Across a Moonlit Sea Read Free Page B

why, when the dawn began to melt away the morning mist, the sight of another ship standing so close at hand had tightened more than a few sphincter muscles. Nearly every one of the Egret’s crewmen lined the rails; none had moved away over the past hour, few had raised their voices above a whisper. They were still in dangerous waters and without wind to move them, they would be easy pickings for enemy gunners.
    The low, thick ceiling of cloud that had hung over them for the same three days had made it near impossible to take any kind of a reading from the sun during the day or from the stars at night. The helmsman’s best guess to their position had them stalled square in the middle of Spain’s busiest shipping lanes. They were homeward bound, still four weeks out of Plymouth; low on victuals and fresh water, lower still on any inclinations they might have to engage a strange vessel in enemy water. They had heard rumors, before their departure from the Caribbean, that King Philip’s plate fleet had cleared Hispaniola two weeks before them. The huge galleons, burdened by the gold and silver mined in Panama and Mexico, would be slower moving than the
Egret
, and it was not inconceivable they couldhave caught up. Moreover, these plate fleets traveled under heavy escort from India guards whose decks bristled with guns of all sizes and calibers, whose captains had no compunctions about attacking stray ships and collecting English crews to enslave in their galleys.
    McCutcheon’s concerns were genuine and Spence took his wiry mate’s counsel to heart. Spit had been on the sea more years than most ships in the English fleet. What few spikes of hair he had sticking out on his scalp and chin were gray, and if he stood on tiptoes the top of his head might reach Spence’s armpit. They had been together nigh on fifteen years, one of the oddest couples on the Main, and known by nearly every merchant and investor in Plymouth for the quality of sugarcane rum they ran up from the Indies.
    The
Egret
was armed, as any reasonably minded merchant trader should be, and had seen her fair share of fighting, mostly against Spanish and Portugese privateers who objected to Spence’s interference in their trade monopolies. But as any Englishman knew, a man was only as good as the ship he sailed. Both the Spanish and the Portugee had clung to the centuries-old design of square-rigged masts, which meant they could sail only where the wind took them. English vessels were fore-and-aft rigged on all but the main square sail, adding maneuverability in the yards that allowed them to sail circles around more cumbersome galleons, which could only watch and grow dizzy.
    The wounded galleon before them was definitely English in design and flew the Cross of St. George on what was left of its topmast, though it was as tattered and charred as her other pennants.
    “Below Aulde George, there,” Spence said, narrowing his amber eyes to bring the topmast into better focus. “Do ye recognize the pennon?”
    “Crimson on black. A stag, or a goat, I make it.” McCutcheon shook his head. “The crest is not familiar to me.”
    “Aye, well, it
feels
like it should be familiar. At any rate, she’s no simple merchant wandered too far from home. She’s showin’ ten bloody demi-cannon an’ fourteen culverins in her main battery as well as falconets and perriers fore an’ aft.” Spence pointed at the monstrous thirty-two-pounders snug in her waist and added out the side of his mouth, “I’ll wager whoever her master is, he’s not one to haggle over the price o’ trade goods.”
    “Mayhap she’ll have shot to spare an’ a tun or two o’ powder if her magazine is not underwater.” McCutcheon’s graveled voice did not betray too much optimism. “Or if she did not use it all gettin’ herself in such a condition.”
    Spence straightened and scratched thoughtfully at the violent red beard that foamed over his chin. It was a cool morning, yet there was a