H.M.S Valor Read online

  Smoke clung to the deck of the warship swirling around the combatants aboard, its thick cloud captured the orange and red fire hues illuminating the night. Lilith’s nose and eyes burned from the acrid pitch as she watched the remaining sailors begin to circle her position, just as they had with James. There was a moment of hesitation, shifting eyes darted between Lilith and the growing inferno consuming more of the ship with every passing second. Across the deck a man screamed at the top of his lungs, “Follow me!” The sailors around Lilith turned their gaze in the direction of the yelling for a moment and a fleeting glimpse of a man lunging overboard caught her eye. More shouts came from a group behind the man and through the haze of smoke and flame Lilith could see just a flash of a familiar female figure run to the rail. Lilith lingered her eyes for another moment to see as the woman turned to look over her shoulder and for a split second their gaze met. Trina’s face locked into her mind sending a bolt of adrenaline racing through her.

  The first sailor to make a move toward Lilith was met with a furious torrent of sword blows that ended in a slash that split the man from collar to waist. Another plunged in, attempting to catch her off guard while she dealt with her first attacker. She made a sideways step and reversed her grip on one sword, driving it into the man’s lower back up to the hilt. Lilith wrenched the dying sailor around to shield herself from another’s sideways slash. Pushing her human shield to the side after the impact she lunged with her remaining blade into the sailor’s chest, stopping him before he could recover for another strike. Her swords were both lodged, and Lilith panicked as her strength failed to free either, she panicked and wrenched on both and then one with no success. A sailor, seeing her plight from across deck, hoisted a spent musket by the barrel and ran with a bloodcurdling scream. Lilith looked up to see the man sprinting to bludgeon her to death, a final tug on the sword she was trying to free confirmed it would not move and she reached for a sword from the clasp of a dead man. Lilith heard the scream and felt each step as the man approached to deliver his deadly blow, as her hand gripped the sword, she raised it to deflect what she could of the impending swing and grimacing in anticipation. The scream cut off in a ragged gurgle and the impact Lilith braced against never landed on her sword. She widened her gaze to watch the man crumple into a bleeding contortion, dropping the musket to claw at a tomahawk that buried deep into his throat.

  Snapping her attention to the source of the blade that saved her, Lilith looked onto Chibs, he stood among the scattered dead on deck almost obscured by a veil of thick smoke. Then she noticed the wound. He was holding his arm tight against his side and grimacing in pain with every breath.

  “Lilith. Dear, we have to go,” he struggled out.

  “Chibs, James, we can’t…” Lilith started to object.

  “We have to leave him girl. I’m sorry, but the fire is spreading too fast. We have to leave him.” He pleaded.

  Lilith ran to Chibs and pushed her shoulder up under his good arm to help him over the rail. All around them sailors and pirates alike scrambled in retreat of the growing fury of fire on deck. Splashes broke the dark waters where those retreating could only find solace overboard. Chibs grunted and strained with each step down the rope webbing and Lilith could see in the glare of orange that his entire side from armpit to ankle was soaked in dark blood. Just a few steps above the Maiden’s rail Lilith heard a sudden gasping groan and looked down to see Chibs struggling to hold the rope web with a single hand as his feet dangled free. His grip slipped and the big pirate fell, slamming on his back across the rail. Lilith screamed, “Chibs!” and pushed herself off the web jumping across to the deck of the Maiden. The landing impact shot up through her shins and into her knees and her hands took painful gouges from the deck timbers as she caught her upper half from hitting but the pain barely registered while she scrambled to Chibs’ side.

  “Chibs!” she cried feeling the world spin around her as he groaned with a labored breath, “Chibs what do I do? What can I do?”

  “Get Lemeux and get us under sail dear. Let him tend to me, you get us out of here.” He rasped as blood began to show at the corners of his mouth.

  Her eyes became a fogged blur of tears while Chibs pushed at her shoulder, urging her to lead the Maiden away from peril. Lilith stood, pausing for a moment to take in the blurry figure of Chibs laying on the deck, blood pooling around his wounded side. “Doctor!” she screamed whirling around to see what few crew they had beginning to huddle around. “Get that damned French doctor! And get sheets set on the main, we’re making sail!” Her shouts were met by a moment of hesitation, surprised looks and unbelieving eyes and then as if their realization came all at once the deck went into a flurry of activity. Sail sheets were tightened, and the mainsail filled with a crisp pop, Lilith went to the helm and pulled at the wheel for a starboard turn. Slowly, grudgingly, the Drowned Maiden pulled free of contact from the dying warship. Like a crescendo of destruction, building toward her ultimate fiery fate, the blaze spread while the Maiden crept by her bow stem. The fire had danced its way across her deck, consuming them until chunks and pieces had fallen through. Her foremast was by now a pillar of flame, creeping its way out the yards to feast on its sails in bright flashes of fury.

  Lilith feared, as Chibs did, that the magazine would catch before the Maiden would be out of range from the catastrophic explosion that would result. Their progress away from the floating firestorm gained momentum when the crew set topsail and began to work on the foresails. After a moment, the line ship was astern of them and Lilith grabbed Omibwe as he hobbled by on his way to the stern.

  “Take the helm Omi, hold us on this course,” her order sounded as if it came from somewhere else, even surprising herself a little.

  “I don’t know how...” Omibwe was hesitant and a little intimidated.

  “I’ll show you how Omi, it’s easy enough. But for now, just hold the wheel steady,” she said while placing his hands on the helm holds. “Hold steady pressure, you’ll feel it resist a little but keep it right around here. I’ll come help if we need to make a turn.” He seemed willing but ill at comfort. “I need you to do this now Omi.”

  “Ok. I’ll try,” he managed.

  Lilith went to where LeMeux was looking after Chibs on deck. The big pirate was grimacing with every breath and pale as a ghost, wheezing curses while the French worked on his wounds. The pool of oozing blood at his side had grown and Lilith felt a chill as their eyes connected briefly when Chibs opened his eyes from the squinting grimace.

  “I’ll mend miss, the Doctor has it well in hand.” Chibs rasped. Looking up at Lilith, LeMeux didn’t seem so sure.

  “He has lost a lot of blood and this wound on his side is deep. I don’t know,” he began to lament, but stopped when he saw the girl pirate’s expression take an icy change.

  “Your fate is tied to his Doctor. If he bleeds out and dies on this deck, so will you. Understand?” her eyes narrowed and locked with his.

  “Y, Yes. Yes, I will do everything I can,” the doctor replied and snapped back to working on the wound.

  “Lilith, let him be, get me a totter of rum miss, I’ll be good as new by sunrise,” he said with a chuckle and then stopping with a pained expression. Lilith fought off tears, looking at the dark red circle on the wooden deck as it soaked into wood grains.

  “Longboat off larboard rail!” the cry came down from a hand working the top gallant.

  Lilith snapped out of her dread and looked over the rail, remembering the familiar face she’d spotted through the flames. The outline of a longboat stood off the Maiden’s larboard side no further than a cable length. She couldn’t make out faces, but one figure stood up and waved arms in a frenzy to be seen and even through the darkness Lilith knew who it was.

  “Get a line out!” Lilith yelled, “It’s Trina! She’s out there and it looks like she’s not alone.”

  H.M.S Valor

  26 Sept 1808

  17 Degrees 28 minutes N, 76 Degrees 11�
� W

  The looming feeling he was about to meet a grisly end still hung over Tim’s every thought. Being pulled from the debris field and the reach of the sharks improved his situation, though as Tim observed the demeanor of the sailors on deck, only slightly. He sat on a bench near the weather hatch under the vigilant glare of a duo of sentries. His treatment had been a degree better than if he were a prisoner, but Tim felt as if the men lingering on deck were imagining terrible ways to rid the ship of him. His panicked reactions during the rescue won him no friends aboard this vessel, everywhere he looked was a grim face or a menacing stare. Their leader, Mr. Cobb, seemed to appreciate Tim’s value to a certain degree. But only so far as it concerned the recovery of gold. This was an unfortunate problem as Cobb likely intended to take whatever riches they came across while Tim desperately needed to deliver that payment to the Order. The night air held a cool edge to it, the first notes of a retreating summer and a reminder of the timeline to which he was encumbered. A meeting of delegates would be held within a month in Charleston and if he failed to deliver, the consequences would be severe.

  “If you’re being false with us, I won’t be able to stop this crew from tearing you to pieces. Nor would I try. Gold, Mr. Sladen, gold will be your salvation, or your doom should it not be there.” Cobb said climbing from the weather hatch.

  “The payment was aboard the company ship Gazelle, Sir. If it is to be had at all, it will be aboard the Endurance and in the hands of traitors. Though I’m not sure why you are so interested, it is profits to the honorable lords in ownership of the East India Company and belongs to them as such.” Tim sighed in resignation, already knowing exactly what this Cobb was thinking.

  “A prize sum will surely be awarded to the crew for the recovery. Unless you haven’t told me some detail, but you wouldn’t lie to a crew of men who rescued you from certain death, would you Tim?” Cobb cut sarcastically. “None of this makes any sense to me. The Admiral and Captain Grimes aside, why would a payment for the lords in ownership be ferried through the Caribbean? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Mr. Cobb, I can only tell you that you are getting yourself and your crew involved in matters far beyond your understanding. You would be well served to kill me here and now and forget everything I’ve told you. Make for some foreign shore and never speak of what I have told you, but you won’t.” Tim replied indignantly. “But you won’t, and that’s fine. However, this plays out, from here on, you’ve been warned.” Cobb’s eyebrows raised in a look of cautious apprehension.

  “Right. I’ve been warned. You’re a nutty one. I mean to see the Endurance sunk, but for my own reasons. If there is gold aboard her to be had, all the better.” Cobb said with a dismissive wave to Tim’s warning.

  “What reason have you to sink her?” Tim asked.

  “The man assuming command of her is on some treasonous errand of the Admiral. We made port in Kingston and as you well know, something occurred there between the Admiral and the Governor. Half the fleet was sunk by our own fort battery. I suspect a coup of some sort, not that I can prove anything beyond what I’ve already told you. Something was afoot and if the men involved knew about the payment you are so eager to recover; I would consider that was likely their motive.”

  Tim could not believe his ears; this man honestly had no grasp of the reality of his situation. He was clever, and Tim suspected there were motivations for sinking another navy ship that he was not sharing. Whoever Captain Grimes was he likely knew some of the details the Admiral had deduced. Mr. Cobb seemed ignorant so far as to the true nature behind the unfolding events. Tim fought a smirk while he thought it over, Cobb hadn’t even questioned how an American privateer would know the details of payments being shipped through the Caribbean. So long as there is something he is hiding, Tim thought, he will be reluctant to keep pressing me.

  “Where do you intend to sail, once you have sunk the Endurance, Sir?” Tim asked.

  “How did you know there was a payment aboard a specific vessel bound for Kingston?” Cobb shot back. Tim’s heart sank in his chest, he could feel the last strands holding his web slipping. Cobb looked down on him with an air of disdain as Tim sat huddled on the bench, still soaked through and beginning a shiver in the chill night breeze. “It’s obvious to me there is some deception you are attempting here, Tim. If that is even your true name. You can have it. But keep your questions to yourself. If at the end of this ordeal, we can both serve our own ends perhaps an arrangement can be made. Until then, I think it best you just go along with things as they were, lest I turn you over to my crew.”

  “That seems reasonable, Mr. Cobb.” Tim said with a grudging sigh.

  The night wore on with a stiffening breeze bringing another wave of chill over Tim’s body. The sliver of moonlight traced silvery edges along the crest of gentle swells contrasting the darkness of the seas. The winds slipping through rigging aloft and the gentle lapping of water against the wooden hull lulled Tim into a tranquil, dreamless doze as he sat on the bench. His guards seemed to relax as their watch drug into the early hours of the morning, nodding with heavy eyes where they stood. In between little jaunts of drifting sleep, Tim pondered his situation and how he could change events into his favor. Cobb believed his commanding officers were attempting a coup, if he held to his current course, there was no need for any deceptions. He could sail to the nearest British Colonial authority and report his suspicions, to a hero’s welcome. But, upon questioning, he had become defensive. Tim concluded it was likely that Mr. Cobb desired to cover some past transgression, or that his intentions upon recovering the gold and sinking the Endurance were more self-serving than he would admit. Tim opened an eye, peering around the deck lit only by lanterns and the waning moonlight. One of the sentries standing guard jerked his head suddenly, snapping out of a doze while he leaned against the bulkhead behind him.

  “Is Mr. Cobb the commanding officer?” Tim asked in a low tone.

  “What’s that?” the sentry growled in reply, looking confused and fatigued.

  “Mr. Cobb. Is he your commanding officer? I only ask because he was not wearing an officer’s coat. In fact, he appears to be no more than a petty officer.” Tim pressed, drawing a scorn from the guard.

  “He’s in command now, that’s all I’m concerning myself with. It’s a shame the officers dishonored themselves the way they did. I don’t blame Cobb for putting them overboard, likely I’d do the same if they hadn’t.” He answered, looking uncomfortable with the exchange.

  “And what exactly did they do?” Tim asked hoping to glean a perspective from someone besides Cobb.

  “They landed a party of marines from the fleet to overthrow the governor of Jamaica. You said so yourself, what are you getting at?” the sentry leaned away slightly, off put by the line of questioning.

  “What if I told you that the officers and marines of the fleet were ambushed by a band of pirates in Kingston? It was pirates who took the fort and opened fire on your fleet. Your friend Cobb has committed a mutiny and made you all his accomplices. That’s why he put the other officers off the ship.” Tim said in a low hushed voice. He watched as his suggestions kindled in the sentry’s mind, just as he had hoped they would.

  “Why would Cobb be so desperate to get after Lieutenant Pike and the Endurance then?” the man hunched lower to speak with Tim.

  “He has to silence anyone who can report his mutiny, of course.” Tim said with a flat condescending tone.

  “By god. What have they done? And now we’re all mutineers!” the sentry hushed his exclamation, gritting his jaw afterward.

  “By my reckoning, the only chance you gentlemen have at not feeling a noose bite your neck as your last living moment would be to take the ship and restore order aboard.” Tim suggested, looking away into the night to let his words work on the sailor’s mind. It could not have taken more perfectly if Tim had planned it. The guard hadn’t questioned the motives of the American feeding him lies and leading him where he wante
d, he just drew the conclusions Tim led him to. Aboard a crowded vessel at sea, it would take only hours, but the seeds he had now planted would grow into a violent problem for Mr. Cobb, one Tim hoped he could get in front of and use to his own advantage.

  “Fire on the horizon! There’s a ship out there aflame!” the cry echoed down from the forward lookout. His shout was followed by a flurry of footfalls against the wooden deck as everyone moved to get a look. Tim stood and leaned over the rail to take in the sight. An orange dot on the horizon was all he could make out, but as he peered longer it seemed to grow in intensity. Chaos was what he needed. If Cobb and his crew were distracted by an outside event, Tim had a chance to effect some change in his situation. That growing orange blot on the horizon promised some distraction and offered the chance for some chaos to take hold. Maybe, Tim pondered, the doubts I’ve planted with this nitwit will take fruit amid some action, perfect.

  Cobb appeared from below deck and shot a suspicious glance toward Tim on his way to the bow. It had been mere hours since their departure from the debris field and Cobb looked as if he hadn’t slept at all in that time. The orange glare flashed, growing in intensity as flames likely caught hold of sailcloth. Cobb stood near the bowsprit, with an extended sight glass raised to his eye. He leaned over and said something to a nearby sailor and soon a couple men scooped Tim off his seat on the bench and drug him up to the forecastle. Cobb had a wide grin that gripped Tim’s innards like a vice.

  “Would you care to have a look and see the source of flame?” Cobb sneered.