Free Sea Witch by Helen Hollick

topple inward, the floor shaking and quivering, heaving itself upward as if the earth was shrugging her shoulders to rid herself of these annoying fleas that dared to walk upon her. The sound was of several broadsides being fired at once, a huge cloud of dust adding to the spread of panic and confusion.
    It lasted no more than half a minute, although with the walls and roof falling in, the cries of trapped men and Hell apparently opening up beneath their feet, it seemed a lifetime.
    Jesamiah stood and stared. There was no longer a wall, only a pile of dust-smoking rubble. Nor was there a north-side outer wall to Fort Charles, part of it was nothing more than a gaping hole. Coughing and spluttering he peered out through the swirling fug, dust choking in his throat and nose, coating his face and hands. A great crack had torn across the paving of the courtyard; red-coated militiamen were sprawled dead or injured, others were standing dazed and disorientated.
    “ Allez, Monsieur! Vite! Vite! Do not stand there – run!” The Frenchman urged as he ducked out into the open air of freedom. “Or do you wish to stay ‘ere and ‘ang at the governor’s pleasure, after all?”
    Hesitating, Jesamiah glanced behind into what had been their prison cell. He could see three dead men; good men, good crew, good pirates – were those other two alive? He winced, wrestling with his conscience. If he stayed to help them what could he do? He was no surgeon; one looked as though he had lost a leg, the other was half buried.
    “I’m sorry,” he muttered as he chose survival and freedom, and hoped the poor beggars, if alive, would die quickly.
    In Port Royal’s main street people were running in aimless directions like frightened rabbits, others stood or sat, silent and dazed some cradling broken bones and bleeding wounds. More than a few lay dead, crushed beneath collapsed buildings. A small child, shrieking hysterically for her mother, wandered on to the cracked cobbles of the road straight into the path of a bolting horse, its iron shoes sending up a shower of sparks as it galloped, terrified. Without thinking of his own safety Jesamiah plunged forward, grabbed up the child and rolled with her as he hit the ground. Slammed his eyes shut as a hoof came down a hair’s breadth from where his head had been a short second ago.
    He sat up, the child screeching her indignation in his arms, he stroked her hair, jigged her up and down, did what he could to comfort her while he tried to think what to do. Think man! Think! The officers inside the fort were beginning to get themselves and their men organised. Any moment now they would realise the jail was empty of living men and erupt in search of their prisoners.
    “I cannot take you with me, sweetness, I’m sorry lass. Your ma will soon find you.” He set the girl down, dragging her clinging fingers from his grimed shirt and ran towards the harbour, forcing himself not to look back at her or he would be sure to regret it.
    A two-masted sloop anchored in the harbour had wrenched free of her cable; she would be holed on a reef before long if no one went aboard to set a sail and steer her. Several small boats had also broken their warping lines and were drifting. Jesamiah knew next to nothing of earthquakes; this one had seemed enormous, but as most of the fort and the ramshackle town was still standing he assumed it had not been anywhere near as massive as the ‘quake of ‘92. Did he not remember his father saying something about aftershocks and tidal waves? He looked out to sea. Aye, the waves were crashing over the reefs, running at twice the height he would have expected – as if a storm were rumbling beneath the surface.
    Looking round, he recognised others from his cell: the Frenchman and a black African among them. He shouted to them, waving his arm. “If there’s enough of us, we can get to sea – it’ll be rough sailing but that sloop’s begging for a crew!”
    He jumped for the