by Alex Scarrow
Liam dropped the pistol, a useless encumbrance now. Henry Bartlett caught Liam’s eye briefly and nodded a thanks at him before advancing on the other corsair with his wildly swinging axe.
Liam looked around, quickly trying to gauge the way the skirmish was going. The knot of men had spread out across the entire deck: now no longer a tight scrum but several dozen individual duels. Men fighting each other with snarling ferocity – dirty, ugly fighting. Not the athletic cut and thrust of swordplay peppered with the exchanged quips of dashing men he’d seen in so many cable-channel movies; no, nothing like that.
This was one man on top of another, pumping a knife again and again and again into the other’s neck. This was one man beating another’s head to a messy pulp with the heavy wooden butt of a musket. One man gouging at another man’s eyes. A man firing a flintlock pistol point-blank into the back of the head of another, spattering skull and brain tissue across the deck.
God help me. Liam was horrified. Disgusted. But also, he realized with a sting of guilt, he was utterly exhilarated.
The fight seemed to be evening out. There were fewer corsairs than crew, albeit the Moorish pirates were clearly battle-hardened and experienced and ready for this fight. But the Clara’s crew were fighting for their very lives, not just for a prize but for a payday. And right there was the shift of balance – what would determine who was going to win this short fight.
It was down to survival.
Liam found himself looking for another to fight, bizarrely, for a moment, like being at a dance and looking for a partner. His gaze locked on another man. Younger this time. Perhaps his exact same age. His young face, all smooth coffee skin on which the first bristles of manhood were attempting to grow. Liam and the young man advanced on each other. The struggling, squirming, screaming, braying world all around them faded to a muted periphery … as if somehow, someone had slowed time down to a crawl, dampened the noises of the world and just left the rasping breath of Liam and this young man.
The young man nodded at Liam. An odd gesture of formal greeting – a courtesy extended to someone he intended to kill in cold blood.
Liam nodded back. ‘Aye, well … let’s be having you, then.’
The young man held a scimitar, a curved sword, already smeared with someone else’s blood. Somehow that made this easier. There was a moment, a fleeting second just then, where Liam wondered whether he could kill this young lad. His age, his build, dark scruffy hair: he seemed almost a mirror image. Liam wondered if in another place, another timeline, they could be friends, brothers even. A stupid thought to have. Especially right now when this could only be a fight to the death. He looked again at the bright smear of blood. The blood made it possible. Seemed to grant him permission.
Let’s get this over with.
Liam lunged forward, swinging his cutlass around, aiming at his midriff. The young man blocked it and their blades rang deafeningly in this lonely world of theirs. The corsair swept his blade around in the opposite direction, looking for a chance to get to Liam’s right side. He swept low in response, their blades clattering and ringing again, both sword hilts locked.
Both young men leaned in towards each other, looking to push the other off balance. Liam could feel the young man’s hot breath on his cheek. It was almost an intimate embrace. And that’s when he noticed the young man was trembling. Quite terrified. Liam cursed under his breath. He glanced again at the rivulets of blood on the scimitar.
He’s killed already. He’s got blood on his hands. He’s a valid target.
Liam brought a knee up and caught the young man in the groin, winding him. The embrace unlocked and the young man backed up a step to buy a second or two to recover. But Liam advanced quickly, taking the advantage. He swung his cutlass down. The young man hastily parried, deflecting Liam but not stopping him. The edge of his cutlass ricocheted off the scimitar’s guard and carried on down in a sweep that curved inward, biting deep into the calf of the young man’s right leg. He cried in pain and flopped down on to one knee, a flap of skin and muscle exposing a sliver of bone. Liam must have cut a tendon, a hamstring, a muscle.
Now Liam had a height advantage. And mobility. The young man tried a quick, low thrust to Liam’s groin, a roll-of-the-dice chance to turn his fate around. But Liam deftly stepped to one side and, with the young man’s reach fully extended, there it was for the half a second it was going to be offered, the young man’s wholly unguarded neck and shoulder.
Liam thrust his blade down. Brutally. Hard. Hacking deep into flesh, cartilage and bone. The young man looked up at Liam, the cutlass buried deep in him, with brown eyes that watered. Brown eyes that seemed to want to communicate something: anger? Regret? Forgiveness? Blood streamed from his mouth and his eyes began to roll, and then he flopped sideways on to the deck.
Liam stared down at his body, transfixed, as a pool grew beneath his torso. Maybe he wasn’t so very young, Liam decided. Maybe he just looked young. Maybe there was something of a life lived there – before such a bloody end. Liam aged him up from sixteen, to twenty, to twenty-five in three blinks of an eye.
Does it matter how old he was?
Liam looked again at the bloodied scimitar lying on the deck.
He was a valid target.
Chapter 21
1667, aboard the Clara Jane, somewhere off the west coast of Africa
The hatchet felt clumsy and heavy in Rashim’s sweat-damp hands. He didn’t think he was going to be able or even willing to kill anyone with it. He doubted he’d be able to do little more than flail it around in front of him and try to look intimidating at the same time. Down on the main deck, he caught a glimpse of Liam amid the churning mass of bodies, parrying and thrusting, his blade already speckled with blood.
Oh God, help me. I’m scared.
His legs felt like they were going to give way beneath him. On the rough wood of the deck beside him, Old Tom was rolling around with a pirate, locked in an embrace, both men grunting and gurgling as they tried to strangle each other. Captain Teale seemed to have recovered some of his composure and was now fending one of them off with a skilful display of swordsmanship. It seemed the only person on either ship not now locked in a personal struggle for survival was Rashim.
He looked around the ship. It appeared this struggle could go either way. Bodies were beginning to pile up on deck: the wounded, the dying, the dead; bare feet and boots were slipping in growing smears and pools of blood.
It was right then that his peripheral vision registered something on the horizon: the signature shape of triangular sails emerging round a spit of land. Two more dhows were heading straight towards them.
It was a trap. This whole pursuit was a trap.
That had been the corsairs’ game plan: to raise every sail and make it appear as if they were desperately trying to escape, while at the same time covertly slowing themselves down, luring Teale’s ship ever closer to shore, to where more of them were waiting.
‘Captain!’ Rashim shouted. ‘CAPTAIN TEALE!’
‘Goddamn it, man!’ shouted Teale over his shoulder as he parried a blow. ‘Can you not see I’m busy?’
‘There’re more of them coming! We have to break this off!’
But Teale was otherwise engaged, his blade rattling against the edge of another. Rashim looked again at the two dhows; they were bearing down fast. If the same numbers of corsairs were on each of those ships …
We’re going to be overwhelmed.
He looked around frantically for something he could do. Run? Save himself? Swim for it? He stepped across to the gunwale at the edge of the afterdeck, looked down at the choppy water below. He could jump over the side. Perhaps he might be able to make for the shore. Then what? Be alone there? Stranded? And then how long before he was chanced on by more men like these to be killed or more likely sold on as a slave.
The corner of one of the dhow’s released sails fluttered across the narrow space between the ships, whipping loosely, taunted by the li
vely breeze. And a thought came to Rashim. Something Old Tom had said a few days ago, when a bare candle flame had been left carelessly close to a barrel of caulking tar.
Fire is the thing all sailors fear the most. Loose fire on a vessel is what has sent all too many men to the bottom of the ocean … Never mind a storm or unseen rocks, it’s fire a seaman fears.
The dhow’s loose sail. Rashim had an idea. He turned and ran to the low door to Teale’s cabin, kicked it open and ducked inside. He found what he was looking for – a large oil lamp in a brass and glass cage, swinging from a hook on a rafter. He grabbed it, opened the lamp’s door and pulled out the ceramic flask of oil inside.
Back outside, he raced for the edge of the deck, sidestepping Tom on the way, and leaned over the gunwale. He reached out for the corner of the fluttering burgundy sail.
‘Come on!’ he hissed as it danced and flapped a yard beyond his reach.
No good. Not quite close enough. He wasn’t going to grasp hold of it. Even if he did, it was as likely the heavy material tugged by the wind would pull him over the side. Rashim cursed. Change of plan. He pulled the wick from the top of the flask. Oil sloshed around heavily inside; the flask was over half full.
I could throw it at the sail? Yes. He could try and douse their sail with oil. But an ill-judged swing of the flask and the oil inside could easily end up missing the flapping sail and splashing down into the sea below.
Rashim held the flask carefully in both hands, one grasping the handle and one cradling the base of the flask. Another gust of wind caught the material; it fluttered and bulged and flopped across the dhow’s foredeck. Wrong way.
‘Come on! Come on! This way!’
The wind freshened again and the dhow’s foresail rippled and fluttered and then mercifully bulged out over the gap between the ships’ hulls towards Rashim.
Now!
He swung the flask and a yellow arc of lamp oil splashed out, bridged the gap and soaked into the dark material. ‘YES!’ he whimpered. He dropped the flask on to the deck. Now all he needed was a flame.
‘A flame! A flame!’ he muttered to himself. ‘I need a goddamned flame!’ He looked around. For so much acrid gun smoke still wafting across the decks there wasn’t a single source of flame or ignition to be seen. Then he noticed Old Tom, bulge-eyed and purple-faced, still wrestling on the deck with his assailant, a flintlock pistol peeking from his belt. Rashim scooped up the empty flask at his feet, hurried over and, with an almighty swing, brought it down on the back of the head of Tom’s would-be strangler. The pirate flopped forward on to him and, gasping for air, Tom pushed the unconscious body off to one side.
‘Curse ya! Yer might’ve … bloody well … done that … sooner!’
‘Your pistol!’ said Rashim. ‘Did you fire it yet?’
Tom was on his hands and knees, retching. Coughing. Spluttering. Rashim didn’t have time to wait for the man to recover. He wrenched the flintlock out of Tom’s belt.
‘Hoy! Hey! The piece is … mine!’
‘I need it!’ Rashim checked the weapon as he hurried back towards the edge of the deck. It was mercifully still primed and ready to fire. Again he leaned against the gunwale, as far out over the side as he dared. He wasn’t hoping to ignite the sail with the ball of hot lead fired from the pistol. At best all that was going to do was nip a tidy hole through the fluttering sail. No. If he could fire it close enough to the oil-sodden material, the foot-long tongue of sparks and flame might just catch it.
Might just.
Once again he was at the mercy of the teasing wind. It pulled the dhow’s foresail back across its own deck, coyly taunting Rashim as it hung there lifeless and rustling. Rashim shot a glance towards the shore. The other two dhows were closing fast.
‘Goddammit!’ he hissed. ‘Will you please come here!’
He felt a breeze cool his damp cheeks and, once more, the sail snapped to life, fluttered, ballooned, then finally swung back towards him. Rashim stretched even further, his arm fully extended, one leg on tiptoe, the other raised, attempting to counterbalance his weight; an ill-timed bumping of hulls and he’d be over the side. He pulled the trigger and the pistol kicked in his hand. A mushroom cloud of blue-grey billowed out, completely obscuring Rashim’s vision. He pulled himself back, righting his balance, and frantically wafted at the smoke spinning and twisting in front of him.
And through it now he could make out that the sail had swung back over the dhow’s foredeck. If it had been night-time, dark, he’d have known if the sail was alight. However, in this glaring midday sunlight, any flame was almost invisible. But there it was, he saw it – the burgundy sail darkening as if a pot of ink had been spilled from the other side and was blotting through the material. A ragged hole appeared in the middle of the blot and then smoke, all of a sudden lots of it, and finally the first hint of a tongue of orange flame began to curl up the material.
‘Yes!’
The sail was well and truly alight. Old Tom staggered over to join him, and understood in an instant what Rashim had been up to. ‘Clever man!’ he huffed, still struggling to get air down his bruised and battered throat. ‘Very clever.’
‘But look!’ Rashim pointed. ‘There’re two more of those ships! See?’
Tom squinted. The other two dhows were little more than a quarter of a mile away, a distance they were going to cross in mere minutes. He cursed. ‘Then we’re done for unless we can get under way right now.’
The foresail was now billowing smoke across both decks and, through the fog of it, Rashim could hear the corsairs beginning to call out to each other. Shrill voices were raised in panic. The effect was almost instantaneous: a ripple of voices crying out in alarm. Their ship was their livelihood and a mad scramble began as they disengaged from combat and swarmed back over the gap between hulls to their own ship in an attempt to cut the flaming sail free and jettison it before the fire spread any further.
Old Tom was quick to react. ‘Cut those grappling lines!’ He grabbed the ship’s helm and spun the wheel full lock to get the Clara Jane’s turning momentum going once again. Far too sluggishly, an angled gap began to open up between both hulls as the schooner lolled lifelessly to its right and the sails rustled and shifted unhappily, uncertain which way to fill.
‘Go on, find the wind!’ hissed Old Tom. ‘It’s right there, old girl! Find it!’
Teale joined them beside the helm, anxiously shooting a glance at the approaching dhows. ‘You are turning us towards those rocks!’
Tom cursed. ‘God help us, we need motion, Teale, you imbecile. Motion! Doesn’t matter which damnable way we head!’
Chapter 22
1667, aboard the Clara Jane, somewhere off the west coast of Africa
The Clara Jane’s sails began to fill and catch the westerly wind, pulling her sluggishly around to face the craggy shoreline. The sea directly ahead of them was a frothing white foam of waves breaking across treacherous shallows and smashing against sharp knuckles and fingers of protruding rock.
‘Turn away!’ cried Rashim.
‘Not yet!’
‘You’ll run us aground!’
‘Aye, mebbe.’ Old Tom shot a glance at the approaching dhows, now no more than a couple of hundred yards from them. ‘But we’ll be done for, for sure, if we stay bobbin’ dead in the water.’
He kept the wheel locked fully to port until it looked as if the ship was going to ride right up on to the rocks, then, at the very last moment, with the schooner now crashing forward through the water well and truly under sail, he spun the wheel hard to starboard, once again full lock. The Clara Jane arced slowly round to the right, every last man on the ship wincing with expectation and bracing themselves firmly, waiting for the inevitable crash and splinter of the ship’s keel on the rocks below.
Rashim felt something, a bump, a scrape, an agonizingly long vibration, beneath his feet.
God, we just hit something.
But the Clara Jane continued its painfully slow U-t
urn crawl around until the last spit of rocky shoreline ahead of them eased off to their left and the prow now began to bear south-south-west towards the pair of dhows bearing down on them.
‘We’re … uh … now we’re heading right towards them!’ said Rashim.
The Clara’s prow settled on the narrow space between the two boats and then Tom straightened her heading.
Rashim frowned. ‘No, hang on … you’re taking us between them?’
The schooner heeled over on to its port side as the sails now filled and the yards swung round on their braces, the ship closely hauled and sailing as tight to the wind as a square-rigger could go.
‘They got no cannons on-board, we’ll be fine,’ said Tom. ‘Just keep your head down from musket fire as we sail twixt ’em.’
Liam pulled himself up the ladder on to the afterdeck to join them. He looked back at the dhow they were leaving in their wake. The flames from the foresail had spread to the mainsail and he could see the pirates clambering up their masts, hacking ferociously at the rigging to cut the burning material free before the flames could spread across to the aft sail.
‘Nice job, Rashim.’ He grinned at the smoke wafting from the dhow. ‘Aye, that was quick thinking.’
Rashim looked at Liam, noticed his shirt spattered with blood. ‘Good God, Liam! Are you wounded?’
He looked down at his shirt and shook his head sombrely. He shook away the image of that young man: those brown eyes imploring Liam to remember him, be haunted by him, forever more. ‘It’s not my blood.’
Teale adjusted his waistcoat, placed his tricorn hat back on his head and joined them. ‘Marvellous work, you men!’
‘We ain’t home and dry just yet, Teale,’ growled Tom, nodding at the scene in front of them as he handed control of the wheel back to the helmsman. The other two dhows were now looming up on either side of them. For a moment it looked as if the Clara Jane was going to collide head on with the one on the port side, but it turned slightly off wind to avoid them, and a moment later they were racing into the space between both vessels, three hulls hissing through choppy water mere feet apart from each other.