Pirate Wolf Trilogy (102 page)

He turned to Douglas Podd, the barber and
sailmaker who was the closest thing to a doctor they had on
board.

"Suggestions?"

Podd scratched his chin. "I've heard tell o'
people who've survived the pox. Some say how they don't catch it a
second time. Might help to know if she had sum'mit like that when
she were a weanling. Could explain why she were spared."

"Assuming that to be the reason," Gabriel
said, "how can we be sure she isn't carrying the disease on her
skin or her clothes?"

Stubs' jaw dropped. "Ye're not thinkin' of
bringin' her on board?"

"We're thinking a pistol shot would be quick
and merciful," one of the men nearby growled.

Dante glared from under an arched eyebrow and
the crewman shrank back out of sight. He looked back at Podd. "She
claims she's been a week with no signs of fever. What say you to
that?"

Podd pursed his lips and glanced around,
weighing his answer carefully before he delivered it. "She 'd have
to strip down to her bare arse and scrub herself head to toe with
lye soap until the skin near comes off. Otherwise—" he hooked a
thumb over his shoulder— "ye'd have a deal o' trouble keepin' the
men from throwin’ her overboard. That's assumin’ they don't mutiny
outright."

Gabriel nodded grimly. "I'll talk to the
crew."

Podd scratched his graying hair. "I'm of a
mind they might believe me over you, Cap’n. Mainly because I draw
their teeth and set their bones an' they know I'd as soon drown a
kitten as save it... something they can't say about you, especially
when the kitten is a pretty female."

Gabriel snorted, but had no time to be
offended. "Go ahead then. Put it to them."

"Aye. An' if they vote nay?"

Gabriel pursed his lips. "If they do...
then... I would have to agree: a pistol shot will be the most
merciful."

~~

While heated debates were
taking place on board the
Endurance
, a jolly boat was rowed
across to the
Eliza
Jane
. Eva followed instructions and
dropped a line over the side, pulling up a basket that contained
food and water. She also pulled up a grappling hook bound to a long
length of rope which she secured to a solid section of the
gunwale.

Despite unresolved fears, she was too hungry
to ignore the sight and smell of biscuits and cheese. She sat in
the midst of broken rails and torn rigging, eating and drinking,
and watching the huge galleon while a crew of strangers on board
decided her fate.

She had all but given up hope of any manner
of rescue. Eva knew full well the yellow flag would keep other
ships away and she had resigned herself to a lonely, painfully slow
death.

Her first thought upon
seeing the galleon was that the Spaniards would simply sink
the
Eliza Jane
and bring about a quick end to her misery. She certainly had
not expected to see Englishmen in command of the vessel and she had
yet to decide if it made her feel better or worse that her own
countrymen were deciding her fate.

Not entirely certain what
to think when the captain sent across food and drink, she
nonetheless refused to let herself have any hope that it was
anything more than a temporary reprieve. A charitable last supper,
perhaps? A final kindness? The only prayer she did allow was that
death would come swiftly when the barrage resumed to sink the
plague ship
.
To
that end, she drank the wine freely, inviting the numbness she
hoped would come at the bottom of the bottle.

"Hail
Eliza Jane
!"

She stood, clutching the half-empty bottle.
The man who had identified himself to be captain was standing on
the high deck in the stern. He was hardly the handsome, dashing
vision of the sea-faring adventurers she had read about in penny
sheets. His face was mishapen and battered, his jaw heavily
bearded. One eye was a bulbous, bruised mess of old scabbing. The
other eye examined her like a hawk might inspect a mouse before
deigning to eat it. His hair was dark and fell in greasy strings to
his shoulders, which were admittedly broad and packed with muscle.
Long legs were encased in black moleskin, the tall boots laced high
to the knee.

"We are sending over
further supplies,” he said. “We need you to strip out of all your
clothing and discard it, then scour yourself top to bottom with
soap, after which, douse your skin and hair with the camphor oil.
When you have done this thoroughly, we will tow you behind
the
Endurance
in
a jolly boat rigged with a canvas sail for shelter. Do you
understand these instructions? A refusal or a deviation will remove
any possibility of you leaving that ship alive."

Eva swayed slightly and thought it must be
the wine making her light-headed. Surely she had heard wrong. He
could not possibly be saying she could leave this doomed hulk.

"Repeat the instructions if you please," the
captain ordered through cupped hands.

"S-soap head to toe, then camphor."

"My apologies, Madam, but we must keep you
quarantined until there is no possible chance you are tainted by
the fever. I would not risk it were you the Queen of England. Do
you agree to the terms?"

"Yes." She felt the first
real flicker of hope shiver alive in her belly.
"
Yes
, I do agree
sir!"

"Very well. We shall send across the
necessaries."

He turned to pass along orders to the man
beside him and moments later a basket came sliding across on the
line she had rigged earlier. In it was a brick-like bar of harsh
lye soap used to scour the ship’s timbers, a jar of camphor oil, a
scrub brush, and a striped wool blanket. At the bottom was a pair
of sailor's canvas trousers and a large white shirt.

The portion of deck where she had been
staying was littered with smoking debris from the broadside but she
managed to clear a small patch, lower a canvas bucket over the side
and fill it with sea water.

The larboard side of
the
Endurance
was
dotted with heads; the yards and rigging were filled with crewmen,
all of them staring and silent. She could well imagine their
reservations and their resentment. Even with such extreme
precautions there was no guarantee she was free of whatever
pestilence had killed the
Eliza
Jane
.

The captain’s orders had been specific. Strip
out of all clothing and scrub her naked flesh. The hope that had
kept her heart pounding now sent a flush of dismay into her
cheeks.

Did they all intend to just stand there and
watch?

Her gaze sought the captain but he appeared
to be distracted, leaning over some charts and conversing with the
helmsman.

Eva set her jaw and looked for a way to
suspend the blanket from the rigging to form a curtain. It was not
a very large blanket and would not protect her from every pair of
probing eyes, but it would have to do.

Foregoing modesty for the sake of survival,
she pulled the shapeless white sheath over her head and discarded
it along with her cloak. Naked and shivering, she took up the scrub
brush and started washing with the awful soap. It stung her skin
and reddened it instantly. She doused her hair and worked the
stinking lye into her scalp, rinsing and rinsing and rinsing again
with tears of pain and mortification burning in her eyes along with
the harsh fumes. There was no towelling to dry herself so she
stood, arms crossed over her chest while the breeze tightened her
skin and the residue of salt water caused even fiercer burning.

She poured some of the
camphor in her hands and began rubbing it over her body. It eased
some of the stinging and tightness, briefly, but the odor was so
strong it nearly brought the recently enjoyed contents of her belly
up into her throat. She choked back sobs as she worked the oil
through her damp hair and when every inch that she could reach was
coated and slick, she donned the rough canvas breeches and shirt,
then snatched the blanket and rolled herself into it, finally
turning and facing the
Endurance
again.

The jolly boat that had ferried over the
first basket of food was now rigged with a canvas sail stretched
across the stern and tented in the middle. A long cable was being
attached to a ring in the bow and men were lowering baskets filled
with more supplies. It was a sturdy little boat, but bobbed in the
shadow of the galleon like an apple in a barrel, and the thought of
spending days on board, being dragged in the wake of the Spanish
ship, made her belly threaten to rebel again.

"You're alive," she told herself. "You're
alive and that is all that matters. You have been around boats and
ships all your life. You can do this, Evangeline Chandler. You can
do this... for yourself... and for Father."

For all she knew, it might
even be safer than being taken on board the galleon itself. Surely
they must be pirates, so there was no telling how they would have
treated her if the circumstances were different. She might well
have been condemned to a fate worse than dying with the
Eliza Jane
. She was
reminded of Lawrence Ross's warning of how women captives were
passed from man to man until they had been raped to
death.

To that end, she discreetly tucked a dagger
into the folds of the blanket and bundled it under her arm as she
made her way barefoot across the shattered deck to the gangway. The
gate in the rail had been blown off its hinges and as she stepped
to the edge, she saw the jolly boat had been tied off at the
bottom.

Hugging the blanket securely against her
body, she turned and carefully descended the wooden steps that
protruded from the hull. She could feel eyes watching her every
move. In the reflection cast across the water, she saw the shadow
of the captain where he stood on one of the enormous gun barrels,
his hands on his hips, closely marking her progress.

"When you are ready, cast off," he shouted.
"Stay clear of the cable as it uncoils. If it catches your ankle
and you fall overboard, no one will be jumping in to save you."

The wine had fortified her enough to mutter a
word or two about his level of compassion before her foot touched
the rocking side of the jolly boat. As soon as she was safely
aboard she untied the tether and shoved away from the hull of the
ship.

As the jolly boat drifted into the dark gap
between the two ships, she looked up, squinting against the
sunlight. "I thank you for your mercy, good sir, in rescuing
me."

"My name is Dante. Captain Gabriel Dante. And
do not thank me just yet. As you can see it is my intention to keep
you isolated until any danger of contagion is well past. We are
still at odds to know why you, alone, were spared."

Her eyes filled with tears despite her
resolve. "I do not know the answer either, Captain Dante. As I
said, we landed in Fox Town and some of the crew went ashore.
Within the week, they were all dying or dead." Her voice fell off
and she bit her lip into silence.

Someone said something that made him tip his
head back and nod. "I am reminded to ask: Do you know if you had
any manner of similar fever when you were a child?"

The question gave her pause as a painful
memory surfaced of darkened rooms and black bunting draped over
doors and windows.

"When I was five, my mother and four siblings
died as a result of some illness and I recall my father saying
three fourths of the county perished that year."

The captain nodded again as if this shed the
light of possibility on an explanation. With his next breath he was
giving orders to the short, half-bald man at his side who
subsequently bellowed to send the crew scrambling up to the shrouds
to set the sails.

Eva sat in the stern and
hugged her knees to her chest as the galleon started to glide
forward. The cable attached to the jolly boat began to play out and
as the Spanish ship picked up speed, it cut a path across the beam
of the
Eliza Jane
and came up on the starboard side, running parallel
again.

Three full broadsides were
all that were required to blast the
Eliza
Jane
to oblivion. Eva sat huddled in the
violently rocking jolly boat, her hands over her ears as the guns
roared and belched fire. The first round levelled what was left of
the masts and rigging, the second, fired at point blank range,
pounded holes in the hull and blew wider openings in the gunports.
Timbers burst and cracked. Windows in the stern gallery shattered
and sprayed glittering shards across the surface of the
sea.

One of the shots punched
through to the powder room and ignited the barrels. A loud
explosion buckled the upper deck and sent a thunderous cloud of
debris shooting a hundred feet into the air above the ship. A
bright orange fireball boiled upward with the smoke and within
minutes the deck was under a hail of burning splinters that fell
back down to earth. The cinders landed on dry wood and as
the
Endurance
sailed out of gun range, a dense plume of black smoke painted
the sky above the raging fires that sent the
Eliza Jane
to her watery
grave.

~~

The rest of the day passed without incident.
The sun climbed high in a clear blue sky and descended the same
way, idyllic and beautiful—unless one was in a six foot by eight
foot jolly boat being towed in the wake of a wooden leviathan.

Eva lost the contents of her stomach half a
dozen times, leaning over the side, cursing each wave that passed
beneath the keel. She kept telling herself it was better than death
and sooner or later her stomach would settle. But then the galleon
would tack again to alter her course and the jolly boat would be
bounced across the crests of the following sea and Eva would find
herself hanging over the gunwale again.