1635: The Papal Stakes

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Estuban Miro turned and saw that the xebec had closed to within three hundred fifty yards. “Soon now,” he said loudly, over the chop of the oars and the rush of the scialuppa ’s bow-wake.

In the stern, Harry Lefferts nodded. “It’s going to be close,” he shouted back, squinting into the sun.

Miro followed his gaze. They were drawing close to the island of Monte Cristo, which, according to Harry, was completely different from the one made famous by the book of some up-time French author. The real Monte Cristo rose out of the Tyrrhenian Sea like a rough pyramid of scrub-covered granite. He saw no dramatic castles in sight; the only structures on the island were the ruins of the monastery of San Mamilliano, in which they had established their base-camp two days ago.

Some of the Piombinesi, who were now adjusting the scialuppa ’s battered lateen sail, had been somewhat familiar with the island. It was technically part of the extended principality of Piombino, although it remained abandoned and almost entirely unvisited, except by ships in such desperate need of fresh water that their captains were willing to brave chance encounters with pirates who frequented it for the same reason. Two of the Piombinesi had been fairly well-acquainted with its small inlets, particularly the one toward which they were heading now: Cala Maestra.

“The fun is going to start soon,” drawled Harry who had turned to inspect the xebec.

Miro nodded. Masses of pirates swarmed on her deck; threats and curses in half a dozen languages reached hoarsely over the waves. They shook cutlasses, scimitars, and a remarkably diverse assortment of firearms in the direction of the small fishing boat, and several of their number were busily setting swivel guns into pintel mounts on the port-side rail. “How many do you estimate, Harry?”

Lefferts, blessed with 20/15 vision, squinted again. “They’re milling around so much it’s hard to be tell, but I think our first estimate through the binoculars was pretty accurate. There are about twenty manning the sails and lines, about three times that number ready and eager to dig out our hearts with the points of their swords.”

One of the Piombinese rowers obviously understood enough English to get the gist of Harry’s remark; he retched, and then leaned more urgently to his oar. The man beside him on the bench-one of the four crewmen they’d taken on from the barca-longa — poked him with an elbow and motioned for him to maintain a steady stroke.

Harry came forward, leaned closer to Miro so he did not have to raise his voice above the wind and water. “Good thing you brought some of the other crew with us.”

Miro shrugged. “It is common practice in convoys, particularly when some ships have crew that have never faced pirates before. You mix some men with experience in with those; the example of the veterans steadies the beginners. Or so one hopes.” He smiled at Harry.

Harry was staring at his oilcloth-wrapped SKS, stowed out of sight beneath the stern-most thwart. “Well, so far, your voice of Mediterranean experience has been pretty much on target, Estuban.” He jutted a chin at the xebec. “You called their course to within a few degrees, once we picked up their trail at Elba.”

Miro shrugged again. “No profound foresight was required. The wild tales we heard in the wharf-side taverna at Marciano Marina had one element in common: when the two Spanish galliots met the Algerine off Elba, the pirate did not run, but gave them a brief fight. There are only two reasons pirates fight: because their prey is very weak, or because they want-or need-something very badly. Between them, the galliots were probably carrying at least one hundred twenty Spanish soldiers, yet not an ounce of treasure. And Elba has been so frequently raided by Algerines these past five years, that it doesn’t have anything left that’s worth taking.”

Harry nodded. “Except fresh water. And when the Spanish drove them farther west into the Tuscan archipelago, they had to head to the last watering hole at Isola Pianosa. Where they got chased away again, just like our Piombinesi guessed.”

Miro shrugged. “Chased away-or interrupted. There’s enough of a garrison on Pianosa that a quick run to shore to fill a few dozen skins was probably all the pirates could risk. Which meant that they needed to head somewhere else to really fill their water barrels.”

“And there we are off Pianosa, waiting for them to do just that.” Harry nodded appreciatively. “Estuban, I think your plan will work out fine if we manage to do just one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

Lefferts grinned. “Survive.” He returned to the stern, running his hand along a tarp-shrouded bulk covering the aft port quarter of the small fishing boat.

Miro nodded to himself. So far, so good. The pirates, unable to fully replenish their water casks at Pianosa, had done what they often did: they set out to follow the prevailing wind twenty miles southeast to Monte Cristo. But even as they rounded Pianosa’s westernmost headland, Punta Libeccio, to begin their journey, they discovered that Dame Fortune was finally smiling upon them; just five miles out, and lying directly along their intended course to the springs on Monte Cristo, was a fishing boat.

Miro had thought he might have to brisk the scialuppa ’s sails about on the horizon, just to be sure of getting their attention. But the pirates had needed no such enticements; the Algerine had come on with a will, all three lateen sails swelling out, as if straining to reach the little fishing boat ahead of the rest of the xebec.

To whet their appetite for the kill, and to make their speedy closing of the ship-to-ship gap seem natural, Miro had instructed his crew to undo two sets of the lacings that held the scialuppa ’s own lateen-rigged sail to its gaff. That modification nicely mimicked the look and effect of damage to the triangular sail, which even now flapped fitfully up near the gaff tip, spilling wind.

The Algerine had maneuvered as anticipated. Enjoying the windward position, she used some of her superior speed to move out from a stern chase and set herself up on the fishing boat’s starboard aft quarter. This allowed the Algerine to shepherd the scialuppa closer against Monte Cristo, on their port side. And if the fishing boat now tried fleeing into the open water to starboard, she’d be putting herself directly in the path of the faster xebec, which would be sure to cut her off.

Miro watched the range close, reassessed their course, and said, as Harry came back from peering under the tarp at the rear of the boat, “They mean to chase us into Cala Maestra. I’m sure of it, given the way they’re starting to crowd us now.”

“Well, sure, Estuban; they know these waters, too.”

Miro smiled. “If they didn’t, I’m not sure how well this plan would work.” He noticed that the Piombinesi amongst the rowers were starting to push the pace against the resistance of the crew from the barca-longa. “Steady pace, not too hard,” Miro ordered calmly. “You’ll have need of your strength in a bit.”

Harry, distracted by a rough mechanical sputter from beneath the tarp hanging over the aft port quarter, now looked back up the mast to where the halyard attached to the boom. “So is our rigged rigging ready?”

“Indeed it is,” answered Miro, who, making sure his back was completely to the Algerine, slipped his binoculars out of their case and focused on where the inlet’s high, hump-backed southern headland-Punta Maestra-rose up out of the water. The naked weather-worn rocks at its lower fringe quickly disappeared beneath the scrub growth that steadily increased in density up the slope. He tracked the lenses farther up the side of the headland, carefully studying every shrub and rock-cast shadow until he found what he was looking for at its crest: a pair of binocular lenses looking back at him.

“Does Don Estuban see us, Colonel?” asked Orazio Porfino, a young relative of the Piombinese captain Aurelio. In this case, a relative from a very distant branch of their tortuously intertwined family trees.

“I imagine so,” responded Thomas North, “since he’s smiling, now. Are we ready, Mr. Porfino?”

“Yes sir, all ready.”

Thomas grunted. Perhaps they were ready. And perhaps, if he looked up, he’d see a winged pig fly past. But scanning down the slope, he could see nothing amiss-which meant that he saw nothing other than shrubs, rocks, and shadows. He raised his binoculars to quickly scan the lesser slope on the opposite, northern side of the Cala Maestra inlet. Nothing to be seen there, either. Hmm. Well, so far, no one had cocked up the plan. But then again, the day was young.

North leaned backward carefully, staying well within the shadow of the long pillow of rock which crested the signal point of the headland and which he had made his command post. Thomas’ slight change in position afforded him a view into the much smaller inlet that flanked the Punta Maestra on its south side, the Cala Santa Maria inlet. The water was a lighter blue, since the inlet was shallower and narrower-but was still large enough to conceal the crowded barca-longa, and the more normally crewed gajeta just behind her.

Looking up at him from the barca-longa was a very white face with very red hair and beard: Owen Roe O’Neill, watching for the next signal. Around Owen were all the present members of the Wrecking Crew-save Harry-and Owen’s own Wild Geese. The running crew were well supplemented with Piombinese fishermen, all gesticulating, talking-but, with a look from Dr. Connal, they fell silent, shushing each other fiercely. All of which North saw as a mime-show; from this distance, the only sounds were the waves and the wind moaning softly through the scrub.

Owen’s face never looked away.

North nodded and looked over his shoulder at the approaching scialuppa and the xebec angling in from the open water, which either meant to push the smaller boat upon the rocks or into the Cala Maestra inlet. He looked back down toward the barca-longa, speaking over his shoulder to his adjutant: “Four minutes or less, now, Mr. Porfino. Show Colonel O’Neill two green pennons.”

“Yes, sir,” and the young Piombinese did as he was told.

Owen nodded, gave a sharp order. In the bows of the barca-longa, one white and one black pennon were raised in answer.

“Message received and understood,” translated Orazio.

“Very well. Is everything else in readiness, Mr. Porfino?”

“Yes, sir. Our sniper just signaled from his blind across the Cala Maestra; he’s waiting for our signals, sir.”

North nodded his acknowledgement and raised his binoculars to take one last look at Miro and Lefferts.

Miro replaced his binoculars in their case, and turned. The pirate was only two hundred yards off, now, and gaining rapidly.

“Signor Miro,” said the senior sailor at the tiller, “we have no choice; the Algerine will push us on the rocks if we do not veer to port, toward Cala Maestra.”

As it to encourage compliance with that navigational imperative, Miro heard two pops above the chop of oars and the rustle of the faltering sail. Puffs of smoke marked the sounds’ origins on the xebec’s long stern overhang; a moment later, two splashes marred the swells approximately ten yards starboard of the scialuppa ’s stern.

“They’re firing,” commented a fisherman/rower redundantly, sweat starting out on his lip. Next to him, one of the veteran crew from the barca-longa rolled his eyes and simply hunched lower over his oar. Within moments, the other Piombinese fishermen were all aping the actions of the combat-experienced sailors of the Adriatic, except that their eyes were still wide and desperate. But they’d hold together for another few minutes-which was all that was required.

Orazio’s voice was tense. “The scialuppa is entering the inlet now, sir. The xebec is a minute behind, no more.”

North nodded sharply. “Time to show Colonel O’Neill the red flag, Mr. Porfino. Let’s get our bull charging toward the ring.” He raised his up-time starter’s whistle, clamped it between his teeth and watched the xebec bear down upon the scialuppa.

“Colonel O’Neill! A red-”

“I see it, Turlough. Captain, get us moving. Best speed.”

As two halyards creaked in unison and the yards tilted to catch what breeze they could, the oars, six on each board, rose to readiness, and then, at the order of the coxswain, dipped down and cut deep into the gentle swells of the Cala Santa Maria inlet.

The barca-longa surged against the current and wind, and began making northwest for the southern tip of the Punta Maestra headland.

Three musket balls whined off the rocky slope that marked the Cala Maestra inlet’s northern extent. Another one went through the sail, not more than two feet over their ducked heads. Miro checked the rear: Harry was smiling forward at him, hands ready on the tarp. “Steersman,” shouted Miro above the oars, wind, and flap of the luffing sail, “as the rowers bring us into the Cala Maestra, keep us within five yards of the rocks on the northern side.”

“What? Why?”

“Hugging the side of the inlet will conceal us for a few seconds.”

Just then the sail began to luff less, sagging instead as they passed into the lee of the northern slope and the wind began to die. Well, nothing to lose and no time to waste, thought Miro, who reached up, yelled “Watch out!” and tugged on the lead line of the closer of the two knots belaying the yard’s halyard.

With the knot undone, the yard suddenly had four feet of slack; it fell swiftly, stopping within five feet of the deck. The lateen fell in folds, mostly over the bow. A loud cheer went up from the xebec just as the scialuppa ’s course took it out of the pirate’s line of sight.

“Oars, all speed; get us distance!” Miro shouted. “Pilot, prepare to bring us about to leave the same way we came in.” He looked aft toward Lefferts. “Harry, it’s all your show, now. Pull the tarp and wait for my signal.”

As Miro’s small boat surged forward, North watched the xebec add oars to full sails and angle toward Cala Maestra as well. But the Algerine’s course had her set to enter the inlet about forty yards south of where the scialuppa had run in, thereby keeping to the deeper water. As she came within eighty yards of the foot of the Punta Maestra, she heeled over hard to port, clearly meaning to come about as tightly as possible in order to bear down upon the scialuppa and cut off her retreat by straddling the mouth of the inlet.

Along the length of the ship’s deck, just inboard from the rowers, sure-footed pirates leaned against the turn of the graceful xebec, unable to aim their weapons yet, but ready for the first opportunity. An equal number of them swarmed around the two away-boats that were waiting where the Algerine’s waists narrowed into its bow. Casting the lashing aside and preparing to lift the boats over the gunwale, the pirates’ hurried, eager actions set their belted swords and pistols swinging.

North saw it all, but only peripherally; he watched, measured the range as the xebec presented its starboard waist full to the slope of the Punta Maestra as it reached the apex of its intended 180 degree turn, and prepared to start back toward the wide part of the inlet’s mouth “Mr. Porfino,” North snapped, “raise the red standard.” Then, clenching the neck of the whistle firmly in his teeth, Thomas North blew out a long, rolling shrill.

Coming abreast of the tip of the Punta Maestra headland from the south, Owen Roe O’Neill’s sharp ears picked out the sound of North’s signal a fraction of a second before anyone else. “There it is! Best speed from the oars. Spikes and hooks at the ready. Boarders, covers off your pieces and blades two inches drawn; we’re but a minute away.”

And then the sound of firing began.

The lower slopes of the Punta Maestra seemed to roll a wave of thunder at the xebec as it showed them her starboard waist. Thomas North’s ten Hibernians, still concealed in the scrub and well-covered by rock outcroppings, began raking the deck of the Algerine at ranges varying from eighty to one hundred and ten yards. The steady crack-klikka-crack-klikka-crack of eight black-powder lever-action rifles accompanied faster, sharper reports from two SKS-Ms, each fitted with thirty-round AK 47 magazines.

Both the black powder. 40–72 cartridges and the Soviet 7.62 x 39 mm rounds were at their optimum range, and although more rounds missed their targets than hit, there were far, far more bullets in the air than there were pirates to fire at. The pirates did not go down in windrows, but they went down constantly, and within the first five seconds, some started to break for cover, abandoning the lines, the sails, the oars. Even seasoned corsairs, who had learned to brace themselves to withstand at least one murderous blast of grapeshot before leaping over an adversary’s gunwales, had little preparation for the unrelenting fire they faced now.

The xebec continued to come about, albeit unevenly-but then the tightness of her turn widened out into lazy arc; the heavy fellow manning the tiller fell away from the handle as three bullets drilled through his thick torso and speckled the deck behind him with blood.

However, the pirates were numerous, and as bad as their casualties were, there were still more than two score of them, knots of whom were already trying to fight back. Most forgot the scialuppa in their eagerness to return fire against the new enemies on the slopes of Punta Maestra, but not all: four made for the portside rail, armed with wheel locks and long-barreled miquelet muskets.

Damn it, thought North, who let his binoculars fall loose on their lanyard and snatched up his own SKS, hoping he’d find the range in time…

Harry pulled the tarp off the reconstituted outboard motor that had been borrowed from their dirigible’s array of makeshift up-time engines and opened the choke a bit; the engine coughed, then roared, and plumed water up behind the scialuppa. “Coming about,” he shouted as he angled the engine’s handle to starboard.

The prow of the scialuppa started coming around steadily to port. But the rowers continued to pull hard, and Harry could feel that their muscles were providing them with additional, and very welcome, speed. Although relatively powerful, the compact outboard motor had been intended to propel dinghies and rowboats, not something as large as a scialuppa. They were coming about-faster and more tightly than their enemy could have reasonably expected-but it wasn’t going to be fast enough; Harry saw a quartet of pirate marksmen gathering at the xebec’s portside rail, which overlooked the open expanse of the Cala Maestra. And the scialuppa was the only target in that direction. The range was long-almost a hundred yards-but still…

As the barca-longa came around the headland and her lookout could see into the Cala Maestra inlet, the ship’s limp lateen sails finally crossed the line of the wind and swelled tentatively. Owen started scrambling forward; they were still hauling as close to the wind as possible, but they’d only accelerate briskly once they began to turn into the inlet, which would bring the northerly wind off their prow and over their portside bow.

“Keep pulling boys, for all you’re worth,” he shouted as he went along the benches. Eyes forward, he saw the stern of the xebec heave into view around the stony shoulder of the Punta Maestra and thought, now we’ve got you, pinned from behind and beside, and not enough room or time to turn out.

Or maybe they did have enough room and time-or at least, that must have been what the two pirates who leaped to take hold of the tiller believed. They heaved the xebec’s rudder back into a tight turn to port. One, glancing over his shoulder, saw the barca-longa and screamed something in a swift liquid language that Owen had never heard. But the meaning was clear enough: musket-bearing pirates began streaming toward the protuberant stern overhang that followed the xebec like an elaborately carved afterthought.

“Wrecking Crew,” Owen shouted back over the heads of the boarding party in the bows. “you have targets. Clear their poop deck.”

Thomas realized, even as he raised the SKS, that if he fired he might well kill his own people. As luck would have it, his own line of fire to the four pirate marksmen taking aim at the scialuppa extended onward to the deck of that smaller boat. Miro and Lefferts’ men would be safely out of the way in three, maybe four seconds, but that might be too late. Besides, what the hell was the sniper waiting fo-?

From forty yards up the opposed slope of the inlet’s northern headland, there was a flash and a viciously sharp report. One of the four pirates at the rail bucked backward a step, then went down, thereby obscuring the high spinal exit wound and the dark blood that was beginning to spread across both sides of his back like a pair of painted wings.

About time our marksman got into the act, groused North silently, wishing that it was Lefferts up on the slope: best sniper among us, by a country mile. But, being armed with Harry’s scoped up-time Remington, the Hibernian who had been given the job was still very well equipped to take down any pirates who might pose an unanticipated threat to the team or its operations. But there were still three pirate musketeers — Who fired in a volley even as the sniper’s second shot cracked and echoed between the granite walls of the inlet. Another pirate went down, clutching his shoulder. But so had someone in the scialuppa. North thought about his binoculars. If they got either Miro or Harry But he swept up the SKS instead; first things first, now that the scialuppa was out of his downrange field of fire. North squeezed the trigger, saw the round send splinters up from the deck a few feet behind the musketeers. Damn Chinese export ammo; even for Combloc 7.62, it shoots like a rainbow. As North raised the weapon slightly and let the bead rise a little too high in the sight, then squeezed the trigger again.

Blood spattered outward from the lower back of the pirate on the left. He clutched the rail, his legs sagged, then his knees went-at the same moment that North had finished riding the SKS’s recoil back down and cheated over to the right to bring the last corsair into his sights.

His weapon barked in unison with the sniper’s Remington; hit from front and back, the last of the four pirate marksmen spun and toppled to the deck.

Thomas grabbed for his binoculars, swept them after the scialuppa, looking for “Estuban? Estuban?” shouted Harry, his buttocks half off the stern thwart.

Miro’s rather round, close-cropped head poked up out of the tangle of sails in the bows, just visible over the back of the slain oarsman.

“I wasn’t the unlucky one, Harry; I’m fine. You just keep bringing us around.”

“We’re around already, heading toward open water.”

“Good. Excellent, in fact.”

“Yeah. Now, want a piece of advice?”

“Certainly. What is it?”

Harry smiled. “Keep your own head down, too, fool!”

As half a dozen pirates swarmed back out across the xebec’s stern overhang to fire down into the barca-longa that was almost upon them, Donald Ohde, Paul Maczka, and Matija Grabnar raised their shotguns and began the firing-and-pumping sequence that was, more than anything, the combat trademark of the Wrecking Crew. And whereas the high velocity bullets of their other weapons often inflicted surprisingly subtle entry wounds, the twelve-gauge pumps, furnished with double-aught buckshot, left little to the imagination.

Owen had not seen this kind of carnage, this closely, before. As he watched, the left half of one pirate’s head simply shredded away in a cloud of red chunks; another lost the fingers of his pistol hand, and the eye that had been peering along the barrel; another’s chest rippled outward in a red crescent, a moment before blood and flesh sprayed out of the exit wound on his back, splashing in a wide arc upon the limp sail hanging on the mizzenmast.

“Clear!” shouted Donald.

Owen didn’t have time for even one encouraging word. “Get us up tight against her aft quarter!” he shouted over his shoulder at the oarsmen as he edged out onto the prow, from whence he gave new orders: “Hooks and spikes. Weapons ready.” He checked the pepperbox in his right hand and drew back the boarding spike in his left.

“You’re not boarding amidships?” Donald’s voice was doubtful, even above the noise.

“No time,” Owen yelled back, swinging and sinking his spike into the hull as the barca-longa finally bumped against xebec. “Besides, we’d be between North’s riflemen and the pirates. Not a place I want to be. Now, hooks and lines forward; make us fast, and then-when the sassenach starts the music-up we go!”

North frowned as he saw O’Neill ready to board the xebec along its starboard aft quarter. It was one of the most dangerous places to board, and comparatively easy to repel. The pirates understood that better than anyone; those who could began flooding back to the stern, weapons ready, savage cries rising up. After having been on the receiving end of so much death and destruction, they were clearly in the mood to begin to reverse the situation.

But, for whatever reason, Owen Roe, while ready, seemed to be holding his men back a bit. They had made fast a pair of grappling lines, but were taking time to gather and ready themselves, almost as if North smiled. Owen Roe was a wily bastard of a bog-hopper, after all. Yes, the pirates were indeed rushing to the stern to repel boarders. In fact, so many of the surviving corsairs were rushing in that direction, that they were actually beginning to get in each others’ way, bunching up “Fire teams!” North roared down the hill. “Supporting fire for our boarders. Now!”

Owen Roe O’Neill watched as one of the barca-longa ’s crew perched on the bows jumped high and swung a tethered boarding hook overhand to sink it into the deck of the xebec’s overhang. But as he did, a flat-faced pirate pushed forward; his meaty paw held a hatchet, which was already flashing down.

Owen’s crewman watched as the flashing blade severed both the tether and his wrist; only a moment later did he scream and fall into the water. Muskets sputtered from behind him; the barca-longa ’s own crew was lending a hand. The offending pirate staggered back, a ball creasing his shoulder, but nothing more.

Owen gritted his teeth. He heard the pirates massing near the lip of the stern overhang, just beyond where his people could see-and from which vantage point the pirates had a profound advantage over any number of boarders. Well, hurry up then, you bloody Sassenach; can’t you see the target I’ve made for y-?

A dark round object, leaking smoke and sparks, went over Owen’s head, curving down lazily toward the crowd in the bow of the barca-longa.

“Grenade!” Owen yelled-and watched as, with near balletic grace, Paul Maczka of the Wrecking Crew reached up and batted it aside in mid air: the weapon landed in the water with a plop.

And then the fusillade from Punta Maestra began.

“About feckin’ time,” muttered O’Neill. Then shouting to his boarders: “Go!”

North, intent on saving every round of true up-time ammunition that he could, did not contribute to the fire that rolled out from the rocky slopes below him and drove down into the mass of pirates, packed tightly into the stern of the xebec. The first ripple of fire was, by pure chance, more of a ragged volley that caused a peppering of dark red bursts across the crowded pirate torsos. As those hit fell bleeding to the deck of the xebec, some tried finding cover, others turned and tried to run away from the press on the poop deck.

The sharp report of the sniper’s Remington 700 interrupted the flight of the first three that tried to flee back amidships; the ones behind them either dove to the deck or over the rail. Nerve and numbers riven, the pirates fell back from the stern, some now turning about in confusion, uncertain of where to go or what to do.

Owen heard the decrease in the Hibernians’ rate of fire, the desperate footfalls crisscrossing the poop deck above them without rhyme or reason and knew down in his belly that this was the moment he’d been waiting for. “On me, you cultchies!” he roared at the Wild Geese behind him, and jumped high from the prow of the barca-longa in the same moment that he caught the rail with a swing of his grappling hook and heaved himself upward.

He half fell on, half landed across, the starboard rail of the overhang. Letting go of the hook and its line, he shifted his left hand to pull himself over the rail in a tight roll. He came up-and there were two pirates already coming at him, their eyes wild and desperate.

Owen raised the pepperbox, aimed at the chest of the nearest pirate, and squeezed the trigger.

The front-heavy weapon blasted out a great volume of smoke-and pellets; loaded with a charge of. 27 caliber lead balls, it emitted a cone of death that riddled the first pirate, and nicked the second one, spinning him around with a single hit in the arm.

Owen smiled as he heard the first of his Wild Geese clambering up behind him, and he drew his sword as the rest of the exhausted and widely wounded pirate crew turned, eyes wide. “Now, you bastards,” he said in a voice that-even to him-sounded more like an animal grow, “let’s be finishing this.” He leaped forward with a shout, the Gaelic war cries of his men following right behind him.

Thomas North watched the close combat on the deck of the xebec; although still outnumbered about three to one, the six Wild Geese and their leader rapidly drove the remaining corsairs before them. Any who survived their hail of lead and attempted to close found themselves facing fresh, armored troops whose skills had been honed by a lifetime training for, and fighting on the battlefields of, the Spanish Low Countries.

As the last half dozen corsairs were driven back into the bows, some started dropping their weapons, and began making the strange prostrations of surrender common among the people from the southern shores of the Mediterranean. The gestures vaguely disturbed North, reminding him of the self-abasing postures of supplication that were the expectations of shahs, khans and beys.

Owen and his Wild Geese seemed to find nothing disturbing in these appeals for quarter, perhaps because they did not notice them at all. The Irishmen made a swift, mortal passage among the remaining corsairs. Thomas grimaced: not exactly a sterling display of Christian charity, but certainly no worse than these pirate dogs would have done had they won. At least there’d be no torture or sodomy; the deaths were clean and quick, not cruel. Still…

Before North could give in to the temptation to pass harsh judgment on actions no different from those he’d taken many times himself, Owen looked up and waved wide and slow, repeating it three times.

So: Miro had his prize ship and a reasonable platform from which to operate his balloon at sea, if need be: the outsized poop-deck and overhang of the xebec made that possible, particularly if they lowered the mizzenmast. And, truth be told, North had to admit the xebec was a beauty that, from what he had seen, could sail as swift as a typhoon fleeing from the devil himself.

He turned to look at his adjutant. “Mr. Porfino, have you found your first battle edifying?”

“Eh? Uh… si, signor. I mean, yes sir.”

“Wonderful. I suspect you might find yourself a tad closer to the action next time. But for now, signal the gajeta in the Cala Santa Maria inlet to make its way around this headland and bring the balance of the prize crew to the xebec.” The young Piombinese swallowed and sprinted off to carry out his orders.

North set the safety on his rifle, leaned it against the rock behind which he had taken cover, and looked through his binoculars toward the scialuppa. Having chugged out to a safe range for the majority of the fight, the craft was now heading slowly back toward the inlet on oars alone, two of its crew readjusting the rigging of its lateen sail. When he finally found the right focus, he discovered that Miro and Lefferts were standing in the bows of their boat. And were looking back through their own binoculars; a moment later they both waved and grinned.

North returned their waves and felt the faint stirrings of annoyance at Miro. Yes, damn it, Estuban’s bold plan had worked. Furthermore, with Harry’s help and moral support, he had carried it out under fire, leading from the front because only he and Lefferts had all the necessary skills for this particular job. Miro was the only one who had possessed expert knowledge of the local waters, just as Harry had been the only one familiar enough with an outboard motor. Which, in turn, meant that he, Thomas North, veteran of innumerable campaigns across the continent, would now actually have to start acknowledging that intelligence amateur Estuban Miro was now in fact a genuine field operative. Which, North had to admit, was recognition he very much deserved.

But it was still very, very annoying.