Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton
He felt his longboat crunch up against the sandy shore. The men jumped out into knee-deep water. Hunter whispered, “Everybody out but the Jew. Careful with the Jew.”
Indeed, a moment later, the Jew stepped gingerly onto dry land, his arms cradling a precious cargo.
“Was it dampened?” Hunter whispered.
“I do not think so,” Don Diego said. “I was careful.” He blinked his weak eyes. “I cannot see well.”
“Follow me,” Hunter said. He led his group into the interior of the island. Behind him, on the beach, the other two longboats were discharging their armed crews. The men moved stealthily into the cactus ashore. The night was moonless and very dark. Soon they were all deep in the island, moving toward the fires and the pounding drums.
The Caribee village was much larger than he expected: a dozen mud huts with grass roofs, ranged in a semicircle around several blazing fires. Here the warriors, painted a fierce red, danced and howled, their bodies casting long, shifting shadows. Several wore crocodile skins over their heads; others raised human skulls into the air. All were naked. They sang an eerie, monotone chant.
The object of their dance could be observed above the fire. There, resting on a lattice of green wood strips, was the armless, legless, gutted torso of a seaman. To one side, a group of women were cleaning the intestines of the man.
Hunter did not see Lady Sarah. Then the Moor pointed. He saw her, lying on the ground to one side. Her hair was matted with blood. She did not move. She was probably dead.
Hunter looked at his men. Their expressions registered shock and rage. He whispered a few words to Lazue, then set out with Bassa and Don Diego, crawling around the periphery of the camp.
The three men entered one hut, knives ready. The hut was deserted. Skulls hung from the ceiling, clinking together in the wind that blew through the encampment. There was a basket of bones in a corner.
“Quickly,” Hunter said, ignoring this.
Don Diego set his grenadoe in the center of the room, and lit the fuse. The three men slipped back outside, to a far corner of the encampment. Don Diego lit the fuse on a second grenadoe, and waited.
The first grenadoe exploded with stunning effect. The hut blew apart in a thousand fragments; the stunned lobster-colored warriors howled in frightened surprise. Don Diego lobbed the second grenadoe into the fire. It exploded moments later. Warriors screamed as they were riddled with fragments of flying metal and glass.
Simultaneously, Hunter’s men opened fire from the underbrush.
Hunter and the Moor crept forward, retrieved the body of Lady Sarah Almont, and moved back into the bushes again. All around them, the Caribee warriors screamed, howled, and died. The grass roofs of the huts caught fire. Hunter’s last glimpse of the camp was that of a blazing inferno.
Their retreat was hasty and unplanned. Bassa, with his enormous strength, carried the Englishwoman easily. She moaned.
“She’s alive,” Hunter said.
She moaned again.
At a brisk trot, the men hurried back to the beach, and their boats. They escaped the island without further incident.
. . .
BY DAWN, THEY were all safely back to the ship. Enders, the sea artist, had given over work on the galleon to Hunter, while he attended the woman’s injuries. By mid-morning, he was able to report.
“She’ll survive,” he said. “Nasty blow on the head, but nothing serious.” He looked at the ship. “Wish we were as well off here.”
Hunter had been trying to get the careened ship ready to sail. But there was still much to do: the mainmast was still weak, and the maintop missing; the foremast was entirely gone, and there was still a large hole below the waterline. They had torn out much of the deck to obtain lumber for the repairs, and soon they would have to tear up part of the lower gun deck. But progress was slow.
“We can’t be off before tomorrow morning,” Hunter said.
“I don’t fancy the night,” Enders said, looking around the island. “Quiet enough now. But I don’t fancy staying the night.”
“Nor I,” Hunter said.
They worked straight through the night, the exhausted men going without sleep in their frantic haste to finish work on the ship. A heavy guard was posted, making the work slower, but Hunter felt it was necessary.
At midnight, the drums began to pound once more and they continued for the better part of an hour. Then there was an ominous silence.
The men were unnerved; they did not want to work, and Hunter had to urge them onward. Toward dawn, he was standing alongside a seaman on the beach, helping him to hold down a plank of lumber, when the man slapped his neck.
“Damn mosquitoes,” he said.
And then, with an odd look on his face, he collapsed, coughed, and died.
Hunter bent over him. He looked at the neck, and saw only a pinprick, with a single red drop of blood. Yet the man was dead.
From somewhere near the bow, he heard a scream, and another man tumbled to the sand, dead. His crew was in confusion; the posted guards came running back toward the ship; the men working huddled under the hull.
Hunter looked again at the dead man at his feet. Then he saw something in the man’s hand. It was a tiny, feathered dart with a needle point.
Poison darts.
“They’re coming,” shouted the lookouts. The men scrambled behind bits of wood and debris, anything that would afford protection. They waited tensely. Yet no one came; the bushes and cactus clumps along the shore were silent.
Enders crept over to Hunter. “Shall we resume work?”
“How many have I lost?”
“Peters, sir.” Enders looked down. “And Maxwell here.”
Hunter shook his head. “I can’t lose more.” His crew was cut to thirty, now. “Wait for the dawn.”
“I’ll pass the word,” Enders said, and crawled away. As he did, there was a whine and a thwack! And a small feathered dart buried itself in the wood near Hunter’s ear. He ducked down again, and waited.
Nothing further happened until dawn, when, with an unearthly wail, the red-painted men came out from the brush and descended on the beach. Hunter’s men answered with a round of musket-fire. A dozen of the savages dropped on the sand, and the others fell back into hiding.
Hunter and his men waited, crouched and uncomfortable, until midday. When nothing occurred, Hunter cautiously gave word to resume work. He led a party of men inland. The savages were gone without a trace.
He returned to the ship. His men were haggard, weary, moving slowly. But Enders was cheerful. “Cross your fingers and praise Providence,” he said, “and we’ll be off soon.”
As the sound of hammering and construction began afresh, he went to see Lady Sarah.
She lay on the sand and stared as Hunter approached.
“Madam,” he said, “how do you fare?”
She stared at him, not answering. Her eyes were open, but she did not see him.
“Madam?”
There was no reply.
“Madam?”
He passed a hand in front of her face. She did not blink. She gave no sign of recognition.
He left her, shaking his head.
They floated El Trinidad on the evening tide but they could not depart from the cove until dawn. Hunter paced the deck of his ship, keeping an eye toward the shore. The drums had started again. He was very tired, but he did not sleep. At intervals through the night, the air whined with the deadly darts. No man was struck, and Enders, crawling over the ship like a sharp-eyed monkey, pronounced himself satisfied, if not pleased, with the repairs.
At first light, they hauled the stern anchor and backed and filled, making for open water. Hunter watched, expecting to see a fleet of canoes with red warriors attacking. He was able, now, to give them a taste of
But the Indians did not attack, and as the sails were raised to catch the wind, and No Name Cay disappeared behind them, the entire episode began to seem like a bad dream. He was very tired. He ordered most of his crew to sleep, leaving Enders at the tiller with a skeleton crew.
Enders was worried.
“By God,” Hunter said, “you’re eternally worried. We’ve just made off from the savages, we have our ship beneath our feet and clear water before us. When will you find it suffices?”
“Aye, the water’s clear,” Enders said, “but now we are in the Boca del Dragon, and no mistake. And this is no place for a skeleton crew.”
“The men must sleep,” Hunter said, and he went below. He immediately fell into a tormented, restless sleep in his heated, airless cabin. He dreamt his ship was capsized in the Boca del Dragon, where the waters were deeper than anywhere else in the Western Sea. He was sinking into blue water, then black . . .
He awoke with a start, to the shout of a woman. He ran on deck. It was twilight, and the breeze was very light; the sails of El Trinidad billowed and caught the reddish glow of sunset. Lazue was at the helm, having relieved Enders. She pointed out to sea: “Look there.”
Hunter looked. To port, there was a churning beneath the surface and a phosphorescent object, blue-green and glowing, came streaking toward them.
“The Dragon,” Lazue said. “The Dragon has been following us for an hour.”
Hunter watched. The glowing creature came closer, and moved alongside the ship, slowing in speed to match El Trinidad. It was enormous, a great bag of glowing flesh with long tentacles stretched out behind.
“No!” shouted Lazue, as the rudder was twisted from her hands. The ship rocked crazily. “It’s attacking!”
Hunter grabbed at the rudder, took it in his hands. But some powerful force had taken hold of it and seized control. He was knocked back against the gunwale; the breath went out of him, and he gasped. Seamen ran on deck, drawn by Lazue’s shouts. There were terrified cries of “Kraken! Kraken!”
Hunter got to his feet just as a slimy tentacle-arm snaked over the railing and twisted around his waist. Sharp, horny suckers tore at his clothing and dragged him toward the rail. He felt the coldness of the creature’s flesh. He overcame his revulsion, and hacked with his dagger at the tentacle that encircled him. It had superhuman strength, lifting him high into the air. He plunged his dagger again and again into its flesh. Greenish blood flowed down his legs.
And then, abruptly, the tentacle released its grip, and he fell to the deck. Getting to his feet, he saw tentacles everywhere, snaking over the stern of the ship, coming up high over the aft deck. A seaman was caught and raised, writhing, into the air. The creature flung him, almost disdainfully, into the water.
Enders shouted: “Get belowdecks! Belowdecks!” Hunter heard musket volleys from somewhere amidships. Men leaned over the side, firing at the thing.
Hunter went to the stern and looked down at the dreadful sight. The bulbous body of the creature was directly astern, and its many tentacles gripped the ship in a dozen places, whipping and snaking this way and that. The entire body of the animal was phosphorescent green in the growing darkness. The creature’s green tentacles were snaking into the windows of the aft cabins.
He suddenly remembered Lady Sarah, and rushed below. He found her in her cabin, still stone-faced.
“Come, Madam—”
At that moment, the lead-paned windows shattered, and an enormous tentacle, as thick as a tree trunk, snaked into the cabin. It wrapped itself around a cannon, and hauled at it; the cannon came free of its chock blocks, and rolled across the room. Where the creature’s horned suckers had touched it, the gleaming yellow metal was deeply scratched.
Lady Sarah screamed.
Hunter found an ax and hacked at the waving tentacle. Sickening green blood gushed in his face. The suckers brushed against his cheek, tearing his skin. The tentacle backed off, then snaked forward again, wrapping like a glowing green hose around his leg, throwing him to the deck. He was dragged along the floor toward the window. He buried the ax into the decking to hold himself fast; the ax pulled free, and then Lady Sarah screamed again as Hunter was torn through the already broken glass of the window and outside, over the stern of the ship.
For a moment, he rode in the air, swung back and forth by the tentacle that held his leg, like a doll in the hands of a child. Then he was slammed against the stern of El Trinidad; he gripped the railing of the aft cabin, and held on with one painful arm. With the other he used the ax to hack at the tentacle, which finally released him.
He was free, for a moment, and very close to the creature, which churned in the waters below him. He was astounded by its size. It seemed to be eating his ship, holding fast to the stern with its many tentacles. The very air glowed with the greenish light the thing gave off.
Directly beneath him, he saw one huge eye, five feet across, larger than a table. The eye did not blink; it had no expression; the black pupil, surrounded by glowing green flesh, seemed to survey Hunter dispassionately. Further astern, the body of the creature was shaped like a spade with two flat flukes. But it was the tentacles that captured his attention.
Another snaked toward him; he saw suckers the size of dinner plates, rimmed with horns. They tore at his flesh, and he twisted to avoid them, still clinging precariously to the aft cabin railing.
Above him, the seamen were firing down on the animal. Enders shouted, “Hold your fire! It’s the Captain!”
And then, in a single swipe, one of the fat tentacles knocked Hunter free of the railing, and he fell into the water, right on top of the animal.
For a moment, he churned and spun in the green glowing water, and then he gained his footing. He was actually standing on the creature! It was slippery and slimy, like standing on a sac of water. The skin of the animal — he felt it whenever he fell to his hands and knees — was gritty and cold. The flesh of the creature pulsed and shifted beneath him.
Hunter crawled forward, splashing in the water, until he came to the eye. Seen so close, the eye was huge, a vast hole in the glowing greenness.
Hunter did not hesitate; he swung his ax, burying it in the curved globe of the eye. The ax bounced off the dome; he swung again, and yet again. Finally the metal cut deep. A gush of clear water spurted upward like a geyser. The flesh around the eye seemed to contract.
And then suddenly the sea turned a milky white, and his footing was lost as the creature sank away, and he was drifting free in the ocean, shouting for help. A rope was thrown to him, and he grabbed it, just as the monster surfaced again. The impact flung him into the air, above the cloudy white water. He crashed back again, landing on the saclike skin of the monster.
Now Enders and the Moor leapt overboard, with lances in hand. They plunged their lances deep into the body of the creature. Columns of greenish blood shot into the air. There was an explosive rush of water — and the animal was gone. It slipped away, down into the depths of the ocean.
Hunter, Enders, and the Moor struggled in the churning water.
“Thanks,” Hunter gasped.
“Don’t thank me,” Enders said, nodding to the Moor. “The black bastard pushed me.”
Bassa, tongueless, grinned.
High above them, they saw El Trinidad begin to turn, and tack back to retrieve them.
“You know,” Enders said, as the three men treaded water, “when we return to Royal, no one will believe this.”
Then lines were thrown down to them, and they were hauled, dripping and coughing and exhausted, onto the deck.
Part VI
Port Royal
Chapter 34
IN THE EARLY afternoon hours of October 20, 1665, the Spanish galleon El Trinidad reached the east channel to Port Royal, outside the s
They were two miles from Port Royal itself, and Hunter and his crew stood at the railing of the ship, looking across the channel toward the town. The port was quiet; their arrival had not yet been sighted, but they knew that within moments there would be gunshots and that extraordinary frenzy of celebration that always accompanied the arrival of an enemy prize. The celebration, they knew, often lasted two days or more.
Yet the hours passed, and there was no celebration. On the contrary, the town seemed to grow quieter with each passing minute. There were no gunshots, no bonfires, no shouts of greeting across the still waters.
Enders frowned. “Has the Don attacked?”
Hunter shook his head. “Impossible.” Port Royal was the strongest English settlement in the New World. The Spanish might attack St. Kitts, or one of the other outposts. But not Port Royal.
“Something’s amiss, sure enough.”
“We’ll soon know,” Hunter said, for as they watched, a longboat put out from Fort Charles, under whose guns they were now anchored.
The longboat tied up alongside El Trinidad, and a captain of the king’s militia stepped aboard. Hunter knew him; he was Emerson, a rising young officer. Emerson was tense; he spoke too loudly as he said, “Who is the avowed captain of this vessel?”
“I am,” Hunter said, coming forward. He smiled. “How are you, Peter?”
Emerson stood stiffly. He gave no sign of recognition. “Identify yourself, sir, if you please.”
“Peter, you know full well who I am. What does it mean—”
“Identify yourself, sir, on pain of penalty.”
Hunter frowned. “What charade is this?”
Emerson, at rigid attention, said: “Are you Charles Hunter, a citizen of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and late of His Majesty’s Colony in Jamaica?”
Hunter said, “I am.” He noticed that despite the cool evening breeze, Emerson was sweating.