"The what?"
The sailor indicated the rigging: a set of seven or eight stout cables, joined by horizontal lengths of rope to make a crude ladder. They were hitched somewhere on the outside of the ship and converged on a tiny platform high above them. It made Ned dizzy just to look at it. He swallowed hard.
"A jest only," the man said, leaping down onto the deck. "Captain Raleigh won't thank us if one of his passengers is tossed into the sea."
"Are you saying I can't do it?"
"Well…"
"You're on."
He put the cudgels down and went back to the rail. The ratlines were just within arm's reach, out beyond the safety of the deck, and he quickly scrambled up, standing on the rail with his hands clenched on the cross-ropes. The ship rolled gently beneath him. Best get this over with.
He swung his feet out towards the ratlines, trying not to think of the fact he was now hanging over the side of the ship. His feet caught, and he clung to the lines for a moment, muttering prayers he thought he'd forgotten. Taking a deep breath he began to climb.
It wasn't so bad once you got going. There was a rhythm to the ship's movement, and the cross-ropes were spaced close enough together to be an easy reach for all but the smallest cabin boy. If it weren't for the prospect of having to do this kind of thing in a gale, he could almost see himself taking up a sailor's life.
He managed to get a third of the way up before he made the mistake of looking down. And saw nothing but sea below him.
It was some moments before he opened his eyes again and realised he was clinging to the tarred rope so tightly his hands had started to bleed. To calm his nerves he forced himself to breathe deeply and focus on the horizon. There. A ship, smaller than the Falcon, with triangular sails on its foremast, coming towards them.
Coming towards them.
"Sail ahoy!" cried the lookout. "Corsairs!"
Ned's stomach turned over. The crew whiled away their rare moments of leisure by swapping tales of the corsairs' cruelty and the various horrible fates awaiting those taken captive. Most able-bodied men ended up in North Africa, labouring in quarries or worse still chained to a bench on a galley, with no choice but to eat, sleep, piss and shit where they sat. Either way they would be worked to death in the space of a couple of years.
Cursing under his breath he scrambled down the rigging as fast as he dared. At last he glimpsed the rail just below him. With a last burst of bravado he swung his feet back onto the rail, jumped backwards and spun in mid-air to land on the deck, then sprinted for the cabin.
"Mal, get up! Corsairs!"
Mal groaned. "What?" He propped himself up on his elbows and squinted at Ned.
God's teeth, I thought he was over the seasickness. He looks like the day's leftovers at Billingsgate fish market.
"Corsairs. Slavers, like as not."
Mal climbed unsteadily to his feet. "How far off?"
"I don't know. Not far enough."
"All right." He leant against the bulkhead for a moment, his expression distracted. "We'd probably best get up on deck, but try and stay out of the crew's way."
"Can't we stay in here?" Ned replied, looking around him. The cramped, stuffy cabin suddenly felt as welcoming as his own bedchamber back in Southwark.
"If the corsairs fire on us, we're better up there being shot clean dead than shredded by splinters from a cannon hit."
Ned retrieved Mal's sword belt and dagger from the bunk, feeling as sick as his friend looked. Mal threaded his rapier hanger onto the belt and cinched it around his hips. Ned swallowed. Now there was a sight to stiffen a man's sinews.
"Take your waster," Mal said. "It's not much of a weapon, but at least you know its weight and reach. We'll get you a sword if Raleigh has any spare."
Footsteps thudded overhead as men ran back and forth, putting on sail in an attempt to outrun the corsair ship. Mal and Ned left the cabin and made their way up to the poop deck. Raleigh was directing his men with calm efficiency, as if being attacked by pirates were an everyday occurrence.
"Ah, Catlyn," he said as they approached. "Ready for your first sea-action?"
Mal's reply was drowned by a shout from aloft. "Enemy coming about, captain!"
"So, they have made their decision," Raleigh said. "May God protect us."
They all crossed themselves.
"Sure I can't persuade ye to exchange that hat-pin for a more fit weapon?" Raleigh asked Mal, patting the hilt of his own backsword.
"Thank you, no," Mal replied. "I'll take my chances with the blades I know."
"Please yourself; it's no loss to me." Raleigh turned back to his crew. "All hands to the guns!" He patted his first mate on the shoulder and added in quieter tones, "More speed, Master Warburton. As much as she can give us."
The corsair galley was running before the wind at alarming speed, her oars shipped but ready to be deployed at a moment's notice. As she came nearer, Mal could make out the crew leering at them from the rigging, sun-darkened faces contrasting with the bright colours of kerchiefs or half-concealed by wild black hair. Not all were Moors, however; here and there he spotted the bleached hair and reddened skin of men from lands far north of Africa. Dutch, probably, or perhaps even renegade Englishmen. There were always a few who sought mayhem like others sought wine or women.
"Remember what we practised," he told Ned. "Keep your weapon low and close. Don't be tempted by anger to raise it up and leave yourself vulnerable."
"I'll try," Ned muttered.
Mal caught his gaze. Ned was terrified, but trying very hard not to show it. Of course. He's never been in a real fight before, not one with guns firing and deadly blades on all sides. Mal chuckled ruefully.
"What?" Ned glowered at him.
Good. A little anger will take the edge off his nerves. Just not too much. "Don't worry. You'll do better than I did in my first battle."
"Why? What did you do?"
"Very nearly shat myself with terror, for one thing," Mal replied with a smile. "And dropped my pike on the sergeant's head. Twice."
Ned laughed. Into silence.
Raleigh's crew watched in fascinated horror as the corsair ship changed course again, heading straight for their stern.
"What's it going to do? Ram us?" Ned asked.
The galley was barely a hundred yards behind them now, and sat so low in the water that Mal could look down onto its bow deck from his position in the stern. The mouths of two large cannon stared back at him.
"Jesu help us," one of the nearby sailors muttered, turning his swivel gun as far on its mount as he could, in an effort to train it on the galley.
"What is it?" Mal asked.
"They're going to rake us." When Mal gave him a puzzled look he added, "Fire on our stern."
"And that's bad, is it?"
"It's the weakest part of the hull. Any shot that hits us will tear the length of the lower decks."
"Hard a'larboard!" Raleigh yelled at the helmsman. "All larboard guns prepare to fire!"
The galleon heeled to the left, lines thrumming like lute-strings as the sails fought the wind. Slowly, too slowly. Puffs of white smoke issued from the corsair cannons, followed a moment later by a low thunder – and Mal staggered against the rail as the poop deck bucked underfoot. Behind him men screamed.
"Get down there and help carry away the injured," Raleigh told Mal. He turned to his crew. "You there, fire on their gunners at will."
The swivel gunners obeyed, the higher pitched bark of the small cannon ringing out as Mal and Ned clattered down the steps to the weather deck. The door to their own cabin lay in splinters, and a trail of destruction down the starboard side of the deck revealed the cannon-ball's flight. The remains of a man, cut almost in two, were bleeding copiously onto the deck.
"God rest your soul," Mal muttered, stepping over the corpse. "Here, Ned, help me with this one."
Another man was lying face down, groaning, his leg bent at an unnatural angle. He screamed when they hauled him upright, and Ned nearly dropped him.
"Steady," Mal told him. "No point in making it worse."
Ned said nothing, only took a firmer grip of the man's arm.
"Get him down to the bilges, out of the way," one of the survivors shouted at them.
"But–"
"Just do it!"
They lowered the man down the ladder to the gun deck. Any moment Mal expected another cannonball to rip through the hull and smash them all to pieces. They shuffled through the gloom, dodging the cannons that rumbled gently back and forth with the motion of the ship and the men scurrying around them with ramrods and match-cords.
The wounded sailor began to struggle as they half-carried, half-dragged him towards the ladder leading down into the belly of the ship.
"Not the bilges!" he moaned. "In God's name, don't leave me to die, not in there!"
Mal glanced at Ned, who shrugged, his expression bleak. He halted and leant close to the man's ear.
"Just as far as the main hold, eh? We can't leave you up here."
The sailor nodded, his face white with pain. Mal and Ned helped him down the ladder and made him as comfortable as they could on a pile of empty chunny sacks. The stink of the bilges was strong down here, but at least this level was dry.
The Falcon shuddered again as her own cannons fired, and dust rained down from the planks overhead. The three men waited, hardly daring to breathe, but there was no answering response from the corsair galley. Ned let out an audible sigh of relief.
"Come on, there's nothing more we can do here," Mal said, wiping the sweat and grime from his brow with the back of his sleeve.
He scrambled up the ladder and ran the length of the gun deck. At the foot of the next ladder he put out a hand to stop Ned.
"Hear that?"
Shouts and the clash of steel sounded from the deck above.
"Corsairs?" Ned asked. "They've boarded us already?"
Mal put a hand to his sword hilt – and halted with the blade half-drawn. Dammit, Raleigh was right. A ship was no place to be carrying a rapier. He slammed it back into the scabbard and drew his dagger instead. Ten inches of cold steel. It would do for now. He ran up the ladder two rungs at a time and leapt out onto the deck in a fighting stance. Immediately he found himself facing a heavily built Moor almost his own height. The corsair's falchion came round in a belly-slicing arc and Mal sprang back, tripped over Ned and sent him tumbling back down to the gun deck. The falchion smashed into the deck inches from Mal's head as he rolled aside and scrambled to his feet again. Mal switched the dagger to his left hand and drew his rapier. The corsair laughed at the sight of the slender blade.
In that brief distraction Mal lunged, simultaneously raising his dagger to deflect another blow from the falchion. The Moor stared down at the red stain blooming across his white tunic, then sagged to his knees as Mal withdrew the rapier blade and closed in to slash his throat open with a backhand sweep of the dagger.
Another corsair prepared to leap across the hatch towards Mal, but the end of Ned's cudgel slammed into his groin and he collapsed, moaning in agony. A moment later Ned popped his head up.
"Stay below!" Mal yelled, and stabbed the corsair through the heart before he could recover.
The enemy had not yet gained the upper hand, but far too many of the men lying helpless or dead were English. He roared and ran at the nearest corsair, a giant of a man made taller by an elaborate turban topped with red and black plumes. His falchion had a deep-toothed edge to its blade, designed to latch onto a ship's rail as well as cause unpleasant puncture wounds. They danced back and forth for long moments, Mal dodging the shining arc of his opponent's weapon rather than risking a parry, trying to coax the man to move in closer. There. He leapt into the opening, bringing his rapier round – and skidded in a pool of blood as the ship rolled.
The falchion whistled down and caught on the elaborate curves of the rapier's hilt. Mal swore and released his grip before the toothed blade could sever his fingers. The corsair shook the rapier aside with a grin and moved in for the kill, but before he could do so, his head exploded in a spray of blood and splinters of bone. Mal looked up to see one of the swivel gunners grinning at him from the poop deck.
"Christ's holy mother!" he yelled up at the man. "That could have been me!"
The sailor made an obscene gesture and set about reloading his gun. Mal got to his feet and retrieved his sword. The remaining corsairs were fleeing back to their ship, diving into the water to avoid being shot by the English sailors. With her sails still unfurled to catch the wind, the Falcon was being blown further away from the galley with every moment, unable to turn back and pursue the oared vessel. Mal watched in frustration as their enemy slipped beyond the reach of cannon fire, though in truth Raleigh had barely enough men left whole to crew his ship, still less take the corsairs on for a second bout.
He wandered into the shattered remnants of the poop. The table and benches lay in ruins, and the dividing wall between their cabin and Raleigh's was gone, only a few splintered timbers showing where it had been. Beyond it, the stern was a gaping hole, floorboards shattered and sloping precariously down towards a drop into the sea. If he had not persuaded Ned to join him on deck, his friend would likely be dead right now. For the first time in weeks he was glad he had not brought Coby. The thought of her cut in half like that poor bastard out there… He put the grisly image aside. Where was Ned anyway? With a pang of guilt he headed back to the gun deck.
When he found Ned at last, the younger man rushed to embrace him, muttering curses over and over like prayers as he buried his face in Mal's shoulder. Mal rested his chin against Ned's brow, fighting down his own post-battle shakes. Around them the gunners were slapping one another's shoulders and laughing, even as their injured fellows groaned in the hold below. They had lived to see another day, God be praised. No man could ask for more than that.