Quintspinner (34 page)

An agonized scream in front of him broke through William’s stupor and Tommy’s small body flew back, smashing against his own. Two large splinters of wood pierced both the boy’s right temple and cheek, having narrowly missed his eye socket. What remained of his ear hung in shreds from the side of his face. He lay ominously still, and whether he had died or had merely fainted with the shock of his wounds, William could not tell. He could not bring himself to throw the boy overboard and so scooping up the small broken and bleeding body, he staggered towards the ladder and open hatch of the deck below.

A deafening blast knocked him to the deck just short of the hatch. A searing pain ripped through his chest wall. Twisting sharply to avoid crushing Tommy with his own body weight as he fell, William slammed heavily onto his back. Lying on the deck, he sucked desperately for a breath. This effort was cut short by a fresh slash of pain and the best he could do was to suck in a shallow smoke-filled gasp.

Chrissakes! I’ve knocked the wind out of myself!
Slightly dazed, he continued to assess that perhaps he had even broken his ribs, as he simply could not inhale.

Down to the Doctor! I’ve got to get Tommy down the hatch!

He struggled to rise up, clutching the still form to his chest. Dizzy with the exertion and feeling like Tommy’s weight had inexplicably become too heavy to lift, William strained to support himself, rolling over onto his knees.

A scream involuntarily tore from his throat as he moved his left leg, emptying his lungs of what precious breath he had taken in. A blinding stab of white-hot pain burst through his leg. William stared at his lower limb, squinting in the darkness, through the smoke and floating ash. At the spot where his knee had been just moments before, there was now a dark tangle of flesh and cartilage.

My leg! I’ve lost my leg!
He squinted and was relieved to see his limb was torn and bleeding, but its length was intact.
But I’ll lose my friggin’ life if I don’t reach the Doc! Got to get moving!

Gritting his teeth together against the pain, he sucked a small gasp in, and then hauled himself inch by inch towards the hatch, dragging Tommy’s limp form along with him. Reaching the open hatch but unable to maneuver himself down the ladder, he pushed Tommy’s body over the sill and then propelled himself head first to follow, landing with a sickening crash at the ladder’s base on the deck below.

A wall of odor, a collection of human misery, hit him full on. Unlike the open deck, where the wind renewed the air around them, here, in the confines of the lower deck, the mixture of spilled body fluids, kerosene from the lamps, and pre-existing rot and mold was unlike anything William had ever experienced. Dr. Willoughby and three helpers gave his arrival no more than a glance, as they remained bent over several of the wounded, alternately trying to staunch bleeding and then flushing out wounds with any available liquids they could lay hands on.

“I have a boy here!” William cried, pushing himself up onto his hands.

“Tend to him yourself!” Dr. Willoughby snapped. “And then help me with this one. I cannot save this limb!”

William looked about for a place to drag Tommy to. Every square inch of the floorboards seemed to be full of wounded men.

“Over here. Lay him here!” one of the assistants shouted. William’s face jerked up in surprise. It was Tess. She was hardly recognizable in the sailor’s shirt and breeches, the front of which, besides being stained with the slosh of the shit pot, was now soaked with the blood of her wounded charges. He squinted only for a moment at the others who were helping the doctor and recognized them to be Mrs. Hanley and Cassie, their sailor’s garb likewise stained.

“I’m sorry–I know that you’re busy but I think–well, I’ll be needing some help with moving him ….” William didn’t realize that his voice was by now only a whisper. His shortness of breath was making it hard to stay focused; the screaming pain in his lower leg made his own ambulation impossible. He felt hands grab him under his arms as someone hauled him to one side of the room. Tommy’s slim form slid along side of him, the boy’s shirt clutched firmly in William’s fist.

Lying beside Tommy, whose diminutive form was still unmoving in the corner of the crowded space, William took stock of the situation. Oblivious to his own smashed limb, he looked about for a piece of cloth, a rag, anything which he could use to press against Tommy’s bleeding skull. Fighting off a new round of dizziness, he debated whether to remove the jagged wooden missiles himself. The boy’s wound was bleeding heavily already and William had seen many wounds bleed a man to death when such projectiles had been removed.

At least,
he reassured himself,
his blood is still flowing and that means he’s still alive!
Finding no cloth available within reach, he struggled to tear pieces off his own shirt. “Here goes, my little man,” he said softly, and grabbed the deeply imbedded wooden shards in Tommy’s flesh, hardly noticing the small bleeding hole in his own bare chest wall.

A faint ringing in his ears threatened to drown out the sounds of the wounded men’s suffering and a grey curtain began to cloud his sight. As he fought for another shallow breath, William’s world of such despair disappeared, and he slipped into a heavier darkness, his fingers still curled around the piece of fractured wood.

To Captain Crowell, the scene on deck was one of absolute carnage and destruction but the fight’s outcome was far from being decided.

“Prepare to be boarded!” he roared his command, and the marines readied their guns and swords. The invaders swung across the chasm between the two ships on long lines secured to their own ship’s yard arms, their landings skidding them directly into slaughter where, often as not, they were met with the deep thrust of a sword or were mowed down in a volley of musket balls. Nevertheless, the pirates appeared to outnumber those aboard the
Mary Jane.

And we had the advantage of surprise in our readiness for attack! We might have suffered complete annihilation, had it not been for the warning given to us by Mr. Taylor.

All around him, men screamed and cursed, fighting hand to hand. Swords parried and were thrust over and over into the relatively soft targets of human bellies; still others hacked desperately at limbs, sometimes severing, sometimes only tearing open fierce gashes. Sailors from both ships fought and fell, their bodies trampled by those still standing.

It was common lore that pirates rarely fought so fiercely, depending instead on an early surrender by their intended victims. Such surrender would normally be brought on by the sheer terror invoked by the pirates’ reputations and appearances.

I doubt that they expected to be challenged by naval troops aboard a merchant ship such as this!
Captain Crowell slashed at the wall of intruders storming towards him.

At that moment, his eyes came to rest on a horrific struggle happening to his left. A young marine–the captain could not place the fellow’s name at that instant–was being held, his arms pinned to his sides by one man, while being fatally run through from the front by another’s cutlass. The captain stared, his shock turning quickly to acute despair, not wanting to believe what he was seeing. The young man’s death was no different than that of dozens of others occurring all around him but for one detail.

The marine’s two assailants were crew members of the
Mary Jane.

Looking around, Captain Crowell realized with a sinking heart that a mutiny had begun.

Without the manpower of the
Mary Jane’s
crew fighting alongside the
Argus’s
marines and sailors, his few remaining men stood barely a chance. With the men of the
Mary Jane
actively siding with the pirates, all would be lost. Neither victory nor escape was now possible. Further fighting would be folly; the pitiful concept of fighting to the last man would bring no badges of courage; there would be no survivors left alive to tell the tale of a courageous fight to the end. He was certain that his own life would not be spared either way. Looking desperately about him, he realized with absolute certainty what had to happen now.

Captain Crowell gave one last order. Strike the white bunting.

As the white flag climbed up the remaining mast, gun blasts and cannon fire alike ceased. A few moments of near silence ensued, punctuated only by the continued screams and moans of the wounded and dying, before a resounding cheer from the victors was heard.

Captain Crowell stood tall, showing no hint of cowardice as he held out his sword, laying it flat in his hands before him, as he waited for the conquering captain to identify himself. He dimly wondered if it would be Captain Raleigh.

It was not.

A large pirate, his long black hair braided in several thin strands decorated with beads and reaching to the waistband of his topcoat, stepped forward and bowed with an exaggerated curtsey. In one hand he brandished a long bloodstained cutlass, and in the other he held a severed head by a handful of its hair. Grimly, Captain Crowell realized that Captain Raleigh, or part of him, had, in fact, come to attend the merchant ship’s surrender.

“Buenos Dias! May I introduce myself?” the pirate captain began, his speech thickened with a Spanish accent. “It is my pleasure to share my acquaintance with you. I am Carlos Crisanto, present leader of these fine men.” He motioned with his cutlass towards the gathering circle of pirates and
Mary Jane
crew members. “And you are Captain–?”

“Captain Crowell, of the
HMS Argus,
British Naval escort to the merchant ship upon whose deck you now stand, the
Mary Jane.”
He looked at the man standing before him, trying to judge how best to plead leniency for his surviving men. He continued in a voice that was clear and steady. “It is with sadness but immediacy and total surrender that I defer and offer control of this vessel to you.”

A broad smile broke out across the pirate’s face–the naval-trained captain had judged him well–and then Carlos suddenly extended his head back and let out a feral howl into the sky. Captain Crowell’s brow creased in surprise for a split second before he resumed his impassioned look.
The man is insane!
He forced himself to meet the pirate’s eyes as the howl died away in Carlos’s throat.

Carlos Crisanto was grinning again. “Round up the prisoners! I want them all brought before me. Pronto!”

It was apparent that not all of the
Mary Jane’s
crew had been involved in the treasonous partnership. A few of her crew were pushed forward and shoved to their knees before the pirate leader. One of these Captain Crowell recognized as being the man who had come into possession of William Taylor’s flute. As the fellow had since proven himself capable of playing it and there seemed to have been no animosity between him and its former owner, the captain had not inquired as to the details of the transfer of ownership; he had assumed it had been a consensual exchange. No matter now. A name to a face at this point was useless.

All in all, there were just a half dozen
Mary Jane
crew members who were brought forward as prisoners. The rest of the captives were from the
Argus’s
original roster. There was Seaman Smith–perhaps his newly acquired navigational skills would confer some worth on his life–and the mute and disfigured Taylor whose size and strength alone would be valued by the pirates ….

So few of us left!
Captain Crowell was dismayed. He wondered how many were alive but too badly wounded to have been brought before the pirate leader.
And what of the passengers? The Willoughby’s and their daughters and housekeeper … and what has become of the royal courtier, Edward Graham?
As though conjured up by his merely thinking of them, a ruckus in the companionway announced their arrival on deck, each of them roughly spurred up the ladder by the prodding tip of a pirate’s cutlass.