of a battle, men frozen in various attitudes: aiming, hacking, defending, falling, and then swallowed again by the dark.
The twenty-five men from Marlowe’s boat were all aboard. “Come along! Shout like the devil!” Marlowe called, racing forward, along the Queen’s Venture’s gangway, rushing around to the side made fast to the Elizabeth Galley and into the fighting there.
“Death, death, death, death!” Marlowe’s men screamed, their voices curling up to a wild, inhuman, piercing shriek, and they fell on the backs of the men who just a second before had not even known they were there.
Press’s men on the gangway turned, raised pistols and swords, were shot down, driven back by the onslaught. Marlowe was the first there. A pistol in his hand, he discharged it into the mob, reached for another, but before he could pull back the firelock, he found himself sidestepping a hacking cutlass that swished past him and hit the deck.
Marlowe let the pistol fall, lunged with the sword in his right hand, found only air. The man he was facing came at him and Marlowe parried the attack, pulled his short sword, which he held in his left hand, stood ready.
Another lunge, and Marlowe beat down the blade with his sword, lashed out like a snake with the short sword, caught the man in the shoulder. The man shouted, drew back, and Marlowe hit him again with his sword, stepped into him, shoved him hard off the gangway.
With flailing arms the man plunged down into the waist, and Marlowe heard the thud that he made on the main hatch as he turned to meet the next man.
A big man, he loomed in front of Marlowe, cutlass moving as if it were made of paper. Marlowe met the blade, felt the ringing shock go through his arm, stepped back from the counterstroke. A dangerous one. Marlowe took a step back, held the short sword ready.
The big man was no subtle fighter. He plunged at Marlowe, cutlass cleaving the air. Beside him someone fired a pistol, lit the man up from below.
“Hesiod!” Marlowe shouted, thoughts of further betrayal crackling in his head, but Hesiod stepped back. “Marlowe?”
“Aye!”
“ ’Vast fighting! ’Vast fighting!” Hesiod and Marlowe shouted together, and the sounds of the fight faded. The Elizabeth Galleys had pressed the defenders between them, scattered them, run into one another.
“Some of them fellows has gone aloft!” a voice shouted from the dark, then Honeyman’s voice: “Some has gone down the after scuttle.”
“Very well, we’ll ferret them out directly.” The deck that a second before had been a battlefield was now quiet, waiting on Marlowe.
From the other side of the waist, Johnson’s voice: “Brownlaw, you stupid bastard, give it up!”
Marlowe turned, they all turned. The figure of a man-Brownlaw, apparently-stood on the foredeck opposite, near the bow. He was little more than a silhouette, but Marlowe could see the sword he held in his hand.
Billy Bird stepped forward. He had a knack for sounding like the universal friend, the cheerful voice of reason. “Come along, there,” he called. “The ship’s taken, but you and your men won’t be hurt if you give us some cooperation here. Not so much to ask.”
They watched the figure of Brownlaw backing away, the sword held up.
“Come on,” Billy tried again. “Not bloody much you can do with that sword!”
Then Brownlaw turned, and with three wild strokes he cut away the fothered sail.
Chapter 27
“OH, THAT’S bloody done it,” Billy Bird said.
With a curse Marlowe pushed through the men, raced down the gangway and across the foredeck to where Brownlaw was backed up against the bulwark, sword held uncertainly before him. The frayed ends of the lashings lay limp on the deck.
Marlowe peered over the side. He could see the water below and realized the sky was growing lighter. He could see nothing of the sail or the severed lashings. The whole issue must have sunk to the bottom of the harbor. There was no retrieving it now.
Marlowe, furious, like an injured wolf, turned and growled at Brownlaw. Brownlaw pushed harder against the bulwark, tossed his sword to the deck, a gesture of supplication. Two steps and Marlowe was on him, grabbed him by his collar, jerked him close. Their faces inches apart, Marlowe looked into the man’s frightened eyes. Brown-law was shaking his head side to side, a mute plea for mercy, and Marlowe realized that he was not going to hurt the man.
Fifteen years before he would have killed Brownlaw, just on principle, the principles that he held then, but now he would not. He was too old, had done too much bloodletting.
You are one lucky bastard, Marlowe thought as he shoved Brownlaw away. The young officer stumbled, and then Marlowe heard a shout, a cry of despair-“You stupid, stupid whoreson!”-and he saw Johnson, just a shadow, snatch a pistol from the man next to him, cock it, and fire.
The flash lit up Brownlaw’s face, eyes shut tight, jaw clenched, the fine spray of blood and bone from the back of his skull as he was flung against the bulwark, already dead, and his body crumpled to the deck.
Johnson, Marlowe’s newest recruit. Apparently he did not care to see riches come and go so quickly.
Marlowe had no thought to spare for either man, living or dead. He turned to meet Billy Bird, who was hurrying up beside him.
“Sail’s gone. She’ll fill quick,” Marlowe said.
“I could get the lads on fothering another. A lot of good hands here.”
Marlowe recalled the cable tier, the cold water rising fast around him. “No time. She’ll sink before they’re done. Pass some more cables to bind the ships together. Bowse them up good and tight. Then break open the hatches, we’ll sway as much as we can aboard the Elizabeth Galley, then cut this bucket away, make off as soon as it’s full light.” He looked to the east. The mountains were black against a low band of dark gray sky. “We have an hour. Whatever we can salvage in an hour, that is our take.”
There was silence on the deck, and it lasted three seconds. Then Billy Bird turned and shouted, “You heard him, lads! We’ve an hour to get what we can, so turn to! There’s our own people still locked down below! Get them up and set these bloody prisoners to work, and let’s clean this filthy bucket out!”
The men on deck scattered in ten different directions. It was like nothing Marlowe had ever seen, like the companies of three men-ofwar all clearing the same ship for action. He had never seen sailors move so fast, work so efficiently and with such cooperation.
The wedges were driven from the main hatch of the Queen’s Venture and the Elizabeth Galley as well, hatch covers pulled back, gratings lifted off. Another gang of men cast off the stay tackle. They laid the falls of the tackle along and saw them manned. Still more were ripping off the after hatches, and on the Queen’s Venture they were using axes to widen their openings.
Up from below came bedraggled, filthy prisoners, Marlowe’s men and Billy Bird’s men, those not taken ashore. They were half starved and confused and trying to understand this sudden change of fortune, this shift in circumstance. Like sleepwalkers they were directed toward the falls of stay tackles and yard tackles to add their meager strength to the effort.
Also from below, the better-fed men of Roger Press’s command, driven topside at the ends of pistols and cutlasses. They were the men who had forced the Roundsmen to load the Queen’s Venture with booty, and now they were made to unload her again.
It was an astounding effort, all the more so because it was carried out with never an order from Marlowe or Billy. Honeyman was there to coordinate efforts, and Burgess and the Revenge’s boatswain as well, but for the most part they just fell to. They were seamen to a man- not man-of-war’s men, trained to a single task-but Roundsmen, whose death or fortune rested on their own initiative. They knew what to do, and they did it, fast and efficiently.
By the time the first iron-bound box of booty rose from the Queen’s Venture’s hold, twisting at the end of the stay tackle, the morning light was enough that Marlowe could see the activity on the deck of his own ship, lashed
