Chapter 65: The Slaughter on Le Faucon
The distance between the two hulls had disappeared, the grapple lines pulled tight where iron hooks had buried themselves in Le Faucon’s shattered rail.
James crossed first.
His boot found the splintered deck, still slick from the last broadside, and the stench of scorched powder, hot tar, and blood already turning thick beneath the heat hit him at once.
A pair of gulls circled low overhead, drifting in from the bay toward a feast they knew better than any sailor.
Behind James, the Rose’s boarders poured across the ropes after him. Steel flashed before many of them had both feet on the deck, and the boarding dissolved into chaos. French curses crashed against pirate shouts until the words themselves hardly mattered.
A sailor burst through the drifting smoke before James had found his footing. His blade swept around in a desperate, wide cut.
James’s pistol was already in his hand.
The shot caught the man square in the chest before the swing could finish. The impact folded him backward, spraying blood across the smoke-blackened planks. He tumbled over a coil of rope and lay still.
"Steady on, lad."
James stepped over the body without slowing. "Plenty more of us to meet before the day’s done. No need to rush it."
Off to his left, two of his own traded blows with a mate nearly twice their size.
Somewhere behind him, Kit laughed.
The laugh had no business belonging to a boy in the middle of a slaughter in the sea, yet there it was all the same.
Another Frenchman reached him before the first had gone cold.
Their cutlasses met with a hard clang that rattled through James’s wrist.
This one knew what he was doing. He stayed low, crowded in close, feinted once, then drove for James’s ribs.
Parry. Steel rang again.
Then again.
Neither man gave ground.
The planks beneath them were slick enough that James’s boot skidded across a dark patch of blood and seawater, nearly sending him sprawling.
"Meurs, putain de pirate!" the Frenchman spat, pressing harder.
"Ye’ll have to wait yer turn, lad." James planted his feet again. "There’s a whole queue formin’ behind ye."
The man lunged again and reached too far.
James knocked the blade aside, stepped inside the attack, and drew his cutlass across the man’s throat. Blood fountained over his sleeve as the Frenchman crumpled without a sound.
James barely had time to draw a breath before someone else crashed into him.
This one was built like a hogshead and fought the same way, caring nothing for swordplay. Both hands clamped around James’s arm before the cutlass could come back into play.
They hit the deck together in a tangle of rope and broken timber.
The man’s breath stank of rum as he wrestled for the weapon.
James drove a knee into his gut.
The grip loosened for half a heartbeat.
That was enough.
He tore himself free, caught the man by the neck, and slammed him backward into the wreck of an overturned cannon.
Iron and shattered carriage struck him across the spine hard enough to fold him over. The broken timber speared through his ribs, pinning him where he fell.
James pushed himself upright, breathing hard. Sweat stung a fresh cut along his forearm, one he hadn’t even noticed.
There wasn’t time to think about it.
Off to his right, one of his own was about to die.
A pirate lay pinned beside the mainmast with a boot on his chest while a Frenchman raised his blade for the killing stroke.
James drew his second pistol as he turned.
The shot smashed through the man’s head before the sword came down. Blood and bone burst from the far side of his skull as he dropped sideways.
The sailor beneath it scrambled upright, gasping. He stared at James as though he’d just watched the sea split in two.
"Christ, Cap’n, another breath and I’d have been feedin’ the crabs!"
"Then mind yer feet next time. I’ve only got the two hands."
For the first time since the start, James managed half a breath to look over the deck instead of at the next man trying to kill him.
The place had become a slaughter yard disguised as a warship.
Blood mixed with seawater and ran in pale streams across the planks. Burnt tar clung to everything, and beneath it lingered a smell far worse.
More gulls had joined the first pair, circling patiently above both ships as though they had all the time in the world.
French officers still shouted somewhere near the stern, but fewer men answered with each passing moment.
More of Le Faucon’s crew were backing toward the rails than pushing forward.
Hands rose.
Blades lowered.
The battle was turning exactly the way James had expected from the moment the mortar first spoke.
Near the hatch, Kit yanked his cutlass free from a sailor’s side with a grin that threatened to split his face.
"NINE! That’s nine, that’s a proper number, somebody remember that!"
Nobody answered.
Nobody needed to.
Nearby, the Hollis brothers fought back to back without seeming to notice it, arguing as fiercely with each other as they did with the French.
"Told ye I’d get more than ye," Ezra grunted as he drove a Frenchman off his blade.
"Ye’ve got three, I’ve got three, that’s even, ye lyin’ sack of..."
Silas planted his boot in another man’s chest before the fellow could reach Ezra’s blind side, never missing a beat. "That’s four now. I’m ahead."
"Doesn’t count if I helped ye see him comin’."
"Still counts."
Farther along the deck, Mackerel Jim managed to fight and tell a story at the same time, his voice carrying over the clash of steel.
"And that’s when I killed their captain single-handed, twice, mind ye. Once wasn’t enough for the bastard."
He ducked beneath a wild swing without interrupting himself, then answered with his own cut before he’d fully straightened.
"The lads back in Nassau ain’t gonna believe half of it, and the half they do believe’ll be the wrong half!"
By the time James had fought his way across the deck, more French sailors stood with empty hands raised than still fought to hold the wheel.
Near the mainmast, Bert had a man’s head tucked beneath one arm like a parcel he’d forgotten to deliver.
Edmund eased another sailor out of his path with both hands. The fellow flew backward into three of his companions as though he’d weighed no more than a sack of flour.
Wesley stood over a groaning Frenchman, frowning at the blood spattered across the cuff of his coat. He rubbed at it with his thumb, sighed softly, then stepped over the man.
"Bert! Edmund! Wesley!"
James pointed his cutlass toward the stern, where the fighting still clogged the quarterdeck steps. "Enough manners. I need a road cut through that lot, and I need it now."
"Understood, Captain."
Bert lowered the man in his grip with surprising care.
"A road, specifically." Edmund was already moving. "I shall endeavor to make it a straight one."
"Certainly."
Wesley followed.
The three advanced shoulder to shoulder, and the French line buckled before they ever reached it.
Bert caught one sailor by the throat, lifted him clear off his feet, and flung him into two others hard enough to send all sprawling.
Edmund seized another by the front of his coat, marched him backward through his own comrades, and released him only after he’d bowled half a dozen men off their feet.
Wesley stepped neatly around a body, drove the pommel of his sword into a sailor’s face with a crack, then frowned at the fresh blood speckled across his cuff.
"Do forgive me."
He spoke in exactly the tone he might have used after stepping on someone’s boot at a dance.
James followed through the breach they created.
Any man foolish enough to rise again found his blade waiting.
One wounded sailor stumbled toward the stern, shouting over his shoulder loudly enough for the words to carry through the noise.
"Enseigne Corbin! Enseigne Corbin, à l’aide!"
The last knot of resistance finally broke apart.
Past Bert’s shoulder, James had a clear view of the quarterdeck steps.
A lone officer stood at their head.
His blue coat was stained dark with sweat and soot. His sword was already drawn.
One hand still rested against the wheel, as though he had refused to abandon it through the entire battle.
He did not look like a man ready to surrender.
Enseigne Corbin met James’s eyes across the wreckage of his own ship.
Whatever crossed the officer’s face, it was not fear.
"Vous ne prendrez pas mon navire, pirate!"
James didn’t understand a single word.
He didn’t need to.
He tightened his grip on the cutlass, planted one boot on the first step, and climbed toward him.