FIFTY-EIGHT

FALLON WASN’T GOING TO DIE, BUT HE WASN’T GOING TO BE HIS OLD alive self for a while. He’d lost so much blood his face and lips were pale, and Colquist immediately set to stitching the long cut closed. Fallon was in and out of consciousness and the laudanum helped keep him quiet.

He was the least of the medical problems below deck. Several of Rascal’s crewmen and Bisanz’s soldiers were fighting for their lives down there as surely as they had fought above decks. The cuts from scimitars were wicked, the curved swords sharpened as they were to a razor’s edge by patient janissaries quietly preparing for battle. The tub holding amputated limbs began to fill up.

Wilhelm and Caleb Visser came below to be with Fallon, who was gingerly placed in his cabin cot. They both looked at the man who, along with Aja, had risked his life to unite them. Wilhelm, overcome with emotion, held onto his son’s hand and wept.

After receiving a report from Little Eddy on Fallon’s condition, Beauty’s spirits rose and she began to see progress in getting the ship set to rights. A scrap of sail was rigged to the broken foremast and it gave the helmsman more steerage. The carpenter reported only three feet in the well, and no more water coming in. Relieved, Beauty ordered rum piped up and that one order cheered the men enormously. Barclay estimated the ship was making three knots and would likely make more once the well was pumped down even further.

The dead had been piled along the railings for burial as soon as possible and Beauty deemed it time. After a brief service sailor and soldier alike slid into the sea, stitched in canvass weighted by shot. Beauty said a Christian prayer over the dead janissaries and they, too went overboard. The battle had been a bloody business, and Beauty was doubly grateful to Colonel Bisanz for she knew in her bones the fight would have gone the other way without his men.

When at last she allowed herself to pause, Beauty wondered how in God’s name Renegade showed up when she did, out of the gloom, to come to their rescue. Beauty wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but what the fuck was Jones doing in the Mediterranean anyway?

Jones stood on the stern of Renegade and watched the work being done on Rascal. She had a bit of sail up now and that had prevented her yawing this way and that. It had also taken some of the strain off the huge hawser that served as a tow line. The ship looked a wreck, and as he watched the bodies slide into the sea he wondered at the battle she’d fought and won. Victory had come at a terrible cost, as it usually did. Rascal had been lucky to survive.

But, of course, it wasn’t luck that Renegade had found her. Sir William had had a quiet word with Lord Keith after the meeting with Colonel Bisanz and, later that day, orders had arrived that set Renegade sailing towards the coast of North Africa. Lord Keith’s orders were necessarily vague, but they involved ranging as far as Algiers and looking into the harbor. Not close enough to provoke the Algerians, but close enough for a lookout to identify any British ships inside. It was left to Jones to use his discretion if Renegade was challenged.

Of course, the sirocco was a surprise, but Renegade was a well-found ship and could handle storms of that size. The wind was slowly dying off now, and the seas would eventually lay down. Jones fretted about Fallon’s absence on the deck and feared the worst. He had seen the burial service and wondered if his friend was among those who had slid into the sea.

It was almost two days later when Renegade and Rascal reached Gibraltar and let go their anchors in the shadow of the huge headland. The harbor was partially deserted as ships were slow to return after putting to sea during the sirocco, not wanting to be caught on a lee shore. The harbor itself was roughly thirty square miles and quite deep for much of its center—almost 1300 feet down at its deepest, though holding the bottom anywhere in the harbor in such a storm would worry any captain.

Beauty was surprised to see a flagship flying an admiral’s pennant at anchor. She wondered what it all meant: Renegade, the admiral, all that. But she was about to find out as she saw Renegade’s gig immediately lowered and Captain Jones climb down into it and the gig’s crew begin rowing feverishly towards Rascal.

Jones was met at the gangway by Beauty who, after thanking him profusely for saving Rascal, proclaimed Fallon alive but wounded from a slash down his belly and resting in his cabin. Jones immediately went below and encountered Aja with his broken arm in a sling coming up the companionway. After the briefest of greetings Jones continued to Fallon’s cabin and knocked softly. To his surprise, Fallon greeted him through clenched teeth, and Wilhelm and Caleb Visser backed out to leave these two friends alone.

“Now what have you done?” asked Jones with a forced smile to comfort Fallon. “I promised Admiral Davies that, if I crossed your hawse, I would look after you on behalf of Elinore and I seemed to have broken my word.”

“I must apologize, Samuel,” said Fallon gamely. “But if the cut had gone lower it might have indeed caused Elinore distress.”

At that Jones laughed and Fallon managed a smile.

“But why in God’s name are you here, Jones?” asked Fallon. “Beauty told me you came to our rescue during the height of the sirocco and I confess I couldn’t believe it. That was a very brave thing to do, Jones. We were in rather desperate shape after the battle with Serpent, I’m afraid. But surely you’re a bit far afield from Antigua?”

At that, the story of Jones’ orders to convey Sir William to Lord Keith came out and the subsequent taking of the prize and the meeting with Lord Keith and, later, Colonel Bisanz.

“Yes,” said Fallon. “Beauty told me about the colonel’s volunteers. They made all the difference against the janissaries. I’m afraid we lost some of them but, God, they were brave! But how did you come to find us, Jones?”

“It was Sir William having a talk with Lord Keith, I believe,” replied Jones. “Next thing I knew I had orders to approach Algiers and look into the harbor for you. But I found you rather sooner!”

With that Jones could see that Fallon was growing tired and he bade to take his leave. Fallon did not object, for he had much information to digest and his eyes were growing heavy.

Jones was barely in his gig when he saw his number go up on Artemis’ yard. Lord Keith wanted to see him.