With renewed hope, I set off again to find the river.
*
The sound I’d heard was from a waterfall, and the pool beneath looked big enough to swim in. After only just escaping from swimming to my death such a short time ago, I desperately wanted to be immersed in water again. Heaven—no salt! I drank as much as I swam, and finished up sitting under the waterfall, being sluiced with fresh clean water. It washed the old me away; washed the old memories away, but it couldn’t wash away the image of Tarr’s face on my decks. I renewed my oath of vengeance. I’d tried living well and honestly, and he’d killed that life—again. It was time to fight back. To take what I wanted. To do things differently.
Chapter 12
LEO
14th March 1684
Unknown Island West of Dominico
By my reckoning, I’d been alone a week and hadn’t seen any sail. Not a single one. I looked at the unlit fire I’d built on the beach, and fingered the flint that had survived my swim tied to my breeches. I was ready, but if there was no sail, this beacon was useless. Will I spend the rest of my life here?
I looked around. It wasn’t so bad really. I had plenty of fresh water and fruit. There were birds, fish and turtle in abundance. I could survive here. But I needed people, and I needed to settle my debt with Tarr and his men. I needed to get off this island.
I stared out to sea again, and swept the horizon with my glass. Nothing. If I was going to get back out into the world, it would be up to me. I’d have to build a boat.
I turned and studied the treeline. The only blade I had was my three-inch sheath knife; I had to get this right first time. So, I had a choice to make: do I start felling the palm trees near the shore to make a raft; or one of the sturdier cedar trees further inland and hollow out a canoe?
Both options would be hard work, but which would take longer? And which would be most likely to keep me afloat once I headed back out into the waves?
I thought the cedar might be best—it was what the Carib Indians used, after all. It would be sturdier and more seaworthy than a raft, but it would take a lot of hewing to cut down and hollow out, and how would I get it to the beach?
I sat on the sand and lay back in the sun. I’d think on it. There was no point in starting the work until I’d formed a plan. I had only the one blade and it was small. I couldn’t waste it.
I closed my eyes. Raft or canoe? Raft or canoe? Cedar or palms? How many palm trees will I need to cut down anyway?
*
“Leo?”
I grunted and turned over on the sand.
“Leo! Captain!”
I sat up quickly and blinked. This was cruel, to dream so vividly about Frazer and the others.
“Leo? Are you well?”
Frazer reached out and grabbed my arm. I flinched. Dreams couldn’t do that, could they?
“Frazer? Is that really you?” My voice was hoarse from disuse.
“Aye, Captain.” He laughed—a rarity. “It’s me. Juaquim’s here too, and Alonso, Lopez and Rafael.”
He grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. I stared at the men, then staggered to the waterline and the pinnace that was hauled up on the sands. A boat!
I turned back to Frazer.
“How?” I asked, unable to form a more coherent welcome.
*
Tarr’s men had overpowered the crew quickly, and Frazer had followed my lead and jumped overboard; albeit with the forethought to cast off the pinnace’s line (the pinnace was the larger of the two boats we towed). He hung onto the line, hauled himself aboard, and picked up the others from the water. The six of us were the only survivors.
I’d known Frazer since I was little more than a boy; Luis had put him in charge of my welfare when I first went to sea. It had taken some time—he was a surly, bad-tempered bastard—but we’d become close friends over the years, and I’d learned to trust him with my life.
He’d insisted on following the current westwards to look for me, and they’d spent the past week visiting every cay in the vicinity. It appeared my washing up on the island had been more inevitability than luck after all—I’d drifted past two or three others.
*
“There’s something else, Leo,” Frazer said after we’d eaten a feast of turtle. I looked up in expectation. I’ve lost my ship and most of my crew, what else can there be?
“Juaquim?” He looked at the topman, who nodded and quickly finished his mouthful of meat.
“Sim, yes, Mr. Frazer. Well, as you know, I was in the tops and had a good view of the pirate deck,” he began.
“Yes, yes, I know,” I said, impatient.
“Well, I saw her.”
“Who?”
“Magdalena.”
I stared at him.
“What do you mean you saw Magdalena? You can’t have, she’s dead.”
“No, she isn’t. It was Tarr’s ship that took her, wasn’t it? Well, she’s still aboard. She looked well.”
I jumped to my feet, grabbed him by the neck of his shirt, and hauled his face close to mine.
“Are you certain? Are you absolutely certain it was Magdalena?”
“Sim. Yes. I’ve sailed for her family most of my life, I’d know her anywhere. It was Magdalena, for sure.”
I let go of him and staggered backwards. She’s alive? All this time I’d thought her dead, and she’s alive? What have I done? What has she lived through? And I abandoned her to her fate. Madre de Dios! Mother of God!
I looked at the men sat around the large fire.
“We have to get her back,” I said. “We have to go after Tarr.”
They stared at me.
“You know that means sailing as pirates?” Frazer asked. “We need a ship and a lot of guns, plus the men to fire them. We need to learn to fight at sea and fight well. It will take time.”
“Sí, pirates,” I said. “Will you help me? However long it takes?”
“Aye, Leo, we’ll help you. We’ve nothing to lose and scores of our own to settle with that bastard and his crew.”
I looked at him and shook his hand, then did the same with the other men, and I realized they’d already decided to do this before they’d found me.
I grinned. “Pirates,” I said again, and laughed. I had a future, and Magdalena would be in it.
Chapter 13
LEO
26th September 1685
Three Leagues Southeast of the Island of Sayba
“Don’t fire on their stern, Frazer. If Magdalena’s aboard, that’s where she’ll be, in one of the aft cabins.”
My quartermaster nodded. Our normal tactic in a fight at sea were to pound the other vessel’s stern to disable the rudder and prevent them from maneuvering. Once they were unable to steer, they were at the mercy of our guns. I was asking my closest friend and crew to attack one of the most feared ships in the Carib Sea, and to do it the hard way, with little chance of success. But this wasn’t a fight for gain or prestige. We fought by different rules today.
“We’ll aim for the rigging; disable them that way,” said Jean-Claude, my master gunner.
“Broadsides,” I reminded them. “I want Tarr’s whole crew kept busy.”
“Aye, Captain, we know.” Frazer sounded impatient. “Be off with you, they’re drawing close.”
I looked to the northeast at Tarr’s ship, Pinta—although she now bore boards proclaiming her to be Edelweiss—and swung myself over the rail. Since Frazer and the others had found me on my island, we’d taken successively larger boats, honing our fighting skills as we did so. A year after I’d lost Pinta to Tarr, we took our first proper ship. One hundred feet long, with a burthen of 245 tuns and twenty three cannon, most of her crew chose to join us (I didn’t force anyone to my crew, and no one would have lost their lives had they chosen differently). I renamed her Sound of Freedom for the noise of her bow wave against her wooden hull as she cut through the Carib Sea. She’d be Magdalena’s freedom.
After a year and a half at s
ea as a pirate, I was ready to take on Tarr.
*
I looked at the three men with me in the pinnace. After my earlier experience at the hands of Tarr, we filled the small vessel with food, water and gold as a precaution against losing Freedom, put her off and kept her out of the way of every fight. Today we were still a rescue boat, but the mast remained unstepped, and the four of us waited in Freedom’s lee for the battle to begin in earnest before we sailed into the thick of it.
Sheltered by Freedom’s bulk, I couldn’t see Pinta—Edelweiss—but I knew she was drawing close, because Freedom had hardened up. Steering closer to the direction the wind was coming from would give an advantage to the ship that got her timing exactly right. Both ships wanted this weather gage—to be closer to the wind gave them more options and more freedom in maneuvering as well as controlling the other vessel’s wind. But to make the move too soon meant exposing the vulnerable stern and rudder to the other ship’s cannon. Tarr didn’t know that Freedom would not fire on his afterquarters.
“Get ready,” I said to King and Phillippe on the oars. “We’ll go as soon as Jean-Claude fires his first broadside.”
Almost as soon as I’d spoken, all the starboard cannon fired and Freedom rolled toward us; almost on top of us, then righted herself.
“Cast off, Alonso.”
Alonso released the line that tethered our bow to Freedom, and Phillippe pushed us off with his oar.
Tarr answered Freedom’s broadside with one of his own, just as we rowed around Freedom’s bow. The two ships were almost level, with Freedom slightly upwind. Frazer had beaten Tarr to the weather gage. My smile of satisfaction didn’t quite make it to my face. We were exposed with open water between the two ships, and we had to cross it quickly. The water was choppy and confused by cannonball, and hard work to row through. If just one of Tarr’s gunners spotted us it would only take one well-aimed ball to sink us.
“Pull! Pull!” I instructed, urging my men to row harder. At least we didn’t have far to go—less than a hundred yards.
*
Alonso leapt from the boat to climb Edelweiss’s stern with mallet rather than cutlass tucked into the black sash wound around his waist, and the boat fell behind. He drove wooden wedges between rudder and hull, preventing Tarr from steering, and disabling the ship.
I looked up at the gallery of windows twenty five feet above my head. I’d have a much longer and more difficult climb to make, and couldn’t be sure I’d find Magdalena at the end of it. But the cabins were the most likely place for her to be in a fight. Even Magdalena wouldn’t be on deck, surely?
I urged King and Phillippe to get close-to again, and hung a coil of rope around my neck and one shoulder in readiness. It was hard work for the two on the oars to regain the ship, and I had no choice but to wait before I could follow Alonso onto the hull.
“Captain!”
I checked myself at Alonso’s shout and looked up. Magdalena. Her familiar face surrounded by a mass of dark curls had appeared through one of the windows.
“Stay there, Magdalena, I’m coming up!” I shouted. I felt a pang of guilt for leaving her to fend for herself at Tarr’s mercy for so long. But she hadn’t changed, not even after two years aboard a pirate ship, and I watched in frustration as she clambered over the rail. She was going to jump.
“Magdalena, no! Wait! It’s too high!”
She took no notice and leaped into the water, her skirts billowing around her.
“Magdalena!” I screamed.
She hit the water. I held my breath. There! There she was, clawing her way back to the surface.
“Pull!” I shouted at my men. “Hurry!” I had to get to her. I had to grab her; hold her; pull her aboard to safety.
I looked up at a cry from the ship. The helmsman had noticed a problem with his steerage, leaned over to check his rudder and seen us. Mierda! It’s too soon! I looked back to Magdalena to urge her to swim harder, but couldn’t find her. There! Her head broke the surface again. She was caught in the eddy created by the jammed rudder, and her saturated gown was pulling her down.
“Magdalena!” I shouted as she was dragged under again. Alonso dived after her.
I looked up at the sound of pistol fire—the rail was lined with men, all shooting at the two in the water and my boat, and I recognized both Tarr and Blake amongst them. I searched the other faces as I fired back, looking to see if I recognized anyone from Pinta’s crew before Tarr had taken the ship from me. I did not. There was no one I knew.
“Magdalena!” I looked up at a face leaning over the rail she’d jumped from. A long, curly wig and an eyepatch. Who’s he? Why’s he not shooting at us? What is Magdalena to him?
I looked back to the water. Magdalena’s struggles were getting weaker, but Alonso had reached her. The ship had moved further ahead, and the swimmers were in calmer water. Alonso started to drag Magdalena toward the boat and the gap between us closed.
“Get back to your oar!” I shouted at King. He’d dropped it to fire back at the men on the ship, unwilling to keep his back to a volley of pistol fire. He dropped his spent pistol and grabbed the oar again. I picked up another pistol from the pile in the bottom of the boat, fired it and leaned over the side. Magdalena and Alonso were close now, but lead balls fountained the water around us.
“No!” I screamed as Magdalena’s body jerked from an impact, then another. The water around her reddened.
I grabbed another pistol, and fired at the men who had killed her, then grimaced as Tarr silently toppled overboard. But I couldn’t get any satisfaction from his death. It wasn’t enough. Not now.
I grabbed hold of Magdalena again and hauled her still body aboard. I knew we had to get out of there and quickly, but I wouldn’t leave her for the sharks. Alonso climbed in, and we started the pull back to Freedom.
Chapter 14
We didn’t have far to go; the two ships had almost sailed past each other and Frazer and my crew did their best to keep the Edelweiss gunners busy, but lead rained around my small, vulnerable pinnace. I sheltered Magdalena’s body as best I could while I reloaded my pistols. I knew it made no sense, but I refused to let her be hurt again. I’d already failed her too much. A scream made me look up. Alonso pushed King out of his way—and on top of Magdalena.
“Mierda!”
“He’s dead, Capitán, and we will be too if we don’t get into Freedom’s lee quickly,” Alonso snapped in Spanish. He took King’s oar and matched Phillippe’s stroke.
I nodded and fired again at Edelweiss’s stern and the men gathered there. One unfortunate tar had started the climb down to free the rudder, and I aimed carefully. The longer Edelweiss was dead in the water, the better.
Yes! The man fell and another started to descend—Blake was obviously just as brutal a master as Tarr had been. I aimed again. Missed. I tried again, but realized they were out of range. I reloaded and kept firing anyway. Tarr might have fallen, but Blake still lived.
Alonso and Phillippe cheered as Freedom’s stern chaser put a two-pound ball through the other ship’s stern, shattering the rudder and scattering the men there. Edelweiss was ours—crippled with no way of maneuvering. Pinta was mine again.
“Pull,” I shouted, and realized Freedom had loosed her sails and slowed—we’d soon be back aboard.
*
“She’s likely going down, Leo,” Frazer said as I stepped onto my decks. He didn’t ask after Magdalena. He had no need to; he’d seen what had occurred.
“Wear round and let’s finish her,” I ordered. “I want that ship and her crew of cut-throats on the bottom!”
He shouted the orders and Freedom started the laborious turn that would take us back into cannon range of the damaged pirate ship.
“Sail oh,” Juaquim shouted from the masthead.
“Mierda!” Now what? We were still only halfway through our turn, Freedom had taken damage, our supply of cannonball was running low, and my gunners were exhausted. I needed no more complications.
I jumped up into the ratlins, telescope in hand, to have a look at the new arrival for myself. She was headed straight for the two ships and I realized who she was as soon as I recognized her for a twinmaster. Freyja—Hornigold.
“Mierda! Shit!” I swore in both Spanish and English.
I climbed back down to the quarterdeck and Frazer.
“We’re too badly damaged to take them both on, Captain.”
I knew Frazer was serious when he addressed me as Captain rather than Leo. I nodded, reluctant. If I carried on I had a good chance of sinking the crippled Edelweiss, and sending her entire murderous crew to the bottom. But Freedom had so many problems of her own that she’d be no match for the smaller, fast, maneuverable and fully-armed Freyja. I’d already lost two people in the pinnace, including Magdalena, and another had died aboard Freedom from the splinters sprayed around the gundeck from one of Tarr’s hits. I looked at my decks and the men for whom I was responsible. I’d lost enough for one day, I wouldn’t send any more to their deaths in a fight we were unlikely to win.
“Bear off,” I said, and Frazer repeated my order at full shout. I slammed my fist into the bulkhead aft of the quarterdeck and swore, loudly, then went into my cabin. I could not let my men see me lose control.
Chapter 15
LEO
29th September 1685
La Isla Magdalena
We buried King and Hitchens at sea, but Magdalena didn’t belong there. I’d brought her to the island where I’d been washed ashore from Pinta. She could sleep here, and she’d never be forgotten on La Isla Magdalena.
The Valkyrie Series: The First Fleet - (Books 1-3) Look Sharpe!, Ill Wind & Dead Reckoning: Caribbean Pirate Adventure Page 24
