Ransome's Quest (30 page)

“Mr. Kent, return to the big cabin. You are in direct violation of your orders!” Lieutenant Duncan held Kent’s wrists, perhaps trying to get the midshipman to drop the short sword and pistol he wielded. “Mr. Lott, get Mr. Kent off the deck.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” But Kent wasn’t going to come back at her request, and she couldn’t overpower him. So…“Mr. Kent, you’re needed at the cannon in the big cabin. They’re making a right mess of it and need someone with your experience.”

He turned to look at her. The glazed look in his eyes probably had something to do with why he did not immediately begin hurling insults at her. “Take me to it. I’ll show them how it’s done. Captain Parker will see. He’ll write me the letter of preferment to stand for the lieutenancy early.”

Charlotte looked at Duncan, whose face showed the panic she felt. If Kent no longer remembered that Captain Parker was dead, that he had died a week after setting out from England, Kent’s mind had gone.

“Take cover!”

Everyone dropped to the deck.

Everyone but Kent.

Charlotte stood to pull him down. Grapeshot and shrapnel whistled past. She wrapped her arms around Kent’s middle and twisted, turning her back toward the incoming missiles and crooked her knee into the back of Kent’s, making his buckle. They started to go down, but Kent recovered his balance and straightened again, babbling on about taking the lieutenant’s examination.

“Mr. Kent, get down!” Duncan crawled toward them and grabbed Kent’s wrists and started pulling down.

Charlotte wrapped her arms around his neck from behind and pushed herself off the deck with her feet, putting her entire weight on his back. Finally he started to go down.

Searing pain scorched the back of Charlotte’s left arm. Kent fell to his knees and Charlotte rolled off his back and onto the deck. She reached around to feel her left sleeve to see if it was on fire.

No, but it was wet. She pulled her fingers away, covered in blood. Her blood.

She’d had her share of injuries during her service on
Audacious,
but most had been bruises and minor abrasions. Nothing like this.

She floated into the air. No, someone carried her. She blinked to clear her eyes of excess moisture. Declan, a deep scowl on his face, jumped down from the forecastle and started down the companionway to the main gun deck.

He set her down on one of the tables in the sick berth and then reached one long arm out, grabbed the surgeon’s mate’s shoulder, and pulled him over. “Fix her.”

With that, he left.

Charlotte and the mate stared at each other a moment, both uncertain as to what had just transpired.

“You’re bleeding.”

“I got shot.”

“Probably why.” The surgeon’s mate smiled at her and set to treating her wound.

J
ulia continued her awkward, painful, and unrhythmic dance with the post. The shooting pain in her side served to clear her mind of anything but a singular focus: escape. Each volley
Sister Elizabeth
fired and each broadside it received recoiled and rocked the ship. With her hands held over her head as she rubbed the rope over the broken iron peg, every jolt upset her balance.

The bilge water now reached her knees—and she expected every moment that her attempt to free herself would be thwarted by the arrival of the master carpenter and his mates to man the pumps.

After what felt like hours, the rope started to give way. She increased her intensity—and ignored the heat the friction caused.

The loop of rope went lax. Julia lowered her hands and used her teeth to pull at it, and it uncoiled, falling away. In moments she extricated herself from the bindings. She stretched and flexed her hands, arms, and shoulders, delighting in the freedom of movement but was glad of the dark—she did not want to see the truth of the bloody mess her wrists must be, from the nicks and cuts made in the sensitive flesh by the peg.

She struggled against the rising water to get to the stairs. She looked up. No one was standing at the top; at least, not that she could see in the deeper-than-twilight darkness. She cautiously ascended, finding the orlop deserted.

She oriented herself and recognized the passageway leading to the hold. She felt her way along the path between crates of supplies and goods until she reached the walls of the supply rooms.

The second door. Her hands came in contact with the iron bolt, and she slid it back and pulled the door open.

“James?”

No response. She moved into their prison cell, leaning over to feel with her hands in case he lay on the floor.

The space was empty. Frustration pressed painfully against the inside of her head. If James was not here, she could only think of two other places he might be—with Shaw or dead. And if he was with Shaw, James’s death would not be far off.

Rather than continue up the stern companionway, she moved forward, to the stairs near the mainmast. This flight led her to the lower gun deck and utter mayhem. Smoke filled the space, shadowy figures churning through it. Voices, orders, screaming, and cannon blasts assaulted her ears.

She crouched under the companionway leading up to the main gun deck, but no one took notice of her. Before they could, she rounded the over-worked stairs and ran up.

Here on the main gun deck, chaos also reigned. Light streaming through the grates covering the hatches above glared off the smoke.

The smoke swirled. Someone ran toward her. She ducked under the stairs, wishing for anything she could use as a weapon.

The pirate stopped and pinned her with an astonished stare. She readied herself to fight him off, but before she could he started running again.

Julia didn’t wait any longer. She climbed the last set of steps. Near the top, she paused, peeking over the edge of the opening in the quarterdeck. Smoke and noise and men and bodies and blood…

No. She couldn’t focus on that. Climbing up onto the deck, she crouched and ran a few feet to take cover between the rigging brace and the mainmast.

Through the haze of smoke, off
Sister Elizabeth
’s starboard, the smaller unknown vessel looked as if it was trying to get close enough to send a boarding party. Marines—yes, she could see their red coats—were aloft on the yards shooting down into the bedlam about Julia. She could not see more than hints of the two ships at the bow and stern.

Shaw would be somewhere safe, somewhere out of the range of bullets, cannonballs, and shrapnel. His cabin. But he would also want William to be able to see James.

Alexandra
was the ship to the stern. Julia rose, scanning the back of the quarterdeck and what she could see of the poop. If Shaw had James on display, he would be somewhere back there, not only visible but vulnerable.

Fire seared her shoulder, and she fell back against the rigging brace. She looked down. A scorch mark marred her sleeve, but, thankfully, the bullet had done no more than graze her.

Fear vibrated through her limbs. Julia took a deep breath, prayed for protection, and stood again.

A bullet thudded into the thick wood of the brace mere inches from her hand. She dropped to the deck. The jolt made something in her side pop, and for a moment, she couldn’t breathe. Her head spun and her stomach churned. But then, almost as quickly, the agony started receding. The sharp, stabbing pain she’d had ever since Shaw had compressed her side during James’s hanging was gone. She tested herself by moving her arm about. Her side ached and pulled, but she could live with it.

The intensity of the fighting increased along the starboard side of the quarterdeck. The crew of the other ship must be preparing to invade.

She had to find James. She stood—and the world exploded.

Terror ripped through Michael’s throat as
Sister Elizabeth
’s mainmast snapped and tipped toward the ship’s larboard side.

The exploding shell had landed in the cavity pounded out in the thick wood by constant bombardment. And he’d rejoiced.

Until he saw a flash of long reddish-brown hair and fluttering blue fabric disappear behind the smoke and debris of the explosion.

His crew and the men from
Alexandra
swung over to
Sister Elizabeth,
emptying his ship and beginning the boarding that would be the last act Michael and
Vengeance
would play in this battle.

But he couldn’t leave her there. Not if she was hurt—or worse.

Disregarding the agreement he’d made with William Ransome—that he would not take part in boarding the pirate ship—Michael climbed up the mainmast shroud, grabbed a line, and swung over to the deck of the larger ship.

Something hit his back. He grabbed his cutlass and turned. A pirate wielding a canvas bag weighted with what was probably a cannonball staggered a few steps away and then turned. Seeing Michael, he roared and raised the bag over his head, whirling it like a slingshot.

Michael ducked under his arm, and the bag hit the deck. The impact ripped the canvas, and the cannonball rolled harmlessly away. Michael knocked the man in the back of the head with his sword hilt, and the pirate crumpled to the deck.

He dispatched three more men similarly as he fought to get through the fracas.

At the base of the mast, sticking out under a tangle of rigging line, was a small-heeled boot and blue fabric.

Michael sheathed his sword and pulled the ropes away. His sister lay prone, arms over her head, left sleeve torn and bloody at the shoulder. He slid his hand under her torso to lift her.

She groaned.

He shouted with relief. Julia was still alive.

Now he had to keep her that way.

He hoisted her over his shoulder and drew his cutlass again. In the brief time it had taken him to rescue her, the tide of battle on deck had turned—in his favor. He reached the side of the ship with no resistance, found a line, and returned to
Vengeance.

Jean Baptiste met him and assisted in lowering Julia to the deck.

“We’ve accomplished our mission. Get us out of here.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n.”

Michael crouched over his sister’s inert form, pushing her tangled, dirty hair back from her face. He looked up at Lau, who also hovered near. “Light the fires.”

“Aye, Cap’n.”

William had a surgeon aboard his ship. The idea of having a doctor examine Julia and treat her injuries struck Michael as a good one, but he could not risk that William would refuse to let Michael see her if he turned her over.

He swung her up into his arms and carried her to his cabin, placing her in Charlotte’s hammock. “I promise I will make everything right.” He kissed her forehead and then returned to deck.

Sailing
Vengeance
with so few men required more of everyone than they were accustomed to. But with the smoke of battle, combined with the heavy black smoke from the pitch and oakum fires burning in strategic points along
Vengeance
’s deck providing cover, they slipped away unnoticed.

With only half the sails unfurled, gaining distance from the battle took time and energy. But the wind cooperated and picked up strength, guiding the frigate away from the thunderous skirmish.

Michael raised his spyglass.
Alexandra
had moved in to try to fill the void left by
Vengeance
’s departure, but
Sister Elizabeth
had sustained enough damage that it would never be able to run away from the two Royal Navy ships.

“Lau, spread all canvas. Jean Baptiste, set course.”

The boatswain and sailing master obeyed. Michael closed the telescope and returned to his cabin.

Suresh leaned over the hammock, the washbasin in one hand, a bloodied rag in the other. The steward had managed to remove Julia’s dress, leaving her in chemise, corset, and petticoats, which were soiled to the knee with what smelled like bilge water.

“She has many injuries, Captain.”

Michael joined him at his sister’s side. Her face now clean, he worried at her paleness—and her puffy eye and bruised cheek.

Suresh dropped the rag in the basin and held up one of Julia’s arms to reveal inflamed, red rope burns on the outsides of her wrists, and several fresh, shallow, horizontal cuts on the insides.