Pirate Wolf Trilogy (117 page)

He cleared his throat and sat on the edge of
the bed. “That probably shouldn’t have happened.”

“It’s all right,” she said softly. “I could
have said no, or stopped you.”

Dante glanced, but refrained from commenting
on her naiveté. He doubted anything short of a cannonball exploding
through the gallery windows could have stopped him.

Gabriel did not like feeling unsettled and
Evangeline Chandler definitely unsettled him. She wasn’t mewling or
crying. She wasn’t blaming him or accusing him of taking unfair
advantage… which, of course, he had. She was confused, hurt, angry,
and incredibly vulnerable and he had just taken crass advantage of
all of those things.

Jonas would doubtless clap him on the back
and praise his powers of seduction. His father would roll his eyes.
His mother would likely box his ears.

He finished his wine and stared at the
bottom of the goblet. “I hate to leave you like this, but I really
should go back up on deck and talk to Stubs.”

“About tomorrow?”

“Yes, about tomorrow.”

“What will you do if they attack?”

“At the moment I have no bloody idea,” he
said honestly, floundering a little more as he looked into the wide
green eyes, “but I won’t be surrendering the ship… or anyone on it…
that much is a certainty.”

He stood and dressed quickly in black
breeches and a midnight blue doublet. He buckled a leather belt
around his waist and stepped into tall black boots. He fetched his
own hat from the back of a chair, a much-abused tricorne with a
clutch of hawk feathers jutting from the band, and with a rolled
chart under his arm, he strode to the door, looking every inch the
magnificent pirate of most girl’s fantasies.

He paused and looked back, uncomfortable
with the feeling that there was something more he should say. The
usual wit of his tongue had deserted him, so had the casual smile
that normally came so easily when leaving a naked woman behind in
his bed. But the sight of Eva, so pale and soft and slender, with
the blanket still pulled high to her chin, left him wanting only to
return to her side and gather her back into his arms.

“Try to get some sleep,” he mumbled finally.
“I will send Eduardo down if there is any change.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Dante found Stubs on the quarterdeck leaning
on the binnacle, a long-stemmed pipe clamped between his teeth. The
three galleons had not changed position, they sat there like big
birds of prey watching and waiting.

The sea was smooth and calm, showing
infrequent ripples from a cat's paw breeze as it scuttled across
the surface, disturbing threads of mist.

"Air is gettin’ cooler," Stubs said
casually.

Dante hadn't noticed. His
body was still warm from being entwined by soft arms and legs. He
took up his spyglass and studied each galleon in turn. At first he
saw nothing overt to suggest Muertraigo was making preparations to
attack, yet he sensed that was exactly what was happening six
hundred yards away. The gallery windows in the stern of the
San Mateo
were ablaze
with lights that fanned out hazily across the water, suggesting the
capitan was meeting with his other commanders, sharing information
about what he had seen and heard aboard the
Endurance
.

"Air is gettin’ cooler," Stubs said again,
joining him at the rail.

"Yes, I can feel the chill in the air, what
of it?"

Stubs sighed extravagantly, for it was not
often his captain was distracted or too thick in the head to ignore
the obvious. He took the pipe out of his mouth and used the stem to
point to three specific things: the tiny tendrils of mist swirling
beside the hull, the blurred halos around the deck lamps on the
galleons, and lastly, the darkness along the horizon where the
coast of Espiritu Santu should have been visible now that the moon
was in descent.

Gabriel cursed. "Fog. The air is cooling and
the fog is coming up."

"Aye-yup." Stubs returned the stem of the
pipe to his mouth. "Came down myself to tell ye a mite ago, but...
erm... didn't sound like ye wanted to be disturbed right at that
moment."

Dante's cheek twitched at the sight of the
quartermaster's knowing smirk. "You should have disturbed me
anyway."

"Can do a body harm gettin' interrupted that
way, if ye know what I mean."

Dante snapped the glass open again and
stared long and hard into the darkness. Thick fog banks were not
uncommon in the tropics, especially close to land, and from what he
could see... or not see... there was a large one forming, spreading
out from Espiritu Santu, drifting across the water like a large
black cloud, the upper reaches silvered by moonlight.

If they could get into that cloud, they
might have a chance to thwart Muertraigo’s plans for the
morning.

"Two gigs?"

"Three," Stubs said. "In this calm she'll be
a bitch to tow."

"Three then," Gabriel
agreed. "Eight oarsmen apiece. Get them in the water as quickly and
quietly as you can. Wrap the cleats and winch to muffle the sound
and keep the hull between us and their watchers. Bring Betts up on
deck with his fiddle, and get a few men singing ditties. If their
lookouts report that the crew is drunk and relaxed, they may not
pay as close attention. As soon as the moon is gone, I want
every
man on deck, the
guns primed and ready to fire. Start trimming the fore and aft
riding lamps now so we don't disappear all at once."

Stubs grinned and rubbed his gnarly hands
together. "Aye Cap'n! Touch-holes are already covered to keep the
powder dry, an' ye've got about three hundred men real happy to
hear we're goin' to repay them damn Spaniards for makin' us wear
their fancy-ass britches.”

“I believe it was Drake himself who said:
you can fight and lose, but you can never win if you don’t fight at
all.”

~~

As predicted, the mist
thickened, skimming across the surface of the water like pale
fingers before creaming up against the hull of the ship. The moon
was sinking fast. Longboats had been lowered away with the
strongest men on board, ready to play out the cables and tow
the
Endurance
into the dense wall of the fog bank. The nimble-fingered
Betts had played his fiddle for two hours, with much laughing and
stomping for accompaniment. The men had sat under the lights and
waved their pannikens and grog cups—which were filled with
water—occasionally staggering to the rails to piss over the side
with drunken roars.

A few at a time, the gun crews crept back up
on deck and crouched behind the ten foot long culverins. Dante had
warned the crew captains they would have at best, fifteen minutes
to fire off as many rounds of shot as possible before the longboats
turned the ship and started towing it into the fog. They would be
fully exposed for God only knew how long after that and vulnerable
to returning fire from the galleons. It was imperative to do as
much damage as possible in the short time they would have surprise
on their side.

Dante ordered five of the swivel guns
mounted along the stern rails. After sending Eduardo to his cabin
to warn Eva to dress, he had another four mortars moved to the
gallery windows. They were smaller caliber weapons, mainly used for
firing handfuls of small stones, but Gabriel had them loaded with
nails and sharp pieces of scrap metal which would slice through
flesh like knives through cheese.

~~

With one eye on the moon as it sank into the
blackness of the horizon, Dante prepared to give the signal to
fire. Men stood ready with lit fuses, the glowing red tips
shielded. When the last sliver of silvery water disappeared, he
nodded to Stubs, who passed along the order to douse the deck lamps
and open the gunports.

The gunners had had more than enough time to
adjust the elevation of the guns and choose their targets. When
Dante's hand dropped, the entire starboard battery exploded,
spitting out clouds of orange-flecked smoke, sending two tiers
worth of thirty-two pound iron shot hurling through the night. As
soon as each of the sixteen heavy guns fired, it was hauled in,
swabbed, loaded with fresh shot, tamped, charged and run out again.
The crews worked with determined efficiency, taking under a minute
and a half to reload and fire.

Across the water, the three
galleons each took direct hits. The shots blasted through rails and
yards as the first few rounds were aimed high with the intent to
cripple the masts and rigging. Yards came crashing down, tangled in
torn shrouds. One of the shots hit the top of the mainmast on
the
San Mateo
,
the crack of breaking timber echoing across the water.

Gabriel did not allow himself to celebrate
or to believe the Spaniards had been caught completely off guard,
but he was modestly encouraged to see they took three full rounds
from his guns before any of the galleons delivered a reply.

The fourth broadside was
loaded with incendiary shot, the fireballs arcing across the water
and bursting to release a hail of fiery little tar pellets. The men
on board the
Endurance
could hear the shouts and screams as the Spanish crew worked
frantically to respond and, just as Dante's gunners had set their
aim well in advance, the crews on board the galleons needed no time
finding the
Endurance
in their sights.

Meanwhile, the men in the
longboats put their backs to the oars. It was agonizingly slow work
to bring the huge ship about and turn her into the encroaching fog
bank. What had seemed so close was in reality nearly half a mile
away and although the oarsmen heaved and rowed for all their worth,
the
Endurance
was
slow to respond, and agonizingly slow to glide away from the
Spaniard's guns.

At such close range there was no question
they would take some damage. And because the three galleons were
formed in a shallow crescent, Dante's greatest concern was being
caught in a crossfire between the two flanking ships. What he did
count on, however, was the absolute stillness of the humid air and
the fact that the smoke from his own guns would hang motionless,
like a thick white curtain, helping to obscure the direction of
their retreat.

~~

Eva had been startled from sleep for the
second time that night when Eduardo was dispatched to the cabin.
The boy had not wasted time on politeness or niceties. He conveyed
Dante's orders to get dressed then hustled her one deck below,
placing her in a tiny sail locker with a single candle for light.
His parting words, as he thrust a pistol into her hands were,
"Cap'n says you know how to use this."

When the cannons began firing, she pushed
herself into the corner and stared at the candle, terrified each
time the wax splashed and the flame shuddered, each time the deck
jumped and the wheels of the heavy carriages rumbled overhead. She
held her hands over her ears, trying to block out the sound of the
tremendous concussions but she could feel each jolt through every
bone in her body. She quickly became covered in the dust that was
jostled loose from the planking overhead.

Her insides turned to jelly as a
particularly loud crash seemed to lift the very strakes she was
sitting on. She was bounced from the bulwark into the piles of
sail, dislodging one of the thick bales and sending it tumbling to
the floor. Eva no sooner reclaimed her heart from her throat when
the door to the locker slammed open and a body fell through,
landing in a sprawl across her feet. It was one of the crewman. He
had been injured on deck and was being helped below by one of his
mates. When the shot struck the hull, both had been flung off
balance.

The injured man let out a scream when he
fell and Eva was hard-pressed not to do the same as the front of
her shirt was spattered red. Blood was gushing from a deep slash
down the side of his throat where some flying debris had cut him
and Eva, acting purely on instinct, reached over and clamped her
hand over the wound to staunch the flow. By then the second crewman
had recovered his footing and was standing in the doorway, staring
down at her in surprise.

The two stared at each other for what seemed
like half an eternity, each imagining their own little horror—one
finding himself in the company of the ship's supposed jinx, the
other finding herself alone and without the captain's protection.
In reality it was only a few seconds before the crewman gave his
scraggly forelock a tug and reached down to pull his fallen comrade
to his feet again.

"Beg pardon, Miss. Lost me grip when the
ship were hit. Poor Alf, here, 'ee looks done for anyroad. 'Ee
know'd it too an' asked me to take 'im to the surgery so 'ee could
pass with the taste o' rum on 'is lips."

"You mustn't move him!" Eva cried, holding
the young crewman off with one hand while she kept the other
pressed tight over the injured man's throat. "The wound is deep but
I don't believe it is mortal. See how my fingers have stopped the
flow? If the life vein had been cut, there would be no stopping
it."

"Eh? Ye know doctorin'?"

"No. No, but I... I have helped out a time
or two at the naval hospital in Portsmouth."

The crewman clenched his hands to fight back
the tears in his eyes. "Alf is me brother. Only family I got. An'
'ee's me best friend. We been wi' Cap'n Dante nigh on ten years. If
ye think ye could save 'im...?"

Eva looked at the man on the floor again and
realized the two were twins.

"You said you were taking him to the
surgery?"

"Aye, Miss. Cabin aft. Doc Podd does best
'ee can wi' a saw an' hot irons an' when 'ee sees them goin’, ‘ee
makes it easier an’ gives 'em a full pint o' rum."