Pirate Latitudes

Chapter 30

HE WAS ON deck at dawn, pacing back and forth, watching the crew’s preparations for battle. Lines and braces were being doubled, so that if some were shot away the others would allow the ship to sail. Bedding and blankets, soaked in water, were lashed along rails and bulkheads to protect against flying splinters. The entire deck was washed down repeatedly, soaking the dry wood to reduce the danger of fire.

In the midst of all this, Enders came up. “Lookout’s just reported, Captain. The warship is gone.”

Hunter was stunned. “Gone?”

“Aye, Captain. Gone during the night.”

“It is not in sight at all?”

“Aye, Captain.”

“He cannot have given up,” Hunter said. He considered the possibilities a moment. Perhaps the warship had gone to the north or south side of the island to lie in wait. Perhaps Bosquet had some other plan or, perhaps, the pounding by the saker had done more damage than the privateers suspected. “All right, carry on,” Hunter said.

The immediate effect of the warship’s disappearance was salutary, he knew. It meant that he would be able to make a safe exit from Monkey Bay with his ungainly ship.

That passage had been worrying him.

Across the bay, he saw Sanson directing preparations aboard the Cassandra. The sloop sat lower in the water today; during the night, Hunter had transferred half the treasure from his vaults to the hold of the Cassandra. There was a good likelihood that at least one of the two ships might be sunk, and he wanted at least part of the treasure to survive.

Sanson waved to him. Hunter waved back, thinking that he did not envy Sanson this coming day. According to their plans, in an attack the smaller ship would run for the nearest safe harbor, while Hunter engaged the Spanish warship. That was not without risk for Sanson, who might find it difficult to escape unmolested. If the Spaniard chose to attack Sanson first, Hunter’s ship would be unable to attack. El Trinidad’s cannon were prepared only for two volleys of defense.

But if Sanson feared this eventuality, he gave no sign; his wave was cheery enough. A few minutes later, the two ships raised anchor and, under light sail, made for the open sea.

The sea was rough. Once past the coral reefs and shallow water, there were forty-knot winds and twelve-foot swells. In that water, the Cassandra bobbed and bounced, but Hunter’s galleon wallowed and slopped like a sick animal.

Enders complained bitterly, and then asked Hunter to take the helm for a moment. Hunter watched as the sea artist moved forward in the boat until he was standing clear of all the sails in the bow.

Enders stood with his back to the wind and both arms stretched wide. He remained there a moment, then turned slightly, still keeping his arms wide.

Hunter recognized the old seaman’s trick for locating the eye of a hurricane. If you stood with your arms out and your back to the wind, the eye of the storm was always two points forward of the left hand’s direction.

Enders came back to the helm, grunting and swearing. “She’s south-southwest,” he said, “and damn me if we won’t feel her strong before nightfall.”

Indeed, the sky overhead was already darkening gray, and the winds seemed to strengthen with each passing minute. El Trinidad listed unhappily as she cleared Cat Island and felt the full roughness of the open sea.

“Damn me,” Enders said. “I don’t trust all those cannon, Captain. Can’t we shift just two or three to starboard?”

“No,” Hunter said.

“Make her sail smarter,” Enders said. “You’d like it, Captain.”

“So would Bosquet,” Hunter said.

“Show me Bosquet,” Enders said, “and you can keep your cannon with nary a word from me.”

“He’s there,” Hunter said, pointing astern.

Enders looked, and saw the Spanish warship clear the north shore of Cat Island, in hot pursuit of the galleon.

“Right up our bum hole,” Enders said. “God’s bones, he’s well set.”

The warship was bearing down on the most vulnerable part of the galleon, its aft deck. Any ship was weak astern — that was why the treasure was always stowed forward, and why the most spacious cabins were always astern. A ship’s captain might have a large compartment, but in time of battle it was assumed he would not be in it.

Hunter had no guns aft at all; every piece of bronze hung on the port side. And their ungainly list deprived Enders of the traditional defense from a rear attack — a twisting, erratic course to make a poor target. Enders had to hold his best course to keep the ship from taking on water, and he was unhappy about it.

“Steady as you go,” Hunter said, “and keep land to starboard.”

He went forward to the side railing, where Don Diego was sighting along an odd instrument he had made. It was a wooden contraption, roughly three feet long, mounted to the mainmast. At each end there was a small square frame of wood, with crossed hairs, forming an X.

“It’s simple enough,” the Jew said. “You sight along here,” he said, standing at one end, “and when you have the two sets of hairs matched, you are in the proper position. Whatever part of your target is in the crossing of the hairs is what you will strike.”

“What about the range?”

“For that, you need Lazue.”

Hunter nodded. Lazue, with her sharp eyes, could estimate distances with remarkable accuracy.

“Range is not the problem,” the Jew said. “The problem is timing the swells. Here, look.”

Hunter stepped into position behind the crosshairs.

He closed one eye and squinted until the double X overlapped. And then he saw how much the boat pitched and rocked.

One instant the crosshairs were pointing at empty sky; the next, they were pointing into the rolling sea.

In his mind, he pretended to fire a round of shot. Between his shouted command and the moment the gunners tugged on the shot-cords there would be a delay, he knew. He had to estimate that. And the shot itself was slow-moving: another half-second would pass before the target was struck. All together, more than a second between the order to fire and the impact.

In that second, the ship would roll and bounce madly on the ocean. He felt a wave of panic. His desperate plan was impossible in heavy seas. They would never be able to get off two accurately aimed volleys.

“Where timing is paramount,” the Jew suggested, “the example of the duel might be useful.”

“Good,” Hunter said. It was a helpful thought. “Notify the gun crews. The signals will be ready to fire, one, two, three, fire. Yes?”

“I shall tell them,” the Jew said. “But in the noise of battle . . .”

Hunter nodded. The Jew was very acute today, and thinking much more clearly than Hunter himself. Once the firing began, verbal signals would be lost, or misunderstood. “I shall call the commands. You stand at my side and give hand signals.”

The Jew nodded and went to tell the crews. Hunter called for Lazue, and explained to her the need for accurate ranging. The shot was aimed for five hundred yards; she would have to measure with delicacy. She said she could do it.

He went back to Enders, who was delivering a continuous string of oaths. “We shall taste his bugger’s staff soon enough,” he said. “I can near feel that prickle upon the flower.”

At that moment, the Spanish warship opened fire with its bow cannon. Small shot whistled through the air.

“Hot as an ardent boy,” Enders said, shaking his fist in the air.

A second volley splintered wood on the aft castle, but caused no serious damage.

“Steady on,” Hunter said. “Let him gain.”

“Let him gain. Tell me how I could do other?”

“Keep your wits,” Hunter said.

“It’s not my wits at risk,” Enders said, “but my dearest bunghole.”

A third volley passed harmlessly amidships, the small shot whistling through the air. Hunter had been waiting for that.

“Smokepots!” Hunter shouted, and the crew raced to light the caskets of pitch and sulfur on deck. Smoke billowed into the air, and drifted astern. Hunter knew that this would give the appearance of damage. He could well imagine how El Trinidad appeared to the Spaniard a listing ship in trouble, now belching dark smoke.

“He’s moving east,” Enders said. “Coming in for the kill.”

“Good,” Hunter said.

“Good,” Enders repeated, shaking his head. “Dear Judas’s ghost, our captain says good.”

Hunter watched as the Spanish warship moved to the port side of the galleon. Bosquet had begun the engagement in classic fashion, and was continuing in the same way. He was moving wide of his target, getting himself onto a parallel course just out of cannon range.

Once he had lined up his broadside on the galleon, he would begin to close. As soon as he was within range — starting at about two thousand yards — Bosquet would open fire, and would continue to fire as he came closer and closer. That would be the most difficult period for Hunter and his crew. They would have to weather those broadsides until the Spanish ship was within their range.

Hunter watched as the enemy vessel pulled directly into a parallel course with El Trinidad, slightly more than a mile to the port.

“Steady on,” Hunter said, and rested a hand on Enders’s shoulder.

“You shall have your way with me,” Enders grumbled, “and so will the Donnish prickler.”

Hunter went forward to Lazue.

“She is just under two thousand yards,” Lazue said, squinting at the enemy profile.

“How fast does she close?”

“Fast. She’s eager.”

“All the better for us,” Hunter said.

“She is eighteen hundred yards now,” Lazue said.

“Stand by for shot,” Hunter said.

Moments later, the first broadside exploded from the warship, and fell splashing into the water off the port side.

The Jew counted. “One Madonna, two Madonna, three Madonna, four Madonna . . .”

“Under seventeen hundred,” Lazue said.

The Jew had counted to seventy-five when the second broadside was fired. Iron shot screamed through the air all around them, but none struck the ship.

Immediately, the Jew began to count again. “One Madonna, two Madonna . . .”

“Not as sharp as she could be,” Hunter said. “She should have gotten off in sixty seconds.”

“Fifteen hundred yards,” Lazue muttered.

Another minute went by, and then the third broadside was fired. This found its mark with stunning effect; Hunter was suddenly engulfed in a world of utter confusion — men screaming, splinters whistling through the air, spars and rigging crashing to the deck.

“Damage!” he shouted. “Call damage!” He peered through the smoke at the enemy ship, still closing on them. He was not even aware of the seaman at his feet, writhing and screaming with pain, clutching his hands to his face, blood spurting between his fingers.

The Jew looked down and saw a giant splinter had passed through the seaman’s cheek and upward through the roof of his mouth. In the next moment, Lazue calmly bent over and shot the man in the head with her pistol. Pinkish cheesy material was flung all over the wooden deck. With an odd detachment, the Jew realized it was the man’s brains. He looked back at Hunter, who was staring at the enemy with fixed gaze.

“Damage report!” Hunter shouted as the next volley from the warship pounded them.

“Foresprit gone.”

“Fore sail gone!”

“Number two cannon out.”

“Number six cannon out!”

“Mizzen top blown!”

“Out below!” came the cry, as the mizzen top spars came crashing down to the deck, in a rain of heavy wood and rope rigging.

Hunter ducked as spars crashed around him. Canvas covered him and he struggled to his feet. A knife poked through the canvas, just inches from his face. He pulled back and saw daylight; Lazue was cutting him free.

“Almost got my nose,” he said.

“You’ll never miss it,” Lazue said.

Another volley from the Spanish warship whistled overhead.

“They’re high,” Enders screamed, in insane jubilation. “Blimey, they’re high!”

Hunter looked forward, just as a shot smashed into the number five gun crew. The bronze cannon was flung into the air; heavy splinters of wood flew in all directions. One man took a razor-sharp sliver through the neck. He clutched his throat and fell to the ground, writhing in pain.

Nearby, another man took a direct hit from a ball. It cut his body in half, his legs falling out from beneath him. The stump of torso screamed and rolled on the deck for a few moments until shock brought death.

“Damage report!” shouted Hunter. A man standing beside him was struck in the head by a tackle block; it shattered his skull, and he fell in a pool of red, sticky blood.

The fore top spar came down, pinning two men to the deck, crushing their legs; they howled and screamed pitifully.

Still the broadside came from the Spaniard.

To stand in the midst of this injury and destruction and keep a cool head was almost impossible, and yet that was what Hunter tried to do, as one volley after another slammed home into his vessel. It had been twenty minutes since the warship opened fire; the deck was littered with rigging and spars and wooden splinters; the screams of the wounded blended with the sizzling whine of the cannon balls that snapped through the air. For Hunter, the destruction and chaos around him had long ago merged into a steady background so constant he no longer paid attention to it; he knew his ship was being slowly and inexorably destroyed, but he remained fixed on the enemy vessel, which moved closer with each passing second.

His losses were heavy. Seven men were dead, and twelve wounded; two cannon emplacements were destroyed. He had lost his foresprit and all her sail; he had lost his mizzen top and his mainsail rigging on the leeside; he had taken two hits below the waterline, and El Trinidad was shipping water fast. Already he sensed she rode lower in the water, and moved less smartly; there was a soggy, heavy quality to her forward progress.

He could not attempt to repair the damage. His little crew was busy just holding the ship on a manageable course. It was now a question of time before she became impossible to control, or sank outright.

He squinted through the smoke and haze at the Spanish ship. It was becoming hard to see. Despite the strong wind, the two ships were surrounded by acrid smoke.

She was closing fast.

“Seven hundred yards,” Lazue said tonelessly. She had been injured already; a jagged shaft of wood had creased her forearm on the fifth volley. She had quickly applied a tourniquet near the shoulder, and now continued her sightings, oblivious to the blood that dripped onto the deck at her feet.

Another volley screamed at them, rocking the ship with multiple impacts.

“Six hundred yards.”

“Ready to fire!” Hunter shouted, bending to sight along the crosshairs. He was lined up for a midships hit, but as he watched, the Spanish warship moved forward slightly. He was now lined on the aft castle.

So be it, he thought, as he gauged the rocking of El Trinidad through the crosshairs, getting a sense of the timing, up and down, up and down, seeing clear sky, then nothing but water, then seeing the warship again. Then clear sky as El Trinidad continued her upward roll.

He counted to himself, over and over, silently mouthing the words.

“Five hundred yards,” Lazue said.

Hunter watched a moment longer. Then he counted.

“One,” he shouted, as the crosshairs pointed into the sky. Then the ship rocked down, quickly passing the outline of the warship.

“Two,” he called, as the crosshairs pointed into the boiling sea.

There was a brief hesitation in the motion. He waited.

“Three!” He called, as the upward motion began again.

“Fire!”

The galleon rocked madly, a crazy upward heave as all thirty of her cannon exploded in a volley. Hunter was thrown back against the mainmast with a force that knocked the breath from him. He hardly noticed it; he was watching for the downward movement, to see what had happened to the enemy.

“You hit her,” Lazue said.

Indeed he had. The impact had knocked the Spanish vessel laterally in the water, swinging the stern outward. The profile of the aft castle was now a ragged line, and the entire mizzenmast was falling in a strange, slow motion, sails and all, into the water.

But in the same moment Hunter saw that he had struck too far forward to damage the rudder and not far enough forward to hit the helmsman at the tiller. The warship was still under control.

“Reload and run out!” he shouted.

There was much confusion aboard the Spanish ship. He knew he had bought time. Whether he had bought the ten minutes he needed to prepare a second volley, he could not be sure.

Seamen were everywhere in the aft of the warship, cutting the fallen mizzenmast away, trying to get free. For a moment, it looked like the debris in the water would foul the rudder, but that did not happen.

Hunter heard the rumbling beneath his own decks as, one after another, his cannon were reloaded and run back to the gunports.

The Spanish warship was closer now, less than four hundred yards to port, but she was angled badly and could not get off a broadside.

One minute passed, then another.

The Spanish ship came under control, her mizzen with its sails and rigging drifting away in the wake of the ship.

The bow swung into the wind. She was coming about, and moving to Hunter’s weak starboard side.

“Damn me,” Enders said. “I knew he was a clever bastard!”

The Spanish ship lined up for a starboard broadside, and delivered it a moment later. At this closer range, it was miserably effective. Spars and rigging came crashing down around Hunter.

“We cannot take any more,” Lazue said softly.

Hunter had been thinking the same thing. “How many cannon run out?” he shouted.

Don Diego, below, peered up onto the deck. “Sixteen ready!”

“We will fire with sixteen,” Hunter said.

Another broadside from the Spanish warship hit them with devastating effect. Hunter’s ship was shattering around him.

“Mr. Enders!” Hunter bellowed. “Prepare to come about!”

Enders looked at Hunter in disbelief. To come about now would bring Hunter’s ship through the bow of the Spanish ship — and much closer.

“Prepare to come about!” Hunter shouted again.

“Ready about!” Enders yelled. Astounded seamen ran to the lines, furiously working to unsnarl them.

The warship closed.

“Three hundred fifty yards,” Lazue said.

Hunter hardly heard her. He no longer cared about the range. He sighted down the crosshairs at the smoky profile of the warship. His eyes stung and blurred with tears. He blinked them away, and fixed on an imaginary point on the Spanish profile. Low, and just behind the bowline.

“Ready about! The helm’s a-lee!” Enders bellowed.

“Ready to fire,” Hunter shouted.

Enders was astonished. Hunter knew it, without looking at the sea artist’s face. He kept his eye to the crosshairs. Hunter was going to fire while the ship was coming about. It was unheard of, an insane thing to do.

“One!” Hunter shouted.

In the crosshairs, he saw his ship swing through the wind, coming around to bear on the Spaniard . . .

“Two!”

His own ship was moving slowly now, the crosshairs inching forward along the warship’s hazy profile. Past the forward gunports, onto bare wood . . .

“Three!”

The crosshairs crept forward on the target, but it was too high. He waited for a dip in his own ship, knowing that at the same moment the warship would rise slightly, exposing more flank.

He waited, not daring to breathe, not daring to hope. The warship rode up a little, then—

“Fire!”

Again his ship rocked under the impact of the cannon. It was a ragged volley; Hunter heard it and felt it, but he could see nothing. He waited for the smoke to clear and the ship to right herself. He looked. “Mother of God,” Lazue said.

There was no change in the Spanish warship. Hunter had missed her clean.

“Damn me to hell,” Hunter said, thinking that there was now an odd truth to the words. They were all damned to hell; the next broadside from the Spaniards would finish them off.

Don Diego said, “It was a noble try. A noble try, and bravely done.”

Lazue shook her head. She kissed him on the cheek. “The saints preserve us all,” she said. A tear ran down her cheek.

Hunter felt a crushing despair. They had missed their final chance; he had failed them all. There was nothing to do now but run up the white flag and surrender.

“Mr. Enders,” he called, “run up the white—”

He stopped cold: Enders was dancing behind the tiller, slapping his thigh, laughing uproariously.

Then he heard a cheer from belowdecks. The gun crews were cheering.

Were they mad?

Alongside him, Lazue gave a shriek of delight, and began to laugh as loudly as Enders. Hunter spun to look at the Spanish warship. He saw the bow lift in a wave — and then he saw the gaping hole running seven or eight feet, wide open, below the waterline. A moment later the bow plunged down again, obscuring the damage.

He hardly had time to recognize the significance of this sight when clouds of smoke billowed out of the forecastle of the warship. They rose with startling suddenness. A moment later, an explosion echoed across the water.

And then the warship disappeared in a giant sphere of exploding flame as the powder-hold went off. There was one rumbling detonation, so powerful that El Trinidad shook with the impact. Then another, and a third as the warship dissolved before their eyes in a matter of seconds. Hunter saw only the most fragmentary images of destruction — the masts crashing down; the cannon flung into the air by invisible hands; the whole substance of the ship collapsing in on itself, then blasting outward.

Something crashed into the mainmast over his head, and dropped onto his hair. It slid down to his shoulder and onto the deck. He thought it must be a bird, but, looking down, saw that it was a human hand, severed at the wrist. There was a ring on one finger.

“Good God,” he whispered, and when he looked back at the warship, he saw an equally astonishing sight.

The warship was gone.

Literally, gone: one minute it had been there, consumed by fire and hot spheres of explosions, and yet there. Now it was gone. Burning debris, sails, and spars floated on the surface of the water. The bodies of seamen floated with them, and he heard the screams and shouts of the survivors. Yet the warship was gone.

All around him, his crew was laughing and jumping in frenzied celebration. Hunter could only stare at the water where the warship had once been. Amid the burning wreckage, his eye fell on a body floating facedown in the water. The body was that of a Spanish officer; Hunter could tell from the blue uniform on the man’s back. The man’s trousers had been shredded in the explosions, and his naked buttocks were exposed to view. Hunter stared at the bared flesh, fascinated that the back should be uninjured and yet the clothing below torn away. There was something obscene about the randomness and casualness of the injury. Then, as the body bounced on the waves, Hunter saw that it was headless.

Aboard his own ship, he was distantly aware that the crew was no longer jubilant. They had all fallen silent, and had turned to look at him. He looked around at their faces, weary, smudged, bleeding, the eyes drained and blank with fatigue, and yet oddly expectant.

They were looking at him, and waiting for him to do something. For a moment, he could not imagine what was expected of him. And then he became aware of something on his cheeks.

Rain.