Caribbee Part 70

"With Yor Worship's leave, I'd as soon be stay in' on with you." He gave another powerful stroke with the oar. "Where'er you're bound, 'tis all one to me."

"What were you before? A seaman?"

"A landsman, Yor Worship, I'll own it. I was took in the battle of Dunbar and impressed into the Roundhead army, made to come out here to the Caribbees. But I've had a bellyful of these Roundheads and their stinking troop ships, I swear it. I kept my pigs better at home. I'd serve you like you was the king himself if you'd give me leave."

"MacEwen, wasn't it?"

"Aye, Yor Worship. At your service."

"Then heave to." Winston pulled at the other oar. Through the dark they could just make out the bobbing form, now neck deep in the surf. She was supporting the black arms of yet another body.

"Senhora!" Winston called through the rain.

The white-clad figure turned and stared blankly toward them. She seemed overcome with exhaustion, unsure even where she was.

"_Espere um momento_. We'll come to you." He was shouting now in Portuguese.

A musket ball sang off the side of the longboat as several infantrymen began advancing down the sh.o.r.e in their direction. The Scotsman hunkered beside the gunwales but did not miss a stroke of his oar as they neared the bobbing heads in the water.

"Here, senhora." Winston reached down and grasped the arms of the body Serina was holding. It was Atiba. While Katherine caught hold of her shoulders and pulled her over the gunwale, MacEwen helped Winston hoist the Yoruba, unconscious, onto the planking. He was still bleeding, his breath faint.

"He is almost dead, senhor. And they have killed Derin." Serina was half choked from the surf. "At first I was afraid to try bringing him.

But then I thought of what would happen if they took him, and I knew I had . . ." She began mumbling incoherently as she bent over the slumped form of Atiba, her mouth against his, as though to urge breath back into him.

"Katy, the minute we're on board take them straight down to the cabin and see if you can get a little brandy into him. Maybe it'll do some good."

"I'll try, but I fear it's too late already. Let's just get underway."

She turned to look at the deck of the _Defiance_, where a line of seamen had appeared with muskets.

The firing from the sh.o.r.e slowed now, as the infantry

melted back into the rain to avoid the barrage from the ship. By the time their longboat was hoisted up over the side and lashed midships, Morris had retreated to safety with his men.

While Mewes ordered the remaining anchor cable slipped and the mainsail dropped, Katherine ushered Serina through the companionway to the Great Cabin, followed by seamen carrying Atiba. Then the mast groaned against the wind, a seaman on the quarterdeck unlashed the helm, and in moments they had begun to pull away.

"That was easy." Mewes spat in the general direction of the scuppers, then hoisted up his belt as he watched the rainswept sh.o.r.e begin to recede.

"Could be Morris is just saving us for the frigates." Winston was studying the bobbing mast lights off their portside bow. "He probably figures they heard the gunfire and will realize something's afoot."

"They've got their share of ordnance, that much I'll warrant. There's at least one two-decker still on station out there, the _Gloucester_. I sailed on her once, back when I first got impressed by the d.a.m.n'd navy, twenty-odd years back. She's seen her years at sea, but she's got plenty of cannon between decks for all that."

"I think you'd better have the portside guns primed and ready to run out, just in case. But I figure once we get past the Point, we'll be clear. After that we can steer north and ride this coastal westerly right up to Speightstown, maybe heave-to there till the storm eases."

He turned and headed down the deck. "I'm going aft to take the whipstaff. Get the yardmen aloft and d.a.m.n the weather. I want the maintop and all braces manned."

"Aye, you never know." Mewes yelled the gunnery orders through the open hatch, then marched down the deck giving a.s.signments.

Katherine was standing at the head of the companionway leading to the Great Cabin as Winston pa.s.sed on his way to the quarterdeck. "I've put the African in your cabin, along with the mulatto woman." She caught his arm as he headed up the steps. "She's delirious. And I think he's all but dead. He's got a bad musket wound in his shoulder."

"Even if he dies now, it'll be better than what Briggs and the planters had planned." He looked at her face and pushed aside a sudden desire to take her into his arms, just to know she was his at last. "But see if you can clean his wound with brandy. I'd hate to lose him now after all the trouble we went to bringing him aboard."

"Why did you do it, Hugh? After all, he tried to kill you once, on this very deck. I was here, remember."

"Who understands why we do anything? Maybe I like his bra.s.s. Maybe I don't even know the reason anymore."

He turned and headed up the steps.

Serina lifted his cheek against her own, the salt from her tears mingling with the sea water in his hair. The wound in his shoulder was open now, sending a trickle of blood glistening across his chest. His breathing was in spasms.

Shango, can you still hear me . . .?

"Try washing his wound with this." Katherine was standing above her, in the dim light of the candle-lantern, holding a gray onion-flask of brandy.

"Why are you helping me, senhora?" Serina looked up, her words a blend of English and Portuguese. "You care nothing for him. Or for me."

"I . . . I want to." Katherine awkwardly pulled the cork from the bottle, and the fiery fumes of the brandy enveloped them.

"Because the senhor told you to do it. That is the real reason." She finally reached and took the bottle. "He is a good man. He risked his life for us. He did not need to. No other _branco_ on this island would have."

"Then you can repay him by doing what he asked. He said to clean the wound."

Serina settled the bottle onto the decking beside the sleeping bunk, then bent over and kissed the clan marks on Atiba's dark cheek. As she did, the ship rolled awkwardly and a high wave dashed against the quartergallery. Quickly she seized the neck of the flask and secured it till they had righted.

"I think we will have to do it together."

"Together?"

"Never fear, senhora. Atiba's black skin will not smudge your white Ingles hands."

"I never thought it would." Katherine impulsively reached down and ripped off a portion of her skirt. Then she grabbed the flask and pulled back his arm. While Serina held his shoulder forward, she doused the wound with a stream of the brown liquor, then began to swab away the encrusted blood with the cloth. His skin felt like soft leather, supple to the touch, with hard ripples of muscles beneath.

The sting of the brandy brought an involuntary jerk. Atiba's eyes opened and he peered, startled, through the gloom.

"Don't try to move." Quickly Serina bent over him, whispering softly into his ear. "You are safe. You are on the _branco's_ ship."

He started to speak, but at that moment another wave crashed against the stern and the ship lurched sideways. Atiba's eyes flooded with alarm, and his lips formed a word.

"Dara . . ."

Serina laid her face next to his. "Don't talk. Please. Just rest now."

She tried to give him a drink of the brandy, but his eyes refused it.

Then more words came, faint and lost in the roar of the wind and the groaning of the ancient boards of the _Defiance_. Finally his breath seemed to dissolve as unconsciousness again drifted over him.

Katherine watched as Serina gently laid his head against the cushion on the bunk, then fell to her knees and began to pray, mumbling foreign words . . . not Portuguese. She found herself growing more and more uneasy; something about the two of them was troubling, almost unnatural. Finally she rose and moved to watch the sea through the stern windows. Though the waves outside slammed ever more menacingly against the quartergallery, as the storm was worsening noticeably, she still longed for the wind in her face. Again she recalled her first night here with Hugh, when they had looked out through this very window together, in each other's arms. What would it be like to watch the sea from this gallery now, she wondered, when the ocean and winds were wild? She sighed and pulled open the latch.

What she saw took her breath away.