H.M.S Valor: Treachery And Triumph: A war time adventure on the high seas by Cal Clement (best contemporary novels txt) 📕

Battle Wreckage

25 Sept 1808

17 Degrees 14 minutes N, 76 Degrees 8’ W

Consciousness came and went, the gentle roll of the sea occasionally brushed debris into the set of planks Tim had latched himself to, awakening him for fleeting moments before he drifted back into another realm. The smoke streaked his face and stung his eyes when he had tried to open them. Exhaustion permeated his entire body to the point where simply staying atop the planks was all he could do. When the sun had lifted from the horizon in the early hours of the day it brought a welcome warmth from the chill of the constant breeze over his soaked clothes.

When the shadow of the pirate ship passed over him, he only noticed at first the missing warmth. Forcing his eyes open yielded only a glimpse of a moving wall of wood, he dared not move. If he was spotted, surely, they would fish him up only to end him, or worse, he would be taken captive. Sudden shouts from the deck above announced they had spotted a survivor of the carnage. Tim’s heart exploded in a succession of beats that each felt harder and faster than the last. He remained still, silently hoping they had mistaken one of the floating dead for a survivor.

The Governor’s driveling pleas for mercy met Tim’s ears and a flame of anger kindled within him. One of the men mocked the Governor’s pleas and Tim almost smiled. He took a small comfort knowing that man would continue to suffer. Suffer you worthless incompetent swine, He thought, you’ve blundered everything and it was all handed to you so neatly. All the man had to do was follow instruction, do what he was told and collect his obscene payment. But he had been too timid to reassign the admiral, too greedy to keep from interfering in matters far above his understanding and too stupid and slow to execute anything with effect. Let him rot in a cell aboard the pirate ship, Tim resigned, I am as good as dead anyway. The floating corpses would soon bring sharks, if they didn’t kill him the exposure certainly would.

The shadow passed from Tim as the pirates made sail again. His planks bobbed gently with the gentle swells of the sea. He drifted, through the cluster of flotsam and dead just as helplessly as the thoughts clouding his head. The Order, his meeting in America with their delegation. The task he had been given and all the riches he had been entrusted with, reputations and livelihoods hung in the balance. Power, those who held it and those who sought after it. Was this his end? Was this to be the culmination of everything he had worked for? The comforting warmth of the sun had grown more intense and its rays soon became another torment against him.

Tim felt the edge of the timbers he lay on and shifted his weight back toward the center. His movement shifted him just too far and the small platform that had sustained him from drowning capsized. Jolted from his lethargy by the sudden drop into the water, he struggled to recapture his tiny wooden savior. Opening his eyes, Tim looked around. Above him, just out of arms reach the planks bobbed along in the slight chop on the water’s surface. It looked like wrinkled glass, a ceiling reflecting the brilliant Caribbean blue sky with sun rays visibly protruding down into the water illuminating various shades of blue that darkened as he looked down further, until directly underneath him all that was visible was the abyss of the deep. It was near the edge of the darkness that Tim’s eye caught a glimpse of movement. He adjusted his focus and saw the figure move again, his heart fluttered and out of the corner of his eye he caught another moving figure. With what remaining strength he had, Tim pulled hard in a desperate attempt to reach the surface. His lungs burned, pulsating, crying out for a breath of air. His second stroke yielded him the surface and he gasped in air, just as quickly as he had surfaced, he found himself back underwater beneath a small swell. He pulled again, refusing to forfeit to the deep and his head broke free again. He scrambled, paddling himself to the floating oasis of wood. When his fingertips had just brushed the edge, just as he felt his salvation was at hand, something brushed against his leg. In a wild panic, Tim fluttered his feet kicking at the water until he had a solid grasp of the lifesaving timbers. He clawed at the wood, pulling his torso up as far as he could, reaching up he took hold again and with what seemed the last of his fading strength pulled himself the rest of the way up.

The small wooden platform barely longer than he was tall and only inches wider than his frame was enough to keep him from drowning, but just barely. With his weight on it, the chunk of deck stayed just below the surface. Every movement he made threatened to capsize him again. Propping up his head slightly, Tim searched around for any signs of other survivors. Broken barrels and other chunks of wood were scattered all around him, smoke still rose from several spots of still burning oil on the water’s surface. Every direction he looked Tim found more corpses, none that he recognized, most were burned or disfigured beyond recognition anyway. As he shifted his head sideways to look out over his shoulder, the water’s surface exploded in a rush of gray motion. A corpse that floated only yards from his improvised raft disappeared in a violent splash. Panic grabbed Tim like a giant hand, squeezing him at his armpits until he felt he couldn’t breathe. He began to pull his limbs away from the edges of the wooden planks, only to feel his balance shift, then he froze. Every fiber in