by Hunter, Seth
Several wild swipes drove Nathan back to the rail before he recovered his poise sufficiently to step to one side and pierce his assailant neatly through the shoulder in a manner that Signor Angelo and even his esteemed father might have approved.
The cutlass clattered to the deck and Nathan withdrew the sword and applied the point to the man’s chin. “Yield,” he instructed him, with some notion of chivalry.
“Be fucked to dat,” replied the Irishman, seizing the sword in a clenched fist and bending it away from him, while driving his knee into Nathan’s groin. Ill-tempered from this blow, but not quite crippled, Nathan wrenched the sword from the man’s grasp, stepped back a pace and drove it decisively into a point a little below his throat and above his breastbone. He drew it out to release a shocking amount of blood and turned to face a new attacker he sensed coming up on his right.
But it was Tully.
“You’re alive,” Nathan observed with relief.
“So it would appear,” said Tully, “and yourself?” Gazing in concern at the top of Nathan’s head.
“I will let you know,” Nathan replied, “in a day or two.”
This conversation, though brief, was permitted them only because the battle appeared to be at an end. Nathan crossed to the starboard rail. The cutter was still at its mooring, still apparently unmanned. He looked for Holroyd and saw him leaning against the rail, looking sick and holding something bloody in his hand.
“What have you got there, Mr. Holroyd?” Nathan asked, distracted for a moment.
“My ear, sir.” He exposed his broken teeth in a shaky grin. “I thought the surgeon might sew it back on.”
“Good man.” Nathan was warming somewhat towards the midshipman after fighting three battles together, if only because they had both survived them. He would be almost human without the spots—the scarf had been a considerable improvement—but now it was clutched to the side of his head where the ear had been, apparently in an attempt to staunch the flow of blood.
“In the meantime, do you see that cutter there?”
Holroyd indicated that he did.
“I want you to take it out for us, do you think you can do that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good man. Take the gig you will find tied to the stern and three seamen—not guffies—and sail her out to the Unicorn where she belongs.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nathan had promised Adedike the brig but not the cutter. It was his cutter. He had come all the way from England for it and put up with a great deal of inconvenience on the journey; he was damned if he was going to leave it here.
He looked down at his other boats. Two were intact, the third was filled with bodies and bloodied water. God only knew how Tully had survived. He called him over.
“See if any of them are still alive,” he instructed him, “and bring them aboard if you can.”
But even as he spoke the launch filled up and sank. Nathan swore an oath. He looked up at the sky, then around the shambles of the decks. Bodies everywhere, some his, the majority not. Most of the mutineers had fought to the death, knowing what would happen if they were taken, but there were two prisoners—one little more than a boy, another wearing the uniform of a master’s mate in His Britannic Majesty’s Navy.
“Take that off,” Nathan commanded him savagely.
The fellow struggled to obey but the right sleeve was soaked in blood, his arm slashed from wrist to elbow.
“Leave it,” said Nathan wearily. “You would be Keane, I suppose?”
“I would,” said Keane. “God help me.”
“And where is the man called O’Neill?”
“He is over there, the bastard,” said Keane, venomously, “with his throat cut, just as he cut the captain’s.”
Nathan saw that he meant his red-haired assailant. He went to look.
“So I killed him,” he said, wonderingly, to Tully as they stared down at the body. “They sent me all this way for that.”
But it was not over yet.
They laid the dead and the wounded in the launch belonging to the brig. They had lost ten men, most gone down with the boat, and half a dozen wounded, two so badly Nathan did not think they would live.
Nathan permitted Tully to bandage up his wounds and then went down to the captain’s cabin to see if he could find anything of interest. He took the log and a bundle of charts, a sextant and a compass, and some papers written in English and French. Then they climbed down into the boats and set off for the jetty.
The whole shoreline and the battlements of the fort were lined with men who had been watching the battle. Nathan caught a glimpse of red on the walls of the barbican. Adedike. She kissed her hand to him and then he saw her face change to concern as she saw his. Tully had pressed a wad to the wound and tied a bandana around his head to stop the bleeding but his face was a mask of blood.
They unloaded the small arms and the powder and shot.
Nathan glanced up at the fort. Adedike was gone from the battlements. He saw Olumiji coming down from the gate with his bodyguard, doubtless to make sure he had his guns. Then Adedike came running out of the gate, her red robe streaming out behind her.
Nathan stepped ashore.
“That’s the lot,” said Tully.
“Thank you,” he said. Then he turned and began to walk towards the fort.
“Where are you going?” Tully called after him.
Nathan kept walking. He heard Tully running after him and felt his hand on his shoulder, spinning him round.
“I have to stay,” Nathan said. “That was the arrangement.” He managed a shaky grin. “She needs a captain of artillery.”
“Bollocks to that,” said Tully. He took out a pistol and pressed it under Nathan’s chin. “Back in the boat.”
“What in God’s name are you doing?” demanded Nathan, truly astonished.
“Back in the fucking boat.” Tully manhandled him back to the jetty, yelling orders to the startled men in the boats.
Nathan could hear shouts from the direction of the fort.
“This is mutiny,” said Nathan. “You could hang for it.”
Tully threw him down into the boat and jumped after him and held the pistol to his head.
“I gave my word,” Nathan told him. “I said I would come back.”
“And so you did,” said Tully. “Pull!” he instructed the marines.
Nathan saw the men on the shore raising their muskets.
“Put down your weapons or I will blow his head off,” Tully shouted in French.
Tully cocked the pistol. Nathan prayed to God it was not loaded. He heard Adedike screaming orders in her own tongue. The men lowered their muskets. They were heading out into the mouth of the bay.
“Keep close to the headland,” said Nathan, pulling himself together and remembering the mental notes he had made on his last visit.
Tully gave the order and the three boats crept along the foot of the headland under the guns of the fort. The cutter was already out, her sails set, heading for the distant frigate.
Nathan looked back and saw Adedike standing at the end of the jetty with her arms outstretched. She was shouting something—a plea or a curse. She looked so beautiful he felt a deep pang of regret. But it passed.
“You can put the pistol away,” he told Tully. “I am not going to swim to her.”
“I would not put it past you,” said Tully, but then he remembered his place. “I beg your pardon, sir. I am, of course, entirely at your command.”
But Nathan was past caring who gave the commands. He felt like someone had stabbed him in the chest.
He pressed his hand to the pain, doubling up in agony.
“What is it?” Tully was leant over him, his own face creased with concern.
“I don’t know,” said Nathan wonderingly. “It feels like my heart.”
CHAPTER 22
Enemy in Sight
WELL, I DO NOT THINK it is your heart,” concluded McLeish after tapping a
t Nathan’s chest and listening to it through a small instrument held to his ear. “And you did not receive a wee knock in the scuffle.?”
“I received several ‘wee knocks in the scuffle,’ as you are pleased to call it,” Nathan informed him, wearily, “but not, so far as I am aware, upon the chest.”
“ Well, let us be having a look at the others and I dare say you may find it a distraction from whatever discomforts ye in t’other region.”
A distraction it was but when McLeish had finished stitching the wounds to Nathan’s head and thigh the pain in his chest returned as savagely as before.
“What in God’s name can it be?” he demanded. He found it difficult to breathe.
“I can only suppose it is a spot of wind,” suggested McLeish mildly. “Have you eaten anything that might have disagreed with you at all?”
“Wind? Wind? It feels like someone has driven a spike into my chest. And I have not eaten a thing for several hours. Dear God, man. Wind?”
He rolled over on his side in the hope of easing the pain. “Christ,” he groaned, “I fear the witch has done for me.”
“The witch indeed? And which witch would this be?”
Nathan did not answer but Tully who had brought him down murmured in the doctor’s ear that he supposed he must mean “the witch woman” that was a kind of shaman to the Army of Lucumi.
“And how might that relate to the pain in his chest?” McLeish enquired with the coolness of a professional whose diagnosis is questioned by an inferior. Neither Tully nor Nathan felt it incumbent upon them to reply and after observing them both for a moment with a frown, McLeish exclaimed, “Dear God, man, never tell me you believe yourself to be hexed by a witch, forsooth? Why, God bless my soul!”
Nathan became aware of a new attentiveness in the crowded cockpit, for they had not been speaking Latin.
“Is there anything I can do?” enquired Brother Ignatius who had been helping to attend the wounded.
“ Well, it is more your province than mine,” replied the doctor. “I received scant instruction in the treatment of curses at the medical faculty of Edinburgh, the last witch being burned somewhat before my time, though it was in my own home town of Kirkudbright, I believe.”
“I had always understood that witches were hanged in England,” the monk remarked with interest.
“That is as may be,” McLeish retorted, “and I am not one to be critical of the English, but Kirkudbright being in Scotland, we have our own ways of dispensing justice and doubtless those that concern themselves with such matters considered that burning was a more reliable means of disposing of a nuisance than hanging, though in a more enlightened age we have recourse to neither but merely consign the poor creatures to the madhouse.”
“It is nonetheless an interesting phenomenon,” Brother Ignatius observed, and resorting to the Latin in which both he and McLeish had been versed for their respective reasons, he added: “The curse of a witch has been known to have a surprisingly potent effect upon the simple, superstitious mind. I have known otherwise healthy creatures to wither away in the course of a few days and frequently expire.”
“This is possibly true,” agreed McLeish, “but I fear it is entirely beyond my powers to propose a remedy, other than a strong emetic. Do not feel constrained, however, if you wish to bestow a blessing. I do not believe he has any significant aversion to the Church of Rome. Indeed I would have thought his religious propensity to be quite low.”
“ I am perfectly conscious,” Nathan informed them both, coldly, “despite my considerable discomfort, and though I was the despair of my tutors, I had the good fortune to receive a classical education—at least in the Latin—so if you wish to continue your discourse without regard to your patient’s finer feelings, might I suggest you do so in Greek, or Hebrew or Aramaic or whatever scholarly language you have had the leisure to pursue.”
This speech, though not lengthy, caused him some considerable effort but it was worth it to see the expressions on their faces and the protestations of regret, doubtless sincere on the monk’s part.
“My dear sir, I meant no offence,” he assured Nathan. “Indeed I am inclined to take your complaint a good deal more seriously than those who aspire to what they call ‘an enlightened approach.’” He slid his eyes disparagingly towards McLeish. “And although medicine may apply itself to superficial physical injury with some success, it appears to me to be entirely at a loss when it comes to the more complex afflictions of mankind.”
“Aye well, when the Church of Rome discovers a cure for yellow fever or bubonic plague or those other afflictions that baffle us poor physicians, pray inform me of it,” retorted McLeish, and then, addressing himself to Nathan: “In the meantime I would prescribe a bolus that I will instruct my assistant to make up for you. And a few hours sleep would not come amiss, for you have lost a great deal of blood which, I have been told, can render the mind as feeble as the body.”
“As to that, I am of the opinion that a frank confession of sin and a sincere act of contrition frequently soothes the mind as effectively as it relieves the spirit,” remarked Brother Ignatius, complacently folding his hands within the copious sleeves of his habit.
“Thank you, sir, but if I am to die I would prefer to die in the faith of my fathers,” Nathan assured him, and then turning to the doctor and addressing him in Latin, out of consideration for his other patients: “And as to your boluses you may stick them up your anus, where they will do just as much good, for I am perfectly aware of the palliatives offered to the ‘simple, superstitious mind.’ But I thank you for stitching me up and now, if you have no objection, I will go about my duties.”
And with some effort and all the dignity he could muster he stood up and hobbled back to the quarterdeck.
The Unicorn was heading sou’-sou’-west under a full press of sail and Tully had the watch. He looked at Nathan in concern.
“A chair for the captain,” he instructed Lamb who was at the con. Then, lowering his voice for Nathan’s private ear: “If you will permit me, sir, you look as if you could use a few hours’ sleep.”
“So the doctor tells me. However, I would sleep better for knowing our present position and what speed we are making.”
Tully told him. They were at the edge of the Sea of Sirens and making a little over six knots with the wind in the northeast. “And if you feel up to it, sir, one of the mutineers—Keane—has asked if he may speak with you.”
“Where is he?”
“Put in irons, sir, at your command.”
Nathan sank into the chair Lamb had brought him. He could not contemplate a trip below decks, unless it was to collapse in his cabin.
“Bring him up on deck,” he said.
Keane, when he appeared, looked as bad as Nathan felt. He was a young man of about Nathan’s age with features that would have been accounted personable had they not been so drawn and pale.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he began, “and I do not wish to distract you from your duties, but I wished to make a plea on behalf of the boy.”
“The boy?”
“Dermot Quinn, sir, that was taken with me on the brig.”
“Oh, the boy. Yes. What of him?”
“Only to say, sir, that he had nothing to do with the mutiny but only came into the cutter out of loyalty to his fellow countrymen.”
“And what of his loyalty to King George?”
“Oh, sir, he is a young boy, barely thirteen years old, and a native of Dublin.”
“Old enough to choose better company and is not Dublin a province of the kingdom?”
“It is, sir, and I doubt the boy would contest it for he is the son of a gentleman and a lawyer.”
“Is he indeed, then what is he doing among a parcel of—” But he held his tongue for the fellow was in no position to answer his abuse.
“The fact is, sir, he was staying with his mother’s sister’s family on the south coast of England when his uncle was taken by the press and the boy w
ould not be separated from him and so the officer said they should take him along as well.”
“And where is his uncle now?”
“He was knocked on the head, sir, in the fight with the slaver.”
“I see, so he was in on the mutiny?”
“He was, sir, and that may have been the reason the boy came with us.”
“I see. Well, I am sure the court martial will take this into consideration.”
Keane looked him directly in the eye. “My God, sir, you know what they will do to him and he was as opposed as any of us to the way O’Neill served out the captain.”
“I am sorry, Keane, but it is the best I can do.”
He felt another savage pain in his chest and gasped.
Tully came to his side as they led Keane below. “Are you sure there is nothing I can do for you, sir?”
They were distracted by a shout from the lookout in the foretop. A sail, coming up fast on their larboard beam. But she was smaller than a frigate and as she approached they saw that she was a merchant vessel—a snow brig flying the Union flag. She must have seen the Unicorn’s colours but she altered course and ran to the south. It took them an hour to catch her and oblige her to heave to under their guns. Her captain came over in his gig and reported to Nathan on the quarterdeck. Mr. Barnaby Leach, of the snow Priscilla out of Bristol, bound for Panama with a cargo of dry goods. He had thought they were French, he said, flying false colours.
“You were not heading for Panama when we sighted you,” Nathan pointed out.
“That is because we were running from a French frigate,” Leach told Nathan, “that we sighted in the Windward Passage.”
They had been sailing through the Passage, he said, when they were overtaken by the packet Greyhound, come from England with despatches for the acting Governor in Port Royal. They had sailed in company for a while, exchanging news, but then they had sighted a strange sail bearing down on them from the east and so they had scattered, the packet running for Port Royal and the Priscilla to the west.