Eddie gave the orders he could. All swivels and mitrailleuses should engage all targets upon which they could bear. Raise steam. Ready the rest of the Wild Geese. But then events took over and finally, the well-coordinated battle fought by the Intrepid devolved into a series of desperate brawls. The sloop fired her sakers and demi-culverins at the after-battery that had savaged her sister ship. Balls bounced off Intrepid’s hull timbers, but several smaller ones from the pirate’s swivels played across the gun crews. The two carronades that had been reloaded replied, one landing a solid shell amidships. The sloop heeled away from the threat of further fire.
At the port bow, the boarders from the pinnace threw grapples from a distance of five yards, as did a few doggedly courageous survivors aboard the patache that was falling behind, still adrift. The ship’s troops and Wild Geese aimed their fire down into the ferocious faces lining those decks, who returned the deadly compliment at the defenders some six-feet over their heads.
As that firefight raged and grenades started flying between the bows of the two ships, the starboard bow mitrailleuse yelled a report quickly down the speaking tube. But Eddie, distracted, missed the words which rolled out of the metal horn and which were clotted in a thick Swedish accent. “What?” Eddie asked.
His runner tugged his sleeve. “He said ‘petard,’ sir. And ‘boom.’”
For one sliver of a second, Eddie froze, then ordered his runner forward to call up another squad of Wild Geese, this time to the starboard bow. The boy leaped down to the busy weather deck and began slaloming his way around deckhands and ship’s troops to deliver the summons.
“What is the matter?” Gjedde asked.
“Spar torpedo. Like the ones you Danes used against our ironclads last year. We’ve got to make sure they don’t—”
The starboard side mitrailleuse stuttered its way through one of its cassettes, riddling the new torpedo-armed piragua with bullets. Thank God. “Svantner, call for full steam. We’re going to get out of here as soon as—”
But as the second ship off the starboard bow, the overpopulated barca-longa, drew closer, the mitrailleuse did not resume speaking. Eddie looked in the direction of the weapon’s mount, saw the loader struggling to get the new ammunition cassette into the weapon, then begin struggling to get it out. It was clearly jammed, and the first grapple lines were already coming over the starboard bow.
And a new squad of Wild Geese had not yet risen up to reinforce that weapons mount. Eddie scanned, saw the commander of the Irish mercenaries waiting for just such an order, then sought his runner—and saw the young fellow, writhing in pain, just aft of the bows. Apparently, one of the few Spanish grenades that had cleared the bedroll-lined stanchions had put some fragments into the poor lad, who was leaving a spattering of blood to either side as he rocked to and fro, clutching his left thigh.
Damn it. Eddie spun on his real leg to look for Svantner—who was ringing up the steam and directing the helmsman. He turned quickly toward Gjedde, who was already staring at him. The Dane moved as if to head to the bows himself. “I shall take care—”
“No, Captain. You keep piloting the ship. I’ll be back soon.”
Gjedde winced, but nodded as Eddie pounded down the bridge stairs and limp-loped toward the starboard bow, shouting as he went. “Gallagher! Lieutenant Gallagher!”
He had closed half the distance before the young, anxious Irishman waiting at the companionway heard. “Sir?”
“Starboard weapons mount! Boarders!”
Gallagher turned, saw the frenzied activity in that direction, ducked his head into the companionway and started yelling orders.
By which time, Eddie was past him. Clumping up the stairs to the low fo’c’sle, he saw the last of the mitrailleuse’s crew gunned down by a volley of pirate pistols and blunderbusses. The same fate had befallen most of the German musketeers, who, having fired their last charges, drew swords as Eddie came amongst them.
“Captain, what are you—?”
“Stand aside. Send the Wild Geese up toward me as soon as they arrive.” Eddie stepped up into the mount, pushing aside the bodies of the mitrailleuse’s slain crew.
Two grapples were already hooked over the gunwale of the reinforced pulpit in which the weapon was situated. Two Jacob’s ladders had been hooked alongside them. Boarders were on their way up. But they weren’t the immediate worry.
Eddie had read, and had since seen evidence, that the best marksmen in the Caribbean were not the soldiers of any nation, but pirates. Prizing unusually long French rifles, many pirate crews relied mostly on musketry to take ships, being both so accurate and able to mount so withering a hail of fire, that many merchantmen dared not handle sails or man a tiller. So they surrendered their ship, and usually lived or were, at worst, ransomed. Which, by logical deduction, made the most dangerous men in the barca-longa the musketeers who had wrought such death among the mitrailleuse’s crew and nearby ship’s troops.