Steel

It was only slightly heartening that many others of the crew also groaned and whined. “You want your shares, you get up on the hull and pull your bleeding weight!” Captain Cooper hollered.

“What shares?” Jenks muttered. “We ain’t hauled ourselves a prize in weeks, since you wouldn’t sell that last lot!” Grumbling murmurs supported him. Jill needed a moment to realize they were talking about the Africans.

She also would have sworn that Cooper was on the other side of the ship, far up the beach, totally out of earshot, and that she couldn’t possibly have heard. But there she was, as if she’d been coming this way on a different purpose, just in time to hear the dissent. Without hesitation the pirate captain shouted back, “You keep talking like that, you mangy hound, and I’ll sell you in the Carolinas next time we sail that way. Don’t think I need you on this ship!”

Jenks didn’t have a response for that, but he was still muttering to himself when he grabbed hold of a rope to haul himself up the side of the hull. The threat sounded like just a threat, but by the way the men reacted, Jill had to wonder if such a punishment had happened before. And she wondered how much trouble she’d have to get into before the captain decided to sell her off in the Carolinas.

That didn’t bear thinking on.

Scraping the port side of the hull wasn’t any less gross or smelly than the starboard side had been. Jill thought about doing this three times a year, every year, with endless days of sailing in between. The only dubious reward for it all seemed to be the rum at the end of the day. And the stars over the ocean at night.

They’d been onshore a week and were on their second day of cleaning the other side of the hull. Nanny and her people had left four days before, and Jill and Henry had been practicing all that time. Jill was almost proud of the work, of being able to see the actual planks of wood and layer of tar that made up the hull and had been hidden by all the gunk. Maybe she was only relieved that it was almost over.

She was on the shore, helping coil line and waiting for the tide to roll in and set the Diana upright again, when Captain Cooper yelled.

“Dirty l

izards, move! We sail with the tide! Get those lines, rig sails, clear this beach, dammit, before I skin the lot of you and use your bones for ballast!”

“Captain!” Abe, who was on the other side of the beach, helping with the ropes that kept the Diana on her side and secured, put his hands to his mouth and called back to Cooper. “What is it?”

“It’s Blane! He’ll not get away from us!”

Frowning, Abe shaded his eyes and looked out to sea. Jill followed his gaze and saw a shape moving parallel to the shore, far in the distance. It might have been a ship—if it was, it was far enough out that it wouldn’t see the Diana in her hidden cove. Jill wondered how Cooper could not only identify it as a ship, but as the Heart’s Revenge specifically—then saw her, once again, holding up the broken rapier piece on its string. Not only did it point toward the distant object, it jumped and shook, pulling on the string in Cooper’s hand as if trying to break free.

Abe was still frowning. He didn’t like this quest, Jill suspected. While the captain was yelling at the crew to get the ship rigged, Abe turned to Jill, Henry, and several of the others close by.

“Make sure all the fresh food and water we gathered is aboard. Get as much as you can up before we go running. And somebody drag on that useless surgeon.”

“And that’s why Abe’s the quartermaster,” Henry murmured as Abe went to give orders to haul gear back on board the ship. The others chuckled in agreement.

Working together, passing casks, crates, and baskets forward to where Henry pulled them aboard using a rope and pulley, they loaded the ship while Captain Cooper drove the rest of the crew to setting her upright and arranging the rigging. It took an hour to get the cannons on board; Cooper told them to wait and stow them properly when the ship was under way. Every minute that passed grew more urgent.

Finally, they were ready to go, but in this inlet, no wind blew to fill the sails, and the tide didn’t give enough current to push them back to sea. That was the price for wanting a spot that was sheltered from wind and weather. But the pirates had a solution for everything: they towed the Diana. A couple of the crew went out in one of the rowboats, carrying an anchor and line with them. Out in open water, they dropped the anchor—the end of the line was still on the Diana. Back on deck, the strongest sailors in the crew hauled on the line. Jenks called out orders in rhythm. “Heave! Heave!”

Slowly, the ship began to move.

Jill watched, amazed, sure they wouldn’t be able to budge the Diana from where she rested, her bottom just touching the sand, the waves of the incoming tide lapping against her unmoving hull. But they did, towing her, dragging against the anchor snagged at the bottom of the inlet. Jill leaned over the bow to watch. When she looked to shore, the trees of the jungle were moving, sliding past, however slowly. The swath of water between ship and shore grew wider.

When they passed over the anchor, the crew hauled it up. By then the current had caught them and carried them out past the sheltering sandbar that formed the inlet. The captain shouted orders about raising topsails and setting yards, and crewmen climbed the masts and shrouds like nimble squirrels to release the crackling sound of unfurled canvas.

The wind caught the sails, and the ship lurched, rising and falling as she rode the first big waves of open ocean. The slap of water striking the hull sounded like thunder.

Jill leaned on the rail, face into the wind, feeling salt spray kiss her skin after it splashed against the hull. She could almost feel the Diana moving faster, cutting through the water more smoothly without all the gunk on the hull. And she found herself smiling, actually happy to see the island receding, blue waves rolling away in every direction, to hear canvas rippling and ropes creaking. Happy to be sailing again.

Captain Cooper continued shouting orders, and the crew continued scrambling. More sails unfurled, more rigging came into play, and the ship picked up speed, almost leaping over the waves.

“There she is! Ship ahoy!” Henry shouted from the lookout at the top of the mainmast. He pointed off to starboard. Jill looked to the horizon but didn’t see anything. As she squinted against the sun, the scene all looked like water and haze.

More orders, more rushing, more lines pulled, knots tied, sails unfurled. Jill didn’t know how fast they were moving, but she had to hang on to one of the ropes on the mast to keep from losing her balance. Even with the delay, they caught up to the other ship.

She saw it by the spray of water. Knowing where to look now, she could make out the shape of it, its hull and sails, like a tiny picture of a toy boat, except it was obviously moving, cutting through waves, ocean splashing around it.

“Hoist the colors! Man the cannons!”

This was different than when they’d overtaken the slave ship. Nobody cheered, nobody laughed. Nobody ran up to the gunwales to see what was happening, waving swords and pistols over their heads. This time, everyone was busy, serious, bent to their work, and if they stole a moment to look over the water, it was with a frown. The crew who weren’t trimming sails, helping the ship fly to its target, pounded to the cannons. Jill heard a new sound; rattling as hatches flew open in the sides of the boat, creaks and slams as those eight sleeping monsters were awakened, unlashed from their places, and rolled forward, ready to be loaded, fired. The whole ship groaned like a waking leviathan.

The next time Jill looked out over the water, the other ship was definitely closer. She could see people moving around on its deck, specks of urgent motion.