Rash Reckless Love, page 16
Blinking, with eyes that still smarted from the sting of all the blinding salt water that had poured over her last night, Imogene watched the ship beat toward her. Across the giant swells that billowed the sea’s still angry face, it bobbed up and down like a cork—now she saw it, now a great mountainous swell obscured it. Each time it disappeared her heart dropped to her soggy slippers, for the Carolina was riding perilously low in the water—the miracle was that she had not already sunk.
She looked up. Against that grayish pall of sky she could see the terrible ravages the storm had wrought upon the ship. All three masts had been sheared away. One was completely gone, washed over the side. But two of them had splintered in a tangle of torn shrouds and entangling ropes and broken unidentifiable pieces of wood so that they still rode the deck like giant spears, moving restlessly with each motion of the ship. As the masts moved so did the hopeless tangle of ropes that held her move—gently sometimes, at other times with enough force to cut off her breathing and leave her gasping as the mast slid a little again with the next roll of the ship. With each playful tug on those ropes that bound her, she felt as if the ship were some great mindless beast—and that it was playing with her, enjoying her struggles.
All through the violence of the storm she had been calm but now hysteria threatened to claim her. She tried to push aside such wrenching thoughts and fix her gaze on the only hope there was—that little ship out there, so small it looked to be of toy proportions. She made another last desperate wriggling effort to force her body free of the entangling ropes and choked off a scream of pain as the mast moved again subtly and the viselike grip of the ropes tightened. The ship sidled in the water and the mast moved again grudgingly and let her breathe.
She hung there, limp and exhausted.
Now her gaze flickered to the side, for there was yet another crunch of wood—the fallen mast that was her main tormentor had poked out some of the ship’s railing. Now the tugs against her body as the ship rolled were worse. Inevitably, she knew, that mast must slide through the open hole it had punched in the ship’s railing into the sea—and take her with it.
No, it would not take a whole woman, for as it left the ship it must assuredly tear her in half.
Now in this last extremity, the courage she had always known rushed in to aid her. She lifted her chin defiantly. Even though there were none to hear her, she would not let the wind hear her go screaming to her end. She would the bravely.
Fastening her gaze upon that distant ship, she locked her jaw firmly and fought back a cry with every creak of the ship, every fearful tightening of the ropes about her frail body. Still unable to wrest herself free of the wet ropes that were threatening at any moment to cut off her circulation for good, and in terror lest the mast make an abortive last move and slide into the sea and the ropes that were still attached to that mast casually tear her to pieces, she watched the little ship grow larger and larger as it bobbed between the swells. As it drew closer she could see that it too had been vastly battered by the storm. Two of its masts had been sheared off, the third slanted at a crazy angle. Sick and dizzy from her terrible ordeal, she prayed it would not prove to be some derelict like the one to which the Carolina was still firmly attached. More likely, she thought dully, it would prove to be a stout merchant ship abandoned by her captain and crew that—like the Carolina—had weathered the storm alone.
It was not! Now as it drew closer she could see little figures pointing from the deck. And now a hail.
She answered with a hoarse scream that sounded thin and weak to her own ears, for the pounding of the night had drained her physically and she was near numb from being jerked this way and that against the rigging.
Now a boat was being put over the side. It was having trouble with the mountainous swells, but Imogene thanked God for it, and prayed for its safe arrival.
She saw the first man come over the Carolina’s side and—overcome with exhaustion and relief—she fainted.
She was revived aboard the rescue ship, where a stout woman with red, work-hardened hands was rubbing her wrists and arms where the ropes from the Carolina rigging had made raw weals.
“Who are you?” she asked, confused as to where she was.
The big woman smiled genially at her. “I’m Emma Tuck and this be the good ship Bristol.”
“Have you picked up any other survivors?” Imogene asked weakly.
“From your ship? No, you was the only one,” said Emma stolidly.
“But there were boats...”
“Only you,” reiterated Emma. “Only you from the Carolina. The other one wasn’t from your ship.”
“The... other?”
Emma beamed at her. “Oh, we fished someone else from the sea before we found you—well, his boat was being swamped, he’d soon have been swimming. He was far gone, poor thing, and looked not like to live, out of his head from his terrible trials. He’s resting now too, just like you be—but he wasn’t from the Carolina, some Spanish name ’twas.”
“A Spaniard?”
“Looked to be. Couldn’t understand a thing he said—some foreign tongue. Captain said ’twas Spanish—he was half a mind to throw him back, such terrible things do the Spanish do to us when they catch us sailing ‘their’ seas. But Parson Smithers and the elders wouldn’t hear of it, said ’twould be living like savages to do such a thing. We’ve been holding prayers that he recovers.”
Spanish... there had been no Spaniards aboard the Carolina certainly. Imogene sank back.
“You were near gone when we found you,” said Emma. “How’d it happen the men left you tangled up in the rigging like that? We were near to abandoning ship at the height of the storm but the captain of the Bristol would never have let a woman stay on board trapped like that if he had taken to the boats.”
Imogene was about to say, “They thought me mad, and to blame like a jinx for the storm itself,” but she thought better of it. “I fell on deck when we were abandoning ship,” she lied, “and must have passed out, for when I came to I was snarled in the ship’s rigging and everyone was gone. I thought to die there.”
“And well you might!” The big woman clucked her tongue. “Well, ’tis over now, so just drink up—this broth will give you strength.”
Imogene sipped the broth. It tasted good. Still haunted by the terrors of the past night, she had not realized she was so hungry.
It came to her suddenly that her clothing felt strange and rough. She tossed aside the blanket that covered her and looked down to see that she was wearing a homespun bodice and kirtle.
“Where did I get these clothes?” she wondered.
“They’re mine,” supplied Emma promptly. “And far too big, as you can tell. But I’ve tied the kirtle around your waist with a piece of braid and pinned together the neck of the bodice.”
“But my own clothes—”
“Were half torn off ye when they took ye off that sinking vessel. Near naked ye were! I’ve spread them out to dry on the deck but I doubt they’ll be much use to ye. ’Tis a pity, for they looked to be fine garments.”
Not half so fine as I have at home in Tortuga, thought Imogene.
“Thank you for lending me yours,” she said.
“Bodies should help one another,” said Emma comfortably. She sat watching Imogene drink the broth.
“Where are we bound?” asked Imogene, for the broth had revived her interest in life.
“For Jamaica,” replied the big woman promptly. “And if we’d known we’d have such a voyage, there’s many of us as would have never left London. What’s your name, dearie, and how come you were aboard the Carolina?”
Jamaica! That was the last place Imogene wished to go just now, for there the brothers waited. Still... they would not be expecting her, for they had sent her to London themselves. And if they did learn of the sinking of the Carolina they’d logically presume her drowned.
“I am Imogene van Ryker,” she said absently.
The name obviously meant nothing to London Emma. “Well, ’tis over now, the storm, the ship sinking, so finish up—and have a bit of bread too.” She beamed as Imogene took a small bite. “And then when you’ve rested, you can come out on deck and take the air. We won’t be much of a sight to see, for we’re all a sodden mess on board after this terrible storm, but wait till tomorrow—you’ll see, we’ll be tidied up and all looking forward to making a safe landing in Port Royal!”
“And what brings you to Port Royal, Emma?” wondered Imogene.
“My man is there,” confided Emma with a big smile. “A bondservant he’s been these seven years and now he’s free and has sent for me.”
“He chose to stay in Port Royal and not return to England, then?” Somehow that surprised Imogene.
“Aye.” Emma nodded her head violently. “And best he did, too. Things is gone terrible bad in London. Theaters opening up, bear-baiting, whores frolicking, people lurching about the streets drunk, dancing—you can hear coaches dashing by full of laughing people even on Sundays!” She rolled her eyes. “There’s even rumors of a Spanish marriage for the king!”
There had been truth to the rumor, then, thought Imogene in alarm and felt icy fear for van Ryker.
“And so Parson Smithers said ’twas time we Godfearing people left, that England weren’t no Christian place to be now the king with his trollops has been restored to the throne!”
“You won’t find Port Royal so Godfearing,” sighed Imogene.
“Maybe not, but my man has a house there now. ’Tis but one room, but we’ll add to it!”
Imogene smiled at her. She hoped that hearty Emma and her ex-bondservant husband would make it.
“And now you be resting.” Emma bustled out, pausing to say, “I’ll leave the door open, for ’tis perishing damp in here.”
Imogene found that open door a drawback. Once her name was noised around the passengers and associated with the buccaneer van Ryker, the females of the ship came by to visit her in a body and to denounce “infamous pirate ways’’ and the “sinkholes of Tortuga.”
“And yet you’re going to Port Royal,” said Imogene grimly, rallying beneath this censure. “And what sinkhole greater?”
There were mutters of disapproval and the women filtered out. Imogene saw sadly that Emma, rolling her eyes, was among them. If she had hoped for help from that quarter, she realized she would be disappointed. She wondered how this group of Puritans would fare in Tortuga and supposed they would find any place burdensome, now that the Puritan Lord Protector was dead and King Charles with all his licentious royalist ways restored to the throne. But to seek a new life in Port Royal... she shook her head in wonder.
She looked up as a shadow fell across her bed from the open doorway. She was looking at a slim woman, dark against the light. Although Imogene could see her only in silhouette, that silhouette was the very mirror of fashion— tight-bodiced, full-skirted, big-sleeved, a head of dancing curls.
Imogene came alert, for if there was a lady of quality on board, there might be hope for her yet. She knew that there were handsome houses built on the sands of Port Royal, that money flowed there almost as freely as wine. What she needed was not a bevy of women who condemned buccaneering while knowing nothing about it, but a woman of quality who would be met by a carriage, someone who could get her past the dock and the possibly watching brothers, someone who would provide a temporary refuge while she waited for van Ryker to surface.
“Is it true that you are Imogene van Ryker, wife to the buccaneer, Captain Ruprecht van Ryker?” asked a high light voice. And at Imogene’s nod, the fashionable lady swept into the room and advanced upon her. “Then we are kin by marriage, Imogene. For I am Esme Ribaud, bound for Jamaica to visit my brother.”
Imogene caught her breath. Fate—which had whimsically snatched her from the deep—had played a dirty trick on her.
Of all the ships afloat, she had chanced to be rescued by the very one that was carrying scheming Esme to Jamaica!
The same hurricane that had driven the Carolina to her doom had brought van Ryker luck.
He had made rendezvous with the Hawk and the Heron, and at first the three ships had sailed over what seemed an empty ocean. A hot blue world with only the Sea Rover's creaking timbers and the wilting crew lying at midday beneath a “roof’ of canvas that had been erected on the deck. Stifling weather of the kind that presaged storms in these parts, as van Ryker knew only too well.
Narrowly he watched the sky—and congratulated himself that the house at Gale Force was so far inland. Even so, winds like those that could come out of the cauldron of these southern seas could rip that roof to shreds and scatter its tiles about the island. He hoped, if worse came to worst and a storm struck Jamaica, that Anthony would take Imogene and Charles and everyone from the plantation and go up into the higher hills, for he had once seen a storm wave, tailing on the mountainous seas a West Indian hurricane builds, rush through the wide mouth of a small bay and into the narrow cleft of a river. It had built to some seventy feet in height, that wave, before it had roared down on a tiny fishing village, and after it had passed there was no longer any sign that man had ever inhabited the place...
Somber were his thoughts as the first telltale mare’s tail clouds scudded across the sky. He studied that first spectacular red sunset that met his gaze across the Caribbean’s oddly disturbed surface as little swells came and went with great regularity. Then he turned to look at the great galleass that he had renamed the Hawk, riding the swells, and the dainty little caravel, the Heron. If a hurricane was coming—and he now had no doubt of that—the Hawk and the Sea Rover might ride it out, but not the fragile Heron. Abruptly he loaded his ships with all the canvas they could carry and set sail for the Windwards, meaning to seek shelter on the lee side of some island.
The admiral in command of the Spanish treasure flota, determined to outwit the many buccaneers who every year prowled the seas like a wolfpack in hope of plundering this golden quarry, had taken a new route. Instead of striking out toward Cuba and running the gauntlet of the Florida straits, he led his fleet almost due east from Panama, intending to slip around the Antilles and break out into the open Atlantic, free of any pursuit.
But the storm that caught van Ryker caught him also—and like van Ryker he too struck out for the Windwards.
He was unfortunate—the storm caught him first. Out of the twenty-seven proud ships that had put to sea, two ships of the flota were lost in the storm’s first onslaught. The remaining twenty-five managed to find shelter on the leeward side of a nameless island’s narrow-mouthed bay.
But West Indian hurricanes are tricky. This one recoiled on itself, turning and twisting, and caught the Spaniards in their bay. Unable to break out, there was naught for them to do but try to ride out the storm there before the wind’s full fury. The same winds that trapped the Spanish flota there drove the Sea Rover back into the churning sea, but she was a stout ship, she was struck only a glancing blow by the storm, and she and her sister ships survived.
The Spaniards were not so lucky. As if to deliver one last great blow, a coup de grâce, the ocean seemed to pile itself up into a great mountain and that mountainous storm wave, borne by hurricane-force winds, roared into the bay. At the far end of that bay, where it narrowed, lay the Spanish vessels, close together. And now a rising cliff of water lifted them and hurled them like ninepins over a beach, which had disappeared beneath the churning waters, and tumbled them into the trees.
Wave upon wave licked at their broken hulls; screaming, clawing men were trapped and drowned within and beneath them. Not a quarter of the complement of men who had manned the flota survived that terrible night, and the island was littered with their bodies—and their booty.
It was into this garish scene that van Ryker, searching for the scattered members of his own fleet, sailed the Sea Rover, cast anchor and stared about him.
There were galleons and pieces of galleons scattered as far as the eye could see—galleons far above his head, roosting on the broken-down remains of a forest. There were bodies floating in the water. In the now clearing waters of the bay he could see beneath his prow the glitter of a golden chain.
That day would stand out forever in buccaneer history. For that was the day when the Spanish treasure flota, almost intact, was taken by a single ship. The Spanish admiral was dead, drowned the night his flota died. His next in command promptly surrendered his sword in hope of food and aid and shelter.
Van Ryker gave them that. He disarmed those who were still armed and set them, under supervision of his own men, to making those galleons that were not too badly smashed seaworthy again. The Hawk and the limping Heron found them next day and the buccaneers on board stood at gaze at the sight of a busy beach, with van Ryker’s men rounding up work crews of Spaniards.
A month it took them to salvage what they could—a month in which divers brought up heavy gold link money chains that had been spilled into the sand of the bay. A month in which hulls were shored up and shattered galleons cannibalized that others might sail again. A month in which de Rochemont worked himself gaunt tending the wounded, and the sand dunes were littered with rude wooden crosses. The galley slaves had had no chance at all—van Ryker cursed as he saw how they had drowned in their chains. The slaves housed below decks had drowned almost to a man. But enough ships’ officers and crews were left to temporarily patch up a number of the ships for the voyage to Tortuga.
And day after endless day van Ryker supervised the reloading of the bullion and pieces of eight and golden doubloons and coffers of emeralds and Inca jade that had made their way by lumbering cart across Panama from Lima and the mines of Peru. Now it would make its way at the pace of the slowest vessel across the Caribbean once again toward the buccaneer stronghold of Tortuga.
The most valuable of the booty—and the highest-ranking captives—van Ryker took with him aboard his own ship. The Sea Rover would ride low in the water from the very weight of the treasure she carried when van Ryker sailed at last into Cayona Bay.
