Free The Voyage of the Sea Wolf by Eve Bunting

the rope with his arms and legs like some kind of a great ape.
    I saw William.
    How strange it was that he and I were going back on the
Reprisal
and in such a way. We had left it in a longboat, doomed never to see it or those in it or another living being ever again. He saw me and shouted, “Stay away from Herc. If’n he sees ye he’ll kill ye.”
    I did not need to be told.
    â€œYou, too,” I shouted.
    The crossing was formidable though short. The two ships rolled in the water, one tilting up on a surge, one tilting down as if playing some sort of child’s game. The rope was slippery and rough to hold on to and the men in front and behind jerked on it with every movement. One man fell off with a splash into the trough of a wave below. I thought it was Pork.
    None stopped to look how he was faring. Perhaps he could swim but it was unlikely.
    Behind me someone shoved and yelled, “What are ye waitin’ for? Keep moving, wench, or I’ll knock ye down to the sharks.”
    I got to the end of the rope and pulled myself over the side, onto the
Reprisal
’s deck.
    There was such a hubbub, such noise and screams. Hand to hand, cutlasses flashing, the fighting had started.
    On the port side of the ship, water sloshed through the hole in the hull, running in dirty streams along the slant of the deck. The crosswise timber suspending the mainsail hung at an angle and the canvas sagged, pulled down by its own weight.
    â€œCareful above,” I shouted. “The sail’s going to fall.”
    Nobody looked or answered.
    I moved away should it crash below.
    I had left my shoes behind on the
Reprisal
the better to have a purchase on the rope and now I stood barefoot in frigid seawater that was slurped pink with blood. My foot touched something red and slimy. Sickness rose in my throat but I held it down, reminding myself that I was a pirate captain’s daughter and a pirate myself now. And this was what pirates did.
    The crew of the
Sea Wolf
went wild. They tore open the hatches, cut apart bales and trunks with their cutlasses. What they had no use for they hacked to pieces and tossed overboard. They swore and invoked the devil and called upon different saints and laughed like maniacs.
    Captain Moriarity was among them making noattempt to quell them, joining in the mayhem.
    And all the time the
Reprisal
canted lower in the greedy sea that sucked at her deck and carried with it anything that floated free.
    I recognized many of my father’s old crew, those who had mocked me and spat on me and pushed me off to a certain death on Pox Island. But now I had only pity for them. They were huddled in groups like whipped dogs, making halfhearted attempts to protect the ship and themselves.
    One of the
Sea Wolf
’s men shouted, “There be’s barrels o’ gunpowder below. Come on,” and I saw William, following some of the others, helping to heave the barrels of gunpowder to the side to be transferred to our ship.
    â€œAre ye all right?” he shouted to me.
    â€œAye. And you?”
    He nodded.
    I had a moment’s confusion. They were transferring from my father’s ship, the ship I had dreamed of all my life, to this other ship that was now “ours.” But with Herc as captain, the
Reprisal
was no longer mine. With Captain Moriarity, I did not know.
    Sebastian lurched along the deck, slicing at legs with his boarding axe. When he saw me he shouted, “I be’s good at this. They never looks down until I’ve aboutchopped their legs out from under them.”
    At that minute I got my first glimpse of Red, my old friend from the
Reprisal
. His fat belly was bare, the ginger hairs on his chest matted with blood. He was fighting and swearing. “Ye maggots! Ye plague-infested bilge rats.” I had no time to hail him for I was being attacked from the side by Mr. Trimble, quartermaster on the
Reprisal
. He raised his cutlass above my head but when he