over on his back and stared up at Clayton’s eyes looking down at him, uncomprehending at the last, full of fury and tears. For a moment Fallon couldn’t be sure if Clayton was really dead, and then Crack! Clayton doubled over like a rag doll, still pinned to the mast, his face landing inches from Fallon’s own, a small hole between his eyes dripping blood onto the deck to
mix with Fallon’s own.
Fallon tried to roll away and rise, but then the deck seemed to pull him back, back to the warmth of blood and sunshine and the quiet, unconscious world of the violet hour before death. His last thought was that, before they buried him at sea, he would like to button his pants.
SEVENTY-ONE
IT WAS late afternoon, Nuevo Año and Renegade still drifted together, the fighting over but not the dying. The field of battle revealed its horrible tale, a massacre of humanity on a scale none of the survivors had ever witnessed.
Every pirate was dead, or would soon be, for indeed there had been no mercy that day, no answer to pleas for help except a quick death. Fallon’s remaining crew simply collapsed in place, spent and exhausted, unable to move or think. Wallace lay near the binnacle, his eyes open and looking skyward, gone to meet his God. Cully sat beside him, alive but sightless in one eye, blood running down his cheek and soaking his pants, insensibly staring at an eyeball on the deck that would never sight another gun.
Aja had been carried below, still alive but perhaps with too little blood left in his body to survive the night. The gash on his back was over a foot long, and Theo cooed to him softly as she wrapped him in gauze. She would spend the entire evening holding his hand.
And Fallon would live, though with less movement in his right shoulder than he would like; unable, for instance, to ever again raise his arm to wave good-bye to Elinore. Still, he recovered consciousness and was on his feet, his shoulder tightly bandaged by Elinore and his arm in a sling.
Ezra Somers was in fine health, fifteen kills to his name, good as his word. The last shot had been the easiest, but probably unnecessary, as Clayton was dying anyway. But hell, he thought, I had a dog in the fight, too.
The Bermuda Privateer Page 28
