The Guardship

Prize had not been streaming the drogue astern. The wind was off the guardship’s starboard quarter and all the canvas to topgallants was straining in the breeze, and Marlowe could feel the sluggishness underfoot as the vessel dragged the canvas cone through the water.

And that was fine. He was in no hurry to plunge into this fight, and the extra time meant more opportunity for the merchantman to escape.

“Stand ready on your starboard broadside,” Marlowe called down into the waist.

The Plymouth Prizes were hunched over their guns, watching the target draw closer. It would be a battle with great guns that morning, Marlowe had decided. He could not let the Vengeances board; they would overrun his men in no time. There

had to be almost twice the number of pirates as there were guardship’s men.

But the pirates would not have the discipline to load and run out, load and run out, keeping up a constant barrage like his own, better-trained men. What was more, the Vengeance looked like a tired ship, worn and battered and not able to endure that kind of beating. If the Plymouth Prize could just stand off and pound away at them, they would win the day, and the loss of life would be minimal.

The loss of life on the Prize, in any event. All of the Vengeances would die. They were Marlowe’s past, and they had to be stamped out.

King James climbed up the quarterdeck ladder and walked aft, taking his place behind Marlowe. He looked terrible. His face was battered. He walked with a painful limp, but Marlowe knew better than to try and order him below. He nodded a greeting and James nodded back, and Marlowe turned his attention back to the Vengeance.

She was still firing, scoring more hits as the two vessels closed, but still Marlowe held his fire. They were no more than a cable length apart. In less than a minute it would be time to blast them to hell.

He swept the dark hull with his glass. The Vengeance was not nearly as battered as he would have thought, after exchanging fire with the merchantman for over an hour. Of course, the merchantman’s crew could not be counted on for accurate gunfire, but still they were so close it would seem impossible for them to have missed. And yet the Vengeance showed no sign of even having been in a fight.

Marlowe felt that first spark of suspicion flare up and glow in his mind, just as the lookout sang out again.

“On deck! Merchantman’s hauled his wind!”

“What in hell is he about?” Rakestraw asked of no one in particular.

The big black merchantman, all but forgotten until that moment, had already completed her turn and was running

down on them as fast as she had been running away just a mo

ment before.

“Is he coming to our aid?” Rakestraw asked.

Marlowe laughed, despite himself.

“Not our aid, Lieutenant,” Bickerstaff supplied. “I believe it is his intention to give succor to the pirate, not us.”

“Sir, I don’t understand-”

“He fooled us,” Marlowe said bitterly. “He lured us right in like the fish we are. The battle was a sham, the brigands have both ships, and now we are trapped betwixt them, goddamn me for an idiot.”

Rakestraw’s eyes went noticeably wider as he realized their situation. “What shall we do, sir?”

“Die, I should think, if we let them trap us thus. Goddamn me, this is all but exactly what I did to him! How could I be so damned stupid? Mr. Middleton!”

The second officer looked up and waved.

“You shall have time for perhaps two broadsides. Make them count. Fire when you are ready, but soon, if you please.”

“Aye, sir! Fire!” Middleton strung the words together, and the gun crews, ready for the past ten minutes, lit off their great guns in one solid wall of smoke and flames and noise.

With some satisfaction Marlowe witnessed the destruction unleashed on the Vengeance, the old Vengeance, for he had no doubt that the new, big merchantman astern was the newest vessel to bear that hated name. A section of the bulwark was torn away. He saw one gun at least upended, heard the high-pitched shriek of a man trapped under half a ton of hot metal.

The Prizes were reloading under the urgent prompting of Lieutenant Middleton, or seeking out victims over the tops of their falconets, blasting the pirate with muzzle loads of glass and twisted metal. But there were not that many targets to be found, for the old Vengeance seemed to be lightly manned.

Just enough on board to make a great show with unshotted guns, Marlowe thought. He felt the anger, the disgust. How could he be so stupid? Would they all die because of his idiocy? Would Elizabeth have the courage to put a bullet in

her head, or would the pirates find her, huddled in a dark corner, and…

He shook his head, shook it hard, driving the thoughts from his mind. In the waist the Prizes were running out again, firing again. He saw rigging aboard their target swept away like spiderwebs, saw more of the rail collapse. But that was enough of that. He did not want to attack that old and worn-out ship, because that was what LeRois wanted him to do.

“Hands to braces! Starboard your helm!” Marlowe shouted, just able to hear himself through dulled and ringing ears. The Plymouth Prize turned northerly, swinging away from the old, damaged pirate.

The black merchantman was bearing down on them now, not two cable lengths away. The brigands were crowding into the bows and head rig, making ready to board. There was many times the number of men aboard her than there was aboard the other ship. Marlowe could picture the bastards huddled down behind the bulwark, snickering at the great deception they were carrying off, fooling the very ship that had fooled them so.

“Damn my eyes, damn my eyes to hell,” Marlowe muttered, then called down to Middleton, “Man the larboard battery. Hit ’em as hard as ever you can!”

Middleton had already shifted his men across the deck, and on Marlowe’s word he yelled “Fire!” and the larboard guns went off.

The merchantman was coming bow-on, and the Plymouth Prize’s guns swept the length of her deck. Marlowe could see some damage wrought by the fire-a cathead blown apart, the spritsail topmast shot in two, perhaps half a dozen of the enemy tossed back on their deck-but he could see nothing beyond that. He had anticipated a duel with the great guns, so the cannon was loaded with round shot, not case shot or langrage. They may have killed a few of the pirates, and that would be a fine thing, but he knew that there were plenty more to take their place.

And then he heard it. The lone voice, deep, slow, chanting, “Death, death, death…”

Heads aboard the Plymouth Prize looked up, peered over rails and through gunports. The black merchantman was two hundred yards away, a single cable length, and steering to smash into the guardship’s side.

“Death, death, death…” The voice was joined by another and another, and then the terrible pounding started, and the fiddle and the bones banging together. Most of the pirates were on the merchantman’s deck, shielded from the Prize’s great guns by the bulwark. The men of the Plymouth Prize could hear the terrible vaporing, but they could see only a fraction of the enemy, and that made it more terrifying still.

“Fire! Keep firing, damn your eyes!” Middleton shouted.

The men fired again, and the falconets blasted away, and when the noise had subsided and the smoke blown past, it was still there, the black ship coming on, the horrible cacophony, “Death, death, death…”

“Sir, shall I stand the men ready to repel boarders?” Rakestraw asked.

“What?” Marlowe was jerked from the horrible vision. “Oh, yes, pray do.” He still did not intend for there to be any boarders, but he had already made several atrocious mistakes that day, and there was still time for more.

The pirate, the new Vengeance, was one hundred yards from the guardship, her bowsprit pointed right at the Prize’s waist. Marlowe could picture the sea of pirates