Page 59

W ith an enormous effort, Rose managed to roll onto her side.

She was confused, disoriented. At first, she thought she was blind, for she could see nothing but blank white space.

She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, but it still took a few moments to realize she was lying beneath a sheet of canvas, pinned down under a sail that had been torn from an overhead yard.

Her head was aching, and when she raised her hand, she saw that her arm was soaked red with blood.

The front of her shirt was also crimson and she was able to trace the source of the blood to a deep gash above her left ear.

She could feel the juddering of timbers beneath her and knew there were still some guns firing, though not in full broadsides. Taking a breath drew more smoke and dust than air into her lungs, and she coughed to try to ease the thickness in her throat.

She made a quick assessment of her arms and legs, moving them enough to know there were no broken bones.

But she could feel cuts where slivers of wood had sliced into her legs and thighs.

When she tried to push herself upright, the tightness of the canvas prevented her from gaining more than an inch or two of space and the effort sent a searing pain lancing through her mid section.

There was another body sprawled beside her, pinned under the cocoon of canvas and it took Rose a full minute to recognize the slender shape.

“Billy!” She reached over but her hand fell inches short. Gritting her teeth to fight against a wave of nausea, she pushed and dragged herself close enough to grasp a fistful of Billy’s shirt. “ Billy!”

There was no answer, no movement, and when she pressed her hand over Billy’s chest, she could not feel her heart beating or her lungs breathing.

“Dammit, Billy don’t you dare die on me! Don’t you dare!”

She heard a groan and saw Billy’s arm twitch. “I thought I was already. I can’t see anything.”

Rose expelled a huge sigh of relief and rested her brow briefly on Billy’s shoulder. A quick check along her gun captain’s body and she felt a clutch as she saw one of Billy’s legs bent at an unnatural angle.

“We’re stuck under a bloody sail.”

“Aye, well, I didn’t think we’d be bound for the white clouds of heaven.”

“I… I think your leg is broken.”

Billy’s voice started to fade out. “As long as it’s still there.”

Rose kept her hand flat on Billy’s shoulder as she tried drawing the canvas back but something was weighing the heavy sheet down. Sounds were muffled but she thought she heard shouting nearby, voices searching through the wreckage as it was lifted and shoved aside.

“Here!” she croaked. “We are here! And we need help!”

A frantic shuffling soon lifted away the broken spar that was holding the sail down and Duardo was there to help her up onto her feet.

Stubb, his cheeks wet with tears, was bending over Billy, but when he saw she was alive, he dashed the wetness off his face and plumped his hands on his hips.

“No surprise the pair of ye decide to take a rest while we finish the fight.”

Then he saw the twisted leg. “Oh, my Christ. Aye. Aye, careful now. Lift her careful lads an’ take her straight the way down to the surgery.”

Rose watched as Billy was gently lifted onto a canvas stretcher.

“What the hell happened?”

“What happened,” Stubb said, “was the pair o’ ye were standin’ in the path of a ten pounder. Lucky fer both, the rail took most o’ the damage; even luckier ye were flat on yer faces when a brace o’ spars came down on top.”

“The ship?” Rose asked, leaning heavily on Duardo.

“She’s fine. Crew is hale n’ hearty. Four wounded, aside yersel’s, there be only two dead.”

“Has there been any word from … from shore?”

“N’owt a sign ner signal,” Stubb said, “But if I were a bettin’ man, which I be not, I’d say by my eyes, the redcoats appear to be runnin’ back down the road as quick as their bony arses can take ‘em.”

“ Back down the road?” Rose was not certain she heard him correctly through her half-deafened ears.

“Retreating,” Duardo said. “With all haste.”

Rose nodded and the strength drained out of her legs. Duardo scooped her up into his arms and shouted for the crew to clear a space as he carried her across the deck behind the stretcher bearing Billy.

Stubb followed, chiding the sailors carrying the stretcher each time it dipped or bumped into something. He stayed with Billy as she was taken down into the lower deck while Duardo took Rose to her cabin.

There, her patience lasted barely long enough for Duardo to wrap a wad of linen around the gash in her head to staunch the bleeding.

Ignoring her protests, he inspected the multitude of cuts on the rest of her body and decided at least one of her ribs was badly bruised, if not broken.

After brushing away his suggestion to wrap her midsection up like a mummy, she stripped off her bloody clothes, washed as best she could, then donned a clean shirt and trousers.

“I need to check on Billy.”

“You need stitches,” Duardo said.

“I need to see Billy, then I need to go up on deck and see to my ship and crew. My head is fine, it’s barely a scratch.”

Considering the fighting had been long and vigorous, there were only half a dozen wounded men waiting in the corridor outside the surgery.

Rose passed through the door in time to see Billy pushing aside a vial of laudanum in favor of a large cup of rum.

The ship’s doctor was leaning over the table inspecting the break in her leg.

“Seems clean enough. A good snap halfway twixt the ankle and knee. Don’t think we need the bone saw.”

“Ye cut off her leg, old man,” Stubb warned, ‘an’ I’ll chew both o’ yorn off at the knees.”

The doctor’s bushy eyebrows twitched but he mumbled something to his helper, who produced four straight lengths of wood. “I need to fit the bones back together in a straight line then wrap these sticks around the calf to hold it firm. Might need to hold her down.”

“I don’t need anyone holding me down. Just give me a minute.” Billy finished off the cup of rum in several deep swallows then nodded to Stubb to fill it again. He did so, but when she wasn’t looking, added a healthy dollop of the brownish laudanum elixir.

Digby Fitch, appeared in the doorway and snatched his cap off his head. “I heard Billy was dead.”

“Not quite yet,” Billy said, her words starting to slur a little. She gave Fitch a crooked little smile. “When we were leaving the Nobbins, you said you wanted more adventure. I hope we managed to give you some.”

He chuckled. “Aye, I thank you for that. Intending no offense, but I’ll be perfectly happy to take my place back on the Nighthawk .” He turned to Rose. “Captain, there’s summ’it up on deck ye might want to see.”

Rose looked at Billy, who was starting to hum a little ditty, then to the doc, who tipped his head toward the door. “Go where you’re needed. She’ll be fine.”

Rose nodded and followed Fitch back up onto the main deck. There they, along with every other member of the crew looked at the riverbank where a troop of soldiers was marching south along the road behind their leader, who had skewered a large white handkerchief on his bayonet.

Rose held her breath for a moment. “Do you suppose that means …it’s over?”

“Aye, for them, I warrant,” Digby said.

As if to reinforce that pronouncement, Rose was called to the port side of the ship, where a dozen small boats were passing downriver, each carrying wounded men, each floating past showing a white flag.

They could still hear the sound of cannon from the main battlefield, nothing had slowed or stopped to suggest the fighting had ceased.

“I need to go ashore,” Rose said.

Duardo curled a lip to express his disapproval. “It is not safe yet. An army in retreat will have moods like stuck pigs and shoot everything that moves.”

He was right. Of course he was right, and Rose knew it. But every nerve and muscle in her body was so tight with anxiety, she felt like a pane of glass about to shatter.

“I need to go now. Lower a boat and find me six stout volunteers to row me upriver. Arm them with muskets and pistols as well.”

Despite growling another protest, Duardo ordered the men to lower a boat over the side.

He called for four volunteers but twenty stepped forward to join him and Digby Fitch.

Fitch also ordered one of the small calibre chasers to be mounted in the bow of the boat along with a sack full of fist-sized shot filled with nails and metal scraps.

Bowing to at least one of Duardo’s stipulations, she went below again and dressed in the plain garb of a sailor.

She wound her hair in a tight spool and tucked it up beneath a woollen cap.

Before she left the ship, she stopped in at the surgery again, where the doctor had finished setting and binding Billy’s leg.

She thought Billy was out cold, but when she told Stubb where she was going, the jade green eyes popped open again.

“Have you heard … anything?”

“No,” Rose said. “Nothing yet.”

Billy’s hand swam outward to clutch at Rose’s sleeve and Rose nodded. “I will find them. I promise. I will find them.”

She looked at Stubb. “You have command of the ship. Fire at anyone or anything that looks like a threat from the river or the shore.” She paused and glanced at Billy. “If anything changes …”

Stubb puffed up his chest and laid a hand gently on Billy’s shoulder. “You go about yer business, lass. Ye can count on me to take care o’ the ship an’ everyone on board.”