This Forsaken Earth Read Free

one fist, his words drowned out by the thunder of the Revenant ’s return broadside, largely impotent—the ebbing tide was working against Gallico and his two dozen straining at the spring. They were coming round, but slowly. The tide rushing out of the bay was pushing the ship clockwise, with the spring-anchor at her stern the pivot upon which she turned.
    The powder-cloud passed over, and they were in brilliant sunshine again.
    “…below the waterline, but we’ve plugs in place,” Kier was saying. “I need men for the pumps.” His wedge-shaped face twitched with worry for the ship’s bowels.
    “What’s she making?” Rol demanded.
    “Three foot in the well and gaining maybe a foot a glass. It’s not the shot-holes—she must have been pierced when she touched the rocks.”
    “Can you get at the leak?”
    “I need more men, to shift the water-casks. It’s somewhere under the main hold.”
    “Damn the water-casks. Pump them out, or break them up if you have to, but get that leak, Kier. I’ll give you more men when I can.”
    “Aye, sir.”
    Creed appeared at Rol’s side. “That son of a bitch is changing course. He’s going to come round east of the Assassins. He’s coming out.”
    Rol considered. There was a momentary lull in the tremendous hammering of broadsides as both crews concentrated on the maneuvering of their vessels. He lifted his head—how blue the sky was—and felt the wind. It was still veering. Northeast, and soon to be east-nor’east. Once it came round the tail-end of the Assassins, the enemy ship would have it on the stern—and she would be upwind of the pinioned Revenant. She would have the weather-gage. Rol swore quietly.
    “Slip that blasted cable, Elias, but buoy the anchor. We may come back for it.”
    “Aye, sir.” Obviously relieved, Elias ran aft and began shouting at Gallico and the men hauling there.
    The rope was cut. They would need a power of ship’s stores to make up for today’s profligacy—if they made it through today. The end of the cable had been attached to a longline and buoyed with a pair of pigs’ bladders, which now bobbed astern in some derision. The Revenant took the wind at once. It was on the larboard quarter. “Gallico!” Rol called. “Mizzen-course and jibs. Elias, reload and run out the guns but hold your fire. Morcam, pass the word for the gunner.”
    Once again the beauty of the day struck him. The white spangle of the sunlight on the sea, the honey-colored stone of the Oronthir coast, now full astern. The sand-martins carving gleeful arcs out of the air.
    Beneath Rol’s feet, the Revenant came round at last, her fragile stern hidden from the enemy guns. Now, let’s see your nine-pounders break these scantlings, Rol thought with a jet of hatred.
    The gunner, John Imbro. A burly native of far-off Vryheyd, he had a full yellow beard and a pink-bald scalp. When drunk he would declare himself born with a head upside down. His face shone with sweat as if greased, except for the matt-black smudges in the sockets of his eyes.
    “John, how are we for shot and powder?”
    “Enough for another four broadsides, sir—”
    “What? Ran’s arse—”
    “The leak below got into the powder store and has soaked all but two barrels of best white long-grain. It’ll be a week’s work ashore to dry out the rest.”
    “There’s nothing else? What about the fine stuff?”
    “Oh, it’s still snug and dry—but it’ll only be of use in swivels and sidearms. Cram it into a twelve-pounder and you may as well fart at yonder bastards.”
    “Do what you can, John.”
    The gunner stumped away unhappily.
    Rol studied the enemy man-of-war. Some eight hundred yards away, it was now off the larboard quarter, upwind and running out its guns. They were slow to reload—the Revenant ’s earlier broadsides must have thinned out the crew. Rol turned to the quartermasters at the wheel. “South-southeast, as sharp as you can.”
    The wheel spun, creaking, and the