The Affectionate Adversary (3 page)

Sarah gripped the rail as the full-rigged bark performed the elaborate maneuver and then began an agonizingly slow trek toward the besieged clipper.

“She is definitely engaged,” the officer reported while observing the conflict through his spyglass. “I fear the English vessel is aflame. And now I make out another ship … just starboard … aye, there she is…. Great guns and ghosts—’tis pirates indeed!”

“Sail, oh!” came the cry from the crow’s nest. “Sail, oh!”

Now the captain emerged from the wheelhouse, and the young officer excused himself and hurried to join his fellow Royal Navy men who were forming ranks beneath the mainsail. The ship’s mates scrambled to prepare the
Queen Elinor
, while ashen-faced passengers huddled together near the galley in earnest discussion of the situation.

Still at the deck rail, Sarah tightened the bow on her bonnet. Difficulties, she had learned, were to be expected in the life of every Christian. And thus, with the smell of gunpowder stinging her nostrils, she began to pray.

His vision blurred and his head throbbing, Charles crouched behind the splintered stump of the foremast. Early in the pirates’ attack, a broken spar had tumbled down, dashing him to the deck. He had struck his head on a pyramid of iron cannonballs and was rendered senseless. How long he lay unmoving on the deck Charles could not say. But he had returned to consciousness only moments before a pirate missile struck the base of the
Tintagel’
s soaring mast.

The timber had wavered for an instant before crashing to the deck, bringing foresails, gallant sails, and studding sails down in a tangle of canvas and rope. At the sudden imbalance, the deck dipped seaward, and the great clipper nearly capsized. Charles had clung to an armful of soaking canvas, only releasing it as the mast slid into the deep, and the ship righted itself in a dizzying swoop of wet wood and crashing waves.

Bloodcurdling howls rose from the pirates as they realized the
Tintagel’
s hopeless position. They unleashed a barrage of ordnance from their cannon—chain shot, bar shot, canister, and deadly langrage. Composed of nuts, bolts, nails, and scrap iron, a langrage ball hit the deck and exploded in every direction. Men screamed as shrapnel tore into their flesh.

Charles stared in stunned shock at the carnage.

What once had been a scrubbed and orderly vessel now took in water at the bow and burned like a funeral pyre at the stern. Sailors lay groaning in pain or gasping for a last breath. Many had been tossed into the sea, some had leapt to their deaths, while others were crushed beneath the falling mast. Those men who still labored at the
Tintagel’
s cannon shouted encouragement, but few remained to heed it.

Charles staggered toward the nearest gun and scanned the deck for young Danny Martin. The boy had vanished along with so many others, leaving the clipper eerily empty. Reaching the poor man who vainly tried to load the cannon’s muzzle, Charles clapped him on the shoulder.

“My good sir,” he said, “allow me to assist you.”

“Aye, but see how they shoot their grapnels at us now!” the fellow cried as the pirate ship’s cannons launched an array of iron barbs across the narrow expanse between the two vessels. Charles knew the grapnel hooks carried ropes that would tie the ships together. It would not be long before the enemy would board the
Tintagel
.

His leg a bloodied mess, the sailor struggled to lift a ball. “Oh, God, where be Ye now? Shall Ye leave us to perish in the deep?”

“Take heart.” Charles took the shot from the man’s hands and thrust it into the cannon’s mouth. “God has not abandoned us. Here, you must have this pistol, sir. Protect yourself.” “

Bah! What good is a pistol? Look—their boats now hoist and swing away. They shall be upon us in moments!”

From the pirate ship, six smaller barks filled with well-armed men were lowered to the sea. Bellowing insults and taunts, they rowed toward the foundering clipper. There were too many of them, Charles realized, and far too few left to defend the
Tintagel
. The attackers came too fast, too furiously, and there was little hope for salvation.

But he would not give up his life and his dreams so easily. “Come, where is your tinderbox, man?” he demanded. “We are not dead yet.”

The two worked to light the fuse, and in a moment, the ball burst from the gun with a blast of black powder that knocked them both to the deck. Charles rolled onto his knees just as another round of langrage hit the
Tintagel
and exploded. Shrapnel flew. Wood splintered. Bolts and nails burrowed into the railings and the deck. A shard of scrap iron tore a hole through the chest of the man Charles had just assisted. He stared at Charles with lifeless eyes before toppling in a heap.

As a knot of disbelief and terror formed in his throat, Charles wiped the sweat and blood from his eyes. Now the pirate boats bumped against the hull of the
Tintagel
. Boarding pikes arced over the rail and buried their pointed iron heads in the splintered wood of the deck. Charles grabbed one of the seven-foot poles and yanked it loose. But he quickly saw there were too many to dislodge them all. The Malabar pirates were already climbing ropes attached to the pikes.

As Charles drew his pistols, they came. Swarming up and over the railing like so many ants, the pirates poured onto the
Tintagel
. Clad in every color of the rainbow and with gold chains and jewels hung about their necks, they carried cut- lasses, flintlocks, axes, muskets, knives, and granados. The few seamen who were still able now unleashed the last of their weaponry. Balls flew, swords hissed and clanged, men cried out in pain.

Unable to still the trembling in his hands, Charles took cover behind the wheelhouse. A giant of a man with a great black mustache and a red turban spotted the Englishman, drew his saber, and rushed forward. When the pirate was nearly upon him, Charles pulled the trigger—and missed his target by a foot. With a roar of rage, the marauder continued his charge, pausing only to replace his saber with a brace of pistols drawn from a leather sling across his chest.

As the pirate resumed his headlong plunge, Charles caught a glimpse of Danny from the corner of his eye. The lad was hidden inside a coil of rope near the capstan, yet his head protruded as he helplessly observed the massacre unfolding before him.

“Danny!” Checking the two pistols he yet carried and unsheathing his knife, Charles called to the ship’s boy. “Danny, ’tis Locke here! Take my knife!”

“Mr. Locke! Look well behind ye, sir!” Danny screeched the words as the pirate took aim at Charles.

Having only the two pistols remaining—and thus only two shots—Charles dropped to the deck and scrambled toward the capstan. A massive device used to heave the main topsail aloft, its long wooden bars provided little protection. As the pirate fired, a ball ripped through Charles’s sleeve, nicking his arm.

“Danny!” He tossed the knife to the boy at the very moment that another beefy buccaneer began to hack at the coil of rope with an ax.

A second ball hit the back of Charles’s leg, and he fell. Drawing his pistols, he rolled and fired. One shot went wide, but the pirate took the second in his right knee. With a snarl of pain, the man snatched another pair of pistols from the sling on his chest. Urging Danny to save his own life, Charles ducked behind the rope coil and began to crawl across the deck, his useless leg trailing behind him.

He would die now, he realized. This was how his life would end. His fingers gripped the wet wood as he pulled himself toward the rail in a hopeless attempt to escape the pirate. If he went overboard, he would drown. The ocean was too wide. Too deep.

One death or another.

His father’s gold would go into a pirate’s treasury. To hedonism and lust and drunkenness. All was lost.

Charles grasped the ship’s rail and tried to heave himself into a standing position. But as his head cleared the wooden bar, the pirate lighted a granado and tossed it at him. The hollow iron orb filled with black powder glanced off the stump of the mainmast and burst into deadly pieces. One ripped through Charles’s arm. Another cut across his shoulder. The shock wave deafened him, lifted him from the rail, and tossed him into the sea.

Water swept into his nostrils and poured down his throat. As he sank, Charles looked up toward the surface of the water. For an instant, he thought he saw heaven.

  
Two
  

“These poor souls …” The captain of the
Queen Elinor
walked across the deck. “All dead. All lost.”

Sarah held her handkerchief in a clenched fist as she watched the man survey the devastation of the English clipper
Tintagel
. Too late, the rescue vessel had arrived upon the scene of the sea battle. By the time the
Queen Elinor
sailed into position near the beleaguered ship, the pirates had killed nearly every man aboard, stripped everything valuable, and sailed north toward the Malabar Coast.

Hoping to save those few yet living, the captain had chosen not to go in pursuit of the pillagers. Instead, his sailors had boarded the foundering clipper, put out fires, transferred the dead and dying, and salvaged what remained of the captain’s logs and journals. Those men who had survived the pirate attack were taken to the
Queen Elinor’
s mess hall, where a small hospital had been hastily set up. Tables became beds; every passenger donated blankets and bedding. The ship’s physician hurried from one patient to the next, occasionally shaking his head in dismay.

Sarah Carlyle had assisted in the recovery, first tending to the living who were brought aboard and then laboring with the other women to stitch a pair of cannon balls into each length of canvas that must become a dead man’s shroud. Once the captain had conducted the brief funeral service, the canvas would be sewn into place, starting at the feet.

The afternoon had flown by in a race against time and heat, and at last no more could be done. The
Tintagel
was left to its inevitable sinking as the
Queen Elinor
drew away to a safe distance. In preparation for the burials, the captain ordered the sails adjusted so that some were full of wind while others were laid back, thus rendering the ship motionless. The top gallant yards were set acockbill to signify both death and burial, and list lines were put out of trim to speak of grief. The entry port on the starboard gangway was opened to windward.

The crew, under immediate command of the boatswain, gathered to witness the rite. Sarah stood to the side with her fellow passengers as the petty officer cried out, “Ship’s company … off hats!”