Eddie felt a painful pulse of premonition flare up in the same, chest-center spot that older men complained of heartburn. He dropped the binoculars from his eyes and scanned the horizon and flanks. Ove Gjedde was doing the same thing, squinting and frowning ferociously.
“You see it?” he asked the old Dane.
Gjedde nodded. “Yes. The smaller ships have not been keeping up with their fleet as swiftly as they did at first. They have been dropping back.”
“Into a position from which they can pull just that kind of flanking maneuver.” Eddie pushed out his chin. “Well, let’s make them think the better of it. Helmsman, bring us two points to starboard so that both our rifles will bear on that patache. Intraship, message for Mounts One and Two: Get me a firing solution for that patache. And be careful to lead her. She’s at speed and leaving a bone-white wake.”
“Aye, Commander!”
Gjedde was peering around more aggressively. “Commander, I think you were right.”
“Right? About what?”
Intraship interrupted. “Commander, Mount Two reports it has a solution.”
“Fire when ready and continue tracking. Same order to Mount One when it reports a solution.”
“Aye, sir.” And the deck shook as Mount Two, only thirty-five feet behind them, roared.
Gjedde shook his head. “This patache, and the others, they are not receiving signals. They are pressing the flank of Resolve without orders.”
Eddie nodded. “Which is to say, they already have orders to do so.”
“Yes. This is part of the Spanish plan.”
Mount One’s discharge sent a shudder back under their feet and a long gray-white plume out over the port bow.
Eddie nodded. “Yes, but the plan is not complete.”
“What do you mean?” Gjedde asked.
“I mean there’s something missing. They must know we’re not stupid enough to charge straight into them”—well, except van Galen—“and even at this close an approach to their van, they still can’t flank us beyond our steamships’ abilities to turn around and both flee and shoot our way out of any attempt to trap us.”
As if to prove that point, Mount Two’s second shot went through the mainsail of the patache, which sheered off to port and away from the two USE ships.
Gjedde nodded. “Yes, that is true. Presuming this is part of a larger trap.”
Eddie stopped and felt his misgivings suddenly coalesce into a hard, sharp, painful point directly behind his sternum. “Of course. These light ships, these fleeing galleons: they’re not the trap. They’re just flypaper.”
“What do you mean?” asked Gjedde, but it was the maintop lookout who shouted out the answer that Eddie dreaded hearing.
“Enemy sails off the port beam, coming over the southern horizon! Dozens of ’em and closing quickly!”
Eddie turned to Gjedde. “Now, their trap is complete.”
Slopes of The Quill, St. Eustatia
For the fifth time in as many minutes, Michael McCarthy, Jr., wished he had his father’s .45 with him. Two Kalinago warriors appeared out of the trees just ahead of him, making for the antenna’s ninth array line. But with the phenomenal senses of jungle-trained hunters, one heard a pebble snap out from under the up-timer’s boot and turned.
Mike cursed, both at having to kill again and not having the best tool with which to do it. He raised his Hockenjoss & Klott .44 caliber black powder revolver and brought his left hand in for a two-handed grip. He fired.
The first warrior didn’t seem to know he’d been hit square in the sternum. He managed to take two leaping steps, war club raised, before his eyes opened wide. He flinched and fell with a strangled cry.
But Michael missed his first shot at the other, who had either more presence of mind, more experience with firearms or both. The hatchet-armed warrior ducked, sidestepped, then charged.
The sidestep fooled Mike, who missed again. But the Kalinago had probably not encountered a weapon capable of so many shots and charged Mike directly, evidently believing himself safe.
At only four feet range, he learned his error. Mike, gritting his teeth to firm his nerve, fired twice. The Kalinago, hit in the shoulder by the first round, lagged and turned slightly in that direction, just before the next round hit him high in the diaphragm. He fell, bleeding heavily, but still trying to sweep his hatchet at Mike’s tibia.
Mike stepped back and moved around the warrior, whose attempts to yell for help and more warriors were no more than hoarse wheezes. Mike, panting in the heat and humidity, crossed to the other side of the ninth and last spokelike array line that descended sharply from the summit of The Quill to its rain-forested skirts. He slipped into the trees and continued to run like hell.