The Moghul Part 6

d.a.m.n. A lucky shot by some Lisbon recruit. He seized a handful of coa.r.s.e salt from a bucket by the binnacle and pressed it against the blood. A flash of pain pa.s.sed briefly through his consciousness and then was forgotten. The _Discovery's _stern had crossed the wind. There was no time to lose. He moved down the companionway to again shout orders to Malloyre on the gun deck. "Set for the fo'c'sle and rigging.

Fire as your guns bear."

The _Bon Ventura_ still lay immobile, so unexpected had been the broadside. But a boarding party of Portuguese infantry was poised on the galleon's forecastle superstructure, armed with swords and pikes, ready to fling grapples and swing aboard the frigate. The Portuguese had watched in helpless amazement as the _Discovery_ completely came about and again was broadside. Suddenly the captain of the infantry realized what was in store and yelled frantically at his men to take cover. But his last command was lost in the roar of the _Discovery's _guns.

This time flames and smoke erupted from the _Discovery's _portside battery, but now it spewed knife-edged chunks of metal and twisting crossbars. Again the screams came first, as the musketmen and infantry on the fo'c'sle were swept across the decks in the deadly rain.

Crossbars chewed through the galleon's mainsail, parting it into two flapping remnants, while the rigging on the foremast was blown by the boards, tangling and taking with it a party of musketmen stationed in the foretop. Now the galleon bobbed helpless in the water, as the last seamen remaining on the shrouds plunged for the decks and safety.

"When you're ready, Mackintosh."

The quartermaster signaled the bosun, and a line of

seamen along the port gunwales touched musket arrows to the lighted linstock and took aim. Streaks of flame forked into the tattered rigging of the _Bon Ventura_, and in moments her canvas billowed red.

Again the Portuguese were caught unaware, and only a few manned water buckets to extinguish the burning shreds of canvas drifting to the deck.

They were almost alongside now, but no Portuguese infantry would pour down the side of the forecastle onto their decks. The galleon's decks were a hemorrhage of the wounded and dying.

"By Jesus, 'tis a sight for English eyes." Edward Malloyre's blackened face, streaked with sweat, bobbed up through the hatch over the gun deck, and he surveyed the wreckage of the _Bon Ventura_. "Had to give 'er a look, Cap'n. See if my lads earn'd their biscuit." He beamed with open pride.

"Malloyre, how does it stand below decks?" Hawksworth yelled from the quarterdeck.

"Starboard side's swabbed out. How shall we load 'em, sir?" Malloyre leaned backward to gain a better look at the galleon, which now towered above them.

"Round shot, and run them out fast as you can."

"Aye, sir. An' no more close quarters if you please. Ne'er want to be this close to one o' the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds again." Malloyre started to retreat through the hatch, but then he turned, paused for a second, and yelled at Hawksworth. "Beggin' your pardon, Cap'n. I knew all along 'twas best to pull alongside and lay 'em wi' crossbar. Just wanted to give the lads a bit o' a scare. Keep 'em jumpin'."

Hawksworth waved his hand and watched as Malloyre's pudgy frame dropped through the gun-deck hatch like a rabbit diving for its warren.

Mackintosh was standing on the main deck, his tangled red mane blackened with smoke, watching as the _Discovery _drifted slowly toward the side of the bobbing galleon. Then, when they were only feet away, he signaled the bosun, and a line of English seamen lit the waiting fuses and began to loft clay powder pots across the waist of the _Bon Ventura_, now almost above their heads. When they had finished, he pa.s.sed orders and the _Discovery _began to pull away, before her sails could ignite. Then one by one the powder pots started to explode, spewing burning sulphur over the Portuguese vessel's decks.

Hawksworth watched the carnage, and asked himself if he had been right to do what he'd done. They'd have sunk us. Cut down the men and taken the officers and merchants to a Goa prison. And then what? We couldn't have sunk them with cannon in a week. The only choice was fire.

Then he turned to see the _St. Sebastian _making toward them. Her cannon were already run out, and at any moment she would start coming about for a broadside. Again he felt the throb in his thigh, and it triggered a wave of fear that swept upward from his stomach. The Indian pilot stood next to him, also watching the approaching galleon.

"I have seen a miracle, Captain. Allah the Compa.s.sionate has watched over you today." The pilot's face showed none of the strain of battle.

And his clothes were still spotless, oddly immune from the oily smoke that blackened all the English seamen. "But I fear there cannot be two miracles on the same morning. You are about to pay for your fortune.

Perhaps there is still time to strike your colors and save the lives of your men."

"We surrender now and we'll rot in a Goa prison forever. Or be pulled apart on the _strappado_." Hawksworth glared back. "And I seem to recall the Quran says 'Do not falter when you've gained the upper hand.'"

"You do not have the upper hand, my Captain, and the Holy Quran speaks only of those who trust in Allah, the Merciful. . . ." His voice trailed off as he turned to stare at Hawksworth. "It is not common for a _feringhi_ to know the Holy Quran. How is it you--?"

"I just spent two years in a Turkish prison, and I heard little else."

Hawksworth turned and was testing the wind, weighing his options. The _St. Sebastian _was almost on them. Her cannon were already run out, and at any moment she would start coming about for a broadside. He could still hear the trucks of the cannon below decks, as the starboard battery was being run out, and he knew the portside crews were only now beginning to swab the last glowing shreds of metal from the cannon barrels.

Good G.o.d, there's no time to set the ordnance. They'll blow us to h.e.l.l.

He deliberated for a long moment, weighing his options. As he watched, the _St. Sebastian _began to shorten sail, preparing to come about and fire. Only minutes remained. Then he noticed that the wind on the burning _Bon Ventura's _superstructure was drifting her in the direction of the approaching _St. Sebastian_, and he hit on another gamble. They've shortened sail in order to come about, which means they're vulnerable. Now if I can make them try to take their bow across the wind, with their sails shortened . . .

"Mackintosh, take her hard about! Set the courses for a port tack."

Once again the _Discovery_ heeled in the water, her stern deftly crossing the wind, and then she was back under full sail, still to windward of the burning galleon. The sudden tack had left the burning _Bon Ventura _directly between the English frigate and the approaching galleon. The _Discovery _pulled away, keeping the wind, forcing the galleon to tack also if she would engage them. Hawksworth watched, holding his breath as Portuguese seamen began to man the sheets, bringing the _St. Sebastian's _bow into the wind.

It was fatal. The approaching galleon had shortened too much sail in preparation to come about for the broadside, and now she lacked the momentum to cross the wind. Instead the sluggish, top-heavy wars.h.i.+p hung in stays, her sails slack, her bulky bow fighting the wind, refusing to pay off onto the opposite tack. All the while the _Bon Ventura_ was drifting inexorably toward her, flaming. I was right, Hawksworth thought. She didn't have the speed to bring her bow around.

With his gla.s.s he watched the galleon's captain order her back to the original tack. But time had run out.

Blinding explosions suddenly illuminated the gunports of the burning _Bon Ventura_, as powder barrels on the gun decks ignited, first the upper and then the lower. In only moments the fire found the powder room aft of the orlop deck, and as the English seamen looked on spellbound the galleon seemed to erupt in a single cloud of fire, rocketing burning timbers and spars across the sea's surface. The mainmast, flaming like a giant taper, snapped and heaved slowly into the fo'c'sle. Then the superstructure on the stern folded and dropped through the main deck, throwing a plume of sparks high into the morning air.

Although the _St. Sebastian _had righted herself, she still had not regained speed, for now the sails had lost their luff and sagged to leeward. Why isn't she underway, Hawksworth asked himself, surely she'll circle and engage us? He looked again with the gla.s.s and the reason became clear. The Portuguese crewmen on the _St. Sebastian_ had begun throwing themselves into the sea, terrified at the sight of the _Bon Ventura's _blazing hull drifting slowly across their bow. The wind had freshened again and was pus.h.i.+ng the burning galleon rapidly now.

The blaze had become an inferno, fueled by casks of coconut oil stored below decks on the galleon, and Hawksworth involuntarily s.h.i.+elded his eyes and face from the heat that, even at their distance, seared the _Discovery_. As he watched, the drifting _Bon Ventura _suddenly lurched crazily sideways, and then came the sound of a coa.r.s.e, grinding impact, as her burning timbers sprayed across the decks of the _St. Sebastian_.

In moments the second galleon was also an abandoned inferno, her crew long since afloat in the safety of the sea, clinging to debris and making for sh.o.r.e.

"Allah has been merciful twice to you in one morning, Captain. I had never before known the extent of His bounty. You are a man most fortunate." The pilot's words, spoken softly and with p.r.o.nounced gravity, were almost drowned in the cheers that engulfed the decks and rigging of the _Discovery_.

"The battle's just begun. Boarding parties are at the _Resolve_, and there are two more galleons." Hawksworth reached for the gla.s.s by the binnacle.

"No, Captain, I doubt very much the Portuguese will trouble you further. Your luck has been too exceptional. But they will return another day." The pilot squinted toward the sh.o.r.e, as though confirming something he knew should be there.

Hawksworth trained his gla.s.s on the two galleons that still held the _Resolve_ pinned in the shallows. They were heeling about, preparing to run southward on the wind under full press of sail. He also realized their longboats had been abandoned. Some were following futilely after the retreating galleons, while others were already rowing toward the river mouth. The English frigate had been forgotten. Then he noted that although pennants no longer flew from the yardarms of the galleons, the large, unnamed vessel had run out a brilliant red ensign on her p.o.o.p staff. He studied it carefully, then turned to the pilot, extending the gla.s.s.

"Take a look and tell me what the colors are on the large man-of-war.

I've never seen them before."

The pilot waved away the telescope with a smile. "I need no Christian device to tell you that. We all know it. With all your fortune, you have failed to understand the most important thing that happened today."

"And what is that?"

"Those are the colors of the Viceroy of Goa, flown only when he is aboard his flags.h.i.+p. You have humiliated him today. The colors speak his defiance. His promise to you."

As the pilot spoke, Mackintosh came bounding up the companionway to the quarterdeck, his soot-covered face beaming. "What a bleedin' day! _What _a bleedin' day!" Then his eyes dimmed for an instant. "But a man'd be called a liar who told the story."

"How many dead and wounded, Mackintosh?"

"Two maintopmen killed by musket fire. And a bosun's mate took a splinter in the side, very bad, when the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds laid us wi' the first bowchasers. A few other lads took musket fire, but the surgeon'll sew 'em up fine."

"Then break out the last keg of brandy. And see that Malloyre's men get the first tot. . . but don't forget to send a tankard to the quarterdeck."

Mackintosh broke an appreciative grin and headed down the companionway ladder. The sun was baking the decks now, and a swarm of locusts had appeared from nowhere to buzz about the maintop. The wind was beginning to slacken in the heat, and silence slowly settled over the _Discovery_. Hawksworth turned his gla.s.s one last time to the large galleon. He could still make out the ensign over the crests of surf, blood red in the sun.

CHAPTER THREE

The bells sounded ending the afternoon watch and calling the first dog watch. Only four hours since noon, but already the morning's carnage seemed a memory from a distant lifetime. Sultry tropic air, motionless and stifling, immersed the _Discovery_ as the gaunt-faced seamen labored to finish securing the mast of the pinnace. Mackintosh had ordered the pinnace's sail unrolled on deck, and as he inspected the st.i.tches for rot he alternately reviled the men, the heat, the Company.

Hawksworth had completed the log and stood in the companionway outside the Great Cabin to watch the preparations, take the air, and exercise his leg. All the previous night he had stood on the quarterdeck, keeping the helm and translating for the pilot. And tonight again there would be no sleep. There's time for a rest now, his weary mind urged, till the first bell of this watch, half an hour. Then he cursed himself for his weakness, his readiness to yield, and shoved open the door of the Great Cabin.

The oil lamp swayed with each roll of the s.h.i.+p, punctuating the rhythmic creak of the wood paneling and adding to the sweltering heat.

He locked the door, then strode aft to push ajar the two stern windows.