Pirate Wolf Trilogy (101 page)

Gabriel lowered the glass. "Load the larboard
battery, Stubs. We dare not risk leaving her afloat to carry her
rats ashore. We'll hole her and sink her and pray for the souls she
takes with her."

"Ye want I should fire a warnin' shot
first?"

"To warn who? The ghosts?"

"A courtesy to Neptune. Let him know them
souls are comin'."

Gabriel nodded. "A single shot over the bow
then. Warn the men I will be timing them as if it was a drill. I
want the count between firing and reloading no more than twenty
seconds. Three full broadsides should do it."

While Stubs relayed the command to the gun
captains, Gabriel raised the glass and swept the length and breadth
of the plague ship again. He felt a familiar prickle across the
nape of his neck and wondered what it was about the vessel that was
setting off tiny alarms. It was a fine, strong ship; double the
shame for having to sink her. But if it carried the plague or the
yellow fever or the pox there was no salvaging it. A single rat,
should it survive, could come ashore and wipe out the entire
population of an island.

Behind him, the gun
captains were ready. The monstrous culverins were loaded, the fuses
lit. Gabriel nodded once to Stubs, who touched a smoking linstock
to the small swivel gun mounted on the stern rail. The powder
caught with a
puffft
and the charge exploded, sending a two-pound iron ball
hurling out over the side of the ship to waken Neptune. Gun crews
shouted their readiness. Men stood by with fresh loads of powder
and balls, with sponges and tompions to swab out the barrels and
pack a fresh shot down the brass throats.

Gabriel swept the glass
along the deck of the
Eliza Jane
one last time then raised his arm to give the
signal to fire.

CHAPTER FOUR

Evangeline Chandler was
startled awake by the screeching whistle of the shot as it carved
an arc over the bow of the
Eliza
Jane
and splashed into the water. It took
her a moment to scramble out of her cubbyhole beneath the bowsprit
and pull herself upright. Her legs were cramped, she was
desperately weak and had to grab hold of a shearing pole to gain
enough leverage to see over the gunwale.

Where there had been only
vast, endless stretches of water and sky the previous two days,
there now sat a monstrous Spanish galleon, weathered and
battle-scarred, with two full rows of black-snouted cannon aimed at
the
Eliza Jane
.

As she struggled to steady her legs beneath
her, the wind snatched at her hair and sent long blonde streamers
across her eyes, momentarily blinding her. She swept them aside
just as a sound unlike anything she had ever heard shattered the
air and brought hell screaming across the span of clear water
between the two ships.

The entire side of the
galleon erupted with spitting forks of flame as both decks of guns
fired. The ships were so close it took barely two heartbeats for
the barrage of shots to reach the
Eliza
Jane
, some thumping into the solid wooden
hull, some blasting through the rails and smashing them inward,
spraying the deck with a deadly hail of knife-like splinters. Some
crashed into the yards and rigging, bringing down lines and sail.
Some struck the masts and ricocheted onto the deck, rolling wildly
through any obstacle that stood in the way.

Eva screamed as a shot struck the extended
arm of the bowsprit and snapped it cleanly in two. She was thrown
off her feet and engulfed in a cloud of smoke and cinders. Covering
her head with her hands, she curled into a ball and screamed again
as the planking beneath her heaved and buckled.

~~

"Hold your fire!
Hold your fire dammit
!"
Gabriel shouted over the roar of the guns and leaped up onto the
fat barrel of a culverin, the glass to his eye again. The broadside
had produced a thick haze of sulphurous smoke, and he had to wait
for it to clear before he could get a clear view of the English
ship. He was not even sure he had seen what he thought he had seen
in that split second before his arm dropped. Had something...
someone moved in the bow? A vision? A mirage? A ghostly siren? It
had to be the latter, for it was not possible that he had seen a
woman with long flowing blonde hair standing there.

The seconds ticked away interminably slowly.
The drift of smoke moved lazily away on the breeze and Gabriel
could feel the eyes of the crew fixed on him, the guns already
reloaded, the fuses smoking, the powder poured into the touch
holes.

"Captain?"

"Wait," he told Stubs. "Just wait one more
minute. For an instant there I thought I saw..."

He blinked his good eye and focussed
again.

"There!" he shouted excitedly, pointing. "In
the bow. There is someone on board."

Stubs snapped open a second
spyglass and aimed it at the bow of the
Eliza Jane.

As expected, the galleon's first broadside
had done a tremendous amount of damage against the unresisting
target. At first Stubs did not see anything beyond the split rails
and yards, the crushed planks and broken spars. But then, as the
plumes of dust settled and the last wisps of smoke cleared, he too
saw what had caused the hairs across the nape of Gabriel’s neck to
stand on end.

It was a woman.

Or a wraith.

She was dressed in a long
shapeless white garment. Her hair was as yellow as the sun and blew
free in the wind. She had risen from a crouch and now stood
motionless at the rail staring across the water at the
Endurance
.

It was evident by the buzz on the gun deck
that the crew had seen her as well. The most superstitious of the
lot crossed themselves over and over and mumbled words to ward off
any curses. Those who did not believe in specters or sirens looked
away and then looked back hoping it was merely a trick of the
smoke.

"Do you see her?" Gabriel asked warily. "Is
my eye playing tricks or do you see her too, dammit?"

"Aye," Stubs said slowly. "I see her. Though
she must have the devil on her shoulder if she survived that
round." He crossed himself twice, hastily, and spat a wad of phlegm
over the rail.

"Rowly!"

Standing above them on the quarterdeck, the
helmsman tore his eyes away from the English ship and snapped to
attention. "Aye Captain?"

"Bring us within hailing distance."

"
Sir
?"

Gabriel lowered the glass and repeated the
order through clenched teeth. "Within hailing distance, Master
Rowlandson, and look sharp about it."

Rowly touched a forelock and passed the order
along. The crew was spooked and thus hesitant to respond, for
everyone had heard tales of beautiful, half-naked sea nymphs who
lured sailors to their deaths. Compounding that fear was the fact
that even if someone was still alive on board the English ship, it
flew the yellow flag warning all sailors to stay away.

Stubs was not easily swayed by superstition,
but neither was he altogether willing to tempt the Fates and
dismiss the powers of an otherworldly being. He glanced at Gabriel
and pushed his tongue from one cheek to the other.

"I am aware, Master Stubs," Gabriel said
evenly, reading the warning in the quartermaster’s eyes. "I am well
aware."

It took a further hour of
maneuvring to bring the
Endurance
close enough for Dante to hail the other ship
through a brass speaking trumpet. Throughout that full hour the
figure of the woman did not move from the bow. Indeed, Gabriel
might have begun to believe she was a statue if not for the
occasional hand she raised to push the golden streamers of hair off
her face. She had also retrieved a long woolen cloak from somewhere
beside her and now wore it wrapped tightly around her
shoulders.

"Hail,
Eliza Jane
! This is the captain of
the
Endurance
.
How many survivors are there aboard your ship?"

The woman tried twice to answer but her
throat was too dry, the ships were too far apart, and the rasped
words were snatched away on the breeze. In the end, she held up a
hand showing only one finger, then pointed that finger to her
chest.

"Are you saying you are alone on the
ship?"

The girl replied with an exaggerated nod and
Dante blew out a breath before raising the trumpet to his mouth
again. "How long?"

The girl looked down and he could see her
staring at her fingers, counting them off slowly as she uncurled
them from a fist. When she held her hand up again, there were four
slender fingers showing.

Gabriel rubbed the scabbing off his wounded
eye and forced it to stay open. "Where is the rest of the crew?
Where is the Captain?"

The girl's arm came down and paused halfway
to point into the belly of the main deck. Her fingers curled into a
tight fist again as she shook her head.

Dante felt the hairs on his neck prickle
again, for if he was interpreting her correctly, she was telling
him that she was alone on the deck of a plague ship which was
littered with the bodies of the dead.

"Bring us closer, Stubs. Close enough to hear
her speak."

"But Cap'n—"

Gabriel's cold, hard gaze cut the protest
short. "That was an order Master MacLeish, not a point of
debate."

Stubs' eyes widened briefly out of their
creases at the use of his proper name—a warning as clear and loud
as a cannon shot.

"Aye, Cap'n. Bringin' her closer."

He relayed the order to the helmsman, Rowly,
who took it with a mutinous set to his mouth. He hesitated long
enough that Gabriel turned his head and glared a further threat,
one that came with a hand going not-so-casually to the stock of the
pistol he wore at his waist.

~~

By the time the
Endurance
had maneuvered
into position, the entire crew was on deck. Gabriel had taken the
precaution of ordering men to stand by the rails with long
grappling poles... not to pull the ships closer, but to keep them
purposefully apart. He had also ordered sharpshooters up into the
yards in case the woman and the flag had both been used as a ruse
to get the galleon close enough for English pirates to swarm over
the side and board the
Endurance.

The crew watched in
absolute silence as Dante stepped up to the rail again and hailed
the
Eliza Jane
through his cupped hands.

The girl rose from the rubble and looked
solemnly out over the gap between the two ships. This close, her
features were clearer and another low murmur rippled through the
crew with opinions divided between beautiful sirens and ghostly
apparitions of angels.

"Can you tell us what happened?" Dante
asked.

The girl cleared enough of the rust out of
her voice to make herself heard. "We landed in Fox Town a fortnight
ago to take on fresh water. One of the men came down with a fever.
It took only a few days to infect the rest of the crew."

Like a school of fish veering from danger,
the crewmen who had been crowding the rails backed away, putting
more space between themselves and any foul vapors the ship might be
expelling.

"And you?" Dante asked. "Were you
infected?"

The woman bowed her head a moment and shook
it. "No. I was spared. God only knows why, but I had neither the
fever nor the spots."

"The pox," Stubs said as he crossed himself.
"There was a rumor of an outbreak on one o' the islands."

"Why would it strike down the entire crew and
not the girl?"

"Like she said, only God... or the Devil...
knows for sure."

They both looked back
toward the
Eliza Jane
.

"You say you have been four days on your
own?"

"On deck, yes. I was locked away in my cabin
for several days before that, so I cannot be sure exactly how long
I have been alone."

"What have you done for food and water?"

"I have caught a little rain in the sails.
But I have not dared to go back below."

Gabriel beckoned his cabin boy, Eduardo.
"Fetch a skin of fresh water, another of wine, and a pouch of
wheatcakes, cheese and cold meat. And be quick about it."

The boy scampered off and Gabriel expelled a
long slow breath. He could not simply bring the woman on board. The
pox was a virulent and deadly disease and no one knew how it
spread. Some said by touch, others said by rats, others suggested
that merely breathing the same air was fatal. The fact the girl had
been spared was a puzzlement but did not mean she was free of the
disease.

On the other hand, he could not just sail
away. She was on a death ship and it was his moral duty to destroy
the vessel. While he had been implemental in sinking ships full of
screaming Spaniards, he was not comfortable with the thought of
sending an unarmed, helpless woman to a watery grave.

"Please, Captain." Her voice wavered again as
it came across the gap between the two ships. "I understand your
dilemma. It was one of the reasons I did not search for food to
keep myself alive. I hoped that if I ate nothing and slept in the
open... the end would come swifter. I am afraid I am too much of a
coward to throw myself overboard but I will accept the fate
delivered by your guns."

Gabriel blew out a breath that carried an
oath with it. That was surely the last thing he had wanted to hear,
for now it all but obligated him to find a way to save her.