faster and higher-pitched, and he knew the men were working the pump brakes with the proper urgency.
The water was creeping over Marlowe’s waist, and he wondered whether he would be released from the chains if it rose much higher. He did not think so. From forward he heard one of the carpenter’s mates shout, “Here! Over here! Damn me!”
There followed the sloshing of men hurrying through deep water and then the carpenter’s voice, loud with urgency: “Go tell the captain there’s a plank sprung, just between the aftermost cant-timbers on the starboard side, right by the turn of the bilge. Tell him I’m going to try and plug the bastard, but he best make ready to fother a sail over it!”
The carpenter’s mate rushed past and up. Fother a sail. Damn, Marlowe thought. The carpenter did not think he could plug the leak. It was so bad that Press would have to take an old sail and pull it over the hole from the outside of the ship and let the pressure of the inflowing water hold it in place.
Suddenly, drowning was a real possibility. But it did not frighten him. The excitement, the danger, the edge of panic were nothing but a relief to him after the darkness.
Marlowe listened intently, and with the hatches thrown open he could hear a great deal of what was taking place on the weather deck. He could hear the orders flying around as the sail was lowered over the side and the instructions relayed back and forth from the carpenter, who was still in the hold, and the officers on the deck above.
It took an hour of the most intense activity before the sail was fothered over the leak. The water was up to the middle of Marlowe’s chest when at last it stopped rising and slowly, slowly receded as the pumps caught up with the inflow. The weary carpenter staggered aft and climbed back up without a glance in Marlowe’s direction.
Another hour, and the water was back below the cable tier, and the Queen’s Venture was under way, the old routine begun again. But Marlowe was no longer lost in his own misery. He was alive, alert, his mind working clean and fast.
For two more days, by his estimate, he sat chained to the cable tier. And then without warning he felt the motion of the ship change, and he guessed that they had come into sheltered water. And then hands began to pull the anchor cable up from the cable tier and ready it for running, and Marlowe knew they had arrived somewhere. He guessed it was St. Mary’s.
This, he knew, was what Press had been waiting for. This was where Press intended to finish him. But Thomas Marlowe was no longer afraid or desperate or ready for death. Now he was simply ready.
Chapter 23
ST. MARY’S. It was only the second time that Roger Press had sailed into that open roadstead, past Quail Island and into the harbor, but already it felt like a homecoming. The southeasterly wind had driven his three ships easily up the channel between the little island and Madagascar, and just enough breeze reached into the harbor to give the ships steerage way as they ghosted toward their anchorage.
On the big house atop the hill and the gun batteries on Quail Island, the Union Jack flapped in the puffs of wind that blew from the sea. The lush green of the jungle spread up and away from the dilapidated town, shot through with bursts of flowers like exploding grenadoes. There were a few ships riding at their anchors, Red Sea Rovers and island traders and, of course, the Speedwell. It was just as he had left it. It was his home now, his kingdom.
Then, from one of the batteries at the big house, a plume of white smoke, shot from the mouth of a cannon. Press started, bit down on the toothpick. And then, a second later, the flat pow of the gun and a second plume of smoke from the gun next to it. Pow, and a third plume. No fall of shot. Press smiled. Tasker had arranged a salute. Good man.
Seventeen guns, the sound rolling around the harbor. Press let his eyes linger on the Union Jack as he rolled the toothpick across the roof of his mouth. Perhaps that was not the flag to fly. Perhaps he needed a flag of his own. Perhaps a red flag with a picture of his enemies screaming as they are crushed beneath a plank piled high with stone. Press. He smiled at the thought.
The Queen’s Venture led the way, standing in under topsails. Up on the foredeck, former third officer, now acting first officer Josiah Brown-law stood ready to let the best bower go. Clayford was off in the Elizabeth Galley, and the Venture’s second, Mark Montgomery, was in command of the Bloody Revenge. They were spread pretty thin. But now they were home.
Just behind where Brownlaw stood at the cathead was the spiderweb of ropes that held the fothered sail in place. That had been a near thing, the butt end of a plank rotted clean away. If Marlowe had not called out, there was no telling when they might have found out about the leak. Perhaps when the Queen’s Venture filled and capsized. The carpenter had been none too diligent about sounding the well, but once the leak was stopped and Press had thrashed him soundly, he had become far more attentive to his duties.
It was ironic, Press thought, that Marlowe had saved them. It would not change in the least the horrible death he had planned for his former quartermaster, the man who had marooned him. But it was ironic.
They crossed the harbor and came to a spot two cables from the old wooden pier, and Press called, “Clew up, fore and main topsails! Round up! Let go!”
Overhead the topsails rose like curtains at a play, and the ship turned up into the wind, and Brownlaw gave the signal for the seamen to let the anchor go. It plunged into the blue harbor, and the Queen’s Venture crept astern and then stopped. Press looked over the side. He could see the anchor cable for some distance through the water, clear as glass.
To larboard and just to windward of the Queen’s Venture, the Elizabeth Galley turned up into the wind and dropped her hook, moving under the expert command of Israel Clayford. Thirty feet away, and Clayford let his anchor go. Thin messenger lines, their ends tied in bulky monkey’s fists, sailed across the gap and landed with little thumps on the Queen’s Venture’s decks. The men grabbed them up, hauled them aboard. Attached to the bitter ends were heavier cables to bind the ships together, and they came snaking over the open water as the men pulled them in, hand over hand.
The Queen’s Venture was a tired ship, a battered pugilist who could no longer stand on his own, but needed to fling an arm over his comrade’s shoulder for support. They would raft the two ships together, the Queen’s Venture and the Elizabeth Galley, and the Galley would keep the Venture afloat. The fothered sail had slowed the leak, but it had not stopped it. If another plank gave way, then the Galley might be the only thing preventing Press’s flagship from sinking to the bottom.
The first order of business would be to remove the booty from her unstable hold. Then careen her on his beach, set her to rights again.
Press watched the cables come across the water. Brownlaw had one of the midships lines taken to the capstan, while on the Galley’s deck Clayford had the same done with the other. A few minutes of rigging the capstans, and then the crews of the two ships were stamping them around, drawing the two vessels together.
On the starboard side the Bloody Revenge came to an anchor with her main topsail aback.
Roger Press shook his head as he marveled at the sight. Two big ships, man-of-war built. The sloop Speedwell, the brig Bloody Revenge. He had a squadron under his command, the most powerful concentrated force on the Indian Ocean. Why stop at St. Mary’s? He had the means now for greater conquest.
It took half an hour to raft the two ships to one another. Press, growing increasingly agitated, paced, jabbed his gums with the toothpick. He had expected Tasker to come down to greet him. Scribner, the boatswain of the Speedwell, who had been left in charge of the tender, had come across in a boat moments after the Venture had come to an anchor. He reported that all was well and that he had not had word from Tasker in some time. And that, Press imagined, was all right with the boatswain. He apparently had made no effort to contact the first officer.
And other than the salute from the batteries, Tasker had made no effort to contact his commanding officer.
Press pictured Tasker and the men in the big house, engaged in a wild drunk, or passed out and asleep. It was not like Tasker, but then Press had seen more than one man lose his wits when pirating got in his blood. It was time to see about this.
“Brownlaw, I want- Belay that, lay aft here!” Brownlaw left off what he was doing and scurried aft. “I want to go ashore. Get the longboat manned and pass the word to Clayford to man his boat as well. Thirty men from his
