Bound by the Heart (42 page)

"Damn me for a fool," he murmured, looking
from one defiant face to the other, "but I believe you both mean it."

The nurse moved closer, and Summer felt a cool hand
slip into hers for courage.

Both girls nodded.

"Very well, but you'll do exactly what Thorny
tells you to do, and you'll stay away from the gun decks when the fighting
starts?"

They nodded again.

The dark blue eyes shifted once more to the bed.
"If you need me—for anything—I'll be topside on the bridge."

He kissed Summer once, briefly, then left the cabin.

Chapter
24

Within fiftteen minutes the
Chimera
was
under way and heading into
 
the open
water beyond the Baie de Fort-de-France. Farley Glasse's longboat had reached
the wharf, and Mr. Phillips had been able to track his movements with the aid
of the spyglass until the galloping horses had carried the warmonger and his
surviving compatriots into the hills and out of sight. According to de Ville,
the
Northgate
was
waiting just past the elbow of land that shaped the northern tip of the bay.
Glasse would be able to reach his ship with time to spare. It was only a
question now of which frigate could pull away from the hampering drafts and
currents created by the land mass and command the best position for the battle
ahead.

The
Chimera's
decks were cleared. The gunports were opened, the
muzzle lashings were taken off and the breeching tackles attached, readying the
big twenty-four-pounder guns for action. Buckets of sand and ash were scattered
on the planking to ensure the men's footings; sponges, crowbars, and handspikes
were laid alongside each cannon, and the trolleys were stacked high with solid
cast-iron balls. Three small bundles were hoisted to the tops of the three
masts, and a moment later, under a rousing cheer from the bare-chested, eager
crew, the bindings were tugged loose and the Stars and Stripes snapped open in
the brisk wind.

The
Northgate
was sighted as soon as the
Chimera
passed the tip of the
peninsula. The two ships were barely a mile apart, sailing into the late
afternoon sun on converging courses. The
Northgate
hoisted her battle flags and began to reduce sail, to
take advantage of light and wind drift to unleash the first series of
broadsides.

Morgan Wade, standing on the bridge, quietly passed an
order to Mr. Phillips to turn the
Chimera
away from the
Northgate
and to ride with the wind long enough to increase
their speed before her own sails were taken in. He saw sparks of orange flame
and small plumes of smoke erupt from the
Northgate's
starboard side as her captain tested for range, noting
that the shots splashed harmlessly into the sea well short of the
Chimera.

A
second course change brought Wade's ship hard about,
reducing the area she presented as a target but leaving her at a temporary
disadvantage. She would be able to bring only her forward guns to bear if
Morgan decided to open fire, while the British warship could and did begin
discharging in earnest. The
Northgate's
eighteen-pounder guns were loaded with double shot—two
iron balls linked with chain—and aimed high in an attempt to destroy the
Chimera's
rigging. She fired
continually, backing away as she drifted out of position, only to pull up and
set off more salvos as the privateer came closer and closer.

Wade could see plainly the frigate's deck and the
officers moving up and down the lines to encourage their gunners. Their efforts
were paying off, as two of the
Chimera's
topsails collapsed, their canvas riddled with holes. A
man was injured as rigging twanged apart and a spar swept wildly across the
deck before it was gaffed and secured. Phillips, tight-lipped and anxious,
looked at Morgan Wade three times for the order to turn the
Chimera,
and three times the response
remained a cool, "Not yet, Mr. Phillips."

The
Chimera
thundered within one hundred yards, then fifty yards
of the blazing warship without having fired a single shot. They were close
enough to see the faces of the Royal Marine sharpshooters as they climbed up
into the shrouds and prepared to rain down a hail of musket fire on the
approaching ship. Wade, still scanning the enemy deck through the spyglass,
lowered it suddenly with a grim smile of satisfaction.

"Now, Mr. Phillips. Bring her hard about. Mr.
Monday— shall we give them a reply?"

The big negro grinned from his position on the
quarterdeck. He threw his bald head back and let loose a bloodcurdling roar,
one that had the veins on his neck rising into blue snakes and the gleaming
muscles across his chest and arms cording into bands of sinew.

The gunlayers took up the cry, and at a distance of
barely twenty yards, the
Chimera
presented her broadside to the
Northgate
and replied with everything
she had. The volley was delivered almost as a single shot and given at such
close range that not one of the heavy guns missed. The beams of the privateer
had scarcely completed shuddering from the first tremendous recoil when a
second roar from Mr. Monday unleashed a second volley, then a third, turning
the entire side of the
Chimera
into an inferno of spark and flame. Wade's
carronades—the smashers—hurled iron shots weighing forty-two pounds apiece into
the hull of the British frigate, unseating its cannons, tearing out whole
sections of timber, sending splinters of men and decking as high as the topsails.
The long guns on the lower deck fed a murderous barrage into the
Northgate's
belly, their superior weight
and power driving the shot clear through the three- and four-foot-thick skin of
the frigate.

The
Chimera
came up into the wind and crossed in front of the
Northgate's
bow, so close that a man
seated on the bowsprit could have reached out and touched the privateer. The
dense acrid clouds of smoke were blown away long enough for Wade to seize the
advantage and deliver several well-placed broadsides directly down the length
of the
Northgate.
Her
mainmast was blasted away, as were her steering sails and a good portion of her
forecastle and bridge. Sail and rigging dropped down onto the ravaged deck,
along with the scarlet-clad bodies of the sharpshooters who had had their
footings shot out from under them.

Leaving the helm to Mr. Phillips, Wade joined his men
as they shifted to the loaded portside cannon. He was stripped to the waist;
his ebony hair was tied back from his brow under a bright blue bandanna. He
prowled catlike along the quarterdeck, directing his men to fire at specific
targets, calling repeatedly on the magnificent precision he had drilled into
them to keep up the steady breakneck pace. The
Northgate's
crew was dazed from the
swiftness of the devastation, and Wade knew he could not afford to let them
recover. He was outmanned, outgunned and outclassed by nearly twice the
tonnage. He knew he had to smash their spirit as well as their armaments if he
hoped to pull away intact.

Again and again the
Chimera's
guns blazed, at times sending
up such a steady flare of lightning from her cannon muzzles that she appeared
to be on fire. The smoke clung to the crew's throats and nostrils, burning
their eyes as unrelentingly as the incessant roar hammered at their ears. At
every gust of wind Wade searched through the thick clouds for signs that the
British had hauled down their colors. The
Northgate's
mizzen and fore topmasts had
been destroyed and hung crookedly over the sides, dragging the rigging behind.
Not a single gun remained mounted on the quarterdeck, and she was beginning to
wallow and heave under the amount of seawater slapping into the damaged hull.
But the flag still showed determinedly from the broken mainmast.
Ashton-Smythe's pennant and the array of battle flags had fallen, but they too
reappeared stubbornly over the remnants of the forecastle.

By contrast, the
Chimera
was remarkably unscathed. She
had not suffered any major damage, and the crew, still driven by the bitter
memory of the past eight hours spent as prisoners aboard their own ship, poured
round after round into the buckling ship, equally determined not to stop or
lessen the punishment until the British frigate admitted defeat.

Forty minutes into the battle,
Mr. Phillips appeared again at Morgan's side to ask if they might fall off and
effect repairs to the torn sails. The
Chimera
was losing steerage, and he could not hold to the
tight pattern Wade had ordered much longer.

"How much longer?" Wade demanded, his face
and chest streaming sweat.

"Two passes, Captain, no more. Even then we'll be
counting on the drift."

A shot from the
Northgate
blasted through the deck rail not four feet from where
Wade and Phillips stood, unseating one of the cannons from its carriage and
hurling it squarely onto one of its gunners, crushing him to pulp in a matter
of seconds. Blood splattered in all directions, turning the deck slippery at
their feet.

"One pass, Mr. Phillips," Wade shouted.
"Give me one more slow pass and we'll have them!"

Phillips stared aghast at the bloody twisted hand that
protruded from the base of the cannon, recognizing the scarred wrist as
belonging to one of his closest friends.

Morgan grabbed him roughly and spun him away from the
gruesome sight and for one irrational moment cursed the absence of Stuart
Roarke's solid presence beside him. In the next instant he saw the horror in
Mr. Phillips's eyes and recalled too well his own reaction to hearing of
Roarke's injury.

"One pass, Jamie. Can you give me one more slow
pass?"

Mr. Phillips focused with difficulty on Morgan's face.
"Aye, sir." He swallowed hard and added in a grinding voice,
"Aye, sir! I'll bring you so close you'll be able to smell the
bastards!"

Ninety minutes after her first gun had been fibred,
the
Northgate's
flags
came down.

Captain Emory Ashton-Smythe sat erect, his eyes fixed
on a point on the horizon as he felt the bump and skid of the longboat touching
against the
Chimera.
His uniform was streaked with blood and grime. He wore
a bandage around his thigh and another on a shattered hand and had to lean
heavily on one of the oarsmen before he could rise to his feet. Minutes later
he stood on the
Chimera's
main deck, his face ashen as he offered his sword in a
formal surrender to Captain Morgan Wade.

"The honor is yours this day, sir. My compliments
to your men."

"The victory was not an easy one, Captain
Smythe," Wade said, refusing the proffered sword in acknowledgment of the
Briton's courage. "Your men should find no fault with their
behavior."

Ashton-Smythe's hands tightened on the sword and he
lowered it. Behind him, Farley Glasse was shrugging off the assistance of two
of Wade's men as he climbed through the gangway. His appearance was glaringly
out of keeping with the grime and stench of battle. He was freshly washed and
suited in clean clothing. His injured arm was cradled in a spotlessly white
linen sling.

Morgan took a steadying breath before he addressed
Captain Ashton-Smythe again.

"As you are no doubt aware, Captain, your ship
and crew have now become the prize of the United States."

Ashton-Smythe stiffened, and his eyes looked into
Wade's for the first time. "You dare to justify this in the name of your
country, sir?"

"My justifications are a damn sight better than
your own at this moment. But personal amenities aside, you are obviously not
aware that as of ten days ago, June eighteenth to be precise, our two countries
were officially at war."

The British officer's stony countenance cracked. His
eyes widened, and his lips parted slightly, and a brief bint of color crept
into his cheeks.

"Don't worry, Captain," Wade said dryly.
"You do not have the distinction of being the first British ship to bow to
an American. A countryman of yours has already taken that honor."