by Jane Feather
Her nose twitched at the aroma of coffee and hot bread, and she realized guiltily that she was ravenous, even after her breakfast. A young lad whom she recognized as the cook’s assistant came up the ladder, deftly bearing a tray on the flat palm of one hand. She turned away in embarrassment, staring out across the flat blue ocean with every appearance of total absorption. Dominic felt her stiffening under his hand and looked down at her averted profile. He nodded his comprehension but said nothing to her, merely gestured to the lad to put the tray on the deck by the forward rail. The lad did so, but his eyes kept sliding to the figure in her white gown, and the speculation was clear. What had been going on in the master’s cabin since that extraordinary revelation? Silas wasn’t talking, but very few of the men had expected to see the erstwhile cabin boy emerge intact from monsieur’s lair.
“Hungry?” Dominic asked, turning her from the rail.
“Famished,” she answered, touching her burning cheeks. “I know it is my just deserts, but I am excruciatingly embarrassed.”
“You’ll get over it,” he said carelessly. “If you don’t do anything else to attract attention, the fascination will die down.”
“I hope so.” She dropped cross-legged in front of a tray bearing hot, crusty bread, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and olives. There was a pot of coffee and a carafe of red wine. Embarrassment did not appear to have reduced her appetite in the least, she discovered with interest. Perhaps it was simply the result of her fasting. “Where are we sailing to?” It was the first time since their reconciliation that she had had the opportunity to ask the question, and now she waited to see if it would be answered.
Dominic broke off a crust from the loaf, added a wedge of cheese and chewed thoughtfully for a minute as his habitual caution died under the knowledge that it would make no difference now what she knew. “Honduras,” he said.
“Why?” Genevieve looked at him curiously. “Is it a good coast for piracy?”
“Not particularly.” The privateer chuckled. “Piracy is best conducted, ma chère, on the high seas, as far from the coast as possible.”
“Then why Honduras?”
Dominic drained his wineglass and stood up. “Come with me.” He held his hand down to her and pulled her to her feet.
She followed him down to the main deck, too intrigued now to worry about an audience. At a battened-down hatchway, Dominic beckoned two sailors over, instructing one to fetch a lantern, then he bent and, with the other’s assistance, removed the cover. He jumped lightly down into the blackness. “Sit on the edge of the hatch and I’ll lift you down.” Genevieve did so, feeling his hands strong around her waist, then she was swung through the air to join him in the darkness of the hold. Dominic reached up to receive the lantern and lifted it high, illuminating the cavern, sending shadows flickering against the bulkheads.
Genevieve looked around at crate after crate, nailed down and stacked against the sides. There were wooden barrels, banded with metal strips and, as she peered, her eyes accustoming themselves to the gloom, she made out the distinct elongated roundness of a cannon. She looked up at Dominic, puzzled. His lips were curved in a grim little smile, and the azure gaze was filmed with a mockery that she could have sworn had more than a hint of self-mocking about it.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “What is in the crates? And why is there a cannon?”
For answer, he walked over to a pile of crates, stooping because of the low headroom and, taking a knife from his belt, pried up the nails in the lid. She stood beside him, holding her breath expectantly as he lifted the lid. Muskets and carbines lay in neat racks, gleaming dully in the lamp’s glow, menacing, highly polished, well oiled, primed instruments of death. She shuddered. “All of them?” Her hand waved vaguely around the hold.
“All of them,” he affirmed quietly, “contain either weapons or ammunition. The barrels hold gunpowder. There are three heavy cannon.”
“You are taking these to Honduras?” He nodded, watching her through narrowed eyes, assessing her reactions, but, also, she knew, waiting to see if she could come up with the reason. She racked her brains, trying to catch onto an elusive memory. Then she remembered. Victor had been talking with two of the town’s prominent citizens on the rear gallery at Trianon a few weeks ago and, with her usual inquisitiveness, she had ducked into the cabinet to listen. It had not made a great deal of sense to her at the time: the discussion about a struggle between the people of Honduras and their Spanish masters. There had been talk of the advantages to be gained by the overthrow of the Spanish rule, of the trade and political benefits to be reaped from a grateful liberated population.
“To aid the revolution?” Dominic answered her question with another nod. “You believe it is right, then, for the people?”
At that he laughed. “Right or wrong does not interest me in the slightest, Genevieve. I provide a service for which I and my privateers are well rewarded. That is all that concerns me.”
“But that is so self-interested!”
“My dear girl, what do you think motivates those who have bought these weapons and are paying me to transport them? Ideology?” When she was silent, he went on. “No, it is greed, pure and simple. Greed for power, greed for profits. In chaos, both can be found. So, first you create the chaos.”
“It is horrible,” she whispered. “To create and finance a war for such a purpose.”
“I would not dream of defending it,” he said casually. “But I am as much an opportunist as your father, and why should I play holier than thou at the expense of my pocket?”
“Papa is involved in this?” But she knew the answer to that without his nod of agreement.
“In some matters, your father is quite willing to do business with a privateer,” he said with more than a touch of sarcasm. “At least I may be absolved of the charge of hypocrisy.”
Genevieve felt an overpowering need to get on deck again and breathe fresh air. Piracy was not the romantic, glamorous, swashbuckling business she had imagined it. It was dirty and dangerous and unscrupulous. But what did that make the privateer? He could not be untouched by the way he chose to earn his living, yet she did not want to think of him in those terms. But, as he said, he was no hypocrite. Perhaps that was why he had shown her his cargo. Such a demonstration was more dramatic than a mere verbal explanation would have been. “Why are you a privateer?” The question came forth without planning.
He shrugged lightly. “I thought you understood that. Did we not agree that it is a life to satisfy one who has no truck with the conventional responsibilities of man’s world?”
Somehow, she felt that it was not the whole answer, but for the moment it was the only one she was going to get. They had reached the hatchway again, and he handed the lantern up to the waiting sailor, then lifted Genevieve onto the edge before swinging himself up behind her. Leaving the hands to batten down the hatch again, he strolled back to the quarterdeck, Genevieve following in a sudden dispirited silence. The brightness seemed to have gone out of the day.
“Would you like to sail the ship?” Dominic asked suddenly, the question, as he had hoped, distracting her completely from the revelations of the last half hour.
“May I?” The tawny eyes shone again. “Will it be safe?”
“It will take more than a diminutive sprite to sink La Danseuse,” he responded with a laugh, leading her over to the wheel. The helmsman, responding to a brief gesture, stepped back, although his surprise seemed to jump out of his skin. “Put your hands on the spokes, like so.” Standing behind her, Dominic positioned her hands correctly and held them with warm pressure against the smooth roundness of the spokes, until she had established her balance, legs apart, feet firmly on the deck, shoulders braced. “Keep her steady on her course, now. If you let her come up too much, you will catch the big foresail aback. Do you feel the wind on your right cheek?” He touched her cheekbone, a feather touch that nevertheless sent a quiver down her spine. “Don’t let it come any further forward
than the bridge of your nose. All right?”
“All right,” she agreed, concentrating on her task, her eyes moving from the wheel to the great sail that seemed enormous, as enormous as her responsibility to keep it stretched at just the right fullness, to keep the lively hull of the frigate dancing across the water on her set course. Genevieve did not think she had ever been entrusted with a greater responsibility, and her lower lip disappeared between her teeth. A tiny frown creased the normally smooth brow, and the tawny eyes were intent.
Dominic smiled to himself and stepped back. Lighting a cigar, he stood behind her, feet solidly planted on the shifting deck, his body moving infinitesimally with the motion of the ship beneath him as he smoked, and smiled, and looked over the small ash-blond head to the horizon beyond. After about ten minutes he said, “We seem to have discovered another of your talents, Mademoiselle Genevieve.”
“Oh?” She looked up at him, startled out of her concentrated trance by the lightly teasing statement.
“You can sail a ship,” he said and strolled away, leaving her in charge of La Danseuse.
It was the most wonderful feeling, she discovered, once she had relaxed into the sense of competence. She was quite unaware of the attention the new helmsman was drawing from the crew who were staring and whispering in little knots of disapproval. It was bad enough having a woman aboard at all without having her sail the ship. But when nothing dreadful happened, and the small figure stood her trick, the wind blowing her skirts against her legs and ruffling her hair, as calmly as if she had been born and bred to it, a different feeling ran round the ship. This was no ordinary member of the female gender—no ordinary woman could have defied monsieur and withstood his fury, not once but twice. The memory of the rigging-climbing incident was still a lively one. No ordinary woman would have endured three days of below decks life either, up to her knees in cold, scummy water, scrubbing the decks without complaint. Whatever her reasons were for doing such an unheard of thing, she had certainly gone about it with a degree of grim determination.
Then suddenly, both the time and the opportunity for speculation on this fascinating subject vanished. “Land ahead,” came the call from the masthead, and a cheer went up from the main deck. Genevieve strained her eyes into the distance. She could see just a faint darkening on the horizon.
“Cuba,” Dominic said, appearing suddenly beside her. “We should make Yucatan Channel by nightfall. Once we’re through there, we can creep down the coast to Honduras.”
“Sail ahead, to port!” came the excited yell from the masthead, and the crew sprang to life, crowding the deck rail. The helmsman pushed himself away from the taffrail and took the wheel from Genevieve who relinquished it readily enough. Dominic raised his telescope.
“Masthead, what do you see now?” he bellowed.
“Battleship, monsieur,” the voice sang out. “Two decker.”
“Damnation!” Dominic swore softly. “They’re going to try and cut us off. And they never sail alone,” he added. “Signalman, send to all ships: Spread out and we’ll go round her, three vessels to port, four to starboard.” He stroked his chin as the semaphor flags flashed. “She’ll not be able to take us all on, and we’ll have the advantage of surprise. The last thing they’ll be expecting is that we continue on our course, sail directly for her.”
“Is it the British?” Genevieve asked, excitement and nervousness making her voice quaver.
“Yes. You’d better get below,” he responded shortly.
“Please, let me stay,” she begged. “I will keep out of the way, I promise, and there is no danger for the moment, is there?”
“Not for the moment,” he said. “Very well, you may stay on deck until—”
“Sail ahead, to starboard,” the voice from the masthead called again. “And another.”
Three battleships carrying guns, eighteen ports a side, probably, would decimate the privateers, none of which had more than nine twenty-pound guns apiece. They relied on speed rather than fighting power, and they could lie several points closer to the wind than the cumbersome British ships of the line. But that would not benefit them if they could not get past the battleships. The alternative was to turn tail and run for the Straits of Florida. They could sail down the northeast coast of Cuba and through the Windward Passage into the Caribbean and across to Honduras. But it would add days to the journey. They could split the fleet, though.
Genevieve, fascinated, watched the privateer’s face. Only his eyes gave any indication of the work going on behind that apparently unruffled brow, and the blue-tinged smoke from his cigar drifted carelessly around him. But there was a tautness to his body, an alert, unmistakable excitement as he faced the challenge, pitting his wits against those of the blockaders.
“Signalman,” he called again, but softly as if he were still thinking. “Send: All vessels sail to within three knots of the leading blockader. Alouette and Pique take the Straits. Colombe, Hirondelle, and Cygne run for the Bay of Campeche. Mouette and Danseuse will go straight through them. We meet at Punta Gorda.”
“Why will Mouette and Danseuse sail into the shark’s mouth?” Genevieve inquired. There was nothing about the privateer’s stance or expression to prohibit the asking of such a question and, in confirmation, he smiled, a contented little smile.
“Unless the wind changes, we can run before it, and there is no ship on earth, particularly one of His Majesty’s clumsy battleships, that can outrun either Mouette or Danseuse running before the wind.” He looked down at her and saw curiosity and excitement on her face; not a trace of apprehension. “Changing course for vessels of that size and tonnage is a cumbersome procedure. They do not answer rapidly to the helm, and they carry a great deal of sail which takes time to adjust. When they see us sailing directly toward them, they will not know what to think.” He chuckled sardonically. “That we are madmen or blind, probably. But they will continue sailing toward us. When we go three different ways, they will have to decide which of them will follow which group; and having decided, make the necessary maneuvers to alter course. By which time, we shall be well away.”
“But suppose they fire on Danseuse and Mouette?” Genevieve frowned. “If you sail in the middle of them, will you not be within range?”
“Yes, sprite, I fear that we shall.” He pinched her cheek and laughed, a laugh of pure exhilaration. “A couple of broadsides would sink us, but, again, I am trusting to the element of surprise. They need time to run out their guns, and they will never imagine that two little frigates would dare to brave their firepower, so they won’t be prepared.”
“But if they are?”
He drew on his cigar and exhaled slowly. “That, sprite, is the risk in the venture.”
She nodded, sobered by the thought, yet understanding exactly why the privateer had made the decision he had. It, perhaps, carried the greatest risk for two vessels of his fleet; the others would be home free without doubt. But it also carried the greatest rewards. She had spent the morning, while waiting for her clothes, pouring over the charts in the cabin, and was now perfectly familiar with the geography of these waters. This familiarity led her to the conclusion that only two out of the seven would be obliged to delay significantly their arrival in Punta Gorda; the two who were to take the Windward Passage. Those who fled to the Bay of Campeche would be able to make another try for the Yucatan Channel, and the two who sailed directly to the channel would be into the Caribbean by midnight.
“Send the men to quarters,” Dominic instructed the bosun, “and have the guns loaded and run out, if you please.” He seemed to have forgotten Genevieve, who fervently hoped that this absentmindedness would continue. She crept from his side to a corner of the quarterdeck from where she could look down at the activity on the main deck and was well away from the activity around the helm. Maybe, if she was very quiet and still, she would be able to stay on deck and witness the outcome of Dominic’s plan.
The dark squares of the battleships’ sails came ine
xorably close, urgent with menace, and the privateers continued steadily on their course until, with no warning, they seemed to scatter on the seas. They were still too far away to be threatened by the blockaders’ guns when two peeled off to port, three to starboard, leaving just two gamely heading for the enemy. “Set the t’gallants,” Dominic called to the sailors swarming up the rigging. They had clearly been waiting for the order, Genevieve decided, riveted with fascination at this orderly scene where many hands worked as if under the direction of one mind. “Helm a-starboard,” came the quiet order to the helmsman. Then, when the leading blockader appeared set to run them down, Dominic roared, “Jibe her over,” and the frigate came round neatly onto the port bow, taking the battleship quite by surprise.
The surprise was short-lived, however. The ship was close enough for Genevieve to read her name, Endeavour, on the hull, when a terrifying noise rent the air above the girl’s head as a cannonball tore past her ear to throw up a fountain of water close on their starboard quarter.
“Hands to the braces!” Dominic called, his voice as calm and even as if he were giving the course in the Mississippi River. “Hard a-starboard.” Again, Danseuse came round, hull up, the white water frothing under her bow. There was another appalling noise, and a shot buried itself in the quarterdeck a few feet from the cowering Genevieve. No one seemed to take any notice, and she watched in horror as smoke rose from the hole, then little rivulets of flame crept along the deck. She opened her mouth to call a warning, then recollected the fire bucket beside the ladder to the main deck. Crouching low, she ran for it. It was heavy, cast iron and filled with seawater, but with a supreme effort she managed to hurl its contents on the licking flames. There was a hiss and then only smoke remained.