by Scott Cook
This was no soft and doughy aristocratic girl who’d been pampered all her life. This young woman was well muscled and firm. As his hands explored her, he felt the power of her muscles beneath the tight silky skin. Her upper arms had a distinct bulge in them. Not quite as a man’s, but clearly powerful without being masculine. In his mind, which was quickly becoming feverish with desire, he thought that this must be what the ancient Amazon queen must have been like. Or perhaps Aphrodite herself.
“Oh Mon dieu…” he muttered with pleasure.
Then he found himself being shoved onto his back by her strong arms. For an instant, he felt a pang of fear. Her strength was amazing, perhaps even greater than his own. Yet when her hot wet mouth found his, his fear evaporated and the mounting lust he felt rose high once again, culminating in an erection that was almost painfully hard.
“Will this convince you?” She asked him huskily.
“We will see,” He tried to brazen, but it came out more as a wheeze.
She giggled in the dark as she gripped him, giving him a playful squeeze, “That we shall, mon capitaine.”
He grinned broadly as Kate levered herself up on her knees as if to straddle him. Meraux could barely contain himself, so excited was he at the thought that he’d soon be buried inside this young wildcat. He feared that the encounter… at least the first one… would be brief indeed, so powerful was his desire.
He moaned softly as her hand found him again and gripped his ready flesh and then moved slowly down… and then clamped down on his testicles so hard he felt bile rise in his throat. The cold steel of a sharp blade against his Adam’s apple kept him silent however.
“You so much as squeak and I’ll carve out your French tongue,” Kate hissed, all pretense of sexual ardor gone now.
Again she pondered whether to simply kill the man outright. Leaving him alive in any fashion could only cause her grief. Again, though, she had to remind herself that she was no pirate nor scoundrel. Indeed, she fancied herself an officer in the Royal navy… or wished to be. And a gentleman, or in her case gentlewoman, didn’t arbitrarily slaughter the enemy in cold blood. No matter how despicable that enemy might be.
“You’re going to allow me to lash you into that cot,” She explained, pressing with her blade for emphasis. “I’m taking back my ship… and yours… and then I’ll set you and whomever of your men is left on shore. You can take your chances with the Indians. Is that clear?”
Meraux, having little choice at the moment, croaked out an affirmative. Kate eased herself out of the cot, still holding the knife to his neck and cast about the dark cabin, searching for a convenient length of line. That’s when Meraux seized what he felt was his one chance.
His left fist shot out and connected with her flat hard belly. The punch didn’t have his full power behind it, as he was still lying in the wood sided cot, yet it was enough to push a whoosh of air from her lungs and force her to bend over some. The French captain struggled out of the cot, lunging for the naked woman and tried to grapple her to the deck.
Kate was almost grateful for the attack. It now gave her a legitimate reason to kill him if it came to that. She welcomed the fight, having stowed away her anger toward the man for days now with no outlet. Her submerged fury, once released, was as great as Meraux’s ardor had been a few moments before.
Both of them fell to the deck, Kate being somewhat off balance from his punch. Meraux landed on top of her, his hands on her now iron hard biceps. Even through the struggle, part of his mind marveled at how she could be so strong and yet so maddeningly beautiful all in one package. In the next moment, he realized that he had her on her back and his manhood was still quite ready. He struggled to position himself to force her legs apart. He’d show her the wages of her defiance and insolence …
‘Oh! Would you!” She muttered and it sounded not frightened to Meraux but gleeful… as if she actually enjoyed the struggle.
Then two strong hands gripped his own upper arms and clamped down like steel vices. One of her long and powerful legs came up between his, pressing painfully on his jewels and to his shock, Meraux found himself hurtling over her head and landing face first on the deck. He kicked out with his left foot as he rolled onto his right side to try and regain his balance. However, the young woman was not simply possessed of great strength. Her strength was allied to remarkable speed and agility as well. She was a terrible foe indeed.
She’d already rolled onto her knees and leapt to her feet, grabbing his foot and twisting the leg and pushing it sideways, pulling the Frenchman onto his back and planting her own foot in his belly and applying her weight.
Outside, the sentry awoke. He wasn’t certain what had disturbed his sleep, partly brought on by an over indulgence in the brig’s rum supply. Yet through his groggy haze, he thought he heard grunts and movement from within the captain’s cabin. After a moment’s reflection, he smiled when he recognized the sounds of a man and a woman. No doubt the captain had finally persuaded that hellcat to come into his cot and they were rutting like wild dogs.
There was no one to assist Meraux therefore, when Catherine Cook took her foot from his belly and let the man get unsteadily to his feet. There was no one else in the cabin to insist that he quit while he was ahead and that, in spite of her sex, he was outmatched and had grossly underestimated this woman.
He roared out an incoherent animal sound of rage and lunged for her, his right fist swinging wildly. Kate stepped outside the punch, grabbed his wrist in both of her hands, brought her knee up as she yanked down on the man’s arm and connected. A sharp crack seemed to explode in the silent room like a cannon shot, eliciting a shocked and pain filled gasp from the Frenchman.
Even as he tried to yank his broken wrist away, the taller woman spread her feet, planted her right foot, pivoted as she drew the wrist toward her and spun her entire body. Acting as a fulcrum, her bent knee allowed her to heave the man across her shoulders and send his body sailing straight over the padded stern locker and through the open sash windows to plunge eight feet to the waters below the vessels’ stern.
Someone would no doubt have heard the splash and would certainly raise an alarm. Kate knew she only had seconds to prepare. She quickly began to dress, struggling into her trousers and shirt, yanking on her boots and tucking in the legs of the pants. Lying on one of the two lockers in front of the open stern windows was Meraux’s sword belt and a pistol… the other of Woodbine’s own Joe Manton’s! Kate hurriedly buckled on the belt and began to inspect the pistol, confirming that it was indeed the mate of the one she possessed. Meraux’s angry voice began to shout from the water below. Apparently the bastard could swim.
She found the second of the two barreled pistols fully primed and loaded. That would give her four shots from a rifled weapon that could not miss nor would almost certainly not hang fire. Even as she rushed for the door, a chorus of French voices began to shout and someone was ringing the bell.
The sentry, his rum-induced slumber now banished by the shock and fear of a pre-dawn revolt, leapt to his feet and tried the door to the great cabin. Finding it locked from within, he pounded on the wood, calling out Meraux’s name.
The door flew open and in the dim light of the night lantern hanging twenty feet forward, the man saw a tall figure looming before him. He opened his mouth to shout something and never got the words out. The point of a well-crafted short sword broke through his voice box, easily penetrated his soft pallet and slid into his brain, only stopping when it struck the underside of his skull. The man barely had time to register his shock before his lifeless body crumpled to the deck at Kate Cook’s feet.
She ran forward and shouted, “All passengers! Lock yourselves in your cabins and do not emerge! Arm yourselves if possible! All hands! All hands!”
She sprinted forward and spun up onto the companion, taking the steps two at a time. Even as she did so, she could hear the pounding of horny bare feet on deck planking behind her. Either her own men or privateers were
hot on her heels. She had no time to ponder it as she emerged onto a deck already awash in madness.
Two Frenchmen were holding John Palander, the middle aged master of the Whitby Castle against the larboard rail, their sword points levelled at his belly. Somehow Palander had been posted to the brig’s quarterdeck, a stroke of luck that Kate couldn’t afford to lose. Aside from Woodbine and Kent, Palander was the most qualified navigator aboard. His job as the brig’s master was to chart courses and use his twenty-five years of knowledge of the American coastline to guide the vessel. Palander was more than qualified to serve in the Royal navy as a warrant officer, yet he’d chosen the merchant service instead. In any event, he was far too valuable to the brig to lose.
Kate’s right hand held one of the Manton’s. She levelled the pistol and fired. First the right barrel and then the left, both balls smashing into the two privateers and sending them flailing and gurgling their last to a deck now splattered with blood.
“Kate!” Palander shouted in relief.
“Are you all right, Mr. Palander?” She asked, bending to scoop up the dead men’s weapons and handing one to Palander.
“A bit rattled is all,” he said.
“Did Danvers make my plan known to you?”
“Aye,” He said, too stunned and relieved to argue the point of a seventeen-year old girl taking charge. At the moment, Palander didn’t mind in the slightest. “We’re going to take the two vessels, cut the cables and head to sea.”
“Exactly,” Kate said, turning forward to where a melee had broken out amidships. “Stand by at the wheel. You’re going to lead the schooner out as well. Are you comfortable with this inlet in the dark?”
He smiled, “That I am, young lady. Shall I assist you?”
“No,” Kate said, running forward. “Your post is at that wheel. I’ll try and send someone to stand with you and to set the spanker!”
Kate stopped her run even as it began. From the companion, four of the privateers surged up on deck, their cutlasses waving in the night air. They were all black men, former slaves from one of the French held possessions in the Caribbean. San Doming she thought.
When they saw her, all four of the men raised their swords straight up into the air and held a hand out to her, palm raised.
“Miss!” The burly man at the head of the pack shouted. “Wees come to join ye against dees Frenchies!”
“What?” She asked in confusion.
“We was slaves jus a few month ago,” the man explained. “WE only here cuz’ dem French needed bodies for dare piratin’. We done wanna be no French slaves no more.”
“How do I know I can trust you,” Kate asked.
Danvers and Rakes, a big burly man and captain of the main mast appeared behind them. Danvers pointed, “they’re with us, mum!”
“You don’t mind serving a white woman?” Kate asked, one eye on the ruckus forward.
“No Miss Katie,” The lead man said. “Mr. Danvers say you a good woman. Strong, brave and kind. We be your men now.”
Kate grinned, “Very well… uhm…”
“Francois Pallier,” The man said and grinned.
“Very good, Pallier,” Kate said. “You and Danvers stay with Mr. Palander at the wheel. Your job is to keep him safe. Rakes, you other men, with me!”
They hurried forward to join the fray. Kate’s remaining Manton barked out twice, felling two of the Frenchmen and opening up a place for her and her five men to wade into the battle, their blades flashing and their voices raised in a chorus of roars and shrieks to wake the dead.
“When we break through… get to the cable and get it cut, ya’ hear me, there, Rakes!?” Kate roared out as she kicked and swung Meraux’s short sword, burying it in a privateer’s neck, nearly cleaving his head from his shoulders.
There were half a dozen bodies on deck, two of whom were her own men. At a quick glance, aside from the three blacks and Rakes, Kate saw she had five other men left. In between the ten of them were eight privateers, now outnumbered and unnerved, trying to find a way to flee the circle of snarling English sailors and former French slaves that surrounded them.
“Parlay!” Someone shouted and a sword clanked to the deck.
The rest of the Frenchmen followed suit and Kate roared out: “Vast fighting! Go, Rakes!”
The burly man ran forward past the group that now consisted of seven prisoners. One of the Frogs had been cut down with a sword thrust to his belly before the fighting had ceased.
“Take charge of these men!” Kate looked around, her fighting dander up, causing her thoughts to come sluggishly. “Sankey! Sankey, take charge of these men!”
Kate saw Rakes swing the big boarding axe up forward and felt the judder as the heavy hawser broke free and the brig was released. The Whitby Castle began to drift ever so slightly.
“Rakes, Norris, Heads’ls there! Look alive now!” Kate roared over her shoulder as she approached the wheel. “Sankey, bare a hand with the sheets, there! Task another former slave to mind those men now!”
Palander was already spinning the wheel to starboard, turning the brig’s bowsprit toward the east and toward open sea. Danvers and Pallier were beginning to haul out the driver and get it set. With the pull on the two jibs forward and the balancing pressure of the driver filling on a beam reach, the brig could be steered with enough way to maintain a course out through the relatively narrow inlet.
Kate glanced over at the schooner and saw that things weren’t quite so well in hand. Dark figures writhed on deck, as a mass of men struggled for control over the vessel. The snap of pistols and the clanking of steel upon steel combined with their shouts, screams of agony and curses to drift across the hundred feet or so of water that lay between the two vessels. A gap that was slowly beginning to open.
“Dammit!” Kate cursed. She knew that the half dozen or so of her men aboard the schooner were greatly outnumbered by the schooner’s crew. Even should they win, there would hardly be enough of her men left between the two ships to handle just one of them. Something must be done quickly.
The brig did have way on her now, the sound of water beginning to chuckle under her counter. She could put the Castle about and run her aboard the schooner… yet the prospect was neither appealing nor practical.
Such a maneuver, if it could even be accomplished in time, would further imperil her own vessel while possibly heartening the French prisoners to attempt something rash.
No… coming about just then would never do…
“Do we have a boat in the water?” Kate asked her new coxswain.
“Aye that we do!” Danvers said.
“Mr. Palander, what kind of speed can we expect with this wind and tide?” Kate inquired.
“Tide is ebbing… wind is perhaps eight knots…” The master considered, his ponderings seeming to take an eternity and trying the young captain’s patience. She managed to wait, however, “Three to four knots at most.”
“Pallier!” Kate turned to her new man. “Take your mates and Rakes and get over to that schooner. They need assistance. Any possibility more of your former shipmates might come over to our side?”
Pallier grinned broadly, his shockingly white teeth a contrast to his ebony face, Aye, Miss, dat day will. I got six more darkies over dere wantin’ to join ye. Probably already fighting’ dem French dogs. Some o’ dem was even British sailors time since.”
Pallier’s singular mixture of a French accent and a sort of slave dialect took a bit of getting accustomed to. Yet his meaning was plain enough and Kate laughed aloud and clapped him on his meaty shoulder, “Excellent! Take the boat and go over and assist them, now.”
He knuckled his forehead and ran forward. The ship’s jolly boat had been in the water, being used as the primary means of travel between the anchored vessels. Rakes and the four black men clambered over the side and the boat began to skitter across the water, four men at the oars and Rakes at the tiller encouraging them to put their Goddamned backs into it.
&nbs
p; “Damn…” Kate said, biting her lip. “I wish I were over there.”
“Ye can’t be everywhere, mum,” Danvers said. “A cap’n has to trust her men.”
Palander looked confused now, “Captain? Our captain lost the number of his mess…”
“And he made Miss Cook here the captain before he went to his reward, Mr. Palander,” Danvers explained. “She’s the captain now.”
“A girl?” Palander asked in astonishment.
“You take exception to that, Mister?” Kate asked, stepping close to the man. She was easily nearly a head taller. “Tell me now. I can’t afford to brook any dissention in my crew. Not now.”
Palander looked from the tall young woman to the burly man at his side. He drew in a breath and sighed, “It’s all one to me, I suppose.”
The jolly boat reached the side of the schooner and Rakes’ party began to mount her side. Kate was mildly disconcerted to see that the two vessels were a quarter mile apart already. She wondered what had become of Meraux. Had he made it to his ship or chosen to go ashore? The mangrove covered shoreline had been but half a cable distant.
Something had happened. Kate saw that the schooner, now larboard side on to the retreating brig began to swing, her long bowsprit pointing toward them. Someone had evidently cut the anchor cable. As she watched, one of the clipper’s big jibs flashed out and filled, seeming to glow pearlescent in the waning moonlight.
A cheer rose from the ship and Kate could swear she heard a number of splashes. Had her men won? Had they thrown the Frogs overboard and were now coming to join her? Or had the privateers prevailed and were even then bearing down to retake their prize?
Kate trotted forward to where Sankey and three of his men covered the eight prisoners. The privateers all sat on deck between the masts, huddled together in a body.