Deadly Shoals (37 page)

Another double thud, another double puff from the
Grim Reaper.
Every man on the brigantine's deck hunched his head between his shoulders as the projectiles screamed through the rigging. It was grapeshot, Wiki's mind told him, just as a halyard fell apart with a thud and a crack. The breeze was gusting hard, but still the schooner beat doggedly upwind toward her prey.

A shout of rage—from Mr. Seward, who was rushing out of the companionway door, a bandage around his head. Luckily, he had remembered to pull on trousers. He shook a fist at the oncoming schooner, started a man up the rigging to splice the broken rope, then sprinted forward to supervise the setting of the head sails.

Wiki arrived at the wheel just as the jib wriggled up the stay and gusted into a long triangle. The apprentice at the helm, shaking with fright and excitement, seemed glad to hand it over. When he looked at his father, Captain Coffin was fully engaged in hassling the men who were swaying something long and heavy out of the hold. To Wiki's amazement, it was a nine-pounder cannon. Cases of muskets and grenades were coming up, too. He had not a notion that Salem traders were so well armed.

The brigantine was starting to pay her head off. Wiki could feel her coming to life under his feet. Then the brigantine had way on, and was sailing on the breast of the gale—directly toward the schooner, which was still beating upwind to meet them. It was high time to tack off and escape.

“Ready about!” Captain Coffin roared, two feet from Wiki's ear.

“Stations!” bawled Mr. Seward on the foredeck.

“Hard down the wheel!” Captain Coffin shouted at Wiki, seemingly unaware that his son was the helmsman. Then, to Mr. Seward: “Lee-oh!”

“Aye, sir!” The foresheet was let go, the head sheets were released, and with the pressure off the foremast canvas the
Osprey
flew up into the gusting gale. The weather leeches of the square sails shook and shivered with a violent rattling sound. The brigantine slowed, losing just about all the momentum she had so painfully gained, her bow pointed to the eye of the wind.

The foremast yards swung crazily until they were hard against the backstays, the sails crashing and banging, and men yelling like demons as they hauled. It was a precarious moment. If she missed stays now, she would fall off, and drift down upon the menacing schooner. However, the jaunty old girl answered at once—Wiki would never have guessed that such an antique vessel could be so handy on her helm. The boom swung and the big mainsail filled, and the foreyards were dragged round by chanting men. About the
Osprey
came, as neat as a goose backpaddling water.

The schooner had gained ground while the brigantine was going through the maneuver. Looking over his shoulder, Wiki saw her yaw, and realized she was preparing to get off another shot. A flat bang, and another stream of balls through rigging. More ropes parted, the topgallant sagged, and a row of holes popped into the taut canvas of the topsail. Wiki fought with the helm as the brigantine lost her precariously gained way.

Captain Stackpole, who had taken over the job of running repairs without being asked, hollered at his boat's crew, who sprang aloft to splice the broken cordage, braving another hail of shot. Then, miraculously, the firing paused. When Wiki looked over his shoulder again, the
Grim Reaper
was back on course, making up ground and then gaining perceptibly.

The gap was reduced to one hundred yards, then ninety. Another double hail of shot, and bangs and twangs as the rigging of the
Osprey
absorbed more damage. Captain Coffin swore, “What's wrong with you men? Are you all stuffed with cotton wadding?”

No one answered, because the sailors were far too busy. One party, headed by the carpenter, was preparing the gun. Men hooked on stout ropes, a side tackle to each side of the carriage, and a train-tackle leading to a ringbolt in the deck at the rear. A strong breeching, long enough to allow the cannon to recoil after every shot, but short enough to prevent it from breaking loose, was secured to the brig's hull by two ringbolts and looped to a knob at the back end of the gun.

It was going to take far too long, Wiki thought nervously, with another quick backward look at the schooner. At last the
Osprey
was matching her speed, so that the ninety-yard gap between the two vessels wasn't diminishing. However, she was well in range of those fiendishly efficient swivel guns, which let off another double fusillade at that very moment. A cry, and a man tumbled out of the lee shrouds. Miraculously, he landed safely on hands and feet, but blood was running down one arm. A snapped order from Captain Coffin, and the wounded man was hurried down the companionway by a shipmate.

At last the cannon was set for loading. The carpenter, who also acted as gun captain, cried orders in rapid succession. The cartridge, a flannel bag filled with powder, was rammed down the muzzle, then the nine-pound iron ball, followed by a wad.

“Man side-tackle falls, run out!”

With a grumble the snout of the cannon was shoved through the space in the stern quarter rail. The carpenter crouched over the sights, and barked a stream of orders to his crew, who were grunting and laboring with crowbars and handspikes. At last he was satisfied. Back he stood, shouting, “Fire!”

A huge bang, and the afterdeck was shrouded in stinging smoke. Everyone peered through it to see where the shot had fallen, but it was impossible to tell. They had overshot, Wiki thought. The schooner sailed on in hot chase, with no sign of damage, closing the gap by another ten yards, so that he could clearly see the two swivel guns firing in her bows. More shot whistled through the rigging, but without hitting a single rope or sheet of canvas. Obviously, the gunners hadn't allowed for the narrowing distance, and had aimed too high, but it was an unnervingly close escape.

Managing by a huge effort of will to ignore what was happening elsewhere, the carpenter ordered the gun readied for loading again. Wiki was still wet through from his plunge in the sea, and was shaking with both cold and excitement, so that his teeth chattered as he said to him, “D-dismantling sh-shot.”

The carpenter stood straight, turned, and stared at him as if something had crawled out of a knothole in the deck. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Coffin?”

“Dismantling shot,” Wiki said more clearly. “Like the b-bolas. Three chains—each about th-three feet long—j-joined together at a common center, and then rolled into a b-ball.”

“But what use is that?” the carpenter cried.

“The three chains spread out when they are fired. If you aim high enough, they will wrap around masts and rigging and wrench them to pieces.”

“You want me to aim at the bloody
rigging
?” the carpenter exclaimed in utter disbelief, and then repeated himself in more seemly fashion, having noticed that Captain Coffin was listening. “My personal ambition, Mr. Coffin,” he said, “is to hole her 'twixt wind and water, and send her to the bottom afore she do the same to us.”

“But it would be nice if Captain Stackpole were able to repair her after he g-gets her b-back,” Wiki argued, still shivering. “And he can't do that if she is lying on the b-bottom with large holes in her hull.”

“The schooner belongs to Cap'n Stackpole?” the carpenter exclaimed.

“Aye, sir,” said Wiki, watching the leading edge of the topgallant sail and adjusting the helm.

“He's right!” Captain Coffin cried, all animation. “Mr. Seward—a party to assemble dismantling shot, if you please!”

The mate arrived, green eyes slitted as he looked Wiki up and down. “You're wet through, Mr. Coffin,” he growled. “What do you want to do—catch your death of cold? Get below and change at once!”

“Aye, sir,” said Wiki, wondering why the whole world didn't immediately discern that Mr. Seward was a woman, and obediently handed over the wheel. When he arrived below, the steward was bandaging the hurt man's arm, and judging by the stream of oaths from the victim, the seaman was going to survive to tell the tale. The invective halted a moment as another fusillade tore through rope, canvas, and air abovedecks, but then resumed as vigorously as before.

Wiki's fingers were so numb that it seemed to take forever to drag off his wet, clinging clothes, and scramble into clean, dry ones. When he finally made it to deck, a quick backward look saw the schooner in the same place. To his mystification, two apprentices were filling grenade shells with flour, each one finished off with a fuzee.

More comprehensibly, three more cadets were cutting chain into three-foot lengths, while a fourth shackled them together in groups of three. The first of these, rolled into a ball, was handed to the carpenter, who was dancing with impatience, and down the throat of the gun it went, to join the cartridge of gunpowder. So swiftly did he aim, Wiki shied involuntarily when the gun went off, as he hadn't heard the command to fire. Then, as the chains spread out and whirled through the air, he jumped with fright again, because the ghastly device emitted a sound he'd never heard before, like the screaming of the condemned in the lowest level of hell.

Everyone about the decks looked equally stunned at the sheer violence of the noise. Even more incredibly, it wailed its way through the rigging of the schooner without effect. The
Grim Reaper
didn't even shy in fright, instead veering to take advantage of a gust from the north which brought her even closer.

Seventy yards, then fifty. To Wiki's surprise, he saw a man on the schooner jump onto the weather bow, brace himself, and then swing an arm as if throwing a ball. He glimpsed the flying missile, and then a grenade thumped onto the deck of the brigantine, and bounced. The boatswain, who was closest, frantically kicked, and the grenade jumped over the lee rail, fizzing as it went.

“Dear God!” cried Captain Coffin. If the grenade had burst, the brigantine would have been quickly reduced to a mute patch of charred wreckage—and it was obvious that the men on the schooner would have made sure that none of the
Osprey
men who survived the explosion would still be alive to tell the tale.

Another grenade was hurled, then another. Both fell harmlessly into the water, but it was horribly evident that many more were on the way. Captain Coffin roared, “Give me the man with the strongest arm! Someone to put grenades of our own on board that bastard!”

Wiki's teeth had stopped chattering, but he was numb with amazement. They were going to retaliate with grenades armed with
flour
? He couldn't believe it. Nevertheless, he managed to shout at his father, “The whalemen! Harpooners!”

Miraculously, Captain Stackpole had heard him—and understood, too. He snapped out two names, and two brawny-shouldered whalemen came running to the poop. Each was handed a flour grenade with the fuzee lit and burning steadily. Each took up the famous harpooner stance, one foot braced behind, the forward leg bent so the knee was tucked firmly against the bulwarks beneath the taffrail. Each brought his grenade-loaded arm back.

“Fire!”
cried the carpenter, intoxicated with battle. Both men swung with the power of experienced harpooners, and smoothly released. Wiki distinctly saw the two grenades fly over the space between the two ships, and land on the schooner's deck.

There was a double thump as the two grenades blew up simultaneously—and the
Grim Reaper
was cloaked in a billowing white cloud, which sparked weirdly as individual particles of flour caught fire and exploded. Blinded and startled, the schooner fell off the wind, and sagged away in their wake.

“
Now
for dismantling shot!” cried Captain Coffin. The two topmasts of the
Grim Reaper,
sticking up out of the great white pastrylike puff, made a perfect target. The gun crew worked like demons, and another devil's invention howled over the widening gap, while Wiki darted up the mast of the brigantine for a better view.

The aim was a little low, but the result was just as effective. Wiki heard the bang as the spring stay was cut, and then a distant clatter as the mainmast collapsed—and the
Grim Reaper
turned broadside to the gale.

Within moments, impelled by the twin forces of wind and tide on her hull, she was sagging directly for the deadly shoals and certain doom, while Captain Stackpole's roars of pain and fury at the imminent loss of his property echoed from the foredeck of the
Osprey.
The cloud of flour was thinning, and Wiki could glimpse figures on her deck frantically clearing away the raffle of ropes and spars to try to straighten her up.

Then, from his vantage point aloft, he saw a figure struggle out onto the bowsprit of the schooner. A moment later, a scrap of canvas began to wriggle up a stay that was still, miraculously, secured to what was left of her foremast. He could hear puzzled comments from the decks of the
Osprey,
and then abruptly realized what was happening.

At the same moment, Captain Stackpole yelled, “She's trying to set a sail to pay her head off!”

It was magnificent seamanship, and Wiki felt a pang that the man behind the gallant action should be nothing better than a murdering pirate. As the thin triangle of canvas blew taut the
Grim Reaper
straightened up, and it became obvious that whoever was in charge was steering head-on to the beach. The breakers pounded high but, as Wiki knew well, the bottom there was free of rocks. Then the schooner was in the surf, surrounded by spray and flying spume—and the
Grim Reaper
grounded with a crash.

The remnants of her masts jumped out of her with the jolt, but the bowsprit remained in place, sticking out over the sand. Eight figures scrambled out onto it, and ran in single file to safety. Wiki watched them jump down to the beach, dash to the cliff, and begin to climb. High above, the flagstaff poked a finger at the pale sky—and by the flagpole were two horsemen, their ponchos lifting and falling in the wind. Onward the eight men climbed, onward, while the riders watched and waited, unmoving. Wiki narrowed his eyes, indefinably reminded of the sketch Titian Peale had made of the gauchos roping the buck, then realized that it was because the far-off horsemen were carrying rifles.