A Dishonorable Few (The Honor Series)

by Robert N. Macomber

  In a shaky voice he ordered the men back to the boats, to get aboard Sirena immediately. When Dulce protested, saying that their Christian duty demanded they bury the dead right away, Toledo scowled.

  “This was done this morning, only a few hours ago, and the animals who did this are close by. They are not to the south or we would have seen them. They are holed up somewhere close to the north. In a cove or a river. We must have passed them in the night last night. We go now and find them. Later, when we are done, we can return and bury the dead.”

  Conscious that his men were listening to his every word, Toledo went on, speaking louder. “Right here, right now, men, is our destiny. We, of the Sirena, and the Navy of the Most Catholic Kingdom and Empire of Spain, have been chosen to be the ones. The vermin who did this are nearby and it is we who will find and vanquish them and send them back to hell. And we will do it this very day.”

  He lifted his sword, the ceremonial one he had carried since the academy years ago. The others lifted their cutlasses and rifles as he shouted.

  “It is our destiny men—a destiny of honor!”

  A cheer erupted, growing into a guttural growl of commitment by men who were ready—eager—to kill.

  35

  Battle at Bomkatu

  The reality of his present life intruded into the gringo’s prostitute fantasy with a knock at the cabin door. It was a messenger from the main deck, nervously begging Jefe’s pardon but that the lookout had spotted a steamer five or six miles away, coming north along the coast. A moment later he was on the deck in his trousers and climbing the ratlines, startling the crew, who had never seen the pale gringo go aloft.

  At the main crosstrees he climbed over the shrouds and swung his telescope to the south. There she was. Coming fast, maybe eight, nine knots, a medium-sized gunboat, less than a half mile off the shore and five miles away. Cadena appeared next to him, breathing hard from the climb and holding his wound as he spoke.

  “Warship?”

  “Yes,” came the answer they all dreaded. “She’s a gunboat. Inshore and searching.” The gray eyes leveled at Cadena, unnerving him. “Did you eliminate all the witnesses? All of them?”

  “Every one of them, Jefe. There was no one left to talk.”

  “All right, it was luck of the draw. Doesn’t matter. We’ve got a little steam up already—get it topped up, quickly. I want enough steam to get under way by the time that gunboat arrives, but don’t let the flue open before then. I don’t want them to see smoke until the last minute. I think we’ll have enough time.”

  “Yes, Jefe. Get the steam topped up. What will we do when they get here?”

  “Surprise them.”

  Cadena waited for more explanation. “Jefe, you mean fight them? A warship?”

  “Yes, between the two of us we can maneuver around her, confuse them, and damage or cripple them. We won’t be able to sink her, but maybe get in some lucky shots to slow her down enough so we can outrun her.

  “With the small gun on the old steamer’s deck you can nail her quarterdeck and go for the helmsmen and officers. Riflemen in the tops can shoot down on her decks. I’ll use the packet steamer’s speed to run around her and engage from the other side with the small pop gun we’ve got.”

  Cadena didn’t like the sound of it. Warships were too strong for the small caliber guns they carried, and naval crews didn’t give up like the merchant seamen. He started to object but the gringo cut him off.

  “I don’t have time to hear your whining, Cadena. Just get ready to get under way and follow my orders. And stop being an old lady about this. Show your manhood for once. Now get back to your ship.”

  ***

  Toledo stayed on deck, and sometimes perched in the main shrouds, scanning the shoreline with his telescope. Every officer did the same and every deck petty officer was aloft peering north and west. The crew was tense, ready, and they jumped when the word came.

  “Deck there! A mast! Two masts, three . . . no, four masts. Four masts behind those trees, four points off the port bow, back in the jungle.”

  Half a dozen telescopes turned in unison toward the shoreline, one by one the officers calling out that they saw the masts, not a mile away, forward to the north and about a quarter mile behind the beach.

  “A cove or river, sir. Just as you predicted,” observed Dulce, admiration showing.

  “Deck there! River entrance just up the beach. I see a channel with sandbars extending out.”

  Toledo put a hand on Dulce’s shoulder. “Go aloft and tell me what you see.”

  The lieutenant leaped into the ratlines and raced upward, calling out from the topmast spreaders. “Go right two points, sir. The sandbar comes out in front of us.”

  “Beat to quarters,” ordered Toledo. Kramer, standing beside him, marveled at his composure. Toledo continued. “Slow engine to dead slow. Standby the boarding party for the ship’s cutter and launch.” The bells of the engine telegraph and the bosun’s pipes shrilled out as sailors ran to their stations.

  They were almost up to the mouth of the narrow river, the water coming out of it staining the clear Caribbean brown, when a burst of smoke came from the treeline, then another. “Deck there! The masts are moving! They are coming out!”

  That caught Toledo by surprise. Pleasantly by surprise. He thought they would have to fight their way in and board the pirates in the river. This would be simpler. Much simpler.

  “Deck there! Two steamers coming out.” The lookout’s report was no longer necessary. Toledo could see it all, for they were only a mile from the river entrance, the first steamer coming out the channel at full speed, black smoke roiling from her stack, a puff of gray smoke coming from her foredeck. A small splash erupted in front of the ship, causing derogatory comments from the gun crews.

  Toledo called out, “Send up the battle ensign. Fire number one gun when the first target bears.”

  Flapping madly in the breeze, a giant Spanish naval flag, as big as a sail, streamed out above the sailors, causing everyone to look up, then return to their duties with obvious pride. They may have been born in colonial Cuba, Toledo realized with emotion, but they are Spaniards this day.

  The ten-inch caliber gun had already been laid into the target, turned on the pivot to point over the port bow. The boom was followed by a cloud of acrid smoke floating aft along the deck and a fountain of water that went up right next to the first steamer. Another boom blasted out, the concussion sucking the air away on the deck, the gun crew reloading even before the smoke cleared.

  A cheer went up from the navy crew as a mass of debris exploded on the steamer’s foredeck and the foremast leaned over, hanging in the rigging for a second before crashing alongside. But Toledo saw that it was still coming toward them, and that Sirena was passing the river entrance. The pirates would try to get out behind them.

  “Come right full rudder to due south,” he ordered, turning the Sirena around so that she could reverse course and rake the pirate steamer again, this time over the gunboat’s starboard side.

  The second steamer was now at the opening of the river, coming out twice as fast as the first one.

  “God above! That’s her, the Colón American. Captain, that’s our Panama packet steamer!” cried out Kramer in English, gripping the rail, practically jumping up and down in rage.

  “Shift fire to second target when it bears to starboard,” Toledo said calmly, ignoring the yelling American beside him.

  Sirena was turning now to the northeast then the east, her stern toward the steamers and her starboard side beginning to present itself. The starboard broadside 32-pounder batteries’ gun captains were holding up their hands, signifying their guns were loaded and laid on the target even as she turned. So far the 32-pounders had not been used, only the forward pivot gun.

  Crash! A round from the pira
tes’ small cannon came in through the transom, splinters flying in the air. The gunboat kept turning beyond east to the south, Toledo never taking his eyes from the lead steamer that was closing fast.

  “Switch 32-pounder loads to grapeshot.”

  A bustle of activity began as the gun crews unloaded and reloaded with the close-in deadly scatter munitions. Boom came from the pivot, the shell exploding the bow of the steamer only three hundred yards away. Toledo could see a man in the main shrouds, apparently her commander, directing men on her deck. The steamer shifted course as Sirena came around and steadied due south. Toledo shook his head in disbelief. They were ramming.

  He had to try to destroy her before they hit.

  “Rapid fire with the number one gun. Broadside volley with the 32-pounders. Fire!” Toledo saw that Dulce was next to him and ordered the ship to keeping turning. It would lessen the blow when it came.

  The four side guns roared out a hail of one hundred and twenty-eight one-pound lead balls into the approaching steamer, ripping away the planking on her bow and stripping her foredeck of every man standing. But Cadena’s steamer still kept coming, her engine untouched.

  Toledo, immersed in the lust of battle, knew that this was the moment he had trained and worked for all his life. Unconcerned by the death flying through the air around him, the officer drew his sword and held it high above his head, shouting to the sky.

  “For the honor of Spain!”

  ***

  Cadena stood atop the port side caprail, his aching wound forgotten in the lust of the action, ordering all hands to lie down on the deck for the coming collision and then be ready to swarm aboard the gunboat. El Gringo Loco’s last order to him, as they were unmooring the steamers for the run out the river mouth, was to ram and then board the gunboat. Once the old steamer had immobilized the gunboat, then the gringo would swarm her from the other side, and they would have a warship, a real warship, of their own.

  Cadena loved the idea of it. He saw the white and gold ensign of Spain on her mizzen, billowing out from the smoke pouring out of her stack. You won’t be Spanish for long, he promised. Not for long, you Spanish whores.

  They were close now, seconds away from the collision. Cadena looked back and saw the Colón American charging out the channel toward him, doing every bit of fifteen knots, small puffs along her rail where men with rifles were peppering the gunboat’s decks. He waved to her quarterdeck and saw the figure under the awning wave back. The plan was working. They would do it!

  A movement on the gunboat caught his eye—her captain was shouting something. Then the invisible wall of lead grapeshot hit him before he even heard the sound of the guns that fired it. He registered the impact without fear, noting that it was as if he had been thudded in the chest and right leg with sledge hammers. He could feel the bones shattering inside him, the limbs contorting unnaturally, his body curiously crumpling with no control. Splinters by the dozen dug their barbs into his face and torso, but he felt no pain and didn’t understand why. It was all unreal, so very unreal, as he lay on the deck, blood pouring from wounds everywhere. The steamer smashed into the gunboat’s bow on an angle from behind, instead of the decisive blow he had planned.

  Chaos erupted. The masts and rigging were falling, broken by the force of the crash. Rending wood was shrieking as the two ships bounced away a few feet then smashed together again. Pistols and rifles exploded randomly. Screaming epithets in various Indian dialects and Spanish, the few men in the crew who could stand ran forward to board the gunboat. Desperation drove them, for they knew what would happen if they were captured.

  Crying out in pain, for suddenly it was overwhelming now, Cadena pulled himself up to the gunwale and onto the caprail, swaying unsteadily. He could no longer stand and leaned there, watching as his men were shot down by the Spanish sailors.

  He swiveled his head around to search for the packet steamer. They should be boarding the other side of the gunboat now. He saw her, but it was her stern. They had passed by and were steaming fast out to sea. Leaving him. Running away. He raised himself on an elbow, squinting in the pain to find him, to see him. Cadena finally saw the white clad figure under the awning, standing at the stern, hands on the rail, watching the battle. Watching Cadena die.

  Another blast of grapeshot from the gunboat swept the deck. Cadena’s last conscious sight was the explosion of the small arms ready ammunition box on the deck near him, as a sheet of flame covered him. He didn’t feel the ricocheting bullets that fanned out. He was already dead.

  ***

  The forward pivot gun had been making hits on the fast steamer, but she wasn’t slowing down and now the pivot wouldn’t bear, the collision having turned them toward the beach. Toledo shouted for his men to fend off and disengage the pirates, to go after the packet, but no one could hear him above the incredible noise. Everyone on Sirena’s deck, including Kramer, was firing a pistol or rifle into the pirate steamer alongside to starboard.

  Toledo climbed up on the gunwale to get above the confusion and smoke. He had to see about getting away from this steamer in order to destroy the one escaping. Peering over at the steamer next to him, he saw they could back away in reverse and clear the wreckage. Then they could bring the gunboat’s bow around to the west and get the pivot gun into play. That way he could still stop the fast steamer. Toledo turned to give the order to the quartermaster at the same moment the broadside 32-pounders lashed out and the pirate’s ammunition box exploded, only fifteen feet away.

  Kramer, standing by Sirena’s stack and looking aft, saw it happen. He would remember it for the rest of his life, and cry every time. The captain was engulfed in an explosion.

  By the time the American reached him, Toledo was being gently set down on the deck by a burly petty officer. The Spanish captain still had the ceremonial sword gripped in his right hand, chin quivering from the agony of his catastrophic wounds, abdomen laid open and oozing gore. Kramer knelt on the deck and cradled his friend’s bloody head as the Spaniard slowly tried to form words.

  “Tell my father . . . tell him . . . say, that I died . . . as a . . . naval officer . . . should.”

  Kramer fought back the tears as the hand went limp and the sword dropped on deck. “I will, Fernando. I will . . . amigo . . . for the honor of Spain.”

  A rumble came from below deck when the engine went into reverse, gaining power until the deck vibrated violently as Sirena backed away from Cadena’s sinking ship. Lieutenant Dulce strode by, calling for the pivot gun to rotate to port and fire at the diminishing shape of the packet. More shots went into her, bringing up smoke, but didn’t stop her. No chase was started, for even when she was newly commissioned, Sirena couldn’t keep up with the packet’s kind of speed. The sailors swore blue oaths and pounded fists, frustrated at their impotence, devastated at the death of their captain.

  Kramer was still holding Toledo when Dulce knelt down next to them.

  “We killed them all, but in addition to Captain Toledo we lost three ourselves. Eight wounded. The packet steamer is too fast for us. We must wait for the Canton to come, then give her the information so they can continue the chase.”

  Kramer didn’t answer. It was all just too much for him.

  36

  Searching

  It took Canton a day to get there, with Plover a day behind. Treating the wounded, repairing the ship, and searching for escapees filled the time for the Spanish sailors. Their lieutenant explained to Wake, Russell, and Monteblanco the horrific scene they had found at Uani and the subsequent battle at Bomkatu River. Tears filled Dulce’s eyes as he described their friend’s death and how the packet was damaged but had escaped. His guns had hit her solidly several times, he explained, bringing down rigging and sending up smoke, but failed to stop her completely, though he did not understand why not.

  He also explained that since the packet was so much fas
ter than Sirena, he had decided to stay where he was and round up the outlaws who had made it to the beach. Three more Spanish Navy sailors had died while pursuing the renegades ashore, but they thought that in the end they had gotten them all. They had aboard four in irons, locked in the hold.

  He ended his report with the butcher’s bill, as naval seamen everywhere called the casualty list. Captain Toledo was joined in death by six sailors, and eight more sailors were wounded, all by rifle fire. Wake and Russell thanked the lieutenant and suggested that he take his ship home to Cuba where the men, both alive and deceased, would be considered heroes. The prisoners could be transferred from there. Kramer, distraught and exhausted, requested that he be allowed to find passage back to Panama.

  An hour later Sirena weighed anchor and made her way through the reefs north toward Cabo de Gracias a Dios, then northward toward Cienfuegos, on the southern coast of Cuba. Leaving at the same time, Canton and Plover steamed northeast along the course last seen of the Colón American.

  “He was a good man, Peter,” said Monteblanco as he watched the Spanish warship disappear on the rolling horizon. “He reminded me of my father. A true gentleman of the old school.”

  “Yes, he was good man, Pablo. And from your descriptions of your father, I can see the similarities.”

  “But this is not really a fight for a gentleman, is it?” Monteblanco sighed.

  “No, Pablo. I think I disagree there,” answered Wake as he shook his head sadly. “This is exactly the kind of fight where a gentleman is needed—lest we descend to the enemy’s level. It’s what sets us apart from them, my friend.”

  ***

  The men thought it was hopeless, but El Gringo Loco knew better. He had always been amazed by the ingenuity and audacity of the Confederate raiders. Now he would do them one better.

  The Colón American was a wreck, not destined to float for much longer after being torn apart by the Spanish Navy’s guns. She was leaking everywhere and they had gotten the fires out only after much work.