Heart of Steele (2 page)

The higher I rose, the stronger the breezes driving
our ship forward became. After the humid listlessness of the past weeks, it felt like a swim in a cold river. I found myself climbing faster and faster until at last I reached Mr. Tate in his lofty perch atop the great central mainmast.

“What’s the news, Mr. Tate?” I gasped out, drawing the cool air into my laboring lungs. “Mr. Jeffers has sent me up to find out what’s what.”

“Figured it wasn’t the cap’n,” he grumbled back. “Cap’n Hunter’s got two good eyes in his head. Bartholomew Jeffers couldn’t see the end of his own nose with a spyglass!” He turned and grinned at me. “‘Course, a good glass might help someone else to use the good sight God gave them.”

With that, he slapped his own glass into my hands and pointed carefully off to starboard. “There lies a bark, Davy, where the sea meets sky, or I’m a Barbary ape, I am!”

Quickly I extended the glass and scanned the horizon where his finger pointed, straight off the starboard bow. It took a second or two for my eye to adjust and a few after that to find her, but there she was, on the far horizon and low in the water. Too low.

“No wonder Mr. Jeffers couldn’t see her,” I cried. “All her masts are down!”

“Aye, ’twas only pure luck that I spied her in the first place! Not a stump above her railings. Could have been a reef for all she showed!”

“Could she have wrecked in a storm, Mr. Tate?”

“If storm it was, she had it all to herself, she did! Not a hint of wind did we have until this morning! You tell the cap’n it weren’t no storm that stripped her. He has the word of Abel Tate on that!”

I started to fly back down the lines, as fast as I could move hands and feet. If no storm had dismasted that lonely hulk on the horizon, then only one other thing could have.

Pirates.

“Steady about, Mr. Warburton,” Captain Hunter said to our hulking helmsman. Mr. Warburton was almost seven feet tall in any direction you cared to go. Right now, that formidable man was licking his lips and looking decidedly nervous.

“Don’t like the look o’ her, Cap’n. Don’t like the look o’ her at all.”

“True, she’s not at her best, but we shouldn’t hold
that against her.” Since there were no other ships about—and because the heat was so beastly—Captain Hunter had left his gaudy pirate costume hanging in his cabin. Instead of his wonderful emerald green jacket and yellow silk sash, he stood there in white trousers and billowing shirt. He looked annoyingly fresh and alert. I could smell myself all too well.

“Not what I meant,” muttered Mr. Warburton. “Not what I meant at all.” He chewed on his lower lip as if it was some kind of sugar treat. Mr. Warburton could snap a longboat oar across his leg like a huge matchstick. When cannonballs and shot had been whizzing around his head at the battle in Tortuga Harbor, he hadn’t budged an inch. But the huge helmsman had one flaw: He was terrified of ghosts.

And if anything ever looked haunted, it was the wallowing hulk we sailed toward.

“Steady on, Mr. Warburton,” grumped my uncle Patch from the other side of the captain. “I’ve never known a ghost to venture forth in the broad daylight. Not even Irish ones.”

“There you have it,” said Captain Hunter with a
laugh. “If even contrary Irish ghosts won’t dance in daylight, then in daylight are we safe!”

“Less’n she was done in by a sea serpent,” muttered Mr. Warburton under his breath. “Right fond o’ rippin’out masts, yer sea serpent”

“If it was a sea serpent, then it used the masts for toothpicks, and I find that even harder to believe in than ghosts,” the captain said, staring through his own spyglass. “Even Irish ones.”

“You’ve just never been properly introduced to one, William,” said my uncle, a rather nasty smile on his face. “Now there be ghosts in parts of County Clare …”

From my mother I had heard all about the Wan Pale Lady of County Clare. Since my uncle now began to talk of that well-known ghost, I went to stand at the railing and watch as we approached the derelict. The going was slow, there being barely enough breeze to move us at all. It took close to two hours to get within hailing range of her. And the closer we got, the quieter the crew became until I heard no sound at all except the waves and the creaking of the
Aurora
’s masts and lines. Something was horribly wrong with the derelict. The wrongness
radiated out from her like ripples from a rock tossed into a pond. I breathed a sigh of relief when at last I saw movement on the decks, thinking that at least there were living people there.

Mr. Adams, the first mate, was preparing to hail her when Captain Hunter placed a hand on his arm. “Hold a minute, if you please, Mr. Adams.” He gestured over to Giles Conway, an ex-marine and the best shot with a musket we had on board. “Are you loaded and primed, Mr. Conway?”

“Aye, Cap’n, never knows when somethin’ untoward might come about, sir.”

“An excellent philosophy, Mr. Conway. Would you oblige me with a shot over the decks of our crippled friend?”

Mr. Conway shrugged, sighted his long musket, then frowned and looked back at the captain. “Should I be aiming at anything in particular, sir? Seems right strange, otherwise, if ye get my drift?”

“Just fire, Mr. Conway. A nice loud bang is what we chiefly require.”

Mr. Conway shrugged again, sighted carefully over the sides and gently squeezed off a shot. The sharp, loud crack echoed out across the water, and
as soon as it did, the decks of the derelict vanished in a swirling, billowing cloud of white. Hundreds of gulls went screaming up into the air, their harsh cries ripping through the hot, still air. Up and up they spiraled, complaining all the way, not so much like a cloud as like smoke billowing up from a fire.

Then the wind shifted ever so slightly and a horrible smell came drifting over to us. I nearly gagged, and watched as hardened pirates covered their faces with their scarves and hands. Once as a boy in Bristol I had run an errand for my mother that had taken me close to a slaughterhouse. It was the same smell, only much worse. Everyone stared at the gently rocking derelict as the gulls screamed away. Then we drew close enough to make out her name written large across her stern.

The
Elizabeth Bingham.

Finally Captain Hunter’s voice broke through the terrible silence. “Best get your things together, Patch, in case someone over there has need of your services.”

“I wish I felt there might be such aboard her,” my uncle replied, crossing himself as he did. “But
I fear they’ll be more in need of stout canvas bags and a round of shot to send them properly home. If anything but gulls lives yonder, then I am no human creature.”

With the solemnity of a funeral the crew lowered a couple of boats over the side and prepared to close the distance between the two ships. Captain Hunter solemnly turned command of the
Aurora
over to Mr. Adams and swung himself lightly down into the first boat. Uncle Patch was supervising the lowering of his medical chest into the other and gingerly preparing to follow it. Uncle Patch never could get the knack of getting on or off a ship. Just as he was about to disappear over the side, he locked eyes on me and his rough face got the strangest look on it.

“Well, don’t just hang about. ’Tis help I’ll be needing if any be alive!” His emerald-green eyes closed for a moment and then flew open. “And if none be, then it’s a lesson you’ll not find in any book, David Michael Shea!”

I scrambled after him, eager to learn what lesson the
Elizabeth Bingham
had to teach me.

I wished I had stayed on the
Aurora.

Across we went, the air still and dead, the slight breeze that had moved the
Aurora
faded. Slowly the starboard side of the
Elizabeth Bingham
began to loom above us, but not as high as it should have. She bobbed low in the water, draped in the remains of her masts and sails, all caught in a tangle of broken lines and shrouds. The foul smell grew stronger the closer we got to the crippled bark. A few gulls, braver than the rest, still patrolled the railings, eyeing us with an arrogance that made me shudder. Then we bumped up against her side and there was nothing for us to do but to clamber up the trailing ropes.

“Oh, blessed Mary and all the saints in heaven,” breathed Uncle Patch as we dropped onto the deck and stood huddled together like children. I could say nothing at all. I felt as though I might never say anything ever again. I had spent months sailing with my uncle as his loblolly boy, helping him treat and sew up injured and dying men. Aye, and I had seen death, helped sew it into shrouds. That was nothing like the sight before us.

The crew and passengers of the
Elizabeth Bingham
lay tumbled on the deck of their crippled craft. And
had obviously lain there for many days. The bodies were scattered where they had been butchered. The stench of decay was sickening, and the sight was horrible. The seagulls were scavengers of the dead. That was why the ship had attracted the birds. Everything was dappled white with the gulls’ droppings, adding to the nauseating reek of decay. I felt my gorge rise but fought it down. I wouldn’t be sick, not now, not here.

“Fan out, men,” commanded Captain Hunter. “Check her from stem to stern. If anyone’s alive in this charnel house, we must rescue them or give up our hope of heaven!”

With muttered “Ayes” the crew members began to move out across the gore-splattered decks. They were quiet and effective, but even those hardened men avoided looking at the dead. Uncle Patch called out. I thought he was examining a body, but he had made another sort of discovery.

“Don’t know about the other two, William,” he said, pointing at the stub of the mainmast, “but this mast was chopped down with an ax. Bad luck it didn’t hole the hull when it crashed and take whoever did this with it!”

“Guns are gone,” I blurted. Uncle Patch and Captain Hunter turned toward me, and in the heat and stink of decay, once again I almost threw up. But I didn’t. “You can see where they used to be, the scars where they ran out and back, but they’re gone!”

“Twelve pounders, judging by the shot that’s left,” Hunter said. “And six cannons, judging by the ports cut in her side.”

“What kind of loon tries to move twelve pounders from ship to ship in the middle of the sea?” wondered Uncle Patch. “A false move, a snapped line, and a heavy cannon could punch right through the decks and down through the bottom of the ship.”

“Could they have shoved the guns over the side?” I asked, just to show I was still paying attention, and to keep my mind off my heaving stomach.

“Could have, but why?” Hunter replied. “I mean, the ship’s abandoned, a derelict. If you wanted the guns gone, why not just sink the whole bloody bark and be done with it?”

“Cap’n!” called the voice of Mr. Conway from up on the quarterdeck. “Ye need to attend here!”

“What is it, Mr. Conway?”

“Sorry, sir. ’Fraid ye need t’ see this for yerself!”

“Blood and blast,” snapped my uncle. “Now it’s mysteries we’re having. As if anything could be worse than this floating tomb!”

Up we went, me hurrying along behind. Mr. Conway moved aside and we saw what he had summoned us to see. For the second time since boarding the
Elizabeth Bingham
we all stood speechless.

The captain of the derelict bark lay on the desk. He had been slashed with a sword and sprawled there on his back, dead and past hope. A pistol rested near his outflung right hand, showing that he had died trying to defend himself and his vessel. The man lay with his head slightly propped against the bulkhead. And hanging from a cord around his neck was a sheet of stiff parchment on which someone had carefully lettered the message:

SO DIE ALL ROBBED BY MAD WILLIAM HUNTER!

The only sounds were the complaints of the remaining gulls and the hushed voices of our boarding party, calling out to one another.

There were too many dead to bury them properly, so Captain Hunter instead ordered the sea cocks
opened. It took a lot of work since the derelict was practically swamped with water. One of the men dropped into the main hold, though, landing in water that went up to his armpits. He ducked under to find the lever. Finally he succeeded, letting seawater flood into her holds. He came scrambling out, shivering, and we rowed back to the
Aurora
to watch the other craft settle herself lower and lower into the water. The seaman who had dived into the hold muttered that he had the stink of death upon him from the water in the
Elizabeth Bingham,
and he dipped into the ocean to wash it off before he came up the side.

“Thank you,” Captain Hunter told the man as he gave him a hand up onto the deck. I think we were all grateful that he had let the water into the bark. The only other choice would have been to fire our cannons at her, and that seemed cruel after all she had gone through.

So in the end, we stood off and watched the bark and her crew slip with a sort of crippled grace beneath the sea. The last thing I saw of her was the gleam of the gold lettering on her stern.

And then even that was gone.

The Mystery