Read Online The Guns of Tortuga by Brad Strickland, THOMAS E. FULLER - Free Book Online

“Too much bathing, it makes the head soft!”
    The other guard laughed. “Then yours must be like a rock!”
    His friend made a rude gesture, then swept a hand at the boy. “
Allez, allez!
”
    The boy lowered his head and scuttled through the gateway. I moved to follow. Lieutenant! Not a pirate rank at all. I had found the mysterious prisoner. Now to make contact.
    I followed the boy up the street to a public fountain, where he set to work filling his buckets. No one seemed to pay him the least attention, so I came up beside him and whispered, “Are you English?”
    He froze as if turned to stone. Slowly, he nodded his head, staring resolutely into the fountain.
    â€œI come from an English ship,” I told him. “Tell me true—is there an English prisoner in that place you came from?”
    Still not turning around, he nodded again. For a second, I did not think he was going to speak, but then in a strange, rusty voice, he said, “My master is Lieutenant Fairfax. They keep him on the second floor.”
    I slipped my note into his hand. “Here. Hide this and give it to your master as soon as you get back. We will need to make plans—do they let you out other than to fetch water?”
    The boy gave a stiff nod. “Market,” he grunted. “Every midmorning.”
    â€œThen I shall met you at the market tomorrow. Have you a name? Mine’s Davy Shea.”
    He made a sound like a gulp. Then he blurted, “Michael. My name is Michael.”
    â€œI’ll see you in the market square tomorrow, then, Michael. Tell the lieutenant that friends are near.”
    I turned and hurried away toward the harbor. Behind me I could hear Michael filling his other bucket at the fountain. He was a strange one, for a fact. But being penned up in a prison with a fastidious lieutenant and surrounded by pirates might have had something to do with that. I doubted that I was still the same as I had been back in June, when I showed up at my uncle’s with only the clothes on my back.
    â€œDavy! Lord bless, me, but you’re in a power o’ trouble!” I spun around at the words, and there behind me stood Abel Tate. He was trying to scowl at me, but he could not keep a grin from twitching through. “Your uncle is that put out with ye, lad. He’s got half the crew searchin’ for his missin’ nevvy.”
    â€œMissing!” I said. “Sure, and I’m not missing at all, for here I stand.”
    Tate clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Try that on your uncle, an’ see what he says. Stand by for heavy weather, Davy. I’ve been dead and come back to life, and I’d not face him, he’s that wrathful.”
    As Abel Tate led me back to harbor, he told me of his and the other sailors’ adventures in the town. They hadn’t found the missing officer—in truth, I was not surprised at that—but they had learned a few things.
    Every ship in the harbor was victualing and loading powder and shot as fast as she could. It was as if an organized fleet was preparing to sail. Word was running through town that the
Concepción,
the great Spaniard we’d fought weeks ago, was patrolling the west end of the Windward Passage and had taken her fourth prize, an unlucky French privateer brig called the
Chanticleer.
She was effectively blocking the channel between the western tip of Hispaniola and the eastern shore of Cuba.
    And there were rumors of another warship lurking somewhere to the north of the island, a great shadowy shape seen running across the horizon. All those who had seen her could say for certain was that she was big.
    Anyone who had gone closer, Tate told me, had not returned to say anything at all.

A Surprise Ashore
    THE NEXT DAY WE refloated the
Aurora.
Into the harbor she slipped, and there she rocked, strangely high in the water with all her cargo and guns still ashore. The first things back aboard were Captain