Betrayal (12 page)

Yes, there was a knotted rope in front of me, holding the sail tight to the yard, which was rocking wildly. It’s a tree, I said to myself again, just a tree. I fumbled at the knot, picking at it one-handed, the other hand holding tight to the wooden yard. At last, after I broke a nail, it came undone.

“Come back now,” said Drake.

I slid back along the yard, grabbed the ratlines, and stepped back onto them, wobbling from sheer fright. Drake caught my shoulder and held me steady until I could catch my breath and get a proper grip. Then he did more mysterious stuff with rope, shouted, and the topsail plopped out and was pulled taut from below. The ship leaned over further and picked up speed.

Drake started climbing down again. Masou and I followed, although I was still shaking.

Back on the fighting top once more, it felt almost as good as a deck.

“So you’re Lady Sarah’s page and you came to help her, though you know nothing of the sea?” Drake asked, staring at me shrewdly. I nodded.

Masou was listening to this with fascination.
Drake turned to him next. “And you came to help your friend here?” he asked. Masou nodded, too.

Then Drake held out his hand for us to shake, so we did, fumbling with surprise. “I like courage and enterprise in any man, and faithfulness in any friend,” he said soberly. I felt my heart swell with pride. “Can either of you use weapons?” he then asked.

“I can shoot with a bow, sir,” I said, which is true, since I’ve been taught archery to go hunting with the Queen—except I’ve never had the heart to shoot anything alive. But I’m quite good at targets.

“A knife,” said Masou, eyes narrowing. “I can throw a knife.”

“Hm,” said Drake with a smile, “so can I. We’ll have a contest one day.” He shaded his eyes and peered out over the water. Suddenly he grinned most ferociously. “Unless I’ve gone blind, I’d say that smaller ship is Captain Derby’s
Silver Arrow,
” he observed. “And he’s in trouble by the looks of it, for that larger one is the Spaniard that’s been taking of our ships.”

“But aren’t they both flying the English flag?” I asked, squinting in the same direction.

“Aye, well, just a little entertainment for us,”
Drake said. “Me, I’d say that bigger ship’s rigging is from Vigo—Spain.”

He leaned over and shouted to Mr. Newman again. A flag travelled up the mainmast and flapped in the wind—I recognized the double eagle of the Habsburgs of Spain.

“Something to entertain them, too,” said Drake with a laugh. “Now, boys, my thinking is that they Spaniels are shaping to take Captain Derby’s ship, which would be a pity seeing it’s his only livelihood.”

“And what about Lady Sarah?” I asked anxiously.

“Derby was smitten with her, I know that, for he nearly challenged me to a duel for sending her that bracelet,” Drake explained. “And so I think he did, in sooth, take her by force.” His eyes then turned all soft. “I hope such a delicate lady stays out of harm’s way in the next hour,” he added.

He wasn’t looking at me, thank goodness, he was staring into space, mooning about Sarah Copper-locks Bartelmy again. Hell’s teeth! Even as his ship was preparing to go into battle! What
is
it men see in her?

I was more worried about being caught up in a battle—for myself
and
Lady Sarah! I could see the two ships in the distance drawing steadily closer. A
mixture of fear and excitement made my stomach feel like a posset-cup. My mouth was all dry, too. Was there really going to be a sea battle? I couldn’t believe it. How had it happened?

“Now,” said Captain Drake, holding onto a line. “Two likely boys like you, I expect you’ll want to be right in the thick of the fighting. Alas, I must disappoint you, and there’ll be no gainsaying me. I can’t have you down on the deck, for you might get in the way of us boarding. But you can fight from up here, understand?”

Masou and I both nodded—me because my mouth was so dry, my lips were stuck together. Want to be in the thick of the fight? In on a battle? Me? What if I got hurt or killed? (I thought killed might be better—much less embarrassing.)

“Masou, you run down and fetch a bow and quivers for your mate, and some fire pots and slow match for yourself, then come straight back up again,” Drake ordered.

“Aye, sir,” croaked Masou, then he swung himself over the side to go down.

“You, lad,” said Drake, staring at me very hard. “What’s your name?”

“Gra—Gregory,” I stammered. I’d nearly told him my name was Grace!

“Hm. Well, Gregory, there’s more to you than meets the eye, something not quite right. I know I’ve seen you before, but I cannot place you.”

“Maybe you saw me attending my Lady Sarah,” I said, trying not to squeak with nerves.

“Perhaps,” the Captain acknowledged. “At any rate, I can’t put my finger on it. Are you dealing straight with me, lad?”

“I came to find Lady Sarah,” I said. “I never meant to stow—”

“No, I believe you on that matter,” Drake cut in. “It’s something else.”

I felt as if his eyes were drilling holes in me.

He stared for a little longer and then seemed to come to a decision. “Aye, well, I’ve not leisure for it now, but you’ll tell me after, if you’re spared.” He wasn’t asking a question, he was stating a fact.

I swallowed hard.

There was a sound of climbing, and Masou reappeared, with bags and a bow slung over his back, and some slow match wrapped around his wrist.

“Ah, Masou, well done. Listen to what I want you to do.” The Captain had his tinder box out of his belt pouch and was lighting a candle, and then, carefully, the slow match. “Here’s your slow match—keep it away from the fire pots. Light the fuses one
at a time, then throw the fire pot nice and easy into the rigging of the Spaniel ship, understand?”

“Aye, sir,” Masou said.

The Captain then turned to me. “Now, Gregory, these are fire arrows. Light them from Masou’s slow match and aim ’em for the sails, understand? When we’re grappled for boarding, shoot the ordinary arrows at the Spaniels, but once I lead the men across the boarding plank, stop shooting, for you might shoot me!”

“Aye, sir,” I said.

Drake smiled, his eyes serious and yet somehow also full of excitement. He seemed to be looking forward to the fight.

He clapped both of us on the back, then swung himself over the edge of the top and slid, hand over hand, down a rope.

Masou and I stared at each other, and then Masou crowed with laughter and punched the air with his fist. “I always wanted to be in a battle!” he shouted. “I am a warrior—and the finest acrobat in Mr. Somers’s troop.
Allah akhbar!
”

I think boys—men—are all complete Bedlamites. They’re all mad. Adventures are one thing, but a battle! My heart was thudding away, my palms all
sweaty. I needed to make water, but I couldn’t on the draughty top.

To have something to do, I got the bow Masou had brought up to me and strung it. It was quite small and not too stiff—I had bent stronger bows before. But I was scared of shooting a fire arrow. There were twelve of them, with pitch-soaked wadding wrapped round the head and a lump of clay behind the fletching to balance them. There were twenty-four of the ordinary arrows, too—along with a bracer and gloves, which I put on.

Then I noticed her, the mother cat, climbing determinedly up the rigging towards me, with a kitten in her mouth. I stared disbelievingly. What was she doing?

I realized she must have been ousted from her nice warm nest in the sail locker, and now she was looking for a safe place. I heard a squeak nearby and looked round—there were three little furry, big-eyed faces peering over the side of a coil of rope just next to the mast. I stared at the mother as she climbed higher and higher, clinging with her claws. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about already! Once she almost slipped, but a sailor who was lacing another bit to the bottom of a sail to make it bigger
just caught her in his hand and placed her higher up. And on she climbed with her kitten.

A drum started beating down on the deck.
Boom-boom-boom, boom-da-da boom-da-da boom!
There was something wild and dangerous and threatening about the beat—it made my heart beat along with it. The sailors were singing something, growling deep and loud. It sounded very fierce.

The two other ships were quite close now, and they were joined together by a plank and grappling hooks. You could easily see that one of the ships was much bigger—it was flying a Habsburg double eagle now and it had three masts. The smaller ship only had two masts—and a big pile of wreckage lay on the deck where half of one had fallen down. There were white splintery scrapes where cannonballs had hit, and what looked like bloodstains on the deck. Some kind of swirling battle was raging on the smaller ship, the
Silver Arrow,
but a few of the fighters were scrambling back across ropes to the Spanish ship.

I looked up at the
Judith
’s mainmast. The Habsburg double eagle was coming down and the red-on-white Cross of St. George was just flying free.

The mother cat appeared over the edge of the fighting top and leaped into the coil of rope, where she settled down. All the kittens started feeding and kneading her with their paws.

BOOM!

It was the loudest noise I’d ever heard, and I nearly fell off the fighting top with fright. One of the guns on the deck had fired. Drake was on the poop deck, bellowing more Sailorish orders. The yards moved, and sent our ship leaning in towards the other two. Another gun fired. The
Judith
sailed past the grappled ships, on the other side of the Spaniard. Oh, good, I thought, maybe no battle. But then the guns poking out of the side of the
Judith
started firing.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The whole ship quivered. Clouds of smoke made it look as if we were sitting on a little island above the clouds. There was screaming from the Spanish ship. One of its cannons fired back, and splinters showered from the place where the cannonball had struck the
Judith
.

Drake yelled up to us. Masou licked his lips, lit a fire pot from the slow match, and lobbed it carefully into the Spanish ship’s fighting top. Flames rose up,
followed by hissing as someone doused it with water. I nocked an arrow and Masou blew on the glowing slow match and lit the pitch-soaked wadding. It felt very hot, even through the leather glove. I felt the heat on my face, and fired without really aiming, high in an arch, just to get rid of it. I don’t think I hit anything.

Masou was already throwing again. I glimpsed Tom firing arrows, too, so I lit another one of mine, aimed for a sail as a target—and hit it. I watched the fire catch and spread.

Every so often, Tom would stare wildly in our direction. I wondered why, until suddenly I smelled burning close by. I stared wildly around. The cat was cowering deep in the coil of rope, with her kittens beneath her—too late she must have realized what an unwise place she had chosen. When one kitten tried to struggle out to look, she whacked it with a paw and pushed it back. Her fur was all on end and she was hissing. She was so small and so brave, it made me feel better at once.

I smelled a horrible stink. Some of the tarry ropes in our rigging were burning—there was a fire arrow stuck there from the boys in the Spanish ship’s top. They jeered in Spanish—they hadn’t noticed that their own sail was burning.

“Masou!” I gasped, pointing at the flames in the rigging.

“Later,” said Masou, narrowing his eyes and lobbing another fire pot into the crow’s nest of the other ship.

I couldn’t believe he was ignoring the fact that we might get burned to death! But I lit another fire arrow, too—fired, and fired again, always aiming away from the people. I just didn’t want to kill anyone, not even a Spaniard. They hadn’t done me any harm, even if they were trying to now!

Masou had thrown all the fire pots and had started several fires in the Spanish ship’s rigging. Now he took one of the bags of sand hanging above the fighting top platform, and climbed out along the ropes to get at the fire in our own rigging, which was now spreading.

I watched in horror as he hung by his knees, slit the sandbag, and poured sand into the place where the flames were leaping, then banged the place with the empty bag, until the flames were all gone and only smoke was left. Arrows fired by the Spanish whizzed past him, and something banged and cracked splinters off the wood right next to me. It was a musket ball. Suddenly I realized properly that the Spaniards really were trying to kill us!

I grabbed my bow and fired back at them, so they had to stop shooting and duck down. I was furious. How dare they try to shoot Masou like that! As soon as I paused, more Spanish arrows came flying over, and I had to duck myself. Fortunately, the Spanish didn’t aim very well, and several of their arrows stuck in the wood—which was good, because I could pull them out and shoot them back.

Next there was a dreadful grinding crash, and the whole ship shook like a leaf. Masou cried out. I peered over again. The rope he’d been hanging from had suddenly given way—he’d caught another one and was hanging by his hands, dangling over the deck, fifty feet below!

I heard a slam—they’d dropped the boarding plank onto the Spaniard’s rail.

“Follow me!” roared Drake, and he ran across the plank with his sword in his right hand and his pistol in his left, followed by his drummer hammering the drum, and a horde of sailors, all waving short swords and axes. Some of them were swinging across from the rigging onto the boarding nets, and climbing up—while the Spanish sailors tried to stab them with spears. The two ships rocked and jolted and there was the most terrible clanging and screaming.

Nobody was going to help Masou except me. So I squinted at the rope he was dangling from, trying to work out which one it was, out of all the many ropes criss-crossing the sails. Masou wasn’t far from the top of the big sail below us. At last I identified it—and luckily, the other end was attached to the fighting top. I unwound it part way, passed it round the mast, and then, holding my breath, unwound the rest of it and let it out a little at a time. Masou was very heavy, despite being small. I couldn’t possibly pull him up, so I eased him down bit by bit, while trying to keep away from the flying arrows. “I’m letting you down to the yard!” I shouted.