Choose your enemies, before they choose you. Your friends will choose themselves.
—Gray
The wind changed.
It brought the smell of hot pitch to Tucker's nostrils, making him shudder for just a moment.
Presumably at the first officer's command—although Captain Michael Tucker, RM, wasn't paying much attention to that, having other things on his mind—the helmsman slacked a few points away from the wind's new direction.
The last thing the Serenity needed to do right now was luff into the wind, not with nothing but the Serry blocking the open sea behind the pirate, and the two other ships coming up as fast as they could, which wasn't very. The Serry was the chaser because she was the fastest of the three, although the smallest, as well.
Behind and above Tucker's head, up on the quarterdeck, the captain called out some orders to the first officer, who bellowed them over the wind to the bosuns and mates rather than simply calling for the piping of All Topmen Aloft, and the bosuns and mates bellowed the commands at the topmen, and quick as you please—moving even before the piper had finished blowing the six notes of Topmen Aloft—the foretopmen were scrambling up the rigging like the rope-monkeys that they were, while, unsurprisingly, the mizzentopmen moved somewhat slower. It was call for more sail, presumably—getting the fastest speed under the circumstances was a matter of constantly reefing and unreefing; there was hardly time to fly additional sails, not with the pirates close at hand, although there were hardly more to fly, the Serry's masts being loaded to the topgallants.
Tucker ignored what the topmen were doing as much as he could. After fifteen years in the marines, Tucker could have followed not only exactly what they were doing—which was easy—but make an educated guess as to why—something more difficult.
But he didn't bother. He had other things to think about, and, more important, other things not to think about, at the moment. The shouted commands and manic actions of the Navy crew—from the mangonel crews on the forecastle, to the hook crews off to the side of the main deck, to the port and starboard flinger crews, and never mind the constant yammering of the mizzentopmen and particularly the foretopmen—those were just noise to his ears, and the only way it would have distracted him was if it stopped, in much the same way as the rolling of the deck beneath his feet would have been disturbing only if it was absent.
He could have spent the time before battle second-guessing himself, and there always was the temptation as he looked over his section, crowded toward the middle of the forecastle mainly to be out of the way of the sailors on both sides of them. The marines were, at the moment, the bundles of bolts in the catapults: weapons, waiting to be used.
Soon. It would be soon.
Holtz had finished checking his squad, and was sitting on the deck with his back braced against Denton's, endlessly stropping the edge of a knife against the well-worn spot on the sleeve of his boarding-jacket. He seemed to be utterly immersed in the task, but to Tucker that just made him look as nervous as if Holtz had been, like Bartles, constantly looking back and forth, peering at everything like a rabbit trying to decide if it was safe to emerge from his hidey-hole.
Tucker didn't blame him for being nervous, for all the usual reasons, and more. He had promoted Holtz to corporal after Erikson's death, even though there were several privates who were senior, and even trusty old Fotheringay had disagreed, in the same blunt terms that had burned Tucker's ears when he was a new lieutenant and Fotheringay his batman—although, as always, in private. Fotheringay was now the company's sergeant, but he had never stopped looking after Tucker, and even slipped and called him "Lieutenant" every once in a while, when he was particularly aggrieved, as he had been this time.
But you had to go with your instincts and judgment in this bloody business, and while Tucker couldn't have exactly said why, he thought that Holtz was just a touch better for the spot than Fitzhugh or Kelly or Williamson, and that was that.
The time before contact was a time to relax. If Tucker couldn't really relax—and he couldn't, of course; the muscles in the back of his neck were so tight that it hurt to move—it was important that he be seen to relax. Nervousness was contagious, fear more so, and panic most of all—the commander of Serenity's marines had no desire to infect his men with his own shortcomings.
Moving easily across the rolling deck, he walked over toward one of the mangonel firepots, noting with some relief that, at least this time, the idiots hadn't overfilled the bubbling vat, and that the heavy potmetal lids were lashed to stanchions nearby.
It'd be safe to borrow some fire; he reached for the pipe stuck into his belt, intending to light it with a straw—his first captain, back when he was a lieutenant, had always smoked before battle, and it had always looked reassuring—but he felt his fingers tremble, and stopped himself. Pity; he really wanted a smoke about now.
So he tamped the tobacco down, hard, with his thumb, and stowed his pipe in the pouch laced into the inside of his cuirass for just that purpose, then hooked his thumbs in his harness belt and continued his walk across the foredeck, pretending to be supervising the corporals as they checked the men's gear.
He didn't have to intervene; his marines knew what they were doing, and he affected not to see the way that Nicol gave Wetterling a firm cuff across the back of the head, and then insisted on retying Wetterling's leather himself—accompanied by more than a few oaths and more cuffing—with the proper knots that could be released by a sudden jerk on the ball knots at the end of the thongs, at least half the time.
Armor was cheap. Working through the night with his knives and awls and dobbles, the Navy armorer could make a new cuirass in about a day's work. It took much longer than that to turn a landsman into a marine, although there were no landsmen among the marines on the Serenity—the marine commander of the chase ship got his pick among the volunteers, and the better food probably had as much to do with it as did better prize shares; it would be a bit much to expect marine privates to look beyond their next meal.
Unsurprisingly, fat Fotheringay waddled over to check Nicol's checking, and then went for'ard to where Holtz was waiting with his squad, carefully looking over Holtz's squad while pretending to chat with Holtz, going to far as to check the no-doubt shaving-sharp edge on Holtz's knife.
Tucker smiled. The edge of an oversharpened knife would break about as often as it would cut, and an oversharpened tip was even more delicate, but you could, if necessary, shove a snap-tipped knife into an enemy's face or chest, something Tucker knew from personal experience.
Nicol, of course, had been right—about half of the marines who went into the water would be able to release their armor and strip off their boarding clothes to make it to the rope ladders, but half was much better than none. For some reason, the fatter the man was, the better chances he had of making it back to the surface—Fotheringay had gone overboard three times that Tucker knew of, and had bobbed up like a chubby cork each time.
Leather armor wouldn't even slow a crossbow bolt, but it would turn a sword's edge reliably, which was the whole purpose of it, after all. Of course, if one of the marines went over the side—and while Tucker had heard of a boarding where that didn't happen, he believed they were just sea stories, as he'd never seen one—the combination of the armor and the waterlogged padding attached to the body-side of it would sink him just about as effectively as if it were plate armor, unless he managed to release it, and Tucker preferred to avoid losing any more men than necessary.
Wetterling was obviously of the opinion that he was sufficiently strong that nobody and nothing could force him over the side, but it wasn't his choice—it was Captain Michael Tucker's, after all, and it was Corporal Flem Nicol's job to see that Tucker's orders were followed to the letter.
Nicol was much less good about enforcing Tucker's orders against gambling, but since Tucker didn't officially know about that, he didn't have to do anything about it officially at all, and didn't bother doing more than telling Fotheringay to keep a quiet eye on it, so it didn't get out of hand.
Some hypocrisy was a necessary part of command. Men who were about to go into battle tended not to think about the long term, but their commander did, and having some private owe a year's pay to another one—or, worse, to a corporal—was bad for morale. Too easy to miss a half step at the wrong moment, and never mind the possibility of outright murder under cover of battle.
Tucker forced himself not to fidget with his own gear. It wouldn't be long now; the pirate ship was less than half a mile off the starboard bow, and the Serenity was closing fast, coming in from upwind.
A stern chase wouldn't have been to Rafferty or Serenity's advantage, and Captain Rafferty had avoided it as carefully as he could, something that Tucker approved of, although the commander of the Serenity's marines would no more have thought of offering Rafferty an unsolicited opinion on matters of seamanship than Tucker would have asked the captain's opinion on matters involving what do when—and it was when, he sincerely hoped, not if—Serenity closed with the pirate.
Which would be soon. The Serry had apparently been built with piracy in mind—but from the other side; it wasn't built for chasing down and taking other ships, not like the Fairchild and the Buffalo, the flagship, such as it was, of the pocket squadron. The Serry in fact was a prize ship that had been captured several years before in these same waters, or hereabouts.
Pirates had some of the same needs that those who pursued them had; the Serry was built along reasonably fleet lines, and faster than she looked, as though she was trying to live down her previous incarnation as a pirate ship.
He more felt than saw Finnerty walk up from behind to stand beside him. Finnerty had presumably finished his inspection of his own section on the raised poop deck and, as usual, had made his way forward to have a few final words with Tucker.
There would be no chance for any words once it all started—Finnerty would have his section to handle, just as Tucker did his. Realistically, once it all started, they were no longer captain and his lieutenant, but two effectively equal commanders.
Like Tucker, Finnerty was in full gear: leather cuirass and greaves, leaving his arms bare save for his thick but supple leather boarding-shirt that had him sweating just as much as everybody else. A brace of knives was strapped to each hip; a scabbarded issue sword, twin to the curved saber naked in his hand, was bound diagonally down his broad back. His steel helmet was in his free hand rather than on his head—donning it would be the last thing before he made his mad dash down the boarding ladder.
"Captain," he said, not saluting. Naval traditions were different—and, in Tucker's considered opinion, more often stupid than not. Marines on a boarding mission all dressed the same, and salutes while in boarding gear were every bit as forbidden as they were compulsory under other circumstances. The pirate ship was too far off the bow for any of the pirates to be able to pick out individuals by sight, less to take an aimed crossbow shot from the murderer's perch or the deck, much less to hit when shooting from the one rolling deck or a perch on a mast . . . but the habit of ingraining good habits was itself such a habit that Tucker only thought about it to give his mind something to chew on less frightening than the thought of what a pirate's blade—or worse, a bucketful of pitch—could do to him, and compared to pitch, a bolt was something to laugh at.
Let them shoot at the Navy officers if they wanted high-ranking targets.
That said, stupid as he thought it was, if the Serenity's captain actually wanted to prance about the quarterdeck in his full undress blues, his cocked hat making him a prominent target, Tucker had no problem with that, and the bright yellow-and-red ribbon striped across his chest provided a fine enough target. The captain didn't owe Tucker any money; the first officer was a perfectly good sailor, and Tucker made it a point not to get too chummy with the Naval officers anyway.
Prize shares were divided among the living, after all; the sea swallowed the dead, and if the living hoisted a few glasses to their memory, that was all that could be asked. Tucker had enough memories of his own without having to add unnecessarily to them.
"Lieutenant," Tucker said. "I'd ask if you're ready," he said with a forced smile, "but I wouldn't want to insult you." Finnerty was not the brightest officer who had served under Tucker, but he wasn't bad—just overly eager, and too quick to take offense, even if sensible enough not to act on it, at least while shipboard. Then again, they wouldn't always be shipboard, and the proscription against dueling only applied when under sail or under orders, not back in Birmingham, as far away as home seemed at the moment.
"I'm ready, and so is my section," Finnerty said. "Just checked with the surgeons—tables are cleared, the water's hot, and the fires out." The surgery was aft, two decks down from the poop deck, and making sure that it was ready was Finnerty's responsibility, just as making sure that everything was ready was Tucker's.
"Checked with, or checked out?" he asked, keeping his voice casual.
"I saw to it in person, sir." Finnerty's blank expression told Tucker that he didn't need to be told—a second time—that the way to see that something was done was to see that the thing was done.
"Good." Tucker didn't see fit to mention that Fotheringay had already been down to the surgery, and had reported to him just minutes before that that idiot of a chief surgeon hadn't yet doused the fires—then; Fotheringay had watched him do so with his own eyes. The fact that the chief surgeon carried a sublieutenant's rank was of no importance to Fotheringay any more than it was to Tucker—it was a Navy rank, after all.
Not that Tucker gave a tinker's damn about whether or not the thumb-fingered butchers burned themselves to ashes . . . after they had done what was needful for his marines.
The battle would be only a matter of minutes, but the screams of the wounded would go on for hours, or days. Tucker rubbed at the left side of his face, where a splash of burning pitch had barely missed his eyes off of Miskonos—or was it Teleria? It all ran together after a couple of years, and he had been at this for more than that.
He didn't give any last-minute orders to Finnerty; Finnerty knew his job, or at least the important part of it. Once the Serry came alongside of—more smashed into—the pirate, and the hook crew had sunk their irons, the ladders would go over, followed immediately by the marines.
Tucker would take the for'ard boarding party—for'ard in orientation to the Serry; locking nose to tail was hardly unknown, although unlikely for this encounter—while Finnerty would take the aft. First party to make it past the midpoint of the enemy ship and bury a knife in the mainmast would buy the beer when the Serry next made port, according to the tradition of the Fleet.
But that would have to wait.
For now, it was just a matter of waiting—waiting for the captain to maneuver close enough that the seamen on the mangonels could fire the pirate's sails while the crossbowmen and catapulters would pick off as many pirates as they could—damned few, usually—then waiting until the captain came abreast of the pirate long enough for the crew to fix the boarding irons, and then it would begin, at least it would begin for Tucker and the marines. If the pirate had been a bigger ship, they might well have had to simply hold off a desperate counterattack while the slower Fairchild closed, along with its larger complement of marines, but Tucker both thought that his company could handle a ship this size by itself, and had no particular desire to share the prize money with Colonel O'Neill and his men on the Fairy.
Bad enough to have to share far too much of it with Rafferty and his crew, for doing little more than bringing the marines to where they could do their own job.
Finnerty nodded, as though he was reading his commander's thoughts. "Figure maybe forty, sixty 'rats?"
"Shouldn't be much more. Could easily be half that." The pirate ship couldn't carry many more, not and keep enough hold space for supplies going out and booty coming back.
It all depended on what the pirates had been planning on hitting. This far east, the odds were it was fishing villages along the Kargizian coastline. Southwestern Turkee was, by and large, of little interest to the Balakaziri, being far more concerned, by and large, with seeing exactly what position they should take for convenient buggering by the Byzantines, who, even these days could have rolled over them but for the convenience of having Balakazistan as something between a state-as-catamite and a largely theoretical buffer against the Northern Caliphate. Nothing much to admire about the Balakaziri.
"Well, at least this lot hasn't hoisted the Scimitar and Star."
"There is that."
Absent unusual circumstances or orders to the contrary, a pirate crew was executed, man by man, on the spot. Crown and Dar generally left each others' ships alone, even in contested waters, and gave each others' naval squadrons a wide berth these days, stopping flagged ships only to make sure that they were what they said they were, and perhaps engage in a little unofficial trade between captains, navy or merchant.
Every once in a while, though, some idiot of a pirate captain or collective idiot of a pirate crew, particularly in waters close to the Dar, would reinvent the clever idea of raising the Scimitar and Star, sometimes with an emirate pennant below it.
Tucker hated that.
Them doing that meant that they would have to try to take some prisoners, to be turned over to the Dar in some trucal port, and while Tucker wasn't a squeamish man by any means—a life in the marines wasn't for those who couldn't take blood and screaming—he didn't like to think what the experienced torturers of the Commission for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue would do to somebody who they believed had defiled the flag of the Dar al-Islam.
"Be interesting to see what cargo they have," Finnerty said. "Silks? Gold? Women?"
Tucker suppressed his own irritation. Granted, he himself had been daydreaming about what he could do with his prize share, but he wanted Finnerty to put his mind on the job that was shortly to be at hand.
Still . . .
A marine officer didn't make much money from his pay, and had few of the chances for graft that left many a Navy master well-off when he finally hit the beach for good, but prime duty like pirate patrol could leave Tucker enough to buy land rights to a small plantation in western Victoria when he retired, perhaps bringing Fotheringay and a few of the corporals along to manage the transportees. He wouldn't be the first marine officer to do that, and any men who could take on hardened Seeproosh pirates had little to worry about from some cowed transportees—or poxy, half-starving Chirokee or Kriks—after all.
He could end up as a land baron, in practice if not officially—the chances of a baron's crest were basically nil—and it was an attractive thought, at that.
He was jolted from his deliberate daydreaming by a shout of "Let fire!" followed by the distinctive thumpwhoosh of a for'ard mangonel cutting loose, that was immediately followed by the thumpwhoosh of the other one, and a yowl from some poor navvy who had gotten a small splash of pitch.
The wooden balls, heavily wrapped in flaming, pitch-soaked cloth, arced high through the air, but fell well short and to port of the pirate's broad beam, about as Tucker would have expected.
Somebody was overly eager.
But the mangonel-bunnies were fast in reloading, four landsmen working the twin windlasses with manic speed under the bosun's shouts urging them to even greater speed, while more experienced sailors stood by with other balls already pitched, and it was only a few seconds before another pair were arcing high through the air—
Only to bracket the pirate, splashing uselessly into the water.
"Clear, damn you, clear," the bosun on the bow catapult shouted, as some idiot of a landsman mangonel-bunny hadn't vacated the space between the two mangonels quickly enough for his taste, and for his shot, and he had to wait until the rise and fall of the bow suited his aim—aiming a catapult was far more art than science—until the moment was, so he thought, right, and he smashed his foot down, hard, on the release arm, sending the bundle of crude bolts whizzing on its way.
Most of the pattern arced well over the pirate—the bosun had either been rushed, or just plain unlucky—and some tore uselessly through the top of the mainsail, but a body falling from the crow's nest showed that at least one of the dozens of bolts had found flesh, pointless though it was to take out the pirate's lookout at this point.
Well, no harm done; the lookout would have to be taken out anyway.
The pirate turned toward the wind, trading off speed for angle away, but Rafferty had apparently been anticipating that, and the bow of the Serenity swung about, well past the wind. Tucker couldn't see the Fairy or the Buff from his vantage point, but he had no doubt that the Fairchild was moving to cut off that possibility, as well, although he hoped it wouldn't come to that, just as he was sure that Colonel O'Neill on the Buff and McPhee on the Fairy were hoping that the pirate would escape the Serry and fall to them.
Which seemed unlikely, but not impossible. Yes, the lateen-rigged felluca could sail closer to the wind than the square-rigged Serry could, of course, but unless the wind changed dramatically, pointing not quite into the wind was suicidal—that was why the Fairchild and the Buffalo waited downwind; it wasn't an accident that the smaller, faster Serry had sailed downwind past the pirate before coming about and turning back to close the trap around the pirate's unwashed neck.
The sublieutenant and middies officering the starboard mangonel crews had either anticipated that, or more likely had heard a warning that Tucker hadn't paid any attention to; as the ship came about, the starboard battery fired in unison, six flaming balls arcing high through the sky, and—
"Yes!"
Tucker didn't see where the others had gone, but one flaming ball caught the mainsail squarely, and wetted or not, the sail began to burn. The pirate started to heel over—perhaps one of the others had burned the helmsman?—and Rafferty responded immediately by turning to starboard to give the port mangonels a chance to fire, the Serenity maneuvering quickly and nimbly, as though the insensate wood of the ship smelled blood in the same way and with the same hearty appetite that her crew did, the same way that had Tucker's heart beating painfully hard in his chest as the Serry moved in for the kill.
Fotheringay walked up beside him, and gave the slightest of nods. He already had his helmet on, the shortened boarding pike that he preferred as a personal weapon clutched in one thick hand.
Broad as a lorry, the top of his helmeted head barely reaching Tucker's chin, Fotheringay was a preposterously ugly man. His thick nose had been broken enough times that it was now permanently flattened against his face, under his thick brows. Despite the earholes, his steel helmet hid where a Saracen had bitten off his left ear, back in that mess on the Barbary, and if his thick, battered lips had parted when he smiled—they didn't—they would have showed that he'd long since lost all of his forward teeth, leaving him with a lisp; Fotheringay couldn't even manage hardtack unless he soaked it in something—rum, usually, off-duty; and water on.
"Shouldn't be too long now, Cap'n," he said.
It's time for you to issue the ready order, he meant, and a fair enough comment, with the Serry coming up fast on the pirate ship. Nosed into the wind, it meant that Finnerty's section would be going in through the smoke at the stern, while Tucker's would be in clear air. There were advantages and disadvantages in both directions, but there was no point in woolgathering over them, when it was too late to change places with Finnerty, even if he wanted to.
"Mr. Finnerty, take your place." He didn't wait for Finnerty's aye, aye, and the sound of boots running across the deck before turning to Fotheringay.
"At the ready," he said, quietly.
"Make ready," Fotheringay bellowed, and to a man, the marines buckled their helmets in place, then squatted and gripped at the grab bars that had been made fast to the deck cleats, while the pirate grew ever closer. Tucker handed his saber to Fotheringay, and quickly buckled his own helmet under his chin before retrieving the weapon.
As always, Tucker feared for one horrible moment, that the Serry would crash, bow-first, into the side of the pirate, most likely sinking them both, despite the reinforcement of the Serenity's bow. A four-hundred-ton ship was small as Fleet vessels went, and the Serry was more nimble than most, but it couldn't be flipped about like a cutter or longboat.
"You, too, Cap'n," Fotheringay said, pulling on Tucker's arm until he knelt down next to the nearest deck cleat, fastening his own hands on the bar next to the sergeant's.
Slowly, too slowly, the ship started to turn as the pirate fellucca came up fast and faster, so close that Tucker could hear the crackling of its burning sails, and choked for a moment from the smoke. Something had caught fire—he hoped it was something on the pirate, rather than the Serry.
Then came the loud, sickening crunch that seemed to go on forever as the deck of the Serry bucked and reared as it tried to throw Tucker from his purchase.
Halyards sang and the mizzenmast gave a deep thrumm that was quickly overpowered by a scream, followed by a sodden thump as a body slammed into the deck just feet away from where Tucker and the sergeant crouched—one of the mizzentopmen had apparently lost his purchase; not Tucker's problem, and probably not the surgeon's, either, for that matter—and the sounds of the thin chains clanketyclanketyclanking as they paid off of their well-greased spools in response to the port catapults firing off their gaffs.
"Heave now, heave," one of the bosuns shrilled unnecessarily, as the sailors on the chains were already doing just that. As usual, most of the gaffs hadn't found purchase, but three had, and sailors on other teams dropped their slack chains and raced across the deck to join those who were pulling and grunting and heaving the ships together, locking them into one unit.
"Boarding ladders," Tucker said.
"Boarding ladders," Fotheringay echoed, unnecessarily—each of the five-man teams had already retrieved its ladder the moment that the ship had stopped shuddering, and most of them not bothering with the quick-release knots when they already had a sword or knife in hand, some grunting as they moved the heavy iron ladders over to their deck cleats, quickly tying their ends in place.
The railing on both port and starboard had been removed for just this moment; the ladders smashed down onto the deck of the ship half a dozen feet below, smashing through railing and debris alike, one of them smashing down on a pirate, the spikes pinning him to the deck of his ship pointlessly, as the heavy weight had surely killed him anyway.
The more ladders the better, of course—give the pirates a narrow entry point to protect, and they could hold off the marines for minutes, perhaps longer.
Tucker tugged at the strap that held his helmet on his head; it held.
"Board," he said, quietly, the same way that the death sentence was usually passed.
"Boarders, over the side!" Fotheringay bellowed as he ran toward the nearest ladder. Holtz's squad was mostly over the side on the next ladder over before Fotheringay reached the closest one to him, his boarding pike held properly vertical, but switching to the horizontal the moment he reached the ladder; Tucker was just half a step behind him.
The rungs of the ladder were deliberately flat and wide, leaving only enough space between the boards for the easy insertion of a booted foot, and the flat soles of the marines' boarding boots had been designed to minimize the chance of any heel catch.
Some of the marines ran down the steep incline, more than a few falling forward as they did, but Fotheringay simply launched himself feet-first, sliding down onto the main deck of the pirate ship, with Tucker close behind him, feet widespread to get what purchase he could on the raised rails. The backplate of his boiled-leather armor smashed the padding beneath it hard against his back, not quite knocking the wind out of him, but he managed to gain his feet on the deck below, as the screams and shouts sounded from all around him.
A bare-chested pirate came out of nowhere to smash into Tucker's right side, but a blow from the butt of Fotheringay's pike stopped him for at least a moment, the slash from Tucker's heavy boarding saber opened him from shoulder to belly, and a kick from Tucker's heavy boot sent him sprawling away backward across the deck.
Tucker turned to square off with another one; the greasy bastard hesitated just a moment, and one of the marines—with the smoke Tucker couldn't tell who it was under the helmet, but it should have been one of Holtz's squad—economically planted a knife in the naked back with a cruel twist, then kicked him away, another of his knives already in his free hand. One hand for the ship and one for yourself was good advice, most of the time; a boarding wasn't most of the time.
The plan called for Holtz's squad to make their way as quickly as possible to the mainmast to cut the mainsail's halyards, both to drop the hoped-for burning sails on as many piratical heads as possible, but mainly because a boom swinging across the deck was likely to be more of a problem for marines whose helmets precluded any peripheral vision than for a gang of half-naked pirates.
But, as shouldn't have and didn't surprise Tucker, that hadn't happened yet, and while God may have looked out for saints and fools, He didn't seem to spend much time watching out for marines—the massive boom, propelled by a change of wind that filled its burning sheets, swept toward him, knocking pirates and marines about like skittles.
Tucker threw himself flat on the deck, but not quite quickly enough—the bottom of the boom clipped the top of his helmet, leaving his head and ears ringing, turning the world loud and bright, and then gray and distant, although for how long he was never quite sure.
He became aware that strong hands were gripping the collar of his cuirass, dragging him across the deck, and he lashed out with his empty hands—where had his knife and sword gone?—his fist impacting on hard leather.
"Easy, Cap'n," Fotheringay shouted, helping him to his feet. He slipped the hilt of Tucker's sword into his hand, while Tucker retrieved another one of his daggers from his hip. "You're not bleeding—you hurt?"
"No." Tucker shook his head. Doing that made him wince, and made the sparks dance behind his eyes again, but the sergeant wasn't asking if he was uncomfortable, but wounded.
Not this time, thankfully.
It was all ending almost as suddenly as it had, finally, begun. There was a bizarre symmetry to a ship-to-ship battle, where hours or days of pursuit and preparation would resolve themselves in but a few bloody minutes, leaving hours and days of clean-up after.
But it wasn't quite done, not yet. Holtz, his helmet gone, was at the mainmast, his saber already red with blood as he methodically walked among the bodies, spearing each economically while he moved to the next. You could never be sure that what appeared to be a dead man was, and—
One man screamed and tried to rise, but one of Holtz's squad—Tucker couldn't tell who it was because he still had his helmet on—kicked him in the head, hard, then held him down with a heavy boot until he stopped twitching, while Holtz kept thrusting into him, over and over, groaning with a passion that seemed almost sexual, or was perhaps more than almost so.
The sail was still smouldering in spots, but a couple of the marines had already taken buckets to it.
As usual, it had all been just a matter of a few moments. Training, preparation, the chase, and boarding—all of it had resolved itself into bodies silently bleeding on a deck now awash in red, and Tucker had missed most of it just by being knocked down for a few seconds.
A dozen enterprising sailors—or, at least, ones under an aggressive bosun's mate—had already made it down the ladders, and were busy detaching the boarding irons from whatever they had managed to sink themselves into, whether it was deck, mast, or pirate.
The only remaining fighting going on was where a single pirate had backed himself up and into the bow, holding off three marines, none of whom was eager to be the last man wounded or killed in the assault.
It was only a matter of time, and—
A crossbow bolt seemed to spring out of the pirate's bare chest. He screamed, a horrible, high-pitched womanlike scream, and dropped his wide-bladed scimitar to clutch at his chest, and one of the marines just lowered his helmet and butted him into the railing and over, rewarded by a distant splash.
Shouts and cries coming up through the hatch made it clear that there was still some fighting going on belowdecks. Tucker resheathed his knife to claw at the buckle of his helmet, shoving up and dropping the preposterously heavy thing to the deck; he stalked toward the hatchway, Fotheringay rushing up to join him, not quite barring his way with the butt of his pike.
"You in some sort of rush, Cap'n?" the old sergeant said. He had removed his helmet, too. His scraggly hair was plastered against his scalp with sweat, and the bloody wads of cloth jammed into his huge nostrils announced that he had, somehow, broken his nose yet again.
"See to the wounded," Tucker said, by way of answer. That was an order he should already have given, and—
"Done." Fotheringay's toothless smile was reassuring; he pointed toward the stern with the butt of the spear. "Lost five overboard from our section—don't know about the lieutenant's. Navy's already on it; boats are in the water. Another four down—that shitter at the bow was fast and lucky; he got Nicol through the throat." He shook his head and pointed toward where a limp form in marine leather had collapsed over a rack, then spat in the direction of the hatch.
"All of our people accounted for, I think; Lieutenant Finnerty's below, with most of his section; went down the aft hatch, slick as you please. You wouldn't want to rush down the ladder there and frighten one of Lieutenant Finnerty's babies, sir. Give 'em a few minutes to sort things out—I think that's the way of it."
It made sense, and, besides, he was hurting, and very, very tired.
"Very well," he said. He sat down heavily on a box and set his sword down beside him.
What he really wanted was a change of clothes, and a bath—he'd pissed himself again, unsurprisingly. The clothes would be easy to come by back on the Serenity, but anything other than a bucket bath would, of course, have to wait for port.
His fingers, seemingly of their own volition, had retrieved his pipe from its hidden pouch, and he was pleased to see that his fall hadn't snapped the stem. He stuck the stem in his mouth, finding the bitterness strangely comforting, and started looking about for the pirate's smudge pot.
Fotheringay, as he should have expected, had already anticipated him—the sergeant produced a tar-ended lighting stick, reached over behind Tucker, and cupped his free hand around the flame and bowl of the pipe.
The rich Victorian tobacco filled his lungs, and seemed to ease the pounding in his head.
The sounds from below had died out, as presumably had the pirates.
He was tempted to get to his feet and head down the hatch, but he could wait a few minutes without shaming himself.
Besides, some of Finnety's marines would, certainly, take a few small souvenirs—as would Tucker's, when they went below—and that was fine, as long as they didn't get too greedy. A few coins, here and there, were no problem, and unlikely to draw attention. He would, as usual, leave it to Fotheringay to make sure that it didn't go much beyond that, and to be sure that if it did, matters were adjusted before Tucker had to take any notice.
His job, in essence, was over for the moment. A captain in the marines didn't draw high pay, unless you calculated it by the few minutes—hours, at most—in his career that he actually was in the way of sharp steel and pointed wood, and then it was a princely sum indeed, despite how quickly and easily the money managed to spend itself.
The metal boarding ladders and deck irons that had welded the ships together had already been drawn up the Serry's side as a precautionary matter, and replaced with ordinary cable that could be severed by a few seamen with axes at a quick command, not that that was likely to be necessary. The pirate ship was in no apparent danger of sinking, although Tucker would not have been at all surprised if the Serry's deck hoist would shortly lower the spare pump to clear the bilge.
The sensible thing for a trapped pirate to do would be to smash the seacocks open, after all. Just as pirates preyed on coastdwellers, to one extent or another, the pirate patrol squadrons of the Navy preyed upon the pirates, and while you could never be sure what riches, if any, would be found in a pirate ship, a fast ship was itself a prize, and this would be the first time in a year and a half that Tucker had earned the boarding officer's shares.
The last blow against him that the pirate crew could have made was sinking the ship. Tucker certainly would have, if their situation had been reversed.
But Tucker didn't really expect a filthy, murdering pirate to take the long view of such things, although the thought amused him, and from his viewpoint, seated on a wooden box amid a scene of carnage, there was damnall to amuse him.
The thought of climbing up the ladder to the Serry had no appeal at the moment, even though he had no doubt that Finnerty could handle things here, for now. It was his job to remain aboard for the time being, and that was sufficient reason—although the cursed exhaustion that always followed a fight was in itself reason enough, as well.
Shouts and orders from the rail of the Serry drew his attention—the hoist had been deployed to lift the wounded marines aboard, as they shortly would any promising cargo, which would have to be carefully inventoried by the Serry's purser, under the supervision of the first lieutenant.
Tucker could let the bastard hacks of surgeons do what little they could for the wounded—and hope to hell that there were none of the all-too-common belly wounds that would kill a man slowly, painfully, over days, nine times out of ten.
There was no rush.
He would have to turn the ship over to Captain Rafferty, of course, as law and tradition demanded, for the captain or more likely the commodore to assign a prize crew to bring it into port under the watch of the Fairchild, while the Buff and Serry continued to try their luck.
The fire had rendered pirate's mainsail useless, of course, but the jib had just been dropped when the halyards had been cut, and was probably more or less intact. A few seamen working a few hours could refly the jib and probably improvise some sort of mainsail from the Buffalo's immense stores, even if the pirates didn't have a spare mainsail aboard. Turning the felluca into a proper sloop could wait for Malta, and the less work it needed, the larger the prize shares.
For the time being, though, the ship was Tucker's, and nobody else's. As always, he would take the chance to nose around the lower deck of the prize, just out of curiousity. No souvenirs for the commander beyond a trinket or two that would fit in his pouch—Hennessy, who served as his batsman when he wasn't seconding Nicol, snooped through his things, after all, and even sailors didn't gossip the way marines did when there wasn't anything better to do.
Feet thundered from the ladder below, and Richards emerged, his hands empty, apparently having left his sword and helmet below, once the fighting was over. That was something that Tucker would want to deal with later—a stiff word to Finnerty would suffice.
Richards took up a stiff brace.
"Lieutenant Finnerty's compliments, sir, and he said that you—he asks that you join him below at your convenience," Richards said.
He didn't salute, of course, even though the rule was pointless at the moment. He probably couldn't have—his right hand hung limp, bound up with a bloody strip of cloth, a twin to the one tied tightly on his left thigh, but his curiass was intact, which was all to the good, and likely would need only a good binding of his wounds and a light leeching.
"For'ard? Or to the stern?" Tucker asked, already rising. He was reaching for his sword when Fotheringay slipped it into his hand; his fingers closed reflexively around the familiar grips. It wasn't one of those wonderfully cursed swords that a well-born Navy officer might carry, but it had, once again, done a fair enough job, as Tucker himself had, come to think of it.
"He's at the stern, sir," Richards said. "We've some prisoners."
"Ours?" Why would that idiot Finnerty take prisoners? Tucker had just had that discussion with him, and—
"Theirs, sir. And there's something else, too, he said."
Tucker nodded, and turned to Fotheringay. "See that Richards gets to the surgeons," he said, walking away. Pour half a bottle of rum down the poor sod's throat, and the other half into the wound before the hacks sewed it up proper and then leeched him, and more than likely the arm could be saved—and the sooner the better, while Tucker was as far away from Richards's screams as he could be. Yet another reason not to hurry himself back to the Serry.
"Holtz," Fotheringay shouted, "yes, you, unless there's another Holtz wearing corporal's stripes. Get this man up to the surgeons, and quickly now." He hadn't fallen more than a step behind Tucker as he barked commands at Holtz, and deftly made his way over the bodies and debris to beat Tucker to the hatchway, giving one of his lipped smiles as he nodded to the captain, then preceded him down.
Tucker had to chuckle. Well, he hadn't explicitly ordered Fotheringay to escort Richards back to the Serenity, after all, and truth to tell, he thought, as he carefully descended down the rickety ladder, Tucker liked having the old sergeant with him.
He stood still and puffed on his pipe for a few moments, hoping to adjust his eyes to the relative darkness belowdecks.
There were no lanterns lit. Sunlight filtering through gaps in the planking of the deck above striped the deck, showing the usual after-fight abattoir, one band falling across a pair of unblinking dead eyes so brightly that it was a moment before Tucker could make out that it was a naked pirate, and not one of his marines. The eyes always looked the same.
He took a step forward—
Ow. Again, sparks jumped behind his eyes as pain shot through his aching head. "God's teeth!"
He hadn't seen the lantern hanging from the hook above, and the godforesaken thing had managed to impact directly on the already swelling bump on his head, just above the hairline.
"Begging your pardon, sir," Fotheringay said, making his way around Tucker. He clomped a few steps up the ladder—"McGarry—is there some other McGarry? Do any of your bloody lot even know your own cursed names?—yes, you, McGarry—get me a torch down here. No, a torch, not a lantern—they got bloody lanterns down here, you motherless son of a motherless idiot, but—just get me a bloody torch, and be quick about it."
Fotheringay hadn't quite finished his tirade when the torch was passed down to him. He quickly lit the lantern, then extinguished the torch in a pool of offal on the deck, and led Tucker down the companionway, idly poking at each and every one of the bodies with the tip of his pike before he passed.
Past the compartment below the main deck, the companionway leading toward the stern was narrow, and the deck had been set high, presumably to allow more cargo space below; Tucker had to duck under each thick beam, although the shorter Fotheringay managed to clear them without any difficulty.
Except for the bodies, the companionway was neater than most, which didn't bode well. A well-laden pirate would have its companionways filled with booty of various sorts, what with the holds already full, and the wisdom of keeping the topside deck as clear as possible.
Pity. He had half hoped that the pirate was coming back from raids, not heading out from wherever its port was. It was best, taking the overall view of things, to kill a pirate before he did any damage, but the shares were always higher when they caught a Seeproosh pirate heavily laden with booty.
Seeproosh was more of a general term than a specific location; a large number of the Seeproosh pirates had their home ports in the arc of land from Kurtulus to Iskenderun, protected as much as the island-dwellers were by the alliance between Seeproosh and the Eastern emirates, as well as the ongoing chaos in the Turkish south.
Doorless compartments lay on each side of the companionway, and Fotheringay stopped at each one to stick the lantern in, whether out of curiosity or caution Tucker wasn't sure, and didn't object to, since he shared both.
Nothing unusual, and while the ship would require an intensive cleaning before meeting even slack Navy standards, it wouldn't apparently require much more. It was all fairly ordinary: each bulkhead supported racks of bunks, each barely large enough for a man to slip in and out of, with barely enough room for a blanket underneath him; a few rough wooden tables, apparently solidly fixed to the deck, rather than chock-wedged into place.
One compartment was half filled with hogsheads. Tucker was curious if they were empty or full—and what they were filled with, if the latter was the case—but that could wait for later, or simply be skipped altogether. Still, it would be interesting to see if this particular pirate was utterly free of wine or rum, as some were, giving rise to suspicions that at least some of what were putatively Seeproosh pirate crews were in fact Musselmen under the supervision of one of their sharp-eyed priests, who would tolerate any sort of mistreatment of Nasrani captives or smoking of kheef, but would cut a man's hands or balls off for having a glass of wine or a mug of beer.
One door stood closed, and Fotheringay reached for the handle, but Tucker just grunted a no, and he moved along. Finnerty's men had already cleared the lower deck, and while Tucker was curious as to what was behind a door that Finnerty or his men had thought worth closing, he wasn't curious enough to make Finnerty wait.
Pickering, one of Finnerty's corporals, was waiting with simulated patience at the aft, just above the open trapdoor that led down into the hold.
"This way, sir," he said, preceding them.
The hatch directly above was still closed—it would have made things easier on everybody if the paired hatches had been opened, but the dripping of some dark fluid that Tucker was sure was blood explained why nobody had gotten around to it. The marines did the killing, but let the Navy handle the bodies afterward. Marines wallowed in enough blood as it was when they had to.
Let the sailors clean up; it gave them something useful to do for their quarter-shares.
He looked down. Quiet whimpering sounds trickled up through the dark hole, and Fotheringay stepped in front of him and stood there, his stubby legs widespread, blocking Tucker's path.
"Lieutenant?" he called down.
"Sergeant?" Finnerty called up. "I believe that I asked for the captain." He sounded irritated, but nothing more.
Fotheringay nodded—"He's right here, Lieutenant"—then stepped out of Tucker's way.
Tucker repressed a smile as he climbed down the ladder.
Too cautious by half, the old sergeant was, when it came to his old lieutenant's safety, but there was no point in trying to change the old sergeant's mind on such things, and, truth to tell, Tucker found it more charming than annoying, as useless as it was at the moment.
He hoped it had passed Finnerty's attention that Fotheringay never called him "sir," but always addressed him by his rank. Be kind of interesting to see how the two of them got on if Tucker was killed, but, then again, if Tucker was killed, he'd hardly be able to see it.
The hold was, surprisingly, compartmented; a broad bulkhead, running side-to-side, stood about halfway down the length of the ship, blocked off the rear, and distant clicking and clucking—clucking?—
Finnerty followed his glance, and nodded. "Rigged for slave-taking, in quantity, I think," he said. "Half full of livestock, at the moment—cages of chickens, and a couple of goats. Fair number of trade knives in the inventory—only a couple of barrels of rum, and those sealed."
"Maska'paia?" Tucker asked.
"Probably." He jerked his chin toward the door to his left. "What's in here is what's more interesting, to me—but watch yourself; they bite."
They?
"Well, at least one of them does; I don't suggest you test the others, sir." Finnerty knocked on the door. "Coming in," he said, taking the lantern from Pickering. He opened the door slowly, and Tucker followed him in.
In the dim light of the lantern, dull eyes widened in something that looked more like resignation than fear. Four young women, wearing nothing more than dirt and bruises, were chained to the far wall by the wrists. The blankets that served as their beds had been nailed to the deck, although one of the women had managed to tear part of it loose and had it arranged in her lap, in some sort of futile attempt at modesty, Tucker supposed.
Tucker started to take a step forward, but Finnerty held up a hand. "I'd take it slow, sir. Pickering tried to see to them, but the one on the left bit him, when he got too close. Still got some fight in them, surprisingly."
Fotheringay grunted. "Pirates supplied themselves with all the comforts of home. Wouldn't want to have to wait to dip their wicks until they hit the coast, eh?" He stepped in front of the two officers, and tried a few phrases in Arabic, Hellenic, Turkish, and a couple of other languages that Tucker couldn't quite place.
One of the women—girls, really—shook her head, but the others just stared blankly, as though they knew what was going to happen next.
Not that they were right. The marines had been at sea for only a couple of weeks, and it would take a lot longer for such filthy wretches to look good to even a sailor.
But it was more than that. There also was, as strange as the notion sometimes seemed, a matter of honor involved. Filthy wretches the women might be, but they had just been rescued by His Majesty's marines, and were not to be summarily mounted like the women of a sacked city—even if they had been the well-groomed beauties that they no doubt would become in the sea stories that the men would tell.
"Turkish, I think," Fotheringay said, squatting in front of the nearest one, who backed herself up even more tightly against the bulkhead.
"Merhaba," he said. "Adim Sergeant Fotheringay bey. Adinoz nedir? Su?" He mimed drinking.
She shook her head, then nodded.
"Su," she said quietly. "Lazczia."
"Lazczia?" His toothless smile was forced, as he shook his head. "No savvy Lasczia. Ekmek? Su?"
"Ismim Lazczia," she said, chains clanking as she touched a fist against her own chest. "Istiyorum su, bey. Istiyorum ekmek."
"Pickering—get some water," Tucker said. He didn't know much Turkish, but he could manage su. "Ekmek?"
"Bread, sir," Fotheringay said. " 'Lazczia' is her name—she hasn't introduced the others. Pickering, get them some tack, too—I don't think the ladies have exactly been overfed, of late."
"Aye, aye, sergeant." Pickering mounted the ladder.
"Wait." Tucker held up a hand. "And get the armorer from the Serry—tell him to bring some tools—we'll need to get them out of the chains." The wrenches used to fasten the chains in place were, no doubt, somewhere aboard the ship, but finding them would likely take more time. This way, it would be only a reliable few minutes to get them out.
"Aye, aye, sir."
Finnerty's face quirked into a questioning smile.
"Well, we'll have to turn them loose," Tucker said.
"Soon enough, certainly," Finnerty said, agreeing. "But for me, I'd just as soon not get bit for my troubles. Absent your orders to the contrary, I think feeding them first to gentle them down a bit is in order." His mouth quirked into a smile. "But I didn't send for you to admire a foursome of Turkish lovelies," he said. "What do you make of these?"
These were four long wooden boxes, each about the size of a coffin, lined up on the deck on the opposite side of the compartment where the women were chained. It wasn't just raw pine, but some darkish wood—mahogany, perhaps—oiled and polished to a high sheen.
"If I had to guess as to where the valuables are," Finnerty said, "I'd guess they'd be in these. No need for such a fancy box to keep trade knives or beads in. Something interesting, more'n likely—perhaps some coins or even jewels a pirate might want to take out and play with after . . . refreshing himself?"
Tucker was curious, and he wasn't sure that he would have waited for his commander before opening the boxes.
Then again, it would probably have been wise for him to have waited until he had a commissioned witness. Or, perhaps, called for a commissioned witness after opening a box of valuables and removing a few trifles for himself, which he more than half suspected was the case. Finnerty seemed just a little too pleased with himself.
Well, if a bit of petty theft was the worst thing that Tucker had to worry about with Finnerty, he'd be more than glad of the bargain.
The box lids had been pegged down, rather than being either left loose, or nailed down, which was curious indeed.
If Finnerty had already opened them, he wasn't about to reveal the hidden catch to Tucker.
"Is there a pry—"
"Got one here, sir." Fotheringay had found a rusty pry bar somewhere; he set it down on top of the box, then worked the end of a trade knife under the lid of the box, and carefully levered it up and down to create enough room to slip the tip of the bar underneath.
The box resisted; Fotheringay grunted, and pressed down harder.
"Doesn't seem want to give way, sir," he said.
Tucker joined him on the bar, and pushed down hard, putting all of the weight of his body behind it. For a moment, he wasn't sure if box lid wouldn't just shatter beneath the strain, but then the peg nearest the bar's tip broke loose with a loud chunk, and the others broke away as well, popping the lid right off and over onto the deck.
The women screamed.
Silently, a vague form in dark robes rose up, a curved sword in its hands, and floated across the deck toward Finnerty, while the other three box lids shattered, and three more vague shapes, all in dark robes, each with a sword held in a vague, ghostly hand, rose into the air, the hems of their robes barely brushing the deck.
For just a moment, Tucker denied the evidence of his eyes. Darklings.
Finnerty was faster than either Fotheringay or Tucker; he shoved Tucker out of the way even before Fotheringay could—
"God save the King!" he shouted, as he snatched a dagger in either hand and launched himself at the nearest of the darklings.
Good enough for last words.
The darkling seemed to gain size and substance as it fed upon the sodden earth that half filled the box—the casket—and it didn't bother with its sword as it enfolded Finnerty in a grasp that seemed almost tender or even loving, muffling Finnerty's screams in its ghostly breast.
Tucker wanted to run, he wanted to flee more than he had ever wanted anything, but he found himself turning his back on Finnerty's dying screams to grab Fotheringay by the collar of his cuirass and more throw than shove him through the door, ignoring the way that the sergeant's mouth was working. Tucker couldn't hear him, anyway; the pounding of his heart, and the rush of blood in his ears drowned out everything except the screams of the women chained in the hold, and Finnerty's dying screams.
He slammed the door shut, and dropped the bar.
"Call abandon ship and break open the seacocks," he shouted, although Fotheringay should have, would have, known to do that without being ordered. He would know enough to dash any lanterns he could find to the deck, as well.
"Wedge this hatch shut, but move it, man, move it."
It was only a matter of moments until the darklings overcame Tucker as they had Finnerty, and only seconds later that they would be swarming out the door and into the rest of the pirate ship, and from there up the side of the Serenity, killing as they went.
It might not stop there—could darklings sail the Serry or one of her boats? Were they intelligent and substantial enough to load their own cursed soil into a ship's boat?
It didn't matter if they weren't given the chance, and there was no point in waiting.
He dashed the lantern against the far bulkhead, on the off chance that the fire would slow the darklings down, at least for a few moments. It would stop here, with fire from the shattered lantern, and water flooding the damned pirate ship.
The women screamed even louder.
Fotheringay was still pounding on the door. "Dammit, Lieutenant, Lieutenant—open the door, Lieutenant, damn your eyes."
"Obey your orders, Sergeant," Tucker said, backing himself against the door.
He had dropped his pipe when he drew his own daggers, and almost smiled at the thought that if he stepped on it, he would break the stem. That didn't matter now.
Still, it would have been nice to have a last taste of tobacco and nicer to have a last drink of rum, he thought, as he turned to face them.
He considered for a moment the idea of launching himself at them, then decided that he would hold the door until they overcame him, all the better to give Fotheringay a few more seconds to do his duty, as the old sergeant surely would; and he thought about how it was a pity that he wouldn't be able to report that Finnerty's last words had been a credit to the Royal Marines, but knew that Fotheringay could, and would report, and would make up some for Tucker to have said; and he thought that perhaps his official last words would be every bit as good as Finnerty's. Maybe Fotheringay would think of something even better. Or maybe not.
And then there was no time for such thoughts, as all four of the darklings were upon him, and there was no room for thought in Alvin Tucker's mind save for the fervent prayer that death would be the end of pain.