Chapter 321: The Devil Takes His Tithe

The empire night lamps were still burning when the sky turned grey, and three pirate ships weighed anchor in the ocean-side cove to keep the appointment made at sunset.

The east wind came around the coral arm, sour and unhelpful, and every stretch of water the Fortune covered through the narrow coast was shorter than the last, while two British frigates waited offshore, having made their preparations in the dark.

Whitlock turned his slate toward the grey light. "The navy has seen fit to honor our appointment, Captain, and, I record this with some reluctance, to improve upon it. They are early. They are also, as you will observe, standing between us and the sea."

Bonnet kept both hands on the wheel. "Oh, how very punctual of them. Do make a note, Mister Whitlock, the Royal Navy, up before the sun to greet a gentleman caller."

The frigates came down toward the fleet with the breeze behind them and the rising sun at their backs. The pirate ships lay to leeward, with the coast behind them, which was about the worst place they could have chosen to be, and the enemy broadside fell short, raising white pillars of water.

"Fire as she bears, ye pox-ridden sons o’ bitches!" Mary roared.

The Fortune replied with its own broadside, flame spreading across her black side from bow to stern as a length of the frigate came apart in splinters.

A gun captain crooned, still holding his lanyard. "Gwan then, me lovelies. Thy’ve been sat there sulkin’ since sundown, fat an’ full as ticks. Now give her a kiss, a kiss to shame a bishop’s wife, an’ tell ’er Old Dad sent ’ee!"

More cannon fire came and went from both sides, the frigates and the three pirate ships, till a lucky shot came in low, striking the carriage amidships and taking the gun captain with it, along with two more gunners.

In the span of a blink, there was a gun, thunder, then there was kindling, and three sailors who had been laughing a breath earlier were lying across the planks, eviscerated in crumples of blood and flesh.

The splinters were still pattering down on the planks like a small, cruel rain, and Mary let her voice go as flat and cold as the deck under her boots. "Next crew up. Eyes on yer rammer, not on that. I said not on that. There’s nothing there ye can mend, so load."

Bonnet put the helm over and whispered to the ship.

"Do forgive us, madam. It grieves me, truly it does, but we really cannot stay."

The Fortune turned across the coast to retreat, as the plan involved only short skirmishes against the Royal Navy, and not a naval battle through the waters. While the auxiliary ships accompanied her, a shot struck the Lemon low aft and her leak, which had been an inconvenience until then, suddenly became her principal occupation.

Gil shouted across the water. "By heck! I’ll be damned an’ double-damned if she founders afore Michaelmas! I’ve nowt else to look forward to! Pump! Pump, tha idle, useless, slack-jawed sods! Put thi backs into it, or I’ll drown thee mesen’ an’ save t’ sea the bother!"

On the Fortune, Whitlock stopped two sailors who were carrying the gun captain below. The crew had wrapped him in a length of sailcloth, though one of his hands had slipped free and dragged against the deck.

"A moment, gentlemen. His name, if you please."

"Old Dad, Mister Whitlock, sir. Just Old Dad. Ain’t nobody never called him nuffink else."

Whitlock wrote it down without underlining it.

While the skirmish happened on the coast, beyond the pines, a thin pillar of brown smoke began to rise. It came from the nearest fishing village, which had no villagers or supplies, only its thatched roofs. The redcoats burned it regardless, and the scout watched from the mangrove roots until the entire settlement crumbled into ashes.

From there, and by noon, the redcoats had learned a few things during their expedition throughout the jungle.

Scouts went ahead of the army carrying poles, having discovered Beto’s pits the hard way, while the track was widened, a ditch spread along its side, and a boat cannon had been brought to the head of the formation.

By dusk, their sick tents had begun burying the redcoats who were hit by the little apple, the devious poison, with plenty more work ahead of it.

Then at the dead of the night, the militia skiffs put off through the channels.

The band reached the camp and found that the redcoats had strengthened their defenses considerably since their departure. The wall was green pine, kept wet by a bucket line, with stakes at the bottom of a deeper ditch.

Sentries stood in groups of three, and the lanterns hung behind them, so the light fell on the ground in front while the private’s eyes remained in darkness, with a boat cannon watching the shadowy gaps in the track.

Brian put a hand against one of the logs.

"She’ll not burn, lads, not for love nor money."

Carbón tipped his pot against it, and the embers vanished with a puff of steam. The old hunter crept to the edge of the light and let out a long, bubbling squeal like a hog.

The sergeant at the gap leaned on his musket and let out a sigh. "That’s the bloody hog again. I swear on my mother’s grave, that hog has got more stamina than the whole regiment. Boat cannon! Put one on that squeal, and be quick about it, I want my tea."

Perhaps an overreaction, perhaps a sensible decision, the small cannon turned its muzzle and fired at the darkness. Thunder flashed through the pines, and the grapeshot hit all in its path.

The shots caught the old hunter across the side and back, tearing through his clothes and cutting open several deep wounds. He fell hard against the roots, and the blood came quickly, darkening the earth beneath him.

"Hold, old man. Hold still for me."

Nearby, Quaco whispered.

"Do not move now, let me do the moving for the two of us. Quaco is coming. I come, I come."

He crouched below the light and managed to get a hand into the old man’s belt, but three pickets came out of the darkness, and one put a bayonet through Quaco, who clung to the redcoats desperately to buy enough time.

The thrust went into his belly. When he tried to pull himself forward, the soldier drove the bayonet in again, and Quaco caught the private’s coat with both hands. He held on even as his strength left him, his blood dripping down the earth.

While cries of pain spread through the pines, the remaining militia dragged the old hunter back. Quaco’s grip finally loosened, and the redcoats let him fall where he was.

Mateo called the owl twice, and in the hollow Isaiah checked by touch, then again.

"Twenty-nine."

He didn’t say that it was nearly enough. Dawn came grey over the water.

On the next morning, the breeze was fair and steady.

Bonnet weighed anchor an hour early, without showing a light. The fore topsail had been patched where the sloops had torn it, and Pike was at the braces, standing because sitting was still beyond him.

The three pirate ships took the windward side in the dark and came down at first light. Both sides had learned by now, and the fight went much as before, the broadside, a run to windward, and a navy that couldn’t get close enough to engage for a battle.

There was a sloop that slipped against the wind and took a rake from end to end. Her surviving crew were gathered along the deck, some holding rags against their wounds, staring at the torn rigging and the empty spaces where their companions had stood.

Whitlock’s slate gained a line as the sun climbed and the skiffs came ashore through the green.

Far inland, the redcoats track climbed a limestone ridge.

At its top stood a pine Brian had prepared, and he waited at its foot with his hand flat against the bark. The soldiers inspected the ground ahead with poles, a formation marched in behind them, marines and such, and four sailors at the rear carried a boat cannon slung between poles.

By the side, Beto’s hand closed on the boy’s shoulder, warm and slow. "Respira, Pip. Breathe, muchacho. In, and out. In, and out. Is only a tree, an angry tree, but only a tree. She falls on them. Not on you."

"Me knees is talkin’ again, Beto. Th’ ’ole ridge’ll ’ear ’em."

Brian watched the head of the formation reach the ridge’s summit.

"Now. Let her go, lads. Let the Lord’s tree have them."

The pine came down with a groan that spread across the ridge, falling across the head of the formation and taking the redcoats and the first rank of marines with it. The soldiers disappeared beneath the trunk, crushed outright and screaming beneath the weight.

Arrows came out of the bank, followed by a few hatchets, quick and ugly work.

Then the militia was gone.

The sergeant found his voice in the wreckage, blood on his cuff. "Form on the trees! Form on the bleeding trees, you lobster-backed lumps! How many more of you have to be flattened afore you learn the bloody lesson? Boat gun up! Up, up, up!"

The cannon fired into the ridge, its grapeshot tearing the leaves from a hundred trees, while the wounded were left calling beneath the fallen pine as the redcoats struggled to recover their formation.

A few more hours into the day and the sun was low, while the militia skiffs were waiting.

On that night, every band went in at once, the majority making enough noise in four languages to draw the redcoats to the tracks.

In the outskirts and shadows, near the powder tent, which stood well apart and had been tarred against the weather, Brian laid a hand on the canvas. "Tarred canvas, an’ them puttin’ their powder under it. God love ’em, she’ll go up like a bloody volcano."

Carbón tipped his embers into a fold, and the flame climbed the tar.

A picket finally saw him, black to the elbows in the light of his own fire, and put a bayonet through him. The blade caught Carbón beneath the ribs and he folded around it, his hands reaching instinctively for the wound, and fell against the tent as the fire continued to climb.

Brian took a scrap of black cotton from his belt and ran before the powder exploded.

The flash turned night into noon, and the thunder arrived a moment later, like the end of the world running slightly behind schedule. The tents flew apart, and every ship in the bay turned red from truck to waterline.

Redcoats who had been standing near the powder tent were nowhere to be found afterward.

Then the boat cannons spoke across the lit ground, and standing there became a poor choice. Grapeshot took Tib across the upper arm, tearing through the flesh and leaving the bone exposed, while a shot struck Pip in the shoulder.

Beto picked him up and run, Pip slung across his shoulders, his breath sawing in his chest, and still he found enough to talk, soft and rough. "Is only a ball, Pip. Only a ball, muchacho. Stay with Beto, the apple, the apple is slow. It takes the long road, it takes its time and says goodbye. This one is quick, quick ones we sew."

The boy’s head rested against his back, arm hung uselessly at his side. Beto could feel the blood soaking through his shirt, warm against his shoulder, but he kept running.

Mateo called the owl twice, and owls replied from the camp, the right sort and a new, fake sort too, because the redcoats had spent nights listening for them. No band knew which call belonged to whom anymore.

Then, from the mangrove edge, came a sharp note. Dickon had blown the little owl as badly, and every person recognized it at once.

The grapeshot found him, eviscerating his body, and only after Paco reached him on his knees.

Dickon lay on his back in the mangrove mud with the stars above him, and he grinned up at them as at old, slightly overdressed friends.

His voice was thin as wet paper, but the drawl was all there. "Dig it shallow, Paco, there’s a good lad. Thirty year I’ve dug deep fer other folk, an’ I’ve seen aplenty o’ deep holes. I’ll lie light, thank ’ee."

Paco looked down at him.

The shot had torn through Dickon’s torso, and there was no wound he could close with his hands, no pressure that would bring the blood back into him. He stayed kneeling beside him until the grin faded and the eyes stopped following the stars.

Then he took the bow from his hand.

In the hollow, Isaiah checked their numbers. "I do not round, and I do not hope. A count is exact, or else it is only a tale told to children. Nineteen."

More citizens hadn’t got up, and their names would have to wait until the cloths came in. The militia had burned the King’s powder and lit up the whole shore, and they could barely afford what it had warranted from them.

Back into Concordia, the wounded were brought up the streets, and Do?a Elena sat on the chapel step with a basket in her lap.

Each of the militia had left town with a square of undyed cotton wrapped around his body, knotted with a thread of his own.

The living brought their own home, and when a friend could reach a dead man’s body, he took the cloth from its belt and brought it back. That way Elena knew who was dead and who was merely late. A cloth that didn’t arrive was a name she could not close.

She laid them out on the step, the living with their knots turned up and the remaining with their knots turned down. Brian came last, holding a scrap of black cotton, and set it down without a word.

Then night turned into dawn, and around the town, the fortifications spread across the landward front.

Pirates held cutlasses, pistols and muskets, farmers held hoes, hunters held bows, boys held slings, Fenwick held a scythe on a pole, and Adrienne led the schoolhouse children up the ridge in a double line.

A drum thundered from the pines, too close.

The red swarm emerged from the trees, rank after rank, marching in step. News reached the chapel, and the bell that had been silent for days began to ring.

The Royal Navy stepped into Concordia, and the town stood to face them.