Chase the Morning полностью

It flung the ship into a flurry of action, but noiselessly. Pierce’s one hissed order, as eloquent as his usual bellow, was enough to send the hands scampering to the braces. The slap of their feet on the deck was about the loudest man-made sound. With the embroidered gloves he persisted in clutching, even in this heat, Pierce sketched a sharp line in the air, right to left. The mate lifted his cane in answer; there was one loud creak and rumble as the larboard ports flew open and the guns ran out, and that was all. We were as ready as we could be. In breathless silence, we bucked and dipped through the turbulent seas around the point.

Gradually the lee flank of the headland came into view, as steep and tree-clad as the other, wrapped in deeper twilight. From here the sun was hidden; the only light came from the sunset sky, reflected in the waters of the sheltered bay. And there, in towards the shore, riding easily above the clouds mirrored in that glass-calm pool, was the unmistakeable silhouette of the Chorazin.

The linstocks stopped whirling. The gun-captains held them poised above the touch-holes, ready to rake the Wolves’ ship with yet another terrible barrage. If Clare had escaped our last broadsides, could she still survive this? The mate looked anxiously up to the quarterdeck; we were still sweeping by, across the bay. Already the ideal moment to fire was past. But Pierce stood still, fingering his chin, while Jyp whistled softly between his teeth. There lay our formidable quarry, ports closed, sails furled tight, moored peacefully by bow and stern and showing no light anywhere, nor any other sign of life. And just how likely was that?

‘Head and stern, d’you see?’ whispered Pierce suddenly. Why was he asking me? ‘She’s moored head and stern. Head only, why, she might swing around on a spring, might she not? Bring her guns to bear thus. But now she can’t. God’s wounds! It’s worth the candle! We’ll in and look her over!’ He gestured again, Jyp spun the helm and in the same uncanny silence the deck hands flung themselves on the falls and hauled, taking the strain with a single hissing breath. Even the bosun and his mates dimmed their ritual abuse to a few hoarse whispers, and the mate stood cracking his cane into his palm to set the hauling pace. The sails shifted, the deck dipped; in a fierce, tense hush Defiance swung her nose around and stood in towards the land.

Pierce never took his eyes from the black ship. His brief nod to the mate sent the topmen streaming up the shrouds and along the yardarms with a nonchalance that made me feel slightly sick. Their control was daunting; with hardly a word spoken or a movement wasted the sails were taken in, and Defiance slowed to a stately glide. It brought home to me, with a slight shiver, how old the people I was watching really were. These complex, dangerous evolutions came to them as easily, as automatically as breathing now. They could almost have gone about and shortened sail in their sleep; and why not? They’d been doing it, some of them, for three or four lifetimes. Or more.

Suddenly Pierce flipped up his gloves again, held them high for a second, another – and then brought them sharply down to his side. With its capstan pawl thrown the anchor was trailed down with scarcely a splash to disturb the still waters, and in a second or so Defiance strained gently to a halt. I goggled. With just those two seconds of calculation Pierce had managed to position us neatly at an ideal angle to the black merchantman. Few of her guns could reach us here, but our broadside could rake the stern off her if need be. He’d taken this for granted; the moment the anchor touched water he’d turned away and whispered a barrage of orders. Jyp was already down on the maindeck pulling together a boarding party. I was on my way to muscle in when Mall appeared, hustling along a sick-looking Stryge. She didn’t even glance at me.

‘Well, sorcerer?’ rumbled Pierce.

Stryge scowled at him. The old man really did look exhausted. He coughed raspingly, spat copiously on Pierce’s clean deck and traced a complex figure in the phlegm with his toe. He watched it settle, and sighed. ‘There is little I can tell you. The cloud still hangs about the ship. But if she is not aboard …’ He nodded to the island. ‘Try there.’

‘Some guess!’ I snapped. ‘You’re supposed to be such a powerful sorcerer, and that’s all you can tell me?’

‘I’m spent!’ muttered Stryge. Disdainfully he sniffed the rich, dank odours from the land. ‘And how should I achieve more in this place? I belong to the North. Give me a frosty night air that smells of resin and sharp wood-smoke. Take me back to the pines on the Brocken, where the dark powers meet –’

‘You can’t have been there lately,’ I told him. ‘There aren’t any. The East Germans cut down all the forest and stuck up a damn great concrete blockhouse, like the Berlin Wall –’