Page 18 of Her Perfect Pirate
She kicked him into the captain’s cabin, shut the door, and untied Mrs.Adams’s lead.“Come on, girl.We’ve got some revenge to take.”
Chaos greeted her on the main deck.Sure, there were only nineteen pirates, but they had come with cutlasses and spears and guns.The crewmen of theWhimsymostly had knives and their own fists, though a few had located muskets.Already, the deck was strewn with injured men trying to crawl to safety—and a few dead bodies, too.
Rebecca dragged Mrs.Adams to the longboat and tied her inside.Then, seizing a long spear, she turned around and aimed it at the first sailor she spotted.
It landed wide.The man turned to her, fury and excitement curling his lips open, and started coming at her with his knife out.
She swung her machete in an X in front of her body to distract him, and then, when he leaned forward to attack, she lunged at him and got him in the thigh.As he fell to the ground, she stomped on his hand and seized the knife from his fist.
His bones felt fragile and human beneath the heel of her shoe.
Rebecca whirled away, swinging her machete now at another sailor coming towards the longboat.He carried a gun, which he shot in her direction—but the bullet went far to her right.Rebecca aimed her machete at the muzzle of his musket.Metal clanged against metal; her shoulder jarred from the impact; his gun didn’t quite fall, and he pulled it back to reload.
Rebecca surged beneath the long reach of the musket and sliced at his neck.That was even smoother than cutting off the captain’s cock: blood spurted from his throat and he fell to the ground, gasping.
Like butchering a hog.
She was sweaty; her arm was sore and heavy; she could hardly catch her breath.The air was heavy with gun smoke.
Around her, men were fighting and screaming and dying.
And then a cannonball caught the side of theWhimsy.The whole ship rocked.Rebecca fell against the side of the longboat before she could catch her footing.A new kind of smoke filled the air, and from below came shouts announcing a fire.
A second cannonball came only moments later.This one landed on the main deck, not twenty yards from Rebecca.Three men were blown to pieces—including one of her boys who climbed the masts of theGhost.A hole opened up in the deck, and as the ship reeled, barrels and weapons and injured men slid towards it.
From somewhere below came an explosion, and then another, and then another, as the fire found the ship’s store of gunpowder.
Jack Davies screamed over the melee, “Back to ship!”
It was a mad scramble from there.Rebecca swung her machete in wide jerks to keep the men from theWhimsyfrom getting too close as her fellow pirates returned to the longboat.There were seventeen of them now, and Jack Davies ordered them into the boat without waiting to take a head count.Just as Jack and Fuego began lowering the boat by the ropes towards the water, a slaver rushed forward and sliced the ropes from the pulleys.
Rebecca screamed.Mrs.Adams, too.But theWhimsywas not a tall ship, and while the boat landed in the water with a thud, it did not shatter, nor did any of their bones.Jack shouted—his voice hoarse—“If you’re not dead, row!”
And they each took up an oar and pulled themselves back to theGhost.
Italwaysfeltlikewalking on water after a battle like that.Even though he hadn’t gotten to swipe his knives at any slaver in particular, Chow’s whole body felt like it was flying as he swaggered around the ship, putting it to rights.Especially when the longboat arrived and he spotted Rebecca on it—alive, with all her limbs.The crew gave three cheers to welcome the boat, and Jack Davies threw his cap in the air to accept the accolades.Relief rushed Chow, along with a primal urge to grab Rebecca in his arms and cover every inch of her skin in kisses.
He resisted.First, they had to navigate theGhostout of the fiery waters.Then, he had to make sure the prisoners—some three dozen or so saved from the sinking ships—were properly constrained in the brig.And then there was making sure theGhostitself was in sailing condition after blasting so many cannonballs from its hull.
Rebecca disappeared.Chow saw her take the goat below deck—without even looking his way—and expected her to come up to help set sail.An hour later, he couldn’t find her as he ordered the first watch down for their mess.Nor did he see her when he set the second watch to inspecting the sails.
When, after sunset, the boys pulled out their instruments to start a jig and Rebecca didn’t emerge from wherever she was hiding, he began to worry.
She loved evenings like this, when the stars were clear and the mood was high and she could lift her skirts to dance a reel with the crew.After three songs, he began to fear some terrible reason was keeping her away.
He descended the ladder in two big leaps, then went directly down to the lowest deck, the one where the prisoners were tied up in the brig.They had captured thirty men in all, the rest of the slavers’ sailors perishing in the deep.Chow’s fear—that Rebecca had for some reason come down to see them and that they had in turn capturedher—disappeared as soon as he saw the two pirates guarding the prisoners.
“All good, Sharkhead?”asked one.
“Aye.”Chow pushed away the anxiety gripping his stomach.“Has Rebecca been down here?”
“Not that I’ve seen.”
He went back up to the deck with their hammocks and livestock.She wasn’t in the nook where they slept; she was all the way in the aft of the ship, sitting with that goat.Petting that goat.
Moping with that goat.
Chow approached carefully.“They’ve started the jigs up on the deck.”
