“Damn you, move!” Christian shouted, shoving the boy into action. “Bring her up a point, Mr. Wenham, right up around that Frog’s stern. With a bit of luck, I daresay we can strip the guts from her with a broadside or two.”
Cold spray hissed and dashed over the frigate’s plunging beakhead, soaking the decks, the men, the guns.
“Starboard battery, run out!” Christian yelled.
All along the deck, men strained and heaved, muscling the big guns into position.
Not fast enough, Christian thought, in despair.
“All run out, sir!”
Christian stepped forward, his face in shadow beneath his hat. He saw the gun captains staring aft, awaiting his signal, and beyond them, Bold Marauder's jib-boom, just thrusting into the frayed edges of the thick cloud of smoke.
Drawing his sword, he raised his arm, the Irish girl’s face swimming into his memory once more, her words coming back to haunt him.
Useless as a man.
Savagely, he brought the sword down. “Fire!”
The world exploded.
###
It was a scene from hell itself. Midshipmen racing through the smoke to relay orders from quarterdeck to gun deck; flashes of musket fire from the French ship as her marksmen tried desperately to pick off Bold Marauder’s blue-and-white-clad officers; iron shrieking overhead, spars and pieces of burning rigging bouncing off the nettings spread above the deck, guns belching death and destruction, and men falling, only to be dragged, screaming, away to the surgeon’s knife below.
And the Lord and Master, steady, aloof, and unruffled, veteran of countless sea fights, and the one, the only, force holding Bold Marauder's frightened crew together.
“Starboard broadside, fire!”
The big guns roared out, one by one, leaving his ears ringing and thunder vibrating up through the deck and into the soles of his shoes. It wasn’t a timed broadside; it wasn’t even close. By God, we have to do better, or we 're all done for!
An answering boom roared through the smoke from the French corvette, and a cannonball screamed across the deck, smashed against one of the starboard guns, and exploded. Several gunners, grimy with smoke and sweat, fell screaming, blood streaming from their broken bodies and their legs kicking in death.
Through the smoke and haze, Christian saw the French ship’s yards turning as she abandoned the English cutter and came about, the water glistening dully from her side, her ports open and her guns poking their black snouts toward them—
“Reload and run out!” he shouted, gripping his sword. “Give them a good drubbing, lads!”
Beside him, one of the helmsmen cried out and, clutching his side, crumpled to his knees.
“Fire!"
Guns belched smoke and flame, recoiling against their tackle. The raw scent of sulfur singed the air. Several feet away, Teach, cursing, stumbled back in horror as his nine-pounder slammed inboard, nearly crushing him.
Christian shut his eyes, clenching his sword hilt.
“For God’s sake, sir!” Hibbert raced back to the quarterdeck. ‘They’re killing us!”
“We’ll nae win this fight, sir; they be too strong for us!” Ian yelled desperately.
Christian turned on them, his eyes fierce. “I’ll be damned if I lower my colors to a bloody Frenchman! Mr. Wenham!” Cupping his hands over his mouth, he yelled, “Hard-a-lee, and prepare to ram . . . now!”
“R-ram, sir?”
“Yes, Wenham, ram!”
Several feet away, a pigtailed seaman, slamming a fresh charge down one of the starboard guns, suddenly threw his hand over his eyes and fell to the deck, a musket ball buried in his brain. Guns roared from the corvette, and a nearby pinrail exploded in a shower of wood. Then the helm went over, and with slow, stately purpose, Bold Marauder drove her jib-boom into the French ship’s rigging. The jarring smash of hull against hull hurled men to their knees, the Lord and Master against the wheel, guns onto their sides.
“Stand fast, lads, and prepare to repel boarders!” Christian yelled, his voice raw with smoke as he fought to pull himself up from the deck.
Slowly, the two vessels pivoted, locked nose to shoulder as their guns pounded each other at close range with vicious fury. The English cutter drifted away, her battered crew trying to bring her under control. Then Ian grabbed his captain’s arm and pointed at the stream of yelling, cutlass-wielding Frenchmen leaping across to Bold Marauder’s deck.
“They’re boarding us, sir!”
Shot whined past, and Wenham gasped and slumped over the wheel. From above came a high, terrified scream and a marine fell, spiraling and kicking, to the deck. Somewhere forward, one of Bold Marauder’s guns banged out, and Christian heard the pop of muskets as his marines fired across at the enemy.
“They’re onto us, sir!”
Thank God, Christian thought insanely. He took one look at his men—dirty, ragged, untrained, and defiant—and in that fleeting instant, knew that his decision to ram the other ship had been the right one, the only one. They were inexperienced at fighting the guns of their frigate, yes; they were quarrelsome and rebellious, yes; but they were English sailors, and as such, there were none on God’s earth who would fight harder, nor more fiercely, when it came to defending their home.
And Bold Marauder was their home.
Drawing his sword, he leaped down the quarterdeck ladder and into their midst. “To me, lads!” he heard himself shout, his blade coming up to clash with the steel of the first wild-eyed intruders as they swarmed over the side like a horde of angry wasps.
For one awful moment, the crew did not move, stunned by the courage of the man they’d thought to be nothing but an aristocratic fop.
Then they reacted.
“Holy hell,” Skunk cried, his eyes bulging as the Lord and Master swung his sword against a Frenchman’s with a ringing clash, and then disarmed the man with a mighty blow. Rico Hendricks had already run toward his captain to help defend him and now Ian, his claymore high, charged toward the pair, instinctively placing his back to his captain’s as the three single-handedly took on the yelling, screaming boarders.
And now more and more of the French devils were leaping over Bold Marauder’s rails, their rails, their swords slashing.
Bold Marauder's crew began grabbing pikes, pistols, and axes, and, yelling in fury, raced to join the bosun and their two senior officers. Not to be left behind, Skunk seized a cutlass and threw himself into the fray. And then, with a wild, rushing roar, the rest of the men abandoned their guns and, howling like Indians, charged into the melee, fighting as they fought best—hand to hand, in bloody, ruthless combat.
Christian, parrying an enemy’s sword, saw flashes of red streak past as his marines joined the fight, their bayonets gleaming, thrusting, stabbing. A gun, then another, banged out from forward as some levelheaded soul fired into the corvette’s hull. He felt a brief swell of relief, but there was no time to thank God that his plan had worked, that his men were finally behind him. He knocked aside an attacker’s sword, chopped his own blade into the man’s ribs and jerked it free, only to stumble over a sprawled body. He fell heavily to the deck. A shadow filled his vision, and, momentarily helpless, he stared up into the maniacal eyes of a Frenchman leaping down at him from out of the smoke.
Christian saw his life flash before his eyes as the Frenchman, his face wild and triumphant as he stood over the fallen English captain, raised his sword with a wild yell—
Then Teach was there, bellowing with fury, his massive arm knocking aside the Frenchman’s cutlass, his sword impaling the man through the heart.
Christian’s eyes met his for the briefest of seconds. “Well done, Mr. Teach—”
But Teach was gone, pounding across the deck to take on another.
Dazed, Christian felt Skunk hauling him roughly to his feet. “You all right, sir?”
“Hibbert . . .”
Swinging around, Skunk saw the young midshipman raising his pitiful dirk against the ch
arging might of a boarder’s pike. With a howl of rage, Skunk knocked the pike aside. The full weight of his big body was behind the impact, and as the Frenchman fell to the deck, Skunk turned back to the Lord and Master, only to see him flinch, drag off his hat, and clap it to his shoulder.
“Bloody captain,” Skunk said, knocking aside an enemy musket with the ease of a child fending off a stick. “Now isn’t the time to stand on ceremony by doffin’ ‘is hat!”
“Shut up, Skunk. The bloody captain’s the only hope we have of surviving this”—stab, thrust, stab—“massacre!” Ian yelled, beating back a boarder with vicious swings of his claymore.
But even Ian was too crazed with excitement and bloodlust to notice the color draining from his captain’s face. All he saw was that they were steadily driving the enemy back onto its own decks as, whooping in triumph and glee, Bold Marauder’s men, now joined by those from the English cutter, leaped over the side and dropped from the jib-boom as they took the fight to the French ship.
The tide had turned.
Tiring rapidly and still holding his hat to his shoulder, Christian jumped for the gangway. Someone on the corvette had already chopped away the spars and lines tangled in Bold Marauder’s bowsprit, and now the French ship, freed, was beginning to draw away, her officers screaming encouragement to the retreating sailors as the gap of blue sea between them grew wider and wider. Gauging the expanding distance between the two ships, Christian leapt, hearing Skunk, Ian, and Teach yelling in triumph behind him.
Protecting my back, he thought dazedly.
His feet hit the enemy’s deck and he almost went down. Shouting with excitement, their swords flashing, his men rushed past him, nearly knocking him to his knees. Then Hendricks was there, lifting him by his elbow, and he was carried forward on the tide of English seamen.
His vision swam, and he pressed his hat to his shoulder, not wanting his men to see the seriousness of the wound and lose heart.
Pray God, let me hold out just a bit longer, he thought. Then he slashed and fought his way toward the corvette’s quarterdeck even as its flag tumbled to the deck in surrender.
A great cheer went up from Bold Marauder's men as Skunk and Teach grabbed the corvette’s commander and hauled him unceremoniously toward Christian.
“Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!”
“Three cheers for our Lord and Master!”
“Here ye go, sir, the bleedin’ bastard ’imself!”
Dirty, cut, and bleeding, Christian wearily accepted the other captain’s sword. Then, still holding his hat, he lowered his arm and for the first time, his men saw the perfect, round hole punched neatly below his shoulder and the spreading blood that turned the blue coat around it to purple.
“Well done, lads,” he said, with a faint smile. “Well done.”
Then his knees buckled and he fell heavily to the deck.
Chapter 17
In the surgeon’s area, Deirdre choked back nausea as the wounded were dragged below. Above, the guns boomed, making conversation nearly impossible, making her ears ring with pain, making her fear the very deck was going to come crashing down atop them—
“The captain!” she cried, overcome by sudden terror as a seaman dragged a moaning Wenham into the little room and laid him on Elwin’s table beneath the swinging lantern.
“Huh?”
“The captain!” she shouted, trying to be heard over the unholy roar of cannon.
Wenham shut his eyes. “Leading a boarding party onto the enemy. Ain’t seen nothing like it . . .” He groaned in pain as Elwin, aided by two assistants, positioned him on the bloodied table and tore off his shirt.
“Nothing but a scratch,” snapped Elwin. He slapped a needle and thread into Deirdre’s hand as another seaman was dragged below, this one with a gash across his arm. “If you’re going to stand there, then get busy, girl! Sew up that man’s arm before he bleeds to death!”
From above came more firing, then a deafening cheer.
“We must be beatin’ ’em, lads!” yelled the injured man, sitting upright. “The Lord and Master must be driving the bloody Frogs back onto their own ship!”
Christian, Deirdre thought wildly, her hands shaking as she tried desperately to thread the needle. Beside her Delight, tight-lipped, washed the blood from the man’s wound with a wet rag. Steeling herself, Deirdre pinched the ragged edges of flesh together and slowly pushed the needle into the man’s flesh. He went white with pain, and as the moments dragged on, the only way Deirdre was able to hold her breakfast down was to imagine the scene above, her lips moving in a desperate prayer for the captain’s safety.
There was no use lying to herself anymore. She, who had spent years dreaming of killing him in revenge, was terrified for his safety, his welfare, his life—
Suddenly, through ringing ears, she realized that the firing had stopped. Another cheer came from above, and then Hibbert, breathless, came flying into the room, his face dirty and streaked with sweat. “We saved the English cutter, the sloop fled, and we took the Frenchie!” he gasped, swiping at his brow. His eyes were wild with pride. “They surrendered to our captain! To us!”
Ian crowded the space behind him, his ruddy face bleak. “Aye, but at what cost.” He met their gazes and, in the sudden, awful hush said solemnly, “The Lord and Master’s down.”
Deirdre was dimly aware of Delight’s hand upon her arm; then the blood faded from her face as she looked past the midshipman, past Ian and the milling, silent, crew, and to the huge man who suddenly filled the doorway.
It was Arthur Teach.
He was carrying the body of an officer in his great, thewed arms. Blood darkened the officer’s shoulder, soaked his sleeve, followed the curve of his lax fingers, and dripped silently to the deck flooring.
Deirdre uttered a silent cry. She didn’t have to see the man’s face to know just which officer he was.
###
Christian clawed his way up through the darkness and opened his eyes to the sight of Rico Hendricks standing protectively over him. Elwin Boyd stood at the big Jamaican’s shoulder, his face, silhouetted by a swinging lantern, strained. The pungent scents of blood and death lay thickly around him, and Christian realized that he was laid out on a table in the surgeon’s quarters, its surface hard beneath his spine.
With a gasp, he sat up.
“Don’t move, sir,” Elwin muttered, pushing against his chest and trying to force him back down.
“Let me up, damn you, I’ve a ship to see to, wounded to care for—”
“The Frogs’ve surrendered, sir, don’t ye remember? And Ian and Rhodes are seeing to the ship.”
“How many dead?”
“Twelve. Now, lie back and relax. You’ve got a musket ball in your shoulder, and if I don’t get it out, you’ll be joining them before the day is out.”
Christian tried again to rise. “I don’t have time for this—”
“Sir, I must insist!” Roughly, the surgeon shoved him back down on the table.
A voice exploded above Christian’s head like a cannon blast. “Ye be easy with him, Elwin, or I’ll have yer head on a pike!”
“Look, just get the hell out of here, all of ye!” Elwin spat, waving his bloodied hands to push away the group of seamen that were clustered around the table. He picked up a rag and doused it with vinegar. “How’s a man supposed to do his work if ye’re all—”
Skunk lunged forward and grabbed the surgeon’s wrist. “You put that on the cap’n’s wound and you’ll be answering to me, ye hear me, Elwin?”
“For Christ’s sake, Skunk, I’m merely cleaning my instruments in it—”
“What’s this?” Ian barged in, his Scottish cap askew. “Is Elwin mistreating the captain? So help me God, Elwin—”
“Damn you, damn all of you, just clear out and let me do what needs to be done!” Elwin raged, angrily wiping his bloodied hands on his apron. He snatched up a metal probe and, waving it at them, snarled, “Pack of useless, good-for-nothing loafers!
Now, get out!”
Christian saw that long, wicked piece of metal coming toward his shoulder and went stiff, bracing himself for the pain. Fierce but gentle pressure tightened around his fingers, and rolling his head sideways, he saw that someone was standing on the other side of the table and holding his hand, someone he now realized had been standing there and holding his hand all along.
Deirdre O’ Devir.
Tears sparkled on her lashes, and her eyes were huge pools of sorrow in a face that was pale and strained. She squeezed his hand, and the moisture in her eyes spilled over and traced a glittering track down her cheek.
He stared at her, confused. “Miss O’Devir?”
“Teach carried ye down,” she whispered. She bent her head, and he felt the brush of her hair against his face. The heavy cross that hung from her neck dangled near his nose, and he closed his eyes as she reached up and laid a soft hand against his cheek. “The whole crew’s bragging about how ye led ’em to victory and saved the ship.”
“Damn right he did!” Skunk snarled. “If it weren’t for his bleedin’ Lordship, we’d all be at the bottom of the sea!”
“Or at the mercy of those Frenchies!” Teach thundered.
"Gentlemen,” Elwin warned, lowering a knife to the bullet hole in his patient’s coat and deftly thrusting its tip beneath the bloody fabric, “if you don’t let me attend to my business, your captain won’t live to see the next sunrise. That ball is lodged in a vascular area, and if I don’t get it out . . “
With a flick of his wrist, he jerked upward, slicing through the blood-soaked uniform coat.
Christian turned his head to look, but the girl loomed above, her eyes dark with compassion . . . and something else. Her hand still cupped his jaw, and now she gently coaxed him to look toward her so that he couldn’t see Elwin’s ministrations. He closed his eyes, relaxing under her gentle touch as the surgeon’s knife ripped through his coat. “Elwin’s right,” she said quietly. ‘The ball has to come out. But I’ll be here, holdin’ yer hand through it . . . Christian.”
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