The Sea Beggars (20 page)

All along the English shore, dark figures stood on the sand, watching, and waiting, and as Jan pointed to them, more slipped over the horizon of cliff behind the beach and came down toward the sea. A few of the Spanish sailors were just wading up through the surf and the people on the beach nearest them rushed up and seized them and fell to beating them.

“There must be fifty of them!” Red Aart shouted. “Who are they?” He leaned across the railing of the
Wayward Girl
to look.

Jan bent over his gun again. If the Spanish ship went aground, those lurking beach bandits could well end up with most of the booty. Pieter tapped him on the shoulder.

“Load up the guns with man killer. Rock shot. Chains.” The mean glint in old Pieter's eyes surprised his nephew, in spite of all he knew about him. “Let them say their Hail Marys.”

Jan straightened. “Moek! Willy! Aart!”

The men stepped forward, eager, and he sent some to the shot locker and others around the ship, to each of the other guns. “All the guns?” he said to Pieter mildly, and drew a filthy oath from his father's brother.

Mouse tugged on his sleeve. “Me, Jan. Tell me too.”

“Get out of my way,” Jan said, and pushed him over to the rail. He went up to the bow, to load the old cannon there.

“Sail!” Marten shrieked, from the masthead. “Sail ho—”

Jan sprang toward the rail, every hackle standing. “Where away?” In the waist Pieter howled with rage and kicked violently at the hatchcover.

“Larboard beam,” Marten was screaming. “Sail hull down to larboard—”

Jan shaded his eyes, staring across the rushing seas into the distance, but the ship hull down to the masthead was still well out of sight from the deck. It hardly mattered. Whoever she was, she would make no friend of the
Wayward Girl
.

Pieter said, “Well, well. That cuts down a little on our time.”

“She's still probably a half a glass away,” Jan said, hoping. He went on to the bow gun. Mouse followed him, walking with a peculiar slouching stride that was meant to imitate Jan's.

“Hands to the braces,” Pieter shouted.

The men ran around the ship. There were too few seamen to work the ship and fire the guns too, and Jan swore, wondering what his uncle was doing. But when he started back toward the stern, where Pieter was climbing the steps to the poop deck to con the steering of the ship, his uncle shouted curses at him.

“Mind the guns! Just mind the guns and shoot when I tell you, you dumb suck!”

Jan turned back to the bow gun. Mouse was on his heels; Jan pushed him.

“Fetch me the match.”

The slow match sulked in its iron box by the brass waist gun. Mouse ran down the ship and brought it up to the bow.

Pieter got the
Wayward Girl
under sail, slipping like a knife through the water, headed away from the Spanish hulk. Standing out to sea until he got room to maneuver, he brought the ship about. Jan leaned against the railing at the bow. His uncle handled the ship as neatly as a wooden shoe in a bathtub. Pieter had made him practice changing course and he had never managed to turn the sails, to lay the ship over and take the new heading without losing the wind and going dead in the water. The great gaff-rigged mainsail luffed a little, drawn too tight to the wind, and Pieter shouted to the man on the brace to let it out a little.

Now the
Wayward Girl
was racing down through the heavy seas toward the Spanish hulk again. On the thrashing merchantman a howl of terror went up, as the crew saw her tormentor approaching, and the men rushed back from the rail. Jan bent over the bow gun. He saw what his uncle meant to do, and that he would have very little time to fire the guns as the
Wayward Girl
passed her target; swiftly he made ready.

In the notch of the cannon's sight the Spanish ship loomed larger and darker. The waves lifted her and dropped the
Wayward Girl
, until the Spanish vessel seemed to hang above them like a great cloud. Then the wave passed on and the two ships slid together, one rising, one falling, and Jan put the match to the cannon and the gun roared.

The shot, dozens of pieces of metal and rock, whistled as it flew. It raked across the deck of the merchantman, killing in a broad swath. The Spanish sailors shrieked and darted in all directions, and more of them dove overboard into the surf.

Jan was already running down the ship to the waist gun. The
Wayward Girl
was flying through the water; Pieter shouted to the men to back the mainsail to slow her down a little, and Jan fired the next gun.

The two ships were so close now that he saw the faces of the Spanish sailors, saw them disintegrate into red mash when the shot struck. The ship rolled toward him just after the shot whipped across the deck, and on the tilted deck he saw the bodies scattered and broken and the blood running in streams. Without hesitating he raced down the
Wayward Girl
to the stern, jumped up the three steps to the stern deck, and bent over the two stern guns.

Standing at the railing of the poop, Pieter shouted, “Aart, go below and bring up two coils of the new cable. Helm, steady as she goes.”

The
Wayward Girl
swept past the Spanish ship. Looking down the barrel of the first stern gun, Jan saw the length of her deck; on the boards were a tangle of corpses and screaming wounded and the wreckage of the masts. He put the match to the two bores and the guns thundered almost simultaneously. A veil of smoke hung over the stern for a moment. Coughing, he squinted with watery eyes through the clearing black fog.

The big merchantman rolled helpless. On her deck nothing stirred except a rag of sail that fluttered in the wind.

“Lower the dinghy,” Pieter called. He wheeled, grabbing Jan by the sleeve. “You take the boarding party. Rig the tow cable to her bow, if you can—we can haul her off down the coast a little way. I know where there's a cove—”

“Sail,” Marten was screaming, from the masthead. “The sail's coming straight down on us! She's Spanish—a Spanish greatship!”

“Oh, God,” Jan said.

“Never mind her!” Pieter shook him. “There's no time to spend worrying about her. Get that hulk in tow.”

Jan spared one instant's glance out to sea, where the unseen Spaniard was cleaving the water toward them, and ran, down to the waist. Aart and Willy were carrying the ship's little dinghy to the rail. On the deck lay two huge rolls of three-inch cable, so new the long blond threads that escaped the twist had not been worn off. Jan helped the other men heave the dinghy overboard.

“Come with me,” he said to the two men, and swung his leg over the rail.

“Me too?” Mouse danced on the deck beside him. “Can I come too, Jan?”

Jan's temper surged; he brought his arm back to swat the boy away, but Aart glared at him, and he thought better of it. Maybe if they took him, Mouse would catch a stray shot, eliminating a small but persistent annoyance from Jan's life. “Yes, come,” he said, and grabbing Mouse by the arm hoisted him up over the rail and dropped him into the dinghy.

Mouse yelled, from delight or fear; an instant later the other men fell into the dinghy beside him, with the cable. They rowed off toward the Spanish hulk.

Heads and bodies dappled the white-striped surf around the Spanish ship. Most of her crew had gone overboard. Jan hoped none was waiting to meet him when he went up the side. They rowed under her lee by the stern. The ship was catching the bottom now with each push of the waves. Jan could hear her keel scraping on the hard shingle. She rolled down over his dinghy, shutting out the sky, and he gaped up a moment at the huge hulk above him, unnerved, waiting for her to crash down on him. Then she rolled back the other way, and from beneath the waves her dripping weedy bottom rose streaming into his face.

“Wait 'til she comes back over again!”

Some of the Spanish crew swam in the sea near them. Aart leaned out from the dinghy, an oar in both hands, and whacked a floating head until it went under. The others had struck out for the beach, where the English were gathering them in. A row of naked bodies already lay on the cold sand above the tide line.

Jan stood up in the dinghy, with the little boat's anchor in his hand. As the side of the Spanish ship swung down above him, he threw the anchor up over her rail. Midway up her side, a hole three feet wide showed through her timbers, where the
Wayward Girl
had hit her at close range with a heavy shot. The ship righted itself in its wild roll, and the anchor caught on the rail. Jan clung to the rope; he was lifted up, up out of the dinghy.

Like a pendulum he swung hard against the Spanish ship's side. Kicking out his feet, he got a toehold on her slick streaming timbers and walked up over the rail.

The deck was tipping and pitching like a feather in the wind. Everything on it rolled from side to side with every toss of the waves. A body was lodged against the rail where he climbed over; he had to step on its dead hand to get across. The blood gurgled in the scuppers.

“Dios,” someone called, feebly, from the direction of the stern. “Dios y Madre de Dios—” Someone else screamed.

Jan leaned over the railing, to look down into the dinghy. “Row along to her bow. I'll meet you there.”

Aart waved. Jan went forward; he had to plow through the wreckage of the forward mast and sails and rigging. The rolling of the ship made it hard to keep his footing. There were dead everywhere—underfoot, caught in the snarl of wood and rope, huddled against the bulkhead of the high forecastle. The smell of blood was sickening. A tangle of canvas around a broken spar lay over the steps up to the forecastle deck, and he heaved and lugged at it uselessly until he saw a coil of line hooked around the top step. With his knife he cut it free. The next heave of the ship took the spar off down the deck. He climbed up to the forecastle.

Something boomed in the distance. He wheeled. Off to sea, a little blossom of smoke was shredding away in the wind. Behind it stood a Spanish warship.

Jan Caught his breath. He had never seen a greatship under full sail before and even though she was Spanish she was beautiful, her sails piled up like clouds above her, her pennants streaming in the wind. A moment later the shot she had fired struck the sea midway between him and the
Wayward Girl
with a splash that sent droplets flying into his face.

“Come on!” He dashed across the forecastle to the bow of the hulk. The dinghy was just below him, the men looking up with anxious faces. He waved to them to send the cable up, and Aart bent over the rolls and found an end and began uncoiling length on length of the heavy line.

Another rattle of thunder from the Spanish ship. All the men jerked as if struck.

“I'll take it,” Mouse cried, and grasping the end of the cable he climbed up onto his brother's shoulders and reached over his head for the chains that hung from the Spanish ship's bowsprit.

“Aart,” Jan roared. “Do it yourself.”

Too late: Mouse was already scurrying, nimble as his name, into the chains, dragging the cable after him. Jan swore under his breath. He leaned down over the rail to haul the boy on board.

“She's going,” Willy cried, dismayed. “Pieter's leaving us!”

The
Wayward Girl
was making sail again, headed for the open sea. Jan shouted, “No, no, he's just putting her on her best tack. Come on—row back—”

A flight of cannonballs stopped his words in his mouth; they hit the sea around the
Wayward Girl
and threw up a curtain of water as high as her jack yard. The ship was moving, slipping away from the Spanish hulk; Jan blinked after her, wondering what Pieter was doing. Maybe he was leaving them. Certainly he was heading dead away from them.

No. Trust the old man. Jan bawled, “He'll come about and sail in past us to pick up the cable. You go out to meet her—”

The two men in the dinghy bellowed, against that entirely. Jan gritted his teeth. Beside him Mouse stood solemnly watching them. Jan twisted to look out to sea, where the greatship was sailing toward them again.

As long as she was sailing up toward them she could not shoot. Jan struck the rail with his hand. He watched the
Wayward Girl
, now rapidly shrinking as she fled away from them.

Her mainsail shivered. Pieter was wearing ship, to bring her back to Jan.

“Go on! Row out to meet him—slip the cable as you go—”

“I'm not going out there,” Willy howled.

“Ah, you hen, Willy! Then go there!” Jan pointed to the stretch of rough water in between the rolling hulk and the beach. The
Wayward Girl
drew far less than any Spanish ship; maybe she could squeeze in between this hulk, now scraping bottom, and the sloping beach where the English happily mauled the shipwrecked sailors. “Go!”

That they were willing to do. Clinging to the rail through another gut-twisting roll of the Spanish hulk, he watched them row the dinghy off to the quieter water, where, protected by the hulk from the greatship, they paid out the cable over the dinghy's stern.

The
Wayward Girl
was coming about. Her jack yard swung from one side to the other; her hull wallowed a moment, sluggish, and then lay over on the other flank. The wind caught her great mainsail and swelled it full as a matron's apron.

Mouse cheered. Jan grunted, relieved, and turned back to watch the greatship.

She did not sail fast, but she was so big, her sail so towering above her stepped decks, that she seemed to split the sea and throw the sky behind her. Jan leaned against the rail beside him through another pitch of the hulk.

This time she went hard aground. A shudder passed through her as if she were a living thing that died.

“Come on,” Jan said, alarmed. If she went aground they would not easily tow her off. He ran down to the main deck again, where the broken masts and yards lay over everything, and searched for an ax to chop it all free and lighten the ship.