Casca 15: The Pirate (10 page)

But before he had too much time to worry about it something else happened.

"Sail
ho! Two points off the starboard bow!" The lookout's voice came down clear and excited from the mast.

And Casca knew that shortly he would be in pursuit of his first prize as a pirate.

The chase was a brigantine under easy sail, flying before the wind. Casca ordered the brig about, and they went for the brigantine that continued on course, showing no sign that she feared an attack more likely, confident she could outrun them. But with only a few minutes sailing on the new tack it was obvious that Casca's ship was overtaking her. Big Jim, who was now Casca's aide as a deterrent to those of his crew who had shown any desire to heave their makeshift captain over the side, halted by Casca and eyed the brigantine shrewdly for a few moments.

"She's got good lines. If she puts on more sail she'll show us her heels."

At this point there was nothing to do but go for it, though Casca didn't like the feel of it at all. But if he didn't at least make the effort his own crew would probably haul his ass back to the island and throw him off again.
Still he'd been sucked into too many ambushes not to be wary. When he put the spyglass to his eye and searched her decks, she seemed innocent enough. The helmsman was at the wheel, the master or mate on the fantail beside him, the crew at their guns.
Might as well go in for the attack.

That, however, brought up some problems. As far as Casca could tell the chase was flying no flag. She might be a pirate ship like his own or she might simply be a merchantman, a coastal trader. If she were merchant, what nation? Spanish, and no one would give a damn. But English or American, and he was deliberately committing an act of piracy for which he could be hanged.
And for which Katie Parnell could be hanged, too.
Hell!
Casca thought,
how do I get myself involved in these situations?

But the biggest problem was, if he did attack, how in the hell did he go about starting the action? There were times when Casca regretted that he did not have more sea experience. He could see that they were gaining on the prize, but he wasn't sure just what to do next. Slide up beside her and board? But which side?

"Make up your mind, Scarface."

Katie had come aft and was standing beside him. "What?"

"About boarding him."

“Aye...”

"Don't know what to do, do you? Look, you're close to the wind. Board him to leeward."

"What do you know about sailing a ship?"

"A damn sight more than you do. If I hadn't had the bad luck to be born a woman, I'd be a damn better captain than Blackbeard ever will be."

Casca looked at her and grinned. Wearing the floppy high boots of Russian leather, dark blue knee britches, a man's linen shirt and a Turkish vest with a brace of pistols slung on a wide sash, a cutlass in the hanger at her hip, and wearing a burger's brimmed hat with a feather in the band, she sure as
hell didn't look like any woman. More like a first mate. Or captain. And that intent face. Except for the lack of beard it could be the face of any man eager for combat.

"Well, "she said, "are you going to give the orders, or are you going to stand there and stare at me like some tongue tied schoolboy?"

When he didn't answer immediately, she bellowed, "Port your helm two points! All borders! Standing by to board to leeward! Gunners! Prime your fucking guns!" She gave Casca a sweet smile, then added, "Captain's orders! And lively, lads, lively. Or the captain will have your stinking guts for garters!"

A nudge at his elbow brought him around to see Julio standing beside him, a painful expression on his face. It wasn't caused by his wound, which was healing nicely, but by the
usurption of his place as Casca's advisor in matters of the sea. It was plain to see he was a bit jealous of the defiant, vulgar bitch who stood by Casca's side and shouted orders in his name. Casca gave Julio a brisk hug, careful not to further damage his wound and whispered in his ear, "Don't worry, you know how women are. She's just showing off. You take a place aft till we get ready to board. And don't cross over with the first group; you're still going to be a bit stiff for any brisk sword play. Now go on." Julio did as he was bade, still a bit miffed but feeling better.

Katie stuck her tongue out at him and turned back to the business at hand. Casca had to admit she was a hell of a lot better at it than he was. He should have been pissed off, but instead he was just amused. It was impossible to get mad at Katie. Grinning, he said, just loud enough for her to hear, "If diddling your ass is as much fun as listening to you, I've got something to look forward to."

"You've got something to look forward to, all right, Scarface, but it ain't boorading my ass. I decide who I bundle and who I don't, and your name ain't on the list right now."

“So
–''

"Dammit, Scarface, you're in pistol range! Ease off a point or you'll be raked by his
waurter swivel before any of our guns can be brought to bear!"

She was right. He gave the order to the helmsman.

"Now come up with him, but edge away a little round aft." The helmsman didn't wait for Casca to relay the command; he knew who was giving the orders.

Casca didn't care as long as she was right. "You just do as you please, madam."

He was being sarcastic, but she took him literally or at least pretended that she did. "All right, now. Come close upon his lee quarter close enough so that your cathead almost touches him. You do know what a cathead is, don't you? Those large timbers projecting out of the side of the ship forward where your anchor is secured. Or, if you're still the bleedin' farm boy I think you are, the part of the ship that looks like the horns of a cow." Now she was grinning.

Damn, but he liked her style.
"Let's get this fighting over with so we can start."

"Look out! You'll go too far ahead! Haul your sheets well aft! Put your helm hard a lee! Let the head sheets fly!"

Damn! The woman was a real sailor. Casca gave the orders. They were executed, and the brig shivered her sails and closed the prize side by side. "Gunners! Fire!" Casca ordered, this time without any coaching from Katie.

"Hell!" she said to him. "I figured you knew about guns and
–" The rest was drowned in the thunder of their broadside, grapeshot at point blank range sweeping the deck of the prize.

"Grapnels!" Casca ordered.

A moment later, in the dense black smoke from the guns, the two ships came together. The grapnels were thrown, the two hulls lashed.

"Boarders!" Casca ordered, and, cutlass in hand, leaped for the other deck, Katie beside him, her own cutlass at the ready.
Both teetering on the gunwale at the same time, momentarily halting.

"There's something wrong, Scarface," she muttered. "Why didn't he fire on us?"

There wasn't time for him to answer. He jumped aboard the prize, Katie Parnell matching him step for step, and for the first time in his life Casca Rufio Longinus felt the odd pleasure of going into battle with a woman he trusted...

Whether he or Katie were the first of the boarders or not he could not tell since the heavy smoke covered the entire ship. His feet were now on the deck of the brigantine. A quick glance upward did not show anyone in the rigging, at least not within his limited sight. Odd... the captain of the brigantine must have his head in his ass. A couple of men in the rigging with blunderbusses could play hell with boarders.

"Too quiet, Scarface," Katie muttered.

She was right. It was definitely too quiet and boarders should have been met at the gunwales. Casca smelled ambush.

"Watch your ass, Katie," he growled.

The smoke was clearing.
The yells up forward scared the shit out of him. Confused yells. His own men.

"What
?"

Whatever it was Katie was going to say, she never said it and Casca saw why.
The clearing smoke, blown forward from the bow so that he and Katie were the last to see the clearing, suddenly showed the helmsman and the mate neither more than a cutlass swing away.

The helmsman was old for a sailor, or at least the white hair and sunken cheeks seemed to say so. As for the mate, his salt encrusted beard made it difficult to say whether he was young or old.

Actually, though, the age of the two men made no difference at all. Both were dead. Long dead. Dried, dressed corpses with a faint suggestion of a green slime. The wheel held the helmsman upright; the binnacle where he was apparently standing when he died held up the mate.

Standing beside him, Julio grabbed Big Jim's arm and pointed to the dead men. Big Jim said it for him. "Ghost ship!"

Others in the boarding party took up the cry and added to it: "Plague! It's a plague ship!" Casca could hear the confused cries in English and Spanish that had come from up forward. In the clearing smoke he could see his men jumping back aboard the brig, slashing free the ropes of the grappling hooks in a frantic haste to get free of the death ship.

"Look what the cannon did," Katie said quietly. The grape had smashed into the paper dry corpses and scattered parts of the bodies all over the forward deck, oddly missing the fantail where he and Katie were. But it was all dry; there was no blood.

"C'mon," he said. "Let's get off this thing." But they had waited too long. The brig was free and coming about, the gap of churned water between the two ships rapidly widening. Calling to them to put about, his crew ignored him. There was no one nor anything worth returning to a plague ship for. The four of them stood there watching their brig put miles between them as the rigging and sails overhead began to flap with the increase of the winds. The storm was coming and they were trapped on a death ship. Julio made the sign of the cross and Big Jim moved to where the dead man stood by the helm and touched the dried husk on the shoulder. It fell to the deck and Big Jim took its place with a resigned look on his face.

The four of them waited not wanting to go below decks. As they each stood with their thoughts the skies darkened and the winds built even higher. The sea turned
gray and the horizon was lost to sight. Only the black immensity of rolling cloud and rising wave joined them.

The wind gusted and with a loud crack that startled their minds back into activity, the fore and aft mainsail, its rigging probably weakened by hits from the grapeshot, suddenly collapsed and the brigantine was taken aback. The sudden motion threw Katie and Casca to the deck. Julio found himself hanging next to a dried, grinning corpse. Then it was gone, blown over the side into the darkened sea. They were alone now; there were only the four of them, the ship, and the rising sea.

Aboard the brig which had been the late captaincy of Captain Cass Long, the discussion had now ended. As best the officers could tell, and since no one could recall seeing them, Captain Cass Long and Katie Parnell had been lost at sea, lost overboard when the brig separated from the ghost ship. That meant the brig was now without a captain, and the factions aboard her were ready to go at each other's throats as soon as the storm was over. But they were in the storm, and since they couldn't agree on any of the stronger officers as captain, they finally chose the London fairy as acting captain, a choice which, no sooner made, was suddenly realized to have been the best damn thing they had ever done. He happened to be the only individual on the ship who seemed to have the ability to get along with all factions. Besides, he was a damn good seaman, and a good seaman was what they needed at the moment, the storm being what it was...

"You still alive, Katie?"

"Hell, no, Scarface, I died hours ago."

"Thy voice, Katie dear, is not exactly that of an angel."

"Never was, Scarface. Never was."

Casca and she had lashed themselves to the binnacle after first lashing the wheel in place and so had ridden out the storm. Now it was dawn. The winds had died. The sea was moderating. Casca got his lashings free and started to help Katie, but §he had already freed herself. "One thing I'll never like," he growled good humoredly, "is a damn woman who is as good as a man."

"Quit playing with the truth, Scarface. I'm the first woman you ever met as good as a man. There never was anybody else before. And, besides that, I'm better."

"Modest, aren't you?"

"Humility is not one of my vices, Scarface." She looked down the deck, the length of the ship, and grinned. "Well, we got scrubbed down real good."

She was right. The storm had swept the deck as clear as a double gang with holystones. There was now no trace of the dead crew. Except for the damage done by the volley of grape in their attack, the broken spar and crumpled mainsail, and a few other tattered and weathered sails here and there, the ship looked to be in excellent condition. Big Jim and Julio had been hard at work cleaning up as best they could. Big Jim cast the bodies to the deep while Julio said prayers for them. Between them they had cleared the deck of most of the wreckage from the fallen mast and sail.

Kate cast a professional eye over their domain. "It's not going to be easy to handle this thing with just the four of us. If we run into any more weather we might as well just go below and wait it out because we won't be able to do a damn thing about it.

Casca nodded knowing he was out of his depth. Julio had brightened up a bit and was hard at work scavenging in the cook shack. He'd gotten a fire started in the iron cook stove. At any rate they'd have some hot food. Big Jim was at the helm doing the best he could to keep with the wind so they'd make some headway, but he had no idea of where they wanted to go or what course to take. That was up to Kate. He wasn't a navigator. She gave him a heading that would take them into the main shipping lanes and in the general direction of Jamaica.