Free The Scent of Betrayal by David Donachie Page A

they certainly had the means to proceed to the destination of their choice.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    THE HURRICANE , so early in the season, caught out more ships’ Captains than Harry Ludlow. There would be a heavy toll to pay all over the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico when it finally blew itself out. Not that the men lashed to the wheel of the Bucephalas had any thoughts to spare for the plight of others: all their attention was concentrated on keeping their own ship before the wind. The two scraps of heavy storm canvas on the topsail yards, secured by extra braces, all that they had to maintain steerage-way, stood between them and disaster. That and the Captain’s ability to read the flukes in the wind and weather. The tempest screamed through the rigging at a steady ninety knots, but the mountainous waves, with their cable deep troughs, called for constant vigilance, since the full fury of the hurricane eased in the valleys they created, only to return with renewed intensity as the ship crested each rise.
    Running before the storm at least kept the spume out of their eyes, though their entire world was water. Bucephalas shipped great quantities amidships as the ragged top of each wave broke under her counter, so much that it appeared impossible that the ship should float. But it did, groaning as each deluge was sloughed overboard, rising with an effort and a rending sound that seemed almost human. Not all the sea water went over the side. Despite every precaution, a great quantity found its way through both the planking and the hatches, turning each companionway into a temporary torrent forceful enough to carry anyone who’d not taken a firm grip all the way to the bilges. Down below, under those very same hatches, the men on the pumps slaved to send the floodback into the sea. Too much water in the well and Bucephalas would lack the buoyancy to keep afloat. If that happened no amount of seamanship would save her.
    Harry Ludlow, who’d been on deck for the last eighteen hours, had the central position at the wheel, body lashed to the spokes and feet jammed into the looped ropes he’d stapled to the deck. Pender stood to his right and a giant bearded Frenchman, Brissot, to his left. Even with a full complement of his own Harry wondered if they could have ridden out the storm. The extra hands provided by his French passengers had not only provided assistance at the wheel, they had allowed him a continuous relay of reasonably fresh men on the pumps. Reasonable because no one could rest properly in a situation where the slightest easing of concentration would see a man thrown right across the lower deck, slammed into the side with a force that flesh and blood couldn’t withstand. The cockpit, once more a temporary sick bay, was already overflowing with sailors who’d fallen victim to the storm. James Ludlow, battered and bruised himself, sought to ease the pain of deep cuts and broken bones, his main aid being liberal quantities of undiluted rum.
    Not that Harry had any communication with those below decks. He’d issued them their orders hours before; pump hard, then pump even harder. It had been an age since anyone dared to venture up from below. To come onto this deck was to invite certain death. Not even the man ropes rigged all over would have allowed anyone to keep their feet. What human grip could withstand the pounding of such a sea? To the trio conning the ship no world existed outside the confines of that little patch of disturbed water. Even at the crest of a wave the spume whipped to the tops from the rear cut off all view of the surrounding sea. Above their heads the black clouds seemed to bear down on them, pushing their puny human frames into the waterlogged planking. They were all alone in this nightmare world, where the slightest error would see Bucephalas broach to and founder, before a wind that would push her under within a matter of seconds, a furious drowningthat would leave no trace of the ship or the