“—and with a draught of just under ten feet—Faith, Liam, will you please let go of my sleeve?”
“But it’s Crichton!”
“I know it’s Crichton, and I imagine I’ve known so for a sight longer than you have, given the fact you were boozing it up belowdecks for the better part of the afternoon. I also know there’s a squadron behind him and Sir Geoffrey Lloyd’s flag on the seventy-four. Three years ago that was my ship, remember? And Sir Geoffrey my admiral?” He grinned, as though the memories brought him no pain, and glanced around Liam’s brawny shoulder. “A point more a-larboard, Mr. Keefe! Aim her right toward that big tree sticking up above the others.” Dropping his gaze to the drafts once more, he added conversationally, “They call that the Beacon Oak, Liam, because it’s a landmark to guide mariners in from the sea. In his letter, Ashton said to watch for it—”
“If ye don’t get yer head out o’ the clouds and stop thinkin’ of that bloody schooner, none of us’ll live long enough t’ see her built, let alone sail her!”
“Now, Liam.” Brendan elevated one eyebrow and gave his friend a patient look. “My head is not in the clouds, but set properly atop my shoulders, just where it should be and just where I intend it to remain. Faith and troth, I do wish you would all stop pestering me so.”
“But yer leadin’ him straight into the river!”
“Precisely.” He grinned. “Now, stop worrying, would you? Do you see me worrying? Faith! Newburyport’s a rebel town, Liam; they simply despise the British. Not only did they stage their own tea party four years ago, they’ve even sunk a pier and some old hulks across the mouth of this river just to keep them out. Hidden, of course, but combined with the currents and shifting sandbars just beneath this placid-looking surface, I do believe one of them will stop Crichton.”
“One o’ them’ll stop us! Ye haven’t the foggiest idea where yer goin’! Ye’ve never been up this damned river in yer life!”
“First time for everything, eh?” Still grinning, Brendan returned his attention to the drafts.
The frigate was so close now, they were almost riding her bow-wake. Carriages squealed as her mighty guns were rolled into position. Musket fire cracked from her tops, and a ball whizzed past Liam’s ear, parting a stay. Another holed the speaking trumpet beside Brendan’s hip and flung it to the deck. Forward, Annabel’s men began to shout an alarm, while Fergus’s chanting rose to a desperate pitch: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want—”
Shots pinged against a nearby cannon, tore another chunk from the deckhouse, drove into the mast.
“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters—”
Another shot ripped the tricorne from Brendan’s head.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil—”
Brendan looked up, his expression puzzled. “How odd, all this time and I never knew Fergus to be a religious man.... Oh, Liam, would you fetch my hat, please? I seem to have lost it. Faith, what would Ashton think if I showed up for dinner half dressed?”
“—for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me—”
“I do hope I can find this place, Liam. Ashton says I’m supposed to look for a big, handsome Georgian house when I get into town, white with green shutters and an anchor out front. Newburyport’s a sea town. I’ll bet everyone has white Georgian houses with green shutters and anchors out front. Think I’ll have any trouble finding it?”
Pop. Crack. More musket fire. Pieces of wood exploded from the boom above their heads. Liam buried his face in his huge hands.
“And do you think Ashton’ll have the table all set?”
Liam’s head jerked up. “What?!”
Brendan folded the drafts with precise care, slipped them into his pocket, and grinned. “Why, I could just kill for a nice, savory neck of mutton, a wedge of fine cheese, hot boiled potatoes, and Indian pudding, drenched in maple syrup....”
“Dammit, Brendan, how can ye even think o’ supper at a time like this?!”
“And why not? ’Tis seven o’clock, precisely the time I should be thinking about supper, as it is when I usually dine. Oh, Mr. Keefe! You might let her fall off another point; we don’t want that broadside staring us in the face ... Liam? Liam, are you listening to me?”
“Jay-sus, Brendan, Jay-sus—”
“Well, please do, because if I should fall today—which I’ve no intention of doing, of course—you will remember your promise to get these drafts to Ashton, won’t you? Have him build the schooner and use her as the privateer I’ve designed her to be. And as for the steeve in the bows, I’ve decided that more is better, after all....”
But Liam wasn’t listening; he was staring, transfixed, at Dismal, his mouth opening and shutting like a gasping fish as he caught sight of the haughty, triumphant figure on her quarterdeck. “B-Brendan,” he choked out.
“And if Crichton should take us—again, I vow he shall not—then, and only then, rip the drafts up. Toss the pieces over the side. Destroy them, burn them, swallow them if you have to, but do not, I repeat, do not allow them to fall into British hands. If the Admiralty manages to get hold of them, ’twill be a terrible thing indeed.... Why, Dalby!” Brendan glanced up to find the terrified little sailmaker standing before him, his Adam’s apple bouncing up and down amid the cords of his birdlike neck. “’Tis kind of you to join us, but I really would like a good eye up in the bows—”
“Those sunken piers are beneath us, sir, I just know it! And I can’t see a thing with all this glare on the water. We’re going to hit one of them, and it’ll be my fault!”
“Calm yourself, Dalby. I have things well under control.”
“But, Captain, I’m going to be sick, sick—”
“Please don’t get sick now, Dalby; wait till we reach port.”
“But, Capt—”
“Liam!” Brendan grasped his lieutenant’s arm, jerking him from his terrified reverie. Newburyport was approaching fast; Brendan could hear the church bells ringing now, guns firing, dogs barking as the alarm was raised. “Please take Dalby forward and watch for those piers, would you?”
“Aye, Cap’n!” he shouted. “’Bout time ye got serious!”
Liam was already hauling Dalby forward at a dead run, his shirttails billowing behind him. Brendan grinned, and in his best quarterdeck voice, called, “And glazed almonds and mince pie, and pear tarts smothered in sweet, fresh cream....”
He heard Dalby’s wheedling voice: “Liam? Liam, why’s the captain talking about food at a time like this?”
But Liam only ran faster, hauling Dalby over debris and deck furnishings alike.
“Haven’t had fresh cream in ages! Faith, must be at least three, four years now! How ’bout you, Liam? Getting sick of pork souse and hardtack?”
Over his shoulder Liam shouted, “If I ever get t’ see pork souse and hardtack again, I swear, I’ll get down on me knees an’ kiss yer goddamned feet!”
Brendan, grinning, glanced over his shoulder at Dismal’s bloated spritsail. “And custards and jellies, apple cider, cold glasses of milk—run out the starboard guns now, would you, Mr. Saunders?—sauces and gravies and piping hot bread, fresh from the oven and just oozing butter....”
“And your bloody toes, too!” Liam bawled.
Brendan laughed. “Double-shotted, Mr. Saunders!”
“In the bread, sir?”
“For heaven’s sake, Mr. Saunders, in the guns. What in God’s name d’you think I’m talking about, eh?”
“Aye, sir! Right away!”
“And lively, Mr. Saunders!”
They were well into the mouth of the river now. Close abeam, marshlands and riverbanks slid past. Ahead, Newburyport was growing larger; fine homes of brick and white-painted wood looking out over the riverfront, their windows glinting with orange sunset. Wharves stretched into the harbor, and a church thrust a spire toward the sky.
Dismal, just beginning t
o overtake them, maneuvered her mighty guns into position.
“Stuffed mutton and Indian pudding....” Retrieving his speaking trumpet, Brendan dusted it off with his elbow, heedless of the fresh musket hole like an eyeless socket in the metal. “Though I could pass on the green beans, if Ashton’s serving them!”
He peered over the side, staring down into the swirling depths, not thinking at all about the supper he was determined not to miss, but about those sunken piers that Dalby and Liam would probably never see, the sunken piers that were probably approaching just ... about ... now—
“Hard alee, Mr. Keefe!”
The helmsman shoved the tiller over so violently that men lost their footing, shot spilled across the deck, and the topsail yard stabbed down like a harpoon. Striated bars of sand swept beneath them, broken here and there by the fuzzy, ominous hulk of the sunken pier just beneath the river’s surface. As one, the crew held their breaths, cringing. But their captain knew what he was about. A sigh, a whisper, and they were safely through the channel. Another sigh and they looked up to see brigs and sloops, schooners and cutters, some anchored, some docked, and some already moving toward them.
Brendan leapt onto the deckhouse, waving his speaking trumpet and jumping up and down in excitement. “Steady, Mr. Keefe, steady, steady, steady!”
Crichton wasn’t as clever. With an agonized shriek of grinding timbers, Dismal struck the sunken pier, her broadside lighting up her entire side in fiery tongues of orange against black. Thunder split the air with an unholy, deafening roar. Iron slammed against Annabel’s sides and whined overhead. There was an awesome crack, like a lightning bolt hitting too close, and the mast teetered wildly. Men screamed, stays and shrouds split with a noise like gunfire, and the deckhouse fell out from beneath Brendan’s feet.
Air whooshed past him. A cannon belted him across the shoulders, sky flashed beneath his shoes, a piece of railing shot by his face. He hit the deck on his back, careened across it on his coattails, and slammed into the truck of a gun so hard that his sword split in two. He lay there for a moment, stunned, the fact that he was too dazed to even wonder if he was dead assuring him that he was not. Smoke burned his throat, seared his lungs—and through it he saw the ghostly shapes of Crichton’s guns, running out once more.
He lurched to his knees, raised his half-sword, and choked out, “Fire!”
And then the deck itself seemed to open up and fall away. Grabbing frantically for a line, he was aware of someone yelling his name, and then nothing but weightlessness, space, and the dizzying rush of air against his face, his arms, his legs, before he hit the sea with a stunning slap.
Not again.
He clawed toward the surface, grabbing a piece of flotsam and fighting to stay afloat as the river’s mighty current swept him past the smoke-wreathed frigate, the point of Plum Island, and eventually, into the cold, open Atlantic. Powerless, he watched the thick black cloud that hung over the two ships diminish in size as he was carried further from his ship, saw a few stabs of orange as fire was exchanged. And then there was nothing but vast, empty space beneath his feet and a sea bottom that lay countless fathoms beneath him. And still the current, drawing him farther and farther out to sea.
Sunset came and went. Gloom snuffed out the smudge of land that was Plum Island, distant now and growing more so, until even the lights that marked it sank below the horizon. The flotsam was cold and slimy beneath his cheek, the constant slap of the waves filling his nose and mouth and sinuses with every rise and fall of the sea beneath him. Up and down ... up and down.... The stars came out. The moon rose to stand guard over him, sheeting the ocean in silver and picking him out as a speck of life in a vast and starlit emptiness. He locked his arms around his float, laid his cheek atop the wet wood, and despite the biting chill of the ocean, fell asleep.
His Irish luck held. Dawn found him still alive, paralyzed with cold and barely able to open his swollen eyes when the first rays of sunlight poked over the horizon and nudged him out of his stupor. His waking thoughts were of neck of mutton and Indian pudding dripping with sweet maple syrup. Groaning, he dug at his eyes with a white and wrinkled fist. Sunlight lanced his pupils and sent a shaft of pain straight into the back of his skull. Spitting out seawater and squinting against the glare, he managed to focus on that blinding ribbon of sea that marked the eastern horizon.
He blinked, squinted, blinked again. For there, etched as dark squares against the white glare, were the sails of a fine and lovely ship, a ship that saluted the morning and heralded its arrival upon her proud pennants and the highest reaches of her sun-gilded masts. A curl of pink light sparkled at her bows, along her sides. Her canvas and shrouds sang in the wind.
She was glorious. She was beautiful.
And she was coming for him.
He wondered if he were dead and this was his just reward, for there was no feeling left in his limbs, no reasoning left in his brain. Just fogginess and a thick, swirling haze, pierced here and there by sounds; the protests of spars and canvas as the brig hove to, the keen of water dying beneath her bows. Frantic shouts above him, splashes nearby, the thunk of oars against a hollow hull. Gentle hands worked around and beneath him. Rope, swathed in sailcloth to lessen its bite, was passed beneath his arms and chest, tightening until the pressure between his shoulders and against his ribs became blinding pain. The sea sucked at his legs in a last desperate attempt to hold him as he was hauled free of it, and through the salt-swollen slits that were his eyes, he saw blue water, slowly revolving beneath him, sparkling, blinding, as he was hoisted higher and higher.
A rail brushed his knees. Hands supported and guided him as his feet touched a solid deck, his legs crumpled beneath him, and he was eased down to warm, dry planking that smelled pleasantly of sunlight and vinegar beneath his cheek. Dimly, he was aware of someone tugging at his stock, loosening it and tearing it free.
“Easy, now, careful with him. The poor fellow’s been through enough. Joey, fetch the surgeon, would ye? And Jake, stop gawking and go get me a bucket of fresh water from below. Blankets, too, while you’re at it, lots of ’em. Hurry, now!”
Brendan coughed, and tried to sit up.
“Easy, there, fellow,” came that Yankee drawl again. Firm hands pressed against his chest, pinning him against the sickeningly solid deck. Brendan saw a pair of boots three inches from his face, smelled their worn leather, and felt shadows cooling his cheeks as someone leaned over him. “Mr. Malvern’s on his way to see you now. Some hot gruel and a few warm blankets and you’ll be on your feet in no time, guaranteed.”
He tried to open his eyes, for there was something familiar about that voice ... something very familiar. Something connected to the drafts.
It hit him with choking horror. The drafts. He’d never given them to Liam! They were still in his pocket, and he’d just spent the night in the open Atlantic—
He clawed upward into the blinding brightness. His fingers brushed a hat, knocked it awry. A rough cheek, someone’s nose, a light object of wire and glass.
“The drafts!” His eyelids parted like ripping cloth. Through a wall of pain he saw a reedy man in a slapdash, half-buttoned coat bending over him and blocking the sunlight, the proud pyramid of sails rising high above his head. Hair so red, it hurt his eyes to look at it. Dense patches of freckles sprinkled like cinnamon over a narrow nose down which a pair of spectacles was slowly sliding. The man raised his head, presenting the underside of his red-stubbled jaw, but Brendan had seen enough to know who he was.
“Ashton!” he gasped, lapsing into a fit of choking.
“That water, Jake, give it here!” the man yelled, reaching impatiently for the wooden pail.
Moisture trickled between Brendan’s teeth and across his swollen tongue, dragging pain down his throat and into his writhing stomach. The world tilted and swam. The water was coming too fast for him to swallow, most of it splashing down his chin and the rest of it making him cough and gag. Choking, he twisted away, willed himse
lf not to be sick, and gasped, “Matthew Ashton!”
Instantly the water stopped coming.
“Nice ... to meet you again, sir. I trust—” Brendan’s swollen lips cracked in a grin. “—you have the table all set?”
Ashton gaped at him. “What?”
“He’s out of his head,” a seaman muttered.
“And British, just as we thought,” another said darkly. “His Majesty’s finest. Told ye he was off that frigate.”
“British? Sounds Irish t’ me.”
“Idiot, he’s as British as tea an’ crumpets!”
“Irish, damn ye! And as full of blarney as a four-leaf clover.”
“’Bout as lucky, too.”
But Ashton was peering speculatively at him, his brown eyes magnified by the thick lenses of his spectacles. Didn’t he recognize him? Didn’t he remember their meeting off Portsmouth?
But no, the Yankee was already standing up, pushing his spectacles up his nose with one freckled finger. “I, uh, think we’d better take you below, good fellow. My surgeon is most competent, and perhaps some rest would do you good. You’ve obviously been through quite an ordeal.”
“No, please, you must understand! I am not ... unhinged.” Brendan shut his eyes, too sick, too weak, to protest further. “I know fully well what I’m about ... but I see that my delay in introducing myself has ... led to some confusion about my identity.” He opened his eyes and stared desperately up into the Yankee’s freckled face. “You are Matthew Ashton, American privateer. Your father is Ephraim Ashton, shipbuilder—” He took a deep breath and tried to grin. “—and I am Captain Brendan Jay Merrick, late of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, late of the sloop Annabel, and late—very late, I’m afraid—for dinner.”
“Good God,” Ashton expostulated, and dropped the water pail.
Someone wrapped a blanket around him. Hands drove beneath his shoulders, his arms, his legs, lifting him high. The deck fell away beneath him and he opened his eyes to the sight of Ashton’s face, spinning in a blurry mass of freckles, red hair, and spectacles. Didn’t the Yankee believe him? Did he look so bad he didn’t recognize him? Panicking, he began to struggle wildly.
Never Too Late For Love (Heroes Of The Sea Book 9) Page 11
