The Tiger’s Prey. Wilbur Smith
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aiming for the masts.’ The pirate had altered course fractionally, angling herself so that the Dowager’s masts presented themselves all in a row, like ninepins.
‘That’s a difficult target from this distance,’ the mate demurred.
As if to give him the lie, a crack sounded from above. All eyes turned upwards – just in time to see a tangle of wood and canvas plummeting towards them. Men threw themselves aside. Some were too slow. The mizzen topmast struck the helmsman and shattered his skull. The ship started paying off to leeward. The topsail settled over the man’s body like a shroud.
‘Cut it away,’ Inchbird shouted. ‘We must free the steering.’ Men ran with axes and started chopping at the shattered spars.
Another shot drowned his words, and Inchbird staggered in the disrupted air as the cannon ball flew over the deck, a foot in front of his face. He could feel his ship slowing as she came off the wind, slewing around. Her hull shivered; sails cracked and ropes snapped.
By the wheel, the crew had cut the sail free and were hauling it away. The canvas came away bright with the helmsman’s blood. Beneath it, the wheel lay in splinters where the spar had struck it. It would take hours to rig a replacement, and they did not have that time.
Off the port beam, the pirate was closing fast, bearing off to come alongside. So close now, he could see the men gathered on her deck. Some brandished their cutlasses aloft; others carried long, wicked pikes.
Inchbird gritted his teeth. ‘Stand by to repel boarders.’
The Fighting Cock’s helmsman brought her alongside the Dowager. The men aloft reefed her sails, while the rest of the pirates massed at her side, balanced on her gunwale and clinging to her stays and shrouds. The ships knocked and rocked as their yardarms touched. Only a few feet of open water separated them now.
Legrange leaped up onto the rail. This was almost too easy, he thought complacently. Looking down onto the merchant’s deck, he could see it was deserted. Her crew must be below, frantically trying to hide their valuables. A wasted effort: he’d soon have them screaming, begging to tell him where they’d hidden every last dollar.
He raised the speaking trumpet. ‘Strike your colours and prepare to receive boarders.’
His men jeered. Legrange ran his eye along the row of the merchant’s guns, and saw that all of them had been abandoned. They’d make a useful addition to the Cock’s arsenal. Or, more likely, he could refit the Dowager and add her to his flotilla. With two ships, all the oceans would be his. He grinned wolfishly at the thought.
A flash of colour caught his eye: an orange glow, like sunlight gleaming on metal near the breech of one of the guns. He peered at it. It wasn’t sunlight. It was the flame of a burning slow-match worming its way into the touchhole. Quickly he scanned the row of cannons and his blood froze. Every gun was loaded and shotted, and aimed at him.
‘Get down,’ he bellowed. The unmanned guns crashed out a point-blank broadside, grape shot laced with carpenter’s nails that pulverized the bulwarks and cut down the front rank of his men in a chaos of blood and pulped human flesh. A cloud of splinters tore through the line of men standing close behind and threw them to the deck. The awful silence that followed was immediately shattered as the Dowager’s crew poured out of her hatches and companionway armed with muskets and pistols, clambering up on her quarterdeck to fire down on the survivors of the carnage. As quickly as the pirates clambered to their feet, musket balls knocked them down again. The Dowager’s crew cheered as the ships began to drift apart.
Legrange’s prize was slipping away. But the Fighting Cock had carried over two hundred men; the Dowager, even at full strength, had fewer than a hundred. For all the losses the pirates had suffered, they still outnumbered their prey. All they needed was courage.
With a howl of pure fury, Legrange grabbed the dangling end of a rope that had come loose in the broadside. Wrapping it around his wrist, pistol in his free hand, he clambered back onto the rail.
‘No quarter,’ he roared. He swung across the open water, through the smoke that still hung in the air, and landed on the Dowager’s deck. One of the sailors, seeing him coming, dropped his spent musket and reached for a sword. Legrange shot him point-blank in the face, discarded the pistol and drew another from his belt. Another sailor stumbled towards him. Legrange shot him too, then drew his sword.
All along the Dowager’s side, grappling irons and bare feet thudded onto the deck as Legrange’s men followed him aboard. Splashed with the blood and guts of their shipmates, they swung out of the smoke that choked the air. The Dowager’s crew was almost immediately overwhelmed. Even after the broadside, the pirates still heavily outnumbered them – and they were in a savage mood for what had just overtaken the rest of their crew. One by one, the Dowager’s crew were cut down, until only a small knot remained herded below on the poop deck.
Some of the pirates, seeing the battle won, ran below to begin the looting. The rest surrounded the Dowager’s men at the stern, prodding them with their cutlasses but making no effort to kill them. They knew their captain would want to take his time, to exact slow revenge for the defiance they had showed in resisting.
Legrange strode across the bloody deck, stepping over the corpses of the fallen. ‘Which of you is the captain?’ he demanded.
Inchbird shuffled forward. Blood soaked his shirt from a cut on his arm. ‘Josiah Inchbird. I am the master.’
Grabbing his shoulder, Legrange pulled him forward and threw him to the deck. ‘You should have surrendered,’ he hissed. ‘You made us work for it. You should not have done that.’
He pulled the knife from his belt and pressed the blade against Inchbird’s cheek. ‘I’m going to skin you alive, and then I’ll feed your guts to the sharks while you watch them eat.’
The men around him laughed. Inchbird squirmed and pleaded.
‘We’ve spices and calicos from Madras in the hold, and pepper in the ballast. Take it all.’
Legrange leaned closer. ‘Oh, I will, you can be sure of that. I’ll pull your ship apart, every plank and bulkhead, and find every last dollar you’ve hidden. But I’m not going to punish you for that, but for your defiance and for what you did to my men.’
A commotion from the companionway distracted him. He turned around, as two of his men emerged from below decks dragging a prisoner between them. The men at the stern hooted and whistled as they saw it was a woman, clutching the neck of her dress where it had been torn open. They dropped her on her knees in front of Legrange.
‘We found her in the captain’s cabin, trying to hide these.’ One of the pirates opened his palm and let a handful of gold coins spill over the deck. The others whistled and cheered.
Legrange cupped her chin in his hands and lifted her face to force her to look at him. Dark eyes stared back at him, brimming with hatred and defiance. He’d soon change that, and he grinned happily at the thought.
‘Fetch me the brazier,’ he ordered. He pulled her up by her hair so she was forced to stand, then gave her a hefty shove. She stumbled backwards, tripped on a rope and sprawled on her back. Before she could move, four of the pirates pounced, spread-eagling her arms and legs and holding them down.
Legrange stepped over her. He slit open her skirts with the blade of his sword and his men spread them apart. The woman twisted and writhed, but the men had her pinned tight. Legrange pulled the skirts further apart, exposing her creamy thighs, and the dark tuft of hair where they met. The men whooped and cheered.
He glanced at Inchbird. ‘Is she your wife? Your doxy?’
‘A passenger,’ grunted Inchbird. ‘Let her go, please sir.’
‘That will depend on the ride she gives me.’
Two men came with a brazier on an iron tripod. The coals glowed dully. He stirred them with the point