by Barry Sadler
Casca was for taking the sloop out to sea immediately. But there was the little matter of the incoming tide. They were now grounded on the edge of the shoal.
"Do we go ahead with the careening?" the fairy painter's apprentice asked. He was now the temporary third mate, appointed by Casca who had been impressed by the fairy's apparent education and good sense and as a reward for setting up Julio as the lure.
"No." There was no point in worrying about the sloop's barnacles. They would either be able to take another ship or they wouldn't. The fine points didn't matter.
So far things had gone well. The burning of the fort that sent the cloud of smoke down had worked. Julio as the lure had distracted the third mate long enough for that operation to succeed. They had the ship. True, it was grounded, but when the tide reversed that would be taken care of. They even had some new recruits. Most of the black slaves had chosen piracy to freedom on the island. Casca had his reservations about the first mate who, un-trussed, had said he wanted to join the pirates. The same went for the second mate. In both cases Casca had left the decision up to a council to be held once they were at sea. It was one of his few concessions to democracy which was not exactly his favorite way of running things. There hadn't been any democracy in the legion.
"The tide is in. Do you want to warp the ship off?" Julio was at his elbow, a Julio back in man's clothing and with a grin on his face. Casca sensed that the young Spaniard had enjoyed the theatrics of playing a woman, though the reason why was a mystery to the scar faced one. Every man to his own...
But, "warping the ship off"... What the hell was that? Casca had been on many ships from Roman galleys to Spanish galleons but he wasn't exactly the sailor type and he had difficulty remembering the techniques.
What saved him from answering was a yell from the top of the mast. One of the pirates, homesick apparently for a ship after years on the island, had climbed the mast. Now he yelled down: "Sail ho! Two points on the starboard bow! Hull down!"
"Shall I have the anchor capstan manned to warp the ship off the shoal?" Julio asked Casca in Spanish, some of the technical terms unfamiliar to Casca's knowledge of the language.
But he saw what the young Spaniard was up to telling him what to do without the embarrassment of coming right out with it. He wondered what the background of the young Spaniard was. The boy seemed to have training far beyond his years. And he was a bright boy, a very bright boy. As bright as Casca would have wanted his own son.
"She's a brig!"
Casca looked at the sky. The sun was low, but there was quite a lot of daylight left, even allowing for the fact that darkness always came suddenly in the tropics. There were clouds on the horizon aft, and the wind had shifted again slightly. Also, there was the sense of heaviness in the air that usually indicated a storm was coming. But it wasn't here yet, and there might still be time to try for the brig plus there would be darkness in case they didn't cut it. So he gave the orders to drop the shore hawsers, to man the capstan, to pull on the anchor rope, and finally to set sail, the wind now being in a favorable position. There were still the hogsheads of sugar on deck, tilting the ship to one side, but there just wasn't time to do everything.
Somewhat to Casca's surprise the thing worked. The sloop came free and they slipped the anchor. It was all or nothing, Casca reminded himself, glancing again at the sky and seeing that there would be too much daylight to get away if the attack failed. So they made for the brig, the top of whose sails were now visible from the deck.
Casca ordered the cannon – there were only three of them – double loaded with grape and tried to explain to his puzzled gunners how he wanted them fired. When they finally understood, one, a big American, objected.
"Aye," Casca agreed. "You're right. It might damage this old tub. But it ain't worth a damn to us anyway except to take this one ship." The words and the tone of voice did more to convince the American than the logic of it, but by that time the brig was clearly visible.
"Probably American built," the fairy third mate said. "They favor the hermaphrodite brig."
"Ten guns," Julio added in Spanish.
The two ships were closing fast mainly because the brig was apparently a very fast sailer and very well handled. Trouble was they were going too close on what Casca had decided was the wrong side. He was just about to give an order to the helmsman when he saw the brig's sails open and her bow begin to turn. She had made it easier for him. He gave his helmsman a course opposite from what he had intended and changed the angle of his own sails. It worked. Instead of a head on collision course the two vessels were now turning in unequal circles, the faster brig in a much larger one.
Now what?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Casca could see the brig bearing down on him, all sails set, but at a tack. She was very fast. His own sloop moved sluggishly, the barnacled hull dragging, the overbalanced side with the hogsheads making one tack very difficult.
"Board her to windward, Sir," Julio offered.
"Windward?"
"Yessir."
"Where the hell did you learn so much about tactics?"
"I was a royal cadet, Sir." Something had transformed the young Spaniard. The prospect of action had apparently thrown him back into another time. His manner was disciplined, military.
Casca considered… Hell, maybe the kid knew what he was talking about. "Windward. That would be hard to do with this slow tub."
"Ordinarily, yes Sir. But look! The color of the water there. That lighter color. Shoal water, Sir. He'll have to avoid that unless he knows the waters here very well and it is deep enough for him to cross. But these shoals change all the time. I don't think he would risk it, Sir."
The kid keeps using 'he" in his mind it is a naval battle.
"Look, Sir! I'm right! She's shortening sail." The brig was coming under easy sail. "Get on the weather quarter of her, Sir! Come within half a pistol shot!" Excitement raced through the boy's voice, and his face glowed.
"All right," Casca decided. Go with the kid. "Come about!" he yelled. "Make all sail!" Maybe, with a little luck…
Damn!
On the tack the weight of the hogsheads canted the sloop far over, but, oddly, that very angle seemed to help. The old ship was slicing through the water like a live thing.
"I'd suggest, Sir, you lay on board on the weather side, either exactly abreast or a little abaft." Julio's voice was now crisp, cool, and he was standing rigidly beside Casca as if to belie the excitement in his dark brown eyes. A warmth came over Casca, a warmth greater than the heat of the tropic sun that was beaming full down now that the shadow of the sail had shifted away on this tack. Julio. Like a son. That he could have a son like this...
They were closing fast. Out of Casca's side vision he saw one of his gunners reach for a slow match.
"Don't fire until I give the order!" he bellowed, first in English, then again in Spanish. "And in platoon!" Damn! He couldn't think of the Spanish word for platoon.
Julio grinned. "Unisonancia?" he offered.
"That'll do," Casca agreed, and roared the order that they should fire in unison on his command. Probably shake the sloop to pieces, but what was the difference? Good for only this one battle anyway. All, or nothing at all.
They were within range. The next few moments would tell the story. Casca could see the black muzzles of the brig's cannon trained on him. She was a ten gun brig. They would have to run the gauntlet of the five cannon on this side. Now!... No... The brig was holding fire for some unknown reason.
So that was it!
The brig had been flying no colors. Now the Jolly Roger broke from her mast. Through the brass spyglass, Casca could see the enemy captain also watching him with a spyglass. Careful son of a bitch. Wanted to make damn sure he knew who I was before he committed himself. Careful... That was a useful thing to know about an enemy.
Casca caught the slight movement of the spyglass away from the other man's eyes.
"Take cover!" he roared i
mmediately and saw his men drop behind the hogsheads as he had arranged. Only he, Julio, and the helmsman were left standing. Casca started to order the boy to hit the deck, but it was too late.
The brig fired, a rolling volley beginning with the forward cannon and stepping raggedly back toward the stern.
One… Two... Three... Four... Five...
All five cannon had fired before the first shot hit the sloop.
A ball. Into the bow. Low. Almost at waterline. The second ball went into the galley, smashing wood, throwing deadly splinters. The jagged shards of broken timber slashed at the men in range. Screams. Blood. One man was impaled on a long sliver and pushed into the scuppers, his guts oozing out along the jagged edge of the bloody wood.
The third ball missed entirely, almost magically passing through the only clear space between sail and mast and stays without hitting anything.
The fourth hit admidships, smashing timbers close to the waterline, opening a hole it would be wide enough to sink the sloop.
The fifth came a little abaft amidships, but higher than the fourth ball. Casca could feel the shock to the timbers. All his concern about protecting his men from grape had been for nothing. The brig meant to sink them.
Now!
"Stand by to fire! Uno! Dos! Tres!"
His cannon roared. Maybe not entirely in unison, but reasonably well timed for amateur gunners. A hail of grape poured into the deck of the brig, hidden now by the cloud of smoke.
"Grapnels!"
The ships were coming together. But–
"Look out, Sir! "Julio yelled. "She's bracing sharp aback her headsails!"
It was hard to see in the smoke, but the tips of the sails did show above the dark cloud from the burned powder. The brig was falling off, and even as Casca watched, the enemy sails aft began to square, to give her sternway.
"Put your helm a weather!" Julio cried, forgetting the "Sir," and the helmsman obeyed even before Casca could give the order, then looked guiltily at Casca, who smiled and nodded.
"Now, a-lee!"
The maneuver succeeded. The brig's last minute attempt to avoid contact failed. The two ships smashed together, aided actually by the present roll of the brig.
"Grapnels!" Casca repeated, and the two vessels were locked together. "Boarders away!"
Through the smoke he could hear a like order being given on the brig, almost like an echo of his own voice. But then it was time to stop thinking and go to fighting. Cutlass in his right hand, Casca leaped over the gunwales and into the smoke aboard the brig.
Nothing gentle was going on aboard the brig Casca and his men had stormed. If they had thought this was going to be an easy fight they were sadly mistaken. What met them in the smoke and blood on the brig's deck were men every bit as deadly as they themselves. With one difference: the brig's crew were better armed. First there were the blasts of pistols and muskets. Then the flashing cutlasses against the clubs and what few cutlasses and swords had been in the arms locker of the sloop or taken from its officers of Casca's men.
But the brig crew had not expected such a maneuver as the boarding on that tack, nor had they expected Casca's savage blast of double loaded grape fired in unison. Nor had they anticipated the animal fierce charge of Casca's men. What they had thought was that they would board the little sloop. What they got was a confused, brutal, bloody battle. Casca's men knew they had only this one chance. Like pit bulldogs that went for the throat, Casca's men went first for the kill.
As for Casca, that scar faced one had taken a lot of shit recently, and the battle was one way to get it out of his system. Nothing fancy, just swing... chop... cut...
He worked his way to the captain of the brig, a big, tough, bare headed brute with coarse coal black hair who had just emptied a brace of pistols into the men on either side of Casca and now dropped them and reached for his cutlass.
What got Casca's attention was that the captain immediately went into the second position of the Naval Cutlass Exercise, legs angled out, proof that he must have had some British Navy experience. Apparently he did. The son of a bitch knew what he was doing. Casca's blade clashed on his. Cut. Thrust. Parry.
But by now the battle was almost over, and Casca's men were taking the ship, though at terrific losses. After parrying one blow, Casca saw out of the extreme edge of his vision one of the brig crew leaving the battle and heading for the captain's cabin aft. There was something about this one that briefly caught his attention, probably because the brig crewman was so slender. Yet he had fought from what little Casca had seen brilliantly. However, he did not have an opportunity to go into the matter since at that moment the bald-headed captain suddenly pressed the attack.
Casca parried. He was getting tired. And the suppressed anger that had been in him ever since that morning in McAdams' compound boiled backup. The hell with this! He slashed savagely at the captain, recovered immediately, and again pressed the attack. Somewhere in the parry move by the captain Casca's blade slid off the other's and sliced away the captain's ear, which surprised that worthy to no end, a rather fatal mistake since Casca immediately took advantage of the captain's momentary confusion to pull back his cutlass and sweep it again forward, slicing halfway through the captain's neck. Blood spouted from the half severed stump, a fountain whose outer edges sprayed toward Casca, and, though he immediately jumped back, a thin film of the dying man's blood salted his lips.
But the battle was over. Casca's blow was the last of the fight. They had the brig. Casca looked at his men what was left of them. He had lost at least a third, but there were still enough hands to man the brig. Julio, who had come up beside him, was grinning with elation.
"A fine victory, Sir!" he said in Spanish. "You did–"
Whether Casca saw the movement in the bottom part of the rigging out of the corner of his eye or whether it came totally unexpectedly he never really knew. But there was movement. And a pistol shot. A dying brig crewman who had been posted in the rigging, probably with a musket or two, had fired one ball in the last seconds of his life. He had sighted on the large framed man with the scar on his face.
Casca was knocked off his feet. For a blink of time he thought someone had coldcocked him again. Then he heard the report of the musket and saw Julio spin around and hit the deck. Switching his eyes to where the shot had come from, he saw the shooter let loose of the rigging and fall into the sea.
Scrambling over to Julio he rolled the boy over to his back. A deep sigh of relief went through him. He wasn't hurt bad. The slug had only taken out a piece of meat the width of a man's thumb from his left arm. Dumb kid had seen the crewman taking aim and thrown himself in front of Casca to protect him. An exercise in futility but Julio didn't know that.
He gave the rest of his motley crew orders to do what they could to make ready for sail. They did as they were bade and set about it. Fortunately there wasn't much structural damage. Their own grape shot had killed men but had done little harm to the ship itself. And they worked together, Brotherhood men, Spaniards and black ex-slaves though the truth of the matter was that it was the calming influence of the London fairy that was responsible for the harmony of the moment. He seemed to understand emotions good or bad better than the others.
As they worked Casca washed and bandaged Julio's arm and left him to rest in the shade beside the cook shack and went below to inspect his prize.
He was met at the bottom by the castaway he had appointed first mate who nodded his head down the hallway to the captain's quarters and mumbled: "We got a problem."
"What?"
"Somebody in the captain's cabin. Door's locked. We coulda broke it down, but we thought you..." He left the rest of it unsaid.
But when Casca went down the passageway to the captain's cabin, a ship's lantern in his hand against the darkness, and tried the cabin door it was no longer locked. Behind him the first mate shrugged. "It was locked when we came down." The lantern light shone on the faces of the two pirates behind the first mate, ship
's axes in their hands. Casca turned back to the cabin door and opened it.
A large lamp, swinging in gimbals, lit the cabin brightly. Directly under it, trussed securely to the captain's chair and with a green baize gag in his mouth, was the retarded giant Casca had first met at McAdams' compound.
In the shadows to the giant's left, holding two cocked pistols pointed directly at Casca 's stomach, stood a redheaded woman.
"Hold it right there, Scarface. Take one more step and I'll fill your stinking gut with lead."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"Katie Parnell?"
"Aye." She smiled. "Oh, hell. The Katie belongs to me. The Parnell I got off a tombstone. It's a long story and not one I'm going to tell you."
The two of them were sitting at the table in the captain's cabin, one on either side, the big giant still trussed and still gagged at the head of the table, his eyes watching Casca and the redheaded woman. There was nobody else in the cabin. Casca had sent the first mate and the two seamen away, not something that pleased the first mate who had taken one look at the woman and her two pistols and then looked at Casca, the mate's eyes plainly saying that this was a hell of a way to run a ship. But he and the two seamen had gone. The woman had then produced a bottle of wine from the liquor locker, casually laying both pistols on the table as she did so. Indicating the table, she had extracted the cork from the bottle with a practiced hand, taken a healthy swig while still standing, and then sat down and slid the bottle across to Casca, all the time completely ignoring the big giant at the head of the table.
Casca was amused. Very few women he had ever known had behaved anywhere near this way, and there was a kind of good natured mockery in Katie's eyes that seemed to say she took everything in life as a game to be played for the fun of it only. Coming as Casca did from treating Julio and the emotional draining of the battle no matter how many times he fought there was always that dark feeling afterward the strange redhead was a welcome relief. The fact that she was a pretty good looking woman and the wine was first rate reminiscent of the Falernian of his youth also helped matters. He grinned. "Off a tombstone?"