On the foredeck Rork parried a pike thrust toward them and growled a Gaelic oath, smashing the rod away and pushing its owner overboard. Wake grabbed his friend’s arm, pulling him forward. With their backs against the very bow, they looked at the scene swirling aft. The pike now clenched in Rork’s hands, the bosun glared fiercely at the mortal combat fifteen feet away.
“Pirates,” gasped Wake as a pistol flashed near them and the cannon banged again. It was on the other dhow, which was now lashed to their own vessel.
“We may have to swim—our boys’re losing!”
Wake caught a glimpse of Dam Khanjar roaring an Arabic curse and slashing around in the circle at the robed men around him. More gunfire cracked and Rork pointed to a fire licking up fast from some of the piled cargo. Oil had been ignited, flaring up into the sail. Seconds later, it whooshed into a huge flame, engulfing the after half of the boat, and lighting a nightmare scene.
The melee stopped for a moment as the stunned mob looked above them. Then one of the pirates saw the two Americans huddled on the bow and pointed toward them, screaming something as he leveled an ancient blunderbuss and clicked an empty trigger. Throwing it down, he pulled out a cutlass, his eyes blazing with hate.
“Get ready to jump, Sean!” Wake screamed.
He crouched, ready to dive overboard before the pirate could reach them, but stopped abruptly, cocking his head. A weird shriek, strange and yet familiar, ripped through the night sky, ending in an explosion and geyser a hundred yards off the starboard side. Another one even closer drenched them seconds later.
The pirate heading for them stopped, glared at Rork, then leaped back aboard his dhow alongside. Wake knelt down on the deck. “What the hell is that!”
“A shell from a warship, by God!” Rork yelled. “Well, I’ll be a sonovabitch. Look at that.”
A steamer was surging up on their port quarter, belching cinders into the sky and throwing a huge bow wave. Rifle shots from her crew were already peppering the other dhow and Wake heard shouts in English. The Arabs on the deck aft—Wake couldn’t tell who was pirate and who was not—all put up their hands and stared at the ship towering next to them.
“Stop that! Gets your hands up, now!” came an eerie muffled voice through a speaking trumpet. “We are Her Britannic Majesty’s Ship Inconstant and we order you to stop, right now.”
“It’s the friggin’ Royal Navy, sir!” muttered Rork. “I never thought I’d fancy those arrogant bastards, but right now, by Jesus’ name, I love the sight o’ them Limey bluejackets.”
The flames suddenly diminished as sheets of canvas ash floated down. The steamer’s bow wave arrived and rocked the dhows, dropping charred rigging and felling some of the combatants. Wake couldn’t see anyone aboard the warship in the dim light, just the hull and spars, black and ominous. The ship’s inhuman trumpet spoke again. “You there, down on the bow, who are you?”
Wake realized the thumping he felt was his heart. Rork nudged him. “That’s us, sir. You’d better answer. Hell, they probably think we’re Froggies.”
Wake shook himself back to reality and called up to the black mass above them, “Lieutenant Peter Wake and Bosun Sean Rork of the United States Navy. In transit to Morocco.”
Another voice on the trumpet. “Well, I’ll be damned. Peter bloody Wake on a native scow. I don’t believe it.”
Wake didn’t either. The voice he was hearing was Lieutenant Peter Sharpe Allen, Royal Marine Light Infantry. Another, older, man on the ship shouted an order. “Get them up here straight away!”
Wake and Rork rose unsteadily to their feet and stumbled their way aft to where British seamen and Marines were boarding the dhow. They found their seabags, covered with a slime of ash and blood, and were helped up the boarding ladder to the waist of Inconstant by a hulking Marine sergeant. “Up ye go, sir. Home to old England.”
“Am I glad to see you!” Wake cried out to Allen, almost hugging him in relief. Rork was immediately bundled forward by some petty officers, bound for the gunroom and some of that famous issue rum.
The Marine lieutenant grinned ear to ear. “Wake, you never fail to amaze me. Yachting with the natives, are we?”
Wake felt the strength go out of him, “Voyage of the damned, more like it—”
“Lieutenant Wake? Is that really you” asked the older man, stepping forward into the battle lantern light. Wake was completely nonplussed. It was Commander John Fisher, the torpedo expert. The sight of him reminded Wake of why Inconstant was a ship that he felt familiar with—it was the ship the Royal Navy had used for torpedo trials at Antigua. Now he remembered hearing she was back in the Med.
Befuddled as his mind was, his curiosity was overwhelming. Why was Inconstant in these waters? Why was a staff officer like Peter Sharpe Allen aboard? Why was Fisher, the torpedo expert, aboard? How did they come across the fight with the pirates? Why did they stop?
“Commander Fisher, I am in your debt, sir.”
“No, no. You’re not in my debt, Lieutenant. I’m but a passenger aboard. Captain Fraser is the man of your salvation.” Fisher turned to a broad-shouldered man who emerged from the darkness. “Captain . . . may I present Lieutenant Peter Wake, of the American Navy. Lieutenant Wake is attached to their squadron here and seems to turn up in the strangest circumstances. Lieutenant, this is the man who saved you. Commander George MacDonald Fraser.”
“Honored and very thankful to meet you, sir.”
“Glad we decided to investigate, Lieutenant. Rather obvious it was a pirate attack, so I thought we might as well get some target practice in while eliminating a menace to merchant sailors at the same time.” Fraser winked at Fisher. “Two birds with one stone,
