~~
A hundred yards away on board the San Jacinta, Capitán Juan Pedro Recalde was a gasp away from erupting into the mouth of one of Havana's most talented courtesans. His head was turned toward the bank of gallery windows and despite his eyes rolling halfway back into his skull, he saw the tall pillar of orange flame shoot up into the midnight sky. A moment later the rumble of the explosions passed in a wave over the ship and he grasped the woman's head to pull her off but she was suckling with the strength of a leech and he heard himself roar along with the echo of the eruptions.
There were three other officers in the cabin, each in a similar state of debauchery. One was sprawled naked on the berth with two women slithering over him. Another had a whore bent over the table and was working on her from behind while she nibbled dispassionately at some sweets. The third was already passed out in a corner with half a bottle of red wine spilled down the front of his uniform.
The evening had begun with a formal dinner hosted by the captain of the San Jacinta, Eduardo Alvarez Villaneueva. The meal of roasted boar had been served on gold plates accompanied by wine sipped from jewel-encrusted goblets. Plans for the fleet's departure were discussed wherein Recalde was awarded the coveted honor of sailing first in line behind the flagship. There would be more honors heaped upon him when they arrived in Cadiz with his most prized trophy, the famed pirata lobo himself, Simon Dante.
Dante had been rowed out to the San Jacinta with Recalde and was now chained to one of the upright beams in the cabin. His wrists and ankles were bound in steel manacles. His body and clothes were relatively clean but only because the stench of being caged for a week in the town center would have put the gentlemen off their glorious meal. He had been towed behind the gig that had carried Recalde out to the flagship so that the salt water would rinse away the remnants of rotten food and bovine turds that had been flung at him. Half drowned and choking on salt water he had been dragged into the cabin and manacled to a beam.
Throughout the meal the officers had occasionally tossed a scrap of crust or half-chewed gristle his way but Simon had kept his head down and for the most part ignored them.
"Can you believe," Recalde had asked at the outset of the evening, "that this... dog... has been the cause of so many years of strife? So many ships captured and lost! So many good men dead by his hand! Ah, but you should have seen my conquistas laying waste to his precious lair. You would have marvelled at the pirate dogs begging for mercy as we soaked their beaches red with blood."
"God's Glory," said the capitán-general, his eyes glazed with zealous pride. "I look forward to his public trial and execution. It will be a day of celebration like no other!"
Recalde nodded. "If only my brother could have lived to share in the glory."
"He lives here, in all of our hearts. The name Recalde will never be forgotten!"
"Capitán Recalde! Capitán!"
Recalde blinked through the fog of alcohol and pleasure. A junior officer was leaning over his chair trying to rouse him. The woman had moved away and was standing at the sideboard rinsing her mouth with rum.
Recalde straightened out of his slump and fumbled to close his breeches. His head and tongue were thick as posts and he reached for his goblet to ease the dryness.
"There has been an explosion. One of the supply ships in the harbor is on fire."
Recalde looked around the cabin. "Have you informed Capitán-General Villanueva?"
"I attempted to do so, but, ah, I cannot seem to waken him."
Recalde squinted through the brightness of the lamplights toward the berth, where the captain was spread out like a starfish, his mouth open, snoring in a drunken stupor.
"Capitán Morales?"
"Indisposed as well."
"Christ Jesus!" Recalde pushed himself upright and swayed a moment before sitting back down again. "Something is always on fire in this blasted hellhole of a city. Is there any cause for alarm?"
"The ship appears to be close to shore, but—"
"But what? But what?"
"A storm is approaching and already the wind has increased. If the sparks are carried over the town—"
"It would be a boon, for the whole city reeks like a cesspool."
"And if the wind turns? If the sparks are carried over the harbor?"
"It would be an even greater boon," said Simon Dante from the shadows. "Thirty years ago I had the pleasure of standing beside El Draque and watching an entire Spanish fleet burn in Cadiz. I would relish watching another burn here."
"Shut your mouth dog!" Recalde launched himself out of his chair and stayed upright long enough to land three, four, five solid kicks to the chained figure before he had to stagger to the washstand and puke the sour contents of his stomach into the porcelain bowl.
"A boat," he gasped. "Have a boat made ready to take us ashore."
"As you wish, Capitán."
The woman who had pleasured Recalde so avidly approached him with a cup of fresh wine but he slapped it and her aside and doubled over the bowl to vomit again.
~~
Hobson Grundy had not wasted a moment in turning the Avenger's jolly boats into fireships. Five large kegs of gunpowder went into each, buried under piles of oil-soaked combustibles, pots of brimstone, and buckets of sticky rosin.
As soon as he heard the explosions from shore, he dispatched the gigs along with the two fishing boats into the maze of galleons with two strong oarsmen apiece. When the boats had built up enough forward momentum, the men set them alight and jumped free to swim back to the Avenger.
The fireships burst into flame and, driven by the strengthening breezes, drifted toward the darkened hulks of the fleet. The fires soon began to set off the kegs of powder, each erupting in huge balls of flame and sparks. Adding to the confusion, Young Pitt was on the quarterdeck with his quiver of arrows wrapped in pitch-soaked rags. One by one he touched the tips to a lit candle and began shooting the fiery arrows into masts and yards, aiming for the fat bundles of furled sails high up where fires were the hardest to douse and would rain shreds of burning canvas down over the decks.
From all points of the compass, from every deck of every ship in the harbor there was shouting, screaming, and chaos.
Isabeau ordered men to hack through the anchor cables with axes to free the Avenger from her bonds as more booming explosions rocked the night air. On all sides, crews on the crowded clusters of galleons were doing likewise, trying to save their ships and move them out of harms way. All the while, streaks of flame were arcing through the night sky striking sails and masts, landing on decks, sticking into hulls. A shipboard fire was the most dreaded horror a sailor could imagine and the raiders worked that fear to their advantage.
As the fireships drifted deeper into the crowded fleet of galleons, more of the exploding casks were sent cartwheeling into the night sky, spreading globs of burning pitch over the supply ships and pinnaces that were tethered to the galleons. Ten, twenty galleons were able to get underway and made for the channel to protect their cargoes.
Isabeau commanded the crew to stand ready, her eyes anxiously searching the waters between the Avenger and the San Jacinta.
"We need to get underway soon," Varian advised. "Before the mouth of the channel becomes clogged with ships."
"We wait," Isabeau said. "And while we wait, have the gun crews light their fuses."
Chapter Thirty
Enough Spanish garb had been found on board the Avenger to outfit twelve of Dante's crewmen like an elite guard of conquistas. With Jonas in his red and yellow striped doublet marking his authority as captain, they loaded into a longboat and rowed boldly across the span of open water between the two ships. Surprisingly enough, their approach was not challenged by the guards on the deck of the San Jacinta. Rather, as they came closer, they were waved forward with windmilling arms and urgent shouts to make haste.
Scarcely had the boat bumped against the side of the galleon when there was a commotion overhead and four men began de
scending the gangway ladder. Gabriel and Jonas exchanged a glance and both men curled wary hands around the grips of their pistols.
The first man down the ladder was an aide who held one end of a thick chain. The other end was attached to the iron manacles that hampered the second man's descent, making each step slow and awkward. When he reached the bottom rung, Simon Dante looked over to place his foot on the bulwark and glanced up. His gaze locked briefly with a familiar pair of amber eyes but if he was startled or shocked or incredulous to find himself standing beside his eldest son, his expression did not change. Not until his attention was drawn past Jonas's broad shoulders and he saw Gabriel.
His lips parted as if to question what his eyes were seeing, but Jonas grasped his arm roughly and snarled in Spanish, "Filthy dog! What are you staring at? Get into the boat before I carve your eyes out for the insult."
Simon moved stiffly away from the ladder and stumbled to the bench in the middle of the boat, his chains dragging across the planks.
Recalde and another uniformed aide were a few steps behind him. "Ashore! Get me ashore as fast as you can!"
Jonas raised a hand and whirled it to indicate the rowers should dip their oars again. As they moved away from the towering hull of the San Jacinta, clouds of thick, acrid smoke from the burning fireships were beginning to drift across the surface of the water. They were engulfed within seconds and it was not until the longboat had drawn alongside the hull of the Avenger that Recalde's head cleared enough to notice.
"You blasted imbecile! I said take me ashore! I demand you do so at once or I will relieve you of your command!"
The two armed aides stood to emphasize the threat and Jonas nodded to his own men, who drew their pistols, whipped the butts across the heads of the aides and pushed them overboard.
Recalde recoiled from the splashes in shock. "What is the meaning of this? What is the meaning?"
Simon Dante grinned at Jonas through the tangle of matted hair. "Your timing, as always, is impeccable."
"We would have been here sooner but Mother wanted to deal with another little matter first. She thought you might like to have the Avenger back under your feet before we sailed away."
Simon drew a deep breath. "My Isabeau is alive? Thank the good sweet God. And the others?"
"What is the meaning of this!" Recalde screamed again. His head had been swivelling back and forth trying to follow the conversation, which had been in English. His eyes were glazed from the evening of debauchery, his nausea not improved by the smoke boiling around them.
Jonas reached up and removed the steel helmet, shaking his thick red hair free. He tossed the helmet into the water then unbuttoned the striped doublet and flung it over the side as well.
"Wh-who are you?" Recalde asked.
Jonas leaned forward, his mouth pressed into an ominous grin. "Your worst nightmare," he hissed.
Recognition struck through the fog of drunkenness like a bolt of lightning. Recalde choked over a curse as he leaped to his feet and tried to draw his sword. Having dressed in haste, the scabbard was caught up in the edge of his doublet and he spun in a half circle before he could get the blade partway free.
Gabriel Dante snorted with disdain and swung the butt of his musket hard around, landing a solid blow to Recalde's belly. The Spaniard doubled over onto his knees and started vomiting again; a second blow to the back of his head saw him slump over and land in the puddle of his own puke.
~~
The men who had rowed the fireboats to various points in the harbor were all strong swimmers and made it back to the Avenger just as the crew was setting the main and foresails to guide her toward the mouth of the bay. They joined a crowd of ten, fifteen galleons that had been able to get underway to protect their cargo from the fires and explosions. The Avenger's exit from the chaos in the harbor went unchallenged and they glided down the channel and past the guns of the two fortresses without incident.
Most of the fleeing ships sailed straight out into the safety of the open water; only one peeled off and veered west, and with no light showing, vanished almost instantly into the smothering darkness.
~~
"I thought it a shame Gabriel shot Glencairn Rowlandson. A musket ball to the head was far too easy a death for a man who had betrayed us and caused the death of so many good people."
The Dante men were seated around the large oak table in the great cabin. They had been under sail for two hours, their speed hampered by the battle damage and leaks in the hull that crippled Simon Dante's valiant Avenger. The rescued crew, for the most part, had been reinvigorated by their escape and were eating what food they could find on board, draining the barrels of ale and fresh water to quench their thirst.
Varian St.Clare was present as well, but in body only. His mind and spirit was in another cabin where Juliet was in the process of giving birth. She was attended upon by Isabeau and Evangeline, who said the babe was big but coming along fine.
Bellanna, Molly, and Young Pitt were in another cabin attending to Geoffrey Pitt's wounds. Bella had balked at first, knowing she had nowhere near enough experience to deal with such dreadful wounds, but with Digger on board the Tribute and Isabeau dealing with her daughter's hard labor, she was the one to whom Young Pitt appealed to help his father. Jonas agreed and bolstered her courage with a kiss and a look in his eyes that made her tremors melt away. He trusted her to do her best and that was all the courage she needed.
Jonas estimated that with luck and the storm winds pushing behind them, they would rendezvous with the Tribute in another hour or so. His ship was tucked into a small bay along the Miskita coast where there were high peaks on land for lookouts to see them coming. They would also be sheltered from view long enough, he hoped, to reinforce the repairs on the Avenger.
Where they would go after that…?
Simon and Gabriel had spent the past two hours painting a verbal picture of the horrors that had happened on Pigeon Cay, from the shocking surprise of the attack to the last terrible moments when they realized their ammunition was gone, half the remaining men and women were too weak or too injured to sustain the fight. The manor house was all but destroyed and there was no where left to retreat and regroup.
"Some of the men said they would prefer death by their own hand over surrender," Simon said. "But we had fought too hard, lost too many brave men to take the coward's way out. And, as it has happily turned out," he looked up and let his gaze touch proudly on his sons, "it would appear we made the right choice. Unfortunately… a little too late for some."
Jonas had been watching his father's face throughout the harrowing details of the raid and knew that at that moment, he was undoubtedly thinking of Lucifer. The former slave had been by his side longer than Geoffrey Pitt, and had shielded him, protected him, fought at his back and saved his life too many times to possibly count. As Simon told it, the last glimpse he'd had of the seven foot tall Cimaroon, Lucifer had been scything his way through a phalanx of soldiers who had cornered Christiana Pitt and a small group of children. Naked to the waist, a cutlass in each hand, the blades spraying Spanish blood as he hacked his way through the attackers, he had slain a dozen or more before the sheer number of armored conquistas finally brought him down.
"I don't think Geoffrey realizes that Christiana is gone," Gabriel said. "Or that all but three of his children perished in the raid…" his voice trailed away and he shook his head.
"But those three survived and will need him," Simon said. "And that will give him three good reasons to live."
"And live he will," said Hobson Grundy, coming into the cabin and nodding brusquely at the others. "The lassies have cleaned 'im up as best they could an' bound 'is wounds. Might lose the eye, though. It be swole twice the size and so full o' blood it near popped out o' the socket when she took the bandage off. His leg? Dunno if that can be saved either. The wound is deep an' already smells o' putrefaction. If it 'as to come off, we should do it soon afore he gets all of his senses back."
"No!" Bella stepped into the cabin behind Grundy and every pair of eyes in the room turned to stare at her.
"No," she managed to say more calmly. "There are no red veins creeping across the skin and the only thing that smells of putrefaction is the filthy shirt that was used to bind the leg. The wound is not like Digger's," she said, appealing to Jonas. "Not at all."
Simon looked up sharply. "Digger lost his leg?"
Jonas nodded. "Aye, we met with a little trouble before we made the crossing. Had to go to the rescue of our old friend, Cornelus Janszoon."
"The Dutchman needed rescuing?"
"A tale for another time. But he did mention a new meeting place where the Spaniards tend to stay clear. Turtle Island, he called it."
"I've heard of it." Simon nodded. He stood and went over to his desk, thankful to see most of his charts were still slotted into their cubbyholes. He drew one forth and spread it open on the desk, studying it a moment before stabbing his finger down.
"There. Isla Tortuga."
"You will never make it," came a raspy voice from the shadows. "Every ship in the Spanish fleet will be sent out to search for you."
Jonas glanced over to where Juan Pedro Recalde had been chained to one of the thick wooden posts. The manacles that had chafed Simon Dante's wrists and ankles were now locked tight around Recalde's. Additional lengths of chain had been wrapped around his neck and chest so that he could not move or even turn his head.
His face was a mass of bruises, for it had not gone well for him when the crew discovered who was being brought on board. He had been kicked and pummelled with fists and likely would have earned a score of knife wounds had Simon not interceded, promising a more fitting punishment come the dawn.
"You are assuming, of course, that there are still enough ships left in the harbor to form a fleet." Simon smiled tightly. "The last glimpse I had of Havana Bay, it was lit up like an inferno."
The Far Horizon Page 30
