Quintspinner (33 page)

William pounded on the Willoughby’s cabin door, torn between waiting appropriately for the doctor to open it, and wanting to burst in, saving precious time, maybe even saving their lives. He did not have to make the choice as Dr. Willoughby wrenched the door open, snarling, “I’m coming! What in God’s name is it?” He blinked uncomprehendingly at William standing there.

“We’re under attack Sir! The Captain has ordered that the women be taken below and concealed.”

“Under attack?” The doctor looked skeptical. “Under attack?” he repeated.

“Yessir! We’re being overtaken from behind. There’s little time, Sir! The women must be taken off deck immediately!”

William noted that the doctor continued to scowl, being unconvinced of any truth in William’s words and gave a sudden push on the cabin’s door to shut it.

William made a last frustrated attempt. Jamming his foot in the doorway, he shouted “Captain says they’ll likely
die
if they stay on deck!”

“Take your dresses off!” William’s face was flushed with embarrassment but his mouth was set in a grim line of determination.

“I beg your
pardon?”
Tess wondered if she had misheard.

“Dresses off! Put these on, all of you!” William tossed a smelly bundle of hastily gathered men’s trousers and shirts at each of them.

“What’s the meanin’ of this, Mr. Taylor?” Mrs. Hanley’s voice was strident with indignation.

“Begging your pardon Ma’am, but we’re being closed upon by a hostile ship. There can be no good come of a vessel that sails so close to another. We’ll soon be under attack and it will be safer for you if you were to be overlooked as part of the crew.”

“But who would attack?” Tess’s mother stepped forward. Tess was surprised to see her so steady.
Motivation. Even fear could be the right stuff.

“Captain says the lookout yesterday couldn’t be sure but he thought the sail he sighted was a frigate’s, one that’d been made flush. With her top taken down like that, she’d travel faster than most could. We’d never be able to outrun them.” William looked at his unwilling brood standing before him, and took a big breath before continuing.

“Captain says that flushing a vessel’s a favorite thing of pirates to do. And he says another favorite thing of theirs is to torture and ra- uh, assault female captives.” William nodded at the bundles lying at their feet. “Change your clothes now. Please. And hurry. It’ll go better for you if we’re boarded and they think you’re just crew.”

At that moment a high pitched wail drowned out his words and the milky sweet odor of baby poop filled the air around them.

“And what about my child?” Elizabeth glared at William challenging him for a solution.

Ma’am, you being the good doctor’s wife–you must know of something to calm the child. Give him something to put him to sleep.”

“We’ll need to go back up on deck to change him. I’m sure you can smell the truth in that!” Mrs. Hanley snorted. William turned his gaze to Tess and Mrs. Hanley, and he was about to speak when a voice carried out of the gloom behind him.

“Captain’s orders are fer all of ya’ to stay down here. None of ya’ goes back up on deck. Only us two.” Smith pointed at William and himself.

“But what about his dirty nappy?” Mrs. Hanley pleaded. “What am I to do with that?”

Smith looked at William, whose embarrassed gaze dropped to the bucket Smith held. “Uh, well … it’d be best if you’d smear a bit of it on yerselves after you’ve changed outta’ them dresses.”

The women stood in shocked silence, their mouths agape.

“Well, it’s either
his,
or that what comes from the chickens’ enders what’s gonna complete yer disguises.” Tess and the women around her stood as if frozen, not comprehending his intention. “See, it’s desperate measures, ya’ understand,” he continued, as though working up to an apologetic explanation. “We have to make ya’ as unattractive as possible, and fer some,” he said, looking directly at Cassie, “that will be a difficult thing to do.”

The baby’s shrieks were growing in volume. Smith looked down at the bundle in Mrs. Hanley’s arms, into the small purple face whose eyes were pinched shut but whose mouth was twisted open in a furious howl.

“Ya’ have to quiet him! Ya’ just have to!”

He and William turned their backs on the women while they changed, all the while hastening the ladies’ efforts with the procedure by issuing the threat of turning around to gather up the discarded dresses. With the women’s garb almost complete, Smith nodded at the newly transformed crew members standing awkwardly before him. Holding up the shit pot and wooden spatula he quickly asked, “Now then, what’s it gonna be? The wee lad’s or the birds’?”

“You can’t be serious!” Elizabeth gasped.

Smith simply held the bucket and spatula out towards her.

Elizabeth drew herself up as straight as her weakened state would permit and announced, “I shan’t! I cannot–”

A strange tearing shriek cut off her words. It was followed almost immediately by a thunderous crack which caused the very floorboards under their feet to shake. William leapt up the stairs in the companionway far enough to see the cause.

“God help us all!” he yelled. “The main sail and mast are hit! They’re down!”

“Forgive me, Miss!” Smith cried, and heaved the shitpot towards Cassie, its contents slurping over the edge and sloshing down the front of her shirt and breeches. He spun on his heel and emptied the dregs of the bucket onto Tess’s shoulders before Cassie’s outraged scream was finished.

“You’ve no choice now but to use the wee chigger’s nappy!” Smith shouted at Mrs. Hanley and Elizabeth, as he scrambled up the ladder behind William. Looking back over his shoulder one last time, he screamed a warning, “Do it now!” before disappearing into the mayhem above.

The roar of the confusion which greeted their ears topside was deafening. William stared. All about him the crew’s hours of tedious rehearsal were being put to the ultimate test. Men streamed about the deck, participants in a well choreographed battle dance. Voices screamed above the deafening blasts of the deadly cannons. Orders were trilled out on a shrill silver whistle, whose tones pierced through the hullabaloo of their voices.

Still present, the heavy fog was illuminated slightly by a faint pink glow that announced an imminent sunrise on the eastern horizon. William’s nose told him that not all the denseness of the air was fog however; there was a burning, acrid smell of ignited gunpowder in the thick clouds of smoke which belched from the mouths of their own cannons. The attack was clearly from their larboard side and although the attackers’ vessel remained hidden from clear view, her position in the semi-darkness was given away as flashes of yellow and orange spat from her side.

The broken mast lay on the deck, its massive end splintered and entangled in a trap of fallen and chaotic mounds of rigging. Around the edge of the ship, men worked furiously at their battle stations, plunging their wetted sponge rods down the hot smoking barrels and then reloading the cannons with another round of deadly iron balls and links of chain shot. The gun captain charged up and down the deck, running from cannon to cannon, hammer and spikes in hand, wedging his beloved cannons’ barrels into a variety of positions.

“Take out the bastards’ sails an’ riggin’ with
this
beauty!” he roared, leaving the gun’s barrel aiming high. “And send them all to hell with
these
darlin’s!” he screamed as he drove a wedge under each of the barrels of the next three, leveling them to sight at a height even with the attackers’ estimated broadside.

“Fer those aimed high, fire on the uproll!
”
he screeched. “An’ fer those aimed low, fire at will! Let’s blow those friggin’ arse-lickers into holy kingdom come, me lads!”

The concussive blasts from the cannons’ firings slammed hard into the men’s bodies, and the great guns hurled themselves back against their restraining tackles, their carriages rolling with the recoil. Each time, the barrels were sponged again. The heat within them that had been produced by their artillery explosions sent clouds of steam sizzling upward, as the wet cloths wadded around the sponge rods made contact with their inner surfaces. William spun around, disoriented and not knowing how to help, not knowing where to start.

Powder monkeys, the smallest and youngest crew members, frantically raced up to the cannons from the ammunition room below, the gunpowder magazine being situated in the hold two decks beneath the guns. Tommy, and three other young boys not much older than him, delivered round after round of deadly armfuls of gunpowder cartridges which were wrapped in dampened coats and pieces of wet canvas to keep them from exploding prematurely. Two of these young sailors charged past William, then suddenly fell to the deck in a blast of flesh and blood as an incoming cannonball made a direct hit upon them. Instinctively, William dove to his knees and reached out for the boy nearest him.

“They’re already dead to us!” the gunner bellowed. “Leave them and get yer ass up an’ hand their cartridges over to the guns!” William scrambled to find the dropped ammunition, frantically searching along the deck which was now slippery with blood, vomit, and entrails.

Where is Smith?

“Load and stay steady, just the same now, boys!” the gun captain screamed, his voice straining to be heard above the fracas. “There’s a wind a stirrin’, but she’ll do us no good–we’ve no sail left to hold her with. There’s no choice but to outfight them bastardly scugs! Ready … an’
fire!
”

Just then the gunner froze.

Out of the dark and mist came the other vessel, her bow rising menacingly, appearing above the
Mary Jane’s
side like an evil specter about to swallow them.

“Her bow’s loaded with chase guns! She’s showing no broadside fer us to hit!” he wailed.

William stared, unable to tear his eyes away as the ship advanced upon them, the cannons mounted on her bow continuing to fire high, shredding the
Mary Jane’s
sails and riggings. Several cracks, sharp as gunfire and loud as the cannon fire itself split the air. Men aboard the
Mary Jane
screamed as they were crushed or impaled by the falling yard arms and debris crashing down from another broken mast. All around him, men and boys fell and shrieked in living agony, fell and died in silent relief.

At the last moment, when it seemed the
Mary Jane
was about to be fatally rammed, the enemy vessel slipped sideways in the mounting early morning wind and aligned herself parallel to the
Mary Jane.
William could see their attacker’s name clearly now, painted on her side.

The Bloodhorn.

A black flag, emblazoned in the middle with a ruby-red powder horn that appeared to be dripping blood, flew from the top arm of the main mast.

As the two ships sailed so closely side by side, the cannons from both vessels were now being loaded with canister and grape shot. William could see that this type of ammunition was particularly destructive at such close range. When fired from the cannons, the bags of grape shot exploded with dozens of small iron balls, spraying the decks and everyone on them with cones of deadly tiny missiles. The canisters had been packed with broken bits of glass and shards of metal, with this content becoming equally destructive to human flesh and bone when discharged from the cannons.

Muffled as his hearing was from the roar of the great guns, the screams of the wounded still pierced William’s ears. The bodies of those who had been killed outright, and any whose injuries were deemed on the spot to be mortal, were tossed overboard. Those who could be salvaged were dragged or staggered on their own, down to the deck below, to the waiting services of Dr. Willoughby.