Fire in the Hole (The Plundered Chronicles Book 3)

by Alex Westmore

  “Callaghan, I value yer opinion, and I hope yer always honest with me. I don’t have many friends, nor do I have many on board with the stones to tell me their thoughts. I appreciate ya havin’ them.”

  Quinn nodded. “You’re doing the right thing, Captain. I would hate the thought of Mary waiting for help that would never come.”

  “It still might not.”

  “Maybe not, but at least you will have kept your word.”

  “Aye. Ya will have yer crew on the boat. I want ya to land last. Ya will have the strongest rowers. If this goes sideways, ya can get back to the ship.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Suddenly, a huge wind picked up and bulged the sails. Grace looked up at the sails and then stared out at the horizon. “Storm’s comin’. We’ll need to get those boats in the water sooner than later.”

  * * *

  The first two boats were well away when Quinn’s boat pulled away from the Malendroke with Tavish and Connor at the oars. Kwame, One Eye, and Fitz sat at the bow.

  “Damn it to hell,” Quinn muttered as she looked through her spyglass.

  “What is it, Callaghan?” Fitz asked.

  “Portuguese ship off the starboard side.”

  “Galleon?”

  “Smaller, but ya know how the Portuguese are with their human cargo.”

  The boat became still as everyone stared at Kwame, once a slave.

  “What say ya, Callaghan?” Connor asked.

  “She’s slowin’ down, fellas. I’m afraid she’s not gonna let us by.”

  “Fuckin’ slavers,” One Eye spat. “Plague on the planet.”

  “Don’t ennaone get crazy yet, boys.”

  “I’ll die before I’ll go down in that hold,” Kwame said. “In case anyone was wondering.”

  “Hear, hear.”

  The Portuguese galley slipped in between Quinn’s boat and the Spanish coastline. A ship’s hand leaned over the railing and said something in Spanish.

  Although Quinn knew some Spanish, she did not reply.

  He tried Portuguese.

  Still no reply.

  He was replaced by a second man, who spoke English. “Come on board, or we’ll sink ya where ya are.”

  Quinn looked at her dozen men and knew if they went on board, they’d fight to the death before being taken prisoner.

  “We gotta go, fellas.”

  “Hell no, Callaghan. Let’s take our chances.” One Eye adjusted his patch.

  “And what? Try to row away? No. We go aboard. If they try to take us below, we kill as many as we can and try to take the ship.” Quinn looked to Tavish and Fitz, who were nodding.

  “We’ll come aboard, but we’ll not be treated unkindly,” Quinn yelled up. “We are carryin’ a message to the king of Spain.”

  “Oh, Callaghan,” Connor said. “Ya shouldn’t have said that.”

  Quinn watched as a rope ladder was thrown over the side. “The Portuguese are Catholic, too. It may be the only thing that keeps us from bein’ taken prisoner.”

  When all twelve were on board, they faced thirty men wielding swords and muskets. The captain, a short, dark man with a scar down his neck and shark eyes, walked over to them.

  “Who is yer captain?” he asked in English.

  “Grace O’Malley, Queen of Connacht–”

  “Scourge of the Seas,” he finished. “How any man can serve a woman is beyond me.”

  “Ya’d follow her as well if ya knew the kind of leader she is.”

  “And who are ya?” He narrowed his eyes at her.

  “Callaghan. And ya?”

  “Captain Frietas. So ya say ya come bearin’ news to the Spanish King?”

  Quinn nodded.

  “Why would Irish pirates have anythin’ of value to share with the king of Spain?”

  “The Catholic Queen of Scotland needs help. We were dispatched to ask Philip as well as yer monarch to come to her aid against Elizabeth.”

  Captain Frietas rubbed his chin. “Is that so? Too bad fer Mary her countrymen are not Catholic, or we would be more inclined to help.”

  “Then be so kind as to allow us to carry on.”

  Captain Frietas walked over to Kwame and sized him up. “Not many Irishmen have slaves.”

  Quinn’s crew tensed.

  “Because the Irish are far more advanced than the rest of Europe,” Kwame said in perfect English that stunned the captain. “I am not their slave, and I will kill any man who attempts to make me one.”

  Captain Frietas stepped up even closer to Kwame. “Are ya actually threatenin’ my men?”

  “Kwame speaks fer us all, Captain Frietas. If ya try to take us prisoner, we will kill everra last man on this ship, includin’ ya.”

  The captain moved so fast that Quinn barely had a chance to react. He punched Quinn in the mouth, sending her to the deck, her bottom lip torn open.

  Everyone drew their swords.

  Suddenly, the man in the crow’s nest yelled something down to them and pointed off the port side of the ship.

  A Spanish galleon was bearing down on them.

  The captain immediately began ordering his men in rapid, staccato Portuguese. His crew flew into action.

  “Should we make a run fer it?” Connor asked, helping Quinn to her feet.

  “No. We’re still too far from shore. Half of us would drown.”

  Six Portuguese musketeers drew their weapons on Quinn and her men. To her companions, she said, “Fer now, we stay with this ship, but we sure as hell are not gonna have these weapons pointin’ at us.”

  “What do ya suggest?” Connor asked. “Because right about now we’re in a shite storm.”

  “I’ll take out two with my throwin’ knives. Th rest of ya dispatch the other four. If we have to, we’ll just keep fightin’ until last one of these bastard is dead or dyin’. Everraone ready?”

  Connor nodded. “Do it.”

  Quinn let two of her throwing knives fly. The first one embedded in the neck of a shooter, whose musket dropped to the ground before he could fire. The second one lodged in the shoulder of the musketeer, but he managed to get a shot off that went through the cheek of one of Quinn’s men.

  When Quinn looked up, she realized that the Portuguese were attempting to outrun the Spanish. She wondered briefly what treasures they carried in the hold.

  “Callaghan!” the captain yelled. “Kill any more of my men, and we will not be able to outrun these bastards. Help us, and ya have my word I’ll take ya to Spain myself.”

  Quinn glanced to Connor, who nodded. “It’s the best offer we’re gonna get.”

  At once, the Irishmen got to work. The Portuguese were great sailors, but they carried a skeletal crew at best and needed the eleven pairs of Irish hands to help elude the aggressive galleon.

  For an hour they sailed, fighting disagreeable winds and a slight rain as the clouds banded together to cover the light.

  “Storm’s comin’!” Connor yelled, pointing to the clouds. “And a wicked one at that.”

  “We’ll never outrun the galleon at this rate.” Quinn stared at the huge dark clouds looming like spiritual gargoyles over the water. “To top it off, we’re sailin’ right into the storm.”

  “Whatever they have on board, they’re unwillin’ to be caught with it,” Quinn muttered.

  “Callaghan, this fool of a captain is gonna get us all killed,” Connor said. “Take the wheel. One of us has to get this ship to safety, and I don’t think it’s gonna be him!”

  The rain started pelting the deck, the waves seemingly doubled in girth and height, and suddenly, the Portuguese galley was in peril, so Quinn leapt up the stairs, punched Captain Freitas in the face and shoved him down the steps, where he landed at Connor’s feet with Connor’s sword pointed at his face.

  “Ya had yer chance, Captain. Now it’s our turn.”

  If the Spanish galleon was still pursuing them, it was too dark and stormy to see. The heavens had opened up and mercilessly dumped water on
the deck of the galley. Winds kicked up and tore the sails from their masts.

  The ship’s bow rose up as if trying to fly, only to smash back down and dive so deep that the ship took on water.

  A lot of it.

  Already, Quinn had seen three men wash overboard as she wrestled the wheel. Captain Freitas, in his fearful attempt to escape the galleon had lead them into a different danger... one Quinn realized, too late, they weren’t going to make it out of.

  “Callaghan?” Connor asked. “What now?”

  “Now, Connor, we hold onto each other fer dear life and pray to the Goddess.”

  * * *

  The ship was sinking.

  Quinn knew from the moment they dove deep and took on water that they were in serious danger. The storm had been raging unabated for hours now, hammering away at the smaller ship as if in retribution for some egregious crime.

  “She’s not gonna make it, Callaghan!” a scraggly Irish pirate with a worn black patch over his eye yelled above the pounding rain.

  “Everra man grab a barrel from below!” Quinn ordered as she continued to grapple with the ship’s wheel.

  They were at the mercy of the sea as the wall of waves crashed into them–an ally of the weather in an attempt to sink the small galleon.

  The sea and the weather were succeeding.

  All Quinn could wonder was: What would Grace O’Malley do in this situation?

  Before she could answer her own question, the bow rose, paused a moment and then dove deep into the raging water as if intending on driving straight to the bottom of the sea.

  “Laddie, we’ve been blown so far off course, I’ve got no idea where we may be.”

  Quinn paused to study Tavish who clung to the railing. He had always been so calm in the face of danger.

  “We can’t risk riding her into the sea, Tavish. I need you to gather the barrels and tie them together. You, Fitz, One Eye and Kwame jump into the waves holding the barrels. Do you understand?”

  Tavish wiped the rain from his face with a big, meaty paw. “What I understand, lad, is ya think enna of us would leave this ship without ya!”

  Water ran into her eyes as Quinn also wiped her face. “It wasn’t a request, Tavish. As captain of this piece-of-shit vessel, I order you to save the crew from the Malendroke. Everraone else on board is on their own.” Quinn lowered her voice slightly “Don’t fight me on this, Tavish. Please.”

  Tavish looked deep into her eyes before slowly nodding. “Aye, laddie. I’ll be sure to keep the boys together.” With that, Tavish fought his way to the aft of the ship.

  “He’ll never leave without ya,” Connor said as he clung to a mast. “I don’t know what the deal is with that Scot, but he has protected ya since the first–”

  The ship dove so deep that the water crashed over the bow, knocking Connor across the deck. With one hand, he managed to grab the railing before going over the side.

  Leaving the wheel, Quinn lunged for his free hand, grabbing him just before he released the railing, and pulled him back to the deck, her shoulder muscles straining at his weight.

  “The gods are not happy,” Connor yelled above the cacophony.

  “I want ya with Tavish and the others, Connor. She’s gonna start breakin’ up enna moment. Go!”

  “Not without ya. Grace would kill me if she knew I left the ship with ya still on it.”

  “Grace isn’t gonna kill us, ya daft man. The sea is! Go! I’ll be right behind ya!”

  There was a specific feel when a ship had given up, Quinn thought. The wood creaked and groaned in a way it didn’t do when healthy. The air felt colder as it whipped around the deck as if searching for a place to light. The water seemed to wait in eager anticipation.

  But the worst feeling, the one Quinn was experiencing now, was the heaviness of a ship taking on water. She had given up on the wheel, recognizing their fate was in the hands of a violent storm bent on pulverizing the ship and everyone on it.

  She wasn’t going to let that happen.

  Making her way down to the galley, Quinn scanned the empty space until she was sure no men remained, then hustled back up the stairs. She got four steps before a wall of water bashed her in the face and shoved her back into the galley.

  “Bloody hell,” she spat, followed by coughing spasms as she expunged the salt water from her lungs.

  The water was freely streaming down the steps, and Quinn knew she had but moments to spare before the sinking ship would take her with it.

  When she was one step from the top, she saw another wave rolling toward her. This time, she lay down on the steps and let the power of the water flow over her back and into the now flooded galley.

  As Quinn struggled to the deck, she knew it was too late. She had heard that when a ship sank, there was a vortex around it that pulled everything caught in it down with the ship. There would be no escaping the pull of the wake caused by the ship.

  She would be dead before–

  Suddenly, a pair of arms wrapped around her and tackled her so hard that she flew over the railing and into the roiling water. Struggling to get her head above the surface, Quinn inhaled more salt water than air. She was certain she would drown–if not by the waves hammering her face then by the vortex created by the sinking ship.

  The ship suddenly splintered, and pieces seemed to shoot off the hull of the ship as if chasing after survival. Just as Quinn turned to see whose arms she was in, she was thrown on her back and being pulled quickly through the water as if by magic.

  When she finally got a chance to open her eyes, she could see the ship’s railings as they submerged, leaving only the battered masts sticking above the water at a forty-five degree angle.

  Whoever was pulling them was making every effort to get them away from the waves she was just now beginning to feel. All she could do was hope and pray they could escape the pull of the water before it grabbed on and didn’t let go.

  The loud clapping of thunder and the pelting of the wind-driven rain prevented her from hearing anything except the pounding of her heart in her ears.

  It was a close race.

  And then the ship went under.

  But so did someone else, and whoever it was fought desperately to keep them free of the pull of the water as the ship began sinking to its final resting place.

  When the ship was completely engulfed by water, Quinn looked around her.

  Turning in the arms of whoever had saved her, she found herself face to face with Connor.

  “Ya know ya are daft, right?” Quinn yelled above the roar of the wind.

  “Told ya! Captain O’Malley would kill me if she knew I’d left ya on the ship!” he shouted back.

  He wasn’t wrong about that, and Quinn was about to ask him about the others when she saw them all pulling on a rope that was attached to Connor’s waist.

  When they finally pulled Connor and Quinn to the dozen or so floating barrels, Quinn quickly took inventory even as she coughed up salt water.

  One Eye, Fitz, Kwame, and Tavish had all made it.

  “Where are the others?” Quinn asked when Tavish pulled her up on the barrels.

  “No idea. Ya said to save us. That’s who we saved.”

  Fitz nodded. “No time fer ennaone else, Callaghan. If they survived the sinkin’, good fer them.”

  Quinn looked at the barrels lashed together and then into the face of every man on the makeshift raft.

  Her crew.

  Her friends.

  Her family.

  “Well met, men. Well met.”

  “Now what?” One Eye asked.

  “Now we save our energy until the storm passes, and then we’ll see what we can see.”

  Tavish handed her the loose end of the rope. “Tie up, laddie. We all decided we live together or we die together.”

  And that, right there, was one big reason why Quinn was still a pirate: they were family.

  The rain felt like it was never going to let up. It pelted them for hours.


  The first few hours were the hardest. Dead bodies floated by, slowly sinking beneath the churning waters. Cries for help came in Portuguese, English, and Gaelic–the last being the most difficult to hear because they were the remaining five of her men who needed help, and there was nothing she could do to offer assistance. All Quinn could do was try to keep those she was with alive for one more hour... one more minute.

  What she dreaded most was nightfall, where the temperatures would drop significantly and the darkness would release a curtain of fear on them all.

  Gazing bleary eyed at Kwame, Fitz, Connor, and One Eye, Tavish had loosened their clutches somewhat on the barrels. All lay with their heads pointed inward like spokes on a wheel.

  “Everra one double-check yer rope. Make sure ya check it everra hour or so. The water will—”

  “Callaghan, what’s the use?” One Eye asked in a voice raw from salt water and wind. “Captain don’t know where we are. We’re miles away from the Malendroke, and enna ship that was caught in that–”

  “There will be no more talk like that,” Quinn ordered, the harshness of her own voice surprising even her. “We are Irishmen, and we will never quit and never give in. The sea is gonna have to fight to get enna more of us. So the next one of ya starts cryin’ like a little girl will answer to me when we reach land.”

  “The lad is right. We canna give up. When the rain stops, we might be able to see land and head towards it.”

  “But–” One Eye started, then stopped.

  “Verra good. Now, we gotta find a way to catch the rainwater. As long as we have water, we have life.”

  “Our clothes?” Fitz asked.

  Connor shook his head. “Too much salt in them already. I say we pry open a barrel and catch it there.”

  “Brilliant idea, Connor.” Quinn pulled out one of her daggers and handed it to him. “We’ll untie one and set it upright in the middle.”

  Tavish was already untying one. “As long as we tie her tightly, we shouldna have enna problems with her tippin’ over.”

  “Excellent. While Tavish and Connor work on that, the rest of ya roll over and drink as much rainwater as ya can. Even if ya aren’t thirsty, ya need to keep drinkin’ fresh water.”