Heart of Steele

by Brad Strickland

  Heart of Steele

  Brad Strickl and Thomas E. Fuller

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  “A SHIP!” CRIED THE SAILOR ON LOOKOUT DUTY.

  “Where away?” the captain called back.

  “Fine on the larboard bow,” the lookout answered.

  I could see nothing from the deck. Captain Hunter scrambled up the shrouds, though, and stared off to the east. “It’s the Fury” he called down at last, and I breathed a little easier. The Fury was a sloop under the command of John Barrel, a right, true buccaneer and a friend of ours from back in the early part of the year.

  Captain Hunter slid down a backstay like a boy, dropped to the deck, and ordered, “Clear for action.”

  And then, with surprising speed, the Fury shifted her sails, spun about to show us her broadside, and opened fire!

  Read all the Pirate Hunter stories.

  Book One: Mutiny!

  Book Two: The Guns of Tortuga

  Book Three: Heart of Steele

  This book is lovingly dedicated to my youngest son, John Douglas Fuller.

  —Thomas E. Fuller

  And to Thomas’s daughter Christina, his “pickle princess.”

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  First Aladdin Paperbacks edition July 2003

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Text copyright © 2003 by Brad Strickland and Thomas E. Fuller

  Illustrations copyright © 2003 by Dominic Saponaro

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster

  Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Designed by Debra Sfetsios

  The text of this book was set in Minion.

  Printed in the United States of America

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  Library of Congress Control Number 2002113758

  ISBN 0-689-85298-3

  ISBN 13: 978-0-6898-5298-5

  eISBN 13: 978-1-4391-0467-5

  Heart of Steele

  PROLOGUE In Deadly Waters

  My name is Davy Shea. When my mother died in March 1687, leaving me an orphan, I left England and went to live with my uncle Patrick Shea of Port Royal, Jamaica. Uncle Patrick was a respected surgeon. Though he had a fine, high Irish temper, he was kind to me and began to educate me so that when I grew up, I might become a medical man.

  But that plan seemed ruined when he and William Hunter mutinied and turned pirate, setting out on the French-built frigate Aurora to savage the ships in the West Indies. At least, I thought that was what was happening. Then I learned that it was all a plan by the former buccaneer Sir Henry Morgan to bring to justice the notorious pirate Jack Steele. We were not true pirates, but were secret agents of King James II. We were pirate hunters.

  We sailed for months, until the day we engaged the great Spanish warship Concepcíon. With our ship battered, we made our way to the island of Tortuga in the company of John Barrel, a brave and swaggering pirate who trusted us. In Tortuga, we learned that two English officers were being held for ransom, and Captain Hunter was determined to rescue them. One prisoner, alas, was murdered by Jack Steele. The other, to our surprise, turned out to be no man at all, but a Miss Helena Fairfax in disguise—and her “servant boy” turned out to be Jessie Cochran, the daughter of our landlady back in Port Royal, a girl who always found ways of tormenting me and my heart.

  But we also learned that Jack Steele was gathering a pirate armada in Tortuga Harbor. We made a desperate alliance with the Spanish captain of the Concepcíon. In a pitched battle, Captain Hunter broke up the pirate fleet, but now Steele knew that we would never fight on his side. From that moment on, he knew he had a deadly enemy in William Hunter.

  And we were about to find out just how deadly Steele could be on the day our lookout spied a floating wreck of a ship in the distance….

  The Derelict

  “A SHIP!”

  The cry came drifting down from the maintop, almost like a leaf falling from a canvas tree. I lifted my head from the coil of rope where I lay dozing. The air felt hot and heavy, as it had for more than a week. What breeze there was barely served to move the frigate Aurora forward. It was the summer of 1688 and the Caribbees simmered like a buccaneer’s barbeque.

  “On deck, there! A ship!”

  The cry came again and I squinted up the tall stepped lines of the mainmast to where wiry old Abel Tate stood watch in the maintop. Around me I could hear other members of the Aurora’s crew bestirring themselves, struggling up from where they had lain languid in the heat. It was all I could do to haul myself to my feet, but the idea of anything that might offer escape from the usual dreaded doldrums finally got me out of my comfortable coil. I staggered over to where my friend Mr. Jeffers, the gunner, stood, shading his single good eye from the sun with one callused hand.

  “Devil can I see a thing,” he muttered. “It could be whale, rock, or ship for I might swear” Even with the sweat pouring into my own eyes, I had to smile. If he were aiming his beloved cannons, Mr. Jeffers had the eyes of a sea eagle. Otherwise he was as blind as a bat in a well.

  I heard the stamp of boots on the quarterdeck above us and two voices—one light and laughing, the other rumbling and complaining. The laughing voice belonged to our captain, Mad William Hunter, the noted pirate hunter. The grumbling one was that of my uncle, Patrick Shea, the noted surgeon and pessimist. Once they clapped eyes on me, the two would think of one thousand and one errands and chores to keep me from anything dangerous—or interesting. I grasped an idea and felt energy start to flow back into my sweat-drenched body. Uncle Patch says idle hands are the devil’s workshop. That may be, but it takes a bit of inspiration to actually use the tools.

  “Perhaps it just takes a younger eye, Mr. Jeffers,” I said in my most innocent voice, which never seems to fool anyone for some reason. Mr. Jeffers turned and raised one ragged eyebrow in my direction. “And, of course, a bit of height.” I let my own eyes drift upward. Mr. Jeffer’s’s gaze followed my gaze and a broad grin spread across his scarred face.

  “Aye, Davy, lad! Up ye go and send us back true word! That fool Tate would be sighting London Bridge if he thought he could!”

  Quick as thought, I was out of my shoes and scurrying up the mainmast shrouds, my toes clutching the ratlines as I climbed. I heard a distant bellow that could have been Uncle Patch—or a bear amazed to find itself at sea. As long as I didn’t look down, I could honestly say I couldn’t tell which. So I climbed on and the gun deck of the Aurora fell away beneath me.

  The higher I rose, the stronger the breezes driving our ship forward became. After the humid listlessness of the past weeks, it felt like a swim in a cold river. I found myself climbing faster and faster until at last I reached Mr. Tate in his lofty perch atop the great central mainmast.

  “What’s the news, Mr. Tate?” I gasped out, drawing the cool air into my laboring lungs. “Mr. Jeffers has sent me up to find out what’s what.”

  “Figured it wasn’t the cap’n,” he grumbled back. “Cap’n Hunter’s got two good eyes in his he
ad. Bartholomew Jeffers couldn’t see the end of his own nose with a spyglass!” He turned and grinned at me. “‘Course, a good glass might help someone else to use the good sight God gave them.”

  With that, he slapped his own glass into my hands and pointed carefully off to starboard. “There lies a bark, Davy, where the sea meets sky, or I’m a Barbary ape, I am!”

  Quickly I extended the glass and scanned the horizon where his finger pointed, straight off the starboard bow. It took a second or two for my eye to adjust and a few after that to find her, but there she was, on the far horizon and low in the water. Too low.

  “No wonder Mr. Jeffers couldn’t see her,” I cried. “All her masts are down!”

  “Aye, ’twas only pure luck that I spied her in the first place! Not a stump above her railings. Could have been a reef for all she showed!”

  “Could she have wrecked in a storm, Mr. Tate?”

  “If storm it was, she had it all to herself, she did! Not a hint of wind did we have until this morning! You tell the cap’n it weren’t no storm that stripped her. He has the word of Abel Tate on that!”

  I started to fly back down the lines, as fast as I could move hands and feet. If no storm had dismasted that lonely hulk on the horizon, then only one other thing could have.

  Pirates.

  “Steady about, Mr. Warburton,” Captain Hunter said to our hulking helmsman. Mr. Warburton was almost seven feet tall in any direction you cared to go. Right now, that formidable man was licking his lips and looking decidedly nervous.

  “Don’t like the look o’ her, Cap’n. Don’t like the look o’ her at all.”

  “True, she’s not at her best, but we shouldn’t hold that against her.” Since there were no other ships about—and because the heat was so beastly—Captain Hunter had left his gaudy pirate costume hanging in his cabin. Instead of his wonderful emerald green jacket and yellow silk sash, he stood there in white trousers and billowing shirt. He looked annoyingly fresh and alert. I could smell myself all too well.

  “Not what I meant,” muttered Mr. Warburton. “Not what I meant at all.” He chewed on his lower lip as if it was some kind of sugar treat. Mr. Warburton could snap a longboat oar across his leg like a huge matchstick. When cannonballs and shot had been whizzing around his head at the battle in Tortuga Harbor, he hadn’t budged an inch. But the huge helmsman had one flaw: He was terrified of ghosts.

  And if anything ever looked haunted, it was the wallowing hulk we sailed toward.

  “Steady on, Mr. Warburton,” grumped my uncle Patch from the other side of the captain. “I’ve never known a ghost to venture forth in the broad daylight. Not even Irish ones.”

  “There you have it,” said Captain Hunter with a laugh. “If even contrary Irish ghosts won’t dance in daylight, then in daylight are we safe!”

  “Less’n she was done in by a sea serpent,” muttered Mr. Warburton under his breath. “Right fond o’ rippin’out masts, yer sea serpent”

  “If it was a sea serpent, then it used the masts for toothpicks, and I find that even harder to believe in than ghosts,” the captain said, staring through his own spyglass. “Even Irish ones.”

  “You’ve just never been properly introduced to one, William,” said my uncle, a rather nasty smile on his face. “Now there be ghosts in parts of County Clare …”

  From my mother I had heard all about the Wan Pale Lady of County Clare. Since my uncle now began to talk of that well-known ghost, I went to stand at the railing and watch as we approached the derelict. The going was slow, there being barely enough breeze to move us at all. It took close to two hours to get within hailing range of her. And the closer we got, the quieter the crew became until I heard no sound at all except the waves and the creaking of the Aurora’s masts and lines. Something was horribly wrong with the derelict. The wrongness radiated out from her like ripples from a rock tossed into a pond. I breathed a sigh of relief when at last I saw movement on the decks, thinking that at least there were living people there.

  Mr. Adams, the first mate, was preparing to hail her when Captain Hunter placed a hand on his arm. “Hold a minute, if you please, Mr. Adams.” He gestured over to Giles Conway, an ex-marine and the best shot with a musket we had on board. “Are you loaded and primed, Mr. Conway?”

  “Aye, Cap’n, never knows when somethin’ untoward might come about, sir.”

  “An excellent philosophy, Mr. Conway. Would you oblige me with a shot over the decks of our crippled friend?”

  Mr. Conway shrugged, sighted his long musket, then frowned and looked back at the captain. “Should I be aiming at anything in particular, sir? Seems right strange, otherwise, if ye get my drift?”

  “Just fire, Mr. Conway. A nice loud bang is what we chiefly require.”

  Mr. Conway shrugged again, sighted carefully over the sides and gently squeezed off a shot. The sharp, loud crack echoed out across the water, and as soon as it did, the decks of the derelict vanished in a swirling, billowing cloud of white. Hundreds of gulls went screaming up into the air, their harsh cries ripping through the hot, still air. Up and up they spiraled, complaining all the way, not so much like a cloud as like smoke billowing up from a fire.

  Then the wind shifted ever so slightly and a horrible smell came drifting over to us. I nearly gagged, and watched as hardened pirates covered their faces with their scarves and hands. Once as a boy in Bristol I had run an errand for my mother that had taken me close to a slaughterhouse. It was the same smell, only much worse. Everyone stared at the gently rocking derelict as the gulls screamed away. Then we drew close enough to make out her name written large across her stern.

  The Elizabeth Bingham.

  Finally Captain Hunter’s voice broke through the terrible silence. “Best get your things together, Patch, in case someone over there has need of your services.”

  “I wish I felt there might be such aboard her,” my uncle replied, crossing himself as he did. “But I fear they’ll be more in need of stout canvas bags and a round of shot to send them properly home. If anything but gulls lives yonder, then I am no human creature.”

  With the solemnity of a funeral the crew lowered a couple of boats over the side and prepared to close the distance between the two ships. Captain Hunter solemnly turned command of the Aurora over to Mr. Adams and swung himself lightly down into the first boat. Uncle Patch was supervising the lowering of his medical chest into the other and gingerly preparing to follow it. Uncle Patch never could get the knack of getting on or off a ship. Just as he was about to disappear over the side, he locked eyes on me and his rough face got the strangest look on it.

  “Well, don’t just hang about. ’Tis help I’ll be needing if any be alive!” His emerald-green eyes closed for a moment and then flew open. “And if none be, then it’s a lesson you’ll not find in any book, David Michael Shea!”

  I scrambled after him, eager to learn what lesson the Elizabeth Bingham had to teach me.

  I wished I had stayed on the Aurora.

  Across we went, the air still and dead, the slight breeze that had moved the Aurora faded. Slowly the starboard side of the Elizabeth Bingham began to loom above us, but not as high as it should have. She bobbed low in the water, draped in the remains of her masts and sails, all caught in a tangle of broken lines and shrouds. The foul smell grew stronger the closer we got to the crippled bark. A few gulls, braver than the rest, still patrolled the railings, eyeing us with an arrogance that made me shudder. Then we bumped up against her side and there was nothing for us to do but to clamber up the trailing ropes.

  “Oh, blessed Mary and all the saints in heaven,” breathed Uncle Patch as we dropped onto the deck and stood huddled together like children. I could say nothing at all. I felt as though I might never say anything ever again. I had spent months sailing with my uncle as his loblolly boy, helping him treat and sew up injured and dying men. Aye, and I had seen death, helped sew it into shrouds. That was nothing like the sight before us.

  The crew a
nd passengers of the Elizabeth Bingham lay tumbled on the deck of their crippled craft. And had obviously lain there for many days. The bodies were scattered where they had been butchered. The stench of decay was sickening, and the sight was horrible. The seagulls were scavengers of the dead. That was why the ship had attracted the birds. Everything was dappled white with the gulls’ droppings, adding to the nauseating reek of decay. I felt my gorge rise but fought it down. I wouldn’t be sick, not now, not here.

  “Fan out, men,” commanded Captain Hunter. “Check her from stem to stern. If anyone’s alive in this charnel house, we must rescue them or give up our hope of heaven!”

  With muttered “Ayes” the crew members began to move out across the gore-splattered decks. They were quiet and effective, but even those hardened men avoided looking at the dead. Uncle Patch called out. I thought he was examining a body, but he had made another sort of discovery.

  “Don’t know about the other two, William,” he said, pointing at the stub of the mainmast, “but this mast was chopped down with an ax. Bad luck it didn’t hole the hull when it crashed and take whoever did this with it!”

  “Guns are gone,” I blurted. Uncle Patch and Captain Hunter turned toward me, and in the heat and stink of decay, once again I almost threw up. But I didn’t. “You can see where they used to be, the scars where they ran out and back, but they’re gone!”

  “Twelve pounders, judging by the shot that’s left,” Hunter said. “And six cannons, judging by the ports cut in her side.”

  “What kind of loon tries to move twelve pounders from ship to ship in the middle of the sea?” wondered Uncle Patch. “A false move, a snapped line, and a heavy cannon could punch right through the decks and down through the bottom of the ship.”

  “Could they have shoved the guns over the side?” I asked, just to show I was still paying attention, and to keep my mind off my heaving stomach.