Smithers broke off when he noted who was lying next to the binnacle. “Hey, you blessed morons, that’s him, that’s O’Reilly!”
But the cat—a kind of Chinese-looking cat, Jack thought, but hard to see, like in a dream—suddenly laid a paw from out of the dark over Smithers’s shoulder and gently stroked up his chest, like a woman’s caress.
Smithers stared down quizzically at his chest. He hardly had a chance to form an expression of surprise before the hand suddenly snapped up violently, like a striking snake, and his Adam’s apple was crushed into the back of his throat. His head, grabbed by two hands, twisted until he was staring backward over his shoulder. Jack heard his neck break. There was the face of Quen-Li looking into his own. No expression. My God, thought Jack. He almost felt sorry for the remaining thug. He didn’t stand a chance.
The man holding Hansum hadn’t seen Quen-Li. He was trying to assure his leader over the side that he was coming fast as he could, but he turned at the sound of Smithers’s neck cracking, and watched him fall to the deck, spasming. “Good God—” He caught a movement of what seemed like black cloth swishing behind him and he unconsciously released his grip on Hansum, at which point his captive kicked his heel up and slammed the man solidly in the groin. His groan was stifled by a hand clamped over his mouth from behind, followed by a deadly strike from a dagger to his side.
“Come, Bob,” Quen-Li said to Hansum, motioning for him to help him lift the big man’s body. Jack willed himself to stand. He couldn’t be of any help, but he staggered over to the rail to see what was happening as Quen-Li and Bob edged the man over the side.
The leader in the boat, seeing his man’s head appear at the rail, yelled frantically, “Johnson, damn you, hurry!” He started up the ladder when Johnson came down on him as deadweight, taking them both into the harbor.
“Jesus,” the leader spluttered, regaining the surface. The men in the boat quickly pulled him back aboard. “What the hell is the matter with Johnson?”
“Christ, boss, he’s dead. Skewered like a pig.”
Before the shock of that realization could fully hit home, another body crashed to the center of their launch from above. “What the hell—”
“It’s that damn Smithers!”
The men in the launch panicked. They cast fearful glances at the gunwale of the Star, and pushed off with their oars, rowing wildly. The leader, regaining his wits, screamed at them to head for the Respite. “Those longboats are picking up speed!”
The men from the Star, who had been lazily returning, had finally realized something was wrong and had galvanized into action. They had seen the strange boat and knew something was amiss.
The men in the press-boat with the Star’s leader in tow, pulled with everything they had for the British ship. The last Jack could see, they were casting glances down at Smithers, whose purple face and protruding eyes were staring up at them from his twisted form.
Even when they were out of sight, Quince’s voice carried back over the still water. Jack heard him say, “You boys ever read the Bible?”
“What?”
“Yer about to inherit the wind. Why don’t you save yourselves the grief. Do you really think Black Jack O’Reilly will let you keep breathing after you raided his ship?”
“Shut up, you old fool,” screeched the leader.
“Aye, I’m a fool all right… for speaking to dead men.”
Jack felt Quen-Li and Hansumbob lift him under the arms; they had heard, too. They walked Jack back to one of the pallets on deck and set him down. He was still woozy from the blow to the head, but his desperation at Quince’s capture was bringing him around.
Jack stood on the deck of the Star with a grim look on his face, listening quietly to Hansumbob and Quen-Li as they recounted Quince’s kidnapping. The men were outraged. How could they possibly retrieve their shipmate and leader from the clutches of a British man-o’-war?
They directed their comments to Jack, looking to him for a solution. Not yet twenty years old, and the seasoned men of the Star treated him as their undisputed leader. Even Cheatum, strangely silent, perhaps because he had been so closely associated with the traitor, offered no challenge to Jack’s authority. Mentor, closest in age to Quince, seemed the most shaken.
“Jack, what are we gonna do? We’ve got to get him back.”
“And send that damn De Vries to his maker,” added Jacob, “so’s he can rot in hell right next to Smithers.”
“First things first,” Jack spoke calmly.
Coop, staring at the man-o’-war, remarked, “Even with most of her regulars on leave, her complement is five times our number. And there’s no way of gettin’ a raiding party anywhere’s near that ship with them maintaining a naval watch.”
Jack gazed at the warship, impregnable, bristling with guns. Wood flotsam floated against it, as it did all vessels in the harbor. He saw watchmen in several small picket boats, lanterns mounted on them, ensuring that no intruders could get near the vessel.
“I think I know a way to board her, but I don’t know how to handle the crew. They outnumber us by too much.” He watched another log join the rest of the garbage collected against the Respite’s hull with the outgoing tide. The ship was a formidable sight; the flotsam appeared like leaves and branches blown by the wind against a great citadel.
Paul said, “Well I don’t know how you plan to get on board an English man-o’-war, but if you got to the captain fast enough, you might not have to fight the crew.” The men waited in silence for Jack’s response.
“Maybe that’s the answer.” The effect of the blow on Jack’s head had almost completely worn off. As he stared at the imposing warship, a plan was forming.
“Yeah, but there’s still the little matter of the British navy maybe not wanting us to come aboard and attack their captain,” Jacob said.
“Then we shouldn’t ask them,” answered Jack. “While we’ve been standing here jabbering, plenty of man-sized objects have approached that ship without causing alarm.”
Coop interjected, “That muck in the water?”
Paul, catching Jack’s meaning, remarked, “If you’re thinking of holding on to some of those logs and floating up to her, I don’t think it’ll work. They’d see your arms or head sticking out, particularly when you get near those light boats, and they’d lift you out by the neck with a rope—right on up to the yardarm—and leave you swinging.”
“Aye,” responded Mentor. “They’d see us sure, Jack.”
“Wait,” Jack continued, eyes afire. “Remember when we fooled around in the shallows in Belaur, with the kids? Remember those reeds they taught us to use, the ones we’d breathe through a foot underwater.”
Some of the men reached for their tobacco pipes, rubbing their chins and necks, a mannerism they often adopted when on the way to being convinced of one of Jack’s schemes.
“Coop, think you can auger some holes through a couple of old spars after we find out how they lay in the water?” Jack asked.
Coop nodded.
“And Paul, can you find some of those bamboo shoots the workmen left in the hold?” Paul, knowing there was no stopping it now, headed below to get the reeds.
Soon there were two spars floating in the water, looking like any flotsam. The reeds were cut flush with the surface of the wood at the top and extended several inches below the bottom. Coop added a set of cabinet handles on the undersides, near each of the protruding reeds. A man could swim under the spar, hold on to the handles, and breathe through the bamboo tubes. They had selected reeds of sufficient diameter that enough air would reach the men’s lungs without their having to breathe too hard.