So, with the captain incapacitated and Kerrigan dead, it was Richardson, the second mate, who found himself in command. Arabella had barely even met the man, a thin pale Irishman with dark eyes and a stammer, but from the other members of her mess she learned he was considered competent but inexperienced. And though he did his best to emulate Captain Singh’s firm demeanor, even the most decisive command delivered in his reedy Irish tenor sounded rather like a question.
The ship Richardson commanded was in a sorry state. Every deck, every mast, every sail had suffered some degree of damage. One in three of the surviving men was injured, some very seriously; the surgeon had cast three amputated legs and two arms overboard. One of the arms still drifted along with the ship, caught in an eddy off the starboard beam, which some in the crew called a bad omen and Arabella found deeply disquieting. Whenever she was on deck, or on the starboard hull, laboring with the other waisters to cut away the shattered wood so the carpenter could replace it with spare or salvaged timber, she could not prevent herself from glancing at the arm, now black and twisted, which tumbled slowly in the air like some ghastly pub sign swinging in the wind.
*
As for the corsair’s crew, only one had survived. Most of those who had not been killed in the explosive destruction of their ship had been picked off by sharpshooters; three who had hidden in the wreckage had died in a pitched cutlass battle with Diana’s salvage crew. Their bodies had been sent abaft along with Diana’s dead.
The lone survivor had been found unconscious in the corsair’s wreckage, and though he had regained his senses shortly after the battle his condition had quickly worsened. Now, according to the scuttlebutt, he lay moaning incomprehensibly in the surgeon’s cockpit and was not expected to live much longer.
One day as Arabella was sanding smooth a repaired section of deck with a pumice stone—a sweaty task that generated huge quantities of choking dust—Faunt came and tapped her on the shoulder. “Report to the surgeon,” he said, jerking a thumb aft.
Arabella grimaced even as she wiped the clinging khoresh-wood dust from her face and made her way down the ladder to the cockpit. Of all her dreary tasks, those dealing with the ship’s surgeon were among the worst. She might be called upon to empty bed-pans, or change stinking bandages, or even hold down a thrashing airman while an arm or leg was sawed away. In that last case, she had barely retained her breakfast. The only good thing about a trip to the cockpit was that she might catch a glimpse of the captain—who still lay insensible, though at least his condition was not worsening.
The surgeon, a portly bespectacled man called Withers, seemed to smell of blood even when there were no spots of it upon his coat. “Ah, Ashby,” he said as she entered the dark and noisome cockpit. “Faunt tells me you’ve been tutored in French.”
“I have, sir.”
“Good.” The surgeon hesitated, his eyes glancing downward. “Our prisoner’s condition is deteriorating, and I fear that he may not survive much longer. My own command of the language is not sufficient to … to convey this intelligence to him, and ask if he has any last requests.”
Arabella swallowed hard, recalling her French tutor’s impatience with her. Yet she had found French more straightforward, and much easier to pronounce, than Khema’s tribal language. “I will make an attempt,” she said.
The survivor thrashed weakly in his hammock, moaning, eyes darting about beneath their lids. His skin was pale and mottled, and his blood-soaked bandages stank of rotting meat. “Monsieur?” she asked, laying a hand on his uninjured shoulder.
One eye pried itself open. “Oui?”
For a moment Arabella’s breath caught in her throat. This was a conversation she would have great difficulty beginning even in English. Yet her duty to the ship, and mere human kindness, demanded it of her. “Le médecin … il dit que vous êtes très malade.” The surgeon says you are very sick.
At that the prisoner gave a weak chuckle, which quickly devolved into a hacking cough. “J’y sais,” he managed at last. I know that.
“Il dit … il dit vous peut-être pas vivre.” He says you might not live. She knew her statement was far too direct for politeness, and feared she had mangled the grammar, but hoped that she had at least gotten the point across.
Apparently she had, as the wounded Frenchman’s already doleful face grew still more dire. “Ah,” he said at last. “C’est dommage.” That is a pity.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Arabella nearly smiled at this example of the famed nonchalance of the French. Then she composed herself. “Avez-vous des … demandes finales?” Do you have any last requests? Or some approximation of that.
He seemed to consider for a moment, then said, “Je voudrais les derniers sacrements catholiques.” I would like Catholic last rites. Not a surprising request.
“Je vais voir … que je peux faire,” she told him, and gently squeezed his shoulder. I will see what I can do.