The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor Read Online Free PDF Page B

light overhead. The second aft hatch is open. She hears distant voices and can’t resist the mad impulse to see for herself and climbs the ladder just far enough to peek above the level of the deck. A hundred yards to port is another ship, a large single-masted sloop on a parallel course. It is the first evidence of humanity beyond this ship they have encountered since they had left Bristol, and it has come to devour them.
    She looks up and is surprised to see that the
Anton
carries only light sail, although the breeze is strong.
    “Surely we must try,” she thinks. She looks along the deck to where Skinner and two officers stand at the rail. They face the approaching sloop and are waving their arms. The sloop draws close, its enormous mainsail billowing. Charlotte feels her throat constrict with anxiety so palpable she can hardly draw breath.
    Men stand along the rail of the sloop with drawn blades and muskets. What chance has she to hide from these pitiless bandits? They have only to put a few of the
Anton’s
men to torture or the sword and her presence will soon be revealed. A voice rises above the sound of the rushing water.
    “Heave to! Heave to now!”
    It is spoken by a tall man who stands a head above the other pirates.
    “Heave to! We’re boarding. Lay down your weapons and you’ll every one have mercy from us! Heave to!”
    Captain Skinner waves again and calls out.
    “Help! Help! We need water! Help!”
    “Heave to, skipper!” calls the pirate captain. His hair is black and unbound, as Charlotte had always imagined a pirate’s hair would be. It is clear that fear had unmanned Skinner entirely. Her mind races. What can she do? What can she say?
    “Help us!” calls Skinner.
    “What’d ya say?” calls the pirate.
    “Help! Hasten! The pox has struck and we’re desperate for water. Take what you will but give us water, we beg of you! Help!”
    Charlotte sees four of the
Anton’s
crew appear from beneath the quarter deck. They bear a plank bound with a body wrapped for burial. Charlotte is torn between fear and grief. Another body follows the first. They are tipped overboard with awful slowness and when they are gone, one of the sailors who had carried them slumps to the deck and lies motionless. The others back away from him and turn to the rail.
    “Water!” they call out. “Water!”
    “What have you aboard?” calls the pirate leader.
    “Good cotton!” Skinner replies. “You may have it all, what we have not wrapped the dead with.”
    For some time the two ships sail on in parallel, not fifteen yards of sea between them, as the pirates talk among themselves. Another of the
Anton’s
crew crumples to his knees; the others give him wide berth.
    “How many have you lost?” the pirate calls.
    At that moment two sailors appear with yet another bound body. The pirates gather at their rail again.
    “What’s in that there?” calls their captain.
    “A lad who has just died,” says Skinner.
    The pirate ship veers a little off, then closes again.
    “Let’s see ’im, then!” calls the pirate.
    Skinner looks pointedly at his men, and with great care the two sailors expose Tommy’s face to the sun.
    “We’re short o’ water ourselves!” shouts the pirate captain. “Steer straight on! You’re not far now!”
    The pirate sloop heels to starboard and veers across the wind. Within ten minutes, she is well off.
    It is an old trick, as Charlotte later learned, but done well, it always stood a chance. No sailor wanted smallpox aboard. Coming on deck, Charlotte looks at Skinner’s leather face and feels an unexpected admiration for him. He makes his living on a dangerous sea and he has the gumption to see danger through. They owe their lives to him, and to the special instrument of their salvation, Tommy Yates.
    At noon they stand at the rail as Skinner mumbles from the Book of Prayer. They bind a ballast stone to the boy for weight, his frail corpse not heavy enough to sink. They tip the plank