Page 62

“ W e have to do something!” Beau shouted.

“Aye, daughter, aye. I see what’s happenin’ an’ we’re movin’ as bloody fast as we can! Ye’ve put everythin’ in the tops except the shirt on yer back!”

Beau cursed and paced the length of the Egret’s fore-deck, her fist pounding the rail every two or three feet.

It may have been the decision, unanimous, of the entire crew to bring the Egret around and chase after Drake’s fleet.

But it had been Beau’s and Spence’s to stay far enough back they could not be stopped and dispatched home again, their tails tucked between their legs.

For two weeks they had dogged the English sea hawks, always keeping their sails barely in sight on the horizon ahead.

They had only put on sail and picked up speed when the bleak thread of the Spanish coastline began to take shape.

The Egret had streaked in fast, pushing the leagues of sea-water behind them as they cut cleanly through the rolling swells.

They were a good two, maybe three, hours behind the fleet when it sailed into Cadiz Bay, and as the mouth of the harbor grew closer, the dirty gray sky above it was cloaked in a massive cloud of smoke and cinder.

“He did it,” Spence had muttered in awe. “Drake has set the King’s bloody fleet on fire!”

“And don’t think the King won’t know it in short order,” Beau had countered, pointing to the sudden flaring of signal fires that were coming alight, one by one, a mile or two apart along the darkening shoreline.

Then she had noticed something else ablaze, farther along the coast, well out of the harbor. Two ships were engaged, one an enormous Levantine cargo vessel, the other…

“Christ Jesus,” she had exclaimed. She had recognized the Scout , looking like nothing more than a pesky hornet buzzing after a lumbering giant.

“He promised he would stand off a thousand yards,” she quoted sardonically. “He vowed he would be the soul of discretion, that he would offer support, nothing else.”

“Calls anythin’ he’s done so far discreet,” McCutcheon remarked, spitting over the rail, “I’d sorely hate to see what he calls reckless.”

Spence chuckled. “Ye already have. Ye saw him kiss our Beau right smack on the open deck.”

Beau wasn’t listening. She did not even hear the jest over the sudden loud pounding of her heart.

“Father … there! Another ship has come out of the harbor! It—it’s the Talon!” She gasped and swore again. “It’s Bloodstone’s ship and … I don’t even think Dante knows he’s there!”

“Doubt if anyone knows he’s there, what with the smoke an’ all.”

“Jonas!” Spit was leaning forward over the rail as if the few added inches gave a better view. “Look at the bastard! He’s opened up with all guns!”

Beau and Spence watched in horror as the Talon’s guns erupted in seemingly endless tongues of orange flame.

They were still four or five miles out and the sound reached them as muted thuds, dampened further by the rapidly fading light.

In another few minutes they would only have the throbbing glow of the burning harbor and the fire from their own guns to give the ships any kind of silhouette against the darkness.

“We have to do something!” Beau insisted.

“Aye. Spit—load the demis with fifteen-pound shot; it will carry farther. We’ll fire a round as soon as Beau can pull us into position to give him a broadside. Let the bastard know someone is seein’ what he’s doin’, at any rate.”

McCutcheon sprang away, his eyes still on the two ships as he calculated speed, powder weight, and distances. Beau was half a step behind, shouting orders as she ran.

Dante could not see much of anything at all.

Dusk was purpling what little clean air came on board the Scout , the rest was filled with smoke, flying debris, scraps of burning canvas.

The mainmast was a shamble of tangled lines and broken spars.

The top third was folded over and men had been sent up to hack at it with saws and cudgels to rid them of the useless drag.

Every quarter knot of lost speed kept her under the Talon’s guns and she was already badly wounded.

Most of her sheets hung from loose or broken lines; spars swung crazily with the pitch of the ship.

Her hull was breached and the sea was pouring in below the waterline, almost faster than men on pumps could disgorge it.

There was blood everywhere, making the decks slippery underfoot; five of Carleill’s original crew had already jumped overboard, preferring to swim for shore and take their chances with the Spanish rather than remain on board and be caught in the midst of a grudge match between two madmen.

Dante’s madness had a slight advantage in that the Talon’s gunners were nowhere near as good as his own Virago men, despite the fact that they were using Pitt’s own demis against them.

Two out of every four shots scudded harmlessly into the sea, causing a good deal of spray and chop, and a true appreciation for every one of the culverins’ retorts that struck wood and bone.

Pitt was keeping up a steady barrage, sharp enough and hot enough to make Bloodstone think twice about coming in too close too soon, but another ten minutes or so and it likely would not matter anyway.

The Scout’s rudder was sloppy and she barely had enough sail to keep her moving.

She was pinned as helplessly against the shoreline as the Levantine had been; the only difference being a captain who would not have struck his colors had the devil himself been spewing flame at him.

“Simon!”

Dante was manning one of the cannon. He reeled away just as the glowing tip of the linstock was applied to the touch hole and the breeching tackle jumped to absorb the recoil from the exploding shot.

“Simon!”

Dante swung around as the crew hauled in the gun, swabbed the barrel, shoved a fresh shot down its throat, and packed it against a new powder cartridge.

Pitt was working the gun beside him, his face streaked with soot and sweat, his blond hair smeared with blood.

He was pointing wildly over the side, shouting something, but Dante’s ears were still ringing from the last explosion.

Dante saw nothing at first and he had to wipe his eyes to see what was causing Pitt to leap up and down like a fool and windmill his arms nearly out of their sockets.

Angling in from upwind was another galleon, her sails full and straining with vengeance, her guns run out, spitting thunder as she charged into the fray.

Dante could barely believe his eyes and had to blink twice before accepting it. “By God … Beau!”

He grabbed hold of a shroud line and pulled himself up to stand on the rail, watching as the Egret backed all of her topsails and almost slid to a complete halt in the water.

In her own swirling backwash she angled her stern around to present her full broadside, and with every man on board the Scout cheering like lunatics, she fired three immense volleys at the Talon , seemingly without a break in smoke, noise, or gouting sparks of flame.

Dante clenched his fist and added his own voice to those of his men.

“Bloodstone, you bloody-minded coward! How does it feel to choke on your own treachery!” And even though neither ship could hear him, he called to the Egret as well.

“Ahoy, Jonas, you beautiful bastard! Bring her straight in and crucify the coward with everything you’ve got! ”

Spence had no choice but to bring her in closer, for although the show of support was much needed to bolster the spirits on board the Scout , the Egret was still too far out to do any real damage.

Even so, some of the demis struck their mark, tearing a long gash in the Talon’s main course and plowing into timbers on deck.

Two more volleys and the Egret reset her sails, turning bow-on to the Talon , running in as fast as she could gather windage. Bloodstone seemed unconcerned. His ship blazed with another broadside, taking out a section of the Scout’s afterdeck and blowing three men into the sea.

“He obviously doesn’t have much respect for Spence or his ship,” Pitt grated. “He’s going to finish with us first. ”

“He’s going to try,” Dante agreed with a snarl. “But we still have a few surprises left.”

“Do I want to know what they are?”

Dante grinned larcenously. “You will approve, I’m sure. Those crates of nails you found in the hold, bring them up and fill the barrels of the bow guns. Fetch up the kegs of Greek fire while you’re about it and set them in the stern.”

Pitt’s face brightened through the grime. “I like it already.”

Dante ran to the stern, where Edward Carleill stood over the tiller like a blooded hound. He looked, if anything, more terrified than before, but thus far had held to Dante’s orders and executed them without so much as twitching an eyelid.

He blinked this time when Dante gave him fresh instructions and, if it was possible, went a shade paler.

“We’ll need as much speed as you can give me, if it is going to succeed. Have we anything left?”

“I’ll find it, sir. Count on it.” He turned and ordered the men in the tops to trim the sheets, to hold them in place if necessary with their bare hands.

Dante left the rudder in Carleill’s hands and ran back to the stern just as Pitt arrived carrying four small kegs filled with naphtha and sealed with a layer of tar.

They would have to be within spitting distance of the Talon for the incendiaries to succeed, but if only one hit the target, the exploding oil would spread flames across the decks faster than anyone could think to smother them.

Getting them close enough would take just about all the Scout had left in her. The superior firepower of the privateer would be pounding her all the way in; their one slim hope was for the Egret to see what they were doing and offer Bloodstone a warm distraction.