Free Captain in Calico by George MacDonald Fraser

It’s a high thrust in the chest’ – he indicated the crimson gash of the wound half-hidden by the thick black hair on La Bouche’s breast – ‘and no one ever died of one of those. Not,’ he added hopefully, ‘unless ye intend to let him bleed to death.’
    Grumbling and cursing, they nevertheless made shift to staunch their captain’s bleeding while the Major rejoined Rackham who sat, pale and breathing heavily, on a bench against the tavern wall.
    â€˜You’re not unscratched yourself,’ said Penner, kneeling at his principal’s side and making examination of the bloody groove which La Bouche’s rapier had cut in his ribs. ‘Another inch to the left there and it’s yourself would be lying on the sand yonder. And, blast me, what ails your hand?’ He swore in disgust at the sight of the crimson stain spreading through the sash which the pirate had swathed on his forearm. ‘The graceful art of sword-play! You’ll have taken this when you beat his blade aside with your hand. And not the wit to realise that in so turning a point you must touch the blade for an instant only, for fear it has a cutting edge.’
    â€˜Talk less and bind it for me,’ said Rackham shortly. He lay back, his black head resting against the plaster of the wall,his face grimed with sand and sweat. Reaction had set in, and he was finding it an effort to talk. The Major, having stripped away the bloody sash and sponged the wound, bound a linen cloth tightly about it, remonstrating as he did so, like a mother with an injured child.
    â€˜It’s thankful we should be you’ve taken no worse hurt. I was a fool to have let matters go so far. When he disarmed you that time – my God!’ The Major shuddered. ‘I thought ye were done, and so you would have been, but that ye have the fiend’s own luck and a surprising nimbleness on your feet. But, there now, all’s well that ends well, as the poet says.’
    At that moment they were interrupted by a woman’s voice calling them from the roadway, and at the sound of it Rackham spun round so violently that he nearly upset the Major. For it was the voice which had urged La Bouche to run him through when he stood disarmed; the voice which had made him forget his fear in a mad surge of fury, and the recollection of its mockery reawoke his anger against the speaker.
    â€˜Major Penner! A moment, Major, if you please.’
    The Major, turning with Rackham, swept off his hat and made a clumsy bow towards a carriage which stood at the roadside. He muttered an excuse to Rackham and lumbered towards it.

6. ANNE BONNEY
    The woman in the carriage was tall, and quite the most vivid-looking creature Rackham had ever seen. Her hair, beneath a broad-brimmed bonnet, was glossy dark red, and hung to shoulders which in spite of the heat were covered only by a flimsy muslin scarf. Her high-waisted green gown was cut very low on her magnificent bosom, which was bare of ornament; her face was long, with a prominent nose and chin, her brows heavy and dark, and her lips, which were heavily painted, were broad and full, with an odd quirk at the corners that gave her an expression at once wanton and cynical. Massive earrings touched her shoulders, there was a tight choker of black silk round her neck, and the bare forearm which lay along the edge of the carriage was heavily bangled and be-ringed.
    â€˜In God’s name, Penner, what was the meaning of that moon madness?’ She waved a jewelled hand in Rackham’s direction. ‘D’ye value the hide of your friend so cheap that you’ll offer him as meat for a bully-swordsman’s chopping?’
    â€˜Why, ma’am, I—’ Penner shuffled and stammered. ‘I was opposed to it, d’ye see – from the outset, but—’
    â€˜If that was your opposition, God save us from your encouragement,’ observed the woman languidly. She