Heart of Steele

Brad Strickl and Thomas E. Fuller

ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

“A SHIP!” CRIED THE SAILOR ON LOOKOUT DUTY.

“Where away?” the captain called back.

“Fine on the larboard bow,” the lookout answered.

I could see nothing from the deck. Captain Hunter scrambled up the shrouds, though, and stared off to the east. “It’s the
Fury”
he called down at last, and I breathed a little easier. The
Fury
was a sloop under the command of John Barrel, a right, true buccaneer and a friend of ours from back in the early part of the year.

Captain Hunter slid down a backstay like a boy, dropped to the deck, and ordered, “Clear for action.”

And then, with surprising speed, the
Fury
shifted her sails, spun about to show us her broadside, and opened fire!

Read all the Pirate Hunter stories.

Book One:
Mutiny!

Book Two:
The Guns of Tortuga

Book Three:
Heart of Steele

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First Aladdin Paperbacks edition July 2003
www.SimonandSchuster.com

Text copyright © 2003 by Brad Strickland and Thomas E. Fuller

Illustrations copyright © 2003 by Dominic Saponaro

ALADDIN PAPERBACKS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster
Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Designed by Debra Sfetsios

The text of this book was set in Minion.

Printed in the United States of America

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

Library of Congress Control Number 2002113758

ISBN 0-689-85298-3
ISBN 13: 978-0-6898-5298-5
eISBN 13: 978-1-4391-0467-5

Heart of Steele

PROLOGUE In Deadly Waters

My name is Davy Shea. When my mother died in March 1687, leaving me an orphan, I left England and went to live with my uncle Patrick Shea of Port Royal, Jamaica. Uncle Patrick was a respected surgeon. Though he had a fine, high Irish temper, he was kind to me and began to educate me so that when I grew up, I might become a medical man.

But that plan seemed ruined when he and William Hunter mutinied and turned pirate, setting out on the French-built frigate
Aurora
to savage the ships in the West Indies. At least, I thought that was what was happening. Then I learned that it was all a plan by the former buccaneer Sir Henry Morgan to bring to justice the notorious pirate Jack Steele. We were not true pirates, but were secret agents of King James II. We were pirate hunters.

We sailed for months, until the day we engaged the great Spanish warship
Concepcíon.
With our ship battered, we made our way to the island of Tortuga in the company of John Barrel, a brave and swaggering pirate who trusted us. In Tortuga, we learned that two English officers were being held for ransom, and Captain Hunter was determined to rescue them. One prisoner, alas, was murdered by Jack Steele. The other, to our surprise, turned out to be no man at all, but a Miss Helena Fairfax in disguise—and her “servant boy” turned out to be Jessie Cochran, the daughter of our landlady back in Port Royal, a girl who always found ways of tormenting me and my heart.

But we also learned that Jack Steele was gathering a pirate armada in Tortuga Harbor. We made a desperate alliance with the Spanish captain of the
Concepcíon.
In a pitched battle, Captain Hunter broke up the pirate fleet, but now Steele knew that we would never fight on his side. From that moment on, he knew he had a deadly enemy in William Hunter.

And we were about to find out just how deadly Steele could be on the day our lookout spied a floating wreck of a ship in the distance….

The Derelict

“A SHIP!”

The cry came drifting down from the maintop, almost like a leaf falling from a canvas tree. I lifted my head from the coil of rope where I lay dozing. The air felt hot and heavy, as it had for more than a week. What breeze there was barely served to move the frigate
Aurora
forward. It was the summer of 1688 and the Caribbees simmered like a buccaneer’s barbeque.

“On deck, there! A ship!”

The cry came again and I squinted up the tall stepped lines of the mainmast to where wiry old Abel Tate stood watch in the maintop. Around me I
could hear other members of the
Aurora
’s crew bestirring themselves, struggling up from where they had lain languid in the heat. It was all I could do to haul myself to my feet, but the idea of anything that might offer escape from the usual dreaded doldrums finally got me out of my comfortable coil. I staggered over to where my friend Mr. Jeffers, the gunner, stood, shading his single good eye from the sun with one callused hand.

“Devil can I see a thing,” he muttered. “It could be whale, rock, or ship for I might swear” Even with the sweat pouring into my own eyes, I had to smile. If he were aiming his beloved cannons, Mr. Jeffers had the eyes of a sea eagle. Otherwise he was as blind as a bat in a well.

I heard the stamp of boots on the quarterdeck above us and two voices—one light and laughing, the other rumbling and complaining. The laughing voice belonged to our captain, Mad William Hunter, the noted pirate hunter. The grumbling one was that of my uncle, Patrick Shea, the noted surgeon and pessimist. Once they clapped eyes on me, the two would think of one thousand and one errands and chores to keep me from anything dangerous—or
interesting. I grasped an idea and felt energy start to flow back into my sweat-drenched body. Uncle Patch says idle hands are the devil’s workshop. That may be, but it takes a bit of inspiration to actually use the tools.

“Perhaps it just takes a younger eye, Mr. Jeffers,” I said in my most innocent voice, which never seems to fool anyone for some reason. Mr. Jeffers turned and raised one ragged eyebrow in my direction. “And, of course, a bit of height.” I let my own eyes drift upward. Mr. Jeffer’s’s gaze followed my gaze and a broad grin spread across his scarred face.

“Aye, Davy, lad! Up ye go and send us back true word! That fool Tate would be sighting London Bridge if he thought he could!”

Quick as thought, I was out of my shoes and scurrying up the mainmast shrouds, my toes clutching the ratlines as I climbed. I heard a distant bellow that could have been Uncle Patch—or a bear amazed to find itself at sea. As long as I didn’t look down, I could honestly say I couldn’t tell which. So I climbed on and the gun deck of the
Aurora
fell away beneath me.