The Guardship botc-1

by James L. Nelson

  Someone forward was cursing, loud and vehement, wounded by the old Vengeance’s inadvertent broadside. LeRois did not care about that, but he was concerned about those bits of flaming material that had landed on the deck.

  “Allez, allez! The flames! Get them out!”

  In the waist the men pulled themselves from the spectacle and stamped the flaming bits that threatened the deck, and one by one the glowing embers flared and died.

  When he was satisfied that he would not lose his new ship to the flames, LeRois turned back to the old Vengeance. The long tentacles of the fire were reaching out of the gunports and the hole that the gun had blown in the side, reaching up and grabbing on to the mizzen shrouds and the quarterdeck rail, pulling itself up and out of the great cabin, taking command of the vessel. They were brothers, he and the fire. Together they ruled the night.

  And then something else caught his eye, something beyond the burning ship that was throwing back the light of the fire.

  “Eh? Qu’est-ce que c’est?” He pushed forward along the rail, shoving those Vengeances out of the way that were standing there stupidly watching the ship burn. He got to the break of the quarterdeck and stared out into the dark.

  It was like a ghost, wavering before his eyes, dimly seen, and LeRois felt the panic rising. And then suddenly it seemed to materialize and take form, and he realized that it was not a ghost but a sail, the gaff-headed mainsail of a sloop, coming downriver. He would never have seen it had it not been for the flames rising up from the old Vengeance.

  He smiled, and then he laughed out loud. “The devil, he will not let you sneak up on me, eh?” he shouted at the sail, then shook his fist.

  He could see the faces of his men turning toward him and then following his gaze. He could hear loud speculation through the crackling of the flames. The voices were singing their warnings, high and clear, almost shrieking, but more lovely than that. The flames danced over the quarterdeck of his old ship, and laughing faces appeared among the brilliant yellows and reds, and LeRois laughed with them.

  “Allez, now, they are coming for us!” LeRois shouted. He drew his sword and pointed toward the sloop. “That is the first, but there are more, and last of all will come Malachias Barrett, who is the very devil himself, but I am a bigger devil than he, eh?”

  His men looked confused, the stupid sheep, so he tried to make it more clear for them. “The guardship we chase here, she is coming back for us now, and soon they will be aboard us. They will try to come from two sides, the ship and the sloop, but we will be ready for them, no?”

  Now heads were nodding as the men began to understand that they would soon be attacked. They scattered, some running, some limping, some walking, to see to the great guns and small arms, to load firelocks and return the edge to swords and to sharpen themselves with whiskey and rum.

  They are animals, LeRois thought, they know only living and fucking and killing and dying. He alone knew better, and that was why the voices had put their lives, all of their lives-the Vengeances’, Malachias Barrett’s, the king’s men-all of them into his hands.

  “Je suis le seul maitre a bord apres Dieu.” The words came to his lips unbidden, the words the priests had taught him so many, many years before. He had not thought of them in all that time.

  Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.

  The sound of the great gun blasted Marlowe from his self-indulgent reverie. Brought him up all standing. His first thought was for the Northumberland. She was downriver somewhere, probably right up with the pirate ships. If she had been discovered, the pirate’s heavy guns would rip her apart before she got within two cable lengths of the enemy’s side.

  He swung himself up into the mizzen shrouds and scampered up until he was ten feet above the deck and peered forward. He could see nothing beyond the darkness and the few burning buildings ashore. His shoulder ached from the tension. He flexed it, waited for more cannon to fire. Waited

  for the river to be illuminated by the pirate’s broadside. Waited to see his sloop die in the muzzle flashes of the big guns.

  But there was nothing, nothing more, no more heavy guns. Perhaps it was some of the drunken brigands making fireworks to amuse themselves. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, forced himself to relax, hoping that the exercise would help him to see in the dark. He opened his eyes again, avoiding those lights on the north shore, and looked over the starboard side.

  Now he could just make out the pale outline of sandy beach that ringed the northern banks of Hog Island. It was just abeam. He moved his eyes forward, scanning along what he reckoned were the tops of the trees, and there, just beyond the island, he saw the masts.

  They thrust above the denser foliage, just visible where the dark sky met the darker horizon, skeletal limbs reaching up to heaven. Both ships were there, Vengeances old and new. He did not know which the pirates would be aboard. He did not know if he would be able to see well enough in the dark night even to maneuver the Plymouth Prize alongside.

  There was another sound now, a popping like a rope under a heavy strain. Small-arms fire? Marlowe turned his ear toward the noise. Yes, that was what it was. Was it possible that the Northumberland was engaged? Marlowe had felt unwell for the past hour, as his meeting with LeRois drew closer, but the thought of Bickerstaff and James embroiled in a fight, and he himself unable to join in, made him positively sick to his stomach. He grabbed tighter onto the shroud.

  And then another big gun went off and Marlowe nearly tumbled out of the rigging. He could see the muzzle flash this time, spewing its flame out into the night. It illuminated the side of the pirate ship, the smaller one, and the water out one hundred feet from her side. The Northumberland was nowhere to be seen.

  Marlowe swallowed hard, forced himself to be calm. It had been years since he had felt this kind of fear. The last time, in fact, was when he had finally summoned the courage to tell

  LeRois that he was leaving, and that had been the closest he had ever come to being killed.

  He climbed back down and stood on the quarterdeck rail, one hand on a shroud to steady himself. The Plymouth Prizes were at their guns, craning their necks out of gunports and twisting in odd ways to see around the barrels. They had a true believer’s faith in him, and that would have to sustain them now, for he could think of no inspiring words to get them riled up for the coming fight. He wished he could, but he could not, and he did not trust himself to speak.

  Just as he was wondering how in all hell he was going to negotiate the shallows around the island, two more guns went off in rapid succession, one, two, and this time they fired south, straight into the Wilkenson Brothers.

  “Good Lord!” Marlowe cried, despite himself. The blast from the guns lit the big pirate ship up in two quick flashes, like shuttering and unshuttering a lantern.

  The after end of the old Vengeance seemed to glow with a light from within, and that light was reflected on the water around her stern section. Marlowe squinted, shook his head. Then the flames burst up around the quarterdeck and up the mizzen rigging. The ship was on fire. And the fire, no doubt, had set off the guns.

  Marlowe watched the flames running over the quarterdeck and up the mizzen yard as the dry canvas of the mizzen sail was consumed.

  The burning ship was a threat to them. If the Plymouth Prize caught fire, with her hold full of powder, the resultant explosion would rock the colony, would kill every man on the water, pirate and Prize alike.

  The fire was throwing off an ever-widening circle of light. It crept out over the water, fell across the Northumberland, which was attempting to circle around the pirate ships undetected and come up on their far side.

  So much for that idea, Marlowe thought. It was the only trick he had in his bag.

  “Damn me,” he said out loud, though he always figured that God would grant that request unbidden. The Wilkenson Brothers was two hundred yards away. He could hear the chaos of the pirates getting ready for a fight, the rumble of big guns running out, the
clash of small arms made ready.

  “Damn.” He glanced around, fidgeted with the hilt of his sword, opened his mouth to give an order, closed it again. His trap had been found out before it had sprung. Every one of his tingling nerves told him to put the ship about and retreat upriver, to abandon the fight until another day.

  That thought gave him a great sense of relief. It was the only reasonable thing to do. He grasped at that excuse like a drowning man grasps at his rescuer, pulling them both down.

  But it was nonsense. If he was to have this elusive thing called honor, this thing that somehow had become so important to his life-real honor-then he could not lie to himself. If he were to retreat, it would be because he was afraid.

  What was more, explaining to Nicholson et al. why he had broken off the attack, mounting this attack again, going again through the awful hours leading up to his meeting with LeRois, it would all be more terrible than just doing it now.

  “In the waist!” he shouted. “Mr. Rakestraw, we shall be falling off a bit, make ready at the braces. Gunners, you know your duty! Two broadsides, small arms, then over the sides! Listen for my orders, or Mr. Rakestraw’s, if I should fall!”

  If I should fall. He felt no twinge at all when he said those words. LeRois could do no more than kill him. He took a deep breath and turned to the helmsmen and said, “Fall off, two points.”

  The bow of the Plymouth Prize came around, aiming for that stretch of water between the two pirate ships. There was no question of being able to see now; the fire aboard the former Vengeance had broken clear of her great cabin and filled the quarterdeck. It ran halfway up the mizzenmast and was spilling down onto the waist. All of the water one hundred yards around the ship was brightly lit; it reminded Marlowe of the great bonfires they used to build on the beaches around which they

  would have their drunken, frenzied orgies back in his days in the sweet trade.

  The side of the Wilkenson Brothers looked like burnished gold as the fire washed the new black paint with yellow light and cast deep shadows along the side. The light from the flames spilled over her sails in their loose bundles, the black standing rigging, the muzzles of the guns, even the steel of the weapons that flashed in the hands of men along her rails, and made it all that much more frightening.

  The pirates were starting to vapor, to chant and bang on the sides and the rails, clashing cutlasses together. Marlowe felt the sweat crawling down his back and his palm slick on the hilt of his sword. They were one hundred yards away and closing quickly.

  Someone was beating bones together with that distinctive hollow clunk clunk clunk. And then someone was chanting “Death, death, death,” and Marlowe realized that this was his own men.

  He pulled his eyes from the flickering ghostly enemy and looked down into the waist of the Plymouth Prize, now as clearly illuminated as if they had a fire going on the main hatch. It was Middleton, standing on the rail by the foreshrouds and chanting “Death, death, death,” and beside him another man had two beef bones and he was banging them together. Marlowe saw smiles flashing in the firelight, and more and more of the guardship’s men began, “Death, death, death…”

  The Plymouth Prizes swarmed up into the rigging and along the rail, and they, too, were banging their swords on the sides, chanting and screaming. Someone on the pirate ship fired a pistol into the air, and it was met with three from the Plymouth Prize. Marlowe wanted to order them to stop, to save their fire, but the vaporing was doing more for his men’s state of mind than any amount of preparation could accomplish.

  They were fifty yards from the Wilkenson Brothers, and the cumulative force of the men’s voices-king’s men and pirates-seemed to be drawing the ships together, seemed to suck all of the air out of the space between the two vessels. Every chant, every shout, every pistol shot on either side drove all of them to great heights of frenzy. They waved swords and beat swords and fired pistols and shrieked with the urgent lust to kill one another.

  Marlowe’s carefully issued orders, repeated many times, had been entirely forgotten. There was no thought of broadsides, no thought of small arms. The men lining the rails and the channels and screaming and vaporing and flashing their swords in the weird flickering light of the burning ship did not want to think. They wanted only to kill.

  The pirates were lining the rail as well, screaming back, dancing men and dancing shadows, and there were far more of them than there were Plymouth Prizes. Had the Prizes any grasp of reality left they would realize how perilous their situation was, but they were swept up in the frenzy, they were berserk, and they thought they were invincible.

  Twenty yards, and the Plymouth Prize was in a perfect position to use her cannon to great effect, with the pirates standing as they were on the rails, having forgotten the punishment the Prize had doled out weeks earlier. But the men of the Plymouth Prize were also on the rails, their big guns abandoned.

  “Lay us alongside!” Marlowe shouted to the helmsmen. “Right alongside, bow to bow!”

  The helmsmen nodded, pushed the tiller over a foot. Marlowe dashed down into the waist. Found the linstock at the first gun he came to, but the match was out, raced to the next tub. The match on that linstock was still glowing, but barely. Marlowe blew on it, blew again. It flared to life, glowing a dull orange. He twirled the linstock in his hand and ran back to the first gun.

  Through the gunport he could see the Wilkenson Brothers’ mizzen chains, crowded with howling men, her quarterdeck rails lined as well. He did not see LeRois, but he hoped a desperate hope that the man was there, right in line with the muzzle, as he pushed the glowing match down into the powder train.

  He leapt back as the train sputtered to life, was halfway to the next gun when the first fired off, slamming inboard. He could hear crushing wood and howls of outrage and agony, and he touched off the next gun and then ran to the next.

  Each blast seemed to momentarily kill the vaporing, and then it was back again, louder, more confused, more vehement. Marlowe ran down the line, firing each gun, never pausing to see what destruction he was doing. He put the match to the penultimate gun, prayed again that one of those killed would be LeRois.

  Marlowe was reaching the match to the forwardmost gun when the two ships hit. The Plymouth Prize shuddered to a stop, throwing him off balance. The glowing match missed the trail of powder as Marlowe struggled to keep on his feet. From over the side came the wrenching, shattering sound of the two ships grinding against each other.

  Thomas regained his balance, shoved the glowing match in the train of powder. The gun was actually touching the side of the Wilkenson Brothers when it smashed its load into the merchantman’s frail bulwark and blew it clean away.

  He looked up at his own men standing on the rail. Middleton was there, his sword raised over his head, his face twisted into the most insane mask of rage and bloodlust as he rallied the Prizes to leap across. The fire from the old Vengeance illuminated him as if he were an actor on stage or some savage before a pagan ceremonial fire.

  And then there was a smattering of small-arms fire and a pistol ball smashed into the back of Middleton’s skull, blew his forehead apart. The fine mist of blood and bone was perfectly illuminated by the light of the fire. The lieutenant began to topple forward, but before he could hit the deck he was pushed back by the frenzied men of the Plymouth Prize as they stormed over the rail and down onto the pirate’s deck.

  Middleton’s body fell from sight. Marlowe hopped up onto the carriage of the number one gun and then stepped up onto the rail, his left hand on the backstay for balance. He was looking down at the deck of the pirate ship, where his wild outnumbered men were surging forward, pushing the pirates back.

  A pistol ball struck the backstay. Marlowe felt it quiver in his grip. He drew his sword, picked his spot, and leapt down into the fight.

  Chapter 36

  THE WAIST of the Wilkenson Brothers was in deep shadow, with the bulwarks shielding the deck from the light of the burning ship. Men moved
in and out of the night. Swords raised overhead gleamed as they reflected the fire. The flash of pistols, pan and muzzle, lit those dark places for a brilliant second and then the shadows closed in again.

  Marlowe felt the burn of a cutlass cutting across his arm even as he tried to recover from his leap to the deck. He twisted instinctively, swung his big sword around, reached for a pistol as he fell. Felt the jar of the blade making contact, but he heard no scream and did not know if he had even struck his attacker.

  He hit the deck flat on his back, his sword in his hand. The pirate was standing above him, leering, cutlass raised, ready to deliver the coup de grace. Marlowe brought the pistol up, pulled the lock back with his thumb. The pirate bellowed outrage as he tried to bring his cutlass down before Marlowe fired the gun.

  He did not succeed. Marlowe pulled the trigger, tossed the gun aside, giving no more thought to the big man he had just blown to the deck. He scrambled to his feet, his back to the bulwark. In a half-crouch, sword gripped in both hands, he got his bearings.

  The Plymouth Prizes and the pirates had smashed into each other like surf across a bar of sand, and now they were fighting it out where they stood. Most of those who were wounded or dead had been shot down by the Plymouth Prize’s great guns or by pistols in that first wave, but once those guns had been fired there was no time to reload, and now it was steel against steel.

  Marlowe looked aft. More dead men there, more wounded crawling away or curled up in the shadows. His firing the great guns had had some effect, made the numbers a little more even, and now the Plymouth Prizes were plunging in with a fury to match the pirate defenders.

  If I’ve turned them all into brigands, at least I’ve taught them more than just greed, Thomas thought as he stepped into an open place in the line and matched swords with a wiry, bearded little man with a scarred face and black teeth.