THIRTY-SEVEN

RASCAL’S BROADSIDE ROARED ACROSS THE WATER JUST AS RUSE’S BROADside fired. Even in that hive of wind the sound was deafening, and the shudder of the deck under Fallon’s feet told him something was wrong. The foremast was swinging wildly in the tempest, its shrouds parted and blown to heaven, the foresail beating like a marine drum, snapping and popping; its sheets were whips that could lash a man through his clothing. The xebec had aimed high, hoping to cripple Rascal, and the ship was indeed crippled.

But not finished.

Both ships dropped into troughs and, when they emerged again, they were past each other. Fallon looked the length of the ship and saw to his relief that all hands seemed to be standing. One ship’s boy was down, and Fallon’s breath caught in his throat. Visser was kneeling to pick up Little Eddy to be carried below.

“Nico,” yelled Beauty. “The xebec is tacking!”

Hasim brought the xebec through the eye of the wind with care, for the rigging holding the mainmast aloft had suffered from the schooner’s broadside and he had to be very careful. Luckily, the starboard shrouds were intact, only the larboard’s were cut by the chain shot but he was still fortunate not to have lost his mast. The janissaries were not so lucky, and many were down and spurting their lives out on deck, their blood the color of their hats.

Prudence and loyalty told him to sail down to help Gazelle, which was clearly foundering in the heavy seas with her foresail over the side. He could see Rogers waving frantically and the water must be deep in the holds by now.

Hasim looked away towards the crippled schooner sailing eastward, towards the Strait. If the wind stayed out of the south his crew would have time to splice the larboard shrouds and Ruse should have no difficulty catching the schooner, whose name he could see was Rascal.

For a brief moment, Hasim wondered what to do. But only for a brief moment. Then he ordered a gun crew to the bow of the xebec to man the bow chaser.

Beauty sent men forward to take in the foresail and begin re-splicing the rigging. It was a harrowing job, for the foresail boom was swinging wildly and all the shrouds holding the foremast up had been cut except one on the windward side. That shroud was the only thing standing between hope and catastrophe.

Fallon looked over his shoulder and saw the xebec complete her tack and begin to gather speed. Rascal was almost a half mile ahead in the chase, but without the foresail it would be no contest. Even now there was a puff of smoke from the xebec’s bow chaser. It would be very difficult to hit anything at that range in that sea, but it was always possible.

His mind went quickly to the chase off the U.S. coast by the French frigate, but there were no snow squalls here to hide Rascal. This chase would not end well, and he would have to face that fact. His mind raced for an answer, a forgotten feint or trick, but nothing came to him.

“What are you thinking, Beauty?” he said, hoping for something he hadn’t thought of. “You get any ideas, you send them along.”

And then he looked around at Barclay, who looked back at him without speaking. He looked at Aja, just returning to the binnacle with a report on Little Eddy. The boy had been felled by a block and Colquist reported that he would live, though his nose was smashed and his face would turn black and blue. Visser was with him, still.

Aja looked at the xebec, then at Fallon, then at the xebec again.

“We are not faster, captain sir,” he said.

“No, Aja, we can’t outrun them without a foresail.”

The xebec fired her bow chaser again. And now the shot could be seen hitting the water not fifty feet from Rascal; the shots was getting closer as the xebec drew closer. Beauty coaxed every ounce of speed out of the schooner, but nothing would delay the inevitable and Fallon knew it. Now all hands were looking aft, at him. He looked at each one of them, for he knew most of them, knew their families even, and his eyes lighted on Cully, the Irishman who had lost an eye serving him, the loyal gunner who had dropped a wine bottle in his cabin and said bomb the bastards.

Suddenly, their last, best chance was clear to Fallon.

“Beauty,” he said calmly, or as calmly as he could speak given that the xebec was doubtless preparing to fire again, “I’ll want empty barrels hauled up and thrown overboard quickly. And have the long boat turned over and placed on deck. And call Cully aft please.”

Barclay and Aja looked expectantly at their captain, looking for the old spark, the old gleam in his eyes that told them something was up, some idea was in his mind, and when he grinned at them they saw it.

“Cully,” he said when the gunner approached. “I have a hypothetical question for you.” Cully edged closer and smiled. “We have a problem with that xebec behind us,” he said with dramatic understatement.

“Deck there!” interrupted the lookout. “Ship looks to be gaining.”

Indeed, she could be seen easily from the deck now and seemed larger and more menacing and, what was the word? Tenacious.

“Yes,” said Fallon, turning back to Cully, “as I was saying about the problem. Hypothetically, Cully, if we knew how fast we were moving, and we could judge how far the xebec was behind us, and if it was close enough behind us, but not too close mind, could we blow it up?”

Cully rocked back and Beauty jerked her head around.

“Blow it up? With a gun?” Cully asked, incredulously.

“No, a bomb,” said Fallon, with a maniacal laugh. “Could we bomb the bastards, as someone once said?”

And then he told them about his crazy idea.

Hasim knew how it would end.

Ruse was gaining on the British schooner with each minute and soon his bow chaser would find the range. Even if the schooner’s captain chose to fight—and he would if he had any idea what fate had in store for him and his crew—he had no chance of maneuvering without a foresail. The janissaries would overwhelm them once Ruse got alongside.

Hasim stole a quick glance over his shoulder towards Gazelle or, rather, towards where Gazelle had been. Now there was nothing he could see. It was a pity about Rogers, he thought, but now there would be no glory to share. The capture would be all his, the prize money all his.

And what was this? The schooner was throwing barrels over the side to lighten the ship. And he could see they’d started their water, pumping it overboard in an effort to go faster and escape the inevitable. They were frantic, these British, and they hadn’t even heard the trumpet yet!

Fallon had ordered the empty barrels thrown overboard to give the picture of a desperate ship which, indeed, Rascal was. But also to judge how long it took for the barrels to float back to the xebec. And then he ordered the holds to be pumped dry to give his plan just that much extra time, for there was much to be done—and quickly.

The longboat was placed on deck as Fallon had ordered, then Barclay reported the speed measured by the cast of the log to Cully so he could measure the slow match accordingly. All Beauty’s attention turned to getting every ounce of speed possible out of Rascal. The crew at the fore-mast were doing what they could, but in the tossing seas it was beyond a challenge to re-rig the mast. The foresail was down and inboard at last, however, so that was something.

“Aja,” said Fallon to his second mate, “call the carpenter on deck and have him build a drogue out of old sailcloth. It should be weighted so when it’s attached to the long boat it will hang below the surface and open up to keep the boat from drifting off course.”

There was that damned bow chaser firing again. And as Fallon looked up he saw a hole open up in the mainsail. “Hurry!” he said to no one, and to everyone.

Here were two crew members carrying small barrels of gunpowder up from below decks, and powder boys behind with slow match and a tarpaulin, just as Fallon had ordered. The gunpowder was lashed between the thwarts of the longboat as the slow match was unwound. The crew moved deliberately, without panic. The thing had to be done right.

“What’s our plan if this doesn’t work, Nico?” asked Beauty.

“I don’t have a second plan,” said Fallon with a wink. “I barely have this one worked out.”

Now Barclay was conferring with Cully on the length of slow match. The carpenter was attaching the drogue to the bow of the ship’s boat and placing a 9-pound ball in a canvas sack to tie to the drogue to hold it below the surface where it wouldn’t be seen.

Fallon looked back towards the xebec, now less than a quarter mile behind Rascal; well, perhaps more like 2 cables. It was time, for any later and the explosion could reach Rascal. And there would be an explosion, no question. The question was would it do any good?

Lowering his telescope, Hasim smiled at the agha, who ordered the janis-saries to be ready for boarding. The schooner was even now putting her ship’s boat in the water in a futile effort for more speed, but it was no use. Very soon the xebec would be alongside. Even from the deck he could easily count a hundred would-be slaves for the taking. Zabana would be very happy, wouldn’t he?

When the longboat had splashed overboard, the drogue sank and opened like a large canvass basket to act against the push of wind and waves. The boat bobbed and dipped as the seas ran under her, the tarpaulin covering the gunpowder and slow match kept everything dry from the spray off the wave tops.

Fallon stood at Rascal’s stern and counted the time in his head. Even with just the mainsail, Rascal was pulling away from the longboat quickly and the xebec was approaching even faster. Barclay had estimated time and distance as best he could and Cully had been precise in cutting the slow match, but it was an inexact science, of course. Perhaps the best that could be hoped for was that the explosion would shock the xebec’s crew and momentarily create a diversion, allowing Rascal’s crew more time to secure the foremast and get the sail up. But even as he thought those thoughts, Fallon knew he was hoping for the impossible.

On the xebec came, close enough that Fallon could see the brightly colored turbans on the crew and catch the glint off the curved swords he saw waving in the air. The longboat was a speck on the ocean now, sometimes there, sometimes not, and Fallon imagined the slow match doused by a wave, the plan fizzling out in a thin trail of smoke. He pounded his hand on the taffrail in exasperation.

And then the explosion.

A tremendous surge of thunder such as no man had ever heard. As loud as a volcano, or what anyone aboard thought a volcano would sound like. All hands turned aft to see a great fog of black smoke engulf the ocean and plume upwards towards the sky as ship debris whirled within it, visible and then not.

What emerged from the smoke was the sense of a ship without a bow; a gaping maw that seemed to eagerly drink the sea.