Casca 15: The Pirate (8 page)

Once in the underbrush and beside the rock he found, like the mate, that he had to make a turn, and that took him out of sight of the slaves altogether causing him to panic completely. He had a very good idea of what the captain would do to him if he let the slaves escape. So he did two things at once: he tried to turn around and get back out and in the process tangled the cutlass hanging from his hip in the underbrush and he opened his mouth to yell for the first mate, cursing himself inwardly for not thinking of doing, that in the first place.

Unfortunately for him, at the moment when he was trying to turn around, his eyes swept over the opening farther up the path and he saw the woman flower in hair, naked boobs, skirt just below the navel.

Up to this point it had not been a good day for the boatswain. Now it was totally shot. The yell for the mate stopped at his tonsils. His mouth dropped open and reflex made both his hands come up, pointing his two pistols at the spot where the woman had just been.

Whether the boatswain saw anything else would be impossible to ascertain. He hadn't gotten far enough into the underbrush to get what had been planned for him, so the nearest pirate stood, up and threw his club. It was a fairly heavy club, and it was thrown with considerable force, and it was followed by a club thrown from the other side by a second pirate who was afraid the first pirate had screwed everything up. As a consequence the first club hit him sideways, ful
l on the side of the neck, breaking that relatively frail part of his body and the second, coming a little later, got him as he was falling, the heavy part of the club hitting the thin part of his skull over his temple.

It was all pretty noisy, so noisy that the slaves on the beach heard some of it the strangled cry from the boatswain's throat, the clatter of his cutlass hanger hitting the rock, the fall of the pistols, the very loud thwack! of the two clubs coming together when they finished him off, and the thrashing of his dying body in the underbrush. These were not sounds to inspire confidence, and the general feeling was that they should take to their heels at what might be a supernatural event.
Well, take to their heels they did but toward the forest and freedom, not away from it.

The view from the sloop, though, was confusing. The second mate had the spyglass to his eye at the time, and what he saw was the slaves suddenly break and run as a body toward the forest. Since the ship was too far away for him to hear the noise of the boatswain's demise and since he couldn't see the boatswain, it merely looked to him and to the captain who could see the group itself without the spyglass as though the slaves were responding to some odd command of the first mate or the boatswain.

That damn first mate, was the captain's unspoken conclusion. American. All Americans were crazy. So the work of moving the hogsheads continued for the time being.

But now Casca had a problem. He had arms – two cutlasses, a dirk, four pistols and one blunderbuss and he had a boat, or at least access to a boat. But there were still hours until darkness, and it would not be possible to wait that long. Within the hour the sloop would be ready for the hawsers to be passed. When the shore party didn't appear...

Casca cursed his luck. If only the boatswain hadn't screwed things up. To get so close and lose it was hell. He was standing behind the screen of underbrush watching the sloop, and his men were beside him. None of them had interfered with the flight of the slaves. Let the poor bastards have the island.

"Aye, laddie. 'Tis partly right ye wair. " The one armed Scot was standing beside Casca, apparently holding no malice for the clubbing Casca had given him. "But, now. Aye dinna ken how we get to yon ship."

Hell, man, I don't either
, Casca thought. He had figured on this thing being either spread out, with another boat from the sloop coming to investigate, or it being a case of the disappearance of the first mate and the opportunity to swim out to the sloop in the night darkness and come aboard. Now neither of these was going to happen. At the moment he didn't know what to do.

There just wasn't any damn way to get to the sloop. There it lay, anchored just at the edge of the shoal water, a couple of hundred yards offshore. Tantalizing. Might just as well be a thousand miles away. Damn!

Julio came out of the bushes, and the men grinned. The fairy London artist apprentice had made Julio's hair up into a pretty recognizable feminine style, particularly with the big white flower tucked in it. He had even done something with the face. What, Casca could not tell, but it apparently involved coconut oil and maybe just a touch of reddish brown
mud.

But it was the boobs that took the prize. Two halves of coconut meat
– how the hell he had gotten the shell off without breaking the hemisphere of white meat inside Casca would have asked if he had not had other things on his mind. The two white half balls were tied around Julio's chest with skinned vines to blend in with Julio's own flesh, and then the coating of coconut oil and reddish brown mud had been used to blend it all in and to tone down the white of the coconut and the skinned vines to a more natural flesh color. The fairy had even stuck one small berry into each coconut half to make a teat. Close up, of course, you could tell but forty feet away the effect was startling.

Even the skirt, a coat turned inside out and tied around Julio's hips with the navel showing, was believable attire.

Julio was reaching for the vines to get out of the thing when Casca stopped him. "Wait."

Julio's face held a question and so did that of the men who now looked at Casca.

Hell!
he thought,
I don't have any better idea than you do, but I've got to do something.

"We lure other men off the ship now, Captain Long?" Julio asked in Spanish.

"Well . . . Hold it for a minute." The captain of the sloop would certainly have a spyglass. Besides...

"Halloo..."
The cry from the ship was slightly muffled, probably because a slight crosswind had sprung up. Casca saw there were clouds on the horizon. A storm? But that wouldn't help him. “Halloo! Halloo the beach!"

Maybe they wouldn't be able to identify the voice. Casca cupped his mouth with his hands and yelled back:
"Halloo!"

"Stand by to take strain!"
What the hell did that mean?

"Tell him `Hawser's secure
’," the one armed Scot growled.

Casca yelled the message.

They waited. The two long thick ropes that lay on the beach, coming out of the water and leading back to the trees, began to move.

"Windlass on ship will take strain, help pull ship over on its side," Julio explained to Casca in Spanish, apparently thinking the scar faced one did not know much about seamanship. The hawsers were straightening now, and Casca could see that the tide was also coming in, the water rising up the beach.

"Mister... Jenkins...!" As the ship moved slowly sideways and came in closer the halloo became louder and more distinct.

Jenkins. That must be one of the officers. But which one? They had their first man trussed up with vines, his mouth gagged with leaves. The second one was dead, of course. But there was something else. Apparently the base of the trees was not visible from the sloop, hence the unconcern about seeing the shore party.

"Mister... Jenkins..."

Casca had to chance it. "Halloo!" But he turned his head slightly to the side, to blur his voice.

The sloop was both floating and being pulled rapidly nearer. Now a different voice came from the ship, much stronger now that the ship was closer to shore. "Jenkins! Vere d' hell vas you?"

"Found spring. Set water detail."

"Vater? Vater? Jenkins, vas you dronk?"

The inspiration hit Casca then. He lifted his head and bawled: "Aye, Captain! Drunk as a lord!"

By now the sloop was scraping over the shoal edge. But the noise of her grounding was eclipsed by the torrent of Dutch profanity that now poured from the captain. "Coom bock aboard, Mister Jenkins! At der vunce!" All motion of the sloop ceased. "Ver der hell der men? Vat you do mit men?"

"Water, Captain! Sent the men for water. Every last man jack for water!"

"Vater! Dumbkopf!" Silence. Casca and his men waited.

There was a definite change in the wind.
"Any chance of it blowing offshore?" Casca asked the one armed Scot.

"Naw.
Nawt now." He pointed in the direction roughly of the fort.

Casca gave the orders, and three of the pirates rushed off to obey...

It had not been the best of days for the captain of the sloop. The second boat, commanded by the third mate, had barely been launched when the lookout called: "Fire ashore!"

In fact, before the boat was fully beached, what had been a single plume of smoke by now was a rolling cloud of acrid white flowing like a lava stream before the changing but still fairly gentle wind. The last the captain saw of his third mate was his smoke shrouded figure clambering out of the boat along with the four slaves who had rowed him ashore. Then the smoke was upon the sloop itself, a bitter, choking smoke. The captain cursed. The female slave who was beside him at the moment made the mistake of choking before he did, so he slapped her across the mouth.

There was confusion but not for too long. The smoke was already beginning to thin, blown by a vagary of the shifting wind, when the boat came alongside the sloop. The second mate had just started the order to help its occupants aboard when they came of their own accord men with clubs, a one armed giant with a cutlass, and the scar faced devil with a feather in his hat.

Pirates!

The captain drew his sword.

Casca was in no mood for any fancy footwork. He pressed the attack.

But, no matter what the failings of the sloop captain might be in other areas, he wasn't a bad swordsman. He gave Casca a run for his money. Long after the sloop was otherwise neutralized he was still battling Casca on the fantail and holding his own.

Casca had had enough of this shit. He lunged hard and slashed, forcing the sword from the captain's hand. The fat Dutchman was now cornered at the
taffrail. He looked about him, saw that his ship was taken, that Casca's men were in control and that Casca held the cutlass ready to kill him if he moved. It was all over.

But not quite.

On the other side of the deck the female slave cowered against the rail, eyes wide. The Dutch captain noted her, said something in Dutch that Casca could not understand, and suddenly yanked a belaying pin from the rail. The motion was too swift for Casca to stop, but the captain did not throw the pin at him. Instead he threw it, with all his force, full into the face of the female slave, smashing the right side of her cheek and her right eye. Screaming with pain she reached upward for her broken face, lost her balance, and toppled over the rail into the water below.

The fat Dutchman grinned and repeated whatever it was he had said before, and Casca guessed it was something on the order of "If I can't have her you can't either."

The son of a bitch!

He was smiling easily at Casca now.

Casca lowered the cutlass, turning the blade over as he did so, and then, very deliberately, thrust the sharp steel edge between the captain's legs and pulled up, reaching down with both hands to get a good leverage on the blade with the result that the cutlass sliced up through the captain's testicles, penis, lower gut, and came to rest momentarily on the fat Dutchman's breastbone.

There was no further need for the cutlass, so Casca pulled it out.

"Throw him overboard," he ordered to no one in particular. From the waters below, still hidden by the smoke, came a tell-tale commotion caused by sharks attracted to the bleeding female slave.

Suddenly there was a sound behind him. It warned Casca just in time. He whirled to face the one armed giant Scot who was now swinging the other cutlass at his head. Casca got the picture immediately. The Scot had no intention of serving under him and was now taking this opportunity to
rid himself of a rival. But the knowledge did not do Casca all that much good. In turning he slipped on the blood gushing from the Dutch captain's stomach and went down.

And the Scot was upon him...

The Scot was a big man, and he had a long reach. When Casca slipped in the blood the cutlass overshot its mark, barely grazed the feather in Casca's hat, but it did strike down and bite into the aft rail. At the same time the Scot slipped in the same blood as Casca, skidded into him, and hit Casca's shoulders off balance, catapulting the big Scot over the rail. His reflex action made him let go of the cutlass, but that hand was not able to grab the rail in time and that was the only hand he had. His body tilted momentarily on the rail, but the slanted deck had given him too much momentum. He slid over the side of the ship and into the clearing smoke that hid the hungry sharks below. They got him.

Casca was for taking the sloop out to sea immediately. But there was the little matter of the incoming tide. They were now grounded on the edge of the shoal.

"Do we go ahead with the careening?" the fairy painter's apprentice asked. He was now the temporary third mate, appointed by Casca who had been impressed by the fairy's apparent education and good sense and as a reward for setting up Julio as the lure.

"No." There was no point in worrying about the sloop's barnacles. They would either be able to take another ship or they wouldn't. The fine points didn't matter.

So far things had gone well. The burning of the fort that sent the cloud of smoke down had worked. Julio as the lure had distracted the third mate long enough for that operation to succeed. They had the ship. True, it was grounded, but when the tide reversed that would be taken care of. They even had some new recruits. Most of the black slaves had chosen piracy to freedom on the island. Casca had his reservations about the first mate who, un-trussed, had said he wanted to join the pirates. The same went for the second mate. In both cases Casca had left the decision up to a council to be held once they were at sea. It was one of his few concessions to democracy which was not exactly his favorite way of running things. There hadn't been any democracy in the legion.

"The tide is in. Do you want to warp the ship off?" Julio was at his elbow, a Julio back in man's clothing and with a grin on his face. Casca sensed that the young Spaniard had enjoyed the theatrics of playing a woman, though the reason why was a mystery to the scar faced one. Every man to his own...

But, "warping the ship off"... What the hell was that? Casca had been on many ships from Roman galleys to Spanish galleons but he wasn't exactly the sailor type and he had difficulty remembering the techniques.

What saved him from answering was a yell from the top of the mast. One of the pirates, homesick apparently for a ship after years on the island, had climbed the mast. Now he yelled down:
"Sail ho! Two points on the starboard bow! Hull down!"

"Shall I have the anchor capstan manned to warp the ship off the shoal?" Julio asked Casca in Spanish, some of the technical terms unfamiliar to Casca's knowledge of the language.

But he saw what the young Spaniard was up to telling him what to do without the embarrassment of coming right out with it. He wondered what the background of the young Spaniard was. The boy seemed to have training far beyond his years. And he was a bright boy, a very bright boy. As bright as Casca would have wanted his own son.

"She's a brig!"

Casca looked at the sky. The sun was low, but there was quite a lot of daylight left, even allowing for the fact that darkness always came suddenly in the tropics. There were clouds on the horizon aft, and the wind had shifted again slightly. Also, there was the sense of heaviness in the air that usually indicated a storm was coming. But it wasn't here yet, and there might still be time to try for the brig plus there would be darkness in case they didn't cut it. So he gave the orders to drop the shore hawsers, to man the capstan, to pull on the anchor rope, and finally to set sail, the wind now being in a favorable position. There were still the hogsheads of sugar on deck, tilting the ship to one side, but there just wasn't time to do everything.

Somewhat to Casca's surprise the thing worked. The sloop came free and they slipped the anchor. It was all or nothing, Casca reminded himself, glancing again at the sky and seeing that there would be too much daylight to get away if the attack failed. So they made for the brig, the top of whose sails were now visible from the deck.

Casca ordered the cannon – there were only three of them – double loaded with grape and tried to explain to his puzzled gunners how he wanted them fired. When they finally understood, one, a big American, objected.

"Aye," Casca agreed. "You're right. It might damage this old tub. But it ain't worth a damn to us anyway except to take this one ship." The words and the tone of voice did more to convince the American than the logic of it, but by that time the brig was clearly visible.

"Probably American built," the fairy third mate said. "They favor the hermaphrodite brig."

"Ten guns," Julio added in Spanish.

The two ships were closing fast mainly because the brig was apparently a very fast sailer and very well handled. Trouble was they were going too close on what Casca had decided was the wrong side. He was just about to give an order to the helmsman when he saw the brig's sails open and her bow begin to turn. She had made it easier for him. He gave his helmsman a course opposite from what he had intended and changed the angle of his own sails. It worked. Instead of a head on collision course the two vessels were now turning in unequal circles, the faster brig in a much larger one.