Guns and swords of all makes and nationalities stood at attention in racks against the walls. On the floor, extra cannonballs were arranged in pyramids according to their size and weight, but the most delicate and valuable item held in the powder room was the gun powder itself. There were huge barrels of it, kegs of it, boxes of it, pouches, horns, and bags of it. Little Jane scanned the room as best she could from outside the door, but as far as she could tell, none of the containers seemed to be missing and all the firearms hung neatly in their appointed places in the racks and walls just as they should.
So if he ain’t thieving, what in the world is he doing? she wondered.
It was only then that she noticed the tiny bit of illumination in the room. Far in the corner, orange talons of flame clawed at one of the smaller kegs, speedily licking up the curved sides of the barrel, bent on consuming it. Little Jane backed away from this sight, so unfathomable to her eyes, it seemed like an illusion.
“Fire!” she screamed. “Fire in the powder room!” But alongside the booming sounds of the guns overhead, her voice was barely audible, even to her own ears.
She had to get the door open and stop the flames! She tried one of the keys from the ring. No luck. She tried another, but this one actually got stuck in the lock. She pulled, but it wouldn’t budge.
Cursing, she gave up on the keys. She slammed her shoulder into the door.
Did it give just a little?
She tried again.
No! It didn’t!
“Help me! Help!”
With a terrified oath, she glanced around. The door to the cold kitchen was slightly ajar. She rushed toward it.
“Ishiro!”
But she soon realized he was up top, too. Her rapid glance took in the objects of the cold kitchen. She knew she’d have to get into the powder room somehow to fight the fire, and she’d need something to fight it with.
A huge water barrel sat in one corner. No, too heavy for her to carry. A gargantuan knife rested on the chopping block next to a bucket of fresh fish intended for that night’s dinner.
She tossed the fish out of the bucket and scooped up as much water from the big rain barrel as she could. Then she grabbed the knife. Leaping over the fish, busy flopping their last on the floor, Little Jane rushed down the short length of passage to the powder room.
She realized instantly that she wouldn’t need the knife to jimmy open the lock. The door itself was on fire now and nearly consumed. She hurled the bucket of water at it anyway.
Hsssszzzzt!
A little section of it hissed and smoked, but the rest of the fire continued climbing its way up the door with unbelievable speed.
“Help! Somebody!” she cried desperately. “Please!”
But the crew kept on shooting on the upper decks, drunk on the high spirits of competition.
“Fire! Fire down below!”
She ran back to the kitchen for another bucketful of water. Good thing she did, too, because just at that moment the powder room exploded.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM!
A hundred heads whipped in the direction of the deafening sound as the debris of what had been the roof of the powder room rocketed upward and rained down in smouldering bits all over the ship.
Down below, Little Jane quickly surmised that this was not a fire that could be fought with a fish bucket. Grey smoke now filled the hold. Her lungs burned. Her eyes stung. It was time to retreat!
“All hands to the pump!” commanded Captain Bright.
“Lancashire and Sharpeye, you fetch the hose!” ordered Captain Silver.
“Little Jane! Wait! Where’s Little Jane?” screamed Captain Bright.
“I sent her down for—”
Just then, Little Jane emerged dashing up the steps from below decks.
“Jane! Careful! Get away from there!” Bonnie Mary grabbed Little Jane up, tossed her over her shoulder, and rushed her away from the burning remnants of the roof of the powder room just as Long John directed the crew to let loose with the hose, in the precise manoeuvre they had practised many times before in preparation for just such a catastrophe.
Bonnie Mary set her daughter down on a coil of rope by the foremast. “You stay here. Understand?”
Little Jane nodded her soot-smudged face.
“I’ll be back.”
With that Bonnie Mary ran back to the group fighting the fire.
Florry, Lockheed, D’vorjack, and Ameel pumped like mad on the water pump until its handles and their brawny arms blurred together. Bonnie Mary, Long John, and the rest occupied themselves with holding the hose steady, or dousing the fire with the washing buckets scattered over the deck.
The flat canvas of the hose quickly filled with water spewing forth to quench the crackling flames. In a few minutes smoke and grey ash were drifting over everyone, but the fire was out. Although their eyes watered and their lungs burned, the fire had been soundly vanquished with little damage to the ship and no injury to anyone.
As soon as they could catch their breath, a great cheer rose up from one and all. Little Jane scampered down from the forecastle deck to join in the hurrahs.
“Hurrah for Captain Bright! Hurrah for Captain Silver! Hurrah for Little Jane!”
“Huzzah!” returned the crew and Long John tossed Little Jane up in the air and caught her.
From somewhere a keg of ale appeared and the dipper was passed around. It looked like things were on their way to turning into another Habana-esque party.
Then, in fury, Ned Ronk smacked the railing. The power of his strike vibrated through the wooden timbers from stem to stern.
“STOP!” he roared with the same overpowering voice he used to control the crew on the lines.
“Do you have something to say, bosun?” asked Bonnie Mary coolly.
Ned Ronk stepped forward. “What the heck’re you all cheering for?”
Sailors shifted uneasily on their feet, remembering the confrontation of just a week ago, anticipating how this was going to end. Suddenly, Little Jane had visions of Ned impaled upon Bonnie Mary’s sword or dispatched with a bullet by Long John.
Apparently, the other sailors were thinking much along the same lines. Whispers flew around. Excitement rose, adding to the surge of adrenalin still lingering from their rush to put out the fire. This would be a fight they’d seen coming for many a day.
“Ye bleedin’ simpletons!” thundered Ned Ronk. “Don’t you see the powder is wrecked!”
“More simpleton you, if you think we ain’t noticed,” retorted Bonnie Mary as much to the rest of the crew as to Ned. “But the ship is safe and we haven’t lost a man. There’s always more powder where that come from. We’re but a day and a half’s sail from Smuggler’s Bay anyway, even with slack sails. I says we’re in good shape.”
Actually, back on Smuggler’s Bay, there were barrels of gunpowder and cannonballs stored in the depths of the Spyglass’s cellar next to the good rum, but Bonnie Mary saw no need to enlighten Ned Ronk on that score.
“Ain’t any o’ you bothered to think how the blaze got started in the first place?” asked Ned.
“A stray spark from the firing practice,” suggested Ishiro with a shrug. “I seen it happen before.”
“As’ve I,” said Ned, “but that ain’t how this particular fire started.”
“Oh, and what makes you so sure?” broke in Little Jane suspiciously. “Is it because you started it?”
Ned glared at her. “Don’t be absurd, girl,” he sneered. “You did.”
“Poppycock!” spat Long John. “Why on Earth would Little Jane—”
“I ask you,” said Ned smugly, turning to the crew, “I ask you all. Who was the last person to go below decks before the fire started?”
Now there was much conferring in the ranks and bandying about of Little Jane’s name.
“So what if I was the last one down?” cried Little Jane in exasperation. “I went to get Papa’s pipe!”
There was a ripple of nerv
ous laughter at this.
“Ned, what were you doing?”
“He don’t deserve an answer, Jane,” broke in Jezebel Mendoza hotly. “There’s no way she could’ve got in anyhow, Ned! We all know that room is kept locked at all times! Only the captains have the keys to open it.”
“So? Don’t it seem mighty suspicious that—”
“I saw you in there!” shouted Little Jane, loud enough at last so that Ned and the others couldn’t drown her out. “It was you what set the fire! It was—”
“You saw him?” Bonnie Mary asked coolly.
“Aye!” cried Little Jane. “When I come out of our quarters I saw him leaving the powder room!”
All eyes turned from Little Jane to Ned once more.
“Child, if I was the one in the room,” said Ned in tones of infinite patience, “then why is you the one with the keys?”
All eyes swivelled back to Little Jane again, but the key ring she’d used to open her parents’ cabin was missing. It had been stuck in the powder room door and gone up in flames with the rest of it.
“It don’t matter! She’s the only one what could’ve done it!” persisted Ned. “Little Jane is the one—”
“You shut up, Ned, or by God I’ll lick you to within an inch of your life and dump you out on the most godforsaken dirt island in this blasted ocean I can find without a shot to your barrel!” Long John was red in the face with perspiration and anger.
“Ain’t it just like you to threaten me — to do anything to protect your precious little princess!” sneered Ned. “Touches the heart, don’t it?”
Bonnie Mary scowled and unsheathed her sword. “I wouldn’t be so hasty to talk about me daughter if I was you.”
Long John drew his pistol.
“Cowards!” quavered Ned Ronk. “You’d attack an unarmed man, would you?”
“Unarmed!” snorted Bonnie Mary. “One who’s used his mouth as a weapon ought to die by the same!”
“One thousand pounds of ammunition gone and worthless! Y’all could’ve died!” cried Ned, emboldened by fear now. “Burnt up like kindling ’cause of this little arsonist here! Just ’cause she’s a child, don’t mean she can get off scot-free! That ain’t the way a ship oughta be run!”
“It’s Jane’s fault!” added Lobster.
“You could’ve killed us all!” cried Florry.
People began to crowd around Little Jane. Angry eyes bore into her.
“But I didn’t take a lamp down! I swear on my honour—” pleaded Little Jane, but her high, thin voice was drowned out by the grown sailors all clambering to be heard.
Ned’s deep voice boomed above the din, silencing all the others. “Within the confines of this ship, we got ourselves a floating democratic republic. Or at least so it says in the charter. A show of hands, mates — what do we do with a child so stupid and careless of her shipmates’ lives she’d let us roast in our own powder? Now I’m thinking maroon her on the next island we see, but if you be preferring the keel-haul technique—”
“Wait!” protested Changez. “Think!”
“She were the last one down,” muttered another voice.
“It ain’t fair,” spoke up Cabrillo. “If she had the keys—”
“She’s but a child—”
“If it were one of us—”
“See reason, come now—”
“Done this sort of thing before—”
“A little girl on a ship—”
“Bad luck—”
“Always knew there were something wrong about—”
Little Jane felt like she was suffocating. It was happening again. Only this time she knew they wouldn’t forget. It wouldn’t be a matter of a little poultice on the hands this time. Her Papa had lied again. Not all things heal. Death, for example, has a tendency to be rather permanent. Her sweat ran cold against her skin.
BANG! A shot went off, straight up into the air.
“Shut up, ye bleeding idiots!” growled Long John, still brandishing his raised pistol. “You harm my child, ye harm me!”
“Do it, Jim,” said Bonnie Mary icily, starring daggers at Ned Ronk.
The boatswain stood before them barefoot, clad only in a pair of dripping breeches, having stripped off his shirt due to the heat of the fire. He truly was unarmed. The still healing whip marks on his back were visible for all to see, silvery white against the sunburned pink of his skin. Although Bonnie Mary had not cared for the man from the first, and had hired him only on Long John’s insistence, she had to admit he was brave to face them so boldly.
Brave, or holding an ace up his sleeve?
Only Little Jane seemed to notice Ned’s desperate glance to the fog-whitened horizon behind Bonnie Mary as if the Lord himself were scheduled to appear miraculously from that quarter at any moment. She followed his gaze in that direction, but saw nothing amiss. There was nowhere to run. Ned Ronk had crossed the captains one time too many. The crowd stepped back, not wanting to catch a bullet themselves.
Perspiring heavily, Long John reloaded his pearl-handled duelling pistol. He didn’t want to kill the boatswain, but what was the alternative? To let the man stay as he was, spreading his lies and deceit like a pox through the men? Ned had charisma and all the knowledge needed to work the ship. More importantly, he hungered for power. Long John could see that now. Ned would never be satisfied until he’d dethroned Long John and Bonnie Mary and was captain of the Pieces himself. And of course there was only one way that would happen. Over the dead bodies of the current captains
Long John squeezed the trigger.
But there was no big bang. No accompanying explosion of powder or recoil working its way back through his arm. Just a little click and a tiny puff of smoke. Long John looked down, puzzled.
Wait. No, there was a sound. A noise unpleasant and grating to the ear. A sound Long John hadn’t heard for quite some time, but one that Little Jane was intimately familiar with: the sound of mocking laughter.
Ned Ronk was laughing at him!
“The powder’s wet! Yer gun’s useless!” He giggled at the captains like a mad jester. “Oh Lord, crack-shot! Master Sharpshooter himself! A crippled weapon for a cripple captain! My, but don’t it suit you well!”
With an oath of frustration, Long John tossed the useless pistol aside and drew his sword, but Bonnie Mary was already one step ahead of him, her slender, needle-sharp foil thrust out before her, rushing forward. Ned Ronk was laughing no longer. He scrambled for his knife, though all could see she would pierce his heart before he reached it.
Strangely enough, it was Sharpeye who inadvertently saved the boatswain’s life, for just then the keen-sighted lookout yelled, “Ship! Sixty degrees starboard! Captains! Look!”
“What?”
The combatants froze in mid-motion to look, but the foggy grey sea ahead faded off into the misty sky without a vessel in sight.
Long John unfolded his telescoping spyglass with a flick of his wrist, while Bonnie Mary held Ronk at bay with her sword and pistol. Long John made no exclamation, but Little Jane noticed him pause, as if to collect himself, before making his report to the crew: “British. Forty-nine degrees to starboard.”
Every sailor onboard rushed to the rails in the direction Sharpeye had pointed. The few with optical devices of their own fought to keep their fellows away as they sought to confirm their coming doom with their own eyes.
Only Little Jane did not go to the balcony. She kept her eyes fixed on the traitorous boatswain. He glared back in open animosity, a cruel smile playing upon his lips. She was just thinking about how very much she yearned to smash it right off his face when, in a lightning-quick motion, and much to Little Jane’s surprise, Ned Ronk grabbed the wooden keg barrel from which the ale had issued forth during their short-lived toast, and mounted the railing. For a second Ned stood upon the rail opposite the one the crewmen were gathered around, holding the keg under his arm, his eyes flashing triumphantly. Then he stepped straight out into the air and plunged down, d
own to the sea below. He hit the water with a sinister splash.
Little Jane may not have known how to be a good pirate, but she knew enough to realize that the Pieces of Eight was now in serious trouble. Rats deserting the ship kind of trouble. Without gunpowder, even their best rifle in the hands of their most skilled sharpshooter was basically just a fancy whacking stick. With only swords and bayonets they couldn’t even put up a token defence against a British warship. And Ned must have been working in concert with whoever was on that big ship, who had supplied him with an extra key all along. Well, at least if she survived, she’d have the pleasure of saying “I told you so” to everyone else onboard.
Assuming there’d be anyone left to hear …
Chapter 11
Under Attack!
Their grievances forgotten, the sailors now scrambled to their stations.
Long John peered through his spyglass with growing fascination. The strange ship was coming on fast — seventy knots if she wasn’t a league, he’d wager. And an odd craft from the looks of her. He didn’t know quite what to make of it. Merchantman? Pleasure cruiser, perhaps? Not likely. Warship, then? He was certain she was a frigate, but customized in ways unlikely to find favour in any standard navy.
She was flying three more square-rigged sails than an ordinary ship, their white bellies swollen with the mighty northeast wind. A right lot of sheets for a ship that size. Slave ship or pirate? The hull was cut down fairly level, with a low forecastle, almost perilously close to the water. That was something only slavers and pirates did to increase their cruising speed. A masterful captain indeed, to sail something so tricksy, Long John mused. A captain had to be vigilant with such a low-hulled ship, for she was easily swamped and highly vulnerable to cannon strikes if your enemy knew where to hit. In fact, the Pieces was the only ship he had ever seen to sail so low to the water so fast.
Now that he considered the matter at length, the strange craft seemed much like the Pieces in other respects, too. Looking at her was like looking at an eerie reflection of his own ship across the water. For a brief moment, Long John was aware of the fear that must grip the captains of the ships he plundered as they witnessed the Pieces bearing down upon them.
Little Jane Silver Page 10