James Nelson - The Pirate Round

The men on the Queen’s Venture were desperately unloading her hold, and Dinwiddie could see why. She was listing hard. He imagined that the ropes binding her to the Elizabeth Galley were the only thing keeping her upright. He had to get there, but all the boats were gone. So close, so damned close.

He ran to the edge of the dock, looked around, under, for any kind of conveyance. Nothing. He ran to the other side. There, tied to one of the pilings, half full of water, was a dugout canoe, a crude paddle floating in the four inches of water in her bottom. She was as unseaworthy as a vessel could be and still float, but to Dinwiddie she looked like the royal yacht.

He untied the painter, led the canoe the length of the dock, and pulled it up on the beach. He stepped awkwardly down through the sand to his boat, tipped it over, and let the water pour out. He shoved the dugout into the harbor, waded in knee deep, then carefully, carefully, eased his large body into the unstable craft. He sat for a moment, got a feel for the balance of the thing, then dipped a tentative paddle into the water and stroked.

The dugout moved ahead easily, and Dinwiddie took another stroke, felt the momentum build. The boat bobbed and dipped in the little waves that came in around the point, but there was shelter enough that Dinwiddie felt he had a chance.

If the canoe swamped, if it sank or capsized, he was dead. He could not swim.

Out past the dock, his eyes were fixed on the Elizabeth Galley, and he grew bolder with each stroke. The dugout moved easy despite the occasional wave that lapped against the bow and spilled water over the low freeboard. Stroke, stroke, the ships growing closer.

Dinwiddie, the mariner, with his practiced weather eye. He caught motion to his left, something moving on the water. He turned, careful, looked across the harbor.

Two big boats, carrying fifty men each, it seemed, swivel guns on their bows, also pulling fast for the Elizabeth Galley and the Queen’s Venture. It took little imagination to guess who they were.

Dinwiddie groaned out loud. It was a race, him in his little canoe against Yancy and Press in their big boats, all pulling for the Queen’s Venture, all racing to get there before Marlowe could cut and run.

A puff of smoke, a flash of light from the bow of the nearest boat, and the bang of the swivel gun. Yancy was going in shooting.

“Oh, God!” Dinwiddie said out loud, digging in harder with the paddle. The canoe shot forward, its low bow cleaving through a small wave, sending gallons of water over the gunnel, knocking the small boat off course.

“Damn!” Dinwiddie swung the paddle over to stroke from the other side, bring her head around. Another wave slapped the bow, but more broadside. The canoe began to tip. Dinwiddie shifted hard to keep it upright. And then the boat rolled clean over.

YANCY STOOD in the stern sheets, screaming at the men, “Pull, you bastards, pull!” He glared at them, saw the sweat pouring off their brows, even in the cool morning air, saw the muscles stand out on their necks and forearms, their teeth clenched with the effort of pulling oar.

“Pull, you lazy, worthless bastards!”

At first he had just wanted Marlowe back. And Elizabeth. To punish her, take her, show her that he was a man. Teach her. But now that was only a part of it, a small part.

Running down the hill, Yancy had had the chance to really see the ships at anchor. Two big ships, a sloop, a brig. A powerful armada. With such a fleet he could be ruler of much more than tiny St. Mary’s.

He heard Press’s words over and over in his head: “While I was out hunting Marlowe, I captured the Great Mogul’s treasure ship.”

Those words had not impressed him at first. It was only money, and money he had. He wanted Marlowe, and Elizabeth. He wanted vengeance.

But those words kept coming back to him, until at last their real significance took hold: “The Great Mogul’s treasure ship.” That was not wealth. Wealth was not the word. That was empire, and it was his for the taking.

Yancy glanced down at Press, sitting beside him in the stern sheets. Had to keep Press near him, but the smug look on Press’s face was like a sliver under his thumbnail. He wanted to slap him, looked forward to the moment, the very second, when he did not need Press anymore.

“Nagel!” The big man was in the bow, attending to the swivel gun. Yancy had to keep his eye on him now as well. “Hurry with that god-damned gun, or I will run my sword up your arse, do you hear me!” His voice was shrill, almost a shriek, a most undignified sound, but he was beyond caring. Every tiny fiber of him was focused on reaching the ships and taking them.

Nagel scowled, stepped back, touched off the powder in the touchhole. The gun fired, langrage and round shot. They were half a mile from the anchored ships. It was entirely possible that the small gun could not even shoot that far. But that did not matter. The shooting might unnerve the men on the ships. And Yancy had to do something.

The gunfire from the Speedwell had dropped off, and the Elizabeth Galley was still blasting away, with only one of her great guns and four of her men knocked out. Overhead, the squeal of blocks, the strain of rope, as crate, barrel, bundle were lifted from the Venture, swayed aboard the Galley. The thick, choking smoke from the guns swirled around the deck, partially obscuring the growing daylight.

Bickerstaff was on deck. “I’ve left one of those fellows in the magazine,” he reported to Marlowe, “handing the cartridges out. I thought I might be of more use on deck.”

“Quite. I-” Marlowe began, and then a shout from the Queen’s Venture. Billy Bird. “Marlowe! I don’t reckon we have much longer!” His words were punctuated by a groan from the Venture, a creaking as the two ships ground together. The Queen’s Venture listed farther away, the ropes binding the ships together and the fife rails and bits to which the ropes were made of groaning in agony.

Marlowe looked up through the smoke. He could see the crazy angle of the Queen’s Venture’s masts. “Good Lord!” he shouted. With the distraction of fighting, he had not kept a watch on how far the ship had gone down. He could hardly believe she was still floating.

“Get the men out of her hold, we have to go! That’s all we get!” Marlowe shouted. Then, from beyond Billy Bird, from over the water, came the sharp report of a gun, smaller than a cannon but bigger certainly than small arms.

The boats. The two boats pulling for them. In the heat of it, Marlowe had forgotten them entirely, but now a new front was opened up.

Marlowe raced up the ladder to the gangway and then around to the far side to which the Queen’s Venture was tied. It was a jump now to the other vessel’s deck, listing as she was away from the Galley. Behind him the Elizabeth Galley’s guns blasted, the Speedwell answered, sending the shot screaming over deck, smashing woodwork, rigging, toiling hands.

Marlowe moved to the Elizabeth Galley’s foredeck, and Bickerstaff and Billy Bird joined him.

“There,” Bickerstaff said, pointing to the east end of the bay. The boats had halved their distance, and now in the full light Marlowe could see how fast they were coming on.

“I don’t imagine they are coming to our aid,” Marlowe said. The bow gun from one of the boats fired, and the water twenty feet short of the Queen’s Venture was marked with the falling shot, like a sudden isolated burst of rain. They were firing langrage or case shot, both loads consisting of hundreds of musket balls or bits of twisted iron scrap, designed to tear apart a packed mass of men.

“Once they reach us, our prisoners will throw in with them and they will overwhelm us for certain. We have to get these prisoners off,” Marlowe continued, talking over the soft thud of the distant gun as it finally caught up with the shot. “Honeyman!”