She was not as strong or as tireless or as skilled with the sword as most of the Dianas or any of the Marlboroughs, she knew. But she was quick and agile and had a sharp eye, and few of the English considered her a threat until it was too late. She hung back, mostly, looking for a chance to strike a man from behind or cut a line upon which he depended, giving aid to those Dianas most pressed and, where no other opportunity presented, hacking away at the tangled cordage and grappling-lines that held the two ships together. She was, she thought wildly in one such moment of desperate chopping, like unto a frigate in this battle—a light ship, nimble and maneuverable, offering assistance and communication and not likely to be attacked unless she attacked first.
But she lacked a frigate’s true immunity, and when a fiercely grimacing English airman, stripped to the waist and bulging with muscles, saw her tugging at a grappling-iron, he did not hesitate to swing at her with his boarding-axe. It was only through sheer luck that she was not instantly killed: the grapnel on which she was pulling came free of the deck, sending her tumbling backward, a moment before the axe swished through the space where her head had been. Realizing her peril almost too late, she could do little but raise the grapnel in both hands to block the axe’s second strike. The blow of the long axe on the grapnel’s shaft sent a jar down her arms, forcing her down to the deck and nearly driving the grappling-iron from her stunned hands.
Again the Englishman raised his weapon, hooking a foot in a scupper for leverage as he brought the axe down for a killing blow. From her position on the deck she could do nothing to resist it … but she shoved hard on the heavy grapnel with her still-vibrating arms, pushing it toward her assailant and sending herself sailing away. The axe bit heavily into the deck where she had just been, even as the grapnel struck the English airman’s feet, knocking him into the air. He recovered quickly, hauling himself down the axe handle, but its blade was embedded in the deck, giving Arabella a moment to fetch up against the mainmast base and recover her wits. Leaping straight up, paralleling the mast in her course, she lost herself from his view in the litter of shredded sails, cordage, and broken yards above the deck.
She hung, gasping, in that drifting wreckage for a moment, clinging with both hands to a backstay. Her whole body thrummed with frenzied agitation, but beneath that surface she could feel a weariness that ran to the bone … she knew she lacked the stamina to sustain this level of activity for much longer, and if she tried to do so she would surely make a fatal mistake. Still seeking to avoid the airman below, though she knew not whether he pursued her, she pushed herself upward toward the main-top. Soon she reached an area where the detritus was sparser, and took the opportunity to look around.
The air had cleared considerably during the hand-to-hand battle—indeed, she realized, she had not heard the sound of cannon in some time—and from this vantage Arabella could see the cause of the series of crashes and lurches that had followed the collision. Diana’s momentum had driven Marlborough backward into the sterns of the other English vessels, and now their pulsers were all entangled together, preventing any of them from moving. The surrounding khebek had taken the opportunity to redouble their attack upon the English forces, bedeviling them with their little cannon, but though they had managed to do some damage most of the English fleet were still in fighting trim. Once they managed to free their pulsers from each other the battle would surely turn in their favor.
Looking down upon Diana’s deck, Arabella could see that Chips’s men and a gang of Venusian waisters had made some progress in freeing her from Marlborough. The battle on the deck had moved aft—toward the quarterdeck, where Captain Singh and the other officers were defending their position with pistols—but no new Marlboroughs were swarming across; the men still aboard that ship were now fully engaged in disentangling her pulsers. And Diana’s pulsers, alone of all the entangled ships, still turned, pulling her away and drawing taut the lines that still connected her to the English ship.
In fact, just one line—a heavy grappling-line on Diana’s starboard bow—seemed to be the crux of the matter. It lay below the view of Chips’s gang, vibrating with tension; if that one line could be cut, the loose web of tangled sail and cable on the larboard side might tear free. But Arabella had left her cutlass behind on the deck.
Desperately she looked around, hoping to find a cutlass, or a boarding-axe, or even a simple knife amongst the detritus of the battle. And there one was! A fine long gully-knife floated between her and the deck, perhaps thirty feet away, turning slowly in the filthy air. But it was drifting away … if she leapt directly toward it, her momentum would inevitably carry her into the empty space between ships. With nothing at all to catch herself upon, she would drift helplessly until some one was able to rescue her … or an English sniper ended her life.
Nothing at all? Or might there be something?
The winds of the Horn still blew, strong and capricious as ever, jostling the entangled ships against each other like garments in a wash-tub. There was, indeed, a strong current below the drifting knife, plainly visible from the bits of floating debris embedded within it. If she could but catch that stream after snagging the knife, it would blow her back toward Diana. But the flow changed even as she watched … there was no telling how long it would persist.
Without allowing herself to hesitate, she braced her legs against the main-topgallant-yard and sprang toward the floating knife.
Time seemed to distend. The knife rotated before her, drifting slowly as she neared, hands outstretched to snag it from the air. But she had misjudged her leap, or perhaps the currents had changed, and she was not moving directly toward it … in fact, she would pass well beyond arm’s reach of it.
Heedless of propriety, she pulled up the remains of her dress, stretching its ragged lower edge between her hands as she extended her arms above her head. The action of this feeble improvised sail upon the air through which the force of her leap carried her was slight, but it was sufficient to send her into a slight tumble … and provided just enough of a diversion of her course that she could barely reach the knife, plucking it from the air as she passed!
But that brief moment of triumph would gain her nothing if she could not catch the current below … and now she was tumbling, disoriented, and diverted from her original course. Again she pulled up her dress, feeling the unaccustomed breeze upon her back and breasts as she waved it above her head, fighting to maneuver herself into a more stable attitude. But in the disordered winds of the Horn she managed only to add a longitudinal spin to her head-over-heels tumble.
She was still tumbling, completely beyond control, when she drifted into a strong current, which seized her and redirected her onto a new tack. But which way was she going now? Helplessly she floated, with Mars and sky and ships and bodies and drifting clouds of smoke and flotsam turning all about her in a dizzying whirl, wondering whether this was the end … whether an English bullet or a stray cannon-ball or a long lingering death of thirst was to be her fate.
And then, with a crack that sent bright flashes of light across her vision, the back of her head slammed into something hard.
The impact sent her into still more complex gyrations, and she flailed her arms and legs wildly, completely disoriented, trying to keep hold of the knife. And it was that knife, indeed, which saved her, as its tip struck and stuck into something made of khoresh-wood … she could tell by the distinctive sound and feeling. Using that as a point of leverage, she managed to moderate her dizzying spin, and though that action pulled the knife from the wooden object, whatever it was, she was still close enough to it to reach out with her hand and pull herself to it.
She found herself face to face with the goddess Diana.
The ship Diana’s figurehead, to be precise, three times life size and shining with gold leaf, holding out her bow and arrows before herself with one extended arm. She was all askew, pointing hard a-starboard from a nest of smashed and tangled timbers. And Arabella’s knife and hand had found her
exposed breast.
“Forgive me!” Arabella gasped, but she did not release that gilded wooden curve until she had completely stilled her tumble and her hammering heart had returned to something resembling its previous, merely rapid, beat.
Arabella looked around. Chips and his men were working away on the far side of the figurehead, and the Marlborough’s crew were doing the same to their ship not ten feet the other side of her, but at the moment no one was looking in her direction … though one of Marlborough’s cannon, lying askew in the wreckage, was aimed directly at her, its black mouth still shimmering with heat.
The grappling-line she had seen from above still held firm, taut as a harpsichord string, with no one paying it the least attention. With a firm yet polite push against Diana’s breast, Arabella propelled herself toward the line, catching it easily with her left hand. Then, making sure to cut between herself and Marlborough, she began sawing at the line with her knife.
The line was under so much tension that it seemed hard as iron at first. Yet, by the same token, once its fibers began to give way they parted eagerly, the line seeming to tear itself apart beneath her blade as the two ships strove to pull the cord in two. The cable’s twist had an effect as well, causing the line to spiral as it parted; Arabella hooked her good leg around the line to prevent its rotation from flinging her away, and kept cutting. Then, when she was only halfway through, the cable’s core suddenly snapped, flinging Arabella backward like the crack of a whip.
Arabella whooped and flailed anew, losing the knife. But she was not so disoriented as before, and soon caught herself on one of the drifting sails which had formerly been attached to Diana’s shattered bow-sprit. Dragging herself hand-over-hand across the billowing silk toward Diana’s forecastle, she felt through the fabric the tearing tug of the ship, now freed from the imprisoning grappling-line, pulling herself away from Marlborough. Shouts and the sounds of rending wood and fabric also came from the far side of the figurehead, as the disorganized tangle of wreckage there also gave way.
“Marlborough!” came a cry from the shattered gun-deck of the other ship as it drew rapidly away. It was a Naval officer, the sleeve of his blue coat soaked black with blood but his voice still stentorian. “Marlboroughs! Marlboroughs! To me! To me!”
Ignoring the officer, Arabella reached Diana—it was the stinking outer bulkhead of the head, but no matter—and clung there panting for a moment before scrambling across the planks to the forecastle rail. There she beheld several dozen English airmen leaping and darting through the blood-stained wreckage … directly toward her! Their eyes, though, were fixed upon Marlborough, the English ship swiftly falling away behind her as Diana’s unflagging pulsers drew her ever more rapidly backward. They were in full retreat.
Arabella shrieked and ducked behind the gunwale; a moment later a half-dozen English bodies hurtled through the air above her head. The crack of rifle fire sounded from both sides, snipers in both ships’ tops striving to aid or prevent the boarders’ retreat, and the shrieking war-cries of “Diana! Diana!” came nearer, the victorious Dianas seeking to do as much damage as possible to the English airmen as they departed.
Arabella clung trembling to the gunwale as the sounds of fighting drew nearer. A body struck the rail next to her and spun away, flinging drops of blood in an aerial spiral of gore; grunts and thuds and cries of pain marked the ends of other contests. But the larger battle was clearly drawing to a close, as the demoralized Marlboroughs abandoned all other goals in favor of escape.
Finally there came a victorious cry of “Heave … ho!” and a shrieking English airman went sailing over the rail, propelled in the general direction of Marlborough. His anguished cries as he spun helplessly in the air—his velocity was clearly such that he would never reach his ship without assistance—were met only by mocking laughter from the Dianas on deck. Arabella was simultaneously heartened by this clear sign of victory and dismayed by her shipmates’ callousness, but under the circumstances she could not bring herself to condemn them.
Arabella pulled herself over the gunwale and onto the forecastle, assisted by two wild-eyed, grinning waisters. The sight that met her eyes there was barely recognizable as the deck of a proud Marsman; it was now a shambles of smashed timbers, broken cables, and drifting sailcloth, splashed with blood, and grimly strewn with bodies, some writhing in pain and others unmoving. One of the latter, not far from Arabella’s position, was that of Torkei, one of the Martian technicians from the Institute. Though inexperienced, she had been a tireless worker and had shown promise of developing into a full-fledged engineer.
“Damage report!” came a cry from abaft. Arabella looked to the source of the sound—it was Watson’s voice, loud enough but cracking adolescently—and was immensely relieved to see her Captain Singh still standing proud and hale behind him.
Her first instinct was to leap to her husband, but Watson’s cry made her look around first, to see if there were any thing she might notice that others had missed—much like the cable she had cut. But she saw only wreckage, all of it plain enough to the least experienced eye. The bow-sprit, figurehead, and gun-deck were smashed to flinders; many yards and sails floated free, jarred or torn from their moorings in the collision and the fighting that followed; and the waist was a sea of tangled cordage and drifting belaying pins. It would take days to put right.
Days they did not have, nor even hours. For another cry, this one from much closer, caught her attention: “Sail ho!” cried a man clinging to the larboard mast. “Sail ho! Eight sail of ship!”
Eight sail indeed. For though Marlborough was clearly in even worse shape than Diana, the other eight members of the English fleet were not nearly so badly hurt. In fact, when Diana had pulled free of Marlborough, she had actually assisted them, by dragging the disabled English ship away from their entangled pulsers. All eight pulsers now spun freely, driving the English fleet in furious pursuit of the Marsman who had so grievously damaged their sister.
And Diana, with so many masts and sails deranged, was in no position to fight back or even to escape. Indeed, though her pulsers still turned valiantly, her bow-sprit was a ruin, its attached jibs and stay-sails now fluttering free. Absent the air resistance of those fore-and-aft sails, the ship was beginning to rotate on her axis in the opposite direction from the turning pulsers, reducing their effectiveness and making navigation difficult. And, of course, the gun-deck was completely out of commission, and even the bow-chasers were unusable.
“Rig up a jury-jib!” came a cry from close at hand. It was Faunt—dear Faunt, the captain of the waist, Arabella’s first friend aboard. His ever-present knit cap was soaked with blood, and one eye was red-purple and swollen shut, but he was still lively and urging the waisters into action.
Duty and habit leapt to the fore in Arabella’s breast and she immediately joined in, helping the waisters stretch a cable from the mainmast head to the ruins of the prow and fix the largest scrap of jib-sail to it. Busy needles immediately set to, mending the great rents in the sail, while Arabella and others tied the many gaskets necessary to fasten the sail to its cable. It was a crude solution, of little use in steering, but it would help to control the ship’s unwanted rotation.
But before the work on the jury-jib was complete, a thunderous rolling bang sounded from ahead—far too close—and several voices called out, “Get down!” Arabella and the other waisters flung themselves to the deck as a flight of hot iron shrieked overhead, ending in a hideous shattering crash somewhere abaft. Terrified, Arabella put her head up and looked to the quarterdeck, but Captain Singh and the other officers were safe … the English broadside had flown through Diana’s rigging and obliterated a wrecked khebek floating beyond her stern. Other khebek were moving in to help defend Diana, but they seemed so few and frail by comparison with the English fleet.
Arabella turned her gaze ahead. The English fleet was in heated pursuit now, pulsers whirling, jibs and stays in taut fine fettle. And as they neared they turned,
their cannon coming to bear upon the limping, fleeing Diana. The one in the lead, which had just fired upon them, was plainly preparing a second broadside … they were so close that Arabella could see and hear the busy gun crews as they readied their deadly charges. And behind that ship lay seven more, all with the same end in mind … the destruction of Diana, and with her the entire Martian cause.
Arabella could see no possible escape. But Captain Singh continued calling commands, and every man aboard was doing his best to put their damaged ship to rights. Lame, weak, and injured Diana might be, but she would fight to the last. “Ready stern-chasers!” cried Captain Singh, and those two small cannon on the quarterdeck—the ship’s only remaining defense—turned to face the onrushing English.
But the next sound Arabella heard—a sharp octuple ba-ba-ba-bang—came neither from Diana’s chasers nor the English, but from far a-larboard. When she sought and found the source of that sound, a cheer was pulled from her throat, with matching cheers echoing all around. For the new arrival, just now emerging from the drifting cloud of the previous battle, was a proud four-master well known to them all … Touchstone! Dear, dear Touchstone!
Two ships—well, to be frank, one and a half—against eight was still very poor odds for the Martians. But those odds were still more than twice as good as they had been, and Arabella huzzahed along with the other waisters as Touchstone’s broadside smashed into the lead English ship’s bow, utterly obliterating her figurehead and gun-ports. A second broadside soon followed—Captain Fox was fierce in the exercise of his gun crews, and prided himself upon their rapidity of fire—and this targeted the pulsers of the second, and largest, ship of the English fleet. It was not a clean kill—the cannon-balls did not destroy the pulsers’ hub—but they did smash several of the propulsive sails, impairing the target considerably. And Touchstone’s swivel-guns were not idle, banging away irregularly and harrying the other English vessels. Tiny flashes in her rigging showed her rifle-men were active as well, though the range was as yet too great for them to have much effect.
Arabella the Traitor of Mars Page 22